Day 13 - Queenstown, New Zealand

Happy New Year!!!  We will be ringing in 2010 in less than 7 hours!  We will be the first ones in the world to ring it in!  They have a huge party on the village green here in Queenstown, with food, drinks and fireworks! 

Today was a light day so far.  I had planned to skydive with NZ Skydive this morning, got up at 8:30 for a 9:30 jump, travelled an hour out on Gorge road to the small skydive field.  I was one person behind when they cancelled the jumps for the day!!!  One girl actually went up and they brought her back down!  UGH.  Funny, the same people that we climbed the glacier with, were on my skydive coach!  Small world here in NZ.  The cloud base was just too low today to jump, the plane was only able to get to 7000 feet and we were jumping at 12000 feet today.  They can't drop you above the clouds, obviously, as they need to see where they are dropping you so that you don't land on the Remarkables mountain chain or in the lake!  I was so ready, had my suit and my gear all on....such a disappointment!  It has been rather cloudy here, so doing it tomorrow will probably not happen either.  Too bad, it could have been a check off that bucket list!  (no need for comments from the peanut gallery here...MOM, xoxo)

Once I returned to the hotel, I met Jeff for lunch.  The whole town is booked up - spas, restaurants, activities, etc.  We tried to get into the spa, but it was full, so we are taking a 10 minute drive out to Arthur's Pass to visit Onsen Hot Pools.  The pools are housed in private cedar-lined bathing rooms, each complete with shower, changing area, and mountain views. A unique feature of Onsen Hot Pools are the retractable picture windows: you can convert your pool room from indoor to outdoor and back again at the touch of a button!  We are pretty excited about this, as it's been rather cold here today, probably in the mid 50's and windy! 

Tonight we will probably just grab some food from a vendor and take part in the bar hopping and fireworks!  It will be cool to ring this in 19 hour ahead of the US!!!

Have a great New Years Eve!  It's been a great 2009, let's make 2010 even better!  We have so many things to look forward to (Jax Brown in Feb 2010)!!!

XOXO

J&J

Day 12 - Queenstown, New Zealand

It was rainy for the first half of the day today.  So we walked the town and looked at the shops, then switched gears and headed out to Gibbston Valley, which is New Zealan's leading wine region.  This region is famous for its Pinot Noir and has an underground wine cave.  The wine cave is lined with barrels of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay still reaching their prime.

With a constant humidity and temperature around 14 degrees Celcius the cave provides a perfect haven for the maturing of these wines as well as providing a unique atmosphere for wine tasting!  This was definitely a cool experience.  After we tasted the wines, we headed over to the "cheesey shop."  We had the shop put together a cheese board for us, 3 cheeses, cherries, pesto sauce, apricots, etc.  It was so fun, I loved it.

On our drive back, we stopped to watch people jumping at AJ Hacket Bungy. This is the famous bungy spot, where it all happened!  The world's first bungy, which is probably why they call Queenstown the adventure spot of the world. 

We finished the night with a great dinner at Seafood Boardwalk, which overlooks Lake Wakatipu and Queenstown Bay.  Dinner was great and we walked the bar area afterwards.  There is an ice bar here called 5 degrees.  It is literally made out of ice!  They give you parkas and warm gloves/socks before you go in!  We didn't do it, but there are windows that you look through at the pub that sits next to it.  VERY COOL, definitely something you would see on the Travel Channel!

Sorry for the late blog, I was just too tired to post last night.

Till the next,
Jenn

Day 11 - Fox Glacier, South Westland New Zealand

Today we conquered Fox Glacier!  It is a great feeling of achievement, especially because it was NOT EASY!!!  This was definitely a work out!  The weather was very nice at the base; however, it changed to mist and cold once we got to ice.  Crazy how it went from the mid 80s to under 60 in less than an hour!  We literally were sweating from our hike up through the rainforest, wearing a tank top and shorts.  When we got to the Glacier, it was 3 layers of fleece, hats, and gloves.  In all, the hike was 4 hours. 

