Phillip Island and the little “fairy” penguins!

So today we decided to head to Victoria Market since the first time we tried it, it was closed. We had arrived to Melbourne on a Wednesday and the Market just so happens to be closed on Mondays and Wednesdays….of course! We headed down and had some crepes and fruit salad (strawberries, bananas, cantaloupe, honey dew and kiwi). After we had finished we headed toward the market. Guess what?? It was closed! Of course it was! It was boxing day after all and turns out it was actually closed for a while. I guess we will have to try and catch it on our way back when we stop in Melbourne while on the cruise. So since we couldn’t do the market and since we called the tram car restaurant and were able to get a reservation for the day we are back with the cruise we decided to call and see if we could get a tour to Phillip Island to see the little fairy penguins. Score…we were able to get in…something was going right today after all.

The tour started at 1:15 and took us up to see wild Wallabies and wild Kangaroos. It also took us out to see some furry seals…although you had to pay an arm an a leg to see them through binoculars so we just decided to pass on the furry seals. I mean if you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all right? After all, we really did this tour for the penguins, everything else was just extra. Of course what we didn’t know was that Boxing Day is the one of the busiest days to go see the penguins….of course it is.

So on the brochure it said we’d get back around 9:00 – 11:30pm. Of course we just looked at the 9pm and then while on the tour he mentioned that we wouldn’t be getting back til after midnight. What? We had to try and get a tram and then pack and get up for our flight to Sydney in the morning!! Oh well, we then realized that it did say “seasonal” next to the times and realized that it was the summer over here and it did get darker later. And we learned that the penguins don’t come out til it’s dark.

Now these little penguins are called “fairy” penguins, but now they just call them “little” penguins and they are the smallest of all of the penguins….and instead of black and white, they are black and blue. So basically what they do is they go out in the morning and swim and look for fish all day and then at night they come in from a long hard day and they go and meet their loved ones who have been back home all day and they go and mate! So the penguin parade is basically watching the penguins come in at night from the the water on the beach and make their way home. Unfortunately I couldn’t take any pictures because they are sensitive to the camera flash and it can kill them. So the postcards will have to make do. I have to say this was an unexpected highlight of the trip! The penguins were so cute and who knows if I will ever be able to see something like this again. These little penguins came out of the water in droves! The night before they said some 2,000 penguins come out of the water and I can totally believe it!!

If you are ever in Melbourne and anywhere else that has a penguin parade you must do it. It is worth every penny. And maybe you can be like me and have lots of souvenirs too. It was very cold and rainy so I am now the proud owner of a penguin parade blanket, poncho, and socks!! I think penguins are my new best friend!!

Christmas at the zoo

Today is Christmas in OZ. Since we are here on Christmas and are away from family and seeing as how Christmas is celebrated here as well and everything is closed…the question of what to on Christmas was lingering in the air.

We noticed that one of the zoo’s was open on Christmas day so we though, what better way to spend Christmas down under than to see a bunch of animals roaming around. It was an open range zoo so the animals were really just roaming around, although not like the kangaroos and the wallabies were in our Cairns adventure. We were on a safari bus that took us around. Most of the animals were African animals thought which just made my desire to go on an African safari even greater. Below are some pictures of what we saw!

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

Christmas Eve in the city!

Today we didn't do much except for shop. They have tons of malls so we spend most of the day shopping, although we didn't really buy much. I guess we got our early because it didn't seem like there was much of the Christmas Eve frenzy like there is in the US...but later in the day the crowd picked up!

Later in the evening we went for dinner at Kri Kri and got us some Greek food then headed to St. Paul's Cathedral for some Christmas Carols. It was packed and we actually sat behind the choir. The program was about 1.5 hours and we were able to sing some carols along with the Choir. It was really nice to do something Christmasy since it doesn't feel like Christmas with the warm (semi-warm) weather there. Even though there decorations is seems weird walking around in a light jacket instead of a heavy one...and seeing some people in shorts.  I tried to get a picture in St. Paul's but the Priestess or whatever she is called told me no!

Christmas tomorrow....

Yarra Valley = High Blood Pressure

Today we rented a car and headed up to the Yarra Valley. We added a GPS since we have no clue where we are going, but it wasn't charged so the guy told us that we needed to charge it. We were given a little Ford Focus but the cigarette lighter thing didn't work so they upgraded us to a Toyota Camry at no charge. Now, normally I'd be happy, but believe it or not for once in my life I wanted that little bitty card. Navigating these streets in a little car is bad enough. Now I had a boat since the Camry is bigger than what I have to drive on a normal basis.

