Hot yesterday, Hot today . . . recken (sp?) it will be hot tomorrow!

Well, there are absolutely no words that will describe the heat here, it is truly unreal. we wanted it hot and we got it.

Well lets see were to start to try and catch up.

Tuesday the 9th
We did end up spending the day on several different beaches along the Great Ocean road, including the beaches near the bases of the 12 apostles. the beaches were amazingly sandy and hot with such cold water. we hung out and drank to keep as cool as possible wearing TONS of sun screen and out super sexy beach hats. we then motored back to Melbourne and stayed at terrible accommodation at the airport, It was clean and was a place to sleep but, oh my what a place.

Wednesday the 10th

Today we got up really early to catch our 7am plane to Ularoo. We foraged on with the excitement of seeing something new but with the hesitation of fear of the heat. Well we were very right in our fear of the heat - holy fuck (can I say that, sorry if i offended anyone) but seriously this must be pretty close to the hottest place on earth. It was well into the mid 40's when we landed and that was at 1130, and it only got hotter. The town is kinda cool just a resort built in a circle for tourists, the locals are just the people who work there. we immediately went the pool (thank goodness for the pool) which was our only refuge. All the hotels, hostels, and campgrounds had pools and we now know why. I mistakenly took off my sandals and walked across the tile pool deck and actually burned my feet, I am not even exaggerating they hurt for a long time. No amount of beer whilst sitting in the pool could cool us (although we gave it a good effort) - UNREAL. The other really terrible part about this leg of the journey are the FLIES - uggggggg. They swarm you like the little Ethiopian children you see on the t.v. with no relent. in your eyes, ears, nose EVERYWHERE! You know when you are watching the world vision commercials and you always wonder why don't they swat those flies in there eyes - well I now know why because there is absolutely no use. JASON YOU ARE A GOD SEND - THANK YOU FOR THE FLY NETS. Oh yes ladies, I have added one more super sexy piece to my beach/dessert attire . . . a fly net. There is no way to function with out one. Anyway the first night we went on the "Sounds of the Silence" dinner tour. At dusk you go out into the dessert and watch the sun set over Ularoo and Kita Juta with champagne and appetizers. Then once done you head to different spot (and I am talking right in the middle of the dessert) and have a three course meal and all the wine you could drink. Once the sun set, the flies went away and we were able to enjoy. Here we tried both kangaroo and Crocodile meat - not bad if you can get over what you are eating!!! Once the sun set a star talker went through the night sky and all the constellations with us. It was neat to have the ones pointed out that we will never see in Canada. They also had telescopes which we got to use - we could actually see the rings of Saturn - amazing. We really don't appreciate the night sky we have in Canada especially us rural dwellers because people here were amazed just to see the stars in the night sky, so we are lucky.

Thursday the 11th

The next morning we were up with bells on at about 430 to go the sunrise at the base of Ularoo and walk/climb it. IT was great we only walked/climbed a portion of it by then the heat and flies were to much to handle, literally driving us to drink . . . well okay perhaps we did not need that much convincing.

Anyway after the rock and the cultural center it was time to head back as our plane left for cairns at 230pm.

while i am extremely glad we went to the outback and experienced the culture and saw the rock, and everyone who gets the chance should do this, however I would never do it again. I can officially now say I HATE the dessert and I hate flies even more.

we arrived in Cairns and not a minute to soon as we were greated with 30plus weather which actually seemed cool to us!!! we caught our shuttle and settled into our hostel. This hostel we will be at four 6 days and we are glad to settle in one place for a while.

we showered and headed off for a walk, as our hostel is right on the beautiful water front. all of our tour guides from home (family and friends) neglected to warn us of the MOUNDS of HUGE HUGE BATS. I shit you not, they are the size of eagles, now I know this sounds ironic and a little unbelievable coming from me but if one of these bats came anywhere near I would first pee my pants then die of a heart attack. They are in swarms - hundreds of them flying over head -shiver-. We had our free supper at the woolshed (a bar with free meals for the hostel people) and headed back to bed.

Friday the 12th

well today we were not planning on doing much we got up and did laundry which was much needed made breakfast and went for walk to find groceries. When we returned we started to plan our next few days. Colin spotted a brochure for bungee jumping and this jungle swing. so off we headed!!!!! I can not believe we did this!!! We jumped at a site in the middle of the rain forest and our heads were plunged into a cool lake at the bottom!!!! After some liquid courage we did it. It was totally AMAZING, once you get over the crippling fear that paralyses you at the edge of the jumping platform. This was way harder than skydiving because they just threw you out of the plane when you were to scared to go, here you actually have to CONVINCE yourself to jump off and far away from the platform. I nearly fainted - seriously, I was hyperventilating, my arms were numb and tingling and my eyes got that haze in them (I had to stop and try to compose myself a little) all I could imagine was my unconscious body flailing through the air only to wake up and see what was going on and faint again. It was sooo scary - unreal scary but soo fun. After several false starts i went jumping as best as i could which was terrible i am sure - and of course my lovely husband (who went second) just walked right up and jumped without hesitation. We actually both jumped twice going backwards the second time!!!!!!!!!!! we then did the jungle swing which was fun but not anything like the bungee jump. For all that are wondering yes - we do have videos and pictures of it all happening!!!

After the jumping we cam back and headed to water front were BBQ lunch on one of the beach BBQ's and cooled off in the beautiful esplanade pool! This evening we went to the woolshed for our free meal and now i am blogging waiting for the room to cool down. We are amazed that when we walk into our dorm relieved to see that our little A/C has brought the temperature down to a cool and refreshing 29degrees. Still at 1043pm that is much cooler than outside. Australia gives a new meaning to the words hot and humid. we are hoping the A/C cools us off to at least 27degrees tonight - hehehe!!!

