01-02-11

We were so glad we booked our cabin since it rained hard most of the night, and it was still raining as we walked to the bus station.  We droped our packs off at the sailing office for storage and walked to the Marina with the very small bags they provided us to bring on the boat.  It sprinkled on us most of the walk, but we heard that once at sea the weather usually gets better, we waited at Gloria's cafe on the dock for a crew member to take us on board.  Soon Kitty came up and did a role call and asked who the couples/families were as she would put us together for the sleeping accommodations.  There were 17 guest and 3 crew members on the SV Whithaven, the boat was big but once we all sat down on the back covered deck it seemed to be much smaller, and I thought how are we going to be on this boat for two days and two nights.  Captain Dieter gave us a run down on the boat and our itinerary for the trip, once he was done talking we set out of the harbor and Kitty showed everyone to their accommodations.  Paul and I were the last one's called and to our delight we had a private room at the very front of the boat, we totally scored! The room was small and nice but it had a very strong smell, we thought they must have put on some wood varnish.  We dropped our bags and went on the deck, we had 3 hrs before we made it to Blue Bird or Blue Bell  Bay our first snorkel site. 

The rain stopped once we were about an hour into our journey, the blue sky was beautiful with green island dotting the horizon, I love the tropics!  We were close to our first snorkel spot and Jay, the kid that did everything on the boat, took around an insurance form that we all had to sign, it stated that there are dangerous jelly fish in the water and we enter at our own risk, and if we get stung we incur all cost of getting helicoptered and hospital ect. also we had to list a next of kin and a phone number to let them know if we died. I was aware of the jellies and knew we had to be put on stinger suites (thin wetsuites) before we were allowed into the water, but the form made me think for a second if I was being stupid. Then Jay told us there it is rare to see the jellies around the islands, only two people had ever died in the Whitsundays and that we'd be ok, I also saw other boats with snorkelers already in the water so I figured I would try it.

Stinger suites, fins, water noodle for  me, and snorkels we loaded on a zodiac and Jay drove us to the beach.  We walked into the water and Paul held my hand as we left the land and floated our way along the surface, it was not long before the coral started to appear and a dory fish swam right to my googles to have a look, then like they appeared out of no where were thousands of fish! When I saw my first parrot fish I got excited they are so colorful and have these funny beak mouths, we could hear them eat the coral or something on the coral it was a faint scratching sound.  We also saw what we called clams in the reef all you could see was the s shaped opening that would close when you swam over them. At one point swimming Jay threw some fish food in the water right above us, in half a second the fish were there eating away and we were right in the middle of it I could not even see Paul the fish were so thick, it was really cool.  We saw so many fish and different types of coral it was amazing, every inch had new life and new colors and shapes of corral, it was so exciting to see all and just below the surface!

After a long snorkel we headed back to the boat for some hot tea and cookies, people started to chat with one another and we sailed on to Sid Bay our anchor for the night. Our captain chose Sid Bay because it was  a very safe place to anchor since it was surrounded by a few islands and reefs, there was a storm moving inland from the ocean.  We saw lots of lightening but heard no thunder, the lightening really lit up the sky and it seemed weird to be on a boat watching the storm.  We anchored and waited for dinner, we ate late around 9:30 or 10pm but it was good chicken curry.  We had a glass of wine and visited with a girl from Paris who is living in London and here on vacation with her Australian boyfriend who lives in Spain now. Soon we were all tired from snorkeling and being in the sun, we all retired to bed.  

Our room still smelled strong even with the roof windows open but we figured it would air out so I fell asleep, I not sure how long I was asleep before Paul woke me up (I don't think it was long) he said he could not sleep and the fumes were giving him a head ache. He also figured whatever these fumes were it was probably not a really healthy environment to sleep in.  Once I was awake I knew what he meant the smell was strong and we had no air flow coming in.  Next Kitty came in and apologized for waking us but she needed to get some sheets under our bed since some people had to sleep on the deck because they had bugs in there room. Say what?!?!? Now we wanted to get the heck out of our toxic smelling room which made sense that it was fumes to kill the bugs and there was possible bugs still in it! Once arriving on deck we saw we were not the only ones with a problem 15 people were sprawled out under the covered part of the deck sleeping or trying to sleep on small pads with blankets or towels for covers.  The captain was in a bivvy sack / hammock thing hanging above the table and seemed to be sleeping right through all the commotion and the other two crew members were on top of the roof where we were not allowed to go.  We tried several locations to sleep with most spots already taken and after going between getting sprinkled on on the front deck or finding bugs in our blankets on the lower cabin we grabbed two beach towels and pillows and spent the last few hours of the night on the front deck praying for the thunder storms all around to miss us.

