“I went to a land down under!”

This has taken me forever to finish!!!
The last post left me leaving Taiwan enroute to Sydney to meet my momma! I arrived very early in the morning and had a connection through Brisbane.  I got to the hotel and waited (napped) until my mom arrived later that evening.  This long anticipated reunion did not disappoint – as the two criers were blubbering. We spent our first full day on a bus tour of the city – we did the whole loop and then stopped at the harbourside.  The next day I was down for the count – with a full fledged fever. I dont know what brought it on, but my mom thought it is my body’s way of telling me I need to rest and go home… Our third day in Sydney was a little more relaxed and we walked around the Opera House and around the botanical gardens on the hunt for the Queen Mary 2 which was docked in the harbour.  We also found Harry’s meat pies – something I had heard lots about! We stopped for some meat pies and walked back home for the night.  Our last day in Sydney was spent back at the Opera House – we did a tour of the building and learned a lot about the process of building the landmark.  It was really interesting! We also decided to see an opera at the Opera House that evening.  We ended up seeing ‘Tosca’ and it was neat! It was hard to keep up with the plot reading subtitles, but it was still enjoyable.  The next day we left early in the morning to go to Melbourne.

We only had a couple of days in Melbourne and we spent the first day walking around the core of the city.  The city had a lot of older buildings mixed in with newer modern buildings. That night we ate dinner at Jamie Oliver’s restaurant – Fifteen.  It was really yummy and nice inside!  The next day we did some shopping and took the trolley around the city to see different areas.  It was a fairly relaxed time in Melbourne.

Our next stop was Ayer’s Rock or Uluru (the aboriginal name).  We stepped off the plane to have flies attacking our face.  I had read that the flies try to get the moisture out of the eyes and mouth.  It was crazy!! We were staying at the Ayer’s Rock Resort – the only place to stay.  They built a resort for the tourism industry – with a wide array of hotels ranging from $80 a night to $1000 a night.  We stayed in the lower priced ‘dormitory’ option and basically camped for the two nights we were there.  For most of the time we were in Uluru it was raining….and cold.  Now Uluru is in the middle of the desert….we were a little surprised that’s for sure! Our first night we signed up for an astronomy tour – since it is in the middle of the desert away from all the light pollution you can see a lot more than in the city.  Our second day was spent wandering around the resort – there wasn’t much to do in our dorm room as we waited for our sunset tour. We started off in the rain and we were told that the rain is a sight to see – as it doesnt rain very often. We went out to Kata Tjuta (the Olga’s) first and all of the tour guides were talking about never seeing rain cascade off the rocks – reassuring us that being in the rain was great.  We started on the base walk and it started to spit about halfway through.  We decided to keep trekking.  It rained harder and harder and mini streams started to develop, and then – the water started cascading off of the rocks.  On our way back we saw tour guides running to see the water and had to cross huge flows of water.  We finally got onto the bus and we were the last people (and the wettest) back to the bus. The rest of our tour was kind of uncomfortable (and cold!) we went back early as there was no hope seeing the sunset on the rock.

Our next stop was Cairns, to much more humid weather! We stayed in a gorgeous hotel and did some souvenir shopping along the strip.  The main reason for going to Cairns was to go out on the Great Barrier Reef.  My mom was reading in the hotel about cyclone procedures as I joked that we wouldnt need to worry about it….  I was wrong.  The cyclone was still far off the coast and wasn’t suppsoed to hit Australia until after we left.  BUT it was turning the seas pretty good and the wind was not making for ideal boating conditions – especially for my mom who is seasick on calm water.  We decided to play it by ear and did a lot of walking around and shopping in the first couple of days.  Nearing the end of our 5 days in Cairns we had to make a decision if we wanted to go out.  We talked to a few tour agencies and they were being assured that boats were still going out.  Now these boats ranged from 30-600 people on each boat – at $300-500 p/p.  That’s a crap load of money they would be turning down for some waves.  Instead of  the reef we went into the Rainforest on the scenic railway.  It was pretty interesting, and we ended up going to a rainforest wildlife park….where I pet a Kangaroo! The next day we went to the Rainforest dome across from our hotel – and I held a Koala! I got a picture with the Koala but ended up forgetting it in the hotel room when we left later that day . We caught an early flight to Sydney to spend 8 hours before we got on our long flight to Honolulu!

I’ll leave it there and you can look at pictures on fb.  I’ll try and write a blurb about Hawaii as soon too!