Day 127 The Family's Arrival

The family is here and well!  They arrived looking tired but excited!

We spent the afternoon driving around Sydney looking for our hostel. Once we found it, I took them for a walk to Darling Harbor.  I don't have many pictures as everyone was more hungry than anything so we went to the Hard Rock Cafe for some food.

Nick and Ally decided to climb this jungle gym looking thing after lunch.  The rest of my family went to bed, they did pretty well considering all the jet lag and such.  Nick made it later than the rest of them and that was only till 6 pm.  Ally and I hit the bars of Sydney and had a wonderful night out while the rest of them slept.  Tomorrow we were headed for the Blue Mountains

Day 123-124 Gold Coast part 2

First of all, I would like to apologize for not being able to keep up the blog.  I have been running around with my family all over the place.  I'm doing my best to keep it updated but it gets difficult when you're traveling every other day with limited access to internet.  So sorry about that

This lookout overlooks the stretch of beach that goes all the way to Surfer's Paradise and Southport, the two larger resort towns. 

My beautiful girl with Coolangatta in the backround.

From this view we could tell how shallow it was and how nice the waves were for surfing. I really want to try surfing back home and I want to try paddle boarding again. 

A statue of the Sea Eagle overlooking the ocean.  The second largest bird of prey in Australia, this guy has an eight foot wingspan.

We went swimming and enjoyed the sun for the next two days.  It really was an enjoyable 3 days in the Gold Coast. 

Ally catching a wave!

Day 122 Gold Coast Day 1

Ally and I decided to get up to some warm weather and leave the rain before she had to go home so we went to the Gold Coast for a bit. It was there we saw miles and miles of beautiful coastal beachline.

Ally checking out the Rocks and enjoying the sun.

We took a walk to a lookout on a pennisula.  This is the resort/town of Coolangatta from the lookout.

On the other side was rainbow beach which was supposed to have super clear water.  Maybe it was because the sun was not hitting it in the proper light but the water didn't appear to be that clear.  It was blue however.

Here is another view of Rainbow beach rom the natural rock formation that shielded it from the ocean.

Perhaps my favorite part of the day, we sat and watched the waves crash into the rocks at another point along the shore.  It was awesome seeing the power of the waves and the explosion of water against earth.  Really impressive.

As you can see the waves would cover the entire rock walkway with foaming white water.

This is the lookout from Point Danger...Don't know why it's called that but it doesn't sound like a good place for sea faring ships.

Apparently, Australia has its own verison of a turkey! Wwwwwwwwhhhaaaaaaatttttt?????????

Ally and I got to stand in two states at once.  New South Wales and Queensland.  I am making a thumbs up for NSW because that's where I stayed and I want them to win the State of Origin Series.  IT's basically their verison of a Rugby Superbowl haha. 

Day 114-115, Willis Island and Cruising

The next two days were spent cruising around the Pacific and seeing some islands out in the middle of the ocean. This specific one was called Willis Island which had a weather station built on it. Three people live there at a time at all points of the year.

That's how you tan people.  Khaki shorts, flip flops, shirt over the face with sunglasses. Take notes people!

They had a champagne waterfall for all the passengers for us.  We participated in getting our free champagne! Apparently, this is a custom that almost every British ship partakes in.

This is was on the trip home in the air as we flew from Brisbane to Sydney.  It was a peaceful flight and truly enjoyable.  Unfortunately, we had to wait for the train for an hour.

Ally enjoying some sun. She knows how to tan as well!  Ladies, you tan in a sundress. It's a good way to avoid sun poisoning and skin cancer! hahahaha

Day 113, Port Douglas Croc Cruise

This area is known for its abundance of sugar cane. This was our view on our way to see the crocodiles. Apparently on 9/11, Bill and Hilary Clinton were staying in Port Douglas. They had private helicopters come get them and fly them back to the states.

On our way to the crocodile cruise we stopped at a place for tea and coffee. The woman told us not to go down by the river, so of course Ally wanted to venture down.

Daintree River: Where all the crocs live

Baby croc swimming near the boat.  He had wandered away from his mother and was out to make a life for his own.

