Australian Travel Diary

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

Hello again, mates-

Well, I finally learned how to convert Celsius into Fahrenheit, thanks toStephanie. So, those temps in NZ that I was guessing at were wrong. It wasa tad cooler than I had thought. Instead of 60-70's it was, actually, mid50's to low 60's. It felt pretty good to me, though. Sydney is a bitwarmer. Up the coast, in Cairns, it's down right hot... 90 degrees,approximately. I think I got those right. And, this is just springtime!
After settling into Tom and Stephanie's place (flat?), we went for a shortwalk thru Kirribilli to the main street. There is a great view of theharbour and bridge along the way. Stopped for a quick bite to eat, pickedup some fruit for breakfast and walked back. Stayed in and rested untilSteph returned from work. Sailed on a dinner cruise in Sydney Harbour lastnight with Stephanie. It was pretty nice. She showed us all the places togo and see. Today, we will, most likely, take the ferry across to visit theBotanical Gardens, the Opera House and shop. By the way, you don't wear ajacket, you wear a jumper. And you don't order take out food, you do takeaway. That's all for this boring edition of Life Down Under. Coming againsoon to an email near you. Same bat channel, different bat time.
Cheers-
Susan
SYDNEY DAY TWO
G'day to you all:
Yesterday, Keith and I took the ferry across to the Circular Quay(pronounced key) where all ferries arrive. We then walked over to theSydney Opera House and into the Botanical Gardens. Beautiful gardensover-looking the harbour. I think these gardens are much larger than theDallas Botanical Gardens and they are free. People lunch here and exerciseclasses take place in some parts. I was watching one group doing some sortof boxing, cardio karate type running drills combo class and kept thinking"keep your hands up." Jennifer, Paul and Leah - Master Kyle has brainwashedus! hehe. Anyway, we walked for quite some time thru the gardens. One thingwe came upon, when we looked up in the trees, were fox bats. A very largespecies of bat that does kind of resemble a fox. These cute little guyswere just hanging in the trees when Keith looked up and was wondering whatkind of fruit that was.... then it moved and we knew we weren't in Kansasanymore. They are huge! We're guessing the wing span to be about 24-30"long and the body was probably the size of an 8 week old kitten. They weighabout 1 kilo (2 1/2 pounds?). Pretty cool. At night they fly across theharbour, into the city, to eat insects. Neat stuff. Other animals we saw atthe gardens include wild Cockatoos eating from people's hands, cranessitting in the tops of palm trees, lots of beautiful song type birds and aneel in one of the main ponds.
Returned to the apt/flat for a bit. Keith was done walking for awhile so Iwent back across the harbour to an area called The Rocks. It's part of theoriginal settlement of Sydney so it's very old looking but charming. Thisis where all the neat shops and a lot of restaurants are located. Foundsome great stuff there. After Stephanie came home from work (by the way,Tom is in China until Friday) we all went to Darling Harbour (anotherlittle nook and cranny). There are more shops and restaurants hereincluding the Maritime Museum, the Russian Space Shuttle and the SydneyAquarium. We ate dinner at Zenbu, a asian fusion place (a sort of Japanese,Thai, other asian mix). Very good stuff. Today, I think we are planning togo to the Zoo and the Aquarium.
Things that are different:
That's all for now folks. Chat with you soon.
Susan
SYDNEY DAY THREE
Good morning!
Don't know if I mentioned this or not but Sydney has not gone throughDaylight Savings Time yet (remember NZ did). So, while we were in NZ, for acouple of days, we had moved our watches up one hour. Then when we flewinto Sydney, not only are they 2 hours behind NZ but they hadn't changedtheir clocks yet so they are actually 3 hours behind NZ until the end ofthe month. About the time they change their clocks forward, we will beleaving for the States to change our clocks backwards. AAAHH!! "Let's dothe time warp now."
Yesterday, Keith and I rode the ferry to the Taronga (sp?) Zoo. Pretty goodzoo. They were one of the first zoos to renovate using natural habitatsrather than cages. After their completion, the rest of the world started tocatch up. The zoo sits on top of a hill. You can either take a bus to thetop entrance or ride the gondola cable cars up to the top entrance. Wechose the cable cars. Beautiful view! Finally got to see a dingo ("maybethe dingo got your baby!") The dingo has, actually, been breeding with theferal (wild) dogs so their are very few pure bred dingo's left. Never gotto see the platypus. It was moved from one display and, I guess, was hidingpretty well in the other display. Oh well. I'll just have to wait for thenext episode the croc hunter.
