Category: Australia

We’re on the home stretch! Literally. Our stop in Sydney, though for some reason counted as a full day during planning, was little more than a glorified layover on the way home to Seattle.We got to add yet another viewing angle to our Opera House collection as we flew in.

We grabbed some of those cute little sushi rolls from a trains station (bring the sushi kiosks to Seattle!), and then we decompressed for a bit in our cute little hostel. I booked us a private room, so it was like a cute, cozy hotel with a shared bathroom, though we never saw anybody else using the bathrooms. I think we must have been the only ones staying on the floor with the private rooms. Woohoo!

We wandered downtown to watch some crazy bats, though since the sun was already well set, they were much less crazy than the ones in Cairns.

Then we met up with Lil Baby Terry for one last hurrah.We walked along the waterfront in search of food.

I’m not sure how, but we decided our best bet was pancakes. There was a restaurant near the water that was like a mix between Outback Steakhouse and iHOP. Pretty wild. Hahaha.

By the time we came out of the restaurant, loud Latin music was playing from the (much hipper) restaurant across the street. Turns out it was free salsa night! I creeped for a while until an older guy finally asked me to dance. So fun!

Our next goal was to take a gander around the Sydney Google office, but Jonathan’s badge didn’t work for some reason, and he refused to just ask the security guard sitting behind the desk literally twenty feet from us. I very nearly had a breakdown because I had to pee so badly, and in the end, we slow-walked back to the salsa place so I could sneak into their bathroom. Ugh. My poor little bladder.

Amazingly, we spent the next hour playing in a park filled with climbing things, big slides, water features, and a zipline. Gotta love parks.

Not sure if you remember that trashy HSP meal The Boy was obsessing over for the first half of the trip, but Terry is the reason behind this obsession. Seeing as it is a pretty good late night snack, we traipsed around until we found a tiny shop to buy one from, and then the boys ate it in a fancy McDonald’s. What a wild night.

Still not ready to call it quits, we finished off the night in a hotel. Bahahaha. Bars are called hotels in Australia because there used to be a law that a business serving alcohol must also provide places to sleep. So all bars were also hotels, and all hotels might as well be bars! Our bartender looked exactly like Emma Stone, and when I let her know this, she said it was one of her favorite comments and that all of her American customers tell her this. So I guess I’m not special.

After so many hours, we finally bid Terry farewell. Until next time!

We got about four hours of sleep before we were off to the airport for a fourteen hour flight. And, to come full circle, we encountered a bin chicken on our way out of the hostel, the very first crazy animal we found on Day One in Australia.

This flight was much less productive and restful than the flight to Sydney had been. I should have napped right away, but Jonathan watched The Martian, and I got hooked. I had some fitful sleep in between meals, and by the end of the flight, I knew I was in for a rough day. I barely shook myself into consciousness enough to watch Parasite. That movie was wild. Still had my mind turning!

Though we departed Sydney at 11am, we landed in LAX at 6am that same day. That international date line’ll getcha. Jonathan’s badge actually did work at the LA Google office, so we snacked a bit and then I passed the heck out in a kitchenette. My face hurt, dude.

When I zombied awake so we could explore a bit, we found a Google Maps explorer thing, and Jonathan managed to find Uluru. I miss that rock. Doesn’t it look like he’s exploring Mars?

The office is right next to Venice Beach, so instead of having a bike rack like a normal hip and happenin’ metropolitan office, this one had surfboard racks. What is this madness.

I guess I didn’t take many pictures in my near delirium, but we wandered the beach and all the shops in the area. Was pretty cute.

Then we had our last leg of the trip up to Seattle. When we got home, we lay down and woke up fourteen hours later, just in time for me to miss my carpool and stumble in late for work. I’m still working on making up that sleep deficit I worked up during camping!

And that’s the end of yet another adventure. It’s pretty surreal. I didn’t know when I would ever make it to Australia because it’s just so far away. It didn’t make sense to go there unless I could dedicate a full month or more, and I couldn’t imagine giving up a month that I could spend in Europe! We only met one other couple (the Welsh couple on our Uluru tour) who was on a two week trip from home. Everybody else we met was either on some year-long travel break, a month long vacation, or a years-long stint on an Australian working holiday. Regardless, I think the two weeks was super full. I didn’t feel like we were leaving too soon, though to be fair, I’m sure the flies had some part in that convincing!

Australia was lovely, as any vacation can be, but what really struck us was all the amazing wildlife. Some was expected, but a lot of it really wasn’t. Such a wonderful surprise. I mean, I swam with a swim turtle, we rode a camel, we fed wallabies, and we were scared out of our wits by midnight dingos.

If that’s not an adventure, I don’t know what is.

Until next time (or until I continue my saga of writing blogs for old trips)….

Venlig hilsen/cheers!
-Lizzy-wa

Okay. Valentine’s Day continued.

We’d just finished the fly-iest walk of our young lives. We were hot. We were tired. We stopped at a little campground to make some chicken-veggie-and-tuna-fish-salad burritos for lunch, and we barely even cared that there were as many flies in the tuna as there were pieces of corn. I created a highly effective eating method that involved pulling my fly net up so it left my mouth exposed, holding my burrito with my left hand, then constantly fanning the burrito with my right hand. The fanning kept the flies away. If I ever let my guard down and stopped fanning for more than one full fan-beat, the flies would return. It was madness.

There was a pool at the campsite, and we all gratefully jumped in, only to find that the water was rather warmish due to its direct exposure to the sun. It still felt better than being on land, and the flies didn’t seem to want to enter the twelve inches of air space above the water.

Once we’d finished eating and washed our dishes, we piled back into the van to sleep again, and we stayed like that until we reached another potty break. There were little aviaries here, and one of the parrots really liked Jonathan. He even let him pet his head. The bird would clamp his beak onto a wire of his cage and then lean his head close to the opening. So cute.

Another hour later, we approached a salt lake and a lookout for Attila, or Mount Connor. This rock is also known as “Fooluru,” because people driving from the nearest city, Alice Springs, can easily mistake this lone rock for the Other Lone Rock they are actually looking for, Uluru. Then they’ll turn around and head home, only to find out they were about a hundred miles short of their destination. Attila is the Aboriginal name for the rock, but somehow, the mountain is privately owned, so the guy who owns it has named it Mount Connor. He provides private tours of it, but that is the only way to see the rock, so we don’t know much about the Aboriginal lore surrounding it.

We piled back into the van once again, and the next time we were awoken, I was rather displeased. The goal for this stop was to get some firewood. I hadn’t realized this meant to actually just go out into the desert and break up dead tree branches. So we did that for a while.

I got a pretty minor looking scrape on my left shin from breaking one branch off another, but I was surprised by how much it stung. Turns out, this kind of tree bark is rather poisonous to humans, and it helps speed up infection. Cute. (Don’t worry. It didn’t get infected. But it does still look pretty gnarly.)

Long after we thought we’d piled up enough branches, Ken finally let us call it, and we stacked the branches on top of the trailer. The next time the van slowed down, Ken hollered, “Aaahh, that’s a big guy!” I honestly don’t know what I expected to see when I looked out the front window, but I did not expect to see a camel standing in the middle of the road! He trotted along beside us for a little while before disappearing into the bush.

Crazy! And then a little while later, we saw a wild mustang! He seemed skinny….

Shortly after this, we rolled into camp for the night, hopped in the pool for a while (this one was shaded), and then we walked to a lookout to admire the sunset.

Somehow, Jonathan ended up being next to the stove right when Ken needed a hand, so he became the designated stirrer. Our group made a big fuss over this, and Carrie, one of the Canadian ladies, even asked me if he was a chef. Bahahahaha.

He asked if this counted as cooking for me on Valentine’s Day. My little romantic….

Dinner was chili with rice and fire-roasted veggies. I’m not sure why it tasted so good, but we very nearly finished it off, leaving hardly any leftovers for lunch.

After our meal, The Boy and I decided to venture back to the lookout, where a lone picnic table stood, so that we could admire the stars without the lights of camp. The Milky Way was shining proudly, and we each saw the Southern Cross for the first time! Orion was also dancing out in the sky.

We had brought a sleeping bag to lay on the table, and with the breeze running above and below us, it was cool for the first time in days. There were also no bugs, and it was just so relaxing. Before we knew it, we’d both nodded off. I woke around eleven and prodded The Boy awake. We had another 4:20am wake up call, and I didn’t trust the two of us to make it back to camp in time. I couldn’t imagine what the group would do if they loaded onto the bus and realized we were missing.

The trouble is, we didn’t want to give up the stars, so we put our swags out on the ground next to where the campfire had been.

Now, I’m not sure if it was because we were close to camp or if it was because we were closer to the ground, but all of a sudden, the flies were back. Not like during the day, but like you would encounter on a normal camping trip in the northwest. We even tucked into our sleeping bags, despite the stifling heat, to keep them off our bodies. They paid extra attention to our ears, though, so we both had our sleeping bags’ mummy hoods up over our heads. Gosh it was so hot, and I could still hear the flies when they zoomed past my ears. It was impossible to sleep. Every time I came close to nodding off, another fly would buzz in my ear and wake me straight up again.

The Boy managed to fall asleep, but after an hour and a half, I was still dizzyingly awake. And then, off some distance to the left of Jonathan, I head some quick footsteps followed by a few seconds of labored panting.

PANTING, guys. Like a dog.

Have you ever heard of a dingo???? They are wild dogs that roam the outback, and there were signs all over the campsite about keeping all food and clothing shut up so as not to entice them. Maybe you’ve heard of the famous line, “A dingo ate my baby!” There was incident in the eighties when an infant was stolen from a tent in the outback by a dingo, and the mother was wrongly imprisoned for the crime. Ken had just told us that this actually happened in Uluru, so I was freshly freaked out. And now I was a couple hundred kilometers away from there, and I was hearing panting in the middle of the night.

