Brisbane/Sydney

We've made it to Sydney! (although leave now tomorrow morning but have done tons of stuff since our last post). This post starts with us leaving Hervey Bay Friday morning on route to Brisbane. Our first stop was Maryborough for a quick breakfast break. The town was known as a retirement haven so we had a few odd looks as we walked down the street as the only young couple :) Next, we were off to Rainbow Beach for an hour with our oz bus group on the beach playing with boomerangs and didgeridoo (aboriginal musical instrument). Stefan managed to lose his boomerang in the top of a palm tree while Liz couldn't make a sound come out of the didgeridoo (not enough lung power maybe?). Next, the bus headed down through the Sunshine Coast for Noosa. We were given about 2 hours free time in this little town to grab lunch and wander the upscale shops (too rich for us!). We got back on the bus at 3:30pm and started to make our way to Brisbane. We made a short stop at a lookout near Brisbane which we walked up to and had a view over the Glasshouse Mountains as the sun was setting (these mountains were nice but nothing compared to BC mountains we are used to). We made it into Brisbane just after it got dark and checked into our hostel in the heart of downtown Brisbane. The hostel was in a heritage building with a fun elevator (manual elevator). We then made our way to the bar for dinner and to watch the Nationa Rugby League semi-final between Brisbane and a Sydney team (bulldogs). Brisbane won and are off to the finals this weekend (which we are going to watch back home in Canada on Fox Sportsworld and cheer for Brisbane!).

The next day we awoke bright and early (sorta) and walked A LOT. We browsed through the Queen Street Mall & Arcades (aka shops). Then we walked out to the markets near the city beach which was a man made lagoon and very crowded. Then we went across the foot bridge and through the botanical gardens park (near the QUT - Queensland University of Technology). We took a small detour to grab lunch and then headed out to the Storey Bridge and across it to Kangaroo Point. We then went along the riverwalk past the rock climbing walls (which had no one on them - likely because it was so hot!). We went over the footbridge again, stopped at Queens Mall for some well-deserved ice cream and then back to the hostel for a break before dinner (again had at the Down Under Bar - good prices).

Sunday we browsed some more in the shops in the morning and then took the airtrain out to the Brisbane airport for our flight to Sydney. The flight was uneventful except for when we got near Sydney we learned there was 75km wind and 34 degrees temperature. We saw some wildfires on the way into the airport and then the landing was a little rough because of the high wind. We boarded the airport shuttle bus (very crammed in) for the trip to our hotel.

Monday we went to the Sydney Aquarium (2 minutes from our hotel) and saw lots and lots of sharks. There was an underwater exhibit where you walked through a glass tunnel/tube and the sharks, rays, giant turtles and fish swam over and around you (many of the children here were very scared). We tried to take some photos but the glass made it difficult to take many quality ones. Next, we headed out to the Rocks which is a historic area of the city quite similar to Gastown in Vancouver. The Rocks are near the Sydney Harbour Bridge with views to the Opera House so we took several "tacky tourist" photos and then went over to the Opera House for a closer look. The Opera House was amazing although the roof was not as white as we expected (a little dirty we suppose:)) We walked back past the Botanical Gardens, the Library and Hyde Park.

Today we went to the Sydney Olympic Park which is a little ways out of the city via rail. We went for a tour of the stadium (110,000 people capacity during the Olympics 2000). This is where the Grand Final of the NRL - National Rugby League - will be played on Sunday (Go Brisbane!). There was press conference here during our tour where they announced the referee for the final. We walked around some of the venues of the Olympic Park after this and took some photos of the plaques from the games including Simon Whitfield's gold in triathalon. He was the only Canadian medalist we could remember. Next, we rode the trains back to the city and took a self-guided tour of the Hyde Park Barracks (one of the original convict houses of the original settlement of New South Wales). Liz tried on some female convict attire for a photo or two. This is where our last photo of our trip was (likely) taken as we headed back to the hotel for dinner, packing etc. for tomorrow's trip back home (17 hours of excitement).

Unless there is anything else to add later, this wraps up our honeymoon in Australia. We've had an amazing time and taken over 700 photos. Can't wait to share all of them and our stories with everyone soon.

Miss you all!

Cheerio,
Stefan & Liz

Whales & sand...lots of sand.

