more traveling...

since my last post which was more than a year ago... hubby and i have done the drive up the west coast to san francisco, staying at big sur on the way. we've also gone to new zealand, where i checked off some things from my bucket list, such as skydiving and bungee jumping in queenstown and going on a helihike (helicopter and hike) on franz josef glacier...the best 3 days of my life! we saw new zealand by driving the north and south island. we went to the waitomo caves, which were featured on planet earth's caves, and went into 2 caves, one which was the glowworm cave. we got stuck on the road with thousands of sheep crossing. we saw the most beautiful lakes ever, lake tekapo and others, they were turqoise in color and almost looked like glass, something with the sedimentation and glaciers that makes the color. we experienced the maori culture, by seeing where and how they lived which was very interesting. we went luging in a park and got flung back and forth like a rubber band on this ride (have a hilarious video). this was definitely one of our most memorable trips! u got to love them kiwis! Sweet As and No Worries as the locals would say...

we just came back from a 10 day trip to australia, so while it's still fresh in my mind, here is a summary of what we did...

sydney (3 days) - paddington market, oxford street shops, hike from bondi beach to coogee beach (sculpture by the sea), chinatown (had taiwanese dessert), circular quay and the rocks, darling harbor, captain cook harbor cruise, watson's bay, hyde park, opera house, harbor bridge climb (3.5 hours), king's cross and potts point

on to cairns, but our flight was cancelled in sydney due to weather so we actually had to spend another night in sydney and move our reef trip a day

cairns (1 day) - stayed at the shangri-la hotel on the marina, passions of paradise outer reef trip, intro scuba diving - 2 dives at paradise reef and michaelmas cay (the cay was awesome, saw lots of fish, turtles, and a sting ray), ate moreton bay bugs at paw prawns- so deliciouso!!

great ocean road (1 day) - rented a car in melbourne which i drove almost the whole time, it was a huge mission to get to our cottage in the dark, but we finally made it! stayed at the eastern reef cottages, so cute, and wish we had just more than 1 night. in the morning, started driving the great ocean road back, rock formations we saw were the grotto, london bridge, the arch, loch ard gorge, 12 apostles...all amazing! saw tons of koalas residing in trees on the way to the lighthouse, which we never made it to because it had just closed when we got there, but the koalas were worth the drive. went to a wildlife farm, which was totally deserted, but actually turned out to be awesome because we saw a mother koala and baby up close, fed kangaroos, wallabys, emus (snatched the feed right out of my hands), deer, goats...

melbourne (2 days) - driving in the city was scary, driving right next to the monorail and have to stay on the left lane to turn right (keep in mind, i am driving on the left side of the road and the driver's side is on the right), shopping is awesome, eating is awesome, chinatown, botanical gardens, queen victoria market (huge market with food, wine, souvenirs, everything you can imagine) it was here that i bought my didgeradoo (not sure if that's the spelling), southbank area, sunday arts market

some facts i learned...

they don't drink Fosters! they drink VB (victoria bitter), XXXX gold...

going to the whoop whoop means going to the outback lol

the aussies say "no worries" for everything....bye, thankyou, your welcome, see you later...

TONS of asians! even coming from california, it's a culture shock! lol

the weather from cairns to melbourne is so drastic! cairns - hot and humid, melbourne - rainy and cold