90 minutes of our hike was going up over 700 steps through the rainforest.  This was definitely the hardest part of the day, but so rewarding once we made it out onto the ice.  The Glacier was magnificent, I cannot even describe this experience.  Hiking on a HUGE Glacier, bigger than Christchurch!  You know us, it's all about the experiences.  We could not have passed up this opportunity to climb one of the most magnificent glaciers in the world!  (the other one closest in size is located in Franz Joseph, just up the road from here and in Patagonia Argentina)

It took us rougly 5 hours driving to get South to Queenstown, we are dead tired.  The drive was beautiful, passing through small towns every hour or so.  The land is untouched here, literally you could drive hours before seeing another human being.  There are no large conglomerate hotels, restaurants, ect.  You are mostly passing backpacking camps and scenic rest stops. 

The best part of the drive was the 2nd half, winding through the Young Range of the Southern Alps, which had two BEAUTIFUL clear blue lakes - Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea.  They are HUGE, you could mistake them for the ocean if you didn't know better.  The Southern Alps run right up agains the creek beds, making it a picturesque sight.  It almost looks fake. 

We checked into the Sofitel around 10PM tonight and plan to have a nice, long rest before our day starts tomorrow.  The hotel is just beautiful, wait till you see the views from our room.  Check picasa tomorrow. 

We don't have much planned, just dinner reservations, so we will have plenty of time to explore and see what Queenstown has to offer.  So far, so good.  Queenstown looks like a cool place, reminds us of Aspen or Vail Colorado. 

 

Good night my loyal readers...he he he.

Jenn

Day 10 - Fox Glacier, South Westland New Zealand

Hi there - So we were able to get internet, so I could blog about our facinating day today!  Everything "they" say about New Zealand is true - it is an absolutely beautiful country.  We have seen things today that looked like paintings caught in a postcard, Mother Nature at it's best. 

We caught the TransAlpine Train this morning at 8:15.  The TranzAlpine scenic train journey travels between Christchurch and Greymouth, from one coast of New Zealand's South island to the other. From our carriage, we saw the Canterbury Plains and farmland, followed by the spectacular gorges and river valleys of the Waimakariri River. We than ventured into the Southern Alps before descending through lush beech rain forest to the West Coast town of Greymouth.  The ride was roughly 4.5 hours long.  There are 19 tunnels, and 4 viaducts, the highest being the Staircase standing at 73 metres.


The most famous stop was Arthur's Pass.  Arthur's Pass is the highest pass over the Southern Alps. Long before surveyor Arthur Dudley Dobson found his way over the pass in 1864, it was known to Maori hunting parties as a route between east and west.  When Arthur first encounted the Otira Gourge, the pass was impassable - he had to leave his horse at the top and lower his dog on a rope!!!  The eastern side of Arthur's Pass National Park is characterised by wide, shingle-filled riverbeds and vast beech forests. The western side of the park, where wet weather is more common than dry, has deeply gorged rivers flowing through dense rainforest. Down the middle of 'the great divide' is an alpine dreamland of snow-covered peaks, glaciers and scree slopes.

The TranzAlpine is an ideal journey, we had a tabled group seating, which allowed us to visit with the other tourits.  And coincidentally, guess who we sat across from.....Mr. and Mrs. GILES from London!!!!  Can you believe that??  They were equally suprised by this unlikely meeting.  They were the cutest couple, both 85 years old, doing their "last life journey" together.  They had just celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary and told us so many great stories of times gone by.  From stories about their time living in Cyprus and Singafore with the English Air Force to Mr Giles (Ted) time fighting in WW2, their stories were quite amazing.  They were such a lovely couple.  To make the coincedence even more strange, they also lived in a small village outside of London called Chalfont St Giles!!!  Yes, they live in a village named after the Giles family!  The other villagers call her the Lady of Giles.  Very, very sweet people.  We told them that we plan to visit and have tea with them someday soon.  It was such an experience to see such a wonderful couple, 85 years old and married 60 years enjoying their Holiday.  It was very inspiring and definitely put life into perspective.  They were just as happy to hear our future travel plans, as we were to hear theirs.  They told us to enjoy our long life journey together, as it all comes to an end so fast.  We really loved meeting them. 

Once we departed the train, we bid Ted and Joyce farewell, and headed on our way south to Fox Glacier.  The ride was roughly 2.5 hours through the winding roads of the Southern Alps.  The towns here are so small that if you blink, you will miss them. 

