Photo Album #4 Posted

I've posted the fourth album from our trip, this one is from the few days that we spent in Ayers Rock/Uluru. A very mystical place in the middle of the desert, we got a real feeling for what the Outback is like, and a good taste of Aboriginal culture. Some pictures from our 5am sunrise walk around the base of Uluru...a 5 hour hike where it was 120F in the shade. Pictures here: Uluru

Master sushi chef

So, I hear a friend of mine has MAD skillz at making sushi. Alas, I can't share this deliciousness with everyone, but you can virtually submit your opinion here: Sushi chef

Photo Album #3 Posted

I've posted the third album from our trip to the South Pacific. This one includes 135 pictures from all over Sydney. There is everything we saw in the city, at the various wildlife parks, the sunny beaches, the famous Blue Mountains, the Sydney Opera House where we saw Handel's Messiah, and the Sydney Harbour Bridge which Carrie got to climb. The photo album is here: Sydney

Ben in town for skiing

John's brother, Ben, is finishing up med school and will be spending the next couple of months in Taiwan on a hospital rotation. Since he had to fly through San Francisco anyway, he was able to swing an extended layover in the Bay Area to do some skiing. There wasn't much snow, but we still had a great time. Our friends Kevin and Lora joined us on the slopes at Sugarbowl as well. In the picture, you can see Ben and Carrie sporting their stunna shades.

1,000 little Dixie cups

I have to give the guys credit, they came up with an original idea. To be honest, I would have felt unloved if I came back from sabbatical with no prank waiting for me, I just wasn't expecting something quite this messy. My first day back in the office was started off by discovering 1,000 little Dixie cups on my desk, all stapled together, and mostly filled with water. And my co-workers, being the cost-conscious people that they are, made sure to save a few pennies by buying the cheapest cups available. Which meant that by the time I arrived, the cups were already starting to melt and leak everywhere. Let's just say that it was non-trivial to get my day started today.

New snow in Jackson Hole!

Carrie flew out to join in the fun in Jackson Hole over the weekend. Carrie's arrival also means an upgrade in accommodations from the Hostel to the luxurious Teton Mountain Lodge
(4.5 stars), new snow (3 inches) and warmer temperatures (+16F).

K2 Apache Recon All-Mountain Skis

Details: 174cm, radii 18.0, sidecut 119/76/105mm, fir/aspen core, traditional shape
Average retail price: $649
Conditions: Jackson Hole (Wyoming) sub-zero overcast, 3 inches of fresh powder in 24 hours.
Terrain: Groomed intermediate trails with soft chalky snow on top of hard ice, 3-6 inches accumulation of soft fresh over hardpack.
Review: This ski has clean graphics, in line with K2's tradition. I was however, very disappointed by their performance. Spent all day on the intermediate and advanced groomers, which chunked up through the day as the top layer was pushed off, and then new snow started building up mid-day. Granted, they were shorter than previous skis demo'd this week, but that should have made them more responsive. Instead, they felt clumsy and unresponsive. The Recons were light enough to turn pretty easily, but they carved poorly, and had a hard time holding their edge. Unlike the Volkl AC3's which were very confident in all conditions, the Recons were all over the place in the wide range of snow pack.
Score (scale of 1-3): 1 - Hated these, expected more from K2, would not buy them.

Pwn'd!!

The diagram you see in the picture articulates the details of just exactly how this narrow chute pwn'd me today. Granted, it's my own fault for turning into a gnarly looking chute on a low-snow coverage day, but who would guess that a marked trail on the map would be so hairy, or that the stream running straight through the middle was still running, despite the -10F temperatures?
1.) This is where my right ski nose-dived into a soft spot under the hard crust and popped off.
2.) This is the imprint of where my head was introduced to the hardpack after I was launched out of my right ski. Notice, no trail between points 1 and 2, that's all air-time, baby! (Loving my new helmet at this point!)
3.) This is where my body impacted after rotating over my head, creating the bounce for my next air.
4.) This is where I landed for the slide along hardpack before coming to a rest where the picture is taken. Notice again, no trail between points 3 and 4, more air-time, baby!
5.) This is the arduous climb back up to point #1, where my ski was. It's about 30 feet from my final resting place to my ski. Took about 25 minutes, because it's a 45+ degree slope with only a thin crusty layer of the snow, and 5 feet of soft stuff underneath. Kind of like trying to climb in quicksand.
And that's only one of my adventures today. Also came face first with aforementioned freezing cold stream, rode every single lift on the entire mountain, took the 4 lifts and 45 minutes (now that the tram is closed for replacement) to the top peak of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, experienced JHMR's famous 4,400 vertical foot top-to-bottom run (20 minutes, all black or double-blue runs), and rode a couple of JHMR's famous super-steep runs.
Took two days and some adjustments to my boots, but finally got my ski legs back and got to see everything this mountain has to offer.

Volkl AC3 Titanium All-Mountain Skis

Details: 184cm, radii ~19.5, sidecut 118/76/104mm, extended wood core, traditional shape
Average retail price: $899
Conditions: Jackson Hole (Wyoming) sub-zero mostly sunny, 0 inches of fresh powder in 24 hours.
Terrain: Groomed intermediate trails with soft chalky snow on top of hard ice, off-trail advanced in-bounds bumps with chunky, unpredictable conditions.
Review: After fighting with the twin tips all morning, I switched to the Volkl AC3's for the afternoon and the difference was night and day. They aren't overly shaped, allowing for cruising the groomers with gentle, large radius turns. It has some fancy technology, but it felt nicely stiff to me, holding its edge very confidently with zero chatter, and extremely stable at speed. The graphics are a little boring and generic, but that's once of the tradeoffs with an all-mountain ski intended for the masses. I enjoyed these so much, that I'm keeping them for tomorrow, which looks to be another groomer day, as this afternoon's snow showers never really materialized. I can't quite stomach $900 for a pair of skis when I rarely get more than 10 days on the mountain in a season, half of which are spent snowboarding now. And honestly, as confident as these skis are on the groomers, they are not a $900 improvement over my K2 Four's, which are very happy on groomer days.
Score (scale of 1-3): 3 - Very fun current-gen ski, would buy as a replacement/upgrade to outdated or broken skis

