cairns

Next stop: Cairns, Queensland, Australia! We arrived in Cairns later in the evening and waited and waited for our shuttle to pick us up. When it finally came, we were off to Nomads - the serpent hostel, which was fairly nice . It had a swimming pool, restaurant and bar and was cleanish. Our air conditioning didn’t work so we switched rooms after the first night because it was so humid and hot! 


Our first trip in Cairns was to the Dain tree Rainforest. On this tour we went to several places including Milla Milla Falls, fed some turtles the side of the road, went to a pond and saw platypus, and a bbq spot for lunch. It was a full day of touring and picture taking, and rain. The next day in Cairns was a 'rest day' which we spent walking around the downtown area and shopping a little. We also planned another trip for the next day! 


We took a cruise to Green Island which is located right on the Great Barrier Reef. Our boat was called the big cat. We snorkeled around on the reef and Steve, being brave unlike myself, took a cruise further out onto the reef where he took underwater videos and pictures of the coral and fish to show me! They were awesome and a lot more clear than the area that I saw closer to the island. 

While we were in Cairns, Laura, Olivia, and Dave were also there. We met up with them to go out for supper and drinks. Although Steve was with me for the last couple weeks, it was really nice to see more familiar faces. We had one more day in Cairns and we thought we wanted to do something else while we were there so we went on crocodile explorer cruise! No big deal, I know. On this cruise we stopped at a crocodile farm where they had over 14,000 juvenile crocodiles and around 50 adult breeding crocodiles. To bread the crocodiles, there was a river and natural area where the crocs were basically tricked into breeding naturally. Workers at the farm locate the nests then distract the crocs while they rob the nests of around 60 to 100 eggs at a time. In the wild only around 2 to 5 of these crocs would survive, however by incubating them on the farm, they have over an 80% survival rate. By incubating them at a certain temperature they are also able to have mainly male crocs, which is more efficient on the farm because they grow larger faster than females.


The next day we flew back to Adelaide and got back into our regular routine of site seeing the city. Steve would be leaving soon, so he spent a little time packing while I did my little bit of homework. Which reminds me, this was an exchange trip, for school purposes. Hm, I guess I should have shown you some of my school work then! Unfortunately though, my computer crashed and I didn't have the one design project from Adelaide saved onto anything else. This project was for Designing Sustainable Communities, which Alison and I took together. The project went over very well, even the presentations! We both spent a good amount of time, meaning enough to do a good job but not too much that it would take away any of our time in the sun. I will miss Adelaide and Australia in general, but not that it is time to leave, I am so excited to be going home and seeing my family and friends again! It has been a long time, five months, since I have been in my home town, and I think it is about time I go back now. Five months was good to travel New Zealand, Australia, and to experience Adelaide on a closer level. I think that once the weather started to get cooler in Adelaide, it confirmed the fact that I should be going back home to enjoy our summer time and get rest before my final year at the University of Guelph.

Steve at Milla Milla Falls - where the Herbal Essence commercials were filmed!

Milla Milla

Me at Green Island before our snorkel adventure!

the beach and our boat

the Cairns Lagoon

Green Island beach and a flash storm!

Green Island umbrellas, as if they are different than Canadian umbrellas ...

Me on the crocodile tour of the mangroves

some mangrove

perfect camouflage

somebody really lives in this house boat

red dirt at the platypus pond

platypus pond

a rainy day 

the mudflats in Cairns

purple sky at night?

crocodile in the wild

bathing crocs on the farm

some crocs cooling their brains

this was one of about 12 pens

just a nice caterpillar

completely different landscape than I expected

smooth rocks

farm roads

don't mess with the devils whirlpool

sydney

Steve and I arrived from Adelaide, South Australia to Syndey, New South Wales at around noon on Sunday, May 15h. On the first day of our time in Sydney we found our hostel, The Strand, and got settled. The Strand was in a very good spot and was relatively inexpensive, and was kind of what we had expected. We wanted to leave as soon as possible and spend more time in the city and a lot less in the rooms. The basement floor though, was home to a tasty bar and grill where we had our dinner. Steve found out about a free bus loop that goes very close to the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge so we took that and spent some time along the water. We also, very roughly, planned out the next few days. 

I knew about Mrs. MacQuaries’s Chair in the Sydney Botanical Gardens from travel books, so we decided to walk to the El Alamein Fountain and through the Finger Wharf on the way to see the Opera House from across the water on this famous chair. This view was incredible and definitely worth the walk! It would have been great at sun rise with the sun on the opera house and the bridge, but we saw it when the sun was peaking from behind it to give the view more of a silhouette feel. Steve and I spent the rest of the day walking .. for about eight whole hours .. and had a nice day in Sydney, Australia.

