G' Day Mate! Australia

On Thursday, June 9th, Jason and I left for Australia!  Jason had a business trip scheduled so we planned a trip the week before he had his meetings.  That day I worked on laundry, cleaning etc. to leave our house clean for when I returned....we took the trip the week before his meetings so I would be coming home by myself.

To save on costs Jason and I flew separately to Los Angeles.  Jason took me to the airport and then dropped Jacob off with Jared, Stephanie, and the girls, where he stayed for the week we were gone.  Then Jared drove Jason to the airport and he caught a later plane to LA.

We traveled with a co-worker of Jason's, Corey West and his wife Caralee.

I met her as we waited to take off for LA.  She is very nice and overall we all got along well traveling together.

We arrived in LA and thought we would need to go to the international terminal.  Amazingly our inbound flight was only 4 gates away from our outbound flight to Sydney!

Caralee and I stopped and had dinner while waiting for the boys to fly in.  They arrived shortly before we boarded the plane at 10:30 p.m.

Jason and Corey flew business class while we were in coach.  Business has "beds" where you can sleep and be pretty comfortable.  Coach not so much, but the plane was not full so I had no one next to me--which was great!  It was a 14 hour flight and I passed the time watching movies, eating (they must have feed us 4 times) and sleeping.  We arrived at 7:00 a.m., went through customs, changed money and met our shuttle which took us to our hotel.  The Hotel Menzies.

It was in the middle of the tourist section of Sydney and only a 10 minute walk from both Sydney and Darling Harbor.

Corey and Caralee went to their room and we went to ours.  It was about 10 a.m. so Jason and I decided to walk around so we wouldn't fall asleep in our room.  To us it was 2 a.m.

This is kind of what our room looked like. We did not have the table and chairs, but rather had a desk located where the picture is being taken.

We walked through the Royal Botanic Gardens and down to Mrs. Macquarie's Chair.  This "chair", carved out of stone, looked over the harbor.  A walk from the former governor's mansion used to lead down to this point in the harbor.  The Governor's wife walked down the path and like to look out for ships arriving with news from England.  Australia was a prison colony so she wanted news about people who were not convicts.

The "chair" was carved out of the rocks by the convicts.  While we were looking at it a group of people asked me to take their picture.  We started talking and found out that the overseer (who made sure the work got done on the chair) was this group's (who were cousins) great, great, great, great grandfather.  The chair had been dedicated on June 13th, 1816--200 hundred years ago on that coming Monday!  They were a fun group to talk to .



















We returned to the hotel, met up with Wests and went out to find lunch.  We had pizza and then walked down to the Sydney bridge and walked across it.

 After walking for a few hours we sat down at a restaurant while Corey had a drink.  As we sat there I looked at this woman and she looked just like an actress who played the principal in a show Jacob had been watching, called Lab Rats.  I just had to take a picture and we sent it to Jacob.

We headed back to the hotel and rested for a short time and headed back out to dinner and to see the Sydney Harbor light show called VIVID.  They do it the last 2 weeks of May and first 2 weeks of June.  They project images on the sails of the opera house and on the walls of surrounding buildings.  It is quite cool.

 The paint looked like it was dripping down this building.

The pictures on the opera house morphed from one picture to the next.

 We lasted until a little after 8 p.m. and then headed back.  We walked 23,000 steps that day.   I was so tired and slept well!

The next day we boarded a bus that took us on a tour of the city.  We first went to The Rock area which is the oldest part of Sydney.  They have small alley ways and the guide told us that robbers would get old socks and stuff them with wet sand.  When someone came through the robbers would swing the sock, club them in the head and rob them. If the police came by they would dump the sand out of the sock and stuff it in their pocket--no one could be arrested for having a dirty sock in their pocket!

Then on to Bondi Beach.  While it was winter in Australia, in Sydney it was only about 65 degrees.  So jackets worked well.  When we got to Cairns (up by the Great Barrier Reef) it was about 75 degrees.

While on the bus tour they talked about the upcoming elections in Australia.  The elections were on July 2nd and they told us it is mandatory to vote and a fine of $100 Australia dollars if you don't.    Kind of interesting!

After the bus tour we boarded a boat for a lunch cruise.

It was buffet and as we ate we motored all through the harbor.  It was beautiful!  We even saw Russell Crow's home at the end of one of the piers.

After the lunch cruise we made dinner reservations at a restaurant in the Darling Harbor so we could come back down and see the fire works there that night.

We went back to the hotel to rest and then came back down for dinner.  Then saw the fire works...which to me were underwhelming, but OK.