I told myself it was nothing, but then I heard a vicious, “Arghshelwshaar!!!” a quick scrapping occurring undeniably between two dogs. I grabbed Jonathan’s forearm suddenly and his eyes sprung open.

“Jonathan!” I whisper-shouted. “Did you hear that?!”

Eyes wide, he responded. “What? No. Was it crickets?”

“NO!” I said, exasperated and terrified. The dingus.

Right at that moment, the growl/fighting happened again. “Did you hear THAT?” I said.

“Yes,” he said, the terror in his eyes now less about my fright and more of his own understanding. Suddenly, a dingo went running right past our heads. RIGHT PAST OUR HEADS.

We sat bolt upright and I clung to him like I was about to be swooped up by a hurricane if I didn’t hold on tight enough. Then a second dingo went sprinting after the first, and they growled and scrapped at each other on the other side of us. Basically trying to scramble into Jonathan’s lap, I said, “JONATHAN I’M SO FRICKING SCARED,” barely managing to hold onto my wits.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, they’re just a nuisance,” he said in an attempt to soothe me. I thought to myself, ‘Do I believe him? No! No, I do not!’

We gathered our swags and rushed into the shed where our breakfast was locked up, and we lay our sleeping bags on the floor there after locking the doors. With the moon shining like a flashlight on my face and my heart pounding hard, I got about one hour of sleep that night. What a way to finish off what was already the wildest Valentine’s day I’ve ever had. Jonathan, next year, we’re going somewhere cold. That way we’ll also be indoors.

Not long after I finally shut my eyes, we were woken up by the loudest guitar entry to Here Comes the Sun I’ve ever heard at four in the morning. Ken was the first person we saw, and it turned out he had a dingo encounter, too. He woke up because one was chewing on his water bottle strap and then pawed at him in his swag. His response was to wake up and growl at the dingo, and the dingo supposedly scampered off in fear. Oh, Ken.

We scarfed down some breakfast and I regaled our cohort with our dingo story about five times, and then it was off for more adventuring as if nothing had ever happened.

Our main event for the day was the Kings Canyon Rim Walk, a six kilometers loop around and through Kings Canyon. We were told to carry three liters of water each (which is a crap ton of water), and we started as the sun lit up the sky.

The canyon was so beautiful, and the rock turned redder and redder as the sun rose quickly above the horizon.

There were these gorgeous white-barked trees sprinkled around, and lots of green thanks to the rain and permanent watering holes throughout the canyon.

Ken pointed out many fossils in the rock, and some cool markings that proved the existence of water and even rivers here long ago.

After an hour or so of hiking, we approached the crowning beauty of the canyon, the Garden of Eden. Rainwater is soaked up by the sandstone rock and trapped by shale below the surface, and then it funnels into this deep gully to create an oasis for relic plant life. We admired it from above first.

And then Ken sent us off to explore the Garden up close while he prepped some snacks. (Hallelujah!)

Just before we were out of earshot, Ken called, “Watch out for the little frogs!”

THE FROGS WERE SO CUTE. About the size of the tip of your finger and the color of dark mud. They were master fly catchers, and I wanted to stick some of my head so they could fend off the nasty things for me.

It was so peaceful down there, I didn’t want to leave.

But eventually, The Boy ditched me for snacks, so I lingered a little longer with Dr. Phil and the frogs, and then we made our way back as well.

Snack consisted of apples and biscuits. Did you know they call cookies “bickies,” here, short for biscuits? Adorable.

And then it was off to finish the loop. I really had to pee at this point, so my water intake slowed dramatically. In the end, The Boy and I consumed about 1.5 liters of our six. Oh, well. Better to have too much than too little.

The walk back was gorgeous, and we got to peek at the canyon and marvel at the dramatic layers of rock around us.

Soon, we came upon what is often called The Lost City, endless formations of rocky domes that look much like little huts.

The canyon was blooming with plentiful plant species. Over a dozen plant varieties have remained in this area since the time of the dinosaurs, when Australia had a wetter climate. One of these is the MacDonnell Ranges Cycad, a huge fern with a trunk. They grow extremely slowly to conserve energy, and this one is estimated to be eight hundred years old!

Another interesting plant almost looked like a sort of coral, and if you break off a stem, you’ll find a white milky substance inside. This liquid can act as an antibiotic and antiseptic as well as a glue, so it has a long tradition as a bush medicine for open cuts and wounds. However, it can also be used as a punishment. It is said that it would be rubbed in the eyes to render offenders blind for several days! How horrific!

I felt the need to touch all the plants, and as I reached out to one tall, bushy, grass-like plant, I was shocked that it stabbed me like a bunch of out-turned needles! It literally drew blood! Not at all the soft grass I was expecting. Gotta watch out for those desert plants. They know how to watch out for themselves.

Before we knew it, our beautiful walk was coming to a close, and we could spot our van in the distance.

Such a lovely way to spend a morning! I was blown away by the beauty we saw in this canyon. Makes me want to explore more of the national parks in the States.

To celebrate our accomplishment and to stave off hunger before lunch, Jonathan and I celebrated with a camel burger at our next potty break. It was actually so yummy! Super soft and juicy, and it was remarkably cheaper than the beef burger the shop had on offer.

When we stopped for actual lunch, I was so pooped out that I refused to leave the bus. Jonathan had to wake me and practically beg me to get up and get some food. I learned my lesson though – by the time I finally came out, nearly all the food was gone. I had a scant spoonful of leftover chili, some two-day old chicken, and lettuce for my burrito fillings. Sad. Didn’t stop me from going straight back to sleep when we loaded onto the bus again.

When we stopped again for fuel, I was delighted to find a woman selling her paintings, and she let me take a picture of her with the one I bought! I had seen some I liked in Uluru, but they were all out of my price range, so this was a really lovely find.

Also fun was the fact that there was an emu farm at this stop. We bought a bag of food pellets and were actually able to feed the emus! It was slightly terrifying. These guys are giant, and their beaks ain’t no joke. We were told to have a flat hand so they wouldn’t accidentally pinch any skin, but it was still super scary! They just pecked so suddenly and aggressively, though they did have impeccable aim.

Our last stop of the trip was actually optional – a camel farm. Ken told us if anybody was interested in riding a camel, we could stop by and see if they were saddled up. I requested that we do so because, uh, when’s the next time I might be able to ride a camel?! One girl wasn’t pleased, but the German girl and the Brazilians also wanted to ride, so off we went!

There were three camels tied together. It was supposed to be a 5-10 minute ride, so I was expecting a slow moving pony walk around the paddock at the speed I’ve seen camels move in movies as they trek across the desert. These camels weren’t laden with pounds and pounds of baggage, though, and they hadn’t been walking for miles and miles. They were antsy to get moving.

Line (pronounced “lee-nuh”) was to ride the camel in the back, whose name was Sparky. Sparky was a bit… spunky, though, and the camel man said, “Sparky, STAND!” about two dozen times in the fifteen minutes we were with him. I think Sparky just wanted to be in the front, and the other two camels, Hallie and Murky, were in no mood to slow-walk either. It ended up being a pretty bumpy (and fun) ride!

I felt like I was about to tumble off the front, so I asked the camel man whether the saddles could fall off. His response was, “No, they’re not going anywhere. There’s a hump in the middle.” Touché, camel man.

Camels also have super long necks, so about halfway through the ride, Jonathan and I looked over and realized Sparky’s head was right next to us! I pet him for the remainder of the walk, and we got to feed them carrots when we got off. So cute.

There was even an adorable little baby camel off in the paddocks that we said hi to. Cannot handle.

I grabbed some passion fruit cheesecake from the shop, and we were off again, stopping only for a quick photo-op with the Alice Springs sign signifying that we had finally made it to the capital of the outback.

We were dropped off at our respective hostels and hotels to freshen up, but we agreed to reconvene for dinner as a last hurrah. The Boy and I basically spent the full of our free time in our hostel’s pool before showering and rushing to meet our gang. Of the seventeen group members, only two didn’t show. Those darn Canadians.

Ken also saved my skin by bringing some sandals I’d left on the bus, along with a bag containing all my souvenirs and my purse with my passport in it, the latter of which I hadn’t even realized I was missing! Phew! Close one.

We tried a kangaroo steak for dinner. (It was fine – pretty soft, kind of chewy, but doused in gravy sauce, so hard to speak to flavor at all.) And then Karina, the Danish girl, convinced us all to move to the dance floor and share a round of shots. It’s always those crazy Danes.

Jonathan then proceeded to horrify me with his dance moves. I hid behind Kiko while the rest of the group cheered him on, and then a security guard asked him to put his shoes back on. Bahahahaha. Oh, deer.

We said farewell to most of the group (such a fun gang!) and were sad to realize we didn’t get any contact information for a single person. How strange this travel life can be sometimes, to bond with people you may never see again. In the morning, we boarded the bus with a new driver, Brooke, and six others from our group – the Germans, the Irish, and the Brazilians, along with a bunch of the next tour group, and we began the long drive back to Uluru.

We stopped at the oldest river in the world to pee, which is comically dry most of the year, and later stopped at the Actual Center of Australia for breakfast.

Funnily enough, we chatted more on this six hour drive than we had during any other. There was a Swiss boy and a German couple, and Jonathan and I were spread on different seats, as were our Germans and the Irish girls, so we all just grabbed the whole way. It was a lot of fun, and Teresa and I lamented that we didn’t chat more with our group. I think it was because we were always just so hot and tired. We were mostly sleeping when we were in the car, or else it seemed like everybody already had somebody to talk to. That’s why I befriended Phil and Kiko – they were two of the only 3 people who weren’t with a travel buddy.

Before we knew it, though, we were back at the Ayers Rock airport. All eight of us were on the same flight to Sydney.

The airport security guy who examined my bag asked where home was, and it turned out he was from Queen Anne in Seattle! I asked what he was doing here, and he said, “My wife’s Australian and I knew not to argue.” Bahahahaha. What a small world. Somehow, on this trip, all the Americans we met were either from the Northwest or were very familiar with it. Made for some fun conversations.

