Last Port D pic

Liz and Liam last night in Port D :*(

More Port D Pics

Sorry all, only a few pictures will fit on each entry so I'll have to space the pics out!

Liz at Court House



Me, Liz and Liam at Court House



Last Day in Port Douglas

Our Favorite Spot in Port D

Friday was a bit of a sad day for us. It was the day we realized that our dreams were just dreams and that we wouldn't actually get to stay in Port D forever. I was excited to head back to Melbourne and see my family. The weather was still 60s in Melbourne, though, and since we were used to 85 degrees and sunny every day we were a bit worried. We woke up and had a leisurely morning. Liz and I made a pact that we would NOT go out in the sun. We loaded up on sunscreen and wore hats and headed to our favorite little internet wifi cafe, had a cup of tea and spent some good quality time communicating with the world outside of our little Port Douglas.

We had some lunch and coffees at our hostel restaurant and then headed out to do a little bit of souvenir shopping. It is much different souvenir shopping in Australia, we have to REALLY want something to get it. I had my big splurge of the trip when I got an Opal necklace. I guess I figured every half-Australian girl needs an opal. We picked up some postcards and a few things for friends and family. We ended the trip at our favorite bar for a drink. After, we headed home and got all dressed up for our last dinner in Port D. We realized we must have just been hungry or something because it was 6 when we ate dinner, and everyone else was doing happy hour. We grabbed some burgers and then met up with some friends at our fav bar to say goodbye to them and Port Douglas for now but not for good!

The next morning we reluctantly packed up all of our stuff and waited for the bus to the airport. The ride had so many curves and turns that both Liz and I felt a little sick. We got on our plane and when we arrived in freezing cold and rainy Melbourne my uncle Lex scooped us up from the airport. Its funny because the weather was beautiful in Melbourne while we were in Queensland. Polly and Jim were putting the kids to bed when we got home, so we grabbed a bowl of the delicious chow mein she made, our hot water bottles, and hung out before heading to bed.

Daintree River and Mossman Gorge Tour

Thursday, we woke up early to go to four mile beach. We hadn't been getting much sun while we were there so we decided to not wear sunscreen. We laid out for most of the morning at the beach, grabbed lunch, and went back to the hostel to get ready for our tour at 1. When we got back to the room we realized it probably was not a good idea to lay out without any sunscreen. We were starting to get really red. We had a few minutes to spare before our bus picked us up for the tour so we went to find Jes a hat since her head was burning. We got back just in time to catch our bus for the tour and of course we were the first ones on it. This always happens since we are staying in the center of town, first to be picked up and last to be dropped off. Anyways, we picked up a few more people before heading out to the Daintree River for a boat cruise. The drive was really scenic and our driver was very informative and knowledgeable. We stopped on the way to pick up a fresh pineapple for afternoon tea. Apparently, they were suppose to be the best pineapples around! We finally got to the Daintree River and hopped on the boat for our hour tour. The captain was really cool and showed us a few baby crocs and one really big old croc named Nelson. He was really scary looking and we just hung around long enough to get a few pics and then got out of there! We learned that crocodiles never stop growing, they just keep getting bigger and bigger. Also, we learned that crocodiles have been around even before dinosaurs. He then showed us a snake in the tree who was shedding its skin so it was white, but is usually is really colorful and beautiful. We also saw a few tree frogs and some birds. The boat ride was scenic and relaxing.







Once we were done with the boat tour, we had afternoon tea. The pineapple was just as good as its reputation! The biscuits (cookies) were really tasty as well. Jes and I ate most of them ha. We sat around and had some great convos with the others on the tour with us. It was a couple from New Zealand, a couple from Ireland, and a couple and daughter from Sydney. We all got along really well. We finished our tea and took off to Mossman Gorge, which took about 30 minutes to get to. It was a really cool hike through the rainforest to where the water was. We finally got there and took tons of pictures before getting in the water. They said to just jump in without putting your toes in and we realized really quickly why. The water was absolutely freezing! Everyone got in though, one way or another, but we didn't stay there long. After about 30 minutes, we had to get back on the bus and head back to Port D. On the way back, our new friends we had made on the tour invited everyone to dinner that night, but we had to decline because we were just too sunburned and exhausted to promise dinner plans. We got back to the hostel around 6 and grabbed a quick bite to eat at the restaurant where we were staying. Jes was a bit tired, sunburned and wanted to get on the internet so she hung out at the hostel, but I went over to our friend's house for a BBQ. The fish they had cooked was amazing (I think it was barramundi). Then we watched a movie and hung out but I didn't last long since I was so sunburned. Tomorrow is our last day in Port Douglas. I know I will be really sad to leave!

