First Year - Done & Dusted

Today marks one year in Australia for us......

.... so, we had a lovely dinner and opened a bottle of champagne and listened to our sliders rattle in their tracks on this blustery, rainy, miserable day on the “Sunshine” Coast. We started to talk about all we have learned this year and decide to share it with our fellow Yanks Down Under because no one else can *really* understand.

Let me preface our list by saying, moving to Australia has been the best experience of my life; it has also been one of the most difficult. It has been a year of laughter and tears, both the happy kind and the sad kind. When we made the decision to move, it gave us a change to fix all of those “if I had only known then, what I know now,” situations in our life. From the moment the plane touched down, I was presented with one of the best opportunities and the hardest experiences ever: to recreate our life. Here is a satirical, but mildly true recount of our first year in Oz.

Year One: 100 Things We Have Learned From Our Life In ‘Stralia.

1. There is life beyond ranch dressing, Monterey Jack cheese, dryer sheets, Hershey’s kisses, York peppermint patties, root beer, Bisquick, and Budweiser.
2. And when you don’t have things on the above list for a bit, you don’t miss them so much.
3. I am now keen to do things. Before, I was willing, able, eager and excited. But, now I am only keen.
4. Bob IS my uncle.
5. That a pepper is a capsicum and that the police will spray you with capsicum spray no matter how ridiculous that sounds. (Not from personal experience.)
6. Thongs are worn on your feet and not up your bum. Your bum is reserved for a G-string.
7. You don’t have to be a hippie chick to use tampons without applicators, in fact they are impossible to find any other way.
8. You do not want to make your television debut (de-boo) on Border Security for trying to bring in Fig Newtons, Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Crackers and Christmas decorations from America. (Once again, personal experience.)
9. Paper or plastic is a decision we Americans take for granted. Now, I own 500 envirobags for fear of killing a sea turtle because I never am able to remember my green grocery bags.
10. Koala poop is much like rabbit poop. (Gandow, the very cheeky koala at Lone Pine, and my elementary school pet, Flopsy taught me this!)
11. You can’t judge a book by its cover. A custard apple, although ugly, is still tasty!
12. Summer is actually winter. There is winter without snow and it’s not so bad.
13. Toilets cannot flush in the opposite direction with a dual flush system. (The Simpsons were wrong, the embassy does not supply us all with a special machine!)
14. Beetroot does not belong on hamburger under any circumstances.
15. A 1 page resume is not acceptable for any job, anywhere in Australia. For a mid-level management position, a 3-4 page resume is expected. Who knew?
16. Letter sized paper is A4, Legal sized paper is A3. No one tells you this, but when you select letter or legal from MS Office and botch up the printing “queue” in the office, they are all really mad.
17. No shirt, no shoes, does not equal no service here in Queensland.
18. Where ever you go in the world, you will find a 24 hour 7-11 operated by Indians (the ones with the dots, not the ones with the feathers, as my NZ officemate says. She offends everyone equally.)
19. And, there will still be Mexicans will be washing cars at the car wash. (I couldn’t believe we met Jose from Mexico City at the Hoppy’s in Brisbane.)
20. After living here a year, you will have one Kiwi friend who thinks New Zealanders have invented everything from pavlova to a cure for cancer and says “Bro” far too much. No matter how much you love them, a compliment on your new "jandles" will make you twitch a bit.
21. To swim between the flags
22. Big W is the evil empire incarnate – WALMART!
23. The spiders are big, hairy and will charge you. It is justification for your spouse to find you in a closet with flashlight, a magazine and bottle of wine, drunk off your bum! (That is from personal experience.)
24. Despite your political beliefs, Republican or Democrat, no matter how “American” you were at home, you still get misty eyed for the Star Spangled Banner & get a little angry when someone speaks badly about your President , no matter what faux pas he made this time or how much of a dumbass he appeared to be on CNN. It’s your homeland, mate.
25. It’s 5pm at work before you realize, it is the fourth of July, Labor Day, Memorial Day, Martin Luther King Day, etc.
26. For the first few weeks, you think there are a lot of homosexual people at your work with everyone talking about their partners.
27. It begins to pain you when MS Office tells you to spell: colour, centre, labour, paediatrics, utilise, etc.
28. You have to write the “post code” numbers in the boxes dictated by the envelope and it doesn’t work very well for internationally addresses. It’s a zip code and it is 5 numbers!!
29. Everything closes at 6pm except for late night shopping one day a week. It shouldn’t be a holiday when the local shopping centre gets Sunday trading hours! We had a parade for the first 24 IGA!
30. Those damn 2 dollar and 1 dollar coins. I didn’t use change in the U.S. When I paid for $50 of gas in singles, I felt like a stripper; now, I am just embarrassed to whip out all of that shrapnel. 31. While we are on the subject, being a Jersey girl, it pains me to break the motto of, “We don’t pump our gas, we pump our fists in Jersey,” even more so because the damn gas pump doesn’t have that click and hold lever system. You have to hold it the whole damn time. And you can't pay at the pump... or go to a drive through ATM, pharmacy. They make you interact with actual live clerks; how unheard of!
32. How bad is it when you ask the woman at Coles for the premature baby pack of cigarettes instead of the old lady’s eye?
33. It feels so damn good to receive a care package/mail from home
34. You cannot find a good pair of blue jeans outside of the U.S.
35. The Australian people (at least the one’s we have met) are the most accepting, care-free, loving, laid-back people we have ever encountered.
36. A pot is 285mL, a schooner is 425mL and a pint doesn’t exist here in Queensland.
37. Melbourne Cup Day is a brilliant reason to get dressed up like it’s the prom and put feathers in your hair!
38. Mid-strength can save your night! Berroco is a hangover cure-all.
39. Pokies are bad for your brain.
40. Speed cameras are a reality in Australia. This means, you can get a ticket without ever being pulled over. Jon accrued 15 tickets and had his license suspended before we even knew speed cameras existed.
