What have we been up to?

Hi Readers!

It's been a long time. We have been pretty busy and I'm finally taking the time to try and catch up on our blog. Last we left off, we had gone to Cairns and Ayers Rock with our friends. That was back in March and it's already June! What have we been doing since?

At end of March, we went on a surf weekend with work. Finally, David was going to learn how to surf and he loved it! Ever since then, he's been trying to go almost every weekend. I've only gone with him once because it was autumn and now winter. He refused to go with me over the summer, so I refuse to go over the colder months. Luckily, he's still able to find some other friends to go with him. Here he is with Matt before they went out.


Sometime in early May, we decided to check out Olympic Park, which is pretty far from the city. Lily, David and I made the trek out there from Manly. We decided to rent bikes to check out the park.

We ended up at this strange construction in the middle of the park. You can walk around the ring that's elevated from the ground. It was built for the olympics, but has no real purpose. It's over a lake and had some information about the history of brickies in the area.


We decided to pay money to enter the aquatic center even though we weren't dressed to go swimming. There were lots of families in the center because of this fun kids area! What Olympic sport involves slides and kiddie pools?


This looks more like the aquatic sports that I remember at the Olympics.


Here are the diving boards in the center and no one in the stands except for us.


The big adventure of our day was the fact that we rented a tandem bike! At first, we tried having David lead the bike and be the person in front, but it ended in a couple of disasters. At one point, David ended up sprawled in the middle of the road. So, we changed it up and had me become the leader and obviously it worked out perfectly.


We didn't mean to match, but this is what I would use to prove that we're ready for Amazing Race.


After we returned our bikes, we wandered around the souvenier shop and I found this cute set of animals that were barbequing.


In the middle of May, we also made a trip home, which was much needed. We stopped in San Francisco for 2 days to spend time with Sophia/Eddie and Elaine/Jim. We also looked at some houses to get an idea of what we could buy when we move out there. We learned that our money won't get us too much, but we determined that we'll rent out Sophia and Eddie's extra bedroom for the first couple of months while we keep looking! I can't wait to hang out with them all the time instead of only for mini reunions!

After San Francisco, we made it to Boston and saw Steph and Robin before spending some quality time with our family and other Boston friends. It was great being able to see everyone especially Cindy and Sarah who we hadn't seen since they last visited!

My last couple of days on the East Coast were spent with Anita looking at wedding dresses before heading back to Australia.

After we got back, we spent a weekend in Bondi so that we could attend a pirate party. As I've mentioned before, the Australians love theme parties as well as dressing up. Here's a photo of two of the best dressed as well as my only photo from the party. Anton makes a pretty good creepy pirate while Andrew looks like a cross between George Washington and pirate (if you could see his whole outfit).


After this weekend, I ended up getting pretty sick and it was the weekend before we went to Fraser Island. I tried to get healthy quickly, but I wasn't 100% when we left.

Next up, our trip to Fraser Island. We spent 3 days on the island and 1 day in Brisbane. It was extremely fun and can't wait to show you photos. Hopefully, I'll show you photos within this week!

Our final leg - Ayers Rock

Sorry for the delay! It's been busy since our visitors have left. In Cairns, we parted ways from Adam and Brandon who went back to the US. The rest of the crew caught a flight to Ayers Rock. We went from luscious green lands of Queensland and landed in an alien part of the country. The ground was mostly red, very flat and little vegetation. We had landed in the Northern Territory.

After renting our super van, we drove immediately to the Olgas, which is a rock formation near Ayers Rock. Here we are approaching the Olgas.


Before we went, we were warned of the number of flies in this part of the country. We ended up having to constantly wear these fly nets on our head.


Eddie braved without his net, but look at the number of flies are on his and Jim's back. Gross! Even if you moved around, they would instantly come back and land on you again.


Here we are at the beginning of our hike. We were excited that it was cloudy otherwise it would have been steaming hot.


Along th trail, there were some pretty cool views of the surrounding rocks and land.


Finally, we reached a halfway point in the hike where we were in valley.


The only problem with the hike was that we started around 11 AM. We didn't have too much water or food, but started on a long hike. We rationed out Kit Kats when we were all finally starving. After the hike, we drove to the Sunset viewing spot for the Olgas. Since the weather had cleared out, it was amazing to see the Olgas after we had hiked through it.


