The Road Trip Is Over

Okay so with over 6000K logged on George the road trip has come to an end. Don't get too upset for us though. We are just turning George in for a boat for a few days. And since George didn't kill us or cause us to kill each other (thus far) I think we are in the clear (but keep your fingers crossed just the same). ;) ;) haha just kidding actually the trip has gone by so quickly. I really think it is because we were always on the move.

Anyway, in just a mere 6 hours we will be stepping onto the Nimrod for a week of diving. Morning, noon and night will be spent in the water looking for the big ones. Since I haven't seen anything that big yet face to face I really have no idea how I am going to react when I do.

Hope everyone is well at home :)

6000K+

George has successfully taken us over the 6000 kilometer mark today. We arrived in Port Douglas just a little while ago to stop at an info booth on our way to Cape Tribulation.

Port Douglas was the home town for a my Aunt and Uncle and their two daughters some years back and boy would they be surprised to see what it has turned into these days. My phrase of choice would be "The Rodeo Drive of Australia". Every five feet there is either a newer bigger resort or bigger and I would hope better country club.

This has been a busy past 7 days. We have gone to the movies (The Heartbreak Kid - Hysterical Movie that I would love to watch again in the states because what they call Mature a.k.a. PG-13 would definitely be considered 'X' rated at home), visited the aquarium in Townsville, the Queensland Museum, saw the 'Deep Sea' Imax movie, had an adventure with Ocean Rafting (speed boat, snorkeling and beaching it on Whitehead beach in the Whitsundays) and just yesterday we went white water rafting down the Tully river. With hopes we will be hoping on the Skyline today or tomorrow to get a birds eye view of the Daintree Rain Forest.

All in all I am loving it! If I could I would (and I don't think Corrigan would make any arguments about it either) trade in the humidity of the last two days. It has been utterly unbearable to sleep at night. Just as you get ready for bed and think "ah it's not too bad today" you get awoken at midnight or 2 am to the literal "heat of the night". If the book is right though the rain forest will be "naturally cool" and we can finally get a good night sleep. Wish us luck!!!

Alive And Well

And kicking back in the Whitsundays, Australia.

Sorry for not keeping this updated as that was my original intent. When I am back in Melbourne at the end of the month I will do my best to recap the trip, but for now it is off for a day of adventure. We are taking a boat adventure off the coast and onto the very southern tip of the Great Barrier Reef. Doing a little snorkeling and well just enjoying the sunshine a bit before the rain sets in this afternoon. It is the beginning of Wet Season here and well if yesterday was any indication of what today will bring I wish I had brought my rainproof clothing!

Tata for now

Try And Keep Up Will Ya?

Haha! Sorry that the words have been few and far between, but there is either no connection or no time to do so. I am hard at work taking pictures, navigating and making sure Corrigan doesn't drive us off the road. ;) Besides what else would you do with that extra 5 minutes at work if I didn't offer you the opportunity to keep checking in to see if there is something new?

Since I have been bad at the whole documentation process I thought I would show you our travels so far. I whole heartily admit that I have plagiarized my maps and have to thank Corrigan for doing the hard work. Without further ado here is the trip in a matter of two snapshots





I know there have been no pics since November 9th, but now that I finally have a great connection Flickr isn't letting me upload anything. Hopefully later tonight. You may actually want to tell me to stop posting them when you see how many are to come!

Livin' The Life of An Ausralian

Okay kids it has been awhile and I apologize, but what can I say I am on vacation and sitting in a cafe and absolutely loving it. It is funny though because I got here on what the 5th of November and it has taken me over a week to actually realize a few things:
1) that I am really here
2) that it is not a weekend get-a-way
3) that I still have a long ways to go before I have to come home

I believe I last left off letting you know that I was going to be going on tour of the wineries and indeed I did. One of Lano's friends rented a van for 10 of us and we headed on out to visit 5 wineries. It was great! Red wines, white wines and even the (not so favored by most) desert wines. You got to figure I would be the one that doesn't actually by any wine from the place we go and have our tastings from, but rather the restaurant we had lunch at. To my defense we did have lunch at a brewery/winery. :)