We waved goodbye to the famous rocks, and then we had two hours of red desert to look at (including an aerial view of Mount Connor!) before it was back to the city. *sigh… What a wild ride.

Venlig hilsen/ cheers,
-Lizzy-wa

Okay, surely you associate the word “outback” with the country of Australia. I mean, Outback Steakhouse, right? Bahahaha. Well, when we decided to visit the Aussies, we did so with very little idea as to where we would go besides Sydney. I did a little search of two-ish week itineraries in Australia, and I found one I really liked. It recommended a visit to both Darwin, way up north in the middle of the country, and Uluru, a town and landmark smack dab in the Red Center. After a little more research, I decided Uluru sounded more exciting.

The pain is, there is very little civilization in the outback, which makes public transit a non-starter. Trying to drive on the left side of the road also seemed like a bad idea, and it was also hard to tell what exactly there was to do in the area and how to get there. So, I found some multi-day tours of the area, and I booked one the same night The Boy booked all our domestic flights. Thank goodness we did so.

The only thing I really knew about this place, Uluru, was that it was centered around a giant red rock of the same name. I was tickled, then, when we flew right over the top of it as we came in for a landing.

It was crazy to see the absolute nothing surrounding this rock. Shed a lot of light on the idea of this rock being sacred to the Aboriginal people. If there’s nothing around but this rock for miles and miles, one’s bound to think it’s pretty dang special.

Our flight landed a bit early, and we were welcomed by an email saying our tour bus wouldn’t pick us up until 12:45, rather than the expected noon. This meant we had about two and a half hours to kill, in one of the smallest airports we’ve ever been in. The airport was basically made up of an arrivals room and a departures room, separated by a wall and a short walk outside. The arrivals room was supplied with rental car companies, but it lacked any food stores or toilets.

Australia has a very strange practice of not ever checking passports for domestic flights, and they only check boarding passes as you are entering the plane. This means one can go all the way to a departure gate without actually having a plane to catch. So, we went through the empty security line, hit the loo, and bought some lunch.

We had met a chatty old Australian man in Port Douglas who had warned us that the flies in this area are bad. Because it’s so dry, he said they are constantly trying to fly into your ears, nose, and mouth for moisture. I really wished he hadn’t said this, but even more so, I wished he hadn’t been right. Imagine our disappointment, then, when we went back to the arrivals gate to wait out our bus and were constantly swatting at the same flies he had warned of. I decided to use my scarf as a headwrap to keep them out of my ears, but the flies were paying extra attention to The Boy, and I eventually pitied his swatting dance moves and pacing enough to bequeath my shield.

We loaded onto our bus soon enough. It was a 21 seater, but there were only 17 of us. A good sized group for three days together. I challenged myself to learn everyone’s names, and I very narrowly succeeded by the end!

Our first stop was the Aboriginal cultural center. This area was not reached by white man until the late 1800s, and tourism did not spring up here until the 1950s. This means that the Aboriginal people who have been living in this area for tens of thousands of years only recently had their world shaken apart. Just thirty years ago, though, they were able to reclaim their land from the Australian government. This cultural center tells the story of that land hand back and of many Aboriginal stories surrounding the rock formations in the area. No pictures, though! Plenty more to come.

We did a very important thing at the cultural center, which was to visit the little shop to buy fly nets for our heads. They really were life changing.

Our next stop was a lookout at Kata Tjuta. Turns out, Uluru isn’t the only big rock in the area. It has a neighbor rock that was broken into 36 pieces as it sprouted from the earth during the Alice Springs Orogeny some 350 million years ago. Just a warning that from here on out, almost all of our pictures will be slightly obscured by our fly nets. Other people were silly enough to take their nets off for picture, swatting frantically in between snaps and then hurriedly tucking back into them. I was no such fool.

Jonathan described my netting as “kind of messy, but also really regal.” I honestly don’t know how I would describe his.

Bahahahhahahahaha.

The nets plus the sun also made it really hard to see what I was taking pictures of, so as I’m writing this, I’m seeing most of my pictures for the first time.

Oh, and check out the brave elbow of our friend Dr. Phil, a young (single!) emergency doctor on our tour.

*shivers*

After our lookout, we drove in closer to “get among it.” It was about 103 degrees at this point, and the sun was beating down relentlessly. It made our short little hike into the rocks feel like quite the endeavor. We were all quiet in our exhaustion.

We did get some very pretty views, though. And surprisingly, we found some water!

Jonathan was brave (and silly) enough to try a pose sans-net.

But let me just show you how CRAY CRAY these flies can get. This is the back of our guide, Ken, who refused to wear a fly net for the whole trip:

Wowz. Erz.

After dragging our feet back to the bus, we made a quick route around the rocks to another spot. People were soooo reluctant to get out of the air-conned bus again for another walk in the heat. I myself wondered if I would suffer from heat stroke, and I forced myself to keep drinking more and more water to stave off this worry.

This walk was shorter than the last, and several people stayed behind. We walked up to the trailhead of a longer hike which posted warnings of closure past 11am or if the temperature was about 36 degrees Celsius. It was about 3pm and 43 degrees Celsius by this point. No wonder we were dying.

Jonathan and I attempted another fly net-free photo. It didn’t work very well, and I hastily re-donned the net.

These flies really are bananas, and I learned my lesson after that Check out the colony of flies on The Poor Bo below.

Thankful to be on the bus again, we drove back to Uluru to see one of its famous sunsets. As the sun dips close to the horizon, its rays travel through extra atmosphere and the red light really comes out. Red rock plus red light equals even redder rock, theoretically. Unfortunately, the clouds rolled in from the west just before sunset, so we got to look at brown rock and purple rock.

The light really did change the color of the rock, though. Just look at these pictures taken six minutes apart, one with the clouds obscuring the sun, and the other where the sun decided to peek out for a minute:

Ken whipped us up a ginormous wok of chow mein as the sun set. It was delicious, but it was also kind of hard to eat hot food when all I wanted was a glass of ice cold lemonade. We had depleted our cooler of ice water, so I actually broke down and bought a beer from Ken, as they’d been sitting on ice all day. It was not only the first beer I’ve ever consumed in full, but it was the first beer I have ever enjoyed. Crazy what the heat can do to a girl!

When we returned to camp, we did a round of introductions and hit the showers as lightning lit up the sky. A few girls went to see the Field of Lights, an art installation out in the desert. Part of me wanted to join, but part of me reeeaaaalllyy wanted to sleep, and the latter part one. This probably was due to the fact that we had recently been informed of our 4:20am wake-up time. Oof.

We were given military-grade canvas sleeping bags called “swags” to sleep in, with a normal sleeping bag for comfort, and then we were told to “sleep wherever you like.” Our options included a three-person, three-walled canvas shed, a long three-walled metal shed, or the open ground under the storm clouds. Everybody else chose the long shed, but there wasn’t any space by the time we got set up for bed, so we had the canvas shed to ourselves. The thing is, the canvas wasn’t was split in the middle and the top half wasn’t secured down at all, so when it rained in the middle of the night, the flaps opened with the wind and let rain shower our faces in short bursts. It was so hot that it actually felt good.

In the morning, the first thing The Boy said to me was, “Happy Valentine’s Day.” I had a, “Huh?” moment before realizing that yep, it sure was that day! We zombied together for some breakfast before heading back out to Uluru to catch the sunrise. Ken played some punk rock Valentine’s Day song in celebration.

The flies woke up the second a touch of light hit the sky, but luckily, we did get a bit of the red rock views we were promised, just before the sun went behind more clouds and the rock turned brown again.

^That picture is blurry because we were trying to dodge the flies. It’s a nasty game. Hahahaha.

With our nets safely back on our heads, we could even peek at Kata Tjuta in the distance.

Our main event for the day was the Uluru base walk – nine kilometers in the heat around the entirety of Uluru, with nothing but our thoughts and the flies for company. Do you see the Mala Man in the rock below? He’s facing to the left!

I had come prepared in my life-changing long-sleeved swim suit for the occasion to wick away the sweat and protect me from that nasty sun, and Jonathan was also in long sleeves.

Dude. I did some research on UV indexes. On this day in Seattle, the UV index was 0.8, or “low.” Anything above 3 necessitates sun protection. UV index in Uluru for this day? FIFTEEN. Most charts top out at 10+ in the category of “extreme.” It almost never gets above 6 in the peak of Seattle Summer. So yeah, I was not messing around. Jonathan had learned his lesson on that partly cloudy (but still UV index 10) beach day in Sydney, and for the first time ever, I was not having to sneak sunscreen onto his face. He applied liberally every couple hours without my guidance. So proud!

I had been skeptical of this base walk. I mean, I get it. It’s a cool rock, and it doesn’t make any sense that it’s here, but I felt no need to see it up close from All The Angles.

It ended up being really cool, though. There are lots of features on the face of the rock and at the base of it that you just can’t see from afar. Almost all of these features have some cultural significance to the Aboriginal people, and Ken supplied us with many stories before sending us off. Some of these features hold extra significance for the Aboriginals, and they are used for special ceremonies and activities. These six areas were called “sensitive sites,” and they are not to be photographed. Don’t worry, though. Plenty of cool rock things to show you without those.

Ken sent us off for six kilometers, and I strongly believe that each one of us questioned our ability to make it at one point or another. We were walking clockwise around the rock starting at the northwest corner, so we were walking directly into the sun. The light bounced off my lightly colored fly net so that unless I shielded my netting with my hand, I literally couldn’t see anything. I ran into a bush and a tree and narrowly missed many other obstacles, all while getting well aquatinted with our unrelenting fly friends.