We've done quite a bit since we last posted. We've been whale watching and on a safari to Fraser Island! We decided to wait a few days to go to Fraser Island so that we could go on the better tour that didn't leave until Tuesday. So while waiting in Hervey Bay we spent one day on a sail boat whale watching. The boat was called "On the Edge" and was a super fast catamaran. We got up to 18 knots in 18 knots of wind on the way out there! It was the second boat that we've been on that had a Canadian deck hand, this time it was Vincent from Quebec. Anyway, humpback whales rest in the bay between Fraser Island and the mainland on their way down to Antarctica for the summer. We saw lots of whales, but unfortunately for us they really were resting. We have lots of pictures of a whale's back, but none of them breeching. Oh well, it was still a fun day on the boat.

We spent the next day on the beach relaxing since there's not a whole lot to do in Hervey Bay, but the next day we were off to Fraser Island. We had decided on a two day guided tour with the Fraser Island Company. Fraser Island is the world's largest sand island and is about 120 km long. All of the "roads" are just sand where the trees have been cleared and the main "highway" is the eastern beach. We got picked up in the morning and took a barge across to Moon Point. We met our bus there, a 24 seater (there were only 16 in our group) with huge tires. We made our way across to the east side of the island stopping for a quick walk through the rain forest. Once on the east side, we stopped in Happy Valley for buffet brunch and then were off to explore the beach. We stopped at Eli Creek which is a fresh water creek that you can float down, so we walked up the boardwalk and jumped right in. We then drove further north up the beach to the Maheno shipwreck. The SS Maheno is an old steam ship that was being towed to Japan for scrap metal in 1935 when it was caught in a freak cyclone, broke away from the ship that was towing it, and was beached on Fraser Island. After the shipwreck we continued on to Indian Head which is one of only three rock masses (they're all volcanic, but extinct now) on the island. It's a short walk up to the top but the views are spectacular! It's a straight drop down to the ocean from the top and you can see sharks, turtles and rays swimming around before. The views up and down the beaches were amazing! After walking down back to our bus, we drove up to the Champagne Pools which are on another small rock mass with two pools right by the ocean. When the waves come in they break on the rocks between the pools and the ocean and cover the pools in foamy water. The bottoms of the pools are filled with sand and it's a great place to sit and relax. After a while at the Champagne Pools, we drove back down the island with a quick stop at some coloured sands to our camp site for the night. We use the word "camp" lightly since our tent had a queen sized bed inside! Our driver cooked us a steak dinner and we sat around drinking wine and chatting with the other passengers.

The next morning started off with a drive down the island and a walk into Lake Wabby. It is a lake that has been created by a moving sand dune that cut off a creek. So to get to it you walk over a sand dune and then the lake appears below you. It was a great place for a swim, especially after walking for 2km over sand! We stayed there for about an hour and then walked out a different way through ecalipt forest. Once we got to the beach the driver said that some dingos had walked by a little earlier, so we got on the bus and found them just a short way down the beach. You're not supposed to interact with the dingos so that they don't get too used to humans, so we got off the bus but stayed right beside it. Then it was off to an old logging camp for lunch. To get there we walked through another part of rainforest and along a creek that is so clear that it's often hard to tell that there is even water in it! We didn't believe it when we were told until we saw the creek and it's true! Maybe we'll be able to fool some of you with pictures. :-) After lunch we made our way to Lake Birrabeen which is another fresh water lake, but it was made by the moving sand dunes creating a bowl shape and catching all the rain water. Since there is no water coming into the lake, it has become a little acidic and can't support much life. There are no fish in the lake and vegitation doesn't last long around it. The sand is white silica sand (like on Whitehaven Beach) and the water is crystal clear. We got some amazing pictures of this lake! Unfortunately that was the last stop on our tour and we loaded back onto the bus and headed for the barge. We took a different barge back which allowed us to see more of the island on the tour.

We wanted to get the bus to Brisbane today, but our schedule was wrong and the bus doesn't leave until tomorrow. So today is another lazy day at the beach, on the internet and doing some laundry. We'll only have a short time in Brisbane before we leave for Sydney on Sunday. We're not sure when we'll be able to post again, hopefully one more time in Sydney!