41. He also had to take 5 breath tests in one day while we were driving to Townsville for a diving trip. They don’t muck around.
42. To root means to have sex with, therefore, when you say, “I am rooting for the Patriots in the upcoming Superbowl,” you and Tom Brady are getting busy!
43. Shrimp are prawns, thereby you would never “Put a shrimp on the barbie.” No one ever says put a “prawn on the barbie.”
44. On the barbie, you can cook ANYTHING! Even pizza! or eggs!
45. Snags are sausages, LBDs is code for, well you know, Little Boys D**** and they are small sausages, BBDs are they are big boy’s LBDs...... The sausage all revolves around one image.
46. Fairy bread is white bread coated in butter with sprinkles (hundreds & thousands) coated over it. It sounds gross, but at 28, you can still feel like a little princess with a boa and crown eating fairy bread. I’ve tested this theory.
47. I am not so coordinated. I have been known to all out of my chair, or A over T, as my office mates like to call it. Translation: Arse over Tits.
48. That Union, League and AFL are very different games and if you are not Maroon you ar going to get the crap kicked out of you. (We are in QLD.)
49. Cricket is as boring as baseball, but it’s just as good reason to get very drunk in the stands. 50. Agro = angry, while avro = afternoon
51. The Ashes aren’t something from the Holy Trinity, it’s simply a cricket tradition.
52. My togs isn't as dirty as it sounds.
53. I shouldn’t have to pay 50 cents for my condiments. It’s simply un-Australian.
54. Hinterland is the land or district behind the borders of a coast or river, not somewhere over the rainbow.
55. Tomato sauce isn’t quite as good as ketchup.
56. The word Blackfella is like the N word in America; they can call each other it, but we can’t use it.
57. “Such is life” – Ned Kelly
58. A rock melon is a cantaloupe.
59. Funtack is called blue tack and it is grey in color. It is not really fun either.
60. A chook is a chicken and your friends aren’t quite as crazy as you think they are for having a pen of them in their backyards
61. Fair Dinkum isn’t used in general conversation half as much as you think it will be. However, G’day is and it will always make you giggle until you catch yourself saying it.
62. You never want to dob someone in. Bad things happen to tattle tales!
63. Stay away from things that are dodgy. Just do.
64. You will make the dog’s breakfast of your first year here and it’s okay. It is a complete mess, but you will figure it all out in the end.
65. You do not have to like sausage roll or meat pies to survive.
66. A doona is something wonderful to curl up under on a cold rainy day and yes, we do have them here in Australia (cold rainy days that is!)
67. A fanny is the front bits of a girl, while in the U.S. a fanny would be the back bits.
68. I am always flat out like a lizard drinking and it doesn’t mean I need to go to meetings!
69. Champers (champagne) and chardy (chardonnay) always make the day a bit better!
70. No one really knows what Australia Day is all about.
71. People say they can't understand you when you speak, but claim to watch prime time TV.
72. Jon kicks himself for not finding the subscription website where you can watch streaming major league games a year ago. (www.officialtvsports.com).
73. We could re-start that fake ID ring we ran out of our college dorms with the lack of security on the QLD license, but we would never do a thing like that!
74. You didn’t gain 20 pounds on the plane, the sizes are different.
75. Kilo’s to pounds inches to cm’s. You really do need math for everyday living!76. Kangaroos are a myth. Haven’t seen one yet in the wild!
77. Palm trees and evergreens should NOT be growing side by side. It’s weird.
78. I love choking on the sweet smell of eucalyptus when I go for a run.
79. Yoghurt does not belong on pizzas, even if Dominos tries to market it that way.
80. “Bris-Vegas” is NOTHING like Vegas.
81. People like Crocodile Dundee actually DO exist. It’s true. I’ve seen them.
82. Corks in your hat is actually a good way of keeping the mozzies away.
83. And yet..... They don’t have them in wine bottles. Go figure.
84. When it’s a minimum of 30C in the summer, shouldn’t air con be mandatory?
85. Apparently you need a drivers license to drive in Queensland. You wouldn’t know it to be on the road though. Merge does not mean to drive down an exit ramp and stop, then try to pull out into 110km traffic!
86. Why does it pour in the City and not a drop hits the dam? Who thought to put the damn dams there anyway!
87. The difference in time zones between here and home. My parents ask me every time they call what time it is....
88. And why can’t we all have daylight savings time? I want to play too! Why do Sydney & Melbourne get an extra hour?
89. I don’t need my secretary to tell me there is no 14th, 22nd or 31st month in the year. No wait, yes I do. I loathe the day-month-year format.
90. I have flown Trans-Pacific enough to know that if I cry while I am in the ticket line and while boarding, I get an exit seat with no one seated around me.
91. America and Australia are actually very much alike. It’s the little differences that get you.
92. There is no such thing as good pizza in Australia. No, Domino’s does not count, but it's as close as you will get.
93. You are hand feeding 100 kangaroos in a wide open, fenced in space with no supervision and you are thinking of the insurance liability. (I still say kangaroos in the wild are myths!)
94. Crisco for Christmas cookies can only be purchased from adult shops as a lubricant. What the hell is anyone other than Ron Jeremy going to do with 5lbs of shortening lubricant?
95. While it’s really nice that the lifeguards in Australia are being honoured for their 100 years of service but after a whole year of it, but that commercial.....ENOUGH ALREADY!!!!!
96. You can’t use the medical services here, but luckily you get the money back 2 years later. (10 months to process a Medicare Levy Exemption!)
97. You should know who is the president of New Zealand. When sitting in the Fijian airport chatting up a man with tattoos on his face thinking he is in the WWF, you should know he is a Maori terrorist and not the president of New Zealand.
98. Ian Thorpe will save us all from climate change.
99. I miss the seasons.
100. Writing this list made me thing about all I’ve learned and what a wonderful experience this has been and continues to be!
Year One - Done & Dusted.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!!!