We finally made it to Fox Glacier, which has 5 restaurants and 10 logdges/hotels/B&B's.  We are staying at Te Weheka, which is a small B&B/Lodge.  Each room is named after someone who was important to Te Weheka.  Our room, room 109, was named after Mary Kerr, who was the daughter of the original owners.  This lodge started as a hostel before turning into a hotel some years back.  Mary Kerr was very hands on, she was the cook, the maid, and the hostess to hundreds of visitors over her 37 years of ownership.  She had an unfortunate accident that took her life early, but she left behind a spirit of hospitality that helped to build  Fox Glacier and the entire West Coast tourism industry.  In fact, in 1986 she received the regional award for her contributions.  Her neice said, "Her passing brings to an end a spirit of hospitality founded not so much on the making of money as on a way of life."  Too bad we never go to meet her, she built and kept a beautiful lodge.

Like I said above, Fox Glacier is a tiny town.  You can literally walk it in under 5 minutes....yes, Jean, it is smaller than Eagle!!!  Can you believe that?!  =)

We grabbed a snack at the Cook Saddle Cafe and Saloon - such a cool place, check out the pics on picasa.  Before heading out to Queenstown tomorrow, we will be hiking the Glaciers here.  We couldn't resist the opportunity to take advantage of this once in a lifetime experience.  We signed up for the half day fox trot tomorrow.  We were contemplating the Flying Fox, but since this is via helicopter, it can be cancelled at any minute due to weather conditions.  Since we are so limited in time we didn't want to risk this.

The Fox Trot is a great eco-adventure and full of variety and interest. We will be fitted with leather boots and other equipment, before boarding one of the buses for the short drive through the rainforest and into the glacial valley. Our guide will then lead us on a walk beside the river bed to a track through ferns and regenerating temperate rainforest. From the high track we will see the views of the glacier and its upper and lower icefalls, which we will then track down the edges of the ice. At this point we will be outfitted with instep crampons specially designed for these ice conditions.  This route will take us onto the ice and ice ridges that will lead us into the middle of the glacier for spectacular views of the icefall and lower glacier.
We will spend at least one hour on the ice and, depending on glacial conditions, we will return to the bus using the same track.

As you can tell, we are VERY excited for this!  We were laughing about how funny this trip has been.  We started off in Cairns, a laid back beach town (90 degrees and 95% humidity), then to Sydney, a large city with varying temeratures (the first days were 85 and 45% humidy, while the last 2 days were 65 degrees), we are now in New Zealand, a country inspired by the environment, VERY eco-friendly and extremely interested in adventure.  They even have recycling bins along all their city streets!  We went from beach to ice glacier hiking...how interesting is that?

We are off to dinner here in a few minutes, http://www.lakematheson.com/. We are travelling a short distance by car to dine at Matheson Cafe on Lake Matheson.  The views are supposed to be spectacular!

Till tomorrow.  It will be a late blog, if any, we will not arrive in Queenstown till around 9PM New Zealand time.

Cheerio.
J&J

Day 9 - Christchurch, New Zealand, South Island

We are currently sitting in our room in Christchurch (CC) drinking some fabulous Australian Shiraz and talking about our trip. We had a long day today, getting up at 6:45AM Sydney time to catch a 3 hour flight over to New Zealand.  CC is 2 hours ahead of Sydney, so by the time we landed it as 3PM CC time.  We think it's pretty cool that we will be the first ones to celebrate New Years in THE WORLD!!!  We are now 19 hours ahead of the US.

Our time in CC is limited, so we tried to make the best of our one night here.  As soon as we landed, we got changed and started to explore.  Christchurch is recognized as New Zealand's Garden City and boasts 740 parks, including 13 major metropilotan parks covering 7500 acres.  Currently, CC is in bloom with beautiful roses everywhere!  This was originally a British colony, founded in 1850. 

CC is most known for it's beautiful Botanic Gardens, we obviously loved walking through these.  The Botanic Gardens are over 120 years old now and considered to be one of the finest collections of exotic and indegenous plants to be found anywhere in New Zealand. 

The Botanic Gardens, while beautiful, are not the only well known area of CC.  CC is also known for its expansive number of privately owned art gllaeries. 