Salomon Teneighty Gun Twin Tip Powder Skis

Details: 188cm, radii 12.8/15.5/18.6/22.2, sidecut 130/94/123mm, Isocell complex core, twin tip
Average retail price: $699
Conditions: Jackson Hole (Wyoming) sub-zero mostly sunny, 0 inches of fresh powder in 24 hours.
Terrain: Groomed intermediate trails with soft chalky snow on top of hard ice, off-trail advanced in-bounds bumps with chunky, unpredictable conditions, intermediate terrain park with table tops and big air features.
Review: My biggest complaint about these skis is the sizes that they come in: 154/164/174/188cm. A 14cm jump is a big gap, I chose the 188cm, the closest to my normal K2's at 183cm, but they felt a little big. This was definitely not the day to be on powder skis, but I wanted to take some twin tips into the park to see what they were like. The Guns struggled on the groomers, requiring more than average effort to carve, suffering from a lot of ski chatter, with huge loss of stability at speed. When carving GS-radius turns, the Guns constantly feel like they want to run away on you, in almost every direction. In the terrain park, they were stable enough at the lower speeds, but with the hardpack conditions, I didn't feel it prudent to throw any reverse tricks. It's hard to compare these to the Volkl's because they were tested in such different conditions. But on price and graphics alone, I choose the Volkl's. Baby blue just isn't a very sexy color for $700 skis.
Score (scale of 1-3): 2 - Kind of indifferent, would not buy

Volkl Gotoma Twin-Tip Powder Skis

Details: 183cm, radii 25.9/28.5, sidecut 133-105-124mm, sensorwood core, twin tip
Average retail price: $679
Conditions: Kirkwood (Lake Tahoe) white-out blizzard conditions, 18 inches of fresh powder in 24 hours.
Terrain: Freshly powdered (normally groomed) intermediate trails, off-trail advanced tree skiing, out-of-bounds hiking.
Review: This is the first time I have skiied a non-K2 ski in over 15 years, and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. These are the same length as my 10-year old K2 Four shaped skis (advanced for their time), but with their 103-70-93mm dimensions, the K2's have been failing miserably at keeping me above powder as of late. With about 40% more surface area, the Volkl's floated above the "Sierra cement" effortlessly. On the wide trails, I had a blast tearing through 6-12 inches of powder, and in the trees it was no harder to carve tight turns in 18-24 inches. At almost $700, these are out of my price range for a niche ski when we have so few powder days in Tahoe, but at $54 for a demo day, they were a dream to ski on.
Score (scale of 1-3): 3 - Loved them, would buy if I had 4 or more powder days a season

Temps are warming up!

The good news is that the temperature warmed up today. The bad news is that it was still only -11F when the lifts opened this morning. Here, you can see me in my full storm gear. For those of you wondering, yes, the Camelback tube that feeds water from my pack freezes in these temperatures. In about 10-15 minutes, actually. I've been having fun demo'ing the latest in ski technol0gy, I'll post some notes about what I've thought about the skis that I've tried. Since the airlines will only let me bring my snowboard or my skis (not both), I chose to just fly with my snowboard and demo skis on my ski days here.

Free lift ticket at Jackson Hole...w00t!

Yes, that is a picture of John, mid-mountain at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort from today. Yes, I was in Campbell this morning. Yes, it's true, even with my entire week in Tahoe and this afternoon in Jackson Hole, I have yet to pay for a lift ticket this season. w00t! It took 10 hours from door to snow, 2 cancelled flights, a 3 hour layover, but trading in my boarding pass for a free lift ticket at the ticket window and carving turns when everybody else is stuck in meetings pretty much makes it all worthwhile. I'm here until Sunday, anybody want in?

Carrie's birthday

This week was Carrie's birthday week, happy birthday, Carrie! We celebrated on Thursday by going to La Fondue for some yummy dessert and then on Saturday by taking a Hummer stretch limo with a bunch of our friends up to wine country. The Hummer was fun, it had a flat screen TV in the partition and 9 other small screens throughout the interior cabin, and was big enough to provide a cozy fit all 18 of us. We visited Michel-Schlumberger - our wine club winery - and had some yummy beef stew paired with their great Pinot Noir and a library tasting of several Cabernet Sauvignon's, including their delicious '99 vintage. From there, we headed over to David Coffaro, a cool winery specializing in Italian varietals, and enjoyed their 10-foot front projection hi-def screen showing the NFL playoff games, their popcorn machine, and the mini cheeseburgers that were coming off the grill. For dessert, we visited Geyser Peak (where the photo is taken) and got to sample several different chocolates paired with yummy dessert wines. We finished the day of wine tasting at Stryker Sonoma, where they had some super yummy paella, really outstanding Zinfandel's, and some Bordeaux varietals. The limo then brought us back home where Mondo Burrito catered a huge burrito bar for us and everybody decompressed before heading back to their respective homes.

Photo Album #2 Posted

I've posted the second photo album from our trip, this one includes pictures from Queenstown in New Zealand. There are 115 pictures showing us doing stuff in the city, at the Minus 5 ice bar, Milford Sound, riverboarding, canyoning, on the Shotover jet boat, going over to Walter Peak Station, and taking the Lord of the Rings Tour. Enjoy the pictures here: New Zealand

Holiday DVD Sneak Preview!