Jon and I celebrated our first hot Christmas in Australia. We decorated our patio palm and the apartment with festive Christmas baubles; we even tried to bring home the evergreen smell of the fresh cut tree with some pine air freshner (sad, I'll admit) and we did a pretty good job of making it feel like home on Christmas. There was just one thing missing: our families.

We had a big Christmas Eve dinner with turkey and all the trimmings including Mum's beet root salad (or a feeble attempt at). Christmas morning, we woke up and opening our pressies: Jon's new surfboard and Siobhan's reading chair for the deck were the highlights.

After the phone calls home, Jon had to work in the ER around 1:00 and I relaxed watching movies for the rest of the day.

My folks sent me this picture of the pug man that had to be shared:

Wicked Winter Weather

For the first time in our lives, wicked winter weather didn't mean snow, ice, sleet and slush. It has been raining for weeks; it's very dreary, grey and very depressing. We are very lucky that we aren't getting the brunt of it. Northern Queensland is under water; flooding has emerged entire towns which is problematic enough, but throw venimous snakes and crocodiles into the mix and things get interesting.

We went for a walk on the beach in front of our house, which used to be a good 20 meters to the low tide line and it's gone. There is a twenty foot cliff that drops down to the beach. There are black volcanic rocks everywhere that weren't visible two weeks ago. It is shocking what a war Mother Nature has ravished on our little patch of sand.

O Christmas Tree

I have a "thing" about faux Christmas trees. I must have gotten it from my Dad; he insists every year that we have a real tree, while Mom grumbles about the needles and the carpet. I just can't bring myself to purchase an artificial tree.

So, being that there is a bit of shortage of the Douglass Fir type tree in our neck of the woods, I did the next best thing:

How Cool Is This?

You can find your LYS anywhere in the freaking world!!

Happy Halloween!!

Happy Halloween!!

Trick or Treat!

Have a spooktacular day!

It's Great When Mates Donate....

The Australian Red Cross has had a donor campaign all over the tele and radio lately. Did you know that one blood donation saves three lives? It's not just trauma victims that you will be helping; the majority of the donated blood goes to those with cancer, heart disease, liver and kidney disease, people with haemophilia and to newborn babies and pregnant women.

Amazingly, with all of these people who need blood product to stay alive, only 1 in 30 people donate blood regularly.



So, can you think of a reason not to lend your arm and become a great Aussie bleeder?

See if you are eligible at: http://www.donateblood.com.au/

Magnetic Island

For our last day in Townsville, we decided to hop the ferry to Magnetic Island just off the Coast to see if there was any snorkeling to be had, since our dive trip had been called on account of weather.



The island is rocky granite and quite hilly which makes it pretty funny that the primary mode of transportation is the moke. The glorified golf cart was actually quite tricky to drive and the steep ascents and descents and sharp curves gave me flashbacks to the Hana Highway debacle. Sometimes, I truly thought we were going to start rolling backwards or I was going to be flung from cart when Jon whipped around turns. Of course, he loved every minute of it!



Ironically enough, most of the island is a no-go moke zone. So, we had to hike down to our snorkelling spot at Nelly Bay. Visability was absolute crap and we had no stinger suits, so it wasn't worth our lives to see nothing but swirling sand. We went down to the main drag on the island for lunch and a long walk along the bay.



With the rest of the afternoon to kill, Jon got some thrills by driving the mope up and down the island from end to end over and over. I was never so happy to hand back the keys to a rental car.

S.S. Yongala

The Yongala is one of the best dive spots in all of Australia, perhaps the world. The ship sank in a cyclone in 1911 and remained undiscovered for 50 years. The wreck now lies on its starboard side in 14-28 metres of water and at 109m long is the largest and most intact, historic shipwreck in Australian waters. Jon was so excited to have a chance to make this dive, but....

Townsville continued to be troublesome. There were only a few dive operators running trips to the Yongala and only one in the days that we were in town. The only other diving option was to go out to the Great Barrier Reef on one of those cattle herding FantaSea boats, which neither of us were keen to do. We visited the one boat going out to the wreck within our time frame and we were told that the conditions had been so terrible for the last few weeks and there was a snowball's chance in hell that we were going to get to the site. Brilliant, absolutely bloody brilliant. Townsville had done it once again.



Jon was shattered. He had wanted to go diving so badly. Think of what a three year old would look like if you told them Christmas was cancelled and you've got half the idea. As a poor substitute, we went to the aquarium and he walked around all forlorn that he couldn't swim with the fish.