When Ken finally met up with us again and I silently cursed him for abandoning us for longer than his promised “hour or so,” he told us one of the most memorable stories about the rock. Legend has it that a Kuniya woman, a type of snake, was nesting on the other side of the rock when she heard that her nephew had been killed by a group of Liru, or poisonous brown snakes. She performed a powerful dance and struck one of the Liru warriors, leaving a gash in the rock face. He only taunted her more, so she struck him a second time, leaving a larger gash, and he was killed, dropping his shield at the bottom of the rock. The Kuniya woman remains coiled here for eternity.

Ken also took us to see the Mititjulu watering hole and demonstrated how this was a place of gathering for animals as well as people. There was still some water remaining from the recent rains, and you could see the path the waterfall would take if it was running.

Ken showed us cave drawings nearby, and we hunkered gratefully in the shade.

Then he set us off again. I was starving at this point, so Jonathan and I ran back to the van with him to grab a snack and refill our water. Then we walked quickly to catch up again with the group. I didn’t think I could make it, but Ken said it was only twenty minutes, so I told myself to be strong.

We finally hit some shade on this portion of the walk, and when we met up with Ken once more, he had snacks waiting. This didn’t stop me from also buying a cold drink and a popsicle from a snack stand in the parking lot.

We were stopped near the Uluru climb trailhead. We could see a long white path snaking up the steep rock face and over the hump beyond to more path length that we could not see. The climb had been taking place for several decades, against the wishes of the Aboriginal people. They believe the rock is sacred and that this climb was massively disrespectful. Just this past October, the climb was officially closed for good, and the climbing chain was removed. It was a long-awaited victory for the local Aboriginal people.

When Ken told us there was still more walking to do, everyone’s eyes widened a bit. Nobody wanted to leave the van, and many had thought this was our finish line. You can imagine how slow moving we were as we trudged, this time with Ken leading the way, back towards the rock. We stooped in a marvelous cave shaped like a wave as Ken regaled us with more stories.

Then he sent us off to another watering hole and water fall view point. Everybody mustered up what strength they had left for our 840 meter round-trip trek, and literal cheers of joy were expended when we reached the end of the path. One of the Irish girls, Teresa, exclaimed, “Oh, this is amazing!” I thought she was talking about the view of the watering hole, but then she followed it up with, “That wasn’t even five minutes!”

Then, finally, nine kilometers later, it was time to pile back into the van to head out to lunch. We bid adieu to Uluru, and within fifteen minutes, everybody was asleep.

More outback (and Valentine’s Day) adventures to come.

Venlig hilsen/cheers,
-Lizzy-wa

We decided to switch it up a bit and get out of the city for Day Four. I signed us up for a tour along the Great Ocean Road, a famously long and pretty highway built by return WWI soldiers in remembrance of those who fought. We were a little disappointed when we loaded onto a 24-seater “mini-bus,” as the tour had been listed as a small group tour, and 24 people isn’t exactly a small group! But that’s what I get for booking a cheap tour instead of one I knew would have a smaller van! We were also comparing our guide, Craig, to our amazing Daintree guide, Adrian, and those are big shoes to fill. He ended up doing a decent job in the end, but we didn’t really chat with any of the other passengers.

We made a quick stop for morning tea and coffee, and then we stopped at the memorial arch for the highway before wandering down to the beach.

I wanted to dip my toes into the water, so The Boy kindly gave me a piggy back all the way to the van. That got us some cute comments.

The drive after this was long and curvy. Every time we rounded a corner, we’d get another beautiful view of whatever type of beach or river lay around the bend.

Our next stop was a wildlife reserve, and we were given a pair of binoculars to go kangaroo and koala hunting. We found a couple kangaroos up on the hill, but we could only really peep at them through the binoculars. Still cute!

Then we wandered over to where the koalas might be, and instead, we were greeted by a parrot feeding frenzy.

They were adorable, and so colorful! There were little seeds on the trees they were sitting in, and all you had to do was put a couple in your hand to get one to land on you. Sometimes we got more than one at once!

Bahahahaha. I wondered if they felt gipped when they realized the thing we were feeding them was exactly what they could have grabbed themselves from their trees…. Oh well!

With little time to spare, we walked along the path for a little while and spotted a snoozing koala up in a eucalyptus tree! Soooooooo sweet.

I don’t know how he was even balancing on that tiny branch. Gah. Too stinking cute.

For lunch, we stopped in a beach town. Jonathan had one of the bakery’s famous scallop pies, and I had some stir fry noodles. Both were quite yummy. We topped off our meal with guava (so good!) and raspberry ice cream at the town’s heavily decorated (with awards) ice cream shop. They even sold Vegemite flavored ice cream, but none of the group was brave enough to try it.

We ran off to the beach to peek at the water, and then it was back on the bus.

Our next stop was Melba Gully, a little area of the temperate rain forest along the coast. It was so different than the tropical Daintree Rainforest up north. Nice and cool, and there seemed to only be four different kinds of plants – eucalyptus trees, a shorter tree variety, some mosses and things, and these super tall ferns.

I’m used to seeing ferns grow straight on the ground, so it was strange to see them with tree trunks underneath them! All to help get the leaves closer to the light. It had a strange effect, and it made me want to bounce along the tops of them like little video game springs.

A nice little hike, indeed. After a short trip on the bus again, a thick fog descended, and it stuck around for our next stop: the Twelve Apostles.

The cliffs we were standing on are made of sandstone, and after thousands of years of harsh ocean wind and waves, these interesting sandstone formations and pillars have formed. We should have been able to see eight of them from our vantage point, but only one was visible through the fog!

Haha. Oh well. I still thought it was very cool.

As we boarded the bus, our guide said, “So, I usually tell people, ‘If you thought that was good, Loch Ard is even better!’ Well, that’s still true, so let’s go!”

He was definitely right. This is another area just up the road whose cliffs have been formed by the wind and the sea. Instead of stone pillars though, longer stretches of standalone stone and several reaching fingers have formed. It was the sight of a gruesome shipwreck in the late 1800s on a day when the fog was thicker than this day.

We were allowed to wander by ourselves, so our first sighting was a formation named Razorback – a long, skinny sandstone formation. Aptly named.

Then we went up to the viewing platform for where the shipwreck occurred, but we couldn’t see the offending cliffs through the fog.

The coolest part though, was down on the beach between two of the sandstone fingers. The opening to this inlet was very narrow, but then it bubbled out again once inside.

There were gnarly caves and crazy stalactites dripping down! The colors were beautiful, and the fog made it seem otherworldly.

It also felt good to finally put our rain jackets on so that packing piece didn’t feel like a waste.

I was so reluctant to leave this cool place, but we had already begun a habit of being the last ones of the bus, and this time was no exception. Jonathan also had to do another piggy back for me…. Tehehehehe.

Our drive along the coast was finished, and we turned inland for the less scenic drive back to Melbourne. We passed lots of cow pastures, though, and I kept remarking at all the different breeds of cows. In the US, we only ever seem to see the standard white cows with big black splotches, because this breed of cow produces the most milk. Pffff. I’ve been drinking un-homogenized, full-cream milk here (up to 4% milk fat instead of America’s 3.25%), and my appreciation for milk had forever changed. That cream on the top, plus the extra creaminess below, is life altering! I may have to switch to Jersey milk when I get home….

We stopped at a literally nothing town to grab dinner, and we decided to not even buy food. We were still holding together well from lunch, and the options in this town were KFC, Subway, McDonald’s, and a bunch of closed clothing stores. The town was seriously rundown! It made me curious how little of anything else there is on this stretch of road if all the tour groups choose this place for a food stop.

Overall, the guide grew on me, and even though we didn’t get to bond with any of our group mates, we really loved the stops. Still a great tour, and we topped off the night with another bout of climbing. Too tired to swim, though!

For breakfast on our last full day in Melbourne, we popped down the street for a super yummy smoothie and acai bowl.

We had a few hours free before our big plans for the day, and Jonathan wanted to spend them at the zoo. I had other plans, but was too enticed in the end. It was a good decision to join him!

Right when we arrived, we got to see the two lion brothers eat some lunch. The keepers brought out full animals for them, but we couldn’t tell what they were. All the moms around us were telling their kids they were chickens, but they definitely weren’t. The strange thing was that the keepers also poured some blood near the animals. I guess to help the lions find the food??

We also got to see some cute little gummy frogs, a giraffe, and lots of pretty birds.

Some favorites at the end were wombats (too cute!), the butterfly house, and the elephants!

We also saw a koala just hanging out in one of the eucalyptus trees along one of the zoo walking paths, not even in an exhibit! So wonderful! And surprisingly, it was on the move. Right as we found him, he began climbing up and down and getting situated before snuggling in for more sleep. Way too cute. He was all tucked into the leaves, though, so I don’t really have any good pictures to show.

And then, really crunched for time, we unwillingly left the zoo and ran across town for the main event of the day – HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD. AAAAAAAAHHHHH.

I’ve been wanting and trying to see this show for so long, but it’s always so expensive or sold out, or I don’t have enough time in the city to commit to two full shows. Five days in Melbourne and really reasonable ticket prices lined up perfectly for us to see the show with great seats!

I did mess up pretty big, though, in that I mistakenly remembered Part 1 as having a 2:30 start time. We rushed from the zoo in an Uber to arrive at the theater at 2:25, plenty of time to spare, only to be shuffled to the door and told by the usher that we had to wait a bit to be let in since the show had started already. Jonathan was very confused, but I immediately realised what had happened. The show actually started at 2pm, and we were arriving half an hour late. Ugh.

Luckily, the parts we missed were easy to sort out, and now we have a date planned to read through that part of the script. Thank goodness it’s published!

The show really was magical though, in the truest sense of the word. The props, blocking, and lighting were really out of this world. I don’t know how they did some of the effects! And even some of the simpler things were just done so beautifully – the moving staircases, talking portraits, and spells were all so realistic. It was like watching the movie effects right in front of our eyes. At intermission, we were gushing with amazement. We ran out of the theater for a snack and got back hastily to our seats.