Our next day was spent in the Chinese Gardens of Friendship, the 2000 Olympic plaza and area, the Sydney Aquarium, and on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. We saw a lot of cool things the Aquarium definitely being the main highlight. We learned a lot about the different fish that are found in and around Aus, and of course saw some pretty fierce looking sharks! We saw sting rays, turtles, and jellyfish too! The next morning was our flight to Cairns, so we had some dinner and said our good byes to the Harbour City.

Me at the Opera House

The Opera House tiles up close

looking up at the Opera House

the 'rich' neighbourhood as seen from the Opera House

Sydney city skyline at night

El .. Dandelion Fountain

the Finger Wharf

Steve at ... Chair

a shy statue

Steve and the Opera House at sunset

Hm

Sydney Harbour Bridge

a fountain in a park

jellyfish in the Sydney Aquarium

a big old stingray

yikes

another fountain thing

footy

Before I really get started again, I just want to say that summer in Ontario has taken over all of my time! As much of an amazing experience that New Zealand and Australia was for me, I am glad to be back with my family and friends and familiar trees! Anyway, I will finish up telling you about the time that I spent with Steve in Australia and then the time that I spent finishing all of my projects and school things! 

One of the things that Alison and I had pre=planned for Steve's visit was to go see a footy game. Aussie Rules Football League (AFL) is a popular sport across Australia. Rugby is maybe a little more popular than AFL in New South Wales and Queensland though. The game that we saw was the Adelaide Crows against the Gold Coast Suns. Adelaide won after a slow start, but they were definitely encouraged by the home crowd. The stands were packed and the noise levels were high! The field is in the shape of an oval and is two hours long. The teams have to be in really good shape because its about two hours of running, jumping, kicking, and throwing. I describe the game as a mix between soccer, football, and rugby. Anyway, we had a beer and a strange hot dog and even were wearing some fan gear provided by Steve (Kemp). It was a really good time, but in all honestly, I prefer a good old hockey game!

borossa valley

Hi, so I'll just start off by saying that another thing on my must-do list was to go on a wine tour. I had the Borossa Valley in mind and have heard a lot of good things about it from the locals as well. Alison, Steve, and I decided to go for it! The Borossa Valley is about an hour drive north of Adelaide and through the Adelaide Hills. On our way to the vineyards, we stopped at the 'World's Largest Rocking Horse' and a local fruit and nut market. Both were interesting in their own way. Our tour took us to four different places; Wolf Blass, Stanley Lambert, Grant Burg, & Kies Family wineries. These were all different experiences, but were all similar in that they were more wine tastings opposed to tours of the wineries. Not exactly what I expected as a first-timer, but good just the same. 

Our first stop was for a three course lunch at a nice place a can’t remember the name of. I had a vegetarian risotto, Alison had beef and vegetables, and Steve had Barramundi on rice. We all had dessert. Wolf Blass, which was one of the larger and fancier places. We had a formal wine tasting of about seven different types. The only thing we didn’t try was their platinum label, because it was $15 for a taste. It must have been good! As far as the scenery goes, this place was probably the dullest.. It’s not that it was hard to look at, it was open and muddy and not the Borossa-Valley-picturesque I had imagined. The wine was good though and the people were nice! The next stop was Stanley Lambert. This was a smaller winery with some very interesting wine names, including Mustang Sally Shiraz. On the way to the next place, we drove past a very sketchy looking warehouse that said Penfold Grange on it. It is the company that produces a wine that is $500 a bottle. Insane, you should look it up on google! Anyway, Grant Burg was our next stop, and it was my least favourite because of the atmosphere. We were really rushed and I don’t think the people could wait until we were gone! I tried a bubbly there and then went outside to explore a little. This winery was on a hill and we could see pretty far into the Valley. The Kies Family Winery is family owned and operated. There is a small store where we tasted some of their famous dessert wines. I bought myself a nice apron with a wine glass on it and we called it a day. 

On the way back to Adelaide, we stopped at the Whispering Wall, which is really a lake and dam. When you stand at one side of the curved wall, you can whisper to the other side and it comes out perfectly clear! So that's where the name comes from. This was a nice little pit stop to break up the drive home because even though we had an awesome time on the tour, we were all pretty tired and hungry from our busy day!

the Worlds Tallest Rocking Horse

Alison at Stanley Lambert

Steve at Stanley Lambert

the Mustang Sally bottle

some barrels

leaves changing in the fall

Borossa Valley from Grant Burg

the Whispering Wall