Oh, how we love Australia!

We spent a GREAT week in Australia recently! It's on our master list of places to see before we die and it certainly lived up to our expectations. This is a really long post with tons of pictures, but I'm just so excited to share our experiences with you. If you have the opportunity to travel to this beautiful country....do it! Be sure to read through the end of the post to where we've listed interesting observations we made during our visit.

I've categorized the pictures by day and wrote descriptions about the activities under the pictures.

DAY 1: Walking Tour of Sydney

We left San Francisco at 10:40pm on Sunday and arrived in Sydney at 8:10am on Tuesday. Australia is a day and 6 hours ahead of California, so we didn't want to waste ANY time. After we landed, we immediaely headed to the Hilton hotel to drop off our bags (great hotel in the heart of downtown Sydney).

We started our first day in Sydney with a 3-hour walking tour of the city with "I'm Free Tours". They were highly ranked on Trip Advisor and provided us a great overiew and lay of the land.

Queen Victoria Building....lots of fancy shops and restaurants inside.

Crazy looking pig. You can see where people have rubbed him for good luck. :)

Oldest bar in Sydney. Back in the day, they would give free drinks to patrons to get them to black out. Hours later the patrons would find themselves in jail cells or on ships destined for slavery...awful!

Sydney Opera House

View of downtown Sydney across the Harbor Bridge.

Sydney Harbor Bridge

DAY 2: Bondi Beach

This swimming pool has been featured on the Travel Channel. The waves crash over the edge and into the pool...must be chilly water!

Famous Bondi Beach = absolutely beautiful! It's hard to tell from the photos, but the waves were huge. The surfers could barely even swim out to catch a wave...they were so strong, high and frequent.

DAY 3: Wildlife Sanctuary and Blue Mountains

We took a day trip with Tours R Us wtith approximately 20 other people. First stop was a visit to a local wildlife sanctuary. Definitely my favorite part of the day! The koalas were so cute all curled up in the trees.

We had the opportunity to pet and feed a couple of the koalas. They were pigging out the entire time. I learned that koalas sleep 19-20 hours a day and when they're not sleeping they're eating. Lazy lil' things!

How precious is this? Such a poser!

We also had the chance to feed wallybies (a type of small kangaroo). They were so cute, but quite aggressive when it came to eating the treats we fed them.

The "Three Sisters" peaks of the Blue Mountains in Australia's Grand Canyon.

A VERY steep railway down the side of a mountain.

Once you enter the cave opening you're almost sitting face down because it's such a steap descent.

The day's journey ended with a ferry cruise of the harbor. The harbor is absolutely huge...much larger than San Francisco. It was interesting because many locals referred to San Francisco as Sydney's sister city...kinda neat! Here's a view of downtown Sydney.


DAY 4: Cairns (pronounced "cans")

On day 4 we woke up fairly early to catch the 3-hour flight north to Cairns in tropical Queensland. Northern Queensland had been experiecing horrible rain, flooding and even a recent cyclone, but Cairns remained in great shape. It was raining when we arrived, but the following three days were filled with sunshine.

View #1 from the balcony of our hotel room.

View #2 from the balcony of our hotel room.

Random object....a back scratcher made from a kangaroo paw!

DAY 5: Daintree Rainforest Tour


We spent a long twelve hours on an all day excursion of the Daintree Rainforest. This is a fairly large rainforest with a huge river that runs through the middle of it down to the ocean.

We were surrounded by rainforest in Cairns, but it was about a 2-hour drive to reach the Daintree Rainforest.

Raging river!

Go figure! It rained on us while in the rainforest. The rain only lasted about 15 minutes and then the sun came out. Wasn't nearly as bad as when we hiked 4 hrs in a Costa Rican rainforest and it literally poured on us the entire hike....we were soaked to the bone!

Interesting, but scary facts: Australia has 18 of the world's top 20 most poisonous snakes...one of which will kill you in 30 minutes without immediate, effective treatment. I was almost more scared of spotting a gigantic python which squeeze their prey to death. They also have 2 of the world's most dangerous spiders. The tarantulas will grow to the size of dinner plates...my worst nightmare!!!

The flooded Daintree River. It had rained 12 inches the night before, so the flooding prevented us from taking a cruise down the river to spot crocodiles. We were warned to not stand close to the water, so this is a zoomed in picture. Tragically, a 5 year old boy was killed very close to theis spot 1year ago. His father was a local river tour guide. The boy's dog ran to the water and he followed the pup. When he reached the water a crocodile grabbed the boy and took him under...his 7 year old brother was a witness. So tragic. According to our tour guide, one person is eaten by a croc in Australia each year.

Cape Tribulation...where the river meets the ocean.

These warning signs were posted everywhere along the coast. Crocodiles hang out everywhere and tend to stay under water when people are around. That's why it's advised to stay away from the edge of the water...they will wait and strike an unsuspecting person.

Out tour guide was an interesting Aussie obsessed with the rainforest and all its inhabitants, expecially the sqaw turkey. We came across this barricade along a path we were walking in the rainforest. I was already a bit nervous because we were surrounded by swamp...an especially dangerous place to find crocs, so when our guide told us that the local wildlife division gets carried away with "danger" signs and told us to jump over the sign...I thought he was nuts!