I've posted a 15 minute video with highlights of our liveaboard dive trip to the Great Barrier Reef, near Cairns, Australia. It's edited out so that it's just footage of us and the cool things we saw. All of the divers that are recognizable are us, there are a few divers in the background from time to time, those are other people from the trip. The easiest way to identify us is by our fins. John wears bright yellow split fins, and Carrie wears red split fins. This will be on our holiday DVD this year, but as usual, that's late. So this is a sneak preview!

Photo Album #1 Posted

Because there are just SO many pictures, we'll start posting them episodically so that it's not so overwhelming. The first album is up and has 31 photos chronicling our travels from Campbell, CA, to the San Francisco airport, a connection in Los Angeles, the flight to Auckland in New Zealand, the ferry ride, and then the two days we spent on Waiheke Island, before hopping on a jet down to Queenstown on the South Island of New Zealand. Check it out here: Waiheke Island

Epic snow

So winter has finally arrived in the form of a huge snowstorm that made for an epic snow day up here in Lake Tahoe. We got more than 18" of fresh snow today, along with below freezing temperatures, translating into incredible skiing. The roads were horrendous...25 yard visibility at times, total white out conditions, chains or 4WD required on ALL roads, and idiots thinking the 25 mph chain control speed limit is for decoration. But the skiing made it all worthwhile. With whiteout conditions on the slope and 17F temps at the summit, I had on full storm gear including my new fleece hood/face mask and got to use my clear Oakley lenses for the first time since I got them two years ago (woot!). Because my 10-year old K2 Four's can no longer cut it in the powder, I demo'd a pair of Volkl fat twin-tip powder skis and had an awesome day surfing on top of the fluffy stuff. Made a wrong turn once and went O.B., resulting in a 35 minute hike up hill in chest deep snow to get back on the trail...but fun nevertheless. ;-D (Updated 1/7/07 with picture of Explorer covered in 6 hours worth of snow at Kirkwood, halfway dug out.)

Kirkwood

It's warm and sunny out, it hasn't snowed in over a week, what does that mean for mountain conditions? Hard pack most everywhere on top of an ice layer from the continual melting and refreezing everyday, unpredictable chunk in the trees and steeps, and corduroy groomers everywhere else. A perfect day for snowboarding on the blues. After fighting with my boots in the morning (they'd stiffened up after a long off-season), had a great afternoon cruising the groomers until the wind picked up and they started icing over. Loving the new Giro Fuse helmet that Carrie got me for Christmas and my new Under Armour thermals. Even with the super warm weather, I stayed comfortably regulated all day...yay!

South Lake Tahoe

Unfortunately, I forgot my CF card adapter, so no pictures until Friday when I'm home again. Up in South Lake Tahoe this week, and the weather is beautiful. About 40F at night, and up to 55F during the day. It's almost *too* nice (makes for bad snow), but that's ok, the sun is nice. And I get to try out my shiny new helmet that I got for Christmas...very exciting! I'm staying at one of our favorite gambling destinations in South Lake - The Lakeside Inn and Casino - which has super cheap gambling, and cheap rooms...bonus!

John's January Travels

Happy New Year! Hoping everybody had a fun and safe New Year's Eve, and wishing everybody a great 2007. Just an update for anybody who might be interested in joining John on his adventures in January. Here are the dates and places:

• 2-5 : South Shore Lake Tahoe, NV
• 13 : Winter Wineland Sonoma County, CA
• 16-21 : Jackson Hole, WY
• 22 : Back in the office (sadly)

Merry Christmas!

From our house to yours, Carrie and John wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas this holiday season. As always, Google has had a themed logo all week, and the folks at Google have apparently enjoyed our blog so much that they made this year's theme in line with our adventures. As they say down under, Happy Chrissie, mate!

Home sweet home

After a loooooooooong journey with hardly any sleep, we are finally home. Much to our surprise, Santa had already stopped by and left a tree, decorations and a bunch of presents! How exciting! Merry Christmas to everybody. Keep reading, once we get all of our pictures posted on-line, we'll link to them here. We've got about 2,400 pictures from our 4 weeks abroad, so John needs to do some editing so that you're not all bored to tears. :) And after that, John will keep posting here for the rest of his sabbatical, so stay tuned for those TBD adventures.

The international flight RPG

Today we fly CNS -> BNE -> LAX -> SFO and get to experience the joys of 3 international connections! John's extensive time playing role playing games (Fable and Oblivion) prepared us for today's journey. Imagine that we have a precious item (let's call it two boxes of wine), our quest is to get that wine from Cairns to San Francisco. In Cairns, we check our two backpacks through to SFO but carry on our small bags and 2 boxes of wine. At the international transfer checkpoint, we find out Quantas does not allow carry-on's heavier than 7 kg (1 box is 11 kg), so we have to check in the wine. But Customs has to visually see any items that we claim tax credits on, so the guard at the front desk sends us 3 levels down to Customs. There, they see the boxes, stamp our invoice and send us on our merry way. Quantas' front desk issues us bag tags and fragile stickers, and directs us to "fragile" item luggage. Our boxed are swabbed for bomb residue there and added to the airplane. Then we are free to enter the international area, where (woot!) we get 30% of our wine cost back in tax refunds and credits! Finally, yet *another* security checkpoint at the gate for liquids and patdowns where they completely disassemble your bag and check every pocket. The guard gave up on John's backpack after 15 minutes though, because it seemed bottomless, and she realized she would never be able to reassemble it again. In LAX, we retrieved our bags for Customs on this side and find that at least one bottle of Sauvignon Blanc has broken, soaking the packing materials and destroying the cardboard box. It takes five airline workers and 3 different lines to get us a plastic bag to contain the remains, because of course, we still have another flight! Ah well, there is.a silver lining to the story. At least six bottles (all the reds for sure) have survived to LAX, none of our other stuff is wet because the wine was packed all separate, we are back home safely stateside, and we cleared Customs without having to pay any duty on our 12 bottles of wine! Yay! Just a few more hours until we are home in Campbell... (Updated 12/23 with how we repackaged the damaged wine box. Only 1 bottle broken, still not sure how it happened though.)

