Australia!

My wife and I just got back from a two week vacation in Australia.  We recently decided to start a family and decided this would be our last chance to have a real vacation.  Wow, it was awesome.  On Friday, Nov 14 I got to work at 6:45am and worked until around 2:00 when I took off to pick up my wife.  Something like 30 hours later (layover in LA), we arrived in Brisbane, AU... on Sunday morning.  Actually, I don't remember the exact timeline, but Australia is 15 hrs ahead of the Eastern time zone, that sure does screw with your system.  Anyway, our flight to AU was part of a package that included flights to Brisbane, Cairns, Melbourne, and Sydney.  We were going to pack as much in as possible!

Notice, they're all coastal cities.  We opted to not go to the outback desert because of the way our plans and timetable worked out.  I had actually already seen the outback and, while I wish I could have shown it to my wife, I think we made the right choice.

So, first up was Brisbane.  It's a great city with lots of parks and a river running through it.  We took a road trip to see the Australia Zoo, home of the late Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin's family.  The zoo was great.  It had a very open feel that allowed kangaroo interaction, koala petting, and elephant feeding.  It was all structured and overseen, but in some cases, there was only a small fence and an illustrated sign to keep visitors in line.

Our next little road trip from Brisbane was south to Surfer's Paradise on the Australian gold coast.  Beautiful beaches line the AU east coast.  This was a lazy day of playing in the water and laying on the beach.  Good times...

Next, we headed to Cairns (pronouced "Cans").  We took a boat tour to do some snorkling on the great barrier reef.  It was a crappy day and wind was kicking up sand so the pictures aren't too clear, but there really is as much wilflife out there as I had seen in pictures before.  Fish, sea turtles and all sorts of creatures were in abundance.

Cairns is on the edge of a rainforest, much in contrast with the desert that AU is famous for.  The best part of that excursion was a Sky Rail ride that took us over the tree tops of the forest.  The views were spectacular once again.

With our trip half over, we headed to Melbourne and rented a car to drive west along AU's Great Ocean Road.  This was probably my favorite part of the trip.  Driving a tiny little Yaris, we weaved through the tight turns and post card views for a full day.  Signs like the one below were frequent reminders for us American tourists.

The city of Melbourne was one of the best I've ever been too.  The city has unofficial sections like Chinatown and Little Italy.  They're in the process of revamping their harbor area with shops and restaurants.  It's already nice and it'll be great when it's done.  There's a free tourist trolley in the heart of the city and other trains and such aren't expensive so a car is more trouble than it's worth.  People were out enjoying the air all over the place, not just tourists, so the city had a great feel to it.

Finally, we made it to the city AU is most famous for: Sydney.  There's a ton to do and see.  The shops and bars were the coolest, I've ever seen. The pic below was of a restaurant area just a few blocks from our hotel.

Of course, I have more pics but I need to filter out the ones of my pregnant wife.  She's really not interested in showing her current form on the internet.  Speaking of the wife, she did a great job planning this trip.  All of our rooms were in excellent locations and had very reasonable rates.  We had the time of our lives, while coming in under budget.

It was a great time, but to be honest, I'm glad to be back.  Glad to have my own bed back, glad to have my dogs to play with, and glad to get back online with my 2o2p family.