Reef HQ was quite impressive. The centrepiece is a 2.5 million litre tank of living coral habitat with all of the colourful fish, eels, rays, turtles and sharks. There is a tank of predatory animals that replicates the flora and fauna found at the Yongala complete with a replica shipwreck. Didn't help matters much. The Night Tank was staggering with glow in the dark fish and luminescent fish.



Still, we had fun and the wreck will be there to dive later. The pirate toy Jon got at the gift shop made him feel a little bit better and we went off to try the TexMex restaurant by our hotel.

It had to be done. The question had to be answered: Can a place that is neither Tex or Mex make a good burrito? The answer is a resounding no.

The upside: American beer (for nostalgia's sake) which can be hard to come by here
The downside: Montezuma's revenge knows no bounds

On The Road Again, Townsville

Driving to Townsville seemed like such a good idea at the time, to use Jon's favorite phrase. It was such a long, tedious drive on along the motorway. The whole day was a blur and there was much talk of abandoning our hotel reservations and bailing out in Airlie Beach.

We plugged on in hopes of getting on a dive trip out to the SS Yongala and we arrived in Townsville around midnight, bleary eyed is putting it mildly.



We set off in the morning to walk around the Saturday markets. Jon quickly abandoned me when he spied a Red Sox game on the TV in a sports bar. Beer and brunch was all the boy needed to hear; he disappeared into the dark back room into the glow of the big screen tv. He finally emerged when the locals turned off his game to watch the cricket and we were off to the Billabong Wildlife Sanctuary.

On first glance, the place is not exactly aesthetically appealing. First impressions be damned, I was going to cuddle a wombat if I had to do so in a porta-loo. We walked around while we waited for the cuddle time and saw all of the animal exhibits in under 10 minutes. With a half an hour to burn, we sat and fed the ducks.



Finally the hour was upon us, Belle the wombat came out to visit with the public. They are just the most adorable little creatures, but quite bristle-like when you touch them. We did our little cuddle and photos with Belle and started chatting to the keeper who happened to be from America. She was just about to go check in on the koalas and invited us to come on a little "behind the scenes" tour.

Normally, when you see koalas they are just lounging and lazily stuffing their cute little faces with eucalyptus leaves. When we entered the enclosure with the keeper, one of the little fur balls came down from his perch and was trotting around sniffing at our feet.



The greatest moment was when she pulled down one of the Momma Koala's pouches to reveal a little baby! It was a sight to make your heart melt.

After leaving the wildlife sanctuary, we explored Townsville a little bit. Our hopes had been to go for a swim in the lagoon, a man-made swimming area because of the prevalence of dangerous marine stingers in the area. Our bad luck, there was no water in the lagoon.



Plan B was to set off and grab a bite to eat. At 3:00pm, this is easier said than done. Lunch is no longer being served and dinner is not yet being served, so the kitchens at most restaurants are closed. We tried every restaurant on the Esplanade with no luck, so it was back to the hotel for a room service snack grumbling about how ridiculous the situation was.

We had tried to get reservations at the restaurant at casino restaurant because it was supposed to be the nicest in town (the criteria being that they have tablecloths), but the only serve on select nights during the week and we couldn't get a booking. Townsville was just not being kind to us at this point.

The steak house across the street was settled for and the only highlight of the meal was the salt was pink. Australian pink salt, who knew?

Too tired from his early morning boozing to go out on the town, Jon fell asleep shortly after the sun set leaving me to catch up on my movie viewing and find a dive operator to go out to the SS Yongala the following day - easier said then done.

Map Not To Scale

When we woke up the following morning, neither of us were really keen to get moving right away knowing that we had 7+ hours worth of driving ahead of us. We had a look at the map and decided to make the drive a circuit and go north to for brekky and continue home by driving south east to Gympie.



While we were planning our route, we watched in as the families around us were breaking down there camping operations. I've camped quite a bit stateside and there is something to be said for the Australian take on it. A site for a family of four generally consists of several tents including the two story one that rises off the back of the 4WD with a special tent for the solar shower. I've seen kitchens with sinks and ovens, toy tents filled with all of the kids playthings and tarped eating areas that are bigger than my living room. The funniest part is to watch them break it down like trained worker ants; everyone has a job and the whole thing comes down in 15 minutes flat.

It was getting to be late morning and we had to start driving. After a minor incident with *someone* backing the car into a tree, we started down the long dirt road dodging cattle in our hatchback to return to civilization.



We had breakfast at the only restaurant in Rollerston. It was an experience; the town was a post office/gas station/corner store, church & the cafe. We were the only people under 60 in the restaurant; we had stumbled into a congregation of the caravan retirees that inhabit campgrounds all over the country.



The drive was gorgeous to start: rolling hills, iconic country Australian farms, paddocks filled with livestock and wildflowers, but after a few hours you've seen one windmill, you've seen them all.

Note to self: nothing is ever as close as it seems in Australia.

Carnarvon Gorge National Park

We woke up early the next morning and set off for a swim in the nearby Rock Pools. At 8am, it was already really warm and the swimming hole seemed like a great idea. That is, until, the girl at the campground kiosk told us the Rock Pools were filled with non-venomous snakes - that was all I needed to hear to not put more than a toe in the water! Jon had a grand old time splashing about and trying to drag me into the snake pits.

With no luck trying to coax me into the water, the trail we decided to take was a 14 km round trip bushwalk that weaved across the Gorge Floor with numerous creek crossings. It was a beautiful day to explore "Australia's Grand Canyon."