01-01-11

Holy crap it's 2011 and our trip will last 23 more days!  We ran into town to check in with our sail boat company for tomorrows trip, and went to a second had book store for a new book.  We moved into a cabin for the night, so our tent would be dry when we packed it (even thought eh days have been dry and nice it has rained hard every night). We spent the evening packing and relaxing in the air condition cabin. Not a bad way to start 2011.

12-31-10

We were up early and were really "out of it" we had to check in and told the lady we took spot 54 she let us stay as long as we did not plug into the power. We showered and headed into town, I had a waxing appointment at 10:30am and had to find the place, along with finding some brekkie.  We found a McDonald's, fueled up and walked around checking things out.  The town was really pretty, thick rainforest on one side and beautiful blue ocean and clear bays, but we had to share with thousands of tourists for new years! Around the bays where large signs waring of the dangerous box jellyfish, and the had liters of vinegar attached, apparently if you get stung you need to poor the vinegar over the affected area then go get help, otherwise you might stop breathing and die. Lovely! 

After my appointment we picked up groceries and caught the bus back to camp, all I wanted to do was take a nap but the tent was so hot, we put on our swimmers and went to the pool.  The pool was the perfect temperature and felt so good to get in and cool off.  It was very relaxing hanging out by the pool in this kind of humidity there is not much you want to do without water being around.  

We took another shower, made some dinner and headed back into town for the 9pm firework show we heard about from lots of people.  It is lame but we could not stay up for the midnight show, if we had gotten any sleep the night before we would have.  In town we picked up a bottle of champagne and headed toward the beach, it was 8pm and the beach was pretty full already with families and little kids running round with sparklers, we found a good spot and opened our bubbly.  

At 10pm with no fireworks and no more bubbly we headed back to the camp, I was falling asleep on Paul's shoulder and both of us were not in the mood to deal with a bunch of young drunks. We were asleep so fast that we hardly noticed everyone partying around us.  At midnight I heard a loud boom from the fireworks and people say happy new year, two seconds later I was back in a very sound sleep.

12-30-10

Check out time was 10am so we had our breakfast and packed again, our flight left at 4:15pm and the train to the airport took 20min so it would be a long day either sitting at the airport or walking around with our packs on.  Paul asked the hostel if we could leave our packs with them and pick them up around1pm, to our surprise they would keep our packs and we could use all the facilities until 6pm that night! Perfect, it was the best weather we had in Brisbane, the sky was blue with no rain clouds in sight and the air was very hot and humid so we decided to lay out by the hostel pool.  The pool was not crowded and with the sun so intense Paul loved jumping in to cool off, while I soaked it up and read my book. When it got close to our departure time we took a shower, ate some lunch and walked 5min to the train station.  When we walked up the steps to the station I was already drenched with sweat when a lady asked if we were going to the airport, we said yes, then she started saying something about a friend of hers that either she could not find or was going there then she said "look I'm a teacher by trade I can show identification that I am and I can give you a ride to the airport". We quickly said no thank you! This lady was up to some scam, her story changed and it was very akward, hopefully she did not convince some other backpackers tot get into her car/torture chamber and rob them.

Our flight was very quick and when the doors opened for us to walk down the steps and to the airport the humidity about knocked us backward! There were dark looking storm clouds over the horizon broken up by palm trees everywhere, we walked through the thick air and were excited to be in the tropics! After picking up our packs we waited a bit over an hour for our Greyhound to come.  While waiting we over heard workers on their smoke break talk about all the flooding they are having around Queensland, it is the rainy season but they have gotten the most rain they've seen in 70yrs.  I thought, "oh goodness we have come right into the crazy weather", uhg look out for crock's in the puddles!