Next stop was a ferry ride back to the Sydney Aquarium. Not a bad aquariumbut there are a few better ones out there. Really cool shark displays andbarrier reef displays. Got to see photos of the damage that box jellies andblue bottles (man o wars) can do. Horrible! The box jellies are EXTREMELYdangerous.  Common problem is the person stops breathing and you have tomanually resuscitate until, hopefully, the anti venom works.. Box jelliestentacles can reach down to 3m (10 feet) and blue bottles can reach 10m (30feet). Wow!
Next stop was the Maritime Museum which is a short walk around the cornerfrom the aquarium. The primary reason we wanted to go was to tour theAustralian Naval Submarine Onslow and the Destroyer Vampire. I don't knowhow those guys do anything in those subs, especially run! It was tiny! And,then, to be down for months at a time. Unbelievable.
About this time, Keith's feet gave up on him. So, we hopped on a ferry totake us back home. It was a long day. We got home about 10 minutes beforeStephanie returned from work. Had a great time, though. It's supposed torain tomorrow but Steph says it doesn't, usually, rain for long or rainthat hard. I'm not sure what is on the agenda for tomorrow. Maybe a trainride, maybe the beach, maybe just hang out. Time can only tell. Until then,
g'day!
Susan
SYDNEY DAY FOUR
G'day:
By the way, for those who are not aware I have been stating the date the USway, over in this neck of the woods you would write day/month/year(11-10-01). Just something to remember when filling out forms. It actuallymakes more sense this way.
Another side note: Stephanie lives just around the corner from the primeminister and the governor general. Ooo-la-la!
Today was a short day. It was rainy and drizzily almost all day. It didn'tbother me though since I love the rain. We decided to take advantage of theweather and do some laundry since there wouldn't be a lot we would want todo today. Besides, we still have 2 more weeks so we needed some clothes. Idid go back over to the Rocks area for more shopping before heading to thepost (post office) to mail post cards and pick up a shipping box forextras. Later, Keith and I walked back to main street Kirribilli for lunchthen returned home. That would pretty much sum up our day today. Besidesthat, I don't think Keith was up for much else because his little feet werestill a little achy. Tom returns from China tomorrow and he said he mightgo run around with us then. Don't really know the agenda for tomorrow,either. Enjoy your day!
Susan
SYDNEY DAY FIVE
Today was Manly Beach. Very pretty beach with lots of surfers. Tom returnedfrom China this morning and escorted us to the beach. He was very glad tosee fresh, clean air again after being in Shanghai and other Chinese citiesfor the last 3 weeks. Didn't do much more today except mail some clothesback home. This is short because we are packing tonight to leave for Cairnsin the morning. We changed our flight to an earlier flight so we could beon the same plane with Tom and Stephanie. Tomorrow the Great Barrier Reef,I think.
Don't know when I may have Internet access again so I will chat with youwhen I can. It's been fun this week! Two more weeks to go. I miss you all.See you Halloween.
Susan
CAIRNS, AUSTRALIA
Hey gang-
Yay! Internet access. Well, here's the latest....
Arrived in Cairns (pronounced cans) in the morning (changed our flight tobe with Tom and Steph). Took a stroll thru town, which doesn't take long asCairns is not a very big place. It's a beach town that makes a good homebase for divers and day trip people as it's close to many things. We windowshopped thru the small stores and one main mini mall called The PierMarketplace. It's very humid here, very similar climate to the CaymanIslands. Since it's not the height of summer, yet, it's probably in theupper 80's but the shade and ocean breeze makes it quite pleasant. Funnything happens at night. Hundreds of very colorful, lorikeet-like (smallparrot) type birds come out and chatter, chatter, chatter. My goodness theyare loud and obnoxious. I felt like I was in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.This evening there was a fireworks show that we later found out was kickingoff the Reef Festival. It's a small carnival party that celebratessomething but we don't know what. It's been on-going for ten years but, forsome reason, this is the last year for it. There were rides, food, livebands, games, etc. There was even a guy selling whole coconuts that hewould chop part of the end off of and you would grab a straw to drink thefresh coconut milk inside. Never saw anybody do that before.
