The Great Barrier Reef

Hey all! Having a blast in oz!!! We started off in Sydney for a few stunning days!!! What hot and sunny days! We got ourlseves all organized for the big road trip and even managed to do some fun tourist things. WE popped by the zoo and checked out the bizarre Oz animals and did a walking tour of the harbour and the opera house...really pretty! We even met up with an old friend from Ottawa U days! It was so much fun! Sydney is a beautiful city and it doesn't stop moving! really active people. Lunch hour was jampacked with running groups and personal trainers all around! We also got attacked by local cockatus in the park trying to snatch our carrots and hummous...healthy little thieves!

We left the big city and flew to Cairns to start the JOURNEY!!! We picked up our ghetto van...really hilarious...but it works! It has great artwork/spray paint and nice sayings across it (the back of our van reads "A KINKY MIND IS A TERRIBLE THING TO WASTE!!!" Love it! But it stores all our crap, and we have now our little house oh wheels! Besides we'll never miss it in a parking lot! It's called the Speedracer but it has a hard time making it over 95km/h.

BUT a little dissapointment is that there has not been much beach swimming, namely a friendly swimmer called the BOXJELLYFISH! EEEKKK! so we've been sticking to the netted off areas that are safe and sound! BUT atleast its HOT here...winter and 30 degrees! YAA!ANYWAYS, highlight so far, we went snorkeling at the great barrier reef! IT WAS AMAZING!!! We saw rays (dn't worry mom, I made sure I was way above it and stayed my distance!!), small white tip reef sharks (3feet), Christian saw a 6 foot black tip reef shark, I missed it, I must have just turned around...good, I would have freaked out! We also saw tons of other tropical fish, beautiful colorful coral and a huge tuna! It was so fabulous, like a real life Finding Nemo world come to life silly how thats my only reference, but it was just like that, with little communities of coral, fish living amongts it, highways of fish swimming along, star fish as bright blue as the sky...It was so fantastic...you have go to do this once in your life! Christian and I went on a boat and we were in the water for about 4 hours. By the end I was blue and frozen, but I just didn't want to get out! We were smilling and trying to explain to the other under water what we saw but we would just laugh, get water into our snorkel, and keep going! We did this in Cape Tribulation, where the rainforest meets the reef. A world heritage location. It was a tiny little community, and we were really happy to have gone there.

The north, Cape Trib, was a rain forest, really lush and full of life. We stayed at a natl campground. That means cheap and all you have are loos and fences to protect againts the crocs. I was thrilled with the fence! On our first night there I was doing the dishes, all I heard was some Ozzie pull up and yell "OY, poisonous snake" I litterally jumped into the van and didn't come out till the morning. It was 7:00pm!!! So the dishes didn't get done till the morning!! FREAKY!!! Also saw a monitor, cousin of the komodo dragon...a HUGE lizard. It's been interesting! A real life zoo. I'm always looking around, sure that a croc will jump out and eat me. BUT we are now in a little city called Townsville, heading down the coast. We've been exploring the beaches and the small towns and the forests. We hope to get a few hikes in, but the mountains and hikes aren't anything like NZ, not nearly as organized or accessible. So we'll stay close to the beaches...we plan on doing some surfing (without the jellies!!!) a little further down south and some island exploring! Time is flying by! We'll put some pics up soon. LOTS OF LOVE!!! Hope everyone is great! Karina and Christian