Another Beautiful Day in Paradise

We woke up to another beautiful morning in Port Douglas on Wednesday. We decided to get breakfast at this coffee shop we found that has free wifi all day if you spend $5 so of course we couldn't pass this deal up since internet is so expensive in Australia. We spent some of the morning on the internet catching up on emails etc., then walked down to the beach for a relaxing day of sun and surf. After a few hours, we grabbed some lunch and went to the tour place to book something fun for Thursday. We decided to go with the Daintree River tour and Mossman Gorge. This would be a half day afternoon tour but we figured we could spend the morning at the beach. Then, we walked down to our favorite spot in down by the sea and took some pictures of boats coming in and out of the harbor. We just sat for a while and enjoyed the amazing place. There is also a beautiful church there overlooking the water that is gorgeous. Apparently, it is a popular place to get married with a very long waiting list! We sat on the sand and enjoyed the tranquility and peacefulness of the water and having no worries. Also, there was a bit of danger in having potential crocs staring at us from the waters edge. At this point, we were seriously considering staying in Port D and looking for jobs and an apartment. It's just so lovely here! On the way back, we checked some rentals to realize they were so much cheaper than apartments at home and we could easily get jobs! Oh boy did our minds start wandering of all the glorious possibilities of living in paradise! We got ice cream and went back to the hostel to get ready for dinner. That night we went to a Thai restaurant, which was delicious! It's weird to eat rice without using chopsticks, since we were so used to them in China. We walked around town a bit and hung out till bedtime. Another successful relaxing day in paradise!

Breakfast with the Birds

Tuesday, Nov. 9th, we woke up pretty early to go to the Port Douglas wildlife habitat to have Breakfast with the Birds. We took the local bus out of town and got there about 9:30am. We had the best breakfast (I feel like I say this everyday, but they really do keep getting better and better) and took lots of pictures of the birds that flew around us while we were eating. One parrot even sat on a glass and drank some apple juice. Jes wasn't thrilled about this since it was her juice! We finished breakfast and started walking around to all the exibits. We watched a koala presentation, but the koalas weren't as cute or entertaining as I had hoped. We saw a few more koalas and a ton of birds before going to see the kangaroos. The kangaroos were by far my favorite animal from that day. They were all shapes and sizes and so cute and energetic. They even came right up to us to feed them out of our hands. These ones were really friendly. We finally saw crocodiles as well! The salt water ones were huge and really scary. The freshwater ones actually looked cute and wimpy compared to the salt water ones. I still kept my distance, though! I heard they really like tourist ha, just kidding... more like dogs and children. We also saw an emu and fed him as well. There were so many cool animals at the wildlife habitat and it was a great relaxing thing to do since we had a particularly late night the night before.

Later that day, we just hung out around the town and went back to the beach for a little bit. We were suppose to leave for the Whitsundays the next morning so we went to the car rental place to try to rent a car for the 9 hour drive down the coast. Once we got there we realized it wasn't going to be cheap and for us to take the bus would be just as expensive. We also checked the weather in the Whitsundays and it wasn't looking good, so we decided to change our flight to stay in Port Douglas till Saturday since the weather was so fabulous here. Since we were staying now we decided we wanted to stay closer to town so we booked the hostel in the center of town for Wed. thru Sat. We also decided to book another tour since we had plenty of free days now so we started doing some research again. That night, we hung out and had pizza and drinks in paradise. We decided Wednesday we could hang out at the beach all day and relax and Thursday we could do a tour.

Pics :)

Jes and I at Court House

Ross, Katie, Liam, and I

The Great Barrier Reef

We woke up Monday and got ready for the snorkeling trip to the reef. The bus picked us up at our hostel at 8am or so and dropped us off at the marina. We found the boat we would be on, which was called Poseidon and apparently rated #1 snorkeling boat by the locals. We boarded and went to the top deck where we would be most of the trip, and had morning tea and muffins. We took off towards our first stop on the reef which took about an hour and a half to get to, but is suppose to be the best reef called Agincourt Reef. During the ride the staff passed out our scuba gear and taught us how to use everything. We also had to wear stinger suits, unfortunetly. Apparently three meters of stinger on you means a sudden and painful death, so I guess that's fair. We spent all morning picking out what bathing suits we would wear, only to learn it didn't matter because we would be covered head to toe literally in these stinger suits. And we were told later, that if we had come 3 days earlier we would have had to wear them! So we hopped in the water and started exploring our first reef spot. It was truly amazing, one of the most spectacular things I've ever seen! We were able to explore each spot for an hour so we had plenty of time to see everything and really enjoy it. Jes had a bit of trouble at the beginning with her mask collecting water, but the staff quickly realized and helped her fix it. Then we were off exploring. When it was time to move on we were able to take our suits off and dry off in the sun on the way to the next reef spot.