According to park literature, the rugged 16,000ha Carnarvon Gorge section is the most popular destination in Queensland’s central highlands. Remnant rainforest flourishes in the sheltered side-gorges while cabbage tree palms, ancient cycads, ferns, flowering shrubs and gum trees line the main gorge. Grassy open forest grows on the cliff tops. The park’s creeks attract a wide variety of animals including more than 173 species of birds (or which we saw two!)

Since this is drought country, the river was far from freely flowing, but it still made for a beautiful landscape for a bushwalk.

It was a really warm day and it was very buggy - it now made sense why Aussie blokes are often portrayed with corks hanging off their hats. We made do by shoving ferns in our cap brims. Not exactly a runway look, but it kept the gnats away.



The walk was "destination hiking" which works well to motivate Jon and I to keep going; there were four stops on our itinerary. The first being a "Moss Garden." The rain falls on the top of the porous cliff walls and trickles down like a really big Brita filter until it hits a hard rock layer of shale. The water permeates out of the cliff side and brilliant mosses have bloomed in the moist habitat. It was a little rainforest oasis in the rather dry surroundings and the cool breeze and shade made it a nice spot to stop and have some lunch.



Then we continued along the bottom of the Gorge losing count of how many times we crossed the semi -dried up creek, making our way to The Ampitheatre, which reminded me of the hiking in The Gunks (Near New Paltz, NY). You are climbing ladders and squeezing through small crevasses into deep gorge. Water eroded away a space into the rock to create a little room that the Aboriginals in the area used for shelter. The walls of The Ampitheatre are absolutely gorgeous; there are 1,000s of color bands that extend hundreds of feet into the sky. The walls make for good acoustics for doing the Ricola commercial, as you do.

The Cathedral Caves, a few kilometres down the trail, were formed by running water like The Ampitheatre. The cave is one of the largest rockshelters in Queensland and the magnitude is staggering.



As we continued on to the piece de resistance, the Art Gallery, Jon found a pointy palm frond and decided that he was Zorro. There was poking, then yelling and I ended up with a few welts on my bum. The drama subsided when we arrived at the Art Gallery, a 62km sandstone wall with ochre Aboriginal cave drawings. It's hard to imagine that these markings have stood the test of time and continue to be so vibrant.



There are examples of line drawings, as well as outlines of tools, hands & weapons that had paint blown around them that have survived the harsh terrain for hundreds of years.




The sun was setting and we were really keen to get back to camp to try and catch a glimpse of a platypus in the river alongside the campsite. No such luck; there were heaps of kids making loads of noise, so the shy platypus didn't make an appearance. A few kangaroos visited our dinner table while we made some kebabs. All dreams of having a few beers by the campfire were dashed; we couldn't keep our eyes open. As soon as my head hit the air mattress, I was out like a light.

See all of the photos from our trip on Webshots:



Carnavon Gorge National Park ~ Central QLD

Manifest Destiny

After looking at a map of Queensland, we realized just how little ground we have covered. Since it was shaping up to be a rainy weekend up and down the Coast, we decided to go west. The trusty Lonely Planet guide said that Carnavon Gorge National Park was worth the trip, so the tent was tossed in the Holden and we set off not really knowing what to expect.



We set off through the Great Dividing Range and got our first taste of exactly how big Australia is - it's fairly populated in the area we were driving through, still you could pass 100kms without passing through a town. After 8 hours of driving, we arrived in Roma (home of the Big Rig - what is is with Aussies and building big fiberglass objects?) thinking that we were a few kms away. We turned up Carnarvon Gorge Road and realized, we were dead wrong. Night has started to fall and the bugs were amazing; it was like driving through that old school Microsoft Star Wars screen saver.



Two hours, a few close encounters with road trains and many kanagroos dodged later, we arived on the final road to the campsite to another shock: It was another 35kms down a dirt road to the campsite. We didn't pay much attention to the stock crossing sign, until we were literally driving through a herd of cattle, only to arrive to once again pitch the tent in the headlights of the car.



It was nearing midnight and we were so tired. So, we turned in and hoped that the morning would bring some good bushwalking.

Upstream, Red Team! Red Team, Upstream!

Rutgers Home Opener 2007! It was a family affair to watch the Scarlet Knights beat Buffalo!



Rutgers 2007 Home Opener v. Buffalo!

I'm off to the place where oil is refined, I'm in a New Jersey State of Mind....

I was incredibly homesick, so I hopped a flight home for some much needed family time.



New Jersey with the Fam!

APEC Supervillians

The big question here in Australia is did the Chasers go too far? A do-it-yourself motorcade? Are your serious?

Now, I am not one that likes to talk politics. Being a blue child raised by red parents living in a foreign country has made things very confusing. I hemmed and hawed about posting this because I did not want to offend anyone, but came to the conclusion that funny is still funny.

So, without further adieu, I present to you Osama bin Laden on the streets of Sydney storm-trooping GWB's hotel.

APEC Conference: Australia

There is a lot of bad Australian television. The one redeeming factor is "The Chasers War On Everything."

Now as it is big news in Australia, if you do not read the Asia-Pacific pages of the New York Times or Wall Street Journal, it may be news to you that the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) was meeting in Sydney this week.

However, with security tight across the streets of Sydney, the Chasers decided to have a little play. I still can't believe they got away with this!! In the States, they would have been jailed straight away!

Have a look - it's absolutely hysterical:

Glow Worms & Good Nights

Since a good portion of our spare bedroom is taken up by surfboards, bicycles and camping gear, you can only sit around and waste time on the Internet surrounded by all of these toys for a short time before you start to feel like a real waste of space.

