I'm sorry I failed miserably at updating my blog on Sundays while in Australia. Free wifi was pretty spotty, and when successful the connection was pretty terrible, hence the reason it's free. In my own defense, I actually did write a blog 2 Sundays ago, but it didn't upload (lame excuse). As expected I absolutely adored Australia...
It was a whirlwind 14 days. Well, technically 17 days, but we skipped 3 so we are back at 14. The Australian Heritage Hotel was our home while in Sydney and it was perfect. Located in the historic Rocks district in Sydney, the quaint Bread and Breakfast is 100 years old this year (they are having huge party in September which the barbacks almost talked me into coming back for, almost…) and has been kept as original as can be. I think the only thing that has changed over the years is the music selection in the pub downstairs :)
Dusty and I walked all over the city of Sydney and ran into people (literally) having that awkward "excuse me dance" over and over. It took us about a day to realize that WE are the jerks walking on the wrong side of sidewalks, stairs, roadways, etc…HELLO, they drive on the left side of the road here. Thank goodness I had no plans of driving in the country...
Sydney is absolutely STUNNING. It is so clean, so friendly, so accommodating, (so expensive), did I mention so gorgeous? I honestly think that there is something beautiful to see from anywhere you stand in that city. It's hard to single out what my favorite thing about Sydney is, so a quick synopsis will have to do. The Sydney Opera House tour was amazing. Our tour guide was fabulous, and inspired me to become more cultural...Can I get a volunteer to take me to a Opera/ballet/play anytime soon?? Taronga Zoo trumps any zoo I've ever been to. I recommend it not only for the animals but for the breathtaking views of the Sydney Harbor. Even though I didn't get to hold a Koala (it's outlawed in New South Wales) the behind the scenes tour is definitely worth your while. Staying in the Rocks district is a MUST. As mentioned above, the history is amazing. The Rocks is literally the birthplace of Australia. I could have entertained myself just walking around the Rocks/Circular Quay for 3 days with no problem at all. Not to mention, the adorable pubs on every corner with, in my opinion, menus that are a step WAY up from your typical bar food. The Bridge Climb is also worth every penny. The views are breathtaking and the guides provide all kinds of fun facts/history of the bridge and Australia as a whole. Our guide was very witty and found ways to constantly poke fun at Australians. Fun fact: Francis Greenway was an English architect turned currency forger (and as a result) turned convict that was sent to Australia with a few hundred other convicts to develop infrastructure to the untouched continent. Turns out you need an architect to create said infrastructure, and Francis volunteered his talent and became a famous Australian architect behind several well known buildings in Sydney and throughout New South Wales. His work became so well known that Australian put his face on the $10 note. That's right, Australians put the face of a convicted currency forger on their currency…silly Aussies.
My attempt as a panoramic shot of my favorite theater in the Sydney Opera House!
My favorite view from the Taronga Zoo
Life goal = complete!
If I could have stolen him, I would have!
I loved how the Manly Wharf looked retro.
Perfect shot showing the Opera House theme :)
My favorite day of the trip - Sydney Harbor Bridge climb!
Landing in Cairns (pronounced cans) felt like a completely different continent than Sydney. The plane touched down in the rain, and we walked out onto the runway and into a cloud - solid humidity. The landscape here looks (and feels) like what I would picture Hawaii looking like - rainforest mixed with gorgeous water. Cairns is a sleepy little town compared to the buzz of Sydney. As much as I adored the city, the slower pace was a welcomed change - I'm a big fan of doing nothing :)
Dusty and I traveled about an hour off the coast to Green Island to explore the Great Barrier Reef. Green Island is owned by on the of the travel companies here in Cairns and it is just a little slice of heaven. We took a snorkeling trip about 5 miles off the coast which started out wonderfully until I popped up to see that we were what felt like miles from the boat and it was starting to rain. The undercurrent in the water is so strong it made snorkeling a LOT of work, but obviously it was worth it. After a morning full of snorkeling followed by lunch, Dusty was petered out, so I decided I was going to walk around the whooooole island. I started off jogging until I made the mistake of stepping on a rock that happened to be covered in algae. Luckily, my fall cushioned by the sandy beach, so no scars from this spill. Anyways, after about 11 minutes I saw what looked like the dock that we came onto the island from, and sure enough my long walk was over. Turns out the island has a circumference of about a mile and a half…
Dusty just being awesome.
Our first look at Green Island
My favorite photo from the hundreds I took on the island
Rain, rain go away...