The bus ride went by fast, the road was fine (we flew over most of the flooding) and we arrived at Airlie beach around 9pm. As we got our packs from under the bus and it started to down pour! We ran under the bus stop but it was crowded by others from our bus and people waiting for a very late bus to take them south toward Brisbane.  We sat and waited and watched the amount of rain that was coming out of the sky, we were shocked and we lived in Portland so we know a thing or two about rain. There was a quick break so we ran to the bathroom a few yards away, inside there was tinny pink lizard/geckos on the walls, so cute! The rain started again and kept coming, soon the parking lot was turning in to a swimming pool.  We talked to a kid at the bus stop who told us where all the hostels were located, we had a tent spot reserved but we did not know the way and really didn't feel like setting up at tent in a tropical storm.  

After 30 minutes of hanging out at the bus shelter rain let up and we set out to see if we could find a dry place to stay for the night.  Airlie beach was crazy, there were bars connected to all the hostel and lots of young kids partying it up. Four hostels on the main drag were booked which was frustrating because we were tired but a relief since it was loud and a few groups of drunk guys walked past us like they were looking for a fight starring us down! WTF! Good thing I had all of our knives handy just in case of emergency! Ugh, at this point it was 11pm all the places were full and we were waiting for this guy to come and tell us if the last hostel was full or not. While waiting two girls asked us if we were staying at the place or not, we told them we were trying and were waiting for they guy to come and let us know, they seemed to want to tell us something but left, a few minutes later they showed back up and said they had an extra bed in their dorm room, it was just them and there friend. How sweet, we told them we would wait for the guy and if he did not have a spot for us we would give them a call.  The stupid guy never showed, and while the offer was nice of the girls we didn't want to get into drama with the hostile or crash the girls party so we said F-it lets go to the motor park.  A guy who told us his hostel was full did tell us we needed to take a cab out to our motor camp and told us the name, so we got a cab and headed to our new home for a few days.

Our camp was a ways out of town so we were grateful not to walk it with our heavy packs, the lady said she would leave us our spot number in a blue box infront of reception, she did not.  We decided to walk around and set our tent up in the driest spot we could find even if it was a powered site.  After about 10min we found a spot that was not dry but it was not flooded, it was also one of the highest spots in the camp, there were sand bags stacked on some of the camp roads which made us a little uneasy incase of potential flooding.  5min after setting up the tent the down poor came back.  We were both overly tired and hot so we could not fall asleep and when the rain would start again it was so loud!  It was a long night but we did manage to stay dry.

12-29-10

The bed was comfortable but it took me awhile to fall asleep, it was not the drunk kids that ket me up it was the thought of a taipan under my bed but I was to scared to look so it freaked me out for a good hour before I fell asleep. This was our last day in Brisbane and we needed to make a plan for the next week at least, so we woke up at 7am and like old people we were the only ones up so early. Over breakfast we surfed the net for our next adventure heading north up the coast.  Six hours and a lot of money later we have our plan.  Fly from Brisbane to Mackay, take a 2hr bus from Mackay to Airlie beach, stay till the 2nd at a motor camp then hop on a sail boat for 2 days and 2 nights around the whitsunday islands come back the 4th! Then on the 5th take a long bus ride from Airlie beach to Cairns and stay at a motor camp in Cairns for 3 days. This is what we have for now, we are crossing our fingers that the weather gets better.  

Since this planning took up most of our day and energy we went for a walk around the river and soaked up all that brisbane had to offer. On our way back we found Paul a pair of nice sunglasses, he lost his other pair about time, they needed to be thrown away several months ago since he could hardly see through all the scratches.

12-28-10

We woke up early to get packed have some breakfast and get to the flamenco cafe. We needed to find a place to stay for the night and I wanted to go to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary to see Koala's up close and to hug one! Paul found us a hostel to stay in, we called and they had availability for shared rooms and private rooms so we thought we would try a shared room since it was cheaper and we could tough it out for a night or two. It was great we found a place to stay, however it was a few blocks from the train station, so we had to walk back the way we came the previous day, at least we knew the way! I was rested so I could keep up with Paul and our walk took half the time, but the rain came back and hit us again.  We found our hostel which was located on hostel row, there were six hostels in a row and they all seemed to be over flowing with 18 yr olds dressing in awful 80's clothes.  Our's was no better, we followed the loud music to reception and got the low down on the place, it was clean, but also overrun with 18yr olds acting like fools. Thank goodness Paul could read my mind and we booked a private room! This was the largest hostel I have ever stayed in, 3 floors of rooms, a pool, bar, cafe, ect. the kitchen was large but with so many people it was hard to find space.  Our room was nice and the bed was comfortable, we threw our bags in the room, ate some lunch, and then set out to find the bus that would take us to the Koala's.