The architecture here is also superb.  It reminds us a lot of Temple Bar in Dublin, Ireland.  The cobblestone streets with new and old buildings give the city a lot of character.  You will see on Picasa there are brand new 21st century buildings among older 18th centruy sandstones.  Among these older buildings, is the CC cathedral, which is a beautiful building.  We sat here tonight watching the choir practice for their New Years Eve mass. 

We've enjoyed our short stay in CC.  We are getting up early again tomorrow to catch the TransAlpine to Grey Mouth.  This is the Train that takes you up through the central part of the South Island.  We will stop in Grey Mouth, which is the center of the NZ Glaciers, where we will rent a car and explore the region.  We are staying in a local lodge at the base of Fox Glacier, so I'm not sure we will have internet access, so no worries if you don't hear from me for a few days...

Cheers.
Jenn

Day 8 - Sydney

Today as a great day.  We woke up early to get ready for our tour of the Hunter Valley.  The Hunter Valley is a world class wine region, just about 75 miles north of Sydney, known for their Semillon and Shiraz.  It is the 7th largest grape producing region in the world and houses over 105 vineyards!  Hunt was founded in the 1820s and started with a measly 400 vines! 

We left the hotel and we traveled through the historic Rocks area, where we learned that it took 21 years to break through the rocks to build housing for the soldiers/convicts that arrived from England.  This is amazing, check out the photos of the Rock on Picassa. 

We then crossed through the Rocks and went over the magnificent Sydney Harbour Bridge.  Our tour guide, Les, told us a charming story about how his grandfather was a larborer for the bridge over 50 years ago.  He had 7 children, which meant he had a lot of mouths to feed.  He had to take work when it was available, no matter what the challenge.  Unfortunately, for his grandfather, he was deadly afraid of heights and when he raised his hand for work, it was for the upcoming Harbour Bridge.  At th time, he had no idea that he would be elevated hundreds of feet in the air!  At the time, there were no assembly line or cranes, so they literally pitched/threw the hot rickets to each other (trying to catch them in the buckets) while wearing hot pads.  Obviously, many men missed, which is funny because they say it took 6 million rickets to build the bridget, but there are over 10,000 on the bottom of the sea!

We winded our way through the Northern Suburbs and then drove through the sandstone outcropes of Ku-rin-gai National Park, where we met the Hawkesbury river.  We stopped for morning tea at the top of the historic township of Wollombi.  From here we descended down into the Hunter Valley where we began our wine tasting.  We started out at Peppers, which was fantastic.  The views and the winery itself where classic Australia, and they had deep, rich Shiraz, which we loved.

From Peppers, we made our way to the Hunter Valley Inn, where we had a great Italian/Family style lunch.  Each course had a matching wine pair, which made it fun!  We munched on Bruchetta, Smoked Trout Salad, Penne Pasta, Caesar Salad, and Beef Asian Salad before we left for the next winery.

The next winery was much more modern than Peppers.  We enjoyed the Semillon very much here, which was a white and dry.

The last winery on our list was Broken Wood Winery.  While this wasn't the most scenic atmosphere, the wines and the staff made our experience here really fun! 

Our last stop before heading out of Hunter was a quick stop at the "Smelly Cheese Shop."  Jeff was in heaven - he had more blue cheese in front of him than he knew what to do with!  I must say, not being a big conisseour of blue cheese myself, that it was DELICOUS!  We also visited the Chocolate store next by to check out the Truffles...don't worry Candace, they still got nothing on you! 

After a long day, we started our trek back through the valley to Sydney.  It was a great day and our tour guide, Les, was amazing.  He not only shared knowledge of the region with us, but kept us entertained with funny family stories, as well as information on his love of opal mining and wildlife photography.  He is a wonderfly gifted individual and definitely has passion for his job.  He is visiting the States in May, we may try to catch up with him if he makes it to Chicago.  For anyone thinking about going to Australia, we highly recommend him..hey, he's a facebook friend of mine now!! LOL

Les He gave us a lot of history on the Aboriginals, which were the first native decendants of Australia.  (think American Indians).  They are amazing people, finding ways to live in the hot and dry Australian heat and bush.  Believe it or not, it was the Americans that really started the first colinization of Australia!  In 1784 the Americans denied the English and said no more convicts were allowed to enter American soil.  With no where else to take them James Cook was asked to find new land to imprison the English convicts.  After 8 months at sea, Cook found Australia and first landed in Sydney Harbor in 1788.  He had 1500 people on board, half were prisoners, the other half were soldiers and families that were asked to start this new world. 

