Last night we were sight-seeing’ed out and went to a movie.  Avatar.  It was fantastic!  I’d highly recommend seeing it.

I know I should post more about our drive and about Christchurch (it was lovely) but I’m tired and hungry.  Maybe tomorrow. We flew back to Sydney this afternoon and we are headed out for dinner and drinks. 

Our flight home leaves tomorrow afternoon.  Fifteen to LAX, then five home.  We’re ready.

Hope you guys are all staying warm and dry!  The New England storms made the news here!!

PS: Happy birthday, Dad and Eddie!

Yesterday was busy.  In the morning, Tim did an acrobatic plane ride where you go in loops and upside down.  I skipped that one, I’ve got a tender belly when it comes to motion stuff.  After lunch we did Shotover Jet, which is a jetboat ride through the canyons.  We bought the photo pack, but my little travel laptop doesn’t have CD ROM so the pics will have to wait.  Suffice it to say, it was a total blast.  Fun and scary and heart pumping, I’d do it again in a heart beat.  Tim loved it of course.

Last night we both got tattoos.  Obviously.  And after a bowl of pasta at the apartment, it was off to bed. 

This morning we slept in and had an early lunch because the Queenstown Wine Tour bus came at noon to get us.  We visited four wineries and tasted a lot…a LOT of great wine.  We restrained ourselves, mostly because we have no more room in either of our wine fridge.  We did pick up a great barrel top, we have no idea how much it will cost to ship but it was so beautiful, we figured: why not? 

It’s early here, about 7 PM and we are in for the night.  We got some chicken to cook for dinner, so Tim will be busy doing that.  Ha.  Yeah right.

We have another two days before we head to Christchurch.  Tim is going to do a bungy jump and I’m going to find a hoodie if it kills me (who knew it would be so freaking hard?). 

We are still waiting to hear if the weather is good to go for Milford Sound tomorrow.  Keep your fingers crossed.  I don’t think Tim will be able to get over coming all this way and not seeing it. 

We heard from some American’s that it’s cold in Chicago.  Stay warm!

My kiwi

His kiwi

The view from our Queenstown flat

Literally.

Rotorua is known for it’s geothermal activity, which means there is an excess of sulfur compounds that are released into the environment.  It’s all quite scientific and of course everyone warns you about it, but Jesus Tapdancing Christ, it is absolutely rancid.  I don’t think you can’t prepare yourself for it, you just have to experience it. 

I would liken the smell to a soft boiled egg that has been left in a hot, sunny car for a week and then opened in a fraternity house bathroom after a Saturday night kegger. 

Wait, even that isn’t bad enough.

We’ll just end it with: it’s smelly. 

Aromatics aside, Rotorua is an interesting place. 

We blew off the cave tubing experience because I’ve been fighting a sinus cold and Tim took pity on our busy schedule and let me sleep in.  Apparently we both needed it because we didn’t wake up until about 10.  Our goal was to get on the road by 6:30, so the tubing was out.  Timmy was bummed out. 

Instead, this morning we went to a place called Wai-O-Tapu (Maori for Sacred Water), a geothermic wonderland.  It’s known for it’s geyers, mud pools and hot springs.  Click here for the google image results to see what we saw.  It was a sight to behold.

We then hit up the gift store at the Maori Arts and Crafts Institute and picked up a bunch of souvenirs. 

We then hit up the post office to declare and ship said souvenirs home!  Yeah – so if we got you something, you’ll get it at the end of January. 

 After a quick lunch, we went off to a mineral hot springs for a soak.  That was fun, smelly but fun.  They pump in mineral water from the giant lake.  When in Rome, right?

The Kiwi’s are so incredibly friendly.  Talk about hospitality…as Tim says, “Everyone has been stupidly friendly.”  We love it here.

Laying low tonight, not a lot going on as far as nightlife goes here in Smelly Town. 

We leave for Queenstown tomorrow morning, SUPER excited about headed to the South Island. We’ve got a winery tour, white water rafting, Fiordland’s Milford Sound air charter flight,  shotover jet and Tim’s going to bungy jump. 

Hope you guys are staying warm!

We grabbed our rental car and headed toward Rotorua.  It took us about three hours to get here, the ride is gorgeous.  You only get about 30 minutes away from the airport and suddenly you’re in this beautiful, rolling green hilled countryside. 

It really is just like the pictures, which we have 2k of.    Also,  it’s about twenty degrees cooler here, Australia was too hot for us!

We spent the afternoon at a geothermal park, watching the lakes steam and boil and the mud bubble up and burp droplets everywhere. 