Next day, October 14, we took a "fast cat" boat to the Great Barrier Reefto board the Atlantic Clipper. We made one stop along the way to snorkel.It's was too shallow a place to dive as you are supposed to dive yourdeepest dive first. Water was much cooler than I was expecting, especiallygiven the outside temps. But, it wasn't freezing or anything. There was amild current and pretty clear water. Lots of different fish! Loaded back upto head for the Atlantic Clipper. This is the boat we will be spending thenight upon. Keith can tell you all about the history of the AtlanticClipper. After settling into our cabin, Keith and I went out for a snorkel.Tom and Stephanie did their first dive. When Keith had enough, I escortedhim back to the boat and I continued my snorkel. Huge corals! Tons of verycolorful fish! Sorry, Paul Staber, can't tell you what they all were but Iknew some of them. Much stronger current in this area (very different fromthe Caymans). Returned to ship for a brief rest then went back out with Tomand Stephanie for another snorkel before dinner. Since it was getting neardusk, the marine life was starting to change. We were seeing some differentfish and corals that we hadn't seen before. We saw a grouper that probablyweighed about 150-200 pounds! Too shallow for the really big ones that canget to 400 pounds. We saw a sea turtle, a trumpet fish and a white tip reefshark about 4 feet long! Very cool! The water is very clear in this part.We could see clear to the bottom, about 30 meters down (about 100 feet). Infor dinner and much too tired to go out for a night snorkel so we all justplayed cards and watched stars until bed. I guess there are the sameconstellations here they are just upside down. It doesn't really matterbecause I can't recognise anything anyway. (No, I did not misspellrecognise. They use "s" instead of "z").
October 15: 6am rise with knock on door by crew. Tom and Stephanie didanother dive and I went out on an escorted snorkel. Keith is not feelingquite right this adventure. I was able to see starfish, several smallpuffers and one very large puffer hiding under a huge plate coral. Theguide encouraged us to touch a couple of the corals he pointed out as safe.I didn't really want to do it as you can damage the corals but I touched,just one, anyway. Slimy. Back in for breakfast. Sailed to another reefspot. Another snorkel trip with Tom and Steph. Saw another sea turtle (muchbigger one this time) and a stingray. Poor stingray just couldn't gethappy. He would try to settle down then move then settle then move. On andon for quite some time. We left him on the ocean floor and moved onourselves. In for lunch then time for one more snorkel trip before transferback to Cairns.  Right before returning to ship for final time we ran into"Wally" the resident Moari Wrasse. He was huge! At least 3 foot long and inexcess of 100 pounds. He's a mooch. He reminded me of Harley. I guess therewas a dive instructor who had just gotten into the water and Wally suckedher hand in and slightly bit her thinking she had food. He spit it back outand she just tapped him on the head to shoo him. No damage done but prettyfunny to watch.