We checked into our hotel, which was the cheapest place in the whole "resort" area. After finally feeding our stomaches with lunch, we decided to go to the grocery store to stock up on food. We ended up deciding that we'd eat some ramen for dinner to save some money. Look at all the ramen!


We finally went to Ayers Rock for sunset. This rock is HUGE.

As the sun was slowly going down, we ended up taking many different photos in front of the rock. This was our girls only photo, lifting Elaine up.


This was the guys only photo.


The rock changed colors as the sun went down and we got together to take a normal group photo.


While we watched the sunset, we feasted on some cheese and crackers with little saucer cups of wine. We didn't have any real cups so we had to improvise with whatever we could find at our "hotel".

After the sun had gone down, we drove back to the hotel and played many rounds of dominos until late in the evening. Then we had to get up at the crack of dawn to go watch sunrise at Ayers Rock. When we arrived at the viewing area, the moon was still visible.


The viewing areas allow you to see the rock change colors as the sun goes up or down. Therefore if you turn around from the rock, there are usually some impressive sky photos.


The sunrise was not as exciting as the sunset, but we were now at the rock. We went to the Cultural Centre to learn more about the history of Ayers Rock before walking a bit around the base of the rock. Here was a rock formation near a watering hole that looked like a heart.


We hadn't seen too many creatures in the wild at Ayers Rock until the last hour we were there. As we walked back to the car, we were able to see this lizard on a rock.


This is a photo of the crazy big ant we saw. Eddie was brave enough to stick out his foot to get the money shot.


We decided to drive around the whole rock and found this dingo on the side of the road. Dingos are famous for being rabid and stealing babies and eating them. We were fascinated by him, but ended up leaving him on the side of the road.


Finally, it was the end of our vacation with our friends. We went to the airport to fly back to Sydney. Thanks so much for visiting. It was awesome!

Last weekend, I went to Melbourne for the long weekend to spend some time with David. I forgot to bring the camera, but we had a pretty good weekend. We explored the city some more as well as rented a car to drive to the Macedon Ranges. It's considered spa country because of the number of spas in the area. The spas were all opened due to the mineral springs in the area. First, we went to Hanging Rock, which is a volcanic rock formation and walked around there. Then we visited a small winery before we went to the town. It had been raining on and off all day, but we decided to take a short hike to one of the springs. The spring ended up being completely disappointing. It was just a well with a pump that allowed you to taste the metallic water. On our way back, it started downpouring on us, BUT the only highlight was that we got to see a live echidna! After we got drenched, we went to the spa for our treatments before we finally drove back to Melbourne.

On Sunday, we went to the outlet malls and then to a footy match. Apparently, footy in Victoria means Aussie Rules Football, but footy in Sydney means Rugby. We got to cheer on the Sydney team before it ended up in a DRAW! Yes, that's right, they have draws in their games. It made the end of the game very exciting since Sydney came back to almost win, but in the end all of the fans left slightly dejected. The best part of Sunday was that we had dinner at Nobu in the casino. The food was delicious.

Since I've been working with so many locals, I've decided to start posting about the interesting phrases that I learn at work. I learn at least 1 every 2-3 days. My very first one was "Script". Since Australians hate using long words, they've shortened the word Prescription to Script. It's used like "I'm going to go pick up a script" and even the receipt has the word "script" printed on it!

Kuranda

After a short break from blogging, I realized that I left my readers (if they are still there) hanging. So without further ado, we continue on our holiday! After the diving trip, we decided to sleep in and figure out what to do the next day after we got up.

Last minute, we decided to take the skyrail to Kuranda, which is a small town within a rainforest. Here we are climbing into our 6 person gondola.


As we climbed up to the mountain tops, there was an amazing view behind us. Doesn't this photo look fake? It was not photoshopped at all!!


Unfortunately, there side was not as exciting as ours. At least they were the ones who got to enjoy the great view behind us!


Elaine and Sophia were trying to get as close to the window as possible.


Along the way to Kuranda, the gondola has 2 stops that you can get out of. The first one, we got to walk around and learn about the rainforest. We found a vine hanging out over the boardwalk, so we acted like monkeys. First, there was Eddie trying to swing around.