Although it is winter here in the sunny land of Oz, Jon and I figured if we could handle a brisk, winter camp out. It's not that cold; recently my colleagues have been complaining about the temperature. The record low we achieved last week was 12 degrees; that's 54 degrees roughly. It's not THAT cold.



We loaded the gear into the car and set off for Springbrook National Park to see some glowworms. The park is about an hour south of Brisbane in the Gold Coast Hinterland and is part of group of national parks that make up a World Heritage listed rainforest.

As per usual, we arrive just on the cusp of darkness (I swear Jonathan must love to pitch the tent in the dark or racing the setting sun!) and as we are inflating the air mattress, it is decided that it is in fact cold when it is 12 degrees. Since we can't make a fire on national park property and we don't have one of those really ingenious off the ground fire pit things that every other campsite seems to have, it is unanimously decided that we will go have dinner a few kilometers down the road at one of the bed and breakfasts with a nice, warm restaurant with presumably yummy, warming red wine.



Paddymelons was a lovely little hideaway on the hillside and we snuggled in to have a glass of wine in front of the fireplace and enjoy some nibblies. Seated nearby was another young couple playing chess; after hearing a bit of their conversation, I whispered to Jon, "They talk like me!" I generally get excited when I hear the North American accent, even if it is only the automated voice on the train mispronouncing the next stop.

We struck up a conversation and had a lovely dinner together; it turned out that they were backpackers from Canada and their campervan had broken down. The nearest garage to have it fixed that would accept their roadside assistance program was a ways away and they were told it would take a week to get a tow truck up into the mountains to help them.

They joined on our trip to see the glowworms that live on the Natural Bridge at Springbrook. We thought it would be a relaxed little post-port nature walk. Never in a million years did we expect the entire parking area to be filled with luxury charter buses and hundreds of Asian tourists. It was an absolute mob scene.



As we walked down the trail, more people kept streaming up past us. Finally, we queued up to get a look inside the Natural Bridge. The "bridge" is a rock formation that a waterfall eroded a hole through to the creek below. It's quite pretty by itself; we actually returned the following day to get a look in the daylight. Jon really wanted to jump through the hole, but the idea was quickly quashed by moi.

The glowworms were the pretty amazing; I've never seen anything quite like it in my life. Little specks of green glowing blobs all over the cave walls - like an eerie, green starry night. They glowed, we watched and they glowed some more.

We dropped our backpacker friends off at their nonfunctional campervan and drove off to our campsite, snuggled away in our sleeping bags trying to to think about the fact that it was really cold outside.

Finally - around 1am when I climbed in the car and turned on the heat, I was shocked to see that it had dropped to 3 degrees. That's cold. Far too cold to be sleeping outside, however, Jonathan seemed unfazed by it all until he woke up to find me in the car with the heat on. I got a talking to about mechanics and how that's really bad for the the car, but I could feel my toes!

High Times at Haleakala

We made a day trip to the top of the Maui today to Haleakala National Park. The main feature of this part of the park is the famous Haleakala Crater. It is huge: 11.25 km (7 mi) across, 3.2 km (2 mi) wide, and some 800 meters (2,600 feet) deep. When you are standing on the rim, it feels as if you might be descending on the Moon.



There were other-worldly plants and the sands of the crater changed color in every direction that you looked: blues, greens, yellows, reds, every color imaginable.



We began the steep descent down; even though it was the beginning of summer, it was quite chilly as we hiked into the Crater. We only had a few hours before we had to meet everyone else for dinner, so we didn't have a chance to hike as far as we would have liked, but the views were beautiful.

On the trek back up, we were really envious of the crowds of people who were on horseback!



We drove up to the Summit and we were above the clouds and could see all of the islands of Hawaii! Words cannot express how beautiful it was!

The Hana Highway

After a relaxing morning at the Four Seasons shaking the post wedding celebration stupor, we set off for a scenic drive along the Hana Highway. It is a long and winding road cut into that weaves alongside the eastern side of the island. The drive takes about 3 hours of white knuckle driving with a cliff on one side and the mountain side on the other. Jon thought he was a rally car driver and it was completely freaking me out. According to Wikipedia, there are approximately 620 curves along Highway 360 from just east of Kahului to Hana; which means there were approximately 620 times I yelled "Slow the frick, down" or some variation of that phrase.



Then to make matters worse, I read in the guidebook that Many of the concrete and steel bridges date back to 1910 and all but one are still in use. That one bridge, badly damaged by erosion, has been paralleled by a portable steel bridge erected by the Army Corps of Engineers. Signs on the old bridge warn pedestrians to stay off due to imminent collapse. My nervous tendencies construed that all of the bridges were going to collapse imminently.

Our first stop was in the bamboo forest and had we had a bit more time, we would have loved to hike out to the waterfall, but with the long drive, it wasn't feesible.

The drive passes through beautiful, tropical rainforest and has many beautiful waterfalls. We had lunch on mangos and other goodies that we found at self-service fruit stands along the road. With daylight fading we made quick stops at the black and red sand beaches and darted off to the Seven Sacred Pools.



We were really looking forward to taking a swim in the pools, but they were closed due to high water levels. We watched the sunset over the pools and had a chat to a few local fisherman.

Then... we had to drive home on the Hana Highway in the dark. All I can say is I am lucky to be alive =)

The Big Day!

