Surfer's Paradise

After all the sightseeing and culture that we have immersed ourselves in, we decided it might be nice to just have a few beach days (I know, tough life, right?) After some mild convincing, Stevie G joined us for 5 days in Surfer's Paradise, a little slice of gorgeous beaches in Queensland.

Throughout the four months we've been gone, we've stayed in accommodations that have truly run the gamut - lets just say that the Q1 tower in Surfer's paradise was among the best - EVER. Here are a few shots of and from our apartment:

Before we arrived on Sunday, April 22nd, I gave our new friends Matt & Sarah a call, who happened to be in Surfer's Paradise at the time. Sarah mentioned something about going to hold a Koala the next day, and after I stopped shrieking, I calmly asked if I could join them. Here is my new friend George!

Here's another picture of the animal sanctuary we were visiting:

And of a little party we threw in our apartment:

And some of my favorites from the rest of our time there:

Sailing the Whitsundays

On the advice of others we talked to, the Whitsunday coast of Australia's Queensland state was a must see as well. So we decided to jump on a boat and take a 3 day cruise that would include sailing, diving, and seeing one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, Whitehaven beach.

Here is our cute little catamaran - the Pacific Star - which we called home from April 18 - 21. (Cute is read - nice sundeck, not so nice accommodations)!

Not so great accommodations aside, we made the best of it- we met some amazing people, and saw some of the most amazing things we were yet to have seen.

This is a pic of the four of us traveling together our first morning waking up on the boat - yes, that is indeed Stevie G seated next to me, of our wonderful new friends Stephen and Erin - residents of Melbourne, but world travellers. We were lucky in that Stephen had not seen the Whitsundays yet and decided to jump on board with us!

First stop on April 19 - Whitehaven Beach. This was literally the most beautiful beach I have EVER seen. White sands, cross currents, the ability to walk out on a sand bank (that you needed to cross knee length water to get to) - it was like no other beach I have ever seen.

Later that day, Stephen, Jay and I took a intro diving lesson and went Scuba diving for the first time - not at the great barrier reef, at a beach on Whitsunday Island, but an awesome experience!

The next day we headed towards the Great Barrier Reef - this was an extremely special day for me because when Sunil passed a year ago I made a promise to dive the Great Barrier Reef, as we had promised we'd do together. I got even more comfort in the fact that the boys were celebrating Josh's birthday back at home the same day I was set to dive the Reef.

We woke up that morning - to find that the rocky travels we had been through all night did indeed get us to the Reef, and that there was no land anywhere in sight. This is a shot of the color of the water near the Great Barrier Reef:

And here we are getting suited up for our 2nd dive at the Reef!

I wish I could say my dive story had a happy ending, but it didn't. Unfortunately, we made the fatal error of thinking that the training dive that the boat cruise would provide us would be enough to be comfortable to dive both days - but for me the 2nd day, unfortunately the day we were at the reef, it was not. Although I made it underwater and waited for our instructor to get all the trainees underwater and ready to head over to the reef, I began to panic, and thanks to very little review and instruction from the dive instructors, I had a pretty scary experience.

I returned to the boat to find El waiting for me, and he assured me that despite my promise to Sunil he wouldn't have wanted me to hurt myself - and that we would come back some day after I had been properly trained. Any wonder I love this man?

So, I got to the reef, I did dive, but not a great combo of those two things. Next time Sunil - with better preparation I promise. Doh!

Here's a few more pics of our sailing trip - chatting with our new friends, and sleeping up on the deck!

Ayers Rock - Uluru

After some debate, while still in Melbourne about two months ago, we decided we would go to see Ayers Rock, or Uluru - its Aboriginal name.

Before coming to Australia, I was unaware of its existence, and upon learning that it was basically a rock in the middle of the 100+ degree Australian outback, I really pushed back on why on earth we'd want to go. Yet, after talking to people around Melbourne, especially Elliot's cousin Tony, we were constantly told that we just had to see it.

As some backround, the Australian outback is like no other desert you could imagine - it is just endless miles of NOTHING - seriously, nothing. The main issue with Australia, and why the majority of the country is built up around the coast is that the center of the country is utterly unliveable - there are no rivers that run throughout the country - at least none that are in constant stream, or any that could sustain a city around it - so a country the size of the United States has only 22 million people and they all live around the coast.

Uluru - or Ayer's Rock - is literally a monolith - this massive rock in the middle of this massive country and is about the only thing you can see for miles - it comes out of nowhere, and hits you over the head when you see it. Unexplainable, but whatever people were trying to convey to us, they were dead on. I can't explain why, but it was a must see - this is a sacred site for the Aboriginals, and while we were allowed to climb it, we were urged every which way not to. The Aboriginal people liken us climbing on Uluru to going to Notre Dame and climbing on the Alter. We decided we'd respect their wishes!

This picture was taken the first night we got to Uluru, when we went to watch the sunset wash over the rock and make it change from this orangey red you see below to a near grey/black.

