Our Final Australian Post

Where has the time gone? We can't believe that our 6 weeks in Australia and our trip in general is over half way over!
After leaving Melbourne we spent the remainder of our time here on the west coast in Perth. Perth is a very charming city with lots of colonial buildings (not to mention that it is a lot warmer than most places we have been here). Our first day here we spent exploring the city on foot. It is rather small so it didn't take us too long.
That day also happened to be the same day as the Royal Wedding so we watched it from an English pub. Nelly was born in London but grew up in the states so he paid homage to both of his hometowns by drinking a Budweiser while watching the wedding.
This picture also gives you another angle of the beard ;)
The next morning we took a wine tour of the Swan Valley with a great group of people. We went to 5 wineries, a brewery and a chocolate factory.
We had a small group of 12 and 6 of us really hit it off (the other 6 were all friends celebrating a birthday). The first two people were here working on a traveling Cirque du Soleil show and it was their day off. One of the guys was from Montreal and was in charge of marketing and the other was from England and his job was to scout the locations to make sure their show would work in the space. He has worked on over 150 tours with everyone from the Rolling Stones to Dave Matthews all over the world. The other couple we really hit it off with. They were our age and from Boston currently living in Singapore for his job. We are excited to stay with them when we are in Singapore next week.
On the left is Max from Montreal and then Ryan and Jaci from Boston/Singapore.
The next day we woke up and took the train about a half hour south to the town of Fremantle, an old port town with lots of quaint shops and restaurants. It was May Day and unbeknownst to us there was a parade and a festival so the town was quite busy that day. This is inside their local brewery, Little Creatures.
After spending the day hopping around town we watched the amazing sunset over the Indian Ocean and then ran into Ryan and Jaci again!
After Fremantle we headed another 3 hours south to the town of Margaret River where we spent another 2 days wine tasting. We did another tour very similar to the one in Swan Valley however the group was not nearly as fun, but still very enjoyable.
And that's all folks! Australia is done...next stop: Indonesia tonight!



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Location:Perth, Fremantle, Margaret River

Our Favorite Australian City

Throughout our Australian adventure we have been called out many times on the fact that when people ask us where we are from we say "San Francisco" instead of "the states" or "the US", etc. We are proud to be from San Francisco and heaven forbid someone automatically think we are from LA and Dodger fans (sorry Jess and Anthony ;) should we just say we were from "the States." On the subject of cities, and because we are 2 days away from being done with our 6-week Australian adventure, I thought now would be a good time to rank the major cities we have visited while in this beautiful country.

#5. Brisbane: I have nothing to say either positive or negative. We only spent 24 hours here and it was OK for a city.


#4. Cairns: We loved Port Douglas which was about an hour north. Cairns is the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef therefore it is very touristy and crowded. The weather is great and the reef was beautiful from Port Douglas, however (other than the lagoon, which is where we spent most of our time) the city itself seemed to be made up of strip malls and bars.


#3. Perth: We are still here...more on this city to come...


#2: Sydney: Our vision of the city may be clouded by the fact that we got to spend our time there with Becky, but Sydney is an amazing place! We had a great time exploring and the weather (other than a few torrential downpours) and scenery were perfect. We felt so lucky that we got to spend time at sites that are so picture postcard perfect.


#1. Drum roll please......Melbourne! Melbourne is the city that if I was traveling internationally and someone asked me where I was from, I would say 'Melbourne' instead of 'Australia'. We spent 5 days here, 2 of which I previously wrote about on the Great Ocean Road. Melbourne has so much culture and art and is considered the sport capital of Australia. The cab driver who drove us to our hostel from the airport said that people from Melbourne will wager on two flies climbing a wall. Our first full day here was Easter Sunday and we spent it at St. Kilda....imagine Santa Cruz in Australia.

 

Look at these cake shops (not bakeries!) 

After St. Kilda we did the Great Ocean Road and then spent the remaining time exploring the city. One of the guys we went to Fraser Island with is from Melbourne and he happened to be home for Easter and spent a day touring the city with us. One of of our first stops was where the Australian Open is held. Before I started dating Nelly I was never really a tennis fan but learned the rules from him this past January when we watched the Open together. It was fun to get to see it in person.


We then spent then day touring different watering holes followed by dinner in China Town.


Unfortunately I do not have more pictures of the city as we were having too much fun.....

Needless to say we have enjoyed everywhere here but some have stuck out more than others!



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Location:Melbourne

The Great Ocean Road

On Monday morning we boarded a bus (again!) with 19 other passengers for a 2 day/1 night trip on The Great Ocean Road which is very comparable to Highway 1 on the California coast.
After a 3 hour drive out of Melbourne, one of our first stops was at Logan's Beach which is where whales come to nurse their young in the winter and surfers come to catch a wave in the summer. Unfortunately for us it is autumn here so we didn't see either of those. It was still beautiful none the less.


From there we headed to Tower Hill which is a sunken volcano home to loads of kangaroos, koalas and emus. This is the closest we got to any of the three.