Tuesday was the big day! We were told the best thing we could do is stay out of the way, so Steph, Brett, Jon & I headed off to the Kiehi Cafe for some of the best damn breakfast burritos I have ever had. We had made plans with Russ's roommate John to meet up with us, lend the guys some surfboards, so that when they returned home they could tell girls in bars that they "surfed near Pipeline." Like in the VERY general vicinity, but those are only details.



Halfway through brekky, we realized that Brett's shirt for the wedding was still in the bride's car, so we had to track her down while she was at the spa and retrieve the shirt. While Brett was off finding his shirt, we waited by the Jeep under this tree that had long pods that looked like centepieds. Now, Brett had learned about the centepieds on the island and was DEATHLY afraid of them. Apparently, they are pretty gross to look at and hurt like a beasty when they bite you. Needless to say, even the mention of a creepy crawly sent him into a five-year-old-girl type frenzy. So, being the sweet friends that we are we gathered up as many of these faux centipieds as possibly to scare the crap out of him. We hid a bunch around the car and waited.......




Unfortunately, he walked out and saw us planting our bugs, so he was on guard for the rest of the week. It had the potential to be such a great damn joke.

The wedding took place on a overlook by the Wailea Country Club. Everything was absolutely perfect; beautiful view & sunset. Mike even had one of his student's parents drive the rescue helicopter over the site of the ceremony and drop down 10,000 plumeria flowers; it was snowing gorgeous tropic flowers.



The reception following was at the Irish pub where they met called Mulligans. One of Mike's students came and did a special hula for his special teacher, which really spoke volumes about the relationship he has with all of his students.

We were really lucky to share the special day.

Mulligan (by Jon)

Sunday was time for the boys to have some real fun, ditch the broads and go raise hell.... On the golf course. *Ahem* Yes, we are real rebels, and decided to go play a round of golf in Waillea. We wanted to do something different, you know? I mean, who plays golf in Hawaii??? So, Russ, Wegs, Steph (yes, he has a girls name), Noel, and Russ's brothers rented some clubs and got ready to do battle. Yes, we rented. And no, as you can guess, we are not good at golf (well, except Noel....He beat everybody by about 20 strokes, that smug *******) But I'll tell you what, we tore that golf course up. No, we did really. Literally. There were divots all over the place, it was pretty ugly.... Let's put it this way, when I went to rent the clubs it was so obvious that I had no clue what I was doing that the guy at the golf shop gave me a bag of balls (literally a whole shopping bag full) and said that I'd need 'em.




I did

*sigh*

Oh, did I mention I got the dubious honour of getting the highest score? No? Good. Then I shot 2 under par.....



Anyway, we got out to the course for the early tee time of 7AM. Loaded the beer on the back of the golf carts and were on our way. Why the beer you might ask? Well, the way looked at it was that we were going to have horrific scores anyway. We might as well get drunk and have that as an excuse. By the time we reached the 9th hole the beer was gone but luckily we ran into the beer girl and bought her entire stock and kept on going. Funny thing was that looking at the score card afterwards that I apparently play a hell of a lot better drunk than sober.

The golf course was awesome, perched up on the the hill over-looking the islands of Molokini and Molokai and sometimes we just had to just stop and soak up the view. It was almost like playing Tiger Woods Golf on the PS2.....except that it was real. Oh, and that we suck. I had bought these really cool salmon coloured balls, 9 of them, figuring that they would be really hard to lose. I started in on the balls that the guy in the golf shop gave me by the end of the 3rd hold. Oops.



Didn't matter though, we had a blast. Moment of the day for me was on the back 9. Can't remember the whole, I was pretty drunk I think. but it was a par 5. I was off in the light rough after my tee shot about 220 yards from the pin. Using the 3 wood I managed to put the ball onto the green about 10 feet from the whole. It was so cool. And no, I didn't make eagle....or birdie. Hell, I didn't even get par as my putting skills decided to desert me at just the right time but hitting it onto the green like that was cool anyway.



Difficult to describe the course with words and can't show you pictures because we forgot the camera but take my word for it, it was gorgeous. Afterwards we went to the bar and had a few more drinks before going home to get cleaned up cause the boys were going out on the town to rage tonight!!!!

Yup, we were going out to party more after playing 18 holes of golf in 90+ degree heat in blazing sunshine and drinking loads of beer. We got back and decided to watch a bit of the game before getting ready and....

Ah well, we had a blast that day anyway even if we did, ummm, fade a bit towards the end.
- Jon

What Jon forgot to mention is after the boys got back from the golf, the families of the bride & groom hosted a beautiful barbeque on the beach in South Kihei. The night culminated in a soccer game Mike v. his nieces and I do have to say, I think Maddie & the girls won flat out! Then promptly came home and returned home to all fall asleep on the couch. But, good times, good friends & good food are always wonderful!

Good Times & Green Turtles

We had a wonderful sleep in on Saturday & enjoyed a wonderful greasy breakfast at the "Philly Diner" in Kihei. The irony was not lost on either Jonathan or I, but it was wonderful to have the closest thing to a greasy spoon we could find on the island. We had what the Aussie's call an "American Breakfast" of scrambled eggs, white toast, hash browns & bacon while very aggressive little sparrows flew around the inside of the diner and seems to swarm for scraps!



Mike phoned and said everyone was meeting down on the beach in Wailea just to relax, swim & snorkel. So, we drove down taking an accidental detour that ended up in a stunning drive along the coast of Maui. The sights were absolutely breathtaking! As we were driving, the directions Jon took down over the phone accidentally flew out the window, so we spent quite a bit of time backtracking down the road looking for a scrap of paper on the road. These sort of ridiculous things only happen to us!