Elaine got some pretty good high onto the vine.


After learning about the rainforest, we went to the next station. David was leading the way for us.


The second station was the Barron Falls. Unfortunately, it was hard for us to take a photo with people and the massive falls.


There was a little information center where we studied about rainforest creatures and food.


Elaine used the microscope to observe the veins in leaves and other random objects.


After our sky ride, we reached Kuranda! The cassowary was here to welcome us.


After walking around the town in the heat, we found this fun mural and acted like little kids.


Eddie practiced his didgeridoo playing skills.


We finished exploring the town in time to catch the train back to the city!


Even though we had assigned seats, we all took turns squatting in the aisle and looking out the windows.


We got to see some more falls on the way back as well as all different views of the rainforest and eventually the coast line.


The most irritating part of the trip was the girl who had a window seat and slept for the entire trip. GRRR!!!


Since it was our last night in Cairns, we decided to go all out and had a fancy dinner. We sampled kangaroo as well as emu. Everyone seemed to enjoy both meats and wished they had been more experimental earlier in the trip!

The next stop in our journey was Ayers Rock.

Overnight Dive Trip!

The next morning, we took a small boat to our overnight dive boat. After a short briefing of the boat and lunch, we were then off in the water on our first dive. It was pretty amazing the different things we got to see and also touch. We touched different sea cucumbers and the inside of large clams. Our first dive was a little bit scary since I was getting close to running out of air! I indicated to our guide that I was low and at the time, it seemed as if we weren't getting ready to go up. I was a bit worried, but ended up being okay.

Sophia and I are on our dive deck after our first dive!


Our gear was all lined up next to each other.


After we got out of the water and dried off a bit, the boat would move to a new location before we would dive again. Eddie's ready to go out again!


Our 2nd dive of the day, the group of us volunteered to be videotaped by a guy. It was great because we got a free guide and later in the evening, we got to see us in the water touching things. We ended up buying a copy of the DVD and I can't wait to see it!

After the 2nd dive, we had dinner and then had to get ready for our night dive! David, Adam, Brandon and I had signed up for an adventure diver course. This meant we had an instructor us showing us around for 3 of the 6 dives we were going to be going on. The first class was for the night dive.

David and I are helping each other get ready.


After all the gear is on, don't forget your buddy check!


We're all ready to go!


Adam and Brandon are ready to jump in!


The night dive was one of the scariest things I have ever done in my life. While we were going down, I was super nervous. As we swam around the ocean, it was hard to look around for signs of any creatures. We did see a crustacean and lots of red bass, who use our flashlights to hunt for other fish.

After going to bed early, we were woken up at 5:30 am for a 6:00 am dive. We went off with our class again and did a deep dive. We dove to 28 m! It was crazy deep, but very interesting. Afterwards, our instructor showed us around the best dive site of the trip. There were coral and fish everywhere! We also swam through a small swim through in between the coral.

After our deep dive, we had breakfast and then it was time to get ready for the next dive already. This time, our class was to learn how to navigate underwater. We were sent off in our buddy pairs to do some manuevers underwater before exploring the site alone. The goal was to explore and then surface near the boat. David and I ended up doing pretty fine even though we didn't go where we expected. At least, we made it by the boat!

As we were hanging out with Sophia and Eddie, we realized that Adam and Brandon still hadn't returned. All of a sudden, we heard the signal for any divers to surface in case of emergency. We went to check it out and of course, Chaos were missing. That means the boat was looking for Chaos. They eventually surfaced 100 m away from the boat and had to be brought back through a dingy. The only reason they surfaced was because they were low on air. They were so far away that they didn't hear the signals! Obviously, they had failed the navigation part of our class, but were still considered as passing.

For our last dive of our trip, David and I finally got to dive with Sophia and Eddie! Eddie was our psuedo guide. I was very impressed with his navigation skills. We finished exploring our last reef and were able to spend the rest of the afternoon lounging on the deck.




I definitely want to go back to the Great Barrier Reef again! Hopefully we'll go again before we leave!

After we returned from the dive, we had to spend a day in Cairns before flying. Our day of relaxation/rainforest is next...