October 16: Up at 4 am (yikes!) to catch a hot air balloon ride. Beautifulmorning and nice ride. Not scary at all as I was expecting. Nice and gentleand not a big deal to be up there. I was surprised. Landed, loaded into vanto chase the second balloon ride. Helped pack up balloon and basket (20people per balloon plus pilot), drove to "campsite" for breakfast. Then,back in van to drop off point for our white water rafting trip. "Easy"short river trip. Learned some very basic techniques and practiced thesurvival float thru one of the rapids. There were two Japanese people inour raft. The man spoke pretty good English but the woman spoke very littleEnglish and did not have a clue about what to do. She looked like she hadfun but also looked scared to death. Surprisingly, I was not the one tofall out of the boat (and neither were the Japanese). While we were"surfing" one of the rapids, the raft filled with so much water that itcollapsed where Stephanie was sitting. She went under 2 rafts beforepopping up down stream. Luckily, she is a competition swimmer and she cameup with a smile on her face. When knew, then, she was alright but it gaveeveryone, including the guide,  a scare. No other worries on trip. Lunchwas provided then back on bus to return to Cairns. We grabbed our stuff,rented a car and drove to the Daintree National Rain forest Park for a stayin a "tree house" (one of two lodges allowed to operate in the park). Weare staying in the Silky Oaks Lodge. Beautiful drive north of Cairns withrain forest on one side and ocean/beaches on the other with small townshipsand sugar cane fields in between. Jelly warnings posted at one beach. Wedid not stop at any of the beaches along the way. Many were too rockyanyway but they were pretty. Checked in around 3:30 or 4 pm. Beautifullodge! Given tour of the grounds and keys to our tree house/stilted cabins.The Silky Oaks is a spa resort in the rain forest. Very, very cool spot!Excellent choice by Tom and Stephanie. There are lots of planned activitiesor you can do absolutely nothing (Keith has chosen this option). There areguided nature walks both day and night, canoes and bikes available forcheck out, books, games, massage treatments, swimming both in the pool orthe Mossman River, fishing trips, reef trips, bird cruises, etc. You nameit they probably have it. We signed up (as there are limited spaces forsome things) for a guided night walk tomorrow night. Tom, Stephanie and Iall signed up for massage treatments. Keith found the books you can checkout and Tom, Steph and I played a board game they had packed. Nothing elseis scheduled right now. Just relaxation after our snorkeling and river trips.
DAINTREE RAIN FOREST
G'day all:
Well, let's see, where were we. Ah, yes, the peaceful tranquility of therain forest. After breakfast, Keith checked out a James Bond book andreturned to the room hammock. Tom and Stephanie scheduled massages. I wentwalkabout on the trails. I hiked the Fig Tree Rapids Trail (+ -  2 hrs) injust over an hour. I took the high trail which is slightly difficult (notvery or extremely but strenuous). At times the trail was very narrow androcky but it was just what I was looking for. By the way, you have to signout before you go hiking and sign back in upon return so they know you'renot lost in the woods. That way, if no one signs in they can go look foryou that night. No problems on trail. I did see lots of brightly coloredbutterflies, lots of variety of fig trees, a couple of small lizards andone large (about 4-6 foot long) gwana (monitor type lizard). No worries, hewas running quickly away from me... so quickly I barely got a look at him.Awesome! No snakes. By the way, I forgot to tell ya'll that on our balloonride, we got to see a couple of wild kangaroos hopping around. Neat.
After the hike, we all met for lunch. Keith returned to the room and hisbook. The remaining three of us picked up canoes and went paddling down theriver in front of the lodge. Not a very big river at the moment since theyhaven't had much rain. Nice and peaceful. Returned to shore and went for abrief swim in the river. It's all safe and pretty cool at the moment.Refreshing! We then met for afternoon tea and biscuits and played gameswhile waiting for dinner. After dinner, the three of us went for a guidednight walk thru the forest looking for creatures of the night. Being a rainforest, it started to rain but we continued anyway and it eventuallystopped. We saw lots of fruit bats (the flying foxes) flying over theriver. They fly high to catch insects and fly low to drink as they can'tperch. Insects are just supplemental to their diet of fruit. No sightingsof turtles or platypuss' tonight. The guide release a amythest (?) python(there are no boas here). We found tree frogs, Cain toads (imported),forest dragons (lizard) and a few variety of birds. No snakes. On thereturn trip, we found some glowing fungi.... pretty cool stuff, mates!Tomorrow we have a half day safari into another part of the rain forest fora brief hike and mangrove river cruise searching for crocs!
DAINTREE DAY TWO
Hello, hello-
Up early today for a private (4 person only) drive into a different part ofthe National Rain Forest. Took a stroll into the forest looking for theCassawary (or something like that). It's a bird that stands about 5-6 feettall and is a prehistoric bird from the Jurassic era. There are only about60 of this particular bird left. Needless to say, it's on the endangeredspecies list. This rain forest is the oldest rain forest in the world. It'sbeen dated to the Jurassic period and before. Not even the Amazon is as oldas this forest and this forest has remained, basically, unchanged eventhrough the ice ages. How's that for cool? Never did find the bird but wesaw lots of the fruit it likes to eat.