When we finally met up with everyone else, Mike suggested that we take our snorkeling gear and go explore a little point about a half mile down the beach. Other people had told us the coral was a bit pretty, but we never expected what we actually found! The reef itself was impressive, but not by Australia standards. We were lucky enough to come across a group of green sea turtles gnoshing on the kelp that was floating around. I even took a bit of kelp in my hand and had one of the smaller turtles take a nip from it! There had to be at least 15 turtles; they were everywhere you turned! It was truly a "Finding Nemo" moment!



The bride & groom to be were having dinner at Spago's, Wolfgang Puck's restaurant at the Four Seasons Maui, so we were invited to dinner with the bride's Mom and assorted friends at Stella Blue's, a great local restaurant with a bit of a Grateful Dead undertone. Our Deadhead friends would love it! There is even a drink on the menu called "Friend of the Devil." Check out the website at http://www.stellablues.com./

The best man was one of the managers there, so we had top notch treatment & had an amazing dinner while sipping Lilikoitinis (the most amazing concoction ever! Problem being, you can't taste the vodka!) Our server Chris was a legend! Talk about service with a smile!



We tried to rally to do a "late night," but the night's fate was sealed when Brett took my sunglasses and fell asleep in the bar. This became a recurring image on the trip and the scariest part was he looked better in my sunglasses than I did! Tip-Ups was a great bar, but we were all just so incredibly shot out that all anyone wanted to do was go to bed. We are so not 21 anymore!
The boys had an early tee off time at a golf course in Wailea & Jon was loving be able to watch ESPN Sports Center, so going home early was actually a nice treat!

Halfway Home in Hawaii

It felt so good to be back in the U.S., even if just for a week. My main objectives were to eat as many bagels & pieces of "New York Style Pizza" as humanly possible & to stock my suitcase full of "homesickness curing" foods.

It was the strangest thing, I left our apartment at 11am on Friday morning to fly from Brisbane to Sydney and then Sydney to Honolulu. When I walk off the plane to meet Jon and hop an interisland flight to Maui, it was 10am on Friday. Shocking. The jet lag wasn't too bad though, other than not knowing what day it was, the time change didn't screw with our circadian rhythms too much.



We rented a bright red Jeep Wrangler to cruise the island and style and rushed off to Mike's house, so he could begin shuttling everyone to and from the airport. After one of Mike's high school buddies arrived, there wasn't much time to think about how tired we were before we were off to Mike's parents condo for a lovely barbeque at sunset. The food was amazing; it was so nice to have "traditional American" cuisine =) I know it sounds silly, but it was so incredibly wonderful!



After the barbeque, Mike and his bleary eyed group of travellers set off to meet up with his bride-to-be and her friends who had just flown in from the Mainland for a night of libations at Moose McGillicuty's and then it all gets a bit fuzzy from there.....
It was a great night, I'm sure!

Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo

It's our one-year anniversary today! Hoo-ray!

It's been a tumultuous year, but today we celebrate the good time and the bad and all we have been through together to bring us to this day!

Jon told me that today was my day and we would do the things on the Coast that I have been really looking forward to doing together.

We started off our morning at the Eumundi Markets. For you kids back home in NJ, it is kind of like the Englishtown Saturdays with a real hippie vibe. We walked around and looked at handcrafted cheeseboards, soap, skirts, jewelry and it was all absolutely gorgeous.



Jon really got into all of the different food vendors; he had heaps of different kinds of sausages, Lebanese food, crepes, and all sorts of other little tastes. It was a gastronomic day! We were at one of the fruit stalls and he bought a few of these fruits called "custard apples" just because he had never seen anything so odd looking =) It actually turned out to be quite sweet & yummy!

I ended up purchasing an gorgeous hand sewn brown suede wrap skirt and an amber necklace. It was a little freaky when the man who sold us the necklace made me hold it and feel it's energy, but it's a really pretty necklace all the same.



Then we headed off to the Australia Zoo (where Crocs Rule!) Jon was like a kid at the candy store. His favorite part being the really huge crocodiles and the tigers. I liked the wombats best! They are so incredibly cute.I think we are going to adopt the wombat named "Meg" in honor of my sister =) Check it out at: secure.australiazoo.com .au/get-involved/adopt-an -animal/

The zoo was absolutely amazing! They tributes to Steve were really sad & quite moving. You couldn't help but get a little choked up. It's amazing the things that he accomplished in his life and how truly loved he was throughout Australia & the entire world.




We caught the crocodile show at the "Crocoseum;" It is amazing the noise that the croc's jaw makes when it snaps shut. It makes your bones shudder! As we were leaving the show, we ran into a woman taking the elephants for a walk. Apparently, all of the animals get "walked" around the zoo for stimulation. It was hysterical to see two wombats waddle by with the same harness on that Bailey (the pug) wears!

Just like Lone Pine, they have a large enclosure where you can feed the kangaroos, but this one was much more crowded, as where the lines for the koalas photos & petting. The day was also much more pricey, but with all of the great education and conservation programs that come out of Zoo, it's easy to justify.



Jon's favorite part of the day was right at the end when we got to see the two largest croc's, Agro & Acco get fed. They spend most of the day hiding in the water, so you can only really get your head around the shear size of these beasts at feeding time when the caretakers coax them out of the water with food for public viewing. Huge does not even come close to describing how big these two boys were; they make American Alligators look like toy poodles!