So that was last Saturday. Last Sunday was the last day we had at Lano's before we picked up the good ole wicked camper. So what were we to do? We definitely had a long day on Saturday with the winery tours and a night out meeting up with another of Lano's friends. Ah we're on vacation so yes, let's take a three hour drive to the Prom! Okay so I wasn't wearing a sequence strappy dress or anything, but I did have on a strappy tank (it's hot down here!). The Prom is known as Wilson's Prom and is a National Park in Australia. It is actually the southern most tip of Australia and had we not gone I would not have seen one of the most beautiful beaches ever. The first was nothing in comparison and would have actually been like any beach in the US, but it was the second beach that we hiked to that was absolutely BEAUTIFUL! If I had access to uploading a photo right now I would...wait let me check....nope sorry

The day couldn't have been better...cloudless and just gorgeous. That is actually what the weather pretty much has been the entire time we have been here. Sunny, cloudless and averaging 70+ to 90 degrees with no humidity (any curly haired girls dream!).

Monday morning it was time to pack up and get ready to pick up what we now refer to as "George" our lovely 'Wicked' camper van. The funniest part about picking George up is that I signed up for an automatic. Little would I know that when we went to pick up our home for the next 6 or 7 weeks that it would not be an automatic b/c they didn't have any. Don't worry dad, no more broken side mirrors just yet (just kidding) ;) That's only b/c I haven't learned yet. hee hee My time will come though, and I gotta give Corrigan a bunch of credit b/c he has been doing all the driving. Lano comes on Saturday so let's just say I have a small little plan to devise being a passenger for a little while longer - mwooo ha ha ha!

So far George has provided us two amazing sunsets, sorry can't report on the sunrises yet b/c I keep sleeping through them. I can tell you that the first sunset was next to a riverbank in Echuca (pronounced u-choo-ka and not u-kook-a) followed by our first night sleeping under an abandoned underpass and the second from the top of a lookout point in Gundugai. We have yet to decide where we are sleeping tonight, but we are in hopes that it has a shower ;) we stink! haha

I tried to get some pics up but it doesn't appear it will be possible...sorry...hopefully in the next town.

toodles for now

The Pics Are In...

Here is batch number two: View my photos

Note they are now being done in an 'Australian' set and are in chronological order. So each time you click the link you will see the pics I took first followed by more recent pics.

ENJOY!

Corrigan Arrives and I Learn To Drive

Yesterday Corrigan arrived and it was a big day for me since I arrived because I would be behind the wheel of a car all by my lonesome for the first time. For those of you that don't already know, the Australians 1) drive on the opposite side of the road (left) and therefore 2) have their steering wheels on the opposite side of the cars (left). It totally throws the mind for a loop the first time you go for a drive. Actually the same is true when you are a passenger for the first time in an Australian car.

Considering I had just done one test drive the night before Corrigan arrived I think just losing one side mirror and knocking off two others on cars that were parked on the side of the road wasn't too bad. I mean it was my first time and therefore there is always going to be a learning curve in some manner or fashion right? Just kidding, but I bet I had a few of you going. The car survived and so did we.

Today we, (Corrigan, myself and Allyson an American visiting one of Lano's friends) hit the open road and headed out to see the Great Ocean Road while making our way to Otway Fly a tree top walk. The journey to Otway was to take 3.5 hours because we opted for the Great Open road route, but in actuality with all the stopping and site-seeing it was closer to 5.5 hours. No worries, on our way of trying to find Otway we found a bunch of fury new friends ... aka the Koala Bear. We stumbled across one roaming in the street and then found a few more just hanging around (literally) in the trees. The guys are just so friggin' cute I wanted to go over scoop em' up and take 'em back to Lano's as a surprise. Not to sure how they would have felt about it and I guess I won't ever know.

When we finally made it to Otway we all agreed that it was pretty cool, but not worth the 5.5 hour drive. Had we not had the Great Ocean Road and our new fuzzy friends along the way I do think I would have had a lot of explaining to do as to why I dragged Corrigan and Allyson on a 5.5 hour drive to see some big trees.

Tomorrow we are off to tour the wineries. Allyson's friend Tori set it all up for us. She is renting a van and driving 12 of us around to do some yummy tastings.

Sorry to say I am still uploading some photos to flickr so expect to see the next round in a few days.