Kuranda tropical rainforest

It's our last day in Cairns, our last day in Australia, thankfully not our last day before work though. Carrie still has a few more days off and John still has a month of sabbatical. This morning, we boarded the SkyRail and spent 90 minutes skimming the canopy of the rainforest...watching beautiful white cockatoos soar above the treetops, and getting off the cablecar from time to time to walk around on the forest floor and see the flora and fauna up close. The ride ended in the town of Kuranda where we had time to shop and eat lunch before heading to Rainforestation. There we got to see lots of wildlife in their zoo, including a huge 15 foot saltwater croc named "Jack the Ripper" because he killed the four females they tried to mate with him. We also got to ride in an amphibious Army Duck vehicle to tour the park and waterways, see an Aboriginal dance performance, throw boomerangs, and see demonstrations of spear throwing and didgeridoo playing. It completed the entire checklist of "things to-do in Australia.". Afterwards, we boarded the Kuranda Scenic Railway to bring us back to Cairns, which a beautiful and very fun ride back. For less than $40US/pp, we upgraded to Gold Class service...a luxury car with armchairs instead of cramped benches, our own waitress, a free open bar for the entire 90 minute ride, a macadamia nut snack, a yummy cheese and fruit plate, and a bag of small souvenirs. What a deal! We couldn't believe that only one family of 3 people chose the upgraded service as well, considering how packed the other 11 economy class cars were...with no amenities! At any rate, early night for us, we are up at 3am tomorrow to begin the long journey home...will be about 28 hours of travel door to door. (Updated 12/23: Picture of us in the Gold Cabin on the Kuranda Scenic Skyrail)

Back on dry land

We got off the boat today at Cairns have another free day to decompress and do some shopping around town. Check out the picture to see our fellow passengers on the boat, a good bunch of folks. We made friends from China, Singapore, the UK, Brazil, Australia, and of course the states. We are back at Kewarra Beach Resort, this time in one of the beachfront bungalows (alas, not an upgrade, we actually reserved it this time). Our new digs are even more amazing than our stay at the resort last week. Our bungalow looks right out onto the ocean, and the beach comes right up to our front steps. We're getting our "land legs" back after 4 days of rocking on the boat and are enjoying the beach time.

Steve's Bommie

Today was our last on the dive boat. We did three more dives on Ribbon Reef 9 at Steve's Bommie and Flare Point. In total on this trip to Australia, we logged 12 dives and almost 7 hours of bottom time in the water on the Reef. It's been an incredible experience, one of the highlight's of today's dives was seeing a flame file shell, and a dusky nembrotha nudibranch. The dive team on the boat is so great that a dive master jumps in the water first and will mark places on the pinnacle with glow sticks or a flash light where there are cool things to see. In the picture (photo credit Taka Dive Australia) is the flame file shell which likes to sit on the bottom inside ledge of coral formations, impossible to find unless you know it's there and have a flash light to see in. The little white squiggly lines you see along its "lips" look like electricity and they actually flash/sizzle to attract fish in to get eaten. Other exotic things we saw today included a giant moray eel, a scorpion leaf fish, a yellow trumpetfish, and two really cool looking reef cuttlefish.

Bommies and Pixies

Today's dives included more sites along Ribbon Reef 10: Lighthouse Bommie, Pixie Pinnacle and Pixie Gardens. We started the day off at 7:15am for our dive brief at Lighthouse Bommie where we did a deep dive to 88 feet, about 40 feet deeper than John has ever been. This was a required dive for the Advanced Open Water Course which we both completed on board the dive boat. It was fun to do the class, just required some book work between our dives, but gets us to the next level of certification in the PADI dive system. We are extremely well taken care of on the dive boat, there's always a dive before breakfast, a dive or two before lunch, a couple dives before dinner, and sometimes a night dive. In addition to the amazing underwater views and warm 81F water, the dive luxuries provided really put the icing on the cake. When diving, we breathe completely dry air from the tank (prevents corrosion inside the tank) which can be hard on your mouth/throat when you're used to 50-80% humidity air. So on the dive deck, the dive crew always has glasses of water and orange wedges ready for you as you de-gear. Also, there are personalized dry towels available after every dive, and fresh water showers to rinse off the salt. It's a far cry from beach diving in Monterey in 50F water, and having to carry 50 pounds of lead weight plus 50 pounds of dive gear 200 yards to/from the beach. Both Lighthouse Bommie and Pixie Pinnacle are huge (60-70 foot) pillars of coral, which are amazing to dive and slow circle as you come up to the surface. They are teeming with wildlife, as you can see in the attached picture of Pixie Pinnacle. Today, the coolest thing we saw was a 7-foot long sea snake. It's incredible how it moves through the water, but John was pretty disconcerted as he remembers from the Discovery Channel that the Australian sea snake is the #1 most poisonous snake in the world...regardless of the fact that it's generally considered non-dangerous to humans. The sea snake we saw came within 4 feet of our group, not really paying any heed to us, but close enough to get our heart rates up pretty good.

