The Gang's all HERE!

Last year at Christmas we decided to give our kids tickets to come to Australia to visit us.  While this may sound like a generous offer on our part, it was pretty self serving....we wanted to see the kids and have some time together during our year away. We were hopeful it would be all together, but knowing the kids busy schedules we'd take whatever we could get. We started early by suggesting Christmas time as time to shoot for, and they started conversations with employers to make that happen. Getting a chunk of time off meant hoarding vacation and personal days, and carving the weeks at the end of the year for their time off. The plan was all working, the kids reserved the time and the tickets were getting bought, and then we heard the BIG news....Lynn and JP were expecting a baby.....due in February! That caused a pause in the plans as timing was discussed for them (Christmas was close to estimated delivery time), insurance and refundable tickets were looked into, and doctors were asked about the trip. The expectant ones got the approval of a doctor, found refundable tickets (insurance doesn't cover pre-existing conditions), and made their booking. Colin also had a change in employment, moving to Salida, Colorado, and had to break the news to his new employer that he would be gone over Christmas (only 2 month into employment) for this trip. Luckily, his new boss was great with his travel plans, and he, too, was a go.

The other part of the plan was for John to get the time free from his obligations at the hospital. His contract gives him 6 weeks off, which he, too, hoarded. He worked the first 10 months with almost no time off, except for a conference, so he planned the last 2 months of his employment basically on vacation. (There is something to the Australian concept of "working to live"....not living to work.) He was down to using every minute of time off, but he made it work. We were all going to enjoy our first Summer Christmas in Australia, and we'd be together. What fun!

We planned a limited amount of traveling as seeing our little corner of Queensland was probably enough with the time we had together. The kids staggered their arrivals, Scott and Colin coming first, and JP and Lynn arriving the day after. We kept our record of seeing rain the day visitors arrived, perfect (and it really does hardly ever rain here). Lynn was the official "Roo Sighter" as she spied a "mob" (what a group of kangaroos is called) of roos on the way to our unit from the airport. A FIRST! (She spotted them many times first during her time, maybe her condition had something to do with it?)

John wanted to share "Snakes Down Under" with the kids, and he did that without me (not my bag). They reacted the same way all our visitors have, disbelief at the access at the animals. The pictures show how much fun they had there.Why does Lynn look so happy?

We had reservations for Heron Island Resort where we had spent time with the Rader Family in August. We had enjoyed our time there so much that going back was a 'no-brainer'. It would be turtle season and that would be wonderful to see in addition to the snorkeling. We let them acclimate to our time zone for a few days and then left for the Gladstone Harbor and our ferry ride to Heron Island, a few days after they arrived.  We had rented a second car, a necessity with 6 adults, got directions on line to the jetty in Gladstone and were on our was by 10:30am to make a 2 hour ride, arriving well before the 2pm departure. Best laid plans....I won't bore you with all the missteps (John found another unpaved road "short-cut") but we made it to the ferry with barely 30 minutes to spare. The ride over was difficult, very wavy and longer than I remember. Lynn has a bit of trouble with motion sickness so we got the anti-nausea bands for her to wear, and I took my Pro-Calm....we both were somewhat miserable but made it without tossing our cookies (no spewing for us).

The Resort welcomed us and we were told to collect our bags and head to our rooms, but there was a definite change in the look of the resort. The birds we were overwhelmed by at Lady Elliot heard we were coming to Heron Island and seemingly followed us there. Literally there where thousands of birds there (everywhere!), living, breeding... and dying, I'll explain that later. The day was warm and the odor was.....prevalent.  It also meant the "serenading" all night; ear plugs were made available....nature, you gotta love it here (beware when you come to an "Eco-Resort").

The rooms were fine, and much to our delight (but not the delight of our tech-connected kids), no internet or phone service is the way here. The rooms don't have TV or radio, so reading and talking to each other would have to suffice. Interesting...Colin was out of his element for sure. (He had made a commitment to try and get some work done during his time away and this made that very challenging.) The Resort does sell internet access but it's spotty depending on the weather conditions. We had clear days forecasted so, if he needed to do some work, we hoped he could get it done between snorkeling and nature walks (and listening to birds squawking all night!).