Ok, this doesn't look so bad....just a few leaves on the path. If we only knew what was coming!

There's a reason "warning" and "danger" signs were posted on the path...they didn't want you to walk it because trees had fallen and were blocking the path. I was really freaked when our guide started climing over and under trees and brush. My immediate thought was....spiders are everywhere!! I didn't think I could do it, but Mike told me not to look and just go for it. This is a picture of me after I had walked under some serious brush. Mike later told me the leaves were covered in ants and there were some spiders.

What can I say, I'm not a tomboy....maybe I'm a bit of a girly-girl. I don't camp and I'm not into creepy, crawly things. Well, I met my match. This girl was on our tour and was from Canada. She was just as freaked as me. At one point, she was scared and stopped moving forward over the trees...this left me crouched under a fallen trunk and tons of brush. I couldn't move and in my semi-panic state (which was growing by the second) I started yelling for her to move forward. I thought I was going to have a heart attack! She was really sweet and obviously we both survived....but the poor thing ended up with a leach on her foot....boy did she go nuts!

Here's a picture of Mike and the rest of the group as they finished their trek across it all. The scary part was that we were on top of trees over the swamp....had we lost our footing or fallen down we would have been in water. All I can say is "crocodiles!!" I was the obsessed, paranoid crocodile watcher of the group.

DAY 6: The Great Barrier Reef!!!

We spent a day on the water aboard a beautiful catamaran with Passions of Paradise. Mike and I enjoy snorkeling and it was a dream come true to see The Great Barrier Reef. We had to wear "stinger suits" while snorkeling to avoid being stung by jellyfish. Summers in Australia's tropical region are the time for two dangerous jellyfish to live in the waters off the coast...one of which is the deadly box jellyfish. In fact, you're not allowed to swim off the coast because there are so many. We didn't see any while snorkeling, but better to be on the safe side.

The water was crystal blue...I felt like I was in "The Little Mermaid". Vibrant coral and fish...just beautiful! Mike took about 300 pictures and video of the reef, but I'll just share a few with you here.






Our second snorkel spot was off a tiny island called Michaelmas Cay. It was breathtaking...these pictures don't do it justice. The Cay is actually a bird sanctuary....birds were literally everywhere! We snorkeled to the island and as I walked towards the beach I was pooped on by a bird...gross!

Check out the rainbow over the moutain behind us. Perfect wat to end a perfect day out at sea!

DAY 7: Palm Cove


Before we headed out to Palm Cove, I visited a nearby sanctuary for a chance to actually hold a koala bear. This lil' guy named Harvey was so sleepy that when they handed him to me he put his arms around me and rested his head on my shoulder. My life is complete!

Palm Cove is a resort area about 20 minutes north of Cairns. It's absolutely breaktaking!

See the large area roped off by nets? This was the only spot on the beach where it was safe to swim....no jellyfish can get through the net. Mike and I decided to not even risk it and stayed on the beach....quite a ways back from the water. We learned the following day that 20 tourists were swimming in the netted area when a crocodile appeared and was trying to climb over the net towards the people. When I heard this I almost died!! It explains the sign I saw below. To think we were laying on the beach ALL day and a crocodile was no more than 20 feet away the day before...frightening!

Here's a list that Mike and I compiled of interesting things we observed in "The Land Down Under":

1. The businessmen in Sydney wear pinstripes....all of them do!


2. Aussies do everything on the left side....driving, walking on the sidewalk, entering vans and elevators, etc. It was obvious who the American/Canadian tourists were because we were all correcting ourselves to the opposite side!


3. You do not tip the waitstaff in Australia. They are paid very well and tips are not expected. We still felt obligated and tipped anyway...one of our taxi drivers was really excited by this!


4. The car of choice is a revised El Camino type car....yep, that's right.....the car Americans drove in the 70s. It was so funny to see so many around town!


5. Sydney feels like San Francisco...big city by the bay.


6. Aussies are the friendliest people....always smiling and talking.


7. Mike and I have differing opinions on this, but I think Aussies have the best accent in the world....so fun...everything they say sounds better! Mike doesn't agree.


8. Rather than saying "you're welcome", Aussies say "no worries...cheers". Actaully, they say "cheers" after everything...and sometimes we'd hear a "mate" thrown in too!


9. Sydney and Melbourne are in competition for each other. It's pretty funny how competitive the two cities are with one another.


10. Aussies love Michael Buble....I'm serious.....Michael Buble was playing everywhere we went....from taxis, to tour buses, to hotel lobbies, and even our 9-hour snorkeling excursion (you heard right, we listend to soundtrack after soundtrack of Michael Buble on our snorkeling tour....hello, what about Bob Marley or some tropical music?)!!! Michael Buble was having a concert in Sydney at the Olympic Park a week after we left....it was the buzz atround town....too funny!

One of my favorite parts of traveling abroad is meeting other tourists from all of the world and experiencing different cultures. If I could, I'd be a professional traveler and student the rest of my life....there's so much to learn out in this great world of ours. I hope to one day visit Australia again, along with parts of Europe, Africa, China and the Carribbean (these are my lifelong travel goals)...maybe you can go with Mike and I! This was definitely a trip of a lifetime for us and we're so grateful for Mike's Hilton and Continental points for affording us this incredible opportunity.