From there we headed to more spectacular sights like The Bay of Martyrs and The Bay of Islands. The weather was perfect so we had a lot of fun playing on the beach and climbing rocks.



We then raced to the 12 Apostles for sunset (along with what seemed like 5,000 other people). There are only 10 apostles now as 2 have collapsed in the past 10 years or so however they have not changed the name!





After the sunset we headed back to our accommodation where we BBQed up a feast and chatted with our fellow travelers. Including us there were 3 Americans, 2 Irish, 2 Chinese, 1 Malaysian, 3 kiwis, 2 Germans, 1 Swiss, 2 Brits, 2 Israelis, 1 Spaniard, 1 Brazilian and 1 Slovakian so we had a great night getting to know everyone.


The next morning we awoke bright and early for another full day of sightseeing including The Grotto and London Bridge. London Bridge used to be connected to the main land on the left, however a few years ago it collapsed with people on it. Nobody was hurt however two people got stranded on the right side....they were having an affair and the news choppers that filmed the rescue let the world know of their infidelities.


We then headed to Loch Ard Gorge. The Great Ocean Road area is littered with shipwrecks and this area was no different. Where we stopped is the site of where the only 2 survivors of a wreck in the 1880s washed up.


Unfortunately one of the guys from New Zealand cut his foot badly here and had to be taken to the hospital an hour away so the rest of the group hung out at the 12 Apostles and Gibsons Steps for a few hours. Here are the 12 Apostles in daylight.


I hope nobody is worried about Nelly not getting enough social interaction. He is acquiring quite the wolf pack.


After our friend was stitched up we had an abbreviated rainforest walk, grabbed some lunch and then headed to a lighthouse which is famous for being in the show 'Round The Twist'. We had never heard of the show but lots of people were excited. It would be like going to see the Painted Ladies from Full House in San Francisco.


Our final stop of the trip was Bells Beach. If you are like Nelly and have a love affair with the movie Point Break, then you would have waited for 2 days to see it and would be day dreaming about standing on the beach yelling about the "50-year storm" and "cliffs on both sides man, it's not like I'm going to paddle to New Zealand." If that at all sounds like you, then you too would have been heartbroken to learn as you were pulling into the beach that that scene was actually filmed in Portland and the real Bells Beach does not have cliffs on both sides. It was a very bittersweet moment.


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Location:The Great Ocean Road

The End of the East Coast

After our day out on the reef we kept to dry land and took a day trip to Cape Tribulation which is where the rain forest meets the reef. It was named by Captain Cook when he crashed his ship on the reef as he felt this area was when/where all of his "trials and tribulations" started.
Our tour picked us up at our "backpackers resort" and we made our first stop at Mossman's Gorge for a quick rain forest walk.



After stopping for a tea break, we then went on an hour long crocodile river cruise. We saw 5 crocs ranging from 3 months old to 40 years old. This 3 meter female looks fake but she was 100% real! We also saw a python and tree snake on the boat trip.


From there we headed to the Daintree rain forest where we had a BBQ lunch and more rain forest walks.


This is called a strangler fig tree. These are vines that crawled up a tree, eventually killing it. Once the tree decomposed, the shell of vines is all that remains.


After lunch we headed to Cape Tribulation. You can see how the rain forest runs right into the water.


Taking this day trip was a great way to end our 3 week journey up the east coast before spending our last 2 days in Cairns soaking up the sun at the lagoon.


Late last night we flew south to Melbourne. A thing to note...not at any point in our airport experience did they ever ask for our ids, not at the check in counter or security screening or the gate. However, Nelly did get a random screening for explosives (I blame the beard). As he said, "well, they know I don't have explosives on me, but they have no idea who I am."
Such a different airport experience than at home!

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Location:Cape Tribulation/Cairns

Diving...In The Air And Under The Water

The past few days Nelly and I have taken up some adventures that have involved nothing to do with being on dry land. After leaving Airlie Beach and the Whitsunday Islands we headed to Mission Beach so that Matt could sky dive. Why Mission Beach? Because it is only one of two places in Australia where you can land on the beach.

 Coming in from 14,000 feet!

 Safe on the ground! We waited until after Matt landed to ask, but both of us overheard this instructor earlier in the morning telling the staff that his first jump that morning he had to use his emergency parachute because the main one tore. We did not want to know the story beforehand and neither of us acknowledged to the other that we had heard what we did.

From Mission Beach we headed to Cairns where we spent one night and then up to Port Douglas so that we could scuba dive. Our plan was to stay one night however it is such a cute beach town that we are going to stay three. We woke up this morning and boarded a boat named Silversonic to take us to 3 different scuba sites on the Great Barrier Reef.

 This was taken from the first site which was 33km offshore.

We snorkeled at the first site and went scuba diving at the second and third. We swam with reef sharks here!

Then it was time to dive. Nelly and I both went scuba diving in the Whitsunday Islands, so we were well prepared and comfortable in the water.

Here is some of the amazing marine life we saw.

 This big guy's name is Jeffrey. He is a resident here and knows all of the divers. He is kind of their pet.

Overall, it was another A-Ok day!