Here is a big guy over 10 feet in length!  Patrolling the banks.

This parrot looks fake, I'll admit it.  But I tell you the truth, this is a real parrot, a young girl showing off her beautiful colors to the patrons of the zoo.

After the croc cruise we ate lunch with some birds at this nature habitat zoo thingy.

Ally got to see her Koalas eating their gum trees. I wasn't able to find her one in the wild (sad face) so I got her the next closest thing.

They had some really friendly parrots.  They were so tame, this guy hopped on my arm without a moment's hesitation. He was a yellow-tailed cockatoo

Ally got to feed some kangaroos. Well this is actually a red bush wallaby but the place we went also had around 10 different species of kangaroo and wallaby.  It was a giant petting zoo, if you blow up this picture you can see the wallaby grabbing ally's hand. He was probably saying "you're not sharing this food with any other wallaby!"

This was perhaps the cutest scene of the day.  A tiny wallaby with her tiny wallaby joey.  I think we scared him as he went inside the pouch.  It was a good day at Port Douglas!

Day 112, Cairns and Snorkeling

We arrived in Cairns the next day.  Just a picture of the harbor  and the non-city area of Cairns.

This is mean on our smaller sea vessel that took us out to the great barrier reef.  I wouldn't leave that spot for the whole boat ride there and back because honestly I don't do well with motion sickness.  That spot was home.  And I didn't get sea sick from that spot!

This is where we first spotted the reef, it seemed to come out of nowhere but there is was.

This was the first snorkeling location we went to and those brown spots are the coral.  We went to two different sights and the second one was better than the first one.  We saw more big fish at the second sight and a couple of giant sea clams.  There were hundreds upon hundreds of fish.  I don't have a digital underwater camera so any pictures of the reef will have to wait.  Sorry about that.  It really was a cool experience though seeing all the coral and stuff though. I can't really describe it because there was so much to see.

We spent a total of seven hours I think going to and from the port of Cairns to the great barrier reef.  We got to see a beautiful sunset on our way back in from a day of snorkeling.  We had a total of 3 hours snorkeling just about with lunch included so it was a good day.

This is my favorite picture of the day that was not underwater.  The purple water with the port in the background as a silhouette and the sunset in the background.  It was beautiful.

Day 111, The Whitsundays: Airlie Beach and Shute Harbor

The third day of the cruise when we arrived at our first port of call: Airlie Beach, we watched the moon set behind the coastal mountains.  It was quite beautiful.

This was a private residence that had their own boardwalk that overlooked the ocean.  Lucky lucky rich folks.  We pretended not to see the sign and followed along it for a little ways to check out the view.

Apparently Australia is the land of giant bugs.  That, my friends, is a grasshopper that is a third of the size of my foot.

Ally and I decided to go kayaking in this area and check out Shute Harbor which was three different islands.  This is a magnificent selfie that Ally took while I labored in the back of the kayak paddling for both of us haha.

This was the first beach we stopped at on an island, it was a rocky. It was also the first island we stopped at.

Found this little guy chilling by the forest.  Apparently, this spider is one of the most common in Australia.

We don't know if this is coral or a flower thingy or what but we thought it was pretty cool so we snapped a photo of it.

This is a sea sponge coral thing that looks like a brain.  Ally found it, she is so good at finding things.

This is the second island and it was ok, not the greatest beach in the world but the water was clear.  We had a good view of the mainland.

We never landed on the third island, we kayaked by it.  Good thing we did because we found this beautiful beach on the mainland about 15 minutes away from where we disembarked.  The sand was white, soft, and the water was clear and warm.

There were coconuts on the trees.  Here is all three phases. The outer shell, the inner shell, and then coconut.  Too bad I hate coconuts haha.  This one smelled rotten too. Cracking it open was fun however.

Ally enjoying the water.

The kayak resting onshore.  This was the nicest beach I have been to if I do say so myself.

After kayaking we went to the main part of town and they had a lagoon for people to enjoy swimming in.  It overlooked the airlie beach harbor and was right next to the town.

Here is a picture of our cruise ship docked at sea.  It was a wonderfl day spent at the Whitsundays.