Our second day in Cairns, we took a train through the rainforest. The railway was completed in 1891, and it's one of those things you just can't imagine being constructed without modern technology - only dynamite and and pickaxes. The rail is about 25 miles long. It twists and turns across over 30 bridges, past several waterfalls, and ends up in a little town called Kuranda. Kuranda is full of history of the aboriginal people. I would equate the Australian Aboriginals to Native Americans. As the English began to colonize Australia, the pushed the native people out of the way similar to American history with the Native Americans. In fact grade school curriculum did not include the history of the Aboriginal people of Australia until the past 10 years or so. It was viewed as something that the Australians just wanted to forget about, pretty interesting. Anyways, there is a small wildlife park in Kuranda that Dusty and I decided to check out, and much to our delight - you could hold Koalas there! We spent most of the day in the park before taking a Gondola down the hill stopping a few times to stroll through the rainforest.
All aboard!
One of the many waterfalls along the ride.
Crossing over one of the mannnny bridges
Barron Falls in the rain
You can barely see Barron Falls behind us
Just being a dork, reading about engineering...
Let me tell you about my beeeest friend!
FINALLY! So cuddly and cute
My favorite tree
Cairns did not let me down when it comes to beautiful beaches, snorkeling, rain forests, and afternoon rainstorms - but it has definitely catered itself to the massive amounts of tourists that frequent the town - mainly traveling from Asia. I have never been to an English-speaking country where they have signs/menus/brochures/etc translated to Chinese and Japanese - it's wild. There is a monument on the boardwalk that describes the "sister cities" of Cairns, with the majority being Asian cities - which it was I deducted is the reason behind all the Asian tourists. Aside from Asians, there are an abundance of bats - I mean HUGE bats not just Malongo sized fruits bats. We were walking to dinner one night and there was a bunch of noise and I looked up to find thousands of bats. I tried to take some pictures, but only had my phone so this was the best I could do…
PICTURE OF BATS
We left Cairns early early early Wednesday morning and headed to Brisbane. Naturally, I hit the ground running, got us checked into our hotel, and started the walking tour I found in our Australia tour book immediately. About half way through our walk, I could tell Dusty was over walking and wasn't seeing the same beauty that I was - trigger our first brother/sister fight. Of course, Dust had no idea I was annoyed with him and kept on lolling along. After I explained that I was frustrated that he wasn't soaking in every second of being in Australia, he apologized and we were fine. He not only started helping me carry things, but also started thanking me for doing miscellaneous things like packing his back…what??? Brisbane is the second largest city in Australia (following Sydney), but I didn't feel like there was as much to do/see around town besides shopping. Lucky for me (and my bank account) we didn't have too much extra room in our luggage for shopping, so Dusty and I went and saw the movie Frozen - which was adorable! After the movie, I made Dusty walk back to the river with me - and ohhhh my goodness we were both glad we did! The Brisbane city lights are enough reason to go to the city. The night lights are absolutely gorgeous, and I have tons of proof…
beautiful!
Since Dusty told me he was bored of walking and looking at things, I read up on things to do around Brisbane and stumbled upon Moreton Island. It is about an hour and a half by ferry off the coast of Brisbane and advertises itself as a less popular Fraser Island. I decided that we must go and booked us an all day trip over to the island. Timing was seemingly perfect until I realized that the ferry arrived back at 5:15pm and our flight was scheduled to leave at 6:40…yikes. No refunds, so we were going - Mom would have died.
Anyway, it was 1000% worth it! The island was total paradise, and the weather was perfect! We decided to get snorkel gear and check out the shipwrecks that are just off the coast of the island. There is an artificial reef that was created by sinking ships to create a cove for boats to anchor overnight. To any environmentalists out there that are against artificial reefs, I dare you to go to Moreton Island and not be amazed by the ecosystem that those ships created. The snorkeling was amazing - dare I say better than the Great Barrier Reef! At one point I was surrounded by so many fish that I got slightly freaked out, which Dusty thought was just hilarious.
Breathtakingly (is that a word?) beautiful!
Soaking up the sun!
We made it to our plane to Adelaide with plenty of time and my oh my was it a bumpy ride. It's been crazy hot in the city, but lucky for us it decided to cool off to around 30C. However, the reason that it cooled off so much was thanks to storms all along the Southern coast of Australia. I've gotten to be a pretty good flyer these days, but my palms were pouring sweat as we were landing - and it wasn't due to the heat. Clearly, we survived the bumpy ride and were in Adelaide for a total of 9 hours (most of which unconscious) before heading off on our Great Ocean Road Tour!
