We're back! Exploring the oldest rain forest in the world!

Once we got to New Zealand we had a hard time keeping up with the blog. There were so many fun things going on that catching up and writing about Australia didn't happen. Since the last post we explored more of Australia, spent a summer in New Zealand, I went to Montenegro for a few weeks to visit my parents, and now were back in the US! It's been a hard adjustment coming back (much harder than I thought), but things are going alright. Adam got a contract job for a few months out in Fort Collins, Colorado, so we packed up the car and drove out. I don't think I'm quite ready for work yet, so one of my goals while we are here is finishing the blog. Here we go!

Beautiful coast off Port Douglas

Tons of parakeets in Port Douglas - noisy ones too!

After we packed up our campsite and said goodbye to the cute little rock wallabies we headed towards the picturesque town of Port Douglas. It is on the coast and close rainforest, beautiful beaches, and crocodile territory.

Once we set up camp the first place we explored was Mossman Gorge. It is a great little swimming spot in the Daintree Rainforest - which ison e of the oldest rainforest in the world. I have also heard somewhere in Malaysia claim that they have the oldest, but since we visited Daintree and not Malaysia we will go with Australia on this one. It was smoking hot outside, so a swim in the refreshing waters felt great. I have to admit it took me a while to get in the water. They said there were no crocodiles in this river, but I was a little hesitant...you never know when one of them could go rouge. I have heard of alligators in the Chattahoochee in Atlanta, so the thought of a crocodile wondering less than 20 miles from it's natural habitat didn't seem like a stretch.


Nice swimming hole in the river

After swimming for a bit, we took a short hike through the beautiful rainforest. Australia is known for its unique (and sometimes deadly) animals, and this part of the country is no exception. It is home to the cassowary, which is a large flightless bird kind of similar to an ostrich or emu. It is fairly rare to see one, but if you do they can be aggressive. Some Australians that had been at our campsite had told us some attack stories and techniques to get away from them, so we were prepared. We didn't see any of the birds, but we did keep coming across places on the ground where something had been scratching and digging. That counts right?

dense jungle

After our rainforest walk we headed off in search of crocodiles. The murky water of the Daintree river is a popular spot to take a boat ride to see them in the wild. The river is lined with mangroves and looks like the perfect spot for crocs to live. Our guide, Bruce, had been doing tours for almost 25 years and knew all the crocodiles in the area by name and where they liked to hang out. Crocodiles are pretty lazy animals - they lounge around and sleep for most of the day and like to stick to their territory. I don't think that i would have been so nervous about swimming if the gorge if I had known this. Bruce could pretty much just drive up to where the crocodile sleeps and there it would be! It wasn't near as exciting as I had pictured it to be, but it was still cool to see them in the wild.



where are they?



Bruce even knew where a tree frog likes to hang out



a wee little baby croc



there's mommy

We spent the next day hanging out at the beach in Port Douglas and relaxing. It was box jellyfish season, which is one of the worlds most poisonous creatures, so if you went in the ocean you had to stick to a small area that was surrounded by nets so you knew you were safe.

In the morning we drove down the coast back to Cairns to catch a flight...next stop Sydney!





Queensland Road Trip

The freedom of having our own transport allowed us to travel at a much faster pace than we had been used to. In just four days we managed to see and do a whole lot in the northern part of the state of Queensland. The first day we did the "waterfall circuit" and checked out a few nice waterfalls. One of them had a nice pool at the bottom that you could swim in, but Steph wouldn't have any of it, so I swam by myself.

Millaa Millaa Falls

Ellinjaa Falls

Along the way we stopped at a little stream that is home to a few duckbill platypus (or should I say platypi?). We spotted one from a distance behind a little blind they had set up and thought we were pretty lucky, but when we took a short walk down a path along the stream we got really lucky and saw a few more from really close. What a strange animal. Apparently when the discovery of the platypus was first reported back to England around 1900 they thought it was a practical joke. A furry little mammal that swims in rivers, lays eggs, has webbed feet and a bill like a duck. Can't really blame them.