The second reef spot was my favorite! There was so much to see and it looked really different from the first spot. The fish were beautiful and unique and the coral was awesome. It's really hard to descibe because everything was so amazing and breath taking. Toward the end of the hour we saw a huge ray go by us. We think it was either a manta ray or a marble ray, whatever it was, it was awesome to see. Only a few people on our boat saw the ray but other people saw a reef shark! As soon as they saw the shark, we all got back in the boat and moved along to the last destination on the reef. We had lunch on the boat on the way to the last stop. We got back in the water to see the last part of the reef but didn't last too long. We went out with one of the staff on a tour around the reef, but were constantly being hit by these two little girls with their boogie boards and flippers. We were really exhausted and annoyed so we got back in the boat to dry off and lay out for the remaining time at the reef. On the boat ride back it started to rain, so we went inside to get some refreshments and get warm. We made friends with some of the staff, who invited us for drinks later at Court house, the favorite local bar. We accepted and went home to get showered and ready. Later that night, we met up with our friends from the boat and hung out for awhile. Most of them were not from Australia but had came to Port Douglas, fell in love with it, and decided to stay and start working. Years later, and they are still there. I could definitely see why since we had only been there 2 days and I was already in love with it and didn't want to leave. This was my favorite day in Australia so far. The reef was so spectatular, I'm not sure anything we do from now on could top that experience for me!

Arrival in Cairns and Port Douglas, Queensland

Saturday, we flew up north to Cairns to start our tropical stay in Queensland. It was so nice to get there and be warm finally! We checked into our hostel where we would be staying just one night, then went to walk around the town. Cairns was cute, with shops and restaurants on the main strip and tons of people laying out in the grass in the city center. Cairns doesn't have a beach, but is still a great town to go see and travel to surrounding beaches. We walked around and took pictures, ate a delicious dinner at an Italian restaurant, then walked back to the hostel to hang out. We were so exhausted from traveling so we went to bed early since we had to catch the bus to Port Douglas at 8am the next day.
Sunday, we woke up and went for a quick breakfast before catching the bus. Breakfast is becoming one of my favorite meals, with yummy eggs, australian bacon which taste like a mix between bacon and ham, toast, and most importantly tea! Then, we walked back to catch the bus. The lady at the front desk the day before said to be out front at 7:50-8am, as well as the receipt she wrote. So we got out there between then and sure enough, the new lady at the desk said he came at 7:45 and we weren't there so he left. She said that he said he might come back for us. Now this is the one time that the Australian no worries, casual attitude made us really anxious and nervous, especially Jes! Jes went and asked the lady every 5 minutes if he was coming back and she was being really rude so Jes gave up and we waited patiently, keeping our fingers crossed. Fifteen minutes later our bus showed up and he acted as if nothing ever happened so we hopped on for the hour and a half journey up the coast. The drive was very scenic and you could see the beaches and coast almost the whole way. We made a lot of stops to let people off at closer beaches and the last stop was ours at Port Douglas. It dropped us off right at our hostel, so we checked in, grabbed some brochures to look at, and walked into town to eat and talk about what tours we wanted to do. It took about 10 minutes to walk into town, but it was a nice relaxing walk with cute houses and beautiful plants and flowers. We found a cute coffee shop to sit and have morning tea to decide what we wanted to do for our next few days. We decided we definitely wanted to go snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef and that we would book that for Monday. After morning tea, we walked around Port Douglas and went to the beach for a little while to soak up some sun finally. The beach is called Four mile beach and it was gorgeous. It was the beginning of stinger season so they had nets up and you could only swim between them. We were finally in paradise! We hung out in town all day, grabbed dinner and a strongbow at a fish and chips place that was the cheapest we could find, and walked back to our hostel to unpack and get ready for our big day in the morning.

Sydney

Sydney Harbor

Thursday morning we woke up and enjoyed a nice breakfast of Weetabix and tea. Being back in Australia has reminded me how much I love tea. Morning and afternoon tea are some of the most wonderful and relaxing parts of the day. I don't understand why the U.S. hasn't quite caught on to it. We were supposed to catch the bus at noon, so Liz and I spent most of the morning packing. I spent some time looking through some albums Gram handed me. There were tons of pictures of Josh, Coba and I as babies and my mom and dad when they were my age. Its hard to believe they had three kids when they were 23.

Opera House Up Close

After morning tea, Gram packed Liz and I lunches to take on our journey up to Sydney. She took us on a walk so we could stretch our legs before the bus ride and than we headed to the bus station. We easily hopped on our bus to Sydney and about 4 hours later we hopped off the bus right next to our hostel (Sydney Central YHA). I was just waiting  to see how Liz would react to staying in a hostel. Liz had never been in one before. I think she was a little nervous. It wasn't at all bad though, we were the first ones to the room, everything was clean and the hostel was in a pretty good location. We locked our stuff up and then headed out to walk around a little and get our bearings. The weather wasn't fabulous in Sydney, it was raining a little and the temp was in the 60s. After going to the 3 Wise Monkeys Pub and having a pizza and a Strongbow (and enjoying some wifi) we headed back to the hostel and signed up for a pub crawl.