We didn't have the stellar holiday that we enjoyed with the Rader's, you can read my TripAdvisor review here, it explains the issues we had. (I have since checked back on more recent reviews with many of the issues we experienced, I was hoping we had an isolated bad few days.) but the snorkeling and turtles more than made up for any down-side.

https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/ShowUserReviews-g255081-d954101-r333952565-Heron_Island_Resort-Heron_Island_Queensland.html

The kids had a blast, enjoying seeing the Great Barrier Reef for the first time on this Island so close to us. Scott was able to Scuba dive, JP and Lynn snorkeled everyday, and Colin made his GoPro available for anyone to use as they got under the water. We played "Oh Hell" at night, and all got to bed early after the time in the water and sun. The turtles laying their clutches of eggs at night were an added excitement which we caught, barely. Some of us (JP, Lynn, Scott and the elders) set an alarm for 1am when the tide was in, and the turtles made their way to the island, and we headed to the jetty beach. We were amazed at the stars we could see, and we (sort of) saw a turtle track almost right away. We had been instructed not to use a flashlight on the beach as that distracts the momma turtle and could hamper her laying (read: cause her to not nest and go back into the ocean where she might abort her eggs). We stumbled around a bit, staying well behind her nesting, when we noticed a change in wind and moonlight. All of a sudden the heavens opened up and we got drenched!  So we made our way back to the rooms (quickly).  Oh well, we tried, there was another night we could try.

All our thoughts of getting up in the middle of the night were just that, thoughts. Happily for us, John had a restless early morning and went for a stroll on the beach, finding a turtle who must have gotten a late start, and came back to wake us up to see it finish-up with the egg-laying, covering the nest, and then making its way back into the ocean.

Not all the nature was pretty and exciting to see. One of the sights we saw was the life of some of the birds, and the death of many.

http://www.heronisland.com/Turtles-and-Birds.aspx

This link has all the information on birds and turtles, you can see by the numbers what we were up against.

The Pisonia Forest has an unusual way of getting the nutrients it needs to grow in the sandy soil of Heron Island.

Black Noddy nesting

The tree produces these sticky pods which adhere to the wings of many of the nesting birds. The pods get tangled in the feathers of the birds and more they try to free themselves, the more entangled they get. This eventually will prevent the birds from flying, then moving at all, then they die, decompose, and thus providing the nutrients in the soil where they die. Circle of Life, but really hard to see.

Black Noddy entangled

This happened not only to Black Noddy's, but many of the birds nesting and migrating through the Island. We really didn't enjoy that part of the experience, it is hard to watch a bird struggle, knowing it won't survive the fight. Clearly there are enough of these birds to survive, no danger of extinction, but the connection of these different pieces of nature is real, whether we enjoy it or not.

Now the turtles!

.

We'd love to think that there is no drama with the turtles and their hatchlings, but as a previous blog explained, only about 1/100 hatchlings actually make it to adulthood. They make tasty little morsels for shark, birds and other predators. But we are "sure" the eggs laid that morning will all make it to maturation and then back to this island to lay 30 years from now. 

Our time at Heron was almost over, we were headed back Gladstone on Saturday morning. We did have a shark encounter which was great. There were 6-10 Reef Sharks just lounging about the shallow water right by the resort. Colin and John got in the water to try and capture it on Colin's GoPro. It was a closer look than going out deep with snorkel and fins. (There is a PS here...this week an 11 year old was bitten by a Reef Shark doing just what John and Colin were doing here, so much for safe shark watching on Heron Island.)

Home for the rest of the time together which included Christmas! Lynn had a great idea of using our stick tree for a Christmas tree. 
Ok, it wasn't a full evergreen, but we had a place to place the gifts. (And it wouldn't be a hassle putting the decorations away, we could eat them -- foil-covered chocolates!) The kids were making their way around Bundaberg, shopping, skate boarding, going to the movies (Star Wars was opening) and generally just relaxing.
John found a way to borrow some surf boards and that was great fun to try at Nielsen's Beach.
I was busy getting seafood ordered for our Aussie dinner which is traditional. I got the order in the nick of time, don't know what I was thinking, waiting so long to order. 

This is what Christmas morning looked like here, opening gifts and laughing, then heading to the beach at Coonarr. Colin found a virtual fire for the TV, but the beach bag being on the floor really captured this strange and wonderful day. 

On return we unpacked the seafood we I had picked up the day before all sealed up in a cooler with ice and a guarantee the ice would last until the afternoon of Christmas Day. We stored it in the bathtub, not wanting any melting mishap to ruin our day. Now I had to figure out how to serve it.
It was a lot of food, all cooked to perfection, (not displayed very professionally) and ready to peel and eat. I made an unnecessary pasta salad, and we dove into the meal. Lots of shells later we were sated. The leftover shrimp and crabs were shelled for use in some nameless dish for the next day. We were all ready to clean up the mess when we heard a crash and someone yelling "Oh, my God" outside.  Our intrepid reporter Colin went down to discover someone mistook our underground garage for his, couldn't understand why his opener didn't work, and drove through our door. Big surprise...this guy's blood alcohol was 5 times the limit, as reported on the news the next day (a bit too "Merry" Christmas for this Aussie).