Tonight we went to a Maori cultural performance.  It was fantastic.  We were worried it was going to be cheezy but we were pleasantly surprised.

The haka, a warrior dance specific to each tribe, was intense, to say the least.

We are working on about four hours of sleep, so it’s off to bed early for us.  Tomorrow, we are headed to the western side of the north island to do a cave tubing thing.  Looks fun!

The day before yesterday, we took the train to Beerwah and visited the Australia Zoo, the one that Steve Irwin and his family started. It was really well done, not overly commercialized in that they just kind of dump you in with a map and you find your own way around. We saw some really unique animals and were able to interact with a number of kangaroo species and koalas. Also, they do a really good job of telling you which animals are indigenous to Australia and which ones are simply for show. My favorite were the elephants, Tim enjoyed hanging out with the roo’s.

Beerwah was unbelievably hot. I think the temp maxed out at 105 F so needless to say we spent a good portion of the day in search of water and shade. I don’t think I’ve ever been that sweaty in my life.

Oh, and on the way home the train was so busy that Tim and I had to separate. I accidentally got off at a confusing spot (we had changed trains on the way up but didn’t need to on the way home) and I thought Tim was going to have a heart attack when he saw me out on the platform, the doors closing and him still on the train.

Woops.

Thankfully, it worked out for the best and we can all stop talking about it. No really, we can ALL STOP MUMBLING AND SWEARING ABOUT IT.

I shouldn’t make light of what happened, it could have ended badly (I had no money, no timetable, no ID, no water) but it didn’t and for that, I’m thankful. Actually, I’m thankful Tim was willing to break he door latch in order to get me back on the train. Crisis averted.

That night, after a long cool shower, we hit the town and stayed out too late listening to music and spent too much money on beer. I vaguely remember eating a subway sandwich late night but didn’t remember the sundae at Hungry Jacks. Good times. The next morning was tough, to say the least.

Speaking of eating like a fat kid, I’ve only gained two and a half pounds. Given that I’m usually good for a solid ten after a week in Hawaii, I’m pretty stoked that it‘s not a huge amount! Imagine if I had been making healthy food choices AND walked these eighty billion miles?

You know, one could argue that I need the fuel to keep up this pace, yeah…that’s it. Fuel.

Yesterday, we had to switch hotels (we used points for this weekend) and it was a nice change. For the previous two nights, we stayed at a place that was an original structure from forever ago. They had a nice little blurb about it at the hotel but I can‘t find it anywhere online now, so you’ll have to take my word for it. It had a lot of character and was very, very comfortable.

The hotel we were in last night (we head back to Sydney this morning) is a traditional hotel. It has a nice executive lounge (with an easy, DIY latte machine – score!) and a pool.

As we were checking out the hotel yesterday afternoon, we decided to get massages at the spa and it was just what the doctor ordered. After a quick dip in the pool, we came back to the room to shower up for the night.

Last night (the 12^th) we went to see a Brisbane Roar soccer game. Apparently, numbers are way down since we were able to get front row seats for $45. We sat there for the first half, then migrated over to the student section, for lack of a better word, where the language was as dirty as the bathrooms. We had a lot of fun.

As I said, it’s back to Sydney this morning and then off to Auckland, New Zealand on the 14^th. In retrospect, we should have just bought a tickets to NZ direct from Brisbane, but if that is the biggest screw up we’ve made, then we’re doing pretty well.

Hope you guys are staying warm, sounds like it’s a bit chilly!! Brrrr….

We slept in (7:30, woo hoo!) had some coffee and breakfast on the patio and then went for a walk on the beach.  We met a little dog and it’s owner and he totally made us miss our dog. 

After we rehydrated (it was about 90 degrees at 9 am), we spent the rest of morning lazing about at the pool.  It’s an  infinity pool that overlooks the ocean and on a couple of occasions, I wished I had a floatie.  But, the sun is so beyond brutal here, you can’t spend more than half an hour or so in the direct sunlight without feeling the burn, so it was a game of musical chairs most of the morning. 

We came back up to the flat around lunch time, had something to eat and then showered up.  Oh, and I may or may not have taken one of Tim’s ear medicine things and had a quick nap on the lanai. 

Once I woke up we were ready to go, we hopped in the Pig and went to Palm Cove for a few cold ones.  Palm Cove is about three miles from Trinity Beach and it’s a quaint beach community, catering mostly to tourists.  We found a great little local bar and it turns out, the owners are going on a five-year holiday around the world.  They’ve custom-built a traveling truck and plan on shipping it all over the place.  They leave for 9 months in Africa in January.  I’ll try to find the story and post it.  It’s pretty cool.