The Aboriginals first thought that the English were ghosts and fled for the trees.  However, one small characteristic of James Cook made the introduction easier - his missing front tooth.  On the Aboriginals 18th birthday, they knock out their front teeth to claim manhood.  Coincidentally, Cook had his front tooth knocked out years before.  He was the only one of the Englishmen who had a missing tooth and therefore, the only one that the Aboriginals would talk/deal with.

Seven days after claiming land in Australia Captain Cook decided that he was not going to lock up the Criminals.  He told them that the Aboriginals really enjoyed English meat, so they stayed close and out of trouble, they did not want to risk running into an Aboriginal during those early years! 

The English had a lot to learn from the Aboriginals in order to survive.  For example, they dug up roots for protein and ate wild berries that gave them both energy and protected their skin from the sun.  The also used the spears of the lilies to fish.  Without the Aboriginals, the English would have not survived.  Many say this is is also true vice versa - the English gave the Aboriginals a way to breed and keep their culture alive. 

It was a very intesting day, with more history than I can even repeat here.  I highly recommend reading up about these people and the founding history of Australia, it is facinating.

We are off to Christchurch New Zealand very early tomorrow morning....contemplating bungy...New Zealand is the birthplace and capital of extreme sports.  We'll see if I chicken out....LOL.

XOXO

Day 7 - Sydney

Merry Christmas!

Today we relaxed at Manly Beach.  It's a quick ferry ride (30 minutes) North of Sydney.  You take the Sydney Ferry, which is a HUGE boat over to Manly.  This boat has 2 levels and holds hundreds of  people, it even has a cafe on it! 

Manly is a beautiful coastal city.  We took the scenic walk along the coast and it was fun to see everyone out celebrating Christmas with wine and elaborate picnics on the beach.  A lot of people had Santa hats and outfits on...very funny to see this in warm weather!!! 

The houses in Manly are really nice, each one is different and built into the hillside.  It reminded us of homes in West Hollywood, large, expensive houses built on top of each other!

The surf on the Western side of Manly is non-existent, but once you walk through town to the other side, there is a ton of vacationers surfing, swimming, and enjoying their Holiday.  We had  a quick lunch, as the weather was turning bad.  It's probably at least 15 degrees cooler here today and drizzling, so we headed back to the hotel to enjoy the hottub!

We are off to dinner now - we are just going to see what we find.  We may visit the Star City Casino tonight, we'll see...tomorrow should be fun, we are doing a wine tour of Hunter Valley's Blue Mountains.  We are hoping to find some good wine to send back! 

XOXO

Day 6 - Sydney

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas!!!!!  We love and miss all of you!  It's definitely different being in a warm climate for the Holidays, but it's nice to see the sun!

We were so tired last night we didn't post, so here it goes.  It was Christmas Eve here yesterday and we decided to spend it on the water.  After a few hours at the pool, we headed down to Circular Quay and jumped on thhe Captain Cook Harbour Express.  This is the ferry that allows you to hop on and off at the famous attractions around Sydney - Taronga Zoo, Watsons Bay, Circular Quay, Darling Harbour, Fort Denison, Shark Island, and Luna Park.

Since we had already visited a wildlife park, we skipped the zoo and headed straight for Watsons Bay.  This is the home of Doyle's famous seafood restaurant, which has been around since the early 1800s.  They just recently restored the front facade in the original architecture, so it felt like we were eating at an old seafood port. 

We met a really nice 23 year old from Boston who has been in Australia for 3 months now, travelling, working odd jobs, and just experiencing life.  He figured he should do this now while the job economy in the US tries to recover.  We thought that that was pretty cool.

Watson's Bay was really beautiful, we couldn't believe it was only a few minutes boat ride from this huge city - it felt like we were in a different country.  We ate lunch at Doyles Take Away and then sat on the boardwalk just watching time go by, it was really relaxing!

Luna Park was cool too - Syndey's fun park with rides and games!  Joseph would sure love this part of the trip! 