We left the first show with the same amount of amazement, and we were also excitedly trying to work out the plot of Part 2. We had nearly three hours until the second part started, so I actually got to fulfill my original plans for the morning. Melbourne is famous for its “laneways,” or alleys that have fun shops and interesting street art, so I wanted to explore those.

Right away, we found some black sesame ice cream – one of my favorites. I also got to try durian (stinky fruit!) ice cream. I wasn’t a fan, but it wasn’t as horrible as some people say it is.

Then we found a super cute laneway lined with restaurants, and we stopped at one advertising paella and $5 sangria. Mmmmm.

We somehow managed to run into a free walking tour after dinner, so we surreptitiously followed them and got to see lots of cool spots.

As we made our way back to the theater, we found a crazy giant H&M that I just had to investigate. It was so glamorous! No pictures though, because it’s still just an H&M…. Haha.

And then it was back to the theater for Part 2. Gosh, I really can’t say much about the play without spoiling anything, but I can’t recommend it enough. If you are a Harry Potter fan and ever have the time and opportunity to see this show, don’t hesitate! I honestly am anxious to try to see it again!

The show was a wonderful way to wrap our extended stay in Melbourne, and we topped off the night with one last quick swim just before the pool closed. After this lovely stay in the second biggest city in the country, we were off to a very, very different place. More on that to come.

Until then….

Venlig hilsen/ cheers,
-Lizzy-wa

We left the promise of saltwater pools behind somewhat reluctantly, but I’ll admit I was tickled at the idea of (slightly) more moderate weather. In fact, when we set off for Melbourne, the forecast predicted rain every day, starting the night of our arrival. Amazingly, we didn’t run into a single drop of rain during our whole stay.

We did run into a wild Johan, though! Our roommate Johan moved to Canberra, the Australian capital, back in November to teach at the university. He did us the kindness of flying out to meet us in Melbourne for the weekend, and it was a delight! It was pretty silly in that he acted as tour guide and brought us to many delicious restaurants, but he had only visited one time before. Melbourne is known for its food scene, so I told him I was surprised he didn’t want to try any new places. Luckily, he had good reason for bringing us to familiar spots – they were all top hitters.

For dinner that first night, he took us to a semi-famous rooftop bar in the happening food district, Fitzroy. I quickly decided we were not cool enough for the scene, and the bar menu didn’t seem like it could satisfy our hunger, so we scurried back to the ground floor to have some real food in their pub-like restaurant. Jonathan had a super juicy burger, Johan had an okonomiyaki (Japanese pancake) burger, and I had a brisket slider. All were so tender and yummy. We also split a haloumi plate with crackers.

Things got weird when a group of men walked by on their way out the door from the rooftop, and the last one stopped at our table and leaned in to point at our haloumi. I thought he was going to ask what it was or something, but instead, he asked, “Ay, mates, mind if I pinch a bit?” I think we were all confused, so we let him, and then he grabbed a pretty healthy scoop of our appetizer before running to catch up with his friends, a big smile on his face and a, “Cheers!” in thanks. Very strange. Never trust a random bar dude who wants your food for no reason!

Then we wandered the very cute town and pointed out all the restaurants we wanted to try in the future.

To top off the evening, we stopped for ice cream. The place Johan wanted to visit had a line thirty people out the door, so we backtracked a bit to another he had tried before, and I got one scoop each of Better Than Nutella and Honeycomb. Twas very yummy, but also super rich. I needed something more refreshing in the heat!

We took it pretty easy and chilled in the Airbnb before turning in, and in the morning, Johan took us to a suuuuper cute brunch spot. It was tucked into a hanging maze of grape vines (stocked up with bunches and bunches of grapes!) and the decor was at once charming and strange.

We shared a lamington (an Aussie cube cake coated in chocolate and coconut) while we waited for the very busy wait staff to wait on us, and I had some yummy, yummy, yummy fig crumpets with a mocha. Jonathan ordered a gluten free pastrami dish, which he was surprised to find out was a pastrami salad type thing (lots of tasty flavors), and Johan had a pork dish. It was honestly really hard to choose a dish because their whole menu was so interesting and complex.

I had been skeptical that my two crumpets would fill me, but we left very full and satisfied. Yet, we were too close to the famous Melbourne croissant shop, Lume, to pass it up. I had read about both this place and the rooftop bar in the flight magazine on the way over, so Johan clearly knew his stuff.

The croissant line wasn’t too long, and it sounded well worth it. I watched the prep process with drool in my mouth. It was so exacting, they used rulers at every step of the process, and the lady rolling the croissants had such a perfectly repeatable technique! It made me want to finally go home and try making croissants myself.

There were six options, and we ordered four: plain croissant, pain au chocolat, lemon, and almond.

Then we found a cute little makers market! I really wanted this super soft wool scarf, but I couldn’t even get myself to try it on, let alone buy it, while I was currently so hot.

Our big plan for our Sunday was to spend the day at the beach. As we waited for the tram, however, a transit worker informed us that we should take another tram around the corner due to reroutes and busy routes. Turns out, the one day we chose to visit St. Kilda was also the singular day of the the year that the St. Kilda Festival occurs – the largest free music festival in the world! How lucky!

We got off a packed tram and emerged onto a packed street lined with stalls, food, and music. The wind was strong, which felt good as the temperature continued to rise. Not long after we arrived, I found the local swing dancing organization performing and teaching a lesson! The boys clearly wanted to move on, though, so we got some food and kept moving.

Along with the many music stages that had been set up, several carnival rides were popped up here and there. It was quite the fanfare. Over at the end of the main street, though, a 108-year-old amusement park, Luna Park, stood. It was designed by the same guy who built Coney Island, and it had the same giant clown-face-style entrance! Very cool.

I split from the boys for a bit and lounged on a hillside listening to the big stage’s performer, and when he finished his set, I tiptoed back to check out the dancing. Lucky for me, they were done with lessons for the moment and were straight up social dancing! I got several great dances in that tired me right out. It was honestly so hard to breathe in the muggy heat that I had to take a water break and catch my breath after every song. We also did a super fun Charleston line dance where a leader called out our moves, and I got to be right in the front. 😀 Happy place….

There were a couple more performances, and then the boys found me right as we were doing the shim sham to wrap up the day. Such fun.

We didn’t quit get the beach day we planned for, but we did manage a short visit down to the water before we left.

And then it was back to the city to see Johan off to Canberra. Thanks again for visiting, Johan! It was great to meet up on the other side of the world!

Alone again, The Boy and I were going to head back to Fitzroy for some yummy dinner, but we were so tired, and he kept going on about this ridiculous Australian dish, so we decided to be lazy and pop into a shop right outside our apartment. Mom and Dad, I give you, the Halal Snack Pack, or HSP, for short:

Isn’t it beautiful? Bahahahaha. It’s literally shaved meat on top of a bed of French fries that is doused in sauces. I do not know why this exists, and it was no Fitzroy meal, but it was honestly decently tasty. A very good lazy or late night meal.

We didn’t want to turn in just yet, so we checked out the rock climbing facilities in our apartment. All bouldering. There was a roof overhead, but it was outside, so it was fun to feel the breeze while climbing.

I had big plans to start Monday early, but those plans were derailed, and we finally crawled out of bed for brunch around one. No matter – it forced us to walk a little farther for a brunch place, and we found an AMAZING spot. We had fresh squeezed orange juice, and I ordered an ube waffle topped with black sesame ice cream (one of my favorites!) and a bunch of fruit, including jackfruit!

So pretty! Jonathan had a char siu eggs benedict, and I’ll admit I probably stole more than my fair share of bites. Gaaaahhh both dishes were so good. I almost even ordered a third dish just because it sounded so good.

Now, most of my Big Monday Plans were very uninteresting to Jonathan, and he wanted to watch a cricket game, which is also mildly uninteresting to me. Therefore, we split up for the rest of the day and went off on our own adventures. First time traveling together where we tried this. I think it went pretty well!

I set off to the National Gallery and was immediately distracted by the Victoria Gardens.

Eventually, I made it to the Gallery. There were some interesting exhibits on.

I dilly dallied a bit too long in the areas that didn’t interest me, but I was happy once I found the Impressionists!

Rodin, Degas, Monet, Picasso…. Happy place number two.

There was one exhibit with several videos by an Iranian artist, and the largest viewing area had bean bags spread out on the floor for viewers. I always love it when art museums convince adults to lay on the ground. There’s something so precious to it.

Satisfied with my art intake, I headed back outside, churros and warm chocolate in hand, to explore the Royal Botanical Gardens.

I spent about two and a half hours here and took around a hundred pictures, so I’ll try to take it easy on you. Here are some of my favorites:

I was planning on just saying, “Hi,” but I’m a sucker for gardens, and this one was huge and very pretty.

I was finally about to leave when I decided to turn around and search for the tropical glass house. Sure glad I did!

It was lovely in there. My favorite part of the whole complex, though, was the Herb Garden. It was a tiny little walkabout, but there were dozens of herbs growing here! I touched as many as I could to breathe in their scent. I wished Jonathan was there so I could test him. I like to tease him because he always thinks everything is rosemary. Tehehehehe.

At the tail end of the garden was the World War I memorial. I spent some time here and then wandered down the street to explore this main area of downtown.

These little sushi places are all over Melbourne – they are little walk-up counters that sell mini sushi rolls for the equivalent of about two dollars, along with lots of other yummy sashimi, tempura, etc. It’s such a wonderful idea, and I decided to try it for dinner. It was soooo good. I got an eel roll, a salmon roll, and a tempura roll.

After topping it off with a smoothie, I paid a lady with a typewriter to write me a poem, wandered the street to the end, and popped into the Victoria State Library.

So pretty! I was also pretty tired at this point, so when they kicked me out of the library, I met up with The Boy back at our apartment, and we topped the night with some climbing and swimming.

