AUS Day 11 - Last Day

Ugh.  The last day was sad and depressing.  We spent the morning checking out the Wharf, which turned out to be dramatically different from what the past folks remembered.  We then discovered we had a flat tire on our van which required Scott to spend a long time waiting for a repairman to come meet us.  I honestly can't remember much else we did on the last day; one last time at the market, getting my last "Kebab" sandwich (the best)!


Enjoy the pictures (click here).

AUS Day 10: The Tablelands

Straight to the pictures here


Day 10 was a day devoted to the Atherton Table-lands.  Due to the nature of the trip, lots of driving on winding roads, Kyle decided to stay back in town with Scott so the rest of us piled in the car and started the trip.  The drive was as advertised, very much a winding road.  We had to stop a couple of times along the way as a couple folks were feeling a little woozy.  However, we did make it to the Yungaburra market which was our first main destination.

The market was huge and from my perspective, disappointing.  It was diappointing because I was expecting a market of Australian type things; crafts and other items.  However, it was really nothing like that.  There was some food stuff but mostly, it seemed like a huge market where people were trying to sell their junk to other people.  I'm also sure that others who went there, namely the women (Traci, Julie, and Terri) enjoyed the market more than I did.  The one thing I did buy there, besides food, was a book written by Sean Astin ("Samwise" in the Lord of the Rings).


We did also take some time to walk around the town a little before we piled back in the car.  Other stops were at the amazing "Curtain Fig Tree" - you really must read this sign about how the tree was formed and then look at the pictures.  It is/was amazing.  Beyond that, we visited coffee world, and The Peanut Place (my favorite stop).  We drove through towns like Yungaburra, Mareeba, Tolga, and Atherton; some kind of sleepy, others a little more hoppin'. 

My brain fails me on other details of the day, but I believe there was an attempt to try and find some emergency pastry of some kind for Julie, who hadn't eaten enough, and we also stopped to try and see some platypus', along with a few other stops.  We ended up getting back to Cairns in time to hit the Night Market yet again.  All in all, a good day together.


Click here for all the pictures

AUS Day 9: Fitzroy Island

Straight to the pictures

This turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip for me, even though it could have been so much more!  Fitzroy island is one of the best snorkeling places I've ever experienced; however, we happened to catch it on the coldest day of the year, literally, and it rained/drizzled on and off most of the day.  Still, it was a highlight.

As you can see, we were all a little tired by this time in the trip and Nathan spent the ride over catching up on some Z's.

The day started with about a 1 hour boat ride out to the island.  Part way out, our boat slowed down and were informed that one of the engines was over-heating and as a result, we'd be going out there under about 75% power which simply meant a slightly longer boat ride.  Not much to tell about the trip over.

The island was something I'd never experienced before.  The entire beach is made of coral and everytime a wave receded it made a sound like wind-chimes.  Literally, if you look at the pictures carefully, the whole beach is coral.  This picture of Kyle shows the coral really well.

Once we got over the cold, we all got in the water.  Due to the rain and clouds the water was not clear or calm; still, the snorkeling was amazing.  I could only imagine what it would be like on a clear, warm, sunny day.  If I ever make it back to the Cairns area, I definitely will be getting back to Fitzroy.


Another memory was this huge school of bait-fish that was next to the boat dock.  We were told that the school was actually much smaller than what it was earlier in the year.  We were also told that we could snorkel right into the middle of this school and possibly see some "predator" fish; so we followed that advice and went snorkeling.  I managed to spot a lion-fish; very beautiful (and poisonous) which turned out to be a highlight for me.

Other highlights were watching the nephews learn how to snorkel for the very first time...even Andrew figured it out.  Speaking of which, those boys, especially Nathan and Andrew managed to stay in the water for hours!  The rest of us could only handle the cold for so long; and since we were on an island there really wasn't a good way to warm up.

Finally the weather really caught up with us and about 45 minutes before our departure it started raining for real.  This forced us all under the cover of the local "restaraunt" which, by this time, wasn't really serving anything.  Still, a highlight for me for sure.

