Exploring the rainforests and coast

Our last two days here in Cairns, Australia have been full and satisfying. The final planned adventure was excellent... a day and night wildlife spotting tour. Abie and I were set with our binoculars and spot light for the night. There is nothing as exciting as seeing a real wild animal, and we saw many... more than a couple dozen birds such as owls, Kookaburras, Kites, etc. When Abie spotted the tree Kangaroo was one of our highlights. We also saw a rare type of possum, a couple of Platypus, and a mob of Wallabys. Traipsing about in the dark, foggy night until 1am spotting wild life was a kick. Our final day was unplanned and taking a trip to the zoo was a must so we could see larger kangaroo and especially Koala bears. We also headed up the coast line and visited a small town, Port Douglas, for some more shopping and lunch at an Irish Pub while watching a rugby game. It has been MAJOR retail therepy these two weeks, being with Abie who has always expressed her love for others in gift giving... so be excited! We will summarize our highlight moments last of all. Tomorrow morning we head home. See you soon.

The Great Barrier Reef

We spent the day on the Great Barrier Reef, over two hours each way by sailing vessel to reach the Michaelmas Cay where we swam, snorkeled, and lazed on the ship's deck. Staying in the water for more than an hour was a challenge due to the winds and chilly water. The most amazing part of the underwater view was the various corals... lavender, brilliant blue, yellows and greens. There were huge clams with purple flesh as well as the many colored fish. Abie saw eels and a Manta ray in the sand. The trip back to shore was exhilerating for us with swells from 4 to 6 feet high (my guesstimate). I was loving it and so was Abie, though many were not due to sea sickness.
After the all day trip out to sea, we walked through the Night Market with it's many vendor stalls and food court. We decided to have a Chinese massage, which was so great... and we ate from the Chinese buffet. We also just had to taste the gelato, in fact we had a cone from each of two vendors since they looked so great and we couldn't decide..mmmm. The Hotel Cairns is nice and very accomodating. They gave us a complimentary dinner which included a raw beef filet mignon on a cooking stone, cooking as we ate... amazing! Today is a do what we feel sort of day with no adventures scheduled, so we are off to the gym for a workout before breakfast (no scones here! so must look for a new favorite with tea)

Taking Sydney by "Storm"

Abie and I have done the super tour of Sydney, Australia, spending two nights in a hostel downtown- an adventure in itself and then one day 8am- 8pm of adventures. It was pouring rain when we left Auckland so we were pleased to find Sydney a bit warmer and sunny for our whole visit. We started our tour day with a latte from Starbucks around the corner of our hostel at 7am and then walked the 20 minutes to the Marriots where we were originally going to stay. We had to look the part of the high class travelers we are :) We were picked up in a nice car and given a private morning tour with Daniel, an Italian man who immigrated from Italy as a child, all over the city with as many photo stops as we wanted. I will include photos on the blog when we get to Cairns. We then were dropped off at the harbour for a luncheon cruise on a sailing ship that included an amazing seafood buffett and tea & cakes for dessert which we took on the deck under the beautiful sun and sails. It was amazing. The city/harbor is really beautiful. We then disembarked at the bridge and began our climb to the top, after an hour of suiting up. It really wasn't as difficult as I feared and we made it to the top where we experienced an amazing view and sunset. We completed the climb down with our head lamps on. I think the scariest part was walking over the freeway and under the train on a narrow catwalk that shook with the passing of a train. I just looked ahead at Abie in front of me and not down! We met Emma, an English young woman who has agreed to exchange visits with Abie, her coming to CA and Abie going to England sometime in the future. Well, we are at the airport waiting for our flight to Cairns, the last destination on our trip. We are having a great time together and definately recommend a trip down under to you all.

Beautiful New Zealand

Well, we are leaving beautiful New Zealand... it has been great fun, very cold, and full of memorable moments... we learned there are no snakes or "nasty" creatures here (sorry Fife boys.. no pictures of snakes) and the people are so nice.

Moments captured in our minds...

