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July 20, 2006

The Inevitable

well...it finally happened...I finally lost my wallet with my driver's licence and about $80 cash. I'm so choked right now I could probably bite the head off a Death Adder...I made it through crowded markets and mountain rebels to lose it somehow on the 24 hour marathon journey to Vancouver. We made it by the way - Mo and I have now slept for 4 hours in the last 54...I lost my watch too. welcome home.

Posted by David at 9:08 AM

July 18, 2006

Coming home...wherever that is...

After 11 months, 8 countries (9 if you count Western Canada), and about a half dozen bouts of "curry-in-a-hurry" we're coming back to Canada tomorrow. We fly out of Sydney at 7:30am and arrive in Vancouver at 1:45 pm. Not bad...only 6 hours...except you have to add in the 17 hours time difference - which will make for nearly 23 hours in the air and a loooooong day.

It seems surreal - I can't really grasp the fact that it's all ending now...and so we leave Sydney with mixed feelings. While on the one hand we are excited to see our family and friends once again, we also know that much has changed over the last year and wonder how and where we'll fit in, what we'll do, how we'll make a living, etc. sigh - that's a battle for another day though.

In the meantime (it's my birthday today by the way) we wanted to thank you for journeying with us by following along with our blog. We plan to continue writing and posting photos as we spend time on a houseboat with Maureen's family (with temperatures forecast for 40C) and visiting my family as well, so keep your eye on our page - and we'll keep going with the blog this fall as well.

Anyway, WE'VE POSTED OVER 80 NEW PICTURES IN THE PHOTO GALLERY SO CHECK IT OUT!!

(that's how excited we are to have new pics...and no, I'm not going bald)

When Maureen last wrote a journal entry, we'd just finished our time on our Whitsunday Island snorkeling trip...

...after that we headed off to Fraser Island (the world's largest sand island...has even more sand than the Sahara desert) for a 3 day/2 night camping trip with another 7 people from our hostel....click on the link to keep reading

...we were both pretty uptight about the whole thing as we knew that the 7 people we'd be put with would have a huge part in determining how the trip would go. However, we were extremely thankful to have an awesome group of 2 Mexicans, 3 Brits and 2 Norwegians with which to share our time. While the weather wasn't too great, we were still able to enjoy swimming in some brilliant fresh lakes and streams, got to gape at humpback whales playing just off the island, cruised along the 75 mile beach "highway",

ate some great camp food, and shared in the misery of sleeping on uneven sand with inadequate sleeping gear provided by the hostel. We even got a bit of excitement with a 6-8 foot snake, a late night sprint home in the jeep along the beach as the tide crept higher, and a huge spider on a poor girl's leg....which led to some hysterics, plenty of tears, and comments such as "F&%k this nature s#%t...I want to go home!!!!!" (we love you Elkie...not to name names or anything :-) Good times.

From Fraser Island we spent a day getting beat up in the waves again while trying to surf at Noosa before spending our last day chilling out and spending the last of our money on the beach in Surfer's Paradise. Today was a bit of a zoo...but now it's 11:39pm and our shuttle to the airport is leaving in...oh bugger...5hours and 20 minutes. I think I'm going to cry. Love you all and see you soon.

Posted by David at 10:14 PM

July 10, 2006

Count down is on....

Hey everyone! Sorry I've been so silent for the last couple of months. But David's been doing a good job of keeping you up to date on the happenings here in Oz. Well, here we are, only nine days left in this 8 month trip. It's a weird feeling. Lots of mixed feelings actually. So super excited to get home and see our families, friends and our new little niece (by the way, I said she was going to be a girl from the very beginning....sister's intuition I guess:o)) But, it's the reality that comes after all the excitement of being home that's looming. But all things have to come to an end at some point right?

Anyways, we've really been jamming as much as we can into these last couple weeks of travelling down the east coast. It's been an absolute blast so far...with a few minor hitches along the way. After spending a few wonderful days in Cape Tribulation (tropical rainforest meets white sandy beaches) and seeing a crocodile in the wild, and me having to save David after he launched a coconut at it....just kidding about the me having to save him part, we went back to Cairns and tried to arrange the rest of our trip (it's school winter break here right now so we have to book most things in advance to get what we want).