Straight to all the pictures

AUS Day 8: Crystal Cascades

Straight to the pictures (wimp - read the blog first!)


Day began with a trip to the dock where we were fortunate enough to see the "grouper."  It was a very large fish!  You know, a funny thing happens when someone with an australian accent says the word "grouper;" it comes out "groper" - the difference is subtle, the meaning is entirely different...for example; "have you been down to the dock and seen the 'groper'?"  Hmm.  Well, we did have fun watching the huge fish and watching a couple of fisherman drop him a shrimp.  The fisherman don't like the grouper; apparently, he hangs around the dock area and is known to steal a "caught" fish right off the line.  Well, enough about the fish...on to other things.  Prior to making it to Crystal Cascades, we ended up at a park.  Julie, Nathan and I went on a walk while Dave and the other boys played some ball.

We spent this day walking around the Crystal Cascades area.  This is a "lesser known" area that is not really populated by tourists.  There were two parts to this day; the first part was a hike up to a waterfall.  This hike involved some scrambling and at one point, we didn't think we'd actually make it to the waterfall.  However, thanks to Dave who pushed on up the ridge (and my wife who followed), we eventually found our way up there.  It was beautiful and well worth it.  One especially cool thing was this very large tree that had fallen over the creek-bed (there's a picture of Julie exploring this fallen tree).  The boys also had fun playing around below the waterfall.

The second part of the day was a walk along the river.  There are a number of swimming holes and places to explore.  The boys had fun playing in the water, and we also saw some locals who were swimming and doing some clifjumping.  At the end of road was another waterfall.  All in all it was a beautiful day and a lot of fun.  Make sure you read the captions on some of the pictures for more.

See the pictures

AUS Day 7: Botanic Gardens, Hike

See all the pictures here;
Day 7 was our photo-shoot in the Botanic Gardens,(jump straight to the pictures here). For those who like lots of color and cool plants, and who have a affinity for photographer, it was a dream. Plus, it was drizzling off an on which made the many colorful plants "pop out" even more (I've heard of some professional photographers who carry a squirt bottle with them to simulate rain/dew). The Gardens tour was just me and Julie, Dad and Traci. The highlight was a jade/green plant, a color that is extremely rare in plant life. Besides that, I'll let the pictures do the talking; CLICK HERE!


Following the Garden, David, Traci, Julie and I went on a "hike/walk." It was supposed to be a hike that started on a road and led into a trail that ended at a waterfall. Alas, we never got off the road, never found a trail and never got to a waterfall. Still, it was pretty amazing to get out and "up" high into the rainforest. Didn't get any cool pictures, although I did put a couple up anyways. That evening we were back downtown at the night-market and looking at cool birds.

AUS day 6: Beach Day

Day 6 was to be our 2nd beach day of the trip. The day started sunny and beautiful and we started by splitting up our group; Julie, David and I taking the nephews to a park while the rest of the troop ran some errands in town. The park group had fun playing baseball, kicking field-goals and going for walks, all while anticipating an afternoon in the water. Click here to go directly to the pictures of this day.

Lunch came and went and we made it to the beach. Not exactly a hot day, we nevertheless spent a bulk of our time in the water. Highlights were:
- burying Andrew in the sand
- burying all three boys in the sand
- throwing the football around
- body surfing
- baby Gecko
- the signs at the beach warning of all kinds of terrible things that could happen to you (it was, thankfully, the "off-season" for the jellies).

After the beach I believe we ended up downtown for dinner again.

Another special memory for Julie was her walk with Kyle that morning. While David, Me, Nathan and Andrew were playing ball, Julie and Kyle took off for a nice long walk together (no pictures).

Again, to see all the pictures, click here.

AUS day 5: Port Douglas, Mossman Gorge

Day 5 involved a lot of driving. The day started with some noisy Cockatoo's and ended with a rushed/late dinner at Hungry Jack's (Burger King). Click here to see all the pictures I uploaded, and/or read on to hear more about the day.