We waited at the bus stop about 10min after the bus should have arrived, finally another  bus stopped and the driver told us that it was a public holiday (funny i thought that was yesterday) and our bus was leaving from another street (just one over) he did not tell us the time so we moved with a quickness.  We found our knew bus and hopped on, the ride was very jerky I think our driver was very distracted or he just liked to slam on the brakes a lot.

We arrived at Lone Pine around 3pm, I was a little stressed because they close at 5pm but our bus comes at 4:30pm and I wanted to make sure we saw everything.  Following the path in we spotted big lizards just laying on the rocks, and scrub turkeys (they are everywhere) walking around like they owned the place, and just ahead was the Koala's!  They kept the Koala's out in the open, they were not behind glass or cages, there was a wall about waist high to keep guests backhand trees under little canopies in the middle and the Koala's in them! They had a few different area's the kindergarden with super little and super cute babies, a retirement home for the more mature Koala's, the bachelor pad, and the family area! We walked up to a little amphitheater at the end of a Koala presentation and the keeper was going to grab a Koala so people could pet him on the back.  I quickly knocked a few kids out of he way and drug Paul behind me to the front, only one family was standing in my way, no problem they would only be a minute…the minute never ended, the stupid dad had to take the picture of each on of his family members petting the Koala, but each picture they were all petting him at the same time so he held up the line taking 5 of the same freak'n picture. I had enough so I joined the family and started petting the Koala, he was not happy and said excuse me but I ignored him and pulled Paul in to give the Koala a pet too, the guy is lucky he didn't get chin checked blocking me out when there is a Koala to pet.  

Feeling so lucky to have pet a Koala we headed toward the Kangaroo enclosure.  It was a large field that we entered through a gate, I thought it was a bit excessive to keep the roo's in, but as I turned I saw a Emu to close for comfort, great all I needed was to have giant birds walking around the field as well. It is always exciting to see an animal close up and in your personal space (excluding snakes, grizzly bears and for me any kind of birds) we all know what a Kangaroo looks like but to have them all around you is really cool. These were gray roe's medium sized, that when they stood up tall on their hind legs they quickly get tall and intimidating.  Some people were feeding them some food you could buy and the roe's ate it right out of there hands.  We did not have food but Paul tricked a young roo into letting us get close by feeding him the grass that he pulled from the ground. This little one let us pet him for a while and liked when Paul scathed behind his ears he was so cute! There was a couple different kinds of Kangaroo's so we walked to see the other ones, that were actually separated from us visitors.  They were the red kangaroo's which are the largest, they can stand up to 6.5 feet tall and can jump very high and pack a strong kick with those hind legs, these kanga's live in the hottest part of the outback and can live without much water. They had a wall with kangaroo heights on it so you could see how a person's height measured up to all the Kanga's and wallaby's, I was only taller than two wallabies the Kanga's owned me. Walking around the field we came by some smaller wallabies that were dark and had some yellow markings, they were shy compared to the grey kanga's and while we could get close they did not let you pet them, they hopped off which was fun to watch.  In the field area was an enclosure that was open just waist high to keep us out, it was home to two wombats, the wombats were larger than I expected them to be and were built like a brick s@$% house! They had signs posted letting people know not to lean over and pet them since they will bite and by the looks of it they would probably bite your fingers off. They had the cutest sleepy looking faces!

Out of the Kangaroo field we watched more Koala's, saw some two fresh water crocks "freshies" and three lizards including the largest one in Aussie. I would have taken a ton of pictures, but the battery died and we were both very upset since not everyday we could get so close to these exotic animals.  We moved fast through the lizards, they are cool to see but they just sun themselves on rocks most of the day so there is no need to linger.  We came across a high fenced off area with dense foliage it was home to the Cassowary, these birds look like they could be dinosaurs, they are shorter than an ostrich have black feathers a bright blue neck, bright red and yellow gobbler thing and a large plate that stands straight up from there head at least six inches high, but there feet are disproportionally large and they have been known to attach with there feet!  They are crazy looking, I could not imagine running into one of those in the wild, birds are freaky.