As I may have mentioned earlier, Australia is expensive! Easily the most expensive place we've been. Anyways, with the cost of a rental car we couldn't really afford to stay in a hostel every night, so we camped. Australia may be known for it's wildlife, but I didn't realize that this also included crazy amounts of bugs and other creepy-crawlies. Despite the constant buzzing of the insect life, our campsite at Granite Gorge was awesome! Literally on the side of a granite gorge, it's home to a huge colony of rock wallabies. Sort of like mini-kangaroos that love to eat food out of your hand. We had an awesome time feeding and photographing the little guys and seeing their little joeys hanging out of their mama's pouch.

gimme some

cute lil' guys

see the little joey? with his head and one leg hanging out

Day two was a trip to the "Outback," or as close to the Outback as we were gonna get. There's some cool caves a couple hours drive inland from where we are staying, so we made a day of it, stopping along the way to spot kangaroos, kookaburras, parakeets, cockatoos, and other stuff you've only ever seen in a zoo or pet shop. A quick side note on kookaburras: I don't think we ever saw one in a gum tree, mostly they were sitting on telephone wires, but that didn't stop us from singing that song over and over. And I can verify that those things really do laugh...and laugh and laugh... at 5:30 in the morning at an amazing loud volume. Anyways, it was a gorgeous day for a drive though the caves weren't super exciting. Still, we got to see some amazing wildlife, scenery, and even some aboriginal paintings on a rock wall.

kookaburra sitting on a telephone wire, laugh kookaburra laugh...

this could pass as the Outback, right?

a roo having a look at us

Steph in one of the caves near Chillagoe

big rock

aboriginal rock paintings

We liked Granite Gorge so much that we decided to stay two nights. Who wouldn't want some more time hanging out with our little wallaby buddies? Part two will (hopefully) follow soon...

come back soon!

Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef

We made it to Australia! It was kind of a strange feeling at first. It was our last country on our trip before coming back to New Zealand, so we were a little sad about the trip being almost over. But Australia has always been a place that we've wanted to visit so we were happy to finally make it. Sometimes we laugh about how we used to think Australia was this exotic destination that you could only dream of visiting, when in reality it is probably the country most similar to the US, after only Canada. Still, it is a dream destination and we were excited to get started. Cairns, pronounced "cans", is on the northeast coast and is known as the "gateway to the Great Barrier Reef." We were greeted with blue skies and a blazing hot sun that we were more than happy to soak in. I was immediately disappointed at how expensive Australia was going to be. The Aussie dollar is really strong and is basically 1-to-1 with the US dollar. A shuttle from the airport a mere 2 miles into town cost us 18 bucks. What happened to the $1 taxi rides we had in Thailand? Make no mistake, we'll walk back to airport when it comes time to leave.

Of course #1 on our agenda in Cairns was the Great Barrier Reef. Who doesn't have visiting the Great Barrier Reef on their bucket list? The reef is a couple miles offshore, so there are a bunch of tour operators vying to take you out for a full day trip. Seeing as it is such a huge destination, we wanted to spare no expense and actually splurge on a dive or two. Even Steph, who has never dove before, signed on for an introductory dive. In fact, she enjoyed it so much that we both went for a second dive. We had awesome weather, so one of the sites we visited is one that they rarely get to visit because of strong currents. You could tell it was less used as the coral was much better here. Although I was hoping to see a shark, the only major wildlife we encountered was a huge moray eel, though Steph was the only one that saw it. Still, there were tons of cool fish and coral and all that good stuff that goes along with snorkeling and diving. Maybe should've put more sunscreen on, but other than that an awesome day.

The only tangible evidence of our $500 reef excursion. The memories are priceless

Though we didn't see all that much wildlife on our reef excursion, the town of Cairns was home to some animals we weren't expecting to see much of. Bats. Tons of huge, hairy, noisy bats hanging around by the hundreds in the trees around town. I believe they are fruit bats, but they were pretty nasty.

