Mar 10- Auckland, City of Sails

Mar 6-9- Abel Tasman, South Island

Abel Tasman is as far south as we will venture. It's an amazing coastal national park that attracts locals and travellers alike with its turquoise waters, postcard-perfect limestone cliffs, and golden sand beaches. We spent 3 days in this heavenly locale camping for 3 nights. The first night we had to hike over 4 hours in with our packs. Whew, the blisters were rough.

Mar 5- City life in Wellington, NZ

Wellington is the southern-most city of New Zealand's North Island and the center of NZ's film industry. To commemorate that fact, we went on a silly Lord of the Rings tour. Here we are playing out a scene from the first movie when the hobbits fall down the hill. We are great actresses huh?!!

Mar 4- Bungying Lake Taupo

Today was an adrenaline day for Sara and I. Since I'd already done the sky-diving thing in Hawaii, I decided on bungy over the Waikato River. It's about a 47m fall complete with a dip in the water at the end. With a little persuasion, Sara decided to make the giant leap and skydive over Lake Taupo. The hardest part is definitely committing to make the jump when you're standing on the precipice.

Mar 3- Tongariro Crossing, NZ

The Tongariro Crossing is billed as NZ's best day hike and it was spectacular. In the 7 hr hike, you go from barren alpine bush to burnt red and black volcanic peaks to the emerald hued crater lakes and finish with a trek in the rainforest. The weather was great for the hike just a little clouds that drifted over the lakes. Just amazing.

Mar 2- Waitomo Glow Worm Caves, New Zealand

After arriving in New Zealand yesterday, Sara and I headed to Waitomo, the home of the glow worm caves. These larval gnats dot the ceilings of the caves creating a cathedral of tiny green stars. It's so amazing to see. To do so, we went caving through and toobing down the stream of a mile long stretch of cave. It was exhilirating and tiring. Definitely glad to see daylight again.

Feb 28- Trinity Beach

After all our jungle adventures, we really needed to relax so Casey and I headed back down the Queensland coast to Trinity Beach. At night we drank some wine as we walked along the beach and then watched the sunset in the morning. It's such a lovely beach, no tourists (but us), and so peaceful. It was a great recommendation.

Feb 27- Jungle Surfing and Croc Hunting

Today the weather finally cleared up and it was gorgeous. Since we'd seen the rainforest at night and from the ground with our hike, we decided to see it from the top and went jungle surfing with zip-lines criss-crossing the canopy. It was tons of fun and we went upside-down, fast, and every which way. After that, we headed back to the beach and then on to the Daintree River to go crocodile hunting. We did see a couple crocs as well as some green tree frogs and giant bright blue butterflies.

Feb 25- Mossman Gorge and Cape Tribulation

Apparently it's wet season up here in Tropical North Queensland and we've had intermittent torrential downpours. Casey and I took a bus up to Cape Trib and stopped off at Mossman Gorge which is a beautiful river running through the heart of the Daintree Rainforest-- one of the only 20 something World Heritage Areas. It's also the oldest continuous rainforest in the world. At dusk, we went on a Night Walk through the rainforest which was kind of creepy. We saw a ton of spiders and other varied insects. Definitely an experience, though not really my thing. The picture is of a dead spider we found- the biggest one I've ever seen though.

Feb 22-24- Diving the Great Barrier Reef

There's no travelling Oz without visiting the Great Barrier Reef, so Casey and I decided to dive from a 3 day/2 night live-aboard. The ride out to the outer GBR was quite rocky and I threw up more times than I can count. Despite the endless teasing throughout the rest of the trip, I did have a great time and went on 8 dives total including a night dive. Casey and I rented an underwater camera for one of the dives and got these awesome photos of clown fish, sweet lips, sharks, and sea turtles.

Feb 20- Last Night in Melbourne

I've really come to love this city and met a lot of awesome people, so our last night here was quite sad. We did however have a good time as we went out to eat at Blue Train, a quirky restaurant with great drinks at Southgate right on the river. To end the evening we had gelato which we ate as we walked along the river. It's a sad goodbye, but we have many adventures ahead.

Feb 19- Philip Island and the Penguins

So one of the must-do things in Melbourne is to travel an hour or so south to see the Little Penguins parade on Philip Island. They were the tiniest penguins standing at about a foot tall. So cute, with their erratic waddling. They swim and feed in the ocean all day and return home to their burrows on the island under the cover of darkness after sunset each night.

