A Day at the Zoo

We spent today at the Toranga Zoo, with Robert and Pat Evans, their grandson, Nathan, and Nathan's parents.  That's Pat with Mary in today's photo with the Opera House and bridge in the background.

It was very interesting spending a day at a zoo with a 3 year old.  Definitely tugs on the "grandparent strings", although someone's were tugged a bit harder than mine.  8-)

Tomorrow we tour the Opera House in the morning and my bridge walk is in the afternoon.  I got this picture of some people at the top of the bridge today.  I sure am looking forward to it!

Note: Picture link has been fixed.

Seeing the Beaches

We got a bit of a late start today after deciding to head to Manly for our first outing in Sydney.  First item of business was to get our 7 day travel passes, then we hopped on a bus and headed to Circular Quay where we caught the ferry to Manly.  This ferry ride came highly recommended since it takes you across most of Sydney harbor and you get great views of the Sydney Opera House and Sydney bridge. 

Manly Beach was beautiful! That's it in the picture.  We enjoyed watching the surfers tackle the large waves. We had lunch there, then took the ferry back to Sydney - and promptly changed our plans to check out Bondi beach since is was such a nice day. Bondi had large waves - a lots of surfers.  After Bondi, we walked along the coast to Tamarama beach, then caught the bus back to Sydney where we visited the Sydney Tower for a top-down view of the city.  

Check out the 5 new pictures in my Australia Picture page (Picassa) album.

So after a long day we're back at our hotel and about ready to head out for some supper. It's been a great day in Sydney!

Back to Sydney

Well, Mary and I are all checked into the the Sullivan's Hotel.  It's not a classy place, but very functional and conveniently located in Sydney.  I do admit that our motels during this trip have been a class (or two) below where Mary and I typically stay, but since we're in motels in Australia for 13 days, I went for "reasonable economy", even so they've run well over $100/day.  You could easily spend $200/day for motels to get "3 star" places and I was not inclined to spend that much.  So we ended up in Cairns having a 2 mile walk into town.  But on the positive front, we sure are getting our exercise!  LOL

We are both very impressed with Qantas!  For example on today's flight which left Cairns at 1:10 and arrived at Sydney at 4:10, we got a lunch!  I had a nice lunch (which came with a bottle of water) but a small can of soda and a cup of tea as well!  We were then surprised when they came around with ice cream bars!  The service is top notch, as well, with luggage arriving very promptly and extremely courteous staff.  I can't recall the last time I had a meal on a US airline - even on a 7 hour flight to Anchorage in 2005;  yet here we get one that didn't even cross a mealtime.  I sure wish they flew in the US...

We've been blessed with excellent weather while in Australia.  Our first 5 days in Newcastle had great weather with the only rainy day being last Sunday, our travel day to Brisbane.  During the 7 days we were in Brisbane and Cairns, we had nothing but sunshine (and lots of wind!) but during those days, the Sydney/Newcastle area had several rainy days.  But now that we're back in Sydney, the 10 day forecast shows nothing but sunshine!  This could have not worked out better if we planned it.

We're going to spend tomorrow getting used to the Sydney transportation system.  We have two bus lines that pick up right in front of our hotel that will take us most places we want to go.  Tomorrow we're going to buy a 7 day bus/ferry/rail pass for the whopping price of $43/person so we don't have to worry about paying fares each day, then take the Manly ferry under the Sydney Bridge to Manly Beach to visit Oceanworld.  

Wednesday is the Taronga Zoo, Thursday, Sydney Tower and the Bridge Climb.  On Friday or Saturday we'll probably take a 1 day Blue Mountain tour. 

So those are our preliminary plans.  Stay tuned for details as we explore Sydney.