Tomorrow we’re off to Kuranda for some sight-seeing and a railway ride.  Everyone says it’s gorgeous, so we’re going to roll the dice and try it out.

We leave for Brisbane on Thursday and we’re both excited to continue our adventure.

It’s about 7:45 right now and I’m counting the minutes until dinner is done and we can go to sleep.  Tim’s been in the shower for close to thirty minutes, I should go check on him actually.

The GBR was nice.  Lots of beautiful coral and we saw a bazillion giant clams during our dives.  We were in a very small group, just two other couples so it was almost as if we had the dive instructor to ourselves, which was nice.   Bucket list: check.

Both Tim and I have random injuries though.  Tim has water in his ear that he can’t get out and it’s quite painful and a bug bite on his leg.  We went to the pharmacy and the pharmacist gave him Tylenol with codeine for his ear.  Seriously, no prescription, no paperwork, she just gave it to him.   So different.  I have a swollen eye lid and I have no idea how it happened.  I was washing my face in the shower when I realized it hurt and when I checked, sure enough, freaky swollen eye.

Stop worrying Mom, we are fine.  They have medicenter’s here, and I am a pro at driving now, so we’re good to go.

We continue to be surprised at how much the Aussies hate Americans.  As soon as we open our mouths to speak, the smiles leave their faces and we are met with indifference, on a good day.  We thought we might be overreacting because we’re used to the over the top friendly Midwest, but I really don’t think we are.  The chicks on the boat today were downright rude.  But then again, that could be because they work on a dive boat and have to clean up after people on vacations all day.  Oh well, we are having tons of fun despite the shitty attitudes.

We think tomorrow might be a vegging beach day, doing nothing but reading and watching the waves.   Yeah, the more I think about it….sunburn be dammed, that’s what we’re doing.

Okay, must take one of Tim’s pills sign off. 

Hope you guys are having a great day!

Side note: if you ever decide to test your marital communication abilities, fly to a country where they drive on the opposite side of the road and get in a car, unsure of where you’re going or what the road signs mean after having been awake for days. That’s a really, really good time. :>)

Thoughts of homocide divorce aside, we had a blast today! We drove up to Cape Tribulation, which is about 150 kilometers north of Trinity Beach and about 50 km north of Daintree National Park (the rainforest). Jim, our hotel manager, suggested that we drive straight through north and then meander our way home, which is what we did.

We stopped at the touristy discovery center about 3/4 of the way there and we were so glad we did. They had a rainforest walk that we did and we got a ton of bugbites pictures.  One thing that is absolutely terrible about the rainforest are the bugs.  They are quite literally life-sized.  I said to Tim, “It’s bad when they sound like a prop plane on their way to your head.” At one point,we thought we were looking at a hummingbird.  Nope, a giant freaking beetle.  I don’t do bugs, so I didn’t love the rainforest but I appreciated the beauty of what we were seeing. 

Another side note: did you know that it takes 900 years for a cleared rainforest to regenerate and that  one tree in any given rainforest could support up to 50 different species of life? 

Later in the afternoon, we stopped at this place called Mossman Gorge, where they have huge rocks and fresh water pools.  We were feeling adventurous and grabbed our swimsuits and hopped in.  It was refreshing, for a couple of reasons.  First, because we didn’t have to worry about crocs or marine stingers (deadly jelly fish) and secondly, because Cairns is so ridonkulously humid that we were sticky and gross.  Normally, I wouldn’t hop into a fresh water anything (I’m a Cape girl, I don’t do lakes), but I was so hot, that the pool was like an oasis.  Tim was braver than me and did a mini cliff dive thing.  I just waded in and hyperventilated for a minute until I realized the GIANT FISH weren’t going to eat my toes. 

 Speaking of minutes, the sun here is scorching.  Tim was without sunscreen for thirty minutes (MAX) and got burned on his back.  It’s out of control brutal. 

Tomorrow we’re doing our first two dives.  We are heading out at 7:30 AM and will hit two of the reefs.  I CAN’T WAIT!!

I’m going to staple Tim’s rash guard to his body so he doesn’t die from sunburn.  I might even have to put some on too ;>)

Oh yeah, pictures?  We got a new camera and each photo is 2-4 MB, so needless to say, it takes a very, VERY long time to upload.  I tried to send 130 pics to shutterfly and it puked all over me and then said, something like: dude – this is gonna take seventeen hours to execute.  I then tried Flickr and I was over my monthly limit immediately.  Facebook maybe? 

Anyway.  We’ve got hot tubbing to do and more wine to be drinking, so we’ll touch base tomorrow.

Hope you guys are all doing well at home.  We love you and miss you!