The pub crawl was pretty awesome although we had some doubts about it at first, but we ended up meeting a bunch of cool people. While we've been traveling we've met tons of Germans, British and Canadians. A lot of the people we met in Sydney had just graduated from college (Uni) and were trying to find work and jobs anywhere they could so they could live in Australia. Most didn't have a really specific plan, they just bought a plane ticket and a return ticket for a year later, and were living day by day. I wish I were that spontaneous!
The next morning Liz and I had breakfast and some internet time before heading to see the sites in Sydney.  We took an hour long walk exploring Sydney down to the Ferry Quay where we walked to the Opera house and got some great pics of the Sydney Harbor Bridge. We oogled at some beautiful Australian Opal necklaces, and upon realizing they were out of our budget...took some more awesome pics and just sat for a while to enjoy the view.
We went to a little cafe by the harbor and had our Strongbows and lunch and then had a leisurely walk around town. I needed to find a pair of "thongs" for our time at the beach. Liz and I are still getting used to hearing flip flops called thongs. Asking for them in a store was just a little embarrassing! We ate dinner at a sushi restaurant because we were craving sushi since we arrived in China but were too scared to try it. We are loving the "no worries" attitude Aussies have. No one we've come across is very high strung, everyone is just happy and relaxed all the time.
After dinner we went to hang out with some of the people we met the night before. Backpackers are awesome to be around, and everyone has interesting stories. We ended up going out with them to this "exclusive club" that we could get into for free because one of the backpackers worked for the company doing promo. I don't usually like to talk about and say nasty things, but the guy with the hook up was one of the most unpleasant people I've ever met in my entire life. Ask me later if you want the full scoop!

Last Canberra Pics

Liz and I with the Queen

Governor General's House

More Canberra Pics

Outside Parliament House

Senate House

Canberra- Australia's Capital City



Gram and Pa at Mt Ainslie



We woke up early for our only full day in Canberra. We had cereal and tea for breakfast and got ready to head out for the day. Gram and Pa thought a good start to sight seeing in Canberra was to see the whole city at one time. So we literally drove to the peak of Mount Ainslie and looked over the whole city. It's a beautiful city and it's amazingly well planned. They pointed out the Parliament House, the Old Parliament House, Australian National University, and various other landmarks. Pa explained how the city is planned to line up all the government buildings on 2 intersecting axis. Canberra is not very big and the population is only about 300,000. I think that sounds very small for a capital city. Canberra was built for the purpose of being Australia's capital and was designed by an Italian, American, and and Australian.



Canberra from Mt Ainslie



After Mt. Ainslie, we went over to the Parliament House. It was a really impressive building. I'd been there before but it was still wonderful to see it all again. The Parliament House is literally built into a hill. It's possible to literally walk on the grass to the very top of the parliament house. It was built symbolically to represent its relationship to the Australian people. We took a tour with a tour guide who was very knowledgeable. Most of the stuff in the Parliament House was built out of Australian woods. She pointed out the different types. The Australian Parliament has two houses just like the U.S. They are the House of Representatives and the Senate. The room where the Senate met was a brilliant pink! The House of Representatives was eucalyptus green. The pink represented something but I can't quite remember what it was. There were lots of paintings to representative aspects of the Australian continent. It was really an impressive building. Another fun fact about the Australian government is that they have their first woman prime minister. They refer to her partner (no husband) as the "first Bloke." After the Parliament house, we went home and Gram made us homemade pizza. Liz and I went on a walk and explored their neighborhood (Deakin).



After lunch we went to explore Australian National University. We did that and explored the campus a bit. Its a really nice place. Then we went to The National Museum of Australia and strolled around an Aboriginal art exhibit. A lot of the art was showing the aboriginal stories that told of the arrival of the white man. I thought it was a little bit of a sad story...even if my forebears were part of them. We then went to another museum where we learned about the planning of Canberra. Its a very planned out city. Last, Gram and Pa took us to the Governor Generals Home to look for Kangaroos. We didn't see any but her (yes she's a woman too!) house was magnificent. The Governor General is the Queen of England's representative in Australia. They hold a higher position than even the Prime Minister. I thought that just showed how close the ties were to England still.



Gram and Pa took us home and made us a delicious dinner of chicken, mashed potatoes, and veggies with ice cream and peaches for dessert. Eating Gram's home cooked meals was one of the most wonderful things about Canberra. Ha another fun fact... Gram and Pa have a Worm Farm. It's literally a farm for worms. It helps them fertilize the yard, flowers, and plants. Liz and I were so curious about the farm...neither of us had ever heard anything about it before. It was a wonderful day in the city of Canberra.