Next we made our way to the platypus building, this is what Paul was most excited to see and we entered the dark building and looked for the goofy looking thing.  It was set up like an aquarium most of the viewing showed under water but we could not see it. Finally something caught my eye hiding behind a log, all we could see was a small tail and little feet.  We waited for him to move from behind the log after about 5min he dove down so we could see him. He was much smaller and stubbier than either of us thought and he was so cute.  He swam around for a bit and Paul got the last two pics out of our battery but since it was out of juice we could not get the primo shots we had wanted. He was still fun to watch, and the strangest animal I have ever seen. 

We passed some more Koala's and beautiful birds including my favorite laughing Kookaburra's, it was so funny because the one in the cage started making calls and soon we noticed there were several wild ones that had flown in and were talking back to him!  We watched some dingos, and made our way to the tasmanian devils. Again every animal I think is going to be small is larger than I expected, and this is true with the devils as well. They  had large heads and bodies like small pigs, we watched them as they were being feed some mince (raw ground meat) they were going crazy over it and wrestling with eachother. 

We saw everything the park had to offer except the Echidna ( it is nocturnal and can only be seen early morning or late night) but Paul did see it sleeping in a hollow log. All we could make out was it's spiny outline, but it was better than nothing.  We did make a quick pass through the snake house, I felt it was important to know what snake was what. I was nuts looking at the worlds #1 and #2 most venomous land snakes and lucky for us they live in the Queensland state.  The Taipan and the King brown, yuck they gave me the hibie jeebyz's. 

It was a full day and we came back to the hostel and grabbed a few beers and watched all the awkward kids try and impress one another, while we felt like the old couple in the corner that they were making fun of!  The hostel was really quiet during the day and it seemed half of the place did not wake up until 2pm, seems quite a few of the kids especially in this hostel are here to party hard and not quite as interested in the sights.

12-27-10

5:00am wake up call the train was arriving a few minutes ahead of schedule.  Some point late in the night Paul and I found a configuration that worked for us both, Paul curled up and slept on the floor, and I on the seats. Now I started on the floor but could not find a comfortable spot and Paul could not sleep on the seats so we switched and to both our surprise got maybe 2-4 somewhat decent hours of sleep.  

Brisbane greeted us with clouds, sprinkles and air so thick it felt like a steam room, but since it was so early we were not sure what the weather would bring.  We found an information booth in the station and asked about directions to our hotel, the guy gave Paul a map but said our hotel was not on it but pointed off the map to an invisible area that the hotel was in (how helpful) asking next about transportation to the invisible place he said he did not know and we should ask the guy in the ticket booth. We asked the ticket booth guy and he said he did not know, maybe the bus to the cultural center would get us close, but we could check upstairs with the guys on the bus plat form. Lugging our heavy bags up some stairs to the bus platform we were shocked to see no busses and no people. We sat there for a few and starred at the reader board that said next bus 20min. Ugh…I  asked to see the map the guy gave us and after a few minuets not only do I see the street our hotel is on but our hotel is shown and marked on the map right above the invisible area he told us to go to. Now knowing the route we decided to walk.  I forgot how tired I was and how heavy my pack was, I tried to keep up with Paul but my legs wanted to go there own pace.  The slow walk was pretty, Brisbane has a large river flowing through it with many bridges connecting each side (similar to Portland, but the bridges don't lift for barges, and some are for pedestrians only) We walked over a cool bridge and saw how high and brown the river was, (Tropical cyclone Tamie has been bringing heavy rain to most of Queensland) lots of trees bases were under water and some buildings along the river path had sand bags by the doors in case it got any higher.  I kept scanning the river for crocks, we were so close to the rivers edge on the foot path I knew one of those sneaky guys was waiting!  The city was dead and very peaceful and we were able to walk the couple of mile to the hotel on all bridges and footpaths, it was a very modern feeling city with lots of pedestrian access lined with cafes, performing art centers, and museums, there was even a city beach/swimming pool along the river walk.  It took us about an hour walk to the hotel, and the last 5min it started to down pour on us! 