A very full three days, with two more to come! I’m glad we decided on a longer stay in Melbourne. Tune in to hear about the rest.

Venlig hilsen/ cheers,
-Lizzy-wa

From hot to hot – that’s what the itinerary called for. After leaving Port Douglas, our little shuttle bus took us down the coast to the bigger city of Cairns, where we’d stay the next two nights. It was still early in the day, but the temperature was already well over eighty degrees and humidity was at about 75%. We took refuge in our cute little rental cottage, lounging about with the chickens in the backyard.

When hunger finally got the best of us, we set off for a long, slow walk to the city center along the beach. The tide was looooooowwww and the water line was out of sight. No swimming for us, though, again, swimming in Cairns is not allowed due to those mighty saltwater crocodiles.

We took our time and relaxed in the breeze, oohing and aahhing at all the interesting beach birds and thousands of little black crabs. No croc sightings, though.

We popped into a beach-side restaurant for some fish tacos, a smoothie, and a chicken burger, and then we napped in the shade. That heat really takes it out of you, man. Just check out the UV index meter the city put up!

When we finally reached the city center, we were shocked to find a giant public pool out in the open. And there we were, stranded without swimsuits. We wandered into the Cairns art gallery just before closing to relish in the AC, or air-con, as they call it here.

Then we got into a bit of a riff over whether we should trek back for our swimsuits or buy new ones at a shop nearby, and we eventually decided to run back home. When we made it back to the saltwater pool, it was well past sunset, but still hot as can be. The water was a welcome refresher.

When we got home, I was startled by a cute little lizard hanging out above the toilet!

Day two in Cairns started out with some yummy, yummy, yummy passion fruit yogurt left for us by our lovely Airbnb host. She also left muesli, but that had been taken over by a colony of tiny ants…. Whoops.

And then it was off to the Great Barrier Reef! So excited!

After a safety talk from one of the dive leaders and a marine wildlife talk from the on-board marine biologist, it was time to don our “stinger suits” to help protect us from the jelly fish in the water. Apparently summer is “stinger season.”

Stop one was amaaaaazzzzziiiinnngggg. It was a bit hard to keep track of Jonathan because we were all wearing the same blue suits, but it was made a little easier by the fact that he’d been given a really faded one. It also had blood stains around the left shoulder, but…. Oh well! Bahahaha.

We snorkeled around together, pointing out a school of hundreds of tiny fish, large, colorful parrot fish, and pretty colored fish. I loved following the parrot fish and holding my breath so I could hear them chomping on the coral.

The coral was also amazing! There seemed to be a much wider variety of corals and other plant life here compared to Hanauma Bay in Hawaii. My favorite were these ginormous clam shells that had beautiful colored patterns showing in the area of the clamshell opening.

On the boat, we had been sitting near a couple who were frequent divers, and while we were out in the water, I heard one of them say something about a shark. We kicked over to their area, and sure enough, a grey nerf shark lay on the shallow ocean floor just below us! We watched for a minute or two, and then it wriggled its way out from under the coral and swam quickly away! There was no keeping up with this guy. He was fast!

At one point, I lost sight of Jonathan, but I told myself we could reconvene when we needed to head back to the boat. Turns out he was admiring the same large school of giant fish that I was – they were big grey fish about 12-18 inches long, and they were all over the place! It was very cool.

Soon enough, we heard the whistle blow from the ship, and it was time for us to return to our group to commence our scuba dive! The boat offered something called a “resort dive” which is possible to do with no prior scuba experience or certifications. We thought it sounded like a great opportunity – scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef? Does it get much cooler than that?

The reason these dives don’t require the days-long scuba certifications is that we aren’t actually responsible for any of our own safety features. We sat on the back edge of the boat while crew members dressed us and checked our tanks and equipment. Then our dive leaders took us one by one (we were a group of four) and had us demonstrate our important skills. The first of these was to equalize our ears by plugging our nose and blowing. The second was to clear our mask of water by tipping our head back gently pressing on the brow of the mask, and blowing our forcefully through our nose. I thought this one was the scariest, because you had to expose your nose to the water. The third was to take the regulator out of our mouth, blow tiny bubbles from our mouth, replace the regulator, and then clear the regulator of water by blowing out with a “TZUUUH!” before breathing in again.

It was all fine and dandy, and I was pretty excited, until it was my turn to go under water. I demonstrated all my skills just fine, but I still had a lot of water in my mask. I tried to clear it several times, and on the third or fourth try, I accidentally got some water in my nose as I let the mask back down. I was only about four feet underwater at this point, clinging to a rail below the boat with my two other group members, but this incident sufficiently freaked me out. As we waited for Jonathan to demonstrate his skills up above, I focused on not having a panic attack. My two other group members have me the oh-kay symbol to ask if I was good, and I lied back with the same hand gesture. (Thumbs-up are not allowed in diving, as this means, “Let’s go up,” same as a thumbs down means, “Let’s go further down.” Shaking your outstretched five-hand meant, “problem,” and I was doing my best to avoid making that gesture.

But I was seriously freaking out. The surface was still so close, but I was still so underwater, and breathing down there took so much concentration. I was doing everything I could to pretend (to myself as much as to my group members) that I was okay. The whole time we waited for Jonathan, I was considering whether I should tap out and go back to snorkeling. I REALLY did not like it down there. But when Jonathan came down, I told myself I would be okay and that it was only twenty minutes.

Our instructor checked in with all of us, somehow smiling through her snorkel gear, and then we all linked elbows with her in the middle. She told me to clear my mask again, because yeah, I did have a lot of water in there, so I did it again. Before we knew it, we were descending, further and further, and I was frantically popping my ears every five seconds. I was also a bit freaked out by my mask, and my regulator seemed to be pulling on the side of my mouth, so I basically always had my right hand holding both my mask and my regulator in place. This also allowed for easy nose-grabbing access for further ear popping.

Every once in a while, the instructor would reach over and push down on my head or back a bit, and she kept doing some hand signals I didn’t actually understand. It was all very confusing, and it didn’t make me any less alarmed. I realized later that this was her adjusting the air in my vest so we could descend further under water. But every time I had to pop my ears, I though to myself, “Haven’t we gone far enough?!”

So… Yeah. I’m really not dramatizing this at all. I was very terrified and was having absolutely no fun for the first ten minutes of this dive. I was simply spending my time trying to keep my head under control, fussing over my ears, and wishing we would head back soon. I didn’t even have the brain power to actually look at the fish and plant life around us. Here’s me looking my absolute most-thrilled at the beginning of the dive. I really was not in the mood, mister dive photographer!

You can also see that I’m waaaaay out of formation. We were all supposed to be linked tightly together, but poor Jonathan spent the whole dive being pulled up on the right side by my reluctant self.

I also really had to pee the whole time, but I did not dare pee for fear of having one more thing to think about.

Finally, miraculously, I somehow managed to calm down and look around us. (To be honest, we were in a fairly shallow area, so we weren’t actually exposed to anything more interesting than we could see from the surface while snorkeling. So that was a bit of a bummer.) But, nonetheless, I wasn’t in panic mode any more, so the whole thing was ever so slightly more enjoyable after this mental shift. When the photographer returned, I even had the gall to pose with The Boy for a picture.

I’m kind of smiling, see? Poor Jonathan’s goggles were fogging pretty badly, and I think the pressure was getting to him a bit by this point…. More on that later.

Finally, before I knew it, we were somehow at the boat again. I honestly hadn’t even noticed we were ascending. I had just been blindly following the group the whole time, but I was so grateful to be back. I did my best not to rush, but when I popped out of the water, a huuuuge gush of relief washed in.

As we fumbled about, taking turns getting out of the water, I leaned in to hear a conversation between the cheery dive instructor and one of my group members. I overheard her praising him and saying, “It’s only about one in a hundred that I can convince to stay under if they want to come up, so good on you, really!” Say whaaaaaat?! I guess I wasn’t the only one who wanted out! Apparently, he was having problems with his mask while we were underwater, and he gave her the daunting “problem” signal mixed with the emergency “up” signal. I have no idea how she convinced him to stay, but wow.

The crew asked if I had fun, and I revealed I was actually pretty freaked out, but they patted me on the back for sticking to it. And then it was back to the water, in a much more familiar environment.

After a little while, Jonathan told me he was actually feeling a little bit sick, so he headed back to the boat. Poor thing….

I wanted to stay out as long as I could, because there’s no telling how long it will be before I can snorkel again in a reef filled with this much life!

The time seemed to go on and on, and I kept wondering when they would call us back to the boat. I wasn’t complaining, though. There was still so much to see.

I was finally thinking that I would head closer to the boat to be ready when they called us back, when I did a little 360 to survey my immediate surroundings.

And then, to my utter shock, around the 120 mark of my rotation, I SAW A SEA TURTLE!!!!!!!!!!

I exclaimed a bit through my mouthpiece, and my eyes grew wide. The marine biologist had warned us, though, that if we found one, we should not swim quickly to it, for that would only scare it away. I did my best to restrain myself while also getting closer to this majestic creature.

I WAS WITHIN TWO FEET OF THE TURTLE, MOM. IT WAS INSANE.

He was so happy and smiley, so calm and in his element, and I was smiling just as much trying to keep pace with him. At one point, I was almost directly on top of him, and I had to back off a bit.

I had been having a problem all day with my mouth piece where water would get in and start to gurgle when I breathed. The water never made it to my mouth, but it still freaked me out and required me to shift upright, out of the water, to empty it. Well, while I was following Mr. Turtle, this happened ever more frequently because I was swimming and breathing faster, working hard to keep up with this master of the sea. Apparently they can swim up to 40 kilometers per hour! Thank goodness he wasn’t, but it was still a bit of work.

It was so peaceful, though. I was just thinking that I could probably follow him all day long and never get tired, and it wouldn’t even matter if the boat left me, but then I heard the whistle. Ugh.