We couldn't go any further without doing a snorkelling trip to the Great Barrier Reef...

so we went on a really great boat and spent the day on the "Outer Reef" (right on the outer edge where it is apparently the best and least damaged). It was amazing! Beautiful coral and lovely colourful fish...it's everything it's cracked up to be for sure. We even spotted a couple sting rays, which was something we hadn't seen yet.
Then the trauma began...we realized that night that we forgotten our camera on the bus from our snorkelling port back to Cairns...AND by the time we realized it, everything was closed for the day...AND we were booked on the bus for the next morning at 7am, before most places opened. Talk about stress...so thankfully the front desk at our hostel opened at 6am the next morning and they were able to track it down for us, however we had to leave before they could get it back to us...so they sent it ahead of us and we'll get it back tomorrow if all goes well. But we've had to spend the last four days without it (which is alot considering all that we've been doing). It's disappointing but we've been making do with disposables and AT LEAST we didn't actually lose it. That would be VERY sad!
Anyways, after Cairns we went to Magnetic Island, which was highly recommended to us as a good place to see koalas and other cool stuff in the wild. We had a great time there. We weren't able to spot any wild koala's, but not for lack of trying:o) But we did have some really cool wildlife experiences...like feeding wild rock wallaby's out of our hands, petting some kangaroos, an emu and some koalas (including a little baby...so cute!!)- that was in a wildlife sanctuary (orphans, injured or sick). It was also there that I met Snowy the little white parrot...he was flirting with me so bad. From dancing to cooing to sticking his head out so I could pet it...he pretty much won me over straight away.
We also had a lot of fun on the island with this tiny 4x4 that we rented and scooted all over the place. Driving on the left side of the road was very strange, but David did a great job and I even gave it a go for a bit too.

After a ride in the police drunk tank in the wee hours of the morning (don't worry, we weren't drunk but it is a good story), we are now in Airlie beach where we just came back from our 2 day/2 night sailing cruise in the Whitsunday Islands. What a great experience that was. We were on a beautiful catamaran (much more stable than single hull sailboats...thus less chance of being seasick the whole time), had mostly nice weather, great food, fun group of people, lots of snorkelling and saw some amazing scenery.
Both David and I tried scuba diving for the first time. We went down to 8m. Wow. It's really hard to get used to the breathing and sometimes hard not to panic cause you're so far below the surface, but it's so cool to be able to just hang out down there and check everything out.
We made a stop on "White Haven" beach, which was absolutely gorgeous. The sand is totally white and it's something like 96% silica so people were polishing their silver rings and watch faces with it. Very soft.
Now we're back but we both still have our sea legs so nothing is very stable at the moment:o) Hopefully that will wear off before too long.

Now we're off on an overnight bus to Hervey Bay where we will go on a 4x4 camping trip for a few days on "Fraser Island". The pictures look beautiful so we're very much looking forward to that.

Interesting fact for you: Ginger pills are very good for motion sickness. Who knew?

Hopefully we'll have some new pics up for you shortly.

Posted by Maureen at 1:14 PM

July 1, 2006

HAPPY CANADA DAY!

I spent the better part of the day today looking for an American to "moon" for fun but had no luck...actually, there weren't very many people around at all as we soaked up the sun on the beach at Cape Tribulation in Northeastern Australia.

We finally made it back on holidays again :-)

And we're thrilled to be Auntie and Uncle for a second time as Maureen's sister Shannon gave birth to a beautiful 8lb baby girl yesterday - Natalia Mariajke Lynne Duff. We look forward to meeting her in a couple of weeks when we fly home.........

.......speaking of flying - man, do they ever make you feel like second class citizens on Jetstar here in Aus if you buy the cheap tickets for their flights...

...those of us with the silver ticket were the last to board, had to walk outside and board the plane from the back (unlike the orange ticket people who get to use the tunnel and enter the front)...silver means "free-for-all" seating, so I had to gouge a few eyes to get an aisle seat...then they charge you for everything - even for a drink of water which comes in a communion size shot glass - it's nasty when you have to try and drink out of the tap in an airplane bathroom to satisfy your thirst (ok, so I actually didn't go quite that far)...they make you pay $4 for headset with the silver ticket..............anyway, enough wingeing (what they call whining here) - at least we get to fly home on the 18th with Cathay Pacific!

You must be tired of hearing from me....I'll make sure Mo writes a blog here in the next week or so unless we're out on a sailboat or snorkleing on the Great Barrier reef somewhere.

Posted by David at 2:19 PM