I knew that I definitely wanted to drive the Great Ocean Road while we were in Australia, so when I was doing research/planning the trip, it was at the top of my list. I had met a girl (actually from Australia) in one of my training classes for work who was going to be in the states for about a month. She told me that she had signed up for a tour starting in Las Vegas and ending in San Francisco that was organized by a company called G Adventures. She had been on a G adventures tour in Cambodia and really enjoyed it, so decided to try it again in the states. I looked up the website and found that they had just started tours in Australia in 2013, one of them being the Great Ocean Road traveling East from Adelaide to Melbourne - peeeeerfect!
We met the group early, early the morning after landing in Adelaide (seems to be a trend). It consisted of six other girls and one CEO (Chief Experience Officer). I think he (and Dusty) were relieved to have each other on the trip :) We walked over to the bus, which would be our home for the next few days, and hit the road. Dave started off the trip playing a song called Follow the Sun by Xavier Rudd. Before we knew it, we were all tapping our feet, singing along, and any "awkward being on a bus with strangers" feelings were gone. I guess that's why they call them CEO's :) Turns out that Dave is a great DJ as well. He gave us the history of country music in Australia, which all started with a man named Slim Dusty, how fitting! Turns out Slim Dusty's songs are pretty true to America's classic country tunes, the ones Pa constantly has blaring at the house. One of his most famous, G'day G'day, helped Dusty and I with the Aussie lingo...
We stopped at Mt Lofty for breakfast just outside of Adelaide, which was a beautiful view. Unfortunately, there had been quite a few bush fires (forrest fires) so the view could have been better, but it was still a nice little hike to start off the day. We drove for 4 or 5 hours stopping off at different points to walk around and look at different things before arriving at Grampians National Park where we would be staying for the night. Originally we were supposed to be camping, but lucky for us, the bush fires scared most folks off and we were upgraded to a relatively nice hotel! We did 2 small hikes before the sunset, and went back to the camp so Dave could BBQ our dinner of hamburgers (complete with fried eggs, pineapple, and beet root) and kangaroo (which was delicious). Its felt kind of wrong because as Dave was grilling our kangaroo, we were taking photos of their cousins that were hopping all over the cricket field next to our hotel. We even caught a momma kangaroo with a joey in her pouch - so cute!
If you look closely, you can see a joey upside down in his momma's pouch!
He got himself turned around in this one :)
The next morning was yet another early morning with breakfast at 6 before we hit the trail to hike up to the Pinnacle. I think Dave overestimated our physical group's ability because he was pretty much sprinting up the mountain with 7 girls and a scrawny boy lagging pretty far behind him at some points. He claimed that he wants us to get up there quickly so we could have enough time to really take in the view. I think he wanted to wear us all out so we would pass out as soon as we got on the bus so he could have a peaceful drive without any cackling behind him. Needless to say, it was gorgeous. We were in the bus on the road by 10AM headed for the Great Ocean Road! We had a few stops before settling in Port Campbell for the night. I LOVED this town. It reminded me a lot of Cayucos, California. Just an adorable little town. We got there at 4, so we had some time to just relax and drink some wine on the beach before dinner. We definitely enjoyed ourselves, and then Dave let us know that our wake up call would be 6 againnnn for the next day. He said we just had to get to this one certain spot for the sunrise. There were more than a few moans and groans from the groups of sauced girls, but oh-my-goodness the next morning's view of the sunrise was simply heavenly!
Top of the Pinnacle
Our view - worth the early wake up call...
One of our first stop...London Bridge
We continued on stopping at Loch Ard Gorge, 12 Apostles, Apollo Bay, Kennet River (where we saw Koalas!), Melba Gully (inspiration place for Fern Gully), and Bells Beach (the birthplace of Australian surfing) before arriving in Melbourne. We had a final dinner followed by drinks with our group, and it was over in a flash! All in all it was an awesome experience, and I will definitely be looking into other trips that G Adventures has to offer :)
Such a beautiful sunrise over the Great Ocean Road
One of my favorite spots near Loch Ard Gorge
12 Apostles
Melba Gully
Sleepy little guy
We made it!
