An Australian Adventure

Or, an Aussie Ade-ven-cha :)

OK, I'm warning you that my Australian posts are going to get really obnoxious.  Since the days of Olivia Newton John (and I'm talking her "I Honestly Love You" days, not her "Let's Get Physical" days!) I have loved anything Australian.

We had a little bit of a bumpy start in Cairns because of the rain, but we squeezed in what we really hoped to do there.  And now we're in Sydney and loving everything about it.

You may get the pleasure of back to back posts today.  Too much has happened to squeeze it into one post, but I also have some catching up to do.

So we'll begin with our last few days in Cairns:

High on the list was an opportunity to hold a koala, so we visited the Cairns Tropical Zoo.  This was a great place--smaller and focused on native Australian animals, with lots of opportunities for interaction and many informative programs throughout the day.

The zoo had a fenced in area for the kangaroos which we could enter--the Australian version of our petting zoos.

Teaching each other dance moves, maybe?

These are only owls if their masks are kookaburra masks!

The cassowary was one of our favorites and this picture Faith got of him is a favorite too.  Biggest flightless bird next to the ostrich.

And Celia finally got to hold her koala

Trina too!  It was quite a production.  They were handed the koala and could only hold it long enough for a picture, but at least it was something.

This is where we stayed, Trinity Beach, just north of Cairns.  A beautiful spot, although the water got really brown from all the storming.

 Thankfully, we were also able to get a beautiful day at the Great Barrier Reef.  Tropical Cyclone Nathan was expected to turn around and come back toward land, so boats had been canceled during the first round and were going to be canceled again for three days.  But in the meantime we had a pretty calm, sunny day for our trip.  Of course, the boat was full (80 passengers) because everyone was trying to squeeze it in, but it was well-organized and fun.  We drove out for about an hour, snorkeled in two different areas of the reef, and boated back.  The older girls were also able to do an introductory dive.

 

Our last three days in Cairns were beautiful and sunny so we were also able to spend some time by the pool and beach.  All that rain made us appreciate the sun all over again.