So, from the get go our GPS didn't know what was going on. I don't know if it had old maps or what, but the guy at the rental car place gave us a map and told us how to get out of the city. We put the address that we were going in the GPS and it totally steered us in the wrong direction. We finally decided to ignore it and follow the map that he had given us.

Once in the Yarra Valley we were able to get another map and again did better without the GPS. Needless to say I was happy to return the car the next day and I am done driving for the rest of my vacation...I refuse. Someone else is going to have to chauffeur me around . The people were nice though when we returned the car. They asked how the GPS worked for us and we told them it was horrible so they took it off our bill.

The Yarra Valley was beautiful though so in the end I am glad we went.

Baggage, baggage, baggage

Today we are flying to Melbourne. I am actually writing this as we are on the plane.  Our luggage has been an adventure in and of itself this trip. This flight that we are on was the weak link in the chain and our bag could only weigh 20 kg (44lbs). Well, I knew my bag was well over that weight limit. Before leaving for our trip we stuffed an empty duffel of Heidi's in my bag in the event we needed to move some stuff over to a second bag. Unfortunately the website wasn’t very clear on the cost of an additional bag and/or additional weight! According to one chart on the website you’d have to pay $40 for an extra bag online or $80 at the airport.So I decided that we’d try and pay online. Once we got the spot online the numbers changed and it charged by excess weight and could be up to $100 extra for 20kg extra bag. We decided not to use the extra bag and just gamble with what the weight of our bag might be and if I had to pay an arm and a leg, then that is just what I would have to do. Luckily when we got there, yes my bag was over weight, but they did not charge! Whew….relief!!! Now I can buy some souvenirs!!
Who wants a t-shirt? You know....the ones that are like 10 for $10???? :)

Melbourne Ghetto?

We are in Melbourne!! We are staying at the Harbour Escape Luxury Apartments. We were told to call the apartment manager when we arrived at the airport that he was not on site and would meet us there.  So as the name suggest, I am expecting some really nice "luxury" apartment.  The cab pulls up to the address that we were told and Heidi and I did a double take. The buildings were plain tan brick and the balconies were all rusted out. I have to admit I was not a happy camper because I recalled the picture from the internet looking much nicer....well at least the inside of the apartment. There never was a picture of the outside and now I understand why.

The apartment manager was not there when we arrived and the cab driver was afraid to leave us there. He stopped the meter and told me to  go check and make sure it was the right place. I called the apartment manager and sure enough we were at the right place. So the cab driver left, but left us his phone number in case he needed to come back for us. So there we sat on the sidewalk with all our bags. Luckily it was only a few minutes.

You know how they say, don't judge a book by it's cover? That saying is very true in this case.  Apparently the guy spent some time and money renovating the inside of this place and it is really nice! Plenty of room for the 2 of us and it even has a washer and drier inside the apt. It is perfect. And it turns out we are only one block from a tram stop!

Speaking of trams. So...since we are in an apt. and the there is no management onsite there really isn't any place to go for information or maps like you can at a hotel. We had one little map that told us where the tram was and where a grocery store and bottle shop was. So our friend had told us that the tram was free so we hop on and head somewhere....turns out it was towards the city center. We noticed that people were getting on and scanning a card, but we didn't see anywhere to buy anything and the driver was behind plexiglass so you couldn't pay him. So we ended up taking it all the way to the city and we just got off. We finally saw a sign where we could by a metro card in a Pharmacy (Chemist as they call it) and asked the guy what we needed to do. So yes apparently we needed a metro card to ride the tram. Oopps....I guess we got us a free ride.

We walked around the city for a while trying to find a visitor center so we could have some sort of info. We finally found it and hit the mother load with brochures. I think we have every brochure in the place, but Heidi says we'll recycle them so it's okay! :-)

While walking around we found a Krispy Kreme!!! Yes a Krispy Kreme in Australia! Ah a taste of home! Of course we had to get some. While there the guy behind the counter asked if we were American. We said yes and told him we were from Raleigh. Turns out he had family from North Carolina as well. We talked to him for a while. I think we made his day! :-)

Cairns and the Skyrail

Today we drove back to Cairns since we would be staying one night there and flying out the next morning to Melbourne. Our hotel was literally only minutes from the airport. We decided to do the the Skyrail to see what the rain forest looked like from above. It was beautiful!! The skyrail is basically a cableway to the top of the rain forest. You had to get off to change at a couple of stations, but each of those stations had a little walking tour you could take. We decided that we’d go to the top first and then stop at the stations on our way back since we were running close on time. Once we got to the next to last station we got stuck there for a while. Thunderstorms came through (apparently it rains every day in Cairns) and so they had to suspend the service until it moved out of the area. While we waited we decided to go ahead and taking the walking tour at that station. While there we ran into an Australian family and we offered to take their picture. It was funny because they asked us if we were from the US. We said yes and they said that they loved listening to us talk. Pretty funny since we loved listening to them talk.