The morning was beautiful and I started by heading down to the dock. After getting back, a big flock of cockatoo's decided to hang out right above our place. They were fun to watch and I ended up shooting a bunch of pictures of them.

Following our morning we jumped in the car and headed out to Port Douglas. We ended up eating lunch in Port Douglas and visiting the place where Mom/Grammi lost her cane many years ago. This turned out to be a little bit of an emotional time for many of us, but after that we jumped back in the car and headed out to Mossman Gorge to do a short hike through the rain-forest.

Mossman Gorge was beautiful, although I was constantly reminded that we were seeing it in "dry season" where there was very little water. Still, highlights from this hike were seeing the huge trees, (the bigger ones are fig trees I believe) and other plant life in the forest. Our group split up a bit at the Gorge with some of us doing a 2 mile loop hike, and others going to a shorter loop by the river. Unfortunately, those who thought they were doing a shorter loop found out that at the very end, the path was blocked and they had to go back the way they came.

The ride home featured a rushed stop in Port Douglas to try and find dinner (unsuccessful for most, except Julie who managed to get a great little pizza), followed by a late-night Hungry Jack's stop. A fun day, albeit a long one...







Again, click here for all the pictures.

AUS day 4: Kuranda

Day 4 was our Kuranda day. We broke up into two groups to start the day; the skyrail group (me, Julie, Terri and the boys) and the van group (Dave, Scott, Traci and Dad). As usual, click here to see all the pictures.



The skyrail ride was very cool and very scenic. You literally go over the rain-forest. We were able to get out at two different points and look around. The first stop was at a rain-forest boardwalk which was nice, but the second walk was even better, stopping at Barron Falls. This water-fall is amazing in the wet season...unfortunately, we were there during dry season.


However you can check out the video below of Barron Falls (the transformation from dry season to wet season is amazing).



Kuranda itself is a great place to spend the day to do some shopping and eating; which is exactly what we did. The day was unfortunately remembered for Nathan's arm injury. He got hurt pretty bad towards the end of the day but after a doctors visit and some prayers, he ended up being just fine in the end. The other bummer was the hat I found that I ended up not buying...still regret that to this day. Also in Kuranda, the three girls got matching purses (they are really cool).


After our day in Kuranda we made a mad dash home and ended up dropping Kyle, Andrew, Dad, Dave and Traci, while Julie and I accompanied Scott, Terri and Nate to the E.R. (Julie and I tagged along so we could get dropped off downtown while Nate was getting checked out). It was during this time that the bird pictures were taken - I'll admit, this is not my best photography work...I had some problems getting my ISO set right, etc. However, still a nice evening. And then, after Nate got the green light from the ER, we had to go to the Night Market to celebrate with some McDonalds and a crepe. Click here to see all the pictures

AUS day 3: Sugar World

Ok, I'm finally getting my days together...Day 3 is Saturday in my book and this is the day we went to Sugar World. As usual, I only put a few pictures here in the blog; if you want to see all the pictures from this day that I've uploaded, click here. First things first, though.


We woke up to a beautiful sunny day and went down to the pier in the morning followed by a trip to Rusty's; the local Farmer's Market in Cairns. Rusty's was fun, although I'm sure I didn't enjoy it as some of those in our group. What I did find that I loved at Rusty's was some good Humbow, (although they call it something different).


(Julie, Nathan, Me and Andrew)

After Rusty's we packed up the van and headed to Sugar World; a water park with water slides. I must say; I've done water slides before but not quite like this. No, they weren't bigger or faster or scarier then what I've done in the past, but they were more painful. The first 4 times I went down the slides I got injured; a scrape here, a jammed finger there, a bruised elbow here...in fact, as of this writing on July 18th, I still have a very tender elbow thanks to the water slides. It did remind me how in America, probably as a result of everyone suing each other, we make everything perfectly "safe." At any rate, I survived thanks to a great tip from Scott and the rest of the day was a blast. (Lots more water-slide pictures here).