One thing I have to say is the food was not very good anywhere in Australia.  It was fine, but it is fun to have a meal you think is really good and we only had one when we were in Brisbane.

The following day, Monday, we continued our tour by bus and went 2 hours west to the Blue Mountains.  These mountains are a rain forest and reminded me of a forested Zions.  We arrived in Katoomba, went to Scenic World, and got on the first of 3 trams.  The first tram had a clear bottom and when you left the platform you could see down to the bottom of the canyon.  This picture is not a great showing, but gives the idea.

We then got on a second tram which took us STRAIGHT down to the bottom!  It was a very steep descent.

Very Steep!!

Here we are off the tram and ready to hike.  Behind us are the 3 Sisters. 

We hiked on the boarded path they have so people don't go in, get lost and/or damage the forest.   

After hiking, we took the third tram back up a level and had a bad lunch, loaded the bus, and drove to the other side of the canyon where you could hike down and into the back side of the 3 Sisters.

We left Scenic World and drove to Featherdale Animal Park. It was like a mini zoo where we could see things up close....I petted a koala and kangaroo.  The koala's hair is much coarser than I thought it would be.

We also saw a cassowary.  I hadn't even heard of these animals before coming to the park.  Here is a picture I copied from the Internet so you could see what they look like.  They other is from the zoo.  

 It was an interesting day!

 Tuesday morning we walked out on the tarmac and boarded our plane to Cairns.  It was a 3 hour flight up north.












We arrived, rented a car and drove (on the wrong side of the road for us) to the Mandalay Beachfront Luxury apartments in Fort Douglas.  They were 2 bedrooms, living room, kitchen and were very nice.  We were on the first floor right by the pool. You could walk right out our patio door, across the street, up a few stairs to the beach. It was beautiful.

Our apt. was behind the shorter palm trees 

Looking at our beach in the back right

Enjoying sitting on the beach.  One problem I had was walking.  The day we left my left foot started to really hurt. Somehow I had caused plantar fasciitis  and it hurt.  Luckily I wore my tennis shoes most of the time, but being at the beach I had to take them off, but with all the walking we were doing anyway, my foot never got a rest and so the sand hurt!

Jason's view from our patio

Wednesday Jason and I walked into town in the morning and checked out prices for scuba diving.   We went back and the 4 of us drove into Dainetree forest.  It was beautiful!

 Along the beach we saw piles of these.  They are from sand worms.  As the burrow down into the sand they push out wet sand in the form of their bodies.

While we were in the forest we took a crocodile tour and saw a few of them.

Jason driving on the wrong side of road.

Thursday we got up late and just hung out.  My feet hurt and we took a day off from sight seeing.  We couldn't scuba dive until Friday anyway so we went to the pool, had lunch, took a late shower and read a book.   

Friday was scuba diving day!  Calypso tours picked us up at 8:20 and we left for the boat.  We arrived at the reef at 10:30. Jason and I went snorkeling at the first stop.  It was quite fun to see the fish and reef.  The reef wasn't as colorful as I had expected. 

 I was afraid the water would be cold, but it was about 80 degrees.  Perfect!    The next stop (about 10 mins away) Jason and I scuba dived.  I actually liked this better than snorkeling.  We went down with our instructor about 35 feet and saw quite a few fish and a barracuda.

At the last stop I didn't want to go back in, but Jason went.  At this one the reef was circular and he went all the way around it.  He said it was cool because it just dropped and if you went down a ways you could see fish coming in and out.

Pulling into the dock

After our trip we went back, showered and packed.  Jason and I ran to the store for potatoes and had those with left over chicken Corey had made.  After our disappointing meals out I felt more like left overs and paying for restaurant food. Corey and Caralee had gone out for food.

Saturday morning we flew into Brisbane.  Arrived around noon, checked into the Marriott where Jason was staying for work.  Then we spent the afternoon walking along the river front, had lunch (the best meal we had and it was good!), walked through the botanical garden and saw this tree.  It is and African Sausage Tree.  It was so weird looking!!

From there we walked into Queensland University of Technology...it boarders the garden.  Walked over the Friendship bridge and took the City Hopper (a free ferry that goes back and forth across the river) back to where we started.

That night we all got together and went to dinner with Jason's boss Himal.  He is a very nice person .

Some of the funny sayings:
Alight the coach - board the bus
Give way - Yield
Overtaking - Passing lane
Keep LEFT!  :)

Funny picture:  Apparently they needed this at the tourist stops as some of the Asians have different customs than we do.  I remember squatting in China!