Tallships and Cowboys

We're in Hervey Bay now and have a lot to catch up on since our last posting. The sailing trip around the Whitsunday Islands was absolutely amazing (although terrifying for Liz at times). The trip started bright and early at the Airlie Beach marina where we met our group of 17 passengers plus the 4 crew. We dropped our shoes in a bin for the 3 days as we weren't allowed to wear them on-board. At the time we didn't know why but later it became quite clear. We sorted out our cabins and met most of our group as we left the marina. We had to cross the Whitsunday passage to get out to the islands in 30 knot winds and 3 metre waves. The crew went to work on raising the sails for the trip across only to find a rip in our main sail as we were out in the open water. This being the case they couldn't use it until they were able to inspect it at one of our island stops. The trip across the passage was windy and very wet as waves came crashing over the bow and sides of the boat. There were several sea sick passengers (not Stefan or Liz though - stomachs of steel!). Anyways, we managed to pull into calmer waters about 2 hours later when we learned that 4 of the passengers wanted to get off the boat and not continue on for the 3 days. Our captain, Craig, had to radio another boat in the area that was heading back to Airlie Beach that day and we had to put them in the dingy and ship them off to this boat. Now we were 13 (more food for us!). The sun now came out and the water was calm (why did they get off? oh well!). We pulled our ship (The Alexander Stewart) into a cove on Haymen Island for a few hours of amazing snorkeling. Haymen Island is a very hoiety island as it has an exclusive resort on it where there is a maximum 500 guests allowed at one time and when there are 500 guests at the resort, there are 600 staff for them! This resort was the resort where Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston had their honeymoon so we had our honeymoon in the same place as the stars! Haha...not exactly as we snorkeled on the other side of the island where the resort was not in sight but still pretty exciting. The fish at this snorkeling stop were amazing. Our deckhand, Phil (from Halifax - cool!), came out in the dingy boat and fed the fish on top of where we were snorkeling and hundreds of them flocked around us. Liz couldn't stop giggling because they felt so funny. Back on the boat now for some lunch and off we were sailing again over to an inlet on Hook Island for the evening. The sunset on our way over to the inlet was absolutely amazing. We put anchor here for the evening and lay out on the deck looking at the stars. We saw the southern cross, Sagittarius and Scorpio constellations. We drank some wine ($15.95 for a box!! You could get Kokanee bottles at the bottle shop at Airlie Beach too and for 6 it cost $25...for Kokanee). We had dinner and then were away to our cabins for the night.

The next morning we awoke bright and early to more sunny (and yes windy!) weather. Stefan and Liz had a great sleep while others complained about the moving water, boat noises etc. We had breakfast and set out to Whitehaven Beach (voted the best beach in the world!). A good while later we landed on shore at Whitsunday National Park at Whitehaven Beach. First, we walked up to a lookout and saw Hill Inlet and took some awesome photos of it. Next, we clambered back down to the white silica sands of Whitehaven Beach. The sand felt like pillows and was as white as snow - it also squeaked when you walked on it. We took our beach towels etc. over to a spot down the beach and sat down to yes, blow up a gigantic beach ball that Rachel and Evan gave us for our wedding. Rachel, we hope you are impressed that we took it to this beach. We took some more photos and then were off to the boat again for lunch. After lunch we set off to another part of Hook Island again. The wind conditions were excellent for sailing so the crew worked to hoist all the sails. This is where Stefan hoisted the main sail for us. It was a great sail reaching speeds of 8.6 knots. When we got out to a point on Hook Island we saw a humpback whale out in the waves. We circled it for a bit but it kept mostly underwater. We then took the sails down and pulled into Maureen's Cove for the night. We feasted again and drank some more of our fine wine.

Day 3 we awoke again nice and early to breakfast. We then went snorkeling right at Maureen's Cove which had some amazing coral; however, the tide made it very shallow and you had to be careful not to kick or move your arms in places as to not hit the coral. Next, we set off for more snorkeling on the other side of Hook Island. At this stop, we jumped right off the boat into the green water. We think the coral was best at this location with colours of orange, blue, green etc. We went back to the boat for lunch and prepared to cross the Whitsunday Passage again back to the mainland. The trip back across the passage wasn't as rough as the trip over but Liz was still scared the boat was going to tip over on its side at times (other people were scared too but not Stefan!). We made it back to Airlie Beach around 4:00pm, said good-bye to the crew, took a few more photos and made it back to our hostel for a shower (lots of salt!). Later this evening, we met the group and crew again at a local pub for dinner and "heaps of free beer". The trip was absolutely amazing and the food was the best we ate our entire trip here.

The next morning we began our longest bus ride. 10.5 hours on the with only a few stops so that the driver could rest. Not really much to say about the ride, but we ended up at a cattle station in Kroombit (they call it a "station" instead of a "ranch") and had a great roast beef dinner. We all gathered around the fire and listened to the owner tell us all about the place and its history. Then he taught us how to properly crack a whip. We looked like fools standing around in our safety goggles waving whips around, but you could hear the occasional crack. After that it was time for the mechanical bull! We each got a turn trying to stay on for 8 seconds. Stefan lasted about 6 seconds and Liz about 1 second. Don't worry, we got a good picture of Liz on the bull so she can claim that she lasted longer.