The thunderstorm  finally moved out, but the rain stayed. We made it to the top and it was pouring rain. We got a shuttle to the little village but because everything was shutting down it was the last shuttle and it would not be brining us back. So we had to walk back in the rain. Basically it was a little village with shopping and such. They did have a Koala park and also a butterfly sanctuary, but we decided not to do those. We made our way back to the railway and headed back down.

Since there was one station that we did not get to stop at we got off and went for our walk. We ran into a tour so we decided to tag a long. I felt like we ran into Crocodile Dundee!! We talked for him a bit after the tour. Turns out he is actually from NZ.

After our skyrail adventure we took back the rental car and headed back to the hotel. It was time to eat and we decided that we wanted pizza….since the night before we watched Undercover Boss Australia and it was about Dominos!  Wow, who knew ordering a pizza could be so difficult. Apparently they don’t have just “hamburger” as a topping. Each time I asked they would say…”do you mean bacon double cheeseburger"? Uh….no…We ended up ordering just a cheese pizza from Pizza Hut. Oh but the adventure doesn’t end there. The lady at the hotel gave us directions and said it was just up the road 4 blocks. I don’t think she knew what she was talking about since we never did see the Pizza Hut and we practically walked to the airport. We finally gave up and saw another local pizza place on our way back and decided to just eat there. Sorry Pizza Hut, hopefully someone got to take home a free cheese pizza!

Next stop…..Melbourne!!!!

Great Barrier Reef Adventure!!

Today we got up early and headed down to Cairns to catch our boat that would take us to the Great Barrier Reef. It was a 2 hour ride out to the boat that we’d be staying the night on. The Kangaroo Express!! So let me start by saying that the place where we were staying provided beach towels so we brought them with us. But, for whatever reason when we were unloading our bags from the car we decided to leave them in the car, thinking that they would provide towels…at least to shower since we were there overnight. Well, we soon learned once we boarded the Kangaroo Express that no towels of any kind were provided. And here we had perfectly good towels just sitting unused in our car. Now coming in out of the ocean it was fine…I mean it was blazing hot so it was very easy to drip dry.  But we had to get a little creative with our shower. I had a swim shirt  and Heidi had a similar type shirt that we ended up using as our towels because they would dry fast! Oh yes, nothing like drying with a shirt!!


Since we were spending the night on the boat we were allowed 5 snorkels.. The first place was absolutely beautiful. I have never seen so many bright colors in the ocean in my life. I took some pictures, but they just do not do it justice. The starfish were electric blue, some of the fish were purple and teal and  there was one that looked like it had leopard spots. Amazing!!!
Later that day I decided that I wanted to do an intro dive. I have never done any sort of scuba diving before so I thought why not give it a shot on the great barrier reef!! There were three of us that did the intro dive and our instructor pretty much did everything for us. We just had to breathe….and breathe I did. Maybe a little too much, but I am happy to say that I finally calmed down and did not panic. It was great and now after giving it a shot I definitely would like to get certified!

I really enjoyed the the time on the boat. The food wasn’t so hot, but maybe it was because I didn’t have much of an appetite since it was so hot where we ate….it just made the food not appealing!. 

Now those who know me know I get sea sick pretty easily  and have to wear the patch when doing any sort of sailing or boating deep in the ocean.  Now the boat ride back to the shop wasn't as fun as the rest of the trip. First of all I was sitting on the edge and the waves were so  rough and high that I was soaking wet within 20 min. of the beginning of the trip and had to get up and move. It all went downhill from there and  I was wearing the patch and still feeling sick!!! So Jennifer…..you aren’t the only one that can get sick even if on the patch! Luckily I didn’t, but oh I came so close!!!! I was never so happy to reach land!!!

I loved being on the water. It was so blue and the reef spots were so turquoise.  Like I said earlier. I can't even describe it's beauty!