Meblourne

So today will be my 4th day here in Melbourne and I have to say it is a pretty cool city. There is no shortage of food or beer here. Like Starbucks at home as soon as you turn your head there is another take away place or restaurant to put you back at ease. Oh yah and Starbucks is here too so really every time you turn your head there is another one, but if you are a coffee drinker I have been told Starbucks is weak coffee here in Australia. Crazy right? Thankfully I am not a coffee drinker and can let someone else fight that battle.

You might be wondering what I have been up to for the past 3 days so far. Well, after I landed (around 7 or 8 am I think) we headed back to Lano's to drop off my stuff and head out. Since I slept a bit on the plane I was feeling great and thought I had won the Jet Lag battle. Haha Jet lag smet lag! My stomach on the other hand wouldn't let me forget that it was really dinner time. So we grabbed a bite to eat and then hit the town.

If I told you there's not much history in Meblourne you may not believe me and when you look at some of the buildings you would think otherwise as well, but there are quite a few Australians that will let you know it right off the bat "There really is no history in Melbourne". No worries, strolling the city was just fine with me.

We found out that the Melbourne Cup was on Tuesday and the favourite was not the winner. It was another jockey that had the odds of 13 to 1. I am thinking it made the one person who had enough faith in him to want to put $20K down that he would win a very HAPPY PERSON! So I have only been to one Horse race before and that was in Saratoga, New York. At those races, yes people dressed up, but here dressing up is a sport for the Melbourne Cup. Everyone is opting for the best hat or should I say best set of feathers that they can drop on their heads in hopes that they will be noticed and donned with tons of compliments on how they look. The town was crazy!

Instead of watching the race Lano and I decided to head to the Vic Market (aka Victoria Market). Victoria is the state of Australia that Melbourne resides in. Only thing was when we got there it was closed. The woman at the bank had warned me correctly, but we chose to not believe it. The city really shuts down for the races. As of 3 pm Tuesday nothing was open and mean nothing! Ah well, I can go to the market on Wednesday.

Yesterday was my first day going it alone. Lano headed back to work so I headed out and hit up the Royal Botanical Garden. My pictures will not do it any justice. It is absolutely BEAUTIFUL and free of admission. So many were taking advantage of using it as a place to eat lunch, exercise, take a school field trip or find a nice place to curl up and nap. I was just truly amazed at the trees. They are ginormous and range from things we see in the states such as oaks and palm trees to things I wouldn't even know how to pronounce let alone know what they were. From there I took a tour of the city and decided that since we didn't get a chance to hit up the market why not head back today and see what it has to offer. It would have been nice if Lano or Kerri had told me it was closed on Wednesdays. All that hype and still nothing to show for it. No worries back to the city I went and perused around some more.

Here are photos for your viewing pleasures: View My Photos

Bonbon's Can Fly!

I have officially arrived! Well, Monday I officially arrived.

My first flight was a breaze. With the extra 12 inches of leg room on top of the 10 inches other passengers not sitting in an exit row recieved, I wasn't going to complain. It is when I got onto my second flight from LA and saw my seat and remembered I had an expected flight time of 15 hours when I started to get nervous.

To put it into a perspective so that you can all share in my pain...I am only 5'3", in other words short, but if I told you that my knees practically hit the seat in front of me, I think you would be able to visualize the size difference from flight one to flight two. "Whatever I get On-Demand TV, Movies and Music. I will be able to survive." Indeed I did just that, I watched the start of I don't know how many movies, but ask me if I actually saw the endings. It was snooze city for me for about 90% of the flight. Something I know I will most likely not be able to do on the way home, but that is what 2 months from now. I can worry about it then ;)

Let The Dream Live

As I sit hear with 1 day and 20+ hours to go you would think I would be all packed and anxiously awaiting my departure (this is my dream destination afterall), but nope. I am still sitting here waiting for the final load of laundry to dry before it can be packed. And fact of the matter is, you won't ever see me get excited about a trip before I leave. I can't tell you why, but it never really sinks in that I am going on a trip until I land at the final destination. It's just another one of those idiosyncrasies that makes me me.

When I finally land I will have a bit of a reality check and can almost guarantee that I will say something like this "Holy Shit! I'm realy here! I'm really FINALLY here!". After that it's all about enjoying the moments along the way.

Before the big adventure begins, I have to share a small disclaimer:
I don't know how often new things will be uploaded here as connectivity is TBD. I will do my best to keep things up-to date offline and will uplaod things here when we have a connection, but I offer no guarantees.