Cod Hole

This morning, we were picked up and headed out to Cairns airport to meet our little twin prop Cessna to begin our trip with Mike Ball Dive Expeditions, on the 3-day Fly/Dive Cod Hole trip. The plane only had 10 seats, including those for pilot and co-pilot, and we flew that up the coast of Australia to Lizard Island. Cruising at about 1000 feet above sea level, we skimmed the Great Barrier Reef and had a great view of all the sites that we would be diving the upcoming week. At Lizard Island (so named because there are tons of giant lizards just cruising about the beaches), we boarded our home for the next 4 days, the Spoilsport dive boat. The crew of 12 was super friendly, and the other 26 passengers were a fun bunch. They wasted no time, we were on the boat for lunch at 11, and in the water diving at 1pm. First stop, the world famous "Cod Hole", where there are a bunch of friendly and enormous potato cod that hang out. In the picture that John took here, you can see one of the cod...for size reference, the little black and yellow damsel fish swimming over the cod's dorsal fin is about 8 inches long. These cod can grow to like 6-7 feet long and weigh several hundred pounds. We did three dives today, a normal dive at the cod hole, a drift dive at the cod hole (where you are dropped off in a small raft and then the tidal current carries you all the way back to the main dive boat), and a night dive at Challenger Bay. The night dive was intense, you can only see where your flash light is pointing...which is even crazier because there are a lot of big eyed trevally that patrol around Challenger Bay and they like to hunt by diver flash lights. Trevally are shaped like tuna, and are generally around 2-3 feet long. We'd be cruising around and if somebody lit up a small fish with their flashlight, it would only be a few seconds before half a dozen trevally swarmed and gobbled it up. Other fish we saw today included a school of barracuda, lots of parrot fish, a black tip reef shark, some big napolean maori wrasse, and the very cool looking flutefish.

Resort Day

First of all, we apologize to everybody reading our blog that we've been absent for several days. We have been on a dive boat on the outer reef for the last 4 days and have had no cell access to post. We didn't get to a computer in time to post a note about that before we left. But we're back now and have a few posts forthcoming. The Sunday before we got on the boat, we had a free day to enjoy Kewarra Beach Resort. It's still before the holiday rush travel season here in Australia, so we basically had the entire resort to ourselves. We tried each of the three beautiful fresh water pools, two of which are connected by a freshwater waterfall. When we got "bored" of the pools, we then made our way to the private white sand beach, where we had our choice of beach chairs...because there was nobody else to be seen on the quarter mile of sand in front of us. It's amazing walking around the resort, we feel like we're on a secluded tropical island somewhere in the middle of nowhere. The picture is of the view from our room, as you can see...we're in the middle of the tropical rainforest.

Michaelmas Cay

Today we took a sailboat out to the reef to do some snorkeling. The first stop was Michaelmas Cay, a famous island in the middle of the reef that is a bird sanctuary, has a beautiful white sand beach, and calm snorkeling just off the shore. We had a relaxing day floating on the waves finding cool things too look at. Among the things we saw in the water: a 3-foot black tip reef shark, two turtles, lots of parrotfish, an oriental sweetlips fish at a cleaning station, a small stingray and some medium sized jellyfish. Unlike the white-tip reef shark that we yesterday which have thin needle-like teeth and narrow jaws (for eating small fish whole), the black-tips have serrated teeth and wider jaws (for biting chunks out of larger animals...like people), so we gave it plenty of room even though it was so small. The sweetlips fish is cool looking, it has a mouth like Mick Jagger's. After Reef Teach, we knew when we saw the parrotfish to listen...because it has a parrot-like mouth that chomps down on the hard reef, making an interesting audible noise. When we saw the jellyfish though, we took that as our cue to exit the water. Stings are no fun, and much harder to avoid than a shark... Tomorrow, we have a free day, and are looking forward to doing some shopping in Cairns and relaxing by the pool and beach. Good on you, mate.

Flynn and Miln Reefs

Today was our first day out on the Great Barrier Reef. We hopped on a dive boat and headed out to three dive sites on Flynn and Miln Reefs (pieces of the greater reef)...Gordon's, Coral Gardens and Fish Town. It was a bit windy this morning, so the boat was getting bounced all over the place on the 90 minute journey out the Reef edge...we were very glad that we took our seasickness medication, as there were dozens of people on the backdack filling up little white bags with their breakfasts. The Reef met expectations. The water was WARM! About 80F, a far, far cry from the 50F water off the coast of Monterey that John got scuba certified at. Just a light 3mm wetsuit and minimal weights. Once we got to our dive sites however, the water was very calm. The day trip we were on led us on guided tours of all the dive sites with our own dive instructor, was a ton of fun. Among the normal tropical fish that you would expect to see (damsels, clown fish, parrot fish, etc), we saw a six foot moray eel, a four foot white tip reef shark (sharks are rarely spotted when diving), half a dozen blue spotted stingrays, some 5 foot long giant clams, and even a school of small barracuda! After wards, we stayed in Cairns to attend Reef Teach, an amazing class that taught us even more about the reef, in preparation for our snorkeling trip tomorrow and our liveabord dive boat next week. (Picture of Carrie having fun diving...although she's giving the wrong hand signal, thumbs up in scuba diving means "head to the surface." )

AYQ -> CNS

We've arrived in Cairns, a welcome respite from the blistering heat and pesky flies. It's gorgeous here, feels similar to Hawaii, but with more of a tropical rainforest feel. Our resort is amazing, it sits right on Kewarra Beach, 20 minutes north of the city. All the buildings are nestled right into the forest. We scored and got upgraded AGAIN!! This time to our own private bungalow set on the resort's private lagoon. (Updated 12/15/06 with picture of Cairns from the airplane on descent into the area.)

Uluru

This morning, we got up to get up close and personal with Uluru (Ayers Rock), what we came here to do. The past two days, we've seen and learned a lot about the Outback, which covers 70% of Australia's landmass. Animals out here are rarely seen in the blistering heat of the day, opting more for nighttime and underground travels, excepting the few birds that hunt in the daytime. Southern Australia used to be covered by a massive inland sea which deposited rock and sand sediments at the mouths of its rivers. These were compressed over time and geological forces eventually pushed them above ground and the sea emptied out into the ocean. Kata Tjuta is made of the rocky composite, and Uluru is made of sandstone...with some 1,500 feet above ground and an estimated 2-3 miles underground yet to be exposed. We walked the 7.5 miles around the base today at sunrise, and spent over 5 hours seeing the Rock up close and learning about the many Aboriginal Dreamtime stories associated with its features. We head out to the coast tomorrow with a greater (and spiritual) appreciation of the land of Australia. (Updated 12/15/06 with picture of us in front of Uluru after our hike.)

