Australia - Kuranda Rainforest, Beach tour and going home

Saturday.  Cairns is so pretty.  They have these gorgeous beaches and right past the beach are these green beautiful mountains.  We decided to drive up to the Kuranda rainforest.  We went and saw the Barron falls (interestingly my mom's maiden name is Barron)  The falls weren't that big this time of year but it was still pretty to see.  There were also these wild turkeys wandering around.  Kind of random I thought.  Then we walked around the shops there for a while.  They have this little cute town with a ton of shops to look at.  Then we ate lunch at a small park while watching some aboriginals have a party and play a real didgeridoo.  After lunch we got some homemade ice cream.  This guy and his wife make all their ice cream and then he pulls a trailer up to the shops and sells his ice cream.  It was pretty yummy.  When he heard we were from Utah he asked us why we weren't wearing our special clothing.  When we all went silent not really knowing how to answer him, he said he thought we should be wearing black hats and long skirts (oh....that special clothing!) We politely told him that was the Amish...different religion...haha.





Sunday.  We went to church at a branch in Cairns.  It was such a cute little church house.  It reminded me of Hawaii with their outdoor garden/middle area that the church is built around.  They had a guy in his Polynesian proper dress/skirt speak and I loved what he talked about in helping kids be self reliant and teaching them the right way.  That branch really reminded me of a lot of people from my mission that I met.  I love the Polynesian people and met so many good, humble, nice Polynesians on my mission.

After church we took a drive up north stopping at 3 different beaches along the way. The highway follows the coast so it was also such a pretty drive.  We stopped at Trinity beach, Palm Cove beach, and then Port Douglas.  I loved seeing all the beaches.  And the water was super warm.  I kind of wanted to swim but kept seeing signs warning of jelly fish and crocodiles.  I heard it's not jelly fish season but didn't really want to take my chances with the crocodiles...eek.  Before we drove home we all used the last of our Australian cash and got some more yummy gelato (my mango gelato was so good.)





The whole trip I was on the lookout for any Kangarroos we could see just out in the wild.  When we were on the train home from the Blue Mountains, I saw a mom and her baby but it was really fast, and far away and no one else saw it.  But right as we were driving back into Cairns from our beach tour, I happened to look over in this field and there were a bunch of wallaby (small kangaroos) all in this field eating and hopping around.  We pulled off the road and around the other side and walked up to this field.  We were behind this fence so we didn't get super close.  But when they saw us they all stopped and totally froze and didn't move a muscle staring at us. Then my dad started to whistle a little and they start hopping around.  It was so cool to see.  I was so happy that on our last night we could see some kangaroos in the wild.  The picture isn't really great but I got a good video of them hoping around.



That night my dad bbq'd us some steak and we had baked potatoes with it.  After eating out for 10 days straight, it was about the best meal we had ever had...or so it seemed.  It was a great night to eat together and wind down on our last night in Australia.

Our trip home was long.  We had to fly from Cairns to Sydney to San Francisco to Salt Lake.  We left our condo at 3:30am (yes AM) Monday morning.  I was a little worried about our layover in Sydney but we made it just fine.  Then we had a 4 hour layover in San Francisco and then home.   I think from the time we left our condo in Cairns to my house in Draper it was about 29 hours.  I slept a little but not as well as the way over.  We watched lots of movies.  Mostly, we were all anxious to just get home by that point.

When we pulled up to our house the kids were waiting on the porch for us and ran out and gave me a big group hug.  It was fun to see my kids again.  The rest of the day they were all so good and especially Siena kept coming over and sitting on my lap and repeatedly telling me how happy she was that we were home.  She isn't my most cuddly one so it was fun to see her more affectionate than usual.

So that was our trip.  Like I said at the beginning, I loved going back to Australia way more than I thought I would.  I knew I would like it but it was so much more enjoyable than that.  I felt like we had a good mix of things to do and never got bored but also didn't over schedule ourselves. Definitely a trip of a lifetime for me.

Australia - Cairns and The Great Barrier Reef

Thursday we left Sydney for Cairns.  That morning we just hung out, packed up, got a few last things and headed to the airport.  At the domestic terminals in Australia I found out they do not check your id...at all...ever.  I kept trying to hand my passport to people and apparently no one wanted to see it.  It was like flying in the US in the 90's...such a strange feeling.  They let you keep your shoes on, bring through liquids.  You don't even have to have a boarding pass to go through security.  I'm telling you it was a blast from the past.