Finally we stopped at Darling Harbour and decided to get off and walk the rest of the way home.  We walked along the waterfront and got to Tumbalong Park, which is pretty much completely sponsored by McDonalds (notice the red and yellow) and has a huge playland for kids.  This area leads directly into Darling Walk, which is a beautiful man made water way that leads into the Chinese Gardens, which we obviously loved!!! 

From here we walked down Market Street and ventured in and out of the shopping district.  You wouldn't believe this are, HUGE shopping malls that are literally 5-7 levels deep/tall.  They also all blend into each other.  So at one point you will be in the Queen Victoria Building (like a Macy's) and then you will come out of the Galeries Victoria (another shopping centre)...CRAZY!!  I couldn't even shop this much!  Can you believe that?  Another weird thing about the shopping Centres is that they are organized by designer, not by the TYPE of clothing.  Since we hadn't heard of many of the designers here, we couldn't find anything!  We definitely looked like the tourists that drive us crazy in Chicago!  LOL.

Yesterday was a geat day, we love being on the water and taking in the sights.  We ate at a great restaurant - Wildfire last night.  It generally overlooks the harbour, but the "World" is in port.  The World is a travelling condimunium.  It looks like a cruise boat, which it is, but people actually own the cabins and live there year round (or rent them out).  CRAZY!!!! 

It's Christmas Day now and everything is pretty much still open.  We planned a nice relaxing day at Bondi Beach.  It's a short 30 minute ferry ride over and there are cafe's and restaurants along the coast.  It was a toss up between Bondi and Manly, but we figured when we come back next week, we could check out Manly.

Have a merry Christmas!  Thanks for all your support and love throughout this year!

Day 5 - Sydney

Sydney is such a beautiful city!  We got in late afternoon, so we took it easy and explored what we could before it got dark.  Our hotel rocks, the view from our windows (which are almost 270 degrees) overlooks the Oprah House and the famous Harbour bridge.  It is located in the Rocks, which is one of the city's most exciting shopping, dining, and entertainment precincts.  It's also the site of the first colonial settlement in Australia in 1788, so there is a lot of history here too.  The Rocks is at the northern end of the city, near Circular Quay. 

Like Port Douglas, the restaurants here serve for the most part all organic, natural foods.  We love it because we don't feel so bad about eating so much!  LOL.

We walked The Rocks yesterday and also headed to Darling Harbor.  Over 16 million people visit the harbor a year, so it was a happening place!  Besides the beautiful yachts, it's main attraction is the landscaped parks and harbourside cafes and restaurants.  It's also home to the world's largest IMAX theatre.  We will definitely be venturing over to Darling again to enjoy the outdoor cafe's!

        

To end the night we ate at a cute place in The Rocks called Alfred Giraffe's.  The wine is just too good here!

Tomorrow we plan on doing the touristy stuff, we may take a ferry boat ride around the city and take in some much needed sunshine.  We won't forget to wear our sunnies (ha, that's what they call sunglasses here).

Till then....

Day 4 - Port Douglas, Queensland

Today was another early start for us - 5:30 AM. We walked down to town and had a great "brekky" at a local diner. We had one hiccup...ice coffee is not the same here! Ice coffee consists of espresso, cream, ice, ICE CREAM, and sometimes chocolate! WTH? Other than this slight confusion, everything was good! We also noticed that the Aussies use a ton of condiments, in which they call "sauce." They offer spicy thai sesame sauce, red chili sauce, ginger mustard, and vinagarette with just about every meal, even breakfast (gross). They also don't put water on the table unless you ask for it. Lastly, they eat beans/spaghetti for breakfast...weird! Just a few differences that keep the world turning!

We spent the next 2 hours walking/running 4 mile beach. We figure it was nicer to run on the beach than in the exercise room at the hotel. We thought this was going to be a lot easier than it looked! 8 miles in the hot and humid heat + sand is not a good comibination for an "easy" workout. Needless to say, it was a good workout and we were exhausted!!! We couldn't get changed into our suits fast enough to jump into the ocean!!!!

After a little R&R, we took the Port Douglas shuttle down to the Rainforest Habitat. The is an award winning eco friendly wildlife sancturary. There were three parts: Rainforest, Wetlands, and Grasslands. It was a beautiful place, it felt like we were actually walking through the jungle. No cages, no fences, no circus acts, no logo tshirts for sale, no ice cones...LOL. Even the crocodiles roamed free(behind a tall boadwalk/bridge of course)! Literally the animals, if they felt comfortable, could walk right up to you and you could do the same to them! The pictures you will see were not taken through a fence, they were literally right in front of us.