Kata Tjuta

We've left Sydney and flown out to Ayers Rock, or Uluru as it is known to its Aboriginal owners. First impressions...it's wicked hot here, 104F in the shade, pushing 120F in the hottest parts! But as they say in Arizona, it's a dry heat. We took a walk into the Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) rock formation this afternoon to get our first taste of the area (about 50 km from Uluru) and saw some awesome rock formations. The highlight of today was the Sounds of Silence dinner where we heard a didgeridoo and had dinner under the stars in the middle of the desert. We are quite knackered, especially considering we are scheduled for a 5:00am sunrise walk around Uluru (named Ayers Rock by William Goss in 1873 after his hometown governor in Southern Australia, Governor Ayers.). It helps that we're sacking out in our second room upgrade of the trip. The first was in Queenstown (to a suite with kitchen and laundry), this time was to a 4.5 star sister hotel with douuble the room size. Score! That's all for now. Oh yeah, no posting of pics until we get closer to civilization again. Cheerio. (Updated 12/15/06 with picture of John and Carrie in front of Kata Tjuta.)

Keep the comments coming

Thanks to everybody for leaving us all the comments so far, we love them and it keeps us posting regularly. If you do leave a comment, we go back and leave a response comment to almost all of them, so be sure to check back if you asked a question or something like that. Also, for those that may not have figured it out, there are three options for leaving a comment: as a registered Blogger user, as "Other", or anonymously. If you select "Other", it will allow you to optionally fill in your name so that it's easier for us to figure out who you are. (Pictured, an echidna at Featherdale, one of John's favorite Aussie creatures...like the platypus, this unusual mammal lays eggs and suckles its young. The echidna and platypus are the only members of a primitive group of mammals known as monotremes.)

Fuzzy wuzzy was a marsupial

It's our last day here in Sydney, and we wanted to see some more koalas, since they were so fun at Featherdale Wildlife Park. So we jumped on the train and headed to the northeast Sydney suburbs, where the Koala Park Sanctuary is located. Among other native Australian animals, they obviously have a bunch of koalas, which are free to roam about the park of their own free will. Many of them stay in the main koala area, because the park attendants regularly bring fresh eucalyptus branches there for the koalas to eat. The word "koala" means "does not drink water" in the aboriginal language, because koalas have a diet that consists 100% of eucalyptus leaves, they can get all the moisture they need from those without really ever needing to climb down to drink. They will drink water only when sick or in times of drought. Also, contrary to common misconception, koalas are actually marsupials (like wombats, kangaroos and wallabies) and not bears. Although koalas do spend up to 19 hours a day sleeping, the sanctuary does pick a few times throughout the day to have one of the awake koalas come out for visitors to pet, feed, "cuddle" and take pictures with. They are very, very soft, and smell pleasantly of eucalyptus.

Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb

After John got to do his elective activity of diving with sharks the other day, Carrie chose her elective activity today as the famous Bridge Climb on Sydney's Harbour Bridge. They get you all suited up in a blue & grey bridge climb suit, hat, sunglass holders, radio & harness and send you up in groups of 12 to climb the many stairs & ladders up to the very top of the bridge which is about 1200 feet above sea level. You walk right under the lanes of the bridge for a bit on just two planks of wood high above the water, climb up 5 sets of very precarious ladders and then there's pretty easy stairs (steep but easy enough) up to the top of the arch. The views are amazing as the fact you are climbing one of the most famous bridges in the world with traffic & trains whizzing by beneath you. All in all a very cool experience. This time, John assumed his role of photographer from the Pylon Lookout and captured some pictures of Carrie on the bridge. In the picture on the left, Carrie is the last one in the group, and you can see the traffic on the bridge cruising by below. Was another fun and active day, but we were both knackered from all the walking today and yesterday. This evening, on a suggestion, we headed to "Little Italy" for dinner, a section of Stanley St with 3 Italian restaurants. We found this quaint little place called Cafe SaSa and had the best meal we've had here in Sydney. Super super yummy with friendly and down to earth service. A nice way to end the day...

Sydney beaches

It's Saturday here, and it's hot and humid. We were told when those conditions coincide, Sydneysiders head to the beach. So we took the afternoon to head out to the coast. The adventure began with our transportation, as we navigated both the rail and the bus systems to make the 45 minute journey out to Bondi beach, no small feat for two suburban kids used to driving everywhere. But, we made it Bondi without any major mishaps, and got to check out Sydney's celebrity beach...see the surfers, the sunbathers, the flashy sportscars. Good stuff. From Bondi, we joined up with the coastal walking trail that meanders almost 4 miles down the coast where we ended up at Coogee beach. It was a pleasant 2 and a half hour walk along the coast line where we got to see most of Sydney's most popular beaches. Ending up in Coogee was nice, where we stopped for lunch, bummed around in the sand and had a smoothie before figuring out how to catch the bus back downtown. The most unusual thing about Sydney's beaches are their lifeguards, who are apparently sponsored by DHL (the delivery service), and run around in red and yellow beanies, much like the ones worn by the kids who work at Hot Dog on a Stick.

Hallelujah!