There are just those great moments not captured on film but will imprint on our minds forever:
Such as when we sat down to dinner at the Chateau to eat pumpkin soup and Abie recognized one of the servers as a fellow soccer teammate on the Butte United team she and Melissa played for… Heather Evans!
Or the frozen country side at 8am as we drove on to our next destination, leaving The Chateau for Lake Taupo… white wonderland of frost!
Simply exhilarating moments on the river at the base of the Huka Falls in a Huka Jet boat… turning 360s that seemed to narrowly miss the cliffs, rocks, and branches. .. making even Shar scream!
A spontaneous performance by a young Scotsman playing his bag pipes on the bus back from the Maori Feast, getting everyone clapping.
Discovering Starbucks in downtown Rotorua a much needed taste of home because we have not taken well to the New Zealand strong and burnt tasting coffee.
Then there was the bus ride through the bush today, a retake of the ones I experienced in Uganda… narrow, bumpy, fast, scary, and comical thanks to Terry our great NZ bus driver.

Days 2 and 3

We have been hunting for internet use- not as common here as we thought it would be...
We can’t believe how many different adventures we have experienced in less than two days. A highlight we were looking forward to was the Black Water Tubing in the Waitomo Caves. Although the waters were VERY cold we grit our teeth and jumped right in. Hearing the roar of a waterfall ahead caused each of us a bit of anxiety knowing we had to jump off backwards with our tube and there was no going back!! I must say that mom did a tremendous job navigating through the black waters, which were in fact black. Most of the time underground we weren’t allowed to turn our lights on, but had to find our way over the rocky, uneven cave floor by looking up at the glowworms on the ceiling of the cave. Once we survived the exhilarating experience we enjoyed soup and bagels with our new found friends.

Our next stop took us to the Newman Stud farm just miles away in “The Shire” (literally where it was filmed). To our delight the granddaughters were visiting, Alexandra, 2 & Georgia, 4. It was so fun to hear them speaking with their accents and listening to them talk about their dollies Hazel and Hannah. I was able to help them eat their super, so that they could have ice cream!!! Our hostess, Jean, constantly served us tea, buns, biscuits, and a wonderful lamb dinner; everything was home grown, including the lamb. In the morning we enjoyed a tour of the farm on the back of a four wheeler with Farmer Philip. He is a world renowned race horse breeder. He told us many stories of his travels to different countries selling his horses; including staying in the palace of a Sheik of Dubai. We loved being surrounded by the young foals that followed us throughout the pastures.

We finally arrived tonight at the foot of Mt. Ruapehu at the Chateau Tongariro, a beautiful lodge that looks like a manor. We took a hike through heather covered hillsides and forested creek side pathways. A spectacular sunset turned the hillsides red!! Tonight we dine in elegant splendor and take tea by fireside.

Every day is a surprise because we know what the next destination is, but not how to get there or what it will be like!!!

The "Lost" Day

We have arrived! Abie was happy her fears were unfounded because no sickness and she slept most of the trip. I enjoyed 3 movies and slept a little. The funniest thing was we sat in seats surrounded by a New Zealand futbol team traveling home. They played in the World Cup for under 21s. The head coach had Abie pretend to know one of the other coaches and say hello Jonathan! He was puzzeled and eventually all had a good laugh. It definately is winter here! In fact the headlines told the story of our lost day! Hurricane winds and flooding preceded us, unfortunately canceling our sailing plans. But no worries we wandered around Auckland both by foot and by car. I must say Abie "owns" the wrong side of the road! She has been our driver so far, since 21 years old was the limit for drivers. Yes! I navigated and every streeet seems to automatically change names every few blocks...so, it has been a challenge to stay on the right street. The city is small and not too much traffic so we did fine. It doesn't seem to be a problem here to eat a little less because we keep searching for just the right atmosphere and special foods and keep looking, and looking, and are still looking. We did eat fish and chips at Polminos, a cute restuarant on the harbour, including a New Zealand white wine we shared. Now we will head out to the south looking for tea and scones as we head to our underground spelunking adventure and farm stay. We would love to hear from you all. Shar and Abie