Other than that, we didn't get up to much in Cairns. They actually have a Target so we did manage to do a little shopping. With only 6 days in the area, we were anxious to get out of town and explore the countryside a little bit. That's right, another first for the trip - we rented a car, bought a tent and air matress at Kmart, and hit the road. Road trip! Coming soon...

Hong Kong

Okay, enough screwing around. Sorry for being such a bum with the blog. Why is it that the longer you put something off the harder it is to pick it back up again? Anyways, now that Steph is gone to Europe I have no excuse but to at least finish off the big trip. Below is our account of the few days we spent in Hong Kong and look for a few posts on our exploits in Australia over the coming week or two.

After Shanghai we were headed off for a few days in another one of the world's great cities, Hong Kong.  To fly from China to Austraila we had to stop over somewhere, so we thought we might as well stay a few days.  At first, I was really looking forward to it, especially after spending time in China so that we could see the difference between the Mainland China and the once British-occupied Hong Kong.  But that excitement faded a bit (a good bit) when we started to look into somewhere to stay.

When we were in Beijing and Xi'an there was an American Veitnam Vet that happened to be at both of the hostels we stayed at, and we ended up talking to him a good bit.  When we told him that we were going to Hong Kong he told us that he had gone there on business before and it was really hard to get a hotel room.  He said he had to wait hours along with a bunch of others at the airport for a booking service to find him a room and in the mean time he befriended a guy who had already been waiting several hours longer than he had.  The guy he befriended was getting a $400 room at the Crown Plaza that had two bedrooms so they decided to split it and off they went.  He told us it was one of the most over-booked cities in the world.  We were thinking we should go ahead and start looking at accomodation but then he told us this was in 1984!  That was the year we were born in, surely things wouldn't be the same now as back then we thought so we kinda blew it off.  Should have listened.

When we started to look for somewhere to stay, everything was so expensive.  A hotel room can set you back at least $200 (which we weren't about to do), the good hostels book up pretty far out, and you are left with only one reasonable option - the Chung King Mansions.  It is basically this huge 17 story building that looks like it is falling apart, is a fire chiefs worst nightmare, and hosts a lot of little shops, ethnic restaurants, and cheap accomodation.  It is home to mostly miniority groups in Hong Kong - Indians, Nepalese, Nigerians, Middle Easteners, etc.  We read so many horror stories about it before we got there, I was debating just staying in the airport and getting the next flight to Australia, but after five months of travel and staying in some pretty shady places surely we could handle this one.  Plus you can't beat the location, its right in the middle of all the action in Hong Kong.

two words: curb appeal

The building itself turned out to not be as bad as I had made it out to be in my mind.  When you walk in there are people trying to sell you stuff, show you their restaurant, or take you to their hostel, but they weren't near as pushy as in some other places we have been.  When we got to the room, we were prepared for it to be small, but it still took me by surprise.  It was unbelievably small.  There was just enough room in their for the two of us and our bags.  We had to walk on top of our stuff to get out the door.  The room had everything you could need for a few days stay though - a bed, TV, bathroom (complete with a shower that was litterally over the toilet), and a couple of tea cups.  The size didn't bother me, but what did bother me was the plumbing.  Whenever you flushed the toilet this awful smell would come from the pipes.  The room is so small it doesnt' take too long to be overcome by it.  We put a ban on going to the bathroom in the room except in cases of absolute emergency.  This didn't work out too bad for Steph though because it meant that in the mornings she had to go across the street to Starbucks or McCafe to get a cup of coffee and use the bathroom.      

smallest. room. ever. 

shower and take a poo at the same time!