The wetlands was full of bird species (lots of Lorikeets) and of course the Australian icon - the Koala. Did you know the koala is not even in bear family? It's related to the kangaroo, wallaby, etc. It also sleeps 18-20 hours a day because their diets are so bad! We had the unique experience of actually holding the koala. This is one of the few places where this is allowed, because the koala's are endangered and highly suceptable to disease. They are very cute, friendly, and love to cuddle! Jeff kept petting his head (I think he misses the babies...). The lady actually had to tell him to stop and have us move on, we would have held that little guy all day!

Also check out the black neck birds below. These babies were born on Oct 27 and their mother never leaves their side! Look how big the nest is, looks like something from the days of the dinosaur!

The rainforest was home to many colorful birds - the Southern Cassowary (which is classed as endangered), Boyd's forest dragon, and Eclectus parrots. The Cassowary roam wild up in the Daintree. In fact there are several "Caution, Cassowary crossing" signs up there. The cassoaries are termed a "keystone" species, which means that the loss of the Cassowary could lead to long term changes in plant communities and may lead to the loss of particular plant species. Very scary for the people here in Australia and all over the world, who rely on certain plants for pharmaceuticals, beauty aids, etc.

The Boardwalks there meandor along the forest floor to the rainforest canopy and birds swoop, sing, and play like they are actually in the jungle.

Finally our favorite part of the day was in the grasslands. The open-air exhibit portrays both inland and coastal plains. We were able to interact with, pet, and hand feed the Eastern Grey Kangaroos, Parma Wallabies, Ostriches, Various Ducks, and Bird Species, and the Shadow Dwellers. It was one of the coolest experiences I've ever had. We literally were able to sit among the kangaroo and wallabie familes, feed and play with them. It was surreal. Some of them were really big, measuring over 5 ft when standing straight up, so we were a little hesitant at first, but we soon got over it. We also got to witness a mother roo feeding her joey's. It was amazing.

The boardwalks in this area also overlooked the lagoons where both the Estuarine and Freshwater crocodiles lurked beneath the waters and basked in the sunlight. Jeff kept trying to get me to throw the kangaroo's food at them, I quickly said NO! Who wants to disturb a sleeping crocodile when there's only a 5 feet of chain fence separating you? Trust me, they could get over it if they wanted to! I think he wanted a good picture of the croc showing his teeth....I'll save that for another day!! LOL!!

As you can tell, today was a great day. We found out that this habitat is home to Queensland's largest range of kangaroos and wallabies, with the largest captive population of Northern Wallabies in Australia! It also has one of the only two species found in Australia, Lumholtz Tree Kanagroos, which are native to Tropical north Queensland, residing in high elevation rainforest of the Wet Tropics region. This is one of the only two wildlife parks int he world to house this rare species! This is not a zoo, it was literally just a safe and fun place for these animals to roam free and interact in a non-agressive way with people and other species of friendly animals.

We leave super early for Sydney tomorrow. We are sad to leave Port, but so excited for a new journey in beautiful Syndey. We will be in Sydney through Christmas and have some unique excursions planned. Stay tuned and sleep tight (I think is 2:36 AM back home).

By the ways, we've been uploading ALL our pictures on picasa, check them out: picasaweb.google.com/gilespix

xoxo

J&J

Day 3 - Port Douglas, Queensland

We spent today on the reef! We took the Poseiden out to 3 different reef locations. Each site was different - the first was full of single, colorful fish, the second reef was deep and had schools of fish, and the third reef was shallow, you literally was less than 4 feet from the top of the reef, so you could see and touch the coral. It was a great experience. The day in total was a 9 hour trip, but it was totally worth it! We saw reef sharks, sea cucumbers (GROSS), mushroom coral, and all different types of fish and coral.



The sea cucumbers are really gross! They are about 3 feet long and 2 feet wide, they look like logs, but they are soft and slimy and living creatures! They lay on the bottom of the sea and eat sand, the worms they have (SICK) eat the sand, which prevents them from growing too large. If you pick one up from the bottom of the ocean floor, you physically have to put it back. Simply dropping the cucumber could kill it, if it lands on it's back it can't roll itself over to eat and it dies!