Then we got on our flight and we were on the party plane.  Apparently Cairns is like going to Vegas for the weekend.  We had at least 3 different groups of guys flying up there for their 'stag' party (bachelor party)  The guys directly behind us were so loud, already had been drinking, were drinking on the flight and the flight attendants were way nicer than the US ones would've been.  At one point they all started counting really loudly to 20.  I didn't know what was going on and was sure they were getting ready to storm the cockpit (remember, no one checked their id's either)  Come to find out after the flight Jeff told me they were doing push ups in the aisle.  On the flight (less than 3 hours long) they also gave us a small meal (who does that in the US these days for a 3 hour flight?)  The meal was a pickle and cheese sandwich....not good.  I took one bite and put it down.  Shane didn't open his up so when I saw the guy sitting next to me down his, we asked him if he wanted it.  He turned to Shane and in his Australian accent said "Are you sure mate?  Oh man, you're a legend!"  Haha, he was sooo excited to eat his pickle and cheese sandwich.  So then we talked for a lot of the flight.  He was also going up for his stag party and was getting married in a couple week and coming to the US for his honeymoon.  We was all excited he was going to get there the day after the election.  Anyways, a very interesting flight.

When we got to Cairns we picked up our car and I got to drive on the left side of the road.  I was kind of nervous but was amazed at how fast I became pretty comfortable driving on that side of the road again.  We had a 6 passenger car but with all 6 of us and luggage we had luggage stacked everywhere.  Luckily it was just until we got to the condo.  After we got settled in we drove back to the Esplanade in Cairns and walked around for a bit and found a chinese food court...seriously it was this food court and every shop was chinese or thai buffet.  While we were eating we saw on a TV the Australian Bachelorette was playing....what?  so happy.  So we went home and watched the last part of the home town dates.  I kind of want to look it up and watch it online now.



The next morning we got nice and early for our trip to The Great Barrier Reef.  Unfortunately we picked a really windy day to go out.  Our ride out was sooo bumpy.  The boat was rocking side to side a lot.  Lots of people were getting sick.  As long as I stayed outside I was ok, but wasn't feeling super great.  Luckily I kept it all in.  One of the workers said this is one of the windiest days they go out.  had it been any windier they would've cancelled the trip that day.  So yay we got to go out.  We stopped at 2 different areas that day.  The first was called Breaking Patches and the other was Hastings Reef.  I liked Hastings Reef the best.  I feel like I'm a pretty confident swimmer but I gag easily so putting in the snorkel and going out with these huge waves had me a bit freaked out.  The only other time I've snorkeled was in calm water in a bay, etc.,  The waves were literally crashing over my head and water was going down my snorkel.  Gratefully I calmed down and then I was fine after that.  Shane has never snorkeled before and wasn't sure he even wanted to but afterwards told me he liked it way more than he thought he would.  I bought a disposable underwater camera and sadly the pictures didn't turn out nearly half as how amazing it was to see in person.  Plus I thought I was getting these good close up pictures and apparently it's hard to take a picture with a mask on. (at least that's my excuse!)  We saw lots of fish and the brightest coral.  We saw 2 huge clams.  Definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity to see the Great Barrier Reef.  It was so amazing to see the beauty under the ocean.  And even on the boat just looking out and you could see the water change colors where the coral was right underneath the water.  There is really no other way to describe what a great day this was.  And luckily the ride back wasn't quite as bumpy!








That night we grabbed some dinner on the way home and called it an early night.  We were exhausted after a long day out in the ocean.

Australia - The Blue Mountains, Bus Tour and Bondi Beach

Tuesday. A great day to get out of the city.  We took a 2 hour and 15 minute train ride out west to a place called The Blue Mountains.  I've heard this place referred to as The Grand Canyon of Australia, except with trees! :)

Our first stop there was at the 3 sisters monument.  You can see in the pictures the 3 stone sisters sticking out.  It really is a magnificent view from there and it was such a pretty day with bright blue skies.  We walked down to the 1st of the 3 sisters.  It was 150 stairs down and my parents even did the hike.  It doesn't seem that hard but it was pretty tiring to do.  There are 1000 steps to the bottom of the canyon you can walk.  I did that on a p-day on my mission but we didn't do it this time around.