Besides finding the fruit we did see lots of neat plants. Among them is aplant called "wait a while" because if you get caught in it you get to waita while to get untangled. It doesn't hurt you it's just very sticky andthorny and catches on everything. What's neat about this plant it it's ahuge vine that puts out tentacles to grow and as it matures it's covered inheavy, heavy thorns. After the thorns shed, you have a smaller, smooth vinethat is used to make rotan (sp?) furniture. Also, that part of the vinecontains water so if you're ever lost in the forest, you can use that plantto get fluids.
You need to be aware of a plant with heart shaped leaves. While 90% ofheart shaped leafed plants are harmless there is one that it's leaves arecovered in silica barb shards that will cause immediate, intense pain thatcan be felt a year later!
After the stroll, we met a small boat that took us on a mangrove rivercruise. A mangrove plant is any plant that only grows in a tidal zone. Thisriver has 29 of the 69 mangrove plants in the world. We were in this riversearching for crocs. By the way, 50% of salt water crocodiles actually livein fresh water so don't let the name fool you. We did find one croc about3m (about 9 feet) long basking on the shore line. Interesting fact: onlyabout 2 of 500 croc eggs laid make it to adulthood as the crocs will eattheir own. There was a stow away on this small boat, as well. A prettylittle tree frog that was green in color. They can be all different colorsdepending on "their mood" as it was put to us. From the guides arm, heclimbed onto me and onto my back before the guide removed him and put himback where he was found as the little guy was starting to dry out from theheat and humidity. Along the way, there were lots of a specialized hibiscusflower. It has a big yellow bloom that opens in early morning, blooms allday and then drops off at night. If there happen to be any left the nextday, the bloom will turn pink. The guide suspects this is to keep down thepollination of "older" blooms and the pink color doesn't attract theinsects as well as the yellow. But, that is just his guess. Before we leftfor the drive back to the lodge, our guide found some green tree ants whoseabdomens are green and that you can eat because the abdomen containsascorbic acid. The natives usually gather an entire nest and boil it up fora drink. Mmmm, yummy! To prove this fact, the guide picked one up and ateit. Ewww!
This afternoon was pretty much a free day. Showers again tonight. This isprobably much more information than ya'll really care about but you'll justhave to deal with it. :) Don't think we have anything on the schedule fortomorrow except laundry. We decided to stay here an extra night instead ofdriving back to Cairns before we depart for Brisbane on Saturday and Tomand Steph depart for home in Sydney. Not long now. Susan
torches = flashlight
DAINTREE DAY THREE
Hey gang-
Today was a total free day, do whatever you like kind of day. So, afterbreakfast, Stephanie rented one of the lodges' bikes and rode down to thebeach area (about 9K, I think). Keith stayed in to read and Tom and Iplayed card games while I did my laundry. I now, sort of, barely know howto play cribbage. Odd little game. Lots of intricacies. We met up later fora spot of tea and, later, dinner. We leave tomorrow for Brisbane whileStephanie and Tom return to Sydney. Great visit and holiday with them. Wewill be spending one more night with them the day before we leave for the U.S.
Until our next Internet access is available, cheers!
Susan
BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA
Today is the day we depart the fine company of Tom and Stephanie Snyder. :(It's been a great 10 days or so since Sydney). We will have one more dayand night with them on the day before our departure for the States. Thanksfor all the games and good itineraries you provided!
We drove back to Cairns from the Daintree Rainforest to catch our flight toBrisbane. We were on our way to Couran Cove Resort. This turns out to be asomewhat waste of time. It's a nice resort and there weren't any problemswith being there. The problem was one of timing. Our flight left at 11:40a.m. and we arrived in Brisbane about 1:40 p.m. After getting our bags,finding the driver and driving to the ferry port, it is now 3pm. The nextferry to the resort doesn't leave until 4pm. It's a 30 minute ferry ridethere plus an introduction to the resort so we didn't get to our room untiljust before 5 pm. We leave tomorrow morning at 10:30 am. No time to reallydo anything. Oh well. For those who may find themselves with this resort asa choice to visit,here's some information.... it's a Disneyland typeresort. There is an amusement park about 20 minute drive from the resort(after you've taken the ferry across to mainland). The resort itself catersto families (including children). There are 2 big swimming pools (one lappool), the beach is about 2 km walk or bike ride away, rain forest toexplore, hydro bikes and canoes for the protected cove, jet skis on theopen water, para sailing, jet boats, fishing trips, playgrounds,gymnasiums, rock climbing, ropes course, etc. With the timing ofeverything, I still don't really understand why the agent booked us herebut it was a nice place to spend the night. We did see a wild kangaroo orwallaby outside our lodge room and it is much cooler here than it was inCairns with much less humidity. Quite pleasant, really. We ordered dinnerand watched a movie. Tomorrow we leave for the city of Brisbane.