After an early morning rise and a quick breakfast we went a short bush walk up a small hill that gave us a 360 degree view of the area. It's funny to see what Australians call a "mountain"! Some of the group had spent the morning rounding up the sheep for our Oz Experience Rodeo. First we learned how to use a lasso. The first event was stepping into the pen, pick a goat and then see how fast you can lasso it. Liz was so good at it that she managed to not only lasso the goat that she picked, but she also got another goat at the same time! For the second event, we split up into teams of three. The got all the other goats out of the pen and each team had to catch and brand (not really brand, just pretend brand) to goat. Liz, Stefan and a Swiss girl won this event by a long shot. 17 seconds and we were done! On the side of the rodeo, Stefan did some trap shooting. He missed his first shot, but then got 4 straight. Once all that was over it was back on the bus and heading for Hervey Bay.

We've spent today looking around to book a trip out to Fraser Island. We think we've found one that we're going to do; a 2 day, 1 night tour and we'll likely also spend a day whale watching while we're in Hervey Bay. One week left before we have to be in Brisbane so it looks like our timing had been quite good so far. We'll update you again once we're back from Fraser Island!

Almost time to sail!

Hello from the party capital of Australia, Airlie Beach! We last talked to you from Mission Beach after booking our sailing trip that leaves tomorrow! We're very excited and the weather has been absolutely perfect the last couple of days. Let's hope it holds up.

We didn't have any interesting stops on the bus from Mission Beach to Magnetic Island. It was only a couple of hours before we got the Townsville where we had lunch and then jumped on the ferry to Magnetic Island. We got to our hostel which was a mini resort of a hostel. It was right on the beach and had its own restaurant and bar. We went sea kayaking with the Oz Experience group, but spent most of the time on a beach a short paddle away relaxing and trying to knock each other off an overturned kayak. We spent that evening in the bar with our Oz Experience group. We've decided that almost all of the backpackers around here are from England or Germany.

The following morning we went on a bush walk, again with the Oz Experience crew. We walked up to the highest point on Magnetic Island which was a military lookout and gun turret location during the Coral Sea War. We were guaranteed to see koalas in the wild but for the first time in our guide's experience there were none to see. :-( Even so, Stefan got to eat ants that tasted like limes and the views were spectacular! Then we hopped on the bus again and started out for Airlie Beach. In a few short hours and with stops only at the giant snake in Ayr and the giant mango on the side of the road we were in Airlie Beach. They told us that Airlie Beach is the party capital of Australia and it wasn't too long before that was confirmed. Our room in the hostel was right above the bar and was rocking early in the night. Our group met down at the bar for dinner and heaps of free beer to get the night started. The hostel reminded us both of Totem because people were running up and down the hallways all night and the fire alarm even went off at 4:30 in the morning.

It was fun for one night, but in the morning we set out to find a quieter hostel for our next two nights. It took five tries before we found a double room that was available, but we ended up with a very nice room with our own balcony. We spent the rest of the day cruising the main drag of Airlie Beach and relaxing at the lagoon. Airlie Beach is poorly named since it doesn't really have a nice sandy beach; they've had to build a lagoon for people to swim in. We also checked in for our sailing trip that leaves Monday and took a quick walk down to where it leaves from. In the evening we took a trip to the bottle shop and tried boxed wine for the first time (we're not allowed to bring glass onto the boat, so we thought we'd give it a try.) What a deal! 2 litres of wine for $15, who can go wrong! We may even have to get another box for the boat!

Well that's it for now. We're off to relax and read our books in the sun! We'd been hoping to upload some pictures to this blog, but we haven't found a place that will let us yet. I guess you'll have to wait until we get back to see some pictures.

Mission Beach

Hello from Mission Beach! We're here using the Internet for free as we booked a Whitsundy sailing trip with the information centre yesterday but we'll get to those details in a moment.