We walked into the hotel around 7am dripping wet, we could not check in till maybe 10am, so we stored our large packs and took the computer to find a coffee shop/bakery to get something to eat.  The desk clerk at the hotel told us that it was a national holiday (they are recognized boxing day on Monday since it fell on a Sunday) so we might have some difficulty finding a place. He was right, the area we were in was shut down, most places were closed until the 4th on Jan. and Subway did not open until 9am! Very hungry and tired I could feel a melt down coming on so we popped into a bakery and ordered ham and cheese croissants and shared  an apricot danish.  We ate the danish while we waited on the croissants it was so good and could not wait for the main course.  The bakery did not have seating so we took the croissants across the way to Flamco coffee, our coffees were really good and they guy said we could link on to his internet for free! Things were looking up, until I took a bite of the croissant, something tasted bad, I was not sure if it was the ham or cheese or both so we scrapped the grossness off and enjoyed our plain croissants! 

At 10am we went back to the hotel and were relieved to find our room was ready and they upgraded us to a larger room with a small kitchen! Thank goodness I was struggling keeping my eye's open at the coffee shop and could not wait to sleep in my first bed in about 3 months! The rest of the day could not have been more perfect, it consisted of me not leaving the bed all day, just a quick trip to the store for some dinner then back to bed! Outside monsoon rain fell all day which made being incredibly lazy doing nothing but sleeping, eating and watching tv in our hotel room even more perfect.

12-26-10

Boxing day(still not quite sure why they call it that), and our last in Sydney.  We woke up to rain, and were forced to pack a very wet tent.  With our packs loaded and very heavy we made our way to the central train station.  We checked our large packs in early and since our train did not leave until 4:12pm we had a few hours to kill.  We took the train back to Circular Quay and headed up Pitt St. to check things out.  Pitt street is one of the busy shopping streets that is lined with one shop after another, there were lots of people out and about because it was boxing day, but soon the road access ended.  At the road end everything was brick pavers and several blocks of huge mall. Walking in the mall was probably the most people I have ever seen at once! It looked like popular movie openings everywhere with long lines out of all the designers stores to catch the sales and it was afternoon these people still had not gotten in. Shocked we tried to maneuver our way through the crowd, it would have been an awesome few blocks to window shop since it is only pedestrian traffic and cafe's in the middle that sell booze, but since there were easily 5 million people out I lost my patience very quick.   We cut over to the next block , there were still people but it was no where near the mess of Pitt St.

We decided to head back to the central platform and just wait out the last hour at the train station to get away from the boxing day crowds.  The train station provided some good people watching and the hour flew by, so we hopped on the train ready for a change of scene.  Our car was about half full when we left Sydney, but they said it was a full train so we would be making a few stops along the way.  About our 4th stop we picked up a couple, I'm not sure where they were from but I think they were Aussie, the girl had two Louie Vuitton purses and they looked real however her look turned cheap quick with all of her over the top fake diamond jewelry.  They sat on the other side of the train and 3 rows back at first and after the next stop they were moved right across from us and she kept saying something about moving to first class.  Soon two train cops came over and with the train equivalent to a flight attendant they were talking to the couple. Paul over heard that they had booked train tickets but the missed the date and thought they could just jump on and sit in the same seats, when the person who booked the correct date showed up they made up some story that the train made a mistake.  It took atlas an hour or two to figure out and they were lectured several times by the train attendant.  However, the train attendant got to the bottom of it and they had to pay for new tickets, unfortunately they remained right across from us and annoyed the hell out of me!

The lights on the train turned off around 10pm, we thought we would sleep well since we had so much more room than on a plane, however this was not the case, it was a long 11 hour train ride and we were both exhausted and stiff when we rolled into Brisbane at 5:30am.

12-25-10

Merry Christmas! Our first xmas as husband and wife, our plans of having a hotel room and a bed did not happen, but a restless night of humidity and Paul having to go pee a million times (twice) and me making sure each time he came in the tent that it was zipped properly at the top so no snakes, spiders, or lizards came in with him.  We were serenaded by the kookaburra again, they sound more like a couple of monkeys playing around, it was an interesting alarm clock.  We made a nice breakfast of eggs and potatoes, and coffee.  After our shower we hit the train to the Circular Quay (central Sydney) and then jumped a ferry ride to Manly Beach.  The beach was crowed with sun worshippers, surfers and volleyball players and there were lots of santa hats around even on the surfers,  it felt somewhat festive. It was wonderful, people watching and sunbathing not a bad way to spend christmas in the southern hemisphere!  

We had an early night, the hot sun took the energy right out of us!