lemonade = sprite or 7 up (usually)
BRISBANE DAY TWO
Just 10 more days left, mates. Didn't do much today in downtown Brisbaneexcept a little window shopping. Beautiful day here. It's about 23 degreesC (about 75 degrees F, roughly). Brisbane is a nice city but there's reallynot a whole lot to do here that I've been able to find. Tomorrow we haveour day trip to the Australia Zoo (that's Steve Irwin's zoo, the crochunter). Looking forward to that. Then, we leave for the center (AliceSprings and Uluru or Ayers Rock). See you blokes soon :)
Susan
BRISBANE DAY THREE
Good Morning (or whatever time it is for you now)-
Today we were off to the Australia Zoo (you know, the crocodile hunter'spart of the territory). Small but pretty neat place. It is currently about23 acres but rapidly expanding to just over 200 acres (construction waswell under way while we were there). Looks like it's going to be a verynice conservation zoo in a short time. Teri Irwin was there but we missedseeing her and don't know if Steve Irwin was there or not. There wereseveral pics of them with their daughter, Bindi, on the entrance wall tothe zoo. What was really funny is you could buy an autograph poster of himon a stand for the bargain price of $177 Aussie dollars (that's about $88U.S.) Anybody want one? :) Despite that, we both still liked the place.They have the oldest living Galapagos turtle in the world; they have a crocthat's about 16 feet long and weighs just over 1 tonne; and they have areticulated python that's about 20 feet long and weighs about 220 pounds!We watched the Asian otter demonstration, the snake demo (which I was alittle disappointed in since they only brought out a Burmese python andtalked about what to do if you find a snake in the wild and first aid forsnake bites). I thought there would be more talk about native snakes and,maybe, bring out some different snakes. Oh well. Finally, we got to see thecrocodile demo. Pretty impressive stuff! Oh, Tom and Steph, we got to see alive Cassowary so we have something checked off that you don't.... thwtttt(imagine tongue stuck out)...even if it was in a zoo but that counts (and,yes, you still have to have the plane actually touch down on the continent).
Next stop was the Under Water World, a pretty decent aquarium inMooloolabada (sp?). So, Steph, wanna go? :)
Brisbane is a pretty city even if it is like Dallas in that there's not alot of really cool stuff to do. I mean, it's just a big city. There areabout 1.6 million people here. It is the 2nd largest city in the world inregards to area. First largest is Singapore. It was settled back in the1800's after they decided that Sydney was getting too crowded. Again, justanother penal colony. They claim it is the "most livable city." But wedon't know who "they" is and what they mean by that. Tomorrow we leave forAlice Springs and Uluru (Ayers Rock).
Cheers,
Susan
ALICE SPRINGS, AUSTRALIA
Hey gang-
We arrived in Alice Springs.... looks like west Texas or New Mexico. Smalltown center that takes about a day to walk through. Population is 27, 000as of Sept. 11 but people have been moving out since tourism is down. Pity.Interesting place, actually.... it's a town in the middle of the desertthat never has to worry about water even if it doesn't rain for 5 years.Why, I hear you ask? Because about 500 feet below lies an underground lakethat is as big as Tasmania! They are the only place in Australia that hasnever been on water restrictions! Can you believe that?! Wild.
Aside from a few stores, shops and local art dealers there is the FlyingDoctors Service (you don't go to the hospital, the hospital goes to you), areptile center, a botanic gardens and the desert park. Oh, and let's notforget about the radio school. Teachers actually teach their class over theradio for the children of the northern territory who might otherwise not bein school because of distance, transport, money, etc. Pretty neat.
Tomorrow we actually drive out to Ayers Rock (Uluru) and spend the nightbefore returning to Alice Springs for one last night. Then, we hop on theGhan (the train). Until our next Internet encounter.... cheers
Susan
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