Feb 18- Chinese New Year

Melbourne has got a huge Chinese population and a well-established Chinatown, so this was easily the biggest celebration to which I've been. It's a 2-day affair over the weekend and on Sunday there was a huge parade complete with a gigantic dragon spanning half a city block. It had over 35-40 people underneath it and was accompanied by lots of decorative lions and smaller dragons. We also ate some Yum Cha and it was delicious.

Feb 17- Yarra Valley Grape Grazing Festival

Every year at harvest, the Yarra Valley hosts a wine festival. Casey and I were lucky enough to book a bus tour for it and it was great fun trying all the different wines. We hit 3 different wineries and I had 5 very full glasses of wine. My favorite was the sparkling pinot noir which I'd never heard of before.

Feb 16- Shakespeare in the Park

We enjoyed our moonlight movie so much that we headed back to the Botanical Gardens for some live entertainment this time with a play in the park, Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." It was fun, especially with the Aussie twist on the play.

Feb 14- Royal Botanical Gardens Moonlight Cinema

To celebrate Valentine's Day, we went to see a movie, "Trust the Man", at the Melbourne Royal Botanical Gardens. It was so pleasant spreading out a blanket, enjoying a picnic, and taking in the movie under the stars.

Feb 12- Lake Mackenzie

Lake Mackenzie is perhaps the most beautiful lake in the world. It actually looks like an ocean beach postcard, but it's crystal clear fresh water with a white sand shore. The sand is said to have spa-like properties and our hands were really soft after rubbing it on.

Feb 11- Fraser Island

Fraser Island is Australia's biggest sand island and it's undeveloped beauty. We had to rent a 4WD, which we named Uncle Willy, to navigate the beach and so called "roads" inland. It was perhaps the bumpiest ride ever and the toughest driving job I've ever had. Our butts were airborne for about 2.5 hours straight as the roads were merely sand tracks in the rainforests. We did get to wade in the cool, refreshing Eli Creek which is kind of like the lazy river at Oceans of Fun.

Feb 10- Sunshine Coast

We headed up a couple hours North of Brisbane to the Sunshine Coast to take in the Billabong Pro Junior Surf Competition and catch some waves ourselves. The body board thing is almost as hard as surfing to catch a wave. We all got massively sunburnt though. I guess that's what happens when you have a giant hole in the ozone layer.

Feb. 9- Brisbane and Koalas

Brisbane is an awesome city. It's right on the eastern coast of Australia between the Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast. We started out our adventure at the Lone Pine Sanctuary where we got to hold koalas. Ours was named Goblin and it was love at first sight. They also have this awesome beach in the middle of the city called the Grotto. It was so cool swimming with the skyscrapers in the background.

Feb. 7- Victoria Night Market

The Night Market was great fun. We got to eat emu sausage, crocodile, kangaroo burger, and camel kabob. They were all pretty good too. It was a lively event with a live band and tons of eclectic stands selling everything from licorice to moroccan shoes.

Feb 4- Rock Climbing in the Grampians

Here we are braving the 40 degree celcius (100F) heat at Summer Day Valley in Grampians National Park, about 3 hours west of Melbourne. We got to scale 4 different routes on the back wall, the highest being about 25 feet, the hardest a grade 17. It was loads of fun and I came out unharmed other than a rope burn on my hand from belaying. The abseiling (rappelling) was completely scary standing backwards over a ledge, but exhilirating too. After the steamy climb, we took a cool, refreshing dip in Mackenzie Falls.

Feb 3- The 12 Apostles and Great Ocean Road

In the morning, we hiked a couple more rainforests. The Otway Fly is the world's highest elevated walkway which climbs over ___ feet over the rainforest canopy. At Triplet Falls, we jumped the fence and climbed up to stand in the waterfall cascade. After lunch, we headed to see Australia's famous landmarks, the 12 Apostles. They're limestone cliffs worn away from the mainland by the tumultous waves. Quite gorgeous.

Feb 2- Apollo Bay Rainforests

After work, we headed out to the Great Ocean Road again for the weekend. Our first stop was Apollo Bay, the most southern point of which divides the Southern Ocean from the Bass Strait. There are beautiful rainforests here with old hollowed out trees including this one at Mait's Rest.

Jan 31- Cricket at MCG

After work, we hit up the last few hours of the Victoria Bushrangers vs. South Australia Redbacks cricket match. It was a one-day interstate match so the entirety lasts ~7.5 hours vs. internationals which last 4 days! Anyhoo, it took us a while understand what was going on. Slow game.