Daintree and Cape Tribulation (Australian Rainforest)

Today we headed up to the Australian Rain forest. The drive was beautiful and it actually looked a lot like Hawaii. We just spent the day driving and stopping off at different spots. We had to take a ferry to continue on our journey. We knew that the ferry was going to cost about $21 to get across and back so I am thinking that it is probably a big ferry... one where you park your car and can get out and walk, etc. So we pay for the ferry and were told to stay in our car. I am thinking oookaay! We get to the ferry crossing and it was like…are you kidding me? We payed $21 for this? I could have probably swam it, it was so close.

 While we were waiting for the ferry to get back to our side of land so we could board everyone got our of their cars. We met our very first Aussie redneck!  I’ll let you use your own imagination. I think his sole purpose in life was scare tourist talking about crocs and stingers! Which by the way, we already knew about the stingers as we were told only to swim in parts of the beach that had stinger nets. The way we handled stingers…we just didn’t go to the beach or get near the water. No worries mate!

After we made it on the ferry we stopped off at the Discovery Center. It was pretty cool in that you went on a walk through the rain forest but never touched the forest floor. The majority of the tour was suspended above. Unfortunately we didn’t really see any wildlife, which was a bit disappointing.  Once we were done with that our next stop was for ice cream! We stopped off at this little place where this lady made homemade ice cream. Yummy!!

We drove a little further then decided to turn around and head back home! It was so beautiful…lush and green and the weather (besides being hot and humid) was nice and sunny…no rain!

We stopped by Mossman Gorge on our back home which was pretty nice. It had a little watering hole for swimming. We were there at dusk, but it would have been nice to be there in the hot of the day, but apparently the water was pretty cold. There were still a bunch of people there when we got there!

Tomorrow we head to the Great Barrier Reef!! I can't wait!

Kangaroos, Wallabies, and Cassowaries....oh my!

Since we were still jet lagged from our long trip we decided that today would be an easy day here in Port Douglas. We talked to the people where were are staying and they suggested that we go the Wildlife Habitat that was just down the road. This place was really cool! And I mean cool as in neat and not cool as in temperature because it was blazing HOT in Port Douglas!! Hot and humid!! there were no good hair days in Port Douglas. But anyway, this place was sort of like a little zoo, except all of the animals (with the exception of a few) were just roaming around. We were asked to stay on the footpaths, but apparently the animals don’t have to follow the same rule and stay in their area. They would cross our paths at anytime they felt the need. And the birds...oh the birds. Several times they dive bombed passed us!

I’d say the highlight of this little place was the fact that we got to feed the Kangaroos and Wallabies!! They were so gentle and so cute! They would eat right out of your hand and you could barely feel them touching you. Okay with one exception. I must have fed a teen-aged Kangaroo because it was a bit aggressive and I felt it’s teeth. He didn’t bite me or any thing, but let’s just say he only got one handful of food from me and then I moved on!

They also had Koalas there as well. There was a short presentation on the Koalas and the information was very interesting. Turns out that the gum leaves that they are always eating don’t have a lot of energy so that is why they sleep all the time. They only use 60% of their energy. Although we found one that was very energetic. Either that or he was trying to figure out how to escape!

Now the Cassowarries apparently roam around the rainforest up here but are very private animals so they say you rarely see them Luckily we were able to see one here because have not been able to see them anywhere else, even though there are tons of Cassowarry crossing signs like we have deer crossing signs.

We had lunch while we were here and we are learning that there are definitely differences in food. One of the options on the menu was a chicken salad sandwich. To us, chick salad is chunks of chicken with mayo, and whatever else people put in it. Here in Australia, chicken salad is just chicken with lettuce, tomato, onion, etc. It was very good though!!

Off to the rain forest tomorrow...

Driving in Aussie Country

Oh what a joy to drive in Aussie country. My first driving experience happened to be in the dark on a long and curvy road. Of course they drive on the other side of the road, and the steering wheel is on the other side of the car, and everything else in the car is opposite from us. Including the turn signals. If I turned on my windshield ( or windscreen as they call it here) wipers then I turned them on a million times trying to turn left or right. Luckily the drive from Cairns to Port Douglas was a straight shot….minus the round-a-bouts. They like to use round-a-bouts instead of stop lights, which I have to say is pretty nice and keeps the traffic flowing pretty well. Luckily I did not get stuck in any like Clark Griswald. Oh and I should also mention that there are a million round-a-bouts.