I surfaced for a moment and saw that I was actually reeeeally far from the boat. Oops. Mr. Turtle had taken me a bit off course. But I didn’t want to leave him!!! Ugh.

I dipped my head under one more time to wish my turtle friend farewell, took a few mental pictures, and then I ripped off the band-aid and immediately began swimming in the opposite direction, back toward the boat.

Remember how I was just thinking I could keep this up forever? Yeah. That was before I got tired. As I made my way to the boat, unmotivated by a turtle wonder but motivated by the fear of getting in trouble with the boat crew, a different kind of aura fell over me that was the opposite of the cal. I’d felt only a minute before. My mouthpiece kept filling with water, and every time I came up to empty it, I noticed my breathing was more harried and closer to hyperventilation than the last.

And I was still so far from the boat.

There were three signals we were taught that would allow us to communicate with the lookouts while we were out in the sea. The first was to make a giant “O” with both arms overhead. This meant we were okay. The second was to flail and shout loudly. This meant we were drowning. Pretty straight forward. If we needed help, but it was not an emergency, we were to hold one arm straight up in the air with a fist. I told myself I did not need this signal, and that I could make it back to the boat just fine if given enough time, but after one more of those frantic mouthpiece emptying procedures, I saw how very far away the boat still was, and I thrust my arm in the air.

I didn’t see any signals in return, so I had no idea if anybody had actually seen me, but I continued on toward the boat. I was calming down a bit, falling into a rhythm, and I thought I would actually make it back just fine, but boy was I relieved when a swarthy, shirtless crew member greeted me with a life raft and told me, “Just keep kicking, okay?” I responded with a breathless, “Yeah,” and then I put my face back underwater.

When we reached the boat, I found I was the last one on and lunch was well underway. Surprisingly, nobody made any fuss about my rescue, though I made sure to thank my savior something like three times. Jonathan said he’d actually seen several other rescues happen, so I guess it’s just not that uncommon.

Lunch was a mix of flavorless meats and delightful salads. The Boy tuckered out quickly after eating.

Such a cutie.

Before long, though, we were at our second location, and we had no chance to rest because we’d signed up for a tour led by the marine biologist. It was only us and one other girl, so no dilly dallying. The girl opted for a pool noodle as some extra flotation, so I did the same, memories of my rescue still fresh in my mind.

Right away, we saw a tiny baby cuttlefish! It was about three inches long and it was bright yellow, but after we saw it, it turned blue and I lost track of the cute little thing! Very neat!

Then the guide brought us way off to….. The drop off.

Dun… dun…. DUUUUUUNNNNN!

Remember the beginning of Finding Nemo where the coral just ends, and all you can see is a great blue nothingness beyond and below? That’s what happened here. It was crazy! Very surreal and very scary. The next thing we knew, a giant bump-head parrot fish came swimming up to us out of the murky depths. He was huge – nearly three feet long and so smiley. This kind of parrot fish is a muted grey rather than a pretty neon, but he was cute nonetheless. I was trying to get him to come to me when the guide beckoned me over. I huffed as I reluctantly followed, but then, lo and behold, a school of them! Twenty or thirty giants! So cool!

The guide also pointed out a little baby stingray on the ocean floor, and he did a free dive down to it so that it would swim away and we could see its movement.

There were also many of these long, skinny needle-like fish that were called crocodile something-or-others. These floated only inches from the water’s surface, so they were easy to miss since we were always looking below us.

There were also tons of jelly fish at this location. Some were the size of my hand, and I scurried away from those as fast as possible. Some were the size of a fingernail, and from these, too, I scurried. I encountered one of these small ones that had tiny little fringes all the way around it, and each fringe was topped with a tiny red ball at the end, like a fancy lamp shade. I think there were plenty of even smaller jellies, though, because I kept feeling a sharp burning sensation in my calves, despite my stinger suit, and I’m pretty sure I was being stung. I kept having to hold my calves to try to mask the pain.

Soon enough, our guided tour was over. Jonathan seemed to be having trouble with his mask, and I wondered if he was still sick from the diving. As we neared the boat, I noticed a bunch of stuff around us, and I was just about to point it out to him when it donned on me that this was not some natural marine phenomenon. I quickly yanked my head from the water and looked over to him. “You okay?” I asked, already knowing the answer, and he responded with a meek, “No…”

I passed him my pool noodle and got to the boat. Poor baby. ): He somehow still managed to pose for this picture immediately after, and I resisted the urge to smack at the photographer.

The Boy was done in the water after that. He boarded the boat and got some fresh drinking water, and I made my way back out one last time. I told myself to stick with other swimmers this time and to stay close to the boat so as to avoid another rescue. Luckily, there was plenty near the boat to see! I mostly hung around with three different schools of fish. One was made up of a thousand tiny fish. Another was made of another variety of the foot-long grey guys, and the third was made of foot-long red guys. The red ones were my favorite. None of these schools were moving much, so I just kind of hung around in the middle of them, giddily saying to myself, “I am a fish.” I was rather tickled by the idea.

The whistle came soon enough, and it was back to the boat. You really would never imagine all that wonder exists just below the surface. What a magical place.

We were given glasses of wine for the return to shore, and Jonathan passed out before he could get his.

The rest of our evening was rather tame in comparison to our day at sea. I got an avocado smoothie (not bad), and we got some sushi for dinner, which I am only now realizing is a bit strange after pretending I was a fish for the better part of the day.

The real wildness came when we visited the Cairns City Library. There’s a giant tree right out front that houses a massive bat colony. The day before, we had noticed them hanging around in the daylight. They looked like strange, giant black fruit hanging from the tree. But as we approached the area just as the sun was setting, the sky was in uproar. Seriously. The bats were in a complete frenzy. Literally thousands of them were wheeling in the air, screeching and calling, creating a vortex around their tree and then flapping off into the horizon towards the rainforest where they would find themselves some dinner. It was insane! We watched for about ten minutes, and even then, they didn’t slow down! I’ve never seen anything like it!

Apparently the city has been trying for years to relocate the bats, with no luck so far. They’ve even tried this horrific sound machine that sends pointed audio to the bats of sirens, gunshots, and a cacophony of other terrible noises to try to scare the bats out of their home. No luck with that either.

Some 20,000 of these mega-bats dropped dead this time last year in Cairns due to a massive heat wave. These not-so-little guys just can’t catch a break. Hopefully they can get their home and future sorted out soon enough, because they really are something.

The Boy wanted to get a bottle of wine to celebrate our last night with a two-bedroom house all to ourselves, but within minutes of finishing my first glass, I fell asleep, the lights still on and my wet hair still wrapped in a towel.

In the morning, I hung out with the chickens one last time, and we did our best to clean out the fridge.

Then we meandered to the Cairns Botanical Gardens for a bit before our flight. It was so hot though, so we were very slow moving.

Soon enough, we were off again.

This world has so much wonder to offer, above and below the surface. Go explore it!

Venlig hilsen/cheers,
-Lizzy-wa

More on that photo later… Tehehe.

So, turns out we went right from sunburn territory to super-hot-and-even-more-humid territory, also known as the far north of Queensland.

We landed in Cairns and took a shuttle up to Port Douglas so we could catch some beach vibes and stay in an actual resort. Whaaaat? Summer is the slow season for the north, because it’s the rainy season and also the too-darn-hot season, so I somehow found a listing for a resort stay at a Lizzy budget price. Couldn’t pass it up.

The walk to the room was through a mini rainforest, and our neighbors were a bunch of green-bottomed ants. Our window sat overlooking a winding saltwater pool. The room was so relaxing that we ended up lounging for a little too long before we realized we should venture outside.

We took a shuttle into town and checked out the beach, though, unfortunately, it’s no swimming allowed here! Seems silly, right? Well, the swimming restrictions exist because of jelly fish and crocodiles, so I guess it makes some kind of sense….

After some wanderings and shopping, we plopped down for some deeeelicious pumpkin pizza and fish and chips which employed a local fish, barramundi. All was yummy. We also got to enjoy quite a show while we ate, as we witnessed thousands of tiny birds flock from all around to roost together in one giant tree across the street. It was madness how many of them there were, and they never seemed to stop coming!

When we got back to our stay, we swam for hours in the dark and chatted with a pretty conservative, seemingly well-off, old Australian man who was a time share owner for the resort. He told me he could picture me with a gun. How kind.

In the morning, we had breakfast at the resort and then jetted off to the Wildlife Habitat, where we saw a Papuan Frogmouth, not to be confused with an owl!

We were here to be picked up for a day tour to the Daintree Rainforest, and what a lovely day we had in store! We were greeted with some curvy Australian bananas and a van full of happy tourists. Our guide, Adrian, was a tall, smiley Australian man with crooked teeth. Big fan.

Our first stop was Mossman Gorge. We started with a short walk through the forest, where we spotted a lizard and lots of fun plants. It was crazy how much some of the plant life relied on trees and other tall structures to reach up through the dense forest canopy in search of sunlight. One of these is nicknamed “wait a while” because they catch onto passersby with their little hooks, and you have to wait-a-while, or be patient, to unhook yourself!

Another favorite was the basket fern. They form way up in the tops of trees and form little homes for lots of nocturnal animals, but this one had fallen to the forest floor, allowing us a better look.

Once we reached the gorge, it was time for a swim! The fresh water was cool enough to be refreshing, but no where near chilly. I even got the nerve to swim out to a rock in the middle of the river and jump off. I am a woman warrior.

The group reluctantly left the cool waters to continue our adventure through sprawling sugarcane farms.

Our next stop was the Daintree River, where we would embark on a crocodile cruise! The water was green, murky, and very brackish. Perfect for crocs.

Our guide, Bill, let us know that if we didn’t see any crocodiles, it would become a wildlife cruise, and if we didn’t see any wildlife, it would become a “mangrove appreciation” cruise. Mangroves are saltwater plants that have crazy, tall root systems that reach out of the water to search for oxygen. They lined the banks of the river the whole way.