AUS day 2: Hartley's Crocodile Farm

This was one of my favorite days of the trip; highlights being the animals mainly, but also watching the boys as they watched the animals. We ended up spending the entire day out there starting with a show on a boat at 10:00 and ending with the Koala feeding at 4:30. Read on for my memories and a few pictures; to see all the pictures I've uploaded (29 from this day), click here.


The highlight, of course was the salt-water crocodiles. They are amazing creatures...and deadly. One of my memories was the "sound" they make when they snap their jaws shut. They had names for all the crocs; the biggest one being named "Spartacus" (or "Sparty," for short). They did a show (feeding) with all the crocs, (probably at least 30 in one big area) which was great. I heard, however, that after the official show ended the crocs really got active.




Other memories of our time there were lunch, where Julie tried her first taste of crocodile (very tough), the aviary which was filled with amazingly beautiful tropical birds and the casuary and watching him feed, (this is the bird with the big "horn" on it). The casuary swallows his food whole and you can actually watch it slide down his throat. The avaiary was amazing; especially the huge spider that met you as soon as you walked in the door.



However, all that said, there is probably one memory that outshines them all; "Tipsy," the baby Koala. Tipsy was located in a part of the park that also had kangaroos running around wild. We had seen Tipsy's Mom earlier in the day but not Tipsy. Something I didn't know; Koala's have pouches and actually spend their first 6 months after birth in their Mother's pouch. Tipsy had only been "out of the pouch" for 2 weeks; and I'm guessing, only comes out for a few minutes a day. At any rate, about 4:00, right before we were going to the other part of the park to watch the Koala feeding, Tipsy decided to make an appearance. Tipsy was probably the cutest thing I've seen in a long time and we were privileged to see "him/her."



We also learned that 10 of the 11 deadliest snakes in the world not only live in Australia, but live in Queensland (the state we were in). Made you think twice about going out for a "walk about." Don't forget to check out all the pictures I've uploaded from this day - (click here).

Aus day 0, 1: Night Mkt, hike, beach

Thus begins the blogging about our AUS trip - I will use these posts as a sort of "journal" as well. Also, the reader should note that although I will put a few pictures on these blog posts, many more pictures will be posted on my website. This hasn't happened yet, but I will let people know when they get posted.

Our trip over was interrupted by a missed connection and resulted in adding a 4th flight; which meant we arrived about 4:30 PM as opposed to 12:10 PM. The day we arrived I call day 0 as day 1, in my mind, was our first full day. Also, some other notes, there is a 17 hour time change. Our itinerary was SEA to LA (2 1/2), LA to Brisbane (15 hrs), Brisbane to Sydney (2 hrs), and Sydney to Cairns (2 hrs).

First impressions as we arrived? Nice weather! Warm, slightly humid, and very tropical. These first few days I had to keep reminding myself that we weren't in a 3rd world country, but were in fact in Australia. I'm not sure why; maybe because the last and only time I traveled to see Terri, Scott and the nephews was when we went all the way to Papua New Guinea.

At any rate, we checked into our room, threw some stuff down, piled in the van and headed downtown to the "Esplanade" and "Night Markets." We were so tired from the travel that about all I could do was shove down some dinner (a Kebab, which I love) and briefly wander the night market. The night market is an appropriately named market that is only open at night and filled with all sorts of touristy things.

Our first full day we spent going on a short hike which afforded a great view of Cairns, and spending the afternoon at the beach. The water was cool - you could be out in it for 45 minutes or so before you'd get cold. It is "winter" in Cairns as well so most of the time, the weather was mid to upper 70's with a little humidity...although it is also the "dry season" which meant the rain was minimal, and the rain forests were very dry. Enjoy the pictures!


(Moon over Cairns: taken from the Esplanade looking back towards the Market)


(Andrew enjoyed his chicken on the first night)


(Julie, Scott and the boys taking in the view at the top of our hike)


(downtown Cairns from the hike)


(cool lookin' yellow caterpillar of some kind)


(Kyle looking good)


(Julie and Kyle body surfing together)


(Andrew in full sprint)

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I'm back from 2 weeks in AUS...stay tuned for more from this trip!