While in Hong Kong, we mostly just spent our time walking around and taking in the sights and sounds of the city. It certainly felt a lot less "Chinese" than Shanghai and especially Beijing, as there was still noticeable influences from the British occupation. Namely the tea drinking, always with the tea. Plus there were lots of young professionals from English-speaking countries mixed with the melting pot of ethnic groups that have come to Hong Kong over the years. We didn't know too much about the background of Hong Kong, so one day we went to the museum and had a nice (free!) tour covering the whole history of the city. Being a coastal city, it began as a fishing village and eventually became an important salt production center. It was the British love of tea, actually, that drew them to Hong Kong as they imported huge quantities of it from Hong Kong in exchange for silver and, illegally, opium. When the Chinese tried to stop the unlawful opium trade, the Opium Wars broke out which led to the cession of Hong Kong to the British. One of the more surprising chapters in Hong Kong's history was the '3 years and 8 months' that the Japanese took over during World War II. This is remembered as a very dark time in Hong Kong's history, marked by a collapsed economy, food rationing and disease. Eventually WWII ended, the British took back over, and Hong Kong obviously boomed into what it is today. Hong Kong was officially handed back over to China in 1997, but surprisingly not that much changed.  Essentially the Queen was taken off the money and all references to the "Crown" were removed from the government. Other than that, Hong Kong continues to run basically as it's own country with it's own currency, government, and seemingly booming economy. There's a Rolex or Cartier watch shop on every corner so somebody is doing something right.  Part of the agreement was that for 50 years after the hand over Hong Kong would remain a Special Administrative Region and retain some autonomy from mailand China...so we'll have to see what happens in 2047.

Overall Hong Kong was much different than we expected. I don't think we'd ever seen a picture of it before arriving, so we were impressed with the skyline, especially at night over Victoria Harbour. They have "the world's largest laser light show" or something like that, which was overwhelmingly unimpressive, despite the amazing view.

The best view in Hong Kong, though, is surely at the top of Victoria Peak (guess they didn't remove all references to the Queen). From where were staying, it started with a nice trip on the ferry over the harbor then eventually catching the Peak Tram the last 400 meters to the top of the hill.

view from the Peak

The Peak, as it is locally called, is home to some of Hong Kong's wealthier residents, but anyone can enjoy the nice walking trail and parks that circle the summit.

Our last day in Hong Kong we took a couple trains to a wetland reserve not too far outside the city. Nothing too spectacular, but it was a nice respite from the big cities that's we'd been in for a while and it was good to get some fresh air.

As much as we enjoyed our little taste of civilization in Hong Kong, we were more than happy to get out of the Chung King Mansions and move on to the LAST country on our trip: Australia! We had an awesome two and a half weeks in Oz, so hopefully I will get around to blogging about it soon!

Good bye New Zealand....Hello Montenegro

We have taken a bit of hiatus from blogging since we reached New Zealand...we still need to post on Hong Kong and Australia.  Maybe since I (Stephanie) am about to leave and the peak part of summer season is over Adam will have a little more free time for that.

This morning I am watching the beautiful sunrise over the mountains here in Queenstown for the last time (because I put off packing until this morning and had to get up super early) and will be getting on a plane in a few hours to head to Europe.  I am leaving NZ a little bit before Adam to go stay with my parents for a few weeks after a pit stop in Rome for five days.  My parents are spending a couple years in Montenegro with Operation Mobilization.  We stopped by for just a few days to see them when we are travelling and really enjoyed it, so I am excited about spending a little bit more time there...and seeing how they're doing at learning to speak Serbian!  After that it will be back to the states and back to reality...even though we still don't know what we want to do when we get back yet, any suggestions?

For a while here in NZ we had cold weather and lots of rain, so I was looking forward to getting somewhere different.  But now that it is coming to reality it's a little hard to leave.  The last week we have been trying to pack in as much fun stuff as possible.  Adam has taken a few days off and we have done some hiking to our favorite spots, went River Surfing a few times, and ate at our favorite places around town - like the ice cream shop!  Last year when we left we knew we would be back, but it's different now since we are leaving for good (at least that's the plan..you never know!) We really enjoy Queenstown, the laid back lifestyle, beauty of the landscape, and all of our new friends here.  Plus for me not working and just hanging out is kind of nice, but I guess all good things must come to an end!

Well, I guess I should finish packing.  One of the first things I have planned for Rome is an Italian cooking class, so stay tuned!  Hopefully there's no vegetable carving this time...