But not long after this announcement, he spotted our first crocodile! Her name is Lizzy (ha!) and she is well known in the area for having nested in the same location for over thirty years. Bill spotted her hiding among the mangroves on the edge of the water, about ten meters from her nest. She had piercing, opaque red eyes, and that’s about all we could see of her. I won’t even post a picture of her, because you wouldn’t be able to make her out.

A while later, just as we all moved to get a better look at a large white bird flying in front of the boat, Lillie, another American on the tour, shouted, “Stop! Stop! Right there! Stop right there!” I hurried back to my seat near her as Bill stalled the boat, and we caught a great view of a croc named Nate. He was lurking beneath the banks as a couple cows came by to graze.

A success, indeed!

We were all chipper as we met back up with Adrian to continue our drive. Along the way, we passed by a fruit orchard, and he pointed out durian, jackfruit, and mango trees. So tropical!

We popped into a little business for lunch – local fish burger and a delicious beetroot-and-steak sandwich, and then it was time to feed some wallabies!!!

THEY WERE SO CUTE.

And Jonathan spotted that TWO of them had babies in their pouches!!! One of the babies was so little that it didn’t even have fur yet!

When I realized we could pet them, it was all over. I was in heaven.

Our next and final stop was a beach just south of Cape Tribulation. The walk to the beach was abound in wildlife and more crazy mangrove roots.

Adrian then shocked us all by announcing we would be cracking open some coconuts. He scoured the beach for a minute or two and came back with two giant coconuts. First, we had to husk them. I had an easier time than some of the group, and Adrian decided it was because of my South Chinese lineage. Bahahaha.

After the husking, we were rewarded with the more familiar spherical, furry inner coconut shell. Then Adrian cracked this in half and passed it around so we could all sip at the coconut water inside. I’m not usually a fan of the bottled coconut water I’ve tried, but this was delicious. So sweet and fresh.

Adrian called the yellow growth inside the “placenta.” This ended up being Jonathan’s favorite part, as it was extra sweet and fatty.

Next, Adrian shaved the meat from the inside of the shell, and we all scooped up handfuls. So yummy!

Then, we scooped up even larger handfuls and squeezed out the milk. It was soooo ridiculously rich. Gah. Too amazing.

The last step, which only Phyllis tried, was to wipe the excess oils in your hair. I wanted to do it, too, but I couldn’t get all the coconut flakes off my hands.

Oh, and then The Boy and I went off a little photoshoot. Hence the first photo for this post. Bahahaha.

Our journey home was green, cheery, and sleepy.

And then, just when we had resigned against it, we spotted a cassowary and his two babies! We’d been on the lookout the whole trip, with no luck until the end. These giant birds are the ancestors to emus, and they only live up here in the far north rainforest. Such a lucky sight!

The trip wasn’t entirely over, yet, though. We still had one stop for some famous Daintree ice cream and another for a gorgeous lookout.

Then it was a long drive back to Port Douglas, with one more viewpoint above the Four Mile Beach.

Fully pooped out, we bid adieu to our group and rounded out the evening with some pumpkin gnocchi and a chicken parmesan – apparently this is an Australian dish. Who knew?

Then we had another good, long swim in the pool before tucking in.

A lovely tropical adventure! The next stop isn’t too far off. Stay tuned for more.

Venlig hislen/ cheers,
-Lizzy-wa

Phew. I’m tired already. We’re just departing Sydney after a short two-day stay. We kind of messed up with planning in that we forgot it takes “two” days to fly to Australia because we have to cross the date line. So we thought we’d have three days here, but no luck. I’d say we did a pretty good job of making the most of it, though.

The flight over had a stop in LA, and then it was fifteen hours to Sydney. It was actually strange, because it was kind of a red-eye, in that it departed at 11pm and arrived at 9am, but because there were fifteen hours in between, we were still able to watch two movies and get a full eight hours of sleep!

When we arrived, we dropped our things at our Airbnb and wandered our way through Potts Point and Wooloomooloo. (Yes, that is a real place.)

As we rounded the naval shipyard, we happen upon a bunch of people eating meat pies topped with mashed potatoes and mashed peas. It sounded insane, so we had to try it. Overall pretty tasty. We thought we were diving headfirst into Australian cuisine, but after conferring with some locals, we discovered this is not actually super Australian, and it’s just this one weird food cart that sells this. Hahahaha.

What struck me more than the buildings or the harbors was this crazy sandstone that was everywhere! So gorgeous!

Found some art along Wooloomooloo Bay….

Then we crossed over to the Royal Botanic Gardens and got our first glimpses of the Opera House! Very unexpected!

 

Our next stop was Town Hall, where we met up with three of Jonathan’s Aussie friends.

We wandered our way through some malls to find a ramen place, and then we sat and waited for about fifteen minutes before someone told us we were supposed to order on these iPads that slide out of the table. What the what.

After lunch, the group walked over to Darling Harbor and peeked into the Chinese Friendship Garden. (We were too cheap to buy tickets.)

Then we took a tram to the Circular Quay and The Rocks which were decked out with zodiac statues in celebration of the Lunar New Year.

With rain on the horizon, we bid adieu to the Aussies and walked to the Opera House to try to catch a 6 o’clock show.

Unfortunately, the show, “Six,” was completely sold out, but we were able to watch the opening number on the screen they use for latecomers, and we were satisfied with that. Our next plan of action was to just wander around the Opera House, but the rain really started coming down at this point. We fought the wind to get to the edge of the harbor, but eventually, we hid under cover again.

The rain was spotty, though, so it lightened up enough for us to keep wandering.

Once the rain decided it was not going to lighten up, we walked back through a bit of the Botanic Gardens and were just about to head into a restaurant when we heard the drums of a Chinese lion dance starting up! I pulled Jonathan back into the rain and we watched under the bridge. He’d never seen one before, and the dancers were very talented, so it was a fun surprise.

We ate dinner at a yummy Indian restaurant, traipsed through the pouring rain a bit longer, and tucked in rather early in exhaustion.

We started Day Two at an adorable French cafe where the staff was made up of swarthy Frenchman. It was pretty great.

The rain had subsided by the end of breakfast, and it brought with it a break from the smoke.

Our first activity of the day was to visit the State Library – eeep!

Jonathan was pretty enthralled by the transcripts of the Australian Parliamentary Debates, and I was obsessed with the reading room.

There were also a bunch of free exhibitions inside – gotta love free museums! I’m telling you. Libraries are where it’s at.

We did a little more Botanic Garden walking while we waited for our bus, and then it was off to Bondi Beach.

We bought some new sunglasses and swam a bit, but then I realized I’d lost my hat somewhere along the way, and in my pouting, I forgot to reapply sunscreen immediately. Instead, I lay in a sad heap in the sand and let the sun sizzle away.

Then I reapplied, saw a bunch of topless sunbathers on our way up the beach, bought a new hat, and hit up The Butcher that Cooks For You for a steak burger. Yum.

I did have a bit of an incident in the bathroom…. I was wearing a one piece, so rather than take the whole thing off, I just moved it to the side before sitting on the toilet, and SO MUCH SAND came dumping out…. Bahahahaha. It was all over the floor and the toilet. It was rather embarrassing. I cleaned off the seat and went to sit down again, and MORE sand came out! Bahahaha. I don’t know how I didn’t notice it in there…. Awk.

I looked for a broom, but couldn’t find one. I’m assuming they’re used to similar things happening since they’re right off the beach, but we made a run for it after that.

We then commenced the Four Mile Walk, a coastal walk between Bondi Beach and Coogee Beach.

I really liked the intertidal area just past Bondi. We hung out here for quite a while. One guy was fishing, though I don’t think he caught anything, and another was playing fetch in the ocean with his dog. So cute! The crashing waves were super loud here though, and it was honestly a bit nervous-making. Didn’t stop us from relaxing a bit, being cooled by the surf.

As we continued the walk south, it started getting reeeaaaaaally windy whenever we would round a bend before descending to the next beach.

Tamarama was lots of fun – I got to swing and make faces at a bunch of babies. Was pretty great.

The next beach was Bronte. The whole beach was pretty windy, and up around the far side of the beach, there was a saltwater pool called the Bronte Baths. It looked so fun. The Boy had worked up a nasty blister, though, so he was wary of the salt water. Sad… I walked in a bit and decided against it. Maybe next time….

By this point, big, dark grey clouds had rolled in, obliterating the sun and bringing chilling gusts of wind to the beach.

We scurried up and away, but only into more wind!

When we made it to a large, beautiful cemetery overlooking the water, Jonathan wanted to tap out, and we had a dinner date to make, so we caught a bus into Maroubra.

I was in a bit of a sulky mood since I didn’t get to swim in the baths and we didn’t have time to complete the coastal walk, but then I found a bunch of hair flower trees, and things were a little better.

That is, until we got off our bus and I realized I had left my hat on the seat!!!!! UGH! Two hats in the span of about six hours, just gone! I was pretty pouty at that point.

I found another hair flower tree though, and things were a little better again.

Jonathan’s friend Terry had us over for dinner, and he and his mom prepped an adorable meal with Aussie flags. Too cute.

When we left the house to return to the city, the smell of smoke was strong in the air, and the night sky was orange. I guess the rain storms of the night before were only a short reprieve from the smoke, and they didn’t seem to help much with the fires themselves.

For some reason, I woke up rather early the next morning. I lay in bed for a while before finally checking the time, and it was only 7:30! Crazy! I knew Jonathan would want more sleep, so I snuck out for a cute solo breakfast. It was so relaxing. I had some “breakfast rice,” which was a mixed grain rice topped with yogurt, muesli, and a bunch of fruit. It was so delicious. I’ll have to try making it at home!

And not long after that, we were off again – high in the sky and on our way ever closer to the equator. Stay tuned for more!

Cheers/ venlig hilsen,

-Lizzy-wa