12-24-10

Few!!! We sold Serena! It felt so good to get rid of her, but I think we both were  a bit sad deep down.  We spent the last few days in rainy Auckland looking forward to Australia and reflecting on our time in NZ, it will be weird traveling with out a vehicle, but Paul has driven so much and I have navigated the shit out of NZ so I think a break is in order for the both of us.  

The flight was quick and smooth, we landed into a cloudy muggy Sydney and found some internet to research and decide the best way to get to our camp for the night.  It was either get a cab for the 30min drive or public transport, we opted for the public transport it would be way more adventurous! We bought a pass for the week that let us take any train, bus, or ferry around Sydney and the surrounding areas.  Sweet! We navigated our way on two trains and found our camp Lane Cove River tourist park, so much for adventure it was very quick and easy to navigate the train right to our holiday camp with only about a half mile walk from the station to our camp site.  The camp is in the city right on the edge of a small National Park so it felt like we were in the country, all you could hear was birds, bugs, and more birds! It was beautiful, I felt so excited there was wild life every where, we saw lizards, birds, and thank god no snakes! We set up our tent and anxious to explore headed right back to the train to head into downtown to see the opera house and harbor bridge. 

As we made our way into town the clouds broke and it became sunny (fine as they say down under),  we walked around the harbor and every view of the opera house and around the harbor was stunning.   Up close we saw that the roof was made of tiles placed perfectly in patterns.  We sat on the steps of the opera house for a while and took in the city sites, we both decided that Sydney was probably one the largest cities that either of us had ever been to with a massive downtown and skyline and development everywhere in the harbor which went far beyond what we could see.  Across from the opera house was the botanical garden, while this is usually not the kind of place Paul and I would go out of our way to see, we thought it would be a good way to spend the afternoon in the sunshine. 

The garden was so pretty and we had a really good time roaming around it.  There were trees and plants from all over the world and around every corner something new to check out.  We saw a ton of yellow crested cockatoos, crazy ibis birds with long curved beaks, lorikeets, and even flying fox ie: fruit bats! The bats were big and hanging around in the day light right in the city!  I love Australia and all of its wild life, it's was so exciting to have every corner of the garden showcase an exotic animal and plant I have never seen before. 

We made it to a grocery store and back to camp by late evening and went right to cooking diner.  While in the kitchen we chatted with three young Germans that were working there way around Australia.  They were nice but very young and it seemed not into the same things as us so it was a bit hard to a find things to talk about with them.  We all chatted about the bad weather all of our friends and families were having back home.  They celebrate Christmas day in Germany on the 24th so they were cooking frozen chicken schnitzel.   After a little while we were getting tired so wished them a merry Christmas and headed to bed to listen to the laughing Kookaburra's all night.

12-21, 22, 23 - 10

Spent the days hanging out in Auckland and actually found some nice neighborhoods and parks to hang out at.  The mechanic found a few things but nothing major and Jona's negotiated a little lower of course knowing we had to leave in a couple days.  It was a fiasco trying to figure out where his money was, he had confirmation of the transfer but he banks with a small bank so our NZ bank explained it would have to go through a larger bank so would take a few days, hmmm.  It was pretty stressful, we did not want to get ripped off, Jona's seemed nice but that is probably what a lot of people say right before they get robbed…  Not wanting to drive the van anymore we parked it by his hostel but held onto the key until the money came through, should have charged him a commission for basically selling him the car on credit, oh well good karma we hope!

12-20-10

12-20-10

No word from Jonas our Swiss friend till 9:30 and we had talked about setting something up at 8am, we were both getting worried but finally he did call.  The mechanics were busy till tomorrow so it was set for 9am Tuesday, ugh another day of waiting, hopefully nothing goes wrong or we will be working with no time to find another buyer!   We headed downtown to internet a little at Esquire coffee shop where the internet is actually faster than dial up to post some picks and blog.  Wanted to see a movie too but the $20 each just seemed too steep so we headed back to the motor camp.

The afternoon was warm and humid but actually no rain.  We didn't do much, just read, exercised, and grocery shopped then ate dinner and right when we finished the rain came back.  These were not just showers either it is really, really hard rain lightning storm style, not sure where it is coming from but I am not impressed with Auckland weather, spring was cold and windy and now 2 inches of rain in a hour, WTF, lets go the Australia!