We were now down to just a few days together, Scott leaving first on early on 12/27, JP and Lynn 12/28 and Colin staying on until 1/1. Our last dinner together was Shrimp Scampi, using the leftovers from the Christmas feast....and I found these poppers that we forgot to put on the table Christmas night. We had fun popping them and playing our last game of Oh Hell. Lynn had a perfect game, never loosing a bid and playing a hand where she bid 7! All hail the Queen!

The end of this blog entry is the tale of everyone trying to get back to the US. Scott got held up in Houston with the terrible storms that wracked the southwest and then the midwest the days after Christmas. His flight was delayed then canceled all together.  He was booked for the next day, but his flight got diverted to Bloomington, Illinois because of weather. He missed a day a work arriving very late the 28th to Chicago by Amtrak. Poor guy, no luggage, no sleep, and work the day of the 29. JP and Lynn left the day after Scott and actually arrived before he did. Of all the travel woes we had, we were all glad the couple expecting a baby had the easiest time getting back. (and only 2 of them -- no in-flight delivery!) Colin had his own issues trying to get back to Denver.  His flight from Chicago was delayed for mechanical difficulties, then canceled. He got in very late on the 2nd of January, also without bags. 

All in all it was a wonderful time, more than we could have hoped, getting everyone on this side of the world, together. 

We are still in Australia, REALLY!

I know, I know, you have all been sitting on the edge of your chairs waiting, waiting, waiting for the next blog. We have been entertaining almost non-stop since November 12 and I have not had a minute to get catch up on blogging....until now.

Our first guests were our good buddies, Woody and Chris Pelton, from Burlington, North Carolina. The Pelton's came for the second half of November.  We started in Bundaberg and they finally got away in Sydney. We had a BLAST with them; this is some of what we did:

Arriving in Bundy

We had to find a Roo!

Being very experienced travelers, we knew we had to WOW them with our plans for their time here. We began in "Bundy" for a few days and then traveled to places we hadn't visited. As luck would have it, we had rain, lots of rain for the 3-4 days in Bundaberg, we really only get rain here when guests from the US visit. (Note to drought-stricken Queensland:  Invite our friends to visit and you'll get your much needed rain!)
They were impressed with the location, our condo, and the restaurants. We took them to all our favorite places to eat (we actually thought the theme of their visit might be "Eating your way through Australia); Indulge Cafe, Catalonia Bistro, Thai Red Chili, and Bargara Beach Hotel where we saw the nightly parrot "invasion". We were devastated with the news of the Paris terrorist attaches and because Woody has many students in Europe (he is Dean of International Studies at Elon University), he had a little communication to do with his University, which he accomplished. The Rum Factory was a great tour, the Macadamia Nut Retailer, and some of my favorite shops rounded out our time in Bundaberg. We then headed to Perigian Beach by car to spend a few days on the Sunshine Coast (the name says it all).


Perigian Beach and "Shack" where we stayed

We were very fortunate to be able to borrow the Treston's (the past director of the ER here in Bundaberg) beach house which they affectionately call "the Shack". It was a bare bones "A Frame" house located across the street from the beach.  Greg Treston was there to greet us and show us around the charming beach town of Perigian.  The shack was a chance for us to experience being Aussie Beach Bums. 
a place to shower and sleep. 

Notice the velcro strap holding the frig closed? The table was a great place to play "Oh Hell", and have breakfast in the morning.

U of the Sunshine Coast was located on what was a kangaroo sanctuary.The roos were everywhere!

The best part of this time was the quaint town of Perigian Beach and it's proximity to Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast. Woody is the Dean of International Studies at Elon University in North Carolina. As his title explains, he sends and receives students from all over the world, including Australia. His connection here in Australia is the University of the Sunshine Coast (now what US college student wouldn't want to spend a semester at a school with that name?) located about an hour north of Brisbane, and 1/2 hour from Perigian Beach.  He wanted to visit the school and introduce himself to the staff there who help arrange the exchanges. Being in Perigian Beach made access to USC (the "real" USC -- University of the Sunshine Coast, not those pretenders who lost their bowl game to the Badgers) very easy, and we all were invited to dinner with an associate of Woody's --- a gourmet meal in a gorgeous house overlooking the town.

