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.