The next day we walked the Valley of the Winds through the Olga's (Aboriginal Name Kata Tjuta) - another amazing rock formation nearby. Again we were urged not to walk on the domes themselves but were allowed to walk on the paths in between them. I'm tempted to say that the Olga's were more impressive to me than Ayer's Rock, but I'm not 100% sure.

These were taken on our hike through the Olgas, or the Valley of the Winds Walk:

Finally, we went back at 6am on our last day at Ayers Rock to watch the sun rise over Uluru.

Auckland

Ok, I lied. There was more we hadn't done.

After we climbed the glaciers, and being faced with the last two weeks of our program being stuck in Christchurch - don't get me wrong, New Zealand was GORGEOUS - and we definitely made the best of living in a city such as this, but Christchurch was geared only towards the tourists that pass through the town and not towards residents, which we were for eight weeks - but again, I digress - we decided to hop on a plane to Auckland!

Auckland is touted as 'little Sydney' - which I can understand, though to me, there is no comparison. That being said, Auckland was much more a real city of the sort that we New Yorkers are used to - and we LOVED it!

We spent most of the time enjoying what the city had to offer - which included a wine and cheese festival on one of our last days - and enjoyed great meals and the great company we were traveling with.

Below is the sky tower - of which we watched people base jump off of - and of which we walked past on a few occasions to go place a few roulette bets at the casino!

We spent a great deal of time on Ponsonby street in Auckland as well - in particular this one place Chapel, shopping and dining, and heading back for a very New York City - ish nightlife scene (and great mojitos)!

Oh, and if scaling ridiculously high mountains and glaciers was not enough, we decided we'd climb a dormant volcano - this is me and El at the top.

And if you haven't all noticed a new face among my pics, here is El, myself and Margie - my new girl and southern belle - who will be showing Elliot and I what Alabama living is like when we visit her in a few months! This was taken at the wine and cheese festival in Viaduct Harbor.

Glacier Walking

As if we hadn't seen enough of extremes - beautiful beaches, beautiful mountain ranges, why not add beautiful Glaciers to the list?


Jay, Margie, El and I jumped in the car (this time with the girls doing all the driving!) and headed across to Fox and Franz Joseph Glaciers. We stayed near Fox Glacier the first night, but decided to climb Franz Joseph the next day.


This is a picture of Franz Joseph before we got close to it and climbed up, look strange to anyone?

Turns out that Franz Joseph Glacier is (together with Fox Glacier) very unique. It is one of 3 or 4 in the world that are just 240 meters above sea level, and descend into temperate rain forests. I know for myself, when looking at the Glacier from afar, my mind was saying that this is not what a Glacier was supposed to look like - nor was it supposed to be thriving in such a warm climate! (see my clothes below don't seem to match the glacier behind me!

Well don't let the last pic fool you, when we got closer to the glacier our guides got us properly suited up, including rain jackets and these metal additions to the bottom of our boots that allowed us to walk on the ice without falling over (something we all know I'm prone to do)!! This is me inside one of the 3 or so tunnels of ice we walked through:

And this is what the view looked like of the glacier when we got near the top!

I think after this point, it would be hard to argue that we really have seen and done it all during the course of these 4 months!

Edoras!

Are there any Lord of the Rings fans out there?

Well Margie, Jay, El and myself are pretty nuts about the films - and as many of you may or may not know, the movies were filmed in New Zealand, in the gorgeous scenery that is just a natural occurrence here.

On March 15, the 4 of us jumped into a 4x4 and headed in search of Edoras, where the village of Rohan was placed for the film. Here is a picture from the film:

And, here is a picture of what we found!!!

We learned that for the movie the set was NOT superimposed on this hill, it was actually built on to it, and in the process the production company put GPS trackers on all of the plant life, moved it away, and were required to return it exactly as it was before the movie!

Geeks, yes, but we love it.

Hamner Springs & Marlborough Wine Valley

We were lucky enough to get Erin & Stephen for 2 weekends, and on the second we turned the car north, and headed to Hanmer Springs the Marlborough Wine Valley.

On Friday we spent the afternoon at Hanmer - a set of natural springs, just lounging by the sulphur (read - smelly) pools, and watching our boys enjoy themselves plummeting down water slides!

We continued on to Picton that night, and the next morning did what we now are calling 'Extreme Biking!' We rented 8 bikes, and rode from winery to winery with our helmets and chain-falling-off-bikes! It was an interesting ride, to say the least!

Probably the highlight of the day for me was the time we spent at Forrest Estate - we had a private tasting, where someone brought the wine out to our table, and then we enjoyed some badminton and bike riding on the grounds of the winery.

Finally, we took the TransScenic train south from Picton back to Christchurch - this was a 6 hour train ride that took us along the most beautiful coastal highway, and when we finally returned to Christchurch, we had to say our goodbyes to Erin & Stephen . . . but not for long! :)