With the formalities over for Woody we headed to Noosa (surfing and shopping haven) the next day and one of the most beautiful walks we've done in Australia. This walk was recommended by everyone we asked and it did not disappoint. We left early as the weather was warm (80-90 degrees) and we wanted to get the whole walk in.








Truly amazing vistas and then a real surprise in a tree above the path on the way back, can you see it?




It's a Koala in the tree. Seeing one in the wild was a first for us, the Queensland coast is their habitat but is rapidly disappearing due to coastal development. We were thrilled to see this little bear.  As they do 20 hours a day, it was sleeping so we got a good long look at it.



We were all happy we had headed off early to do this walk. Now time for lunch at the Noosa Heads Surf Lifesaving Club and a little beach time! We left Perigian on Sunday and stopped at the Australian Zoo, made famous by Steve Irwin, the bloke who defines "idiot" in the dictionary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5lIXAovhp0 (Steve Irwin died of a sting ray barb to his heart a few years ago.)

Yes, that's his baby (sorry about the quality of photo).

We enjoyed the zoo; lots of up close animal experiences. This zoo was on many "not to be missed" lists for Queensland. It is very well laid-out and clean with animals who appeared to be comfortable. The big show was a bird and croc event with raptors soaring through the stadium and crocs chomping on chickens, you know the "usual" croc thing.

Our little part of the world

John doing his Michael Jordon jump.

So cute

A cassowary

Onto Brisbane and our first Airbnb booking (we took our kids' advice) and booked a lovely unit in the heart of Brisbane right on the river. Except for the extensive security questions (who knew John had such an extensive criminal background?) needed as first time users of the site, it was great. We had a unit which was deluxe by any definition, but the $6000 coffee machine (yes, we looked up what it cost) made the place over the top. After the 5 days on the beach, we did loads and loads of laundry and made all kinds of fancy brewed coffee.
We were up all night. 
Can you say Room with a View?




We played "Oh Hell!" on the balcony and drank in luxury. Speaking of luxury...next stop Whitsunday Islands.

The Whitsunday Islands are a group of islands on the Great Barrier Reef. They are known for their beautiful beaches and idyllic boating through the many islands. We had been looking forward to this part of the trip, very laid back --- with no real agenda. Our condo came with a golf cart (called a "buggy") and this was our means of transport around Hamilton Island (very fun).

We got to the unit and this was the view.




In town, we made plans for a day on the water to see Whitehaven Beach and do some snorkeling. Whitehaven Beach is rated as one of the 10 best beaches IN THE WORLD according to Conde Naste Travel Magazine. We were reserved for a day on a catamaran to see it. Meanwhile we needed dinner reservations. Lucky for us we had a few recommendations, one being The Hamilton Island Yacht Club. Besides being a gorgeous space, the dinner there was beautiful. Like most of dinner places, it was pricey, but the whole night was magical.


This is out of sequence but the Yacht Club is a beautiful building which we could see from the sailboat ride to Whitehaven Beach the next day. The form of the roof of the building is either the tail of a whale or a bird in flight, you decide.

The woods they used in the interior was like the wood used in the finest yachts, burnished to a beautiful glow. http://www.hamiltonisland.com.au/about-the-island/hamilton-island-yacht-club

The day of our sail was perfect, except very little wind. We got under way by use of the motor, but the water was nice and flat which I enjoyed. We were stopping by Whitehaven first for a couple of hours, then lunch, then snorkeling.



I don't know what the captain would have done if Woody hadn't been there to help navigate.

I'll just show in these picture what the day was like, so incredible.




The Beach

The sand is silica sand, so fine they tell you to leave electronics on the boat as the sand can find it's way into anything -- it really was like powdered sugar. Woody is not one to sit still for very long so he and John found a path up the hill to see a different vista, this was their view from the top of the island.
     
Pretty spectacular from up there.



The lunch they provided was delish, shrimp and sandwich wraps, salads and drinks. Yum.

The snorkeling was not great by any standards. Even though we were in the Great Barrier Reef, the coral and fish were not plentiful. No one told us to go to Whitsunday's to snorkel, it's the other stuff you go for. Because this was the only opportunity for the Pelton's to snorkel it was a little disappointing, but they were fine with it (at least they didn't ask us for a refund).




Back to the unit and the daily bird show. We had cockatoos that were quite comforttable flying and landing all over our balcony, and not shy about stealing food from the table.