This evening, we headed over to the Sydney Opera House to watch the Sydney Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir perform Handel's Messiah, as part of their regular holiday lineup. The Opera House is just as amazing inside as the architecture is outside. The main concert hall is enormous, dominated by a huge pipe organ behind the stage, and aesthetically designed to be awe-inspiring to look at as well as being acoustically perfect. The concert included a core group of about 30 members of the orchestra, 4 vocal soloists, and the highlight being the 450 person choir backing the instrumentals. Was a very cool experience to take in a concert at one of the world's most famous venues, and certainly Sydney's most famous landmark. Afterwards, we headed over to the "Australian Hotel" to have a crocodile pizza for dinner (apparently another Sydney "must-do"). Croc tastes like chicken, albeit a little more rubbery and chewy. While eating dinner, we got to see a real-life bar fight in the streets. Wouldn't be an authentic Aussie bar without some good old fisticuffs, now would it?

Sharks!!!

Going to exotic locations is all about doing once in a lifetime activities. This afternoon, John jumped into a tank with a bunch of the local marinelife...giant loggerhead turtles, massive sting rays, various fish, and most notably...four 12 foot long gray nurse sharks. No cage, no weapons, just the sharks and some divers that hopefully don't look too much like food. Was an amazing time, the animals would swim right up to the divers, in one case, a shark literally buzzed John's head (pictured). The divers also got a better view of a lot of the fish, as there was a leopard shark hiding in a cave, really only visible to the divers who laid down on the floor of the tank. Carrie opted to play photographer for the day instead of getting her feet wet. Was a very fun experience, has us eagerly anticipating the Great Barrier Reef.

Sydney Olympic Village

Our activities today brought us through the Olympic village before boarding a jet ferry that cruised us back through the harbour to Circular Quay. The Olympic village was cool to check out...Sydney won their Olympic bid because they hosted the first "green" Olympics. The lighting towers around Telstra Stadium (stadium pictured, not the towers) all have enough solar panels on them to be self sufficient. They provide enough electricity back into the grid during the day to offset the power they use during the night. The roof of Telstra Stadium is designed to channel rain water back inside, where it is used to flush all the toilets throughout the complex. Maybe the most interesting thing are the poles you see pictured in the foreground...these include the names of all the volunteers from the Sydney Olympics, plus some special poles. There are video monitors in some of them that tell stories like the building of the village, the paralympic games, the torch, etc. Definitely a cool place to spend some time wandering around. From the Olympic village, we headed back across the water on a quick ferry that afforded us amazing views of the harbour, downtown, the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. Back in downtown, we caught dinner with a co-worker of Carrie's (Mike, in the Sydney office for 6 months). Was a good time. Mike reminded us that we should have AdSense running on the blog (because that's what Carrie and Mike do at Google). So you can thank him for the ads that are taking up blog real estate now. :) Shout-out to the Google AdSense and Blogger teams.

The Blue Mountains

From Featherdale, we jumped back on the Wonderbus (our bus tour company) to cruise down the road for our afternoon activity, the Blue Mountains. The Blue Mountains are a mountain range (or hills really, topping out at about 3,100 feet) so named because of the blue haze that forms above the treeline. When it's warm out, the eucalyptus trees in the forest evaporate both water (like all trees) but also eucalyptus oil, which refracts light and casts a blue color. The rock formation you see on the left side of the picture is the "Three Sisters", a famous rock formation in the Blue Mountains. Aboriginal legend has it that the witch doctor didn't want some rowdy boys marrying his three beautiful doctors, so he turned them into stone. But then the doctor was killed by said boys, and so was then unable to turn the sisters back into people again. Legend aside, the views were spectacular. The best way to describe it would be to imagine the Grand Canyon completely filled in with a tropical rainforest.

Featherdale Wildlife Park

This morning's activity was to head out to Featherdale Wildlife Park, one of the more famous parks in Australia, just outside the Sydney city limits. We had a great time there seeing all the exotic animals, but maybe even more exciting, is that we got to interact with a lot of them. In the picture, you can see John with a diamond backed python draped around his shoulders. We also had the chance to pet koalas and feed them eucalyptus leaves, and we got to hand feed kangaroos and wallabees. Other fun animals that were around included emus, crocodiles, many poisonous spiders and reptiles, dingos, wombats, bats, tons of birds, tasmanian devils, porcupines, penguins...the list is endless. Lots of fun.

Picture problems

Sorry the last two posts don't have any pictures. Blogger is misbehaving with the internet cafe here in Sydney and won't let us post pictures right now. We're working on it. (Updated 12/7/06: Picture problem fixed for now. And funny sign picture added, because it's the closest thing we have to represent this post.)

Sydney

Today was our first day in Sydney, and boy, was it a doozy! We walked from our hotel up through "The Rocks" to reach the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The Rocks is the old convict neighborhood, but is now a pretty nice area on the waterfront. We checked out the Pylon Lookout, one of the tours at either end of the bridge, to see the incredible 360 degrees of Sydney and the harbourways. It was a gorgeous day out, and we could see for miles. Had a great view of the boat traffic coming and going, the Opera House, downtown, and all the climbers going up and down the Sydney Bridge Climb. We're still undecided about whether or not to go on the climb. It was $9/pp to see the views from the pylon. It's $189 to get the same views on the bridge climb, but you can't take your camera with you there. People keep saying it's "so worth it" though. We'll see. After checking out the bridge, we jumped on the Sydney Explorer bus and cruised all over the city to get an overview of the sites. We jumped out of the bus to check out Circular Quay, the Opera House, Milson's Point (north of the bridge, with great views looking back at Sydney), Anzac War Memorial, the Sydney Fish Market (not quite like the Seattle one, alas), and the Sydney Aquarium. The aquarium was the highlight of all the stops, where we got a chance to see tons of local marinelife up close and personal, including seals, sharks, giant manta rays, and a huge saltwater crocodile! Afterwards, we grabbed a drink and a bite to eat back at Darling Harbour, right next to the aquarium, and enjoyed the people watching. Was a lot of walking today, we're pretty knackered. Tomorrow, we're off to the Blue Mountains bright and early! (Updated 12/7/06: Picture of Carrie holding the Sydney Opera House in the palm of her hand.)