After that we took a bus over to The Scenic World.  Here they have a cafe, gift shop and then 3 different rides you can do.  A skyway, railway, and cableway.  We of course did all 3. By far the best though was the railway.  They have this rail car that goes so steep straight down the mountain.  It's so fun but even a little scary.  You can go down it and you get off and walk around and then you can take it back up or walk over to the cableway.  When you get to the bottom there are little walk ways to walk through the area and enjoy the scenery.  It's all really well maintained walkways and it was so fun.  Jeff, Whitney, Shane and I decided to do a little longer hike so my parents said they would just wait for us in the cafe and as we got on the railway we looked up and my parents had decided to just ride the railway again for fun. It was kind of cute just to see them having fun.




It was a fun day.  That night we had some yummy pizza from a place that had just opened up nearby our condo and we took it back to our condo and ate it.

Wednesday. Our last full day in Sydney.  My parents, Shane and I decided to do a bus tour.  They take you around different suburbs of Sydney and different look out points.  It was interesting to see different areas and some fun facts that we didn't know.  We got to drive through the 'rich' areas of Sydney where the prime minister lives, see the area Russell Crowe owns a place, and then we saw the prostitute area of Sydney as well.  And I'm not joking when I saw we saw a lady approach someone looking for some business.  eeek! It was a pretty fun tour.



Our tour ended at Bondi beach.  Jeff and Whitney decided to do a little shopping at Darling Harbour and then they met us at Bondi beach.  Bondi beach I would say is the most famous beach in Sydney. We got some lunch (I had a roasted lamb sandwich...I had lots of lamb on my mission) and then went and sat on the sand for a while.  The sand was soo soft there.  Then we decided to walk along the beach to a lookout point to the south part of the beach.  It was really pretty to look back at the beach and see the ocean, etc.  We even saw some whales blowing out in the distance.



That night Jeff and Whitney got tickets to 'My Fair Lady' at the Opera House which was being directed by Julie Andrews.  Whitney was like a kid on Christmas she was so excited to see it.  And she said it was incredible.  My parents decided to hang out at the condo.  Shane and I decided to walk down to the harbour one last time.  We got there while it was still light and sat between the Opera House and the bridge and just talked, people watched, watched it get dark and see the Opera house light up.  It was a relaxing fun night.

Australia - Opera House Tour and Featherdale Wildlife Park

Monday was our one and only rainy day on our trip.  It was pretty cool especially by the harbour but luckily we planned to do a tour of the Opera House so it ended up working out pretty well.  I was glad I took the opportunity to go in and see the inside.  It was interesting to hear all about the building of the Opera House because it does have quite an interesting story and it took so long to finish it and was way over budget.  We were also glad we took the time to do this on this day because when we went back a couple days later they had put up barriers, scaffolding and blocked all but one section of the stairs.  They were setting up for an outdoor play about the building of the Opera House but wasn't happening until November.  Anyways, we got some great pictures that we wouldn't have been able to get otherwise.






After our tour we headed out to Blacktown to Featherdale Wildlife Park.  There are other parks and zoos right in Sydney but I had been to this one before and everyone had told me this was the best one so we did this one.  It was perfect because by the time we traveled there it had stopped raining. It was so fun because as soon as you walk in you're surrounded by little Wallabies (Kangaroos) that you can feed, pet and take pictures with.  There was also a section with mommy kangaroos with babies in their pouches (they were protected behind a fence but it was sooo cute.) Then there are several other enclosures that had the bigger kangaroos as well.  And of course we had to get our picture with a Koala.  They won't let you hold them anymore because they are endangered but you could pet one. We also saw a Tasmanian Devil, Wombat, Dingo, bats, lots of birds, and a crocodile.  By far the highlight was petting the kangaroos.  It was such a fun afternoon though to see all that we saw there.






These larger kangaroos apparently liked Whitney because they decided they wanted to eat her hair or something.  I was going to take a picture with Jeff and Whitney and look at what happened.  I can just hear Whitney laughing/screaming.  I figured Jeff would help her so I just kept snapping pictures...Jeff was a little clueless for a few seconds.  She had all this dirt in her hair from it's feet.  It was seriously funny and everyone else that heard/saw it was laughing and talking about it as well.  You can tell in the pictures that she thought it was funny at first, then she started screaming, then Jeff had to grab the kangaroo and remove it from Whitney's head.



When we got back we had checked out of our hotel and had to pick up our luggage and take it to our new place.  We were lucky that my parents let us use their points and we stayed in their timeshare.  It was fun because we were all able to stay in one condo together.  It was also in downtown Sydney and was about a 15 minute walk from our other hotel...not too bad.  So we got settled into our new place and did Tim Tam slams that night (see pictures from previous post)