After a late night in Melbourne, I realized that I still had no idea how I was going to get Dusty and I out to Phillip Island without renting a car. So again, I made Dusty get up early with me to scour the streets to find a restaurant with free wifi (since naturally, our hostel did not have wifi). At 7:56AM in the middle of our breakfast, I realized that there was a bus leaving at 8:50AM which was the ONLY way that we would be able to get down to the island in time to see the little penguins that evening. We scarfed down our meal, ran (literally) back to the hostel, packed up (no shower), ran to the bus station, got out tickets, boarded and we were off. We were in Cowes by 11:30 and checked into our adorable little hotel, which seemed to be the place for all retirees on the island to stay - awesome, love me some old people :)
Cowes, Victoria
After lunch and a nap on the beach, we got ready to head to the penguin parade. The penguin parade is part of the Phillip Island Nature Park where they host viewing of the little penguins (once called fairy penguins, which I prefer…). Little penguins (LPs) grow to be about a foot tall, are a dark blue color, and are warm water birds native to the Southern coast of Australia and New Zealand. Back in the good ol' days, you used to be able to just drive onto the beach and watch the little guys come in for the sea and waddle back to their burrows each night, but times have changed and they don't allow that anymore because the LPs were dropping in numbers. There are about 32,000 that call the Southern Coast their home, and about 8,000 live in the viewing area. We saw hundreds of the precious little things making their way from the water's edge to there homes - some of which were up to a mile away from the water. It is currently malting season, where the penguins hunker down for about 3 weeks and lose their summer feathers to prepare for winter. This means that some of the penguins had been out to sea for up to 6 weeks feeding to prepare for the short hibernation. Some of the chunkers were twice their normal size trying to walk up the beach, which was hilarious to watch because they would basically lay on their bellies and try to paddle on the dry sand. I was a little skeptical on whether or not we would really be able to see much on the tour, but it was awesome and again, we had a wonderful tour guide. Unfortunately, the LPs do NOT mate for life only for one mating season, which has ruined the movie Happy Feet for me. I can't even talk about it…
The next day, we started our journey back to Melbourne to catch our last domestic flight back to Sydney. When we were in the airport trying to decide on what to eat, I realized that almost everywhere we went we were able to find a few things - one of which being an Irish pub. They are perfect for all the obvious reason: good people, relaxed environment, etc. The reason they work for Dusty and I is because they always have a beef pot pie on the menu to fit his dietary needs, and good, cheap beer for my dietary needs. This just solidifies the need for an Ireland trip this fall - make note Lisa and Brad :)
We spent our last day and a half in Bondi Beach. In pretty much every book you read about the Sydney area, a trip to Bondi is a must, and I'll have to agree. It captures the essence of Australia surf without traveling too far outside the city. Staying in Bondi was the perfect way to end the trip. We walked around the city, relaxed on the beach, walked the coastal cliff walk, ate great food, and before we knew it, our time in Australia was over :(
Watching the surfers do their thing...
View along the coastal cliff walk
In our travels throughout the country, I've been noting little phrases unique to the Aussies. Here are a couple of the most common + my favorites…
Thanks heaps! - "Thanks so much!" Hands down my favorite phrase that I have, by default, picked up. I'm super excited to start using this one, particularly in my future work emails. It really fits my superior professionalism perfectly…
No worries - "You're really annoying me, but I'm happy 99.7% of the time and I have this adorable accent - so really, whatever you're doing it's fine"
How ya goin? - The song G'day G'day helped us with this one. Slightly confusing when you walk into a place and someone asks How ya goin?…ummmm I sorry, did you say where am I going? How I'm doing? I'm confused.
Mate - aka - Dude, bro, brah. From what I gathered this is a term that only guys say to their guy friends.
G'day - In 2 weeks, I think we heard this twice. Such a let down…
Brizzy - Brisbane. What a precious nickname! I think I would live in the city just to say that I live in Brizzy.
Vege - Dave explained to us that Aussie's are really lazy when it comes to speaking, and tend to shorten everything (i.e.: Brizzy). Vege = vegetables. We didn't see or hear the word vegetable at all, just vege.
I am slowly getting over a mean case of jet lag that has turned into the post-vacation "back to the real world" slump. My dream vacation lived up to every expectation, and my travel partner taught me more in the 14 days we had together than he will ever know. I sure do love that little brother of mine. xoxo...
How ya goin? - The song G'day G'day helped us with this one. Slightly confusing when you walk into a place and someone asks How ya goin?…ummmm I sorry, did you say where am I going? How I'm doing? I'm confused.
Mate - aka - Dude, bro, brah. From what I gathered this is a term that only guys say to their guy friends.
G'day - In 2 weeks, I think we heard this twice. Such a let down…
Brizzy - Brisbane. What a precious nickname! I think I would live in the city just to say that I live in Brizzy.
Vege - Dave explained to us that Aussie's are really lazy when it comes to speaking, and tend to shorten everything (i.e.: Brizzy). Vege = vegetables. We didn't see or hear the word vegetable at all, just vege.
I am slowly getting over a mean case of jet lag that has turned into the post-vacation "back to the real world" slump. My dream vacation lived up to every expectation, and my travel partner taught me more in the 14 days we had together than he will ever know. I sure do love that little brother of mine. xoxo...