ZQN -> CHC -> SYD

So we've arrived in Sydney, after a long day of travelling. Despite the fact that Qantas has a direct flight from Queenstown into Sydney, our travel agent booked us on a connection through Christchurch. The good news, we get to see a bit of another city in New Zealand. Bad news, including the 4 hour layover, it added some 7 hours to our trip. Ugh! Good thing we brought lots of reading material. And since we gain time travelling west, we got into Sydney at a reasonable hour and were able to walk down to Darling Harbour to grab a drink and a bite to eat. We did notice lots of teenagers walking around in tuxedos and formal dresses...prom season maybe? Also lots of the after-work crowd, lots of suits around. And we heard Australia was casual everywhere... (Updated 12/7/06: First sight of Australia mainland from the airplane.)

Wine tasting

It's our last day in New Zealand, and we've pretty much had our share of adventuring. So we decided what better way to spend our last day than to drive out into the country to do some winetasting? Afterall, everybody keeps telling us that driving into the countryside is a "must-do." Well, if John's going to risk our lives driving on the wrong side of the road, might as well do it in style. When we called down to the Concierge this morning to inquire about rental cars, we had the choice of a Mazda compact, or shiny new BMW Z4 for only $20 more. That's like 50 cents in American dollars. :) Easy choice. We had a good amount of fun zooming around under the beautiful blue skies and trying not to crash into anything. We really liked the wines at Amisfield and Peregrine, both less than 30 minutes from Queenstown. We lingered at Amisfield a bit to chat with the girl in the tasting room who was from Chicago but extended her 4 month trip in Queenstown to 4 years. A stop for lunch at Waitiri was amazing. Waitiri is a tiny little winery housed in an old church, but they have an incredible kitchen and served us sumptuous platter of antipasti...fresh bread, cheeses, sausages, marinated vegetables. Yum! Was a very relaxed ending to our stay here in New Zealand. Tomorrow, we are off to Sydney, Australia, hopping through Christchurch to get there. We're super excited to see someplace new. Less so to pack our backpacks again. lol. Cheers, mates!

Middle Earth...Lord of the Rings

Today we fully validated our Tourist Visas by going on a Lord of the Rings tour around the Wakatipu Basin. Our driver, an actual extra from the second movie, piloted the Land Rover all around the area to show us scenes that were used in the LOTR movies, and give us interesting details about the making of. In the picture, you can see the Remarkable Mountain range behind us, which is used in several places in the movies, but most notably as Mordor. The smaller hill just in front of the large Remarkable Mountain range is used in the famous battle scene with the Riders from Rohan, where Aragorn is dragged by his horse over the cliff and into the river below. Our driver also showed off the capabilities of the Land Rover by driving it up and down steep grades, on a sideways 45 degree angle, and even through the river! Other fun things from the tour included a pause for a spot of English tea, and a chance to do some gold panning in the river, where we were able to actually find a speck of gold using the traditional panning techniques.

Jet boating

This afternoon, after a brief rest from our crazy adventures in the canyon, we signed up with Shotover Jet to go jetboating in Shotover Canyon. Jetboating is a very unique experience. The closest analogy of the boat is a giant jetski, its jet propulsion system is similar but it's much larger, and it seats 15 people. The drivers are all just a touch insane, as they fly through the narrow canyon at speeds up to 70 kph, deliberating buzzing the cliffsides by mere inches, power sliding around corners, and doing the Shotover Jet's "signature" 360-spin. The spins are tons of fun, as the entire boat gets whipped around in a tight circle, splashing everyone inside. Maybe the most impressive thing in the boats is the creature comforts...they of course provide everyone with splash jackets and life vests so that you don't get *too* wet, but every row of seats comes equipped with heated handlebars! Certainly encourages everyone to hold on as the cold water comes splashing in. (Updated 12/6/06: Video from the Shotover Jet fixed.)

Canyoning

After a couple days rest from the beating we took in the water while riverboarding, the water levels around the area are back to being safe enough to get back in. So this morning we headed over to the 12 Mile campground area just outside of Queenstown to do some canyoning. The sun finally broke through this morning and we were lucky enough to get some warm weather, finally, for another cold water activity. Canyoning involves hiking up a trail and then coming back down via the fast moving snowmelt that rushes through the canyon. There's a good amount of scampering over wet and slippery rocks, some rappelling from tricky cliffs, a zipline to get across the canyon to access the fun stuff, some swimming/riding of the rapids, some sliding down rock slides and waterfalls in the rapids, and a few thrilling (scary) jumps into waterfalls, whirlpools and bubbling water. In the picture, you can see John giving the thumbs up before leaping off a 25 foot cliff into the water below. To give some concept of that height, it's like jumping off the roof of a 2-story house. If it's not obvious from the picture, Carrie's look is meant to express, "you must be kidding me, right?" Good fun.

Walter Peak Station

We jumped on the TSS Earnslaw this evening and cruised across Lake Wakatipu over to the Walter Peak Station, an active sheep farm. The TSS Earnslaw is an authentic coal-fueled steamship that is hand-fed coal, at the rate of 1 ton per hour, reaching a top speed of 13 knots. The engine room is completely exposed, allowing visitors to watch the turbines and the crew feeding the boilers. We had a great buffet dinner over at Walter Peak station, and had a chance to watch a hilarious sheep shearing demonstration by a local shepherd, Lindsay. He had some funny wisecracks, including his explanation of where sheep shearing started. It's apparently from the British isles, because a sheep with its wool is called "wooly," an English name (Wally), and a sheep without its wall is called "shorn,", an Irish name (Sean). Get it? lol.