On our journey to Port Douglas we got stopped by the 5-0!  (No ladies it was not Steve McGarrett...one could only hope!) Well, not stopped in the since of they were behind me and pulled me over, but they had a roadblock set up. So we slowly inch up and I roll down the window to see what is up. So the cop asks me if I want to blow in the breathalyzer.  Apparently I was a little too eager and was like “yeah sure”….knowing that I had not been drinking! The cop then looked at me, laughed and told me to just go on!! He’s probably like….”crazy American!!”

Our rental car was a cute little red Hyundai Getz. Although our bags were about as big as the car!! It got us around though.

The feeling is so strange driving on the opposite side of the road. I did catch myself every once in a while wanting to go to the right. Heidi and I had to constantly chant…left, left, left…to make sure we were always going left! I think the passenger side was scarier than driving though! I know I found myself hugging the far left line and not the center line because well, it was a little unnerving when cars were coming at you on the opposite side than you are used to. Heidi and I talked about it and apparently we both did the same thing because at times we’d have to close our eyes in the passenger seat because it looked like the one driving was going to drive right off the road. The road from Cairns to Port
Douglas is an ocean road and therefore very curvy and at times nothing but cliff right beside you.

All in all though it wasn’t so bad and we both think we have finally gotten use to it. We are renting (hiring) a car in Melbourne for the day so hopefully we’ll be okay.

Australia or bust!!!

Well we are finally in Australia after an extremely long trip to get over here. We had so many segments that American Airlines couldn’t even check our luggage all the way through to our final destination. Let me give you a brief rundown of what we did. We flew out of Raleigh to Dallas and had a 2.5 hour layover. Then we head to LAX where we had a 5 hour layover. Next, we hopped an Air Pacific flight to Fiji. It was about 10 hours long, but luckily we were in business class living the life of luxury. Once in Fiji we had about a 4 hour layover before we were to catch our flight to Brisbane. Oh…I’m not done!! Once in Brisbane we initially had about a 5 hour layover before we were to catch our final leg of the trip to Cairns. However, bad thunderstorms rolled through the Brisbane area making our layover even longer adding an additional 3 hours. You better believe were were nasty!! We left on a Tuesday and got there on a Thursday. But we skipped over Wednesday all together because we crossed the international date line.

While we were in Dallas we saw Jim Bob Duggar. Do you know who that is? Yeah, me either, but Heidi thought it was funny to see a cast member of 19 Kids and Counting. He was with a bunch of kids, but apparently they weren’t the kids from the show. On our flight from Dallas to LAX we sat behind these 2 little girls. Cute as can be. Turns out, they had just come in second place in America’s Got Talent, but I can’t seem to find them online so who knows if that was even real, but they were sitting up in first class with us.. Those were our only brushes with celebrity. I am very sad that Hugh Jackman was not on our flight back to his homeland. Maybe on the way back..

Once in LA we met up with our friend Justin who was actually supposed to have gone out the day before us, but because of some flight issues he ended up in LA the exact same time that we were there. We met up with him and he hooked us up and got us in to the Admirals Club. We stayed in the Admirals Club up until about 2 hours before our flight to Fiji, but quickly learned we should have allowed 3 hours. We got stuck behind this family of 4 it looked to be who were either planning to move to Fiji or just did not know how to pack light for a vacation. I swear they had about 4 bags each! Therefore it took forever just to get checked in and then we had to go through security all over again. We finally got to our gate….or so we thought. There was nothing about our flight once we got to our gate so I looked at the boarding pass again and we had transposed the numbers of the gate. Our gate was supposed to be 120 and we went to gate 102. Once we realized it we took off running. I felt like I was on the Amazing Race except I didn’t have a back pack…I had a rolly bag! Note to self….if I ever do the Amazing Race never take a rolly bag ( I think a team actually did that one year).

Our flight to Fiji was very nice…our seats reclined back most of the way. I love flying business!!  We ate like Queens!! The food on Air Pacific was really good and the people were really nice. I would totally fly them again.
Once in Fiji we were greeted by some local singers…it was great! Because we were flying business we were able to use their business class lounge where we were able to get a shower. It felt wonderful to be somewhat clean, but of course we had almost another day to go of travel.

When we got to Brisbane we were able to use their business class lounge as well so we hung out there until our flight to Cairns although when we got to our gate that is when we were told that flight was delayed due to bad storms in the area.
We finally made it to Cairns!!! Woohoo….oh but it was not time to celebrate yet. We still had to rent a car and drive to Port Douglas where were would be staying. In the dark….on the opposite side of the road…and the car…..