The nightly bat show was really something but we couldn't photograph it because of the darkness. The fruit bats, called "flying foxes", appeared about 6:30pm, just as darkness fell. They are quite large and make this awful squeaking noise.

They covered the trees just like this photo, yuck, yuck, yuck...but there were no mossies.(Mosquitoes in American English) Just another Aussie experience for us to remember.

Woody was not finished trying to drag our sorry butts up another hill. He found a trail up Hamilton Island behind one of the hotels. We were game as it said it was a "moderate" trek, we were leaving later than we should being the day was going to get very warm, so if it had said difficult, Chris and I would have passed.

Well, it was the most difficult "moderate" trek I've ever done. The incline was steep, and full sunshine, we started and climbed to the first drop off, then Chris and Ellie dropped off.  I think it was only "moderate" by Sir Edmund Hillary standards.

The views were great, we heard.....

They were great and I'm glad the boys had a camera to document how beautiful it was.

Meanwhile, Chris and I found a quiet place to wait for the boys.

Check out the swim-up bar.  It's noon somewhere!!

The timing of the trip was over Thanksgiving, which isn't really celebrated here....go figure!

We decided to embrace the cuisine here and had an Asian Fusion dinner which was lovely.

Next stop SYDNEY!

We were heading into the last few days we had together so we decided to go to Sydney because Woody and Chris had heard that they should not miss seeing this city, and we could connect to our final part of the trip, Perth, for a medical conference from there. While John and I had seen Sydney on the first trip we took here in 2012, we loved Sydney and couldn't wait to see it with Woody and Chris. I needed to book some rooms for the 3 nights we had and remembered the wonderful hotel where we stayed last time. It was the Starwood property JP arranged for us, Sheraton On the Park. When I tried to find the same level room he had arranged for us I found it was $580/night....ouch. We really didn't want to shoot the wad on a place where we just slept but the location of the Sheraton was great, so I looked for a place nearby. I found the Y Hotel, a few blocks away, but much more affordable (read "cheap"). I booked it and hoped for the best. (It did get a very good review on Tripadvisor.) While not deluxe, it was adequate, and I appreciated Woody and Chris not complaining. But, they don't complain, about anything.

We were just a few blocks from Hyde Park, which is the oldest public park in Sydney.

This is the grand avenue, the fig trees are amazing.

There is just too much to say about this park, so here's the website.
 http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/explore/facilities/parks/major-parks/hyde-park

We spent most of everyday just walking about the city, here is some of what we saw,

And we shopped the markets,

Even Woody shopped!

But the Harbor and Circular Quay was the place to be.

We did the tour of the Opera House, but we had a bit of a wait, so we took in what appeared to be a very busy Saturday on the Harbor. We watched a sailboat race which the famous Sydney ferries had to dodge, as well as a cruise boat.

The tour of the Opera House was great. Even though we had done it before, we heard new things and became even more amazed by the engineering of this iconic building.

The Sydney Opera House is to Sydney what the Eiffel Tower is to Paris, it changed the landscape of Sydney by its presence. The building takes your breath away in every way possible. It's still a work in progress as repairs and improvements for the 21st century are necessary.

The harbor is the heart of the city. We loved spending time there everyday.

We got up early on the Sunday we were there to catch a nature walk at the Botanical Garden (guess who found the walk?  Somebody has to stop Woody). We had a lovely guide who walked us around privately as we were the only peope to show up that morning. 

We bought tickets for the Hop On Hop Off bus on Sunday and took the 90 minute tour of 

Sydney in the afternoon. This is always a good over view of the city, and a good opportunity to nap, which we all did -- not that it wasn't interesting but sometimes there's just no overcoming the sleep hormones.

Most of the pictures from the bus are blurry or just beyond what was to be snapped, Bondi Beach was clear and easy to see.

The next day we took a ferry to Watson's Bay which was recommended to us by one of the doctors in Bundaberg. We took a ferry and had the best morning in this sleepy town just 20 minutes by ferry boat, from Sydney. We felt worlds away from the city, but there Sydney was in the distance. We took a nice walk to the lighthouse and then back to the ferry harbor for lunch.

We were at the end of our time with Woody and Chris, only one special dinner left, at the Cafe Sydney located in the Custom House overlooking...what else?...the Harbor.

http://cafesydney.com/home

This was the perfect end to our time together. We had so much fun and loads of new experiences, can't wait until our next vacation with them. 

For the Pelton's, it was home to start getting ready for Christmas. For us, it was on to the other side of Australia -- Perth and Fremantle.