We left off leaving Cairns on the Oz Experience a couple of days ago. Well, after we found where to catch the bus (a little confusing) we loaded our backpacks on and away we went. Our first stop of the day was at Barron Falls and Kuranda (I know AGAIN! haha). That's okay we had another aussie pie while everyone else toured around :) We then drove for a bit and the next stop was a giant fig tree. We all gathered around the fig tree snapping photos. Seriously, though for a tree it was pretty cool. Next we went to Millaa Millaa falls in the Atherton Tablelands. This waterfall was beautiful and not made from a hydro electric dam like Barron was. Back on the bus we got, grabbed some lunch (another aussie pie!) and headed to a crocodile farm at Inisfail. The farm had several fresh and salt water crocs that were all very hungry. We followed the guide around as he fed them whole chickens. They didn't even chew them! Here we also saw a few kangaroos again, a cassowary and several aussie birds. We then went back to the main reception area where the guides brought out snakes and a baby crocodile (with it's mouth taped shut thank goodness!) for us to hold and take photos with. There was this one snake that was in a glass cage and the one guide was like "if anyone lets this snake bite you, I will give you a free coke from the fridge." We all thought he was joking but he wasn't. So, this one guy in our group volunteered and sure enough he stuck his hand in and the snake bit him and left three small puncture wounds and he got his free coke. Crazy aussies!!! (the snake wasn't poisnous or anything). It was also at this time we learned on the radio that the famous aussie crocodile hunter, Steve Irwin, had passed away earlier in the day while snorkelling in the reef up at Port Douglas in a totally bizarre and freak accident. We didn't think it was real at the time but everyone here was totally devestated with the news. (we thought it was kind of ironic that we learned about while at a croc farm). Anyways, we left the croc farm and made our way to Mission Beach where we had a huge steak/fish bbq at the hostel.

The next couple of days were not as action packed I guess you could say as we lounged around on the beach. We did some walking (actually, we did a lot of walking - we walked the entire beach over 2 days!). We also did a lot of lounging, reading, swimming, more lounging and enjoyed being covered day and night in sand!

Back to the trip we have booked. Our next big adventure is a sailing trip around the Whitsunday Islands leaving on Monday for 3 days/2 nights of "good times". We are sailing on the tall ship called the "Alexander Stewart". We have a private double cabin booked and look forward to seeing the islands, eating the good food and more lounging.

In the meantime, we're off on the bus again tomorrow spending tomorrow night in Magnetic Island (just outside of Townsville) and then off to Airlie Beach the following day where the sailing trip will commence from on Monday. We'll spend a couple days in Airlie Beach touring the town, going to the beach, laundry and other fun stuff :)

Miss everyone! We will write again soon.

First Words from Oz

Hi everyone! Welcome to Stefan & Liz's blog! Over the next few weeks we'll be writing about all of our experiences here in the land of Oz, so enjoy!

We started out our trip with a free glass of wine in the Air Canada Maple Leaf lounge in the Vancouver airport. Janet, Liz's soccer team mate, gave us the passes so that we could start out our trip in style. We felt quite out of place with all of the business travellers in suites, but enjoyed the little bit of class none the less.

The rest of the trip is nothing to write about, we'll skip to the Cairns airport where we had a small detour into the wrong section of the airport. We were given some poor directions and some how ended up in the departures lounge. With the help of a few helpful staff members we were able to make our way through to customs and made it through without a hitch.

We arrived at the Cairns Colonial Club and were greeted with a bottle of champagne which we enjoyed on our very tropical deck. We had to make a quick trip down to the swim-up bar since Liz had been looking forward to it for months! We then made our way to tour desk and booked our next two days in Australia. We've decided to be tacky tourists which we're in Cairns.

On our first day, we took a scenic train up to Kuranda which is a small town up in the rain forest. While there we went to Reforestation where we learnt how to throw a boomerang, took a tour in an Army Duck (a six-wheel drive army vehicle that can also drive in the water like a boat) and saw our first kangeroos, koalas and crocodiles. We got a demonstration of aboriginal dancing and Stefan got embarassed by having the dance on stage, again. We left Kuranda by taking the SkyRail, a gondola, down over the rain forest.

Day two was a trip out to the Great Barrier Reef to do some snorkeling. It was a fantastic experience even though it was quite windy and wasn't the nicest weather. Liz's favourite fish was the blue pencil sturgeon fish and she was also quite excited to get a quick glimpse of Nemo. We also learned a valuable lesson that you can still get bad sun burns even though it's not totally sunny out!

We booked the first leg of our Oz Experience bus trip, but couldn't book it until Monday, so we extended our stay at the Colonial Club by one day and spent a relaxing day in Cairns. We strolled along the streets looking in at several shops. We even had dinner at Fasta Pasta on Carey's recommendation.

Tomorrow we are off to Mission Beach as we leave the tacky tourist life and begin the backpacker life! We'll try to upload some pictures later, but this computer won't let us yet. Oh well, until next time!

Stefan & Liz