The mushroom coral was really cool. Of course it looks like a mushroom, but once you take it out of the sea and expose it to the sunlight, the water that drips from it soon resembles a thick mucus like substance. This is its defense mechanism that protects it from the sun. The cool thing about this is that that same substance is equivalent to SPF 75! So if you are ever stuck in the ocean and need sunscreen, you just need to find mushroom coral!

A few facts about the reef:

• The world largest coral reef
• 29000 reefs and over 900 islands stretching over 1900 miles
• Total sq mileage: 133,000
• A 10,000 old coral is actually really young. The established coral is well over 2-18 million years old!

Day 2 - Port Douglas, Queensland

We had such a wonderul day today. Beautiful scenery, good company, and great food. We got up super early (still adjusting to the time differene) and worked out at the hotel. We then walked downtown and had a great breakfast at a local cafe in town. The food here in Port has been so good so far! The Aussies are very nutriously sound people - almost everything here is organic, free range, cage free, etc. It's kind of refreshing to see people eat so healthy!

After brekky, we walked down to the park and visited the Sunday craft market. On Sundays the park has a craft market where locals sell just about everything - eco friendly beauty supplies from the rainforest, fresh fruit/fruit juice, leather belts, hats, flowers, paintings, jewelry, etc. We didn't buy anything, but it was fun to walk around and look.

We decided to rent a car to drive up through Daintree National Park. Daintree is the only place in the world where the two most complex ecosystems, the Great Barrier Reef and World Heritage tropical rainforest (the Daintree), meet at high tide mark. To get to Daintree, we passed through green sugar cane farms and mountains in lush green rainforest.

Our first stop was Mossman Gourge. Mossman Gourge is in Mossman, ha. It is a beautiful place, many of the locals were there swimming and picnicking.

We proceeded about 35 miles "over the river" as the locals call it, which is just a carferry trip away. In order to get to Cape Tribulation, you must take a ferry over the river. You cannot go on the ferry unless you have a car (this ruled out the moke we were going to get). Once you put your car on the ferry, you are literally entering a whole new world. This region is breathtaking, a century+ old rainforest, wildlife, freshwater streams, and sweeping beaches. The Daintree contains rougly half the continent's species of animals and plants. See our pictures from one of the many public boardwalks below. We literally almost walked into a HUGE spider - probably at least 6 inches in diameter - GROSS! One of the coolest things we saw was the vast amoung of mangroves that grow here in fresh water. Some of the unique eco system can be atributed directly to the Mangrove Tree, which uses its distinct root system to breathe. There are 31 species of mangroves in Daintree and their desalinating leave are the start of a complex food chain system that eventually feeds the Great Barrier Reef! Check out of our photos:

It is speculated that the Daintree is between 200-300 million years old, making it the oldest rainforest in the world. It's funny that at 7 millions years, the Daintree makes the Amazon quite young!

On our way up to Cape Tribulation beach, we stopped at a recommended cafe, Whet Cafe. At first this place looked questionable, but it turned out (yet again) to have amazing food! Remember these cafe's are in the middle of nowhere and are all logdge type houses, so you aren't ever sure what you are going to get. We had a great lunch here before proceeding up to the beach.

Cape Tribulation was beautiful, although note the sign below:

On our way back to Port, we stopped at the Ice Cream Factory. This is no ordinary Ice Cream Factory - it's biodynamic organic ice cream! I know what you're thinking - what the hell is that? It's basically an all natural organic ice cream from fruits and sugars found in the rainforest. No preservatives, no sugars, absolutely no additives. They also claim to taste better because of the lack of pollution found in the region. I must admit, this ice cream was delicious. I got Coconut Banana and Jeff got Macadamia Nut.

We spent the rest of the late afternoon/evening at the pool and out to dinner. Jeff was craving ribs so we went to a place called Hog's Breath. He loved it and washed it down with a nice cold Guiness.

Today was a great day. Tomorrow will be just as great - we are off to explore the Great Barrier Reef on the Poseiden Catamaran. A full day of diving, snorkeling, and swimming in the Reef - we are so excited.

Till tomorrow.....(I will post pictures tomorrow evening of today's acitvities, too tired now..=)