Heading out from Cairns

I'm uploading some more pictures today. They'll be in the Slideshow on my blog page as well as my picass album (link on blog page). Unfotunately, I forgot to put some of Mary's Great Barrier Reef pictures on my USB drive so those will have to wait to be uploaded
We had a quiet day today. Went to Trinity Lutheran this morning. It was nice to attend a solid liturgical Lutheran service. The liturgy was close to our Matins, except it had the Apostles Creed in it. The pastor had a solid sermon around the topic of Baptism.
This afternoon we sat by the pool, relaxed, did laundry, and not much else. It's nice to have a quiet day in the middle of a trip.
Tomorrow we fly to Sydney. We have a few plans, but I plan to layout a tentative schedule tomorrow once I assess the weather.

Past the halfway mark!

Yesterday Mary and I realized we had reached the halfway mark of our vacation. I came up with 3 ways to determine when we reached that milestone, but the easiest is to take half the time between when we flew out of Detroit and when we return. That would point to the evening of June 19th, which would be late morning on June 20th here in Australia after you add 14 hours.
We've never been on vacation for 14 days and we're nearly at that milestone and still have over 10 days to go! So this will easily be out longest vacation.
We both hope all is well back in Michigan. We haven't heard much news besides what's on Katie's blog. I have heard about the major power outages and hope our house was unaffected.
That's about it for now. Time to check on a few more things and then sign off and head back to the hotel.

Kuranda - Train and Skyrail

Today we had a low key excursion to Kuranda. We took the train to the village, had 4 hours there, then took the Skyrail back. The train ride was very nice - 15 tunnels, lots of scenery and a great ride. At one stop we could get out for 10 minutes at a scenic overlook and across the river was the Skyrail. The sight of how high it was got someone very nervous to the point of thinking she might not want to do that.
The village was nice, but an obvious tourist town. Mary found that the farther you walked into town the lower the prices. She bought quite a few souvenirs; I bought a new leather belt for myself. We took a scenic walk back to the main station and, near our appointed time, boarded the Skyrail. The views were great! After the first station I switched seats with Mary so my left knee would not be bruised too badly as she gripped it. But during later segments, she relaxed a bit and enjoyed the trip, altho with the high winds, I every time I moved I was told to sit still to keep the gondola from rocking.
So all in all a pleasant, quiet day with cool sightseeing.
Tomorrow we have no excursions planned. We're planning to attend Trinity Lutheran here in Cairns, about 2 km from our hotel. For being the in the "Bible belt" of Australia there sure are not many churches! Their only service is at 8:00 so it will be an early morning.

Great Barrier Reef

Well, still no new pictures, but at least you get text!
Today we took a boat out to Michaelmas Key and it was fabulous! Everything I imagined snorkeling on a coral reef would be - and more!
Our tour package included a ride in a semi-submersible as well as snorkeling, and other amenities. We did the semi-submersible ride first and the guide did a good job of pointing out the different corals as we saw them. We got some good pictures as well and saw a turtle from the boat. That was nice, but the best was yet to come.
After a great lunch we headed to the beat and I donned my snorkel gear. I bought an underwater camera but it's not digital so I need to get the pictures developed. But the pictures cannot come close to capturing the experience of drifting silently, but inches above a living coral reef. The coral was amazing - very colorful, with different types mixed together and lots of fish, both large and small. At one point I was a couple of feet from a parrot fish that was feeding on the coral. If I held my breath for a bit I could actually hear the crunch as it bit off a small amount of coral. Fascinating!
I also saw lots of giant clams, including several that were 3-4' in size! It was fascinating to watch them, with all the little fish hanging around them. Other clams were buried into coral. I asked the naturalist and he said that type doesn't grow a shell so it buried itself inside a coral shell as protection.
The varieties of coral were endless. Large, small, soft, hard, green, blue, purple, brown, and many other colors. I no longer will even consider a snorkeling excursion in the Carribean sicne it could never compare to this experience.
So much I could write about, but so hard to relate it. This is a fascinating experience and I encourage anyone who comes to this area to give it a try. I hired (e.g. rented) a wet suit and I encourage you to do that as well. It helps you float and stay in the water longer without getting cold since water absorbs heat from you body much faster than air.
But I've rambled on enough for now. Pictures once I get home since I have to get them developed an them scanned in.