Anyway now to try and post pics!!!

take care all - sorry for the long blog but we are now caught up and the next few should be short and sweet!

Holy smokes

well we are in Cairns and loving it, just wanted to let you all know that we may or may not continue to blog after today . . . it depends on how today turns out.

we are off to both bungey jump and do the min jee swing.

WISH US LUCK

(will hopefully post pics tonight)

crispy shoulders,makes for tricky backpacking

Hello, we are in the airport in sydney waiting for our transfer to Aryes Rock (hence no pics right now). Life is good, we are burnt but recovering nicely, with beer as our medical aid.
Few random comments for the day:
- For all the girls who have to listen to my stories at work - I have added a very sexy hat to my beach outfit - truley a sight now!!!!!!
- They drive crazy fast here, cant keep up around the windy roads
- still no kangaroos
- spent the day yesterday on the amazing beaches of the Great Ocean Road
- food & drink crazy expensive here
- had to hang a beach towel in the car window to protect us from the sun
- Colin drove Candian style (backwards) from mcdonalds all the way to our accomodation last night - no accidents - no curseing - not even a foul look from others.
- Our accomodation last night had spaceship toilets and showers (one stall for all)
- we are extremley scared about the heat ahead of us at Ularoo
- we are both armed with block 60 and hats now
- burnt shoudlers hurt when carrying a heavy backpack
- our flight is boarding - see ya!

I Like it Hot Hot Hot!!!

Hello everyone, Internet is not the easiest to find so we are a bit behind.

First off Colin has found two new lovers as you will see in the picture - two pure blonds to be exact!

We did find a winery on Saturday (the purple hen) which we enjoyed and ate snacks and drank good wine, we also did the koala conservatory as well which was good but much like a zoo. The Penguins were so funny, I loved watching them come out of the water and find themselves face to face with a seagull and scurry back to the water (apprehensive little things, although seagulls are kinda scary)!

We left Phillip Island on Sunday the 7th and headed towards the GOR, we took the Ferrie at Sorrento to Queensclife which was lovely. Sunday was SOOOOO hot, we are both burned quite badly mostly from being in the car! We did do a few beach walks along the route as well though, and had a picnic punch at Merrick's beach. We stopped and at the colorful beach houses Debra which were cool, People own these and head to beach, the houses are all decked out with there beach needs.

On Sunday night we did stay at a hostel in Lorne where Colin got to feed the wild cockatoos, they were crazy and loud and flocked to us once they seen the bird seed. Our hostel was basically a bed in an attic, but it did the trick, the hostel grounds were beautiful!!!

Well lets see - it is currently Tuesday Feb 9th at about 10am we are in Port Campbell were we stayed at a hostel last night after viewing the 12 apostles, and watching the muttinbirds flock to there nests at dusk, it was pretty amazing. unfortunately most of our drive through the Great Ocean Road was clouded with SeaFog but we enjoyed it just the same. The hostel here in Port Campbell was pretty laid back and had quite a friendly owner, whom we cooked supper with and shared stories - we had our first official Australian BBQ.

I had been pretty bummed about not seeing any Koalas or Kangaroos in the wild yet, but that all changed yesterday. We went in-land a bit to see the light house at Otway and while we were driving though the forests the koalas were absolutely hanging on the tree branches that were hanging over the roads. Of course we had to stop, some were even awake, eating and caring for there babies. We were pretty excited about that, there is something to be said for seeing the wildlife actually in the wild. We have yet to see a kangaroo but are keeping our eyes peeled.

Today we are planning to hit the beach for a good portion of the day (after using loads on sun screen) and then we head back to Melborne as we fly to Ularoo in the morning!

Anyway thanks for all the comments we are having loads of fun. Jason we bought a box of Cheezels yesterday and are going to give them a try at the beach today!! We are drinking far more beer/wine than water, and just relaxing each day. Ashley note all the hostels that we stayed at, there was no hostels available in Philip Island and that is why we were at a B&B.

Anyway take care all.

BACKWARDS HO!!!!

Well we are here everyone, the flight was not as bad as we both thought it was going to be. By the time I closed my eyes to indulge in some rest I had been awake for 33hours and believe it or not I was in a decend mood and we are still married. Turns out working the night shifts prior to leaving was not too bad of an idea, we both took a sleeping pill on the plane and slept for 8hours straight, the guy sitting next to us could not believe it!!!! In total we travelled (from the time we left Luseland until we arrived in phillip island) 34hours. 22 hours flying, 4 hours driving and the reminder in airports. we missed Feb 4th 2010 all together

We landed yesterday in Melbourne at about 12 noon, rented our supper cool little care and headed out. We had no detailed maps but I got us through with out even one wrong turn (we would totally rock amazing race).

Driving backwards is a big challenge - one that I very willingly volunteered Colin to take. Over all its going well but its hard to register. We are looking at other vehicles coming at us and thinking "Holy Shit there is no one driving that car", I was also shocked to see a lady very actively putting on her eyeliner while driving, could not believe the skill level - then I realized oh ya shes the passenger!!!!! Everything in the car is backwards not just the steering wheel, we keep putting on our wipers to signal we are turning, here's hoping the people behind us can follow our less than perfect driving skills and read our wiper signals. We were actually crying at one point we were laughing so hard about using our wipers time and time again to signal, we are slow learners.

So after we found a shopping mall and bought the necessities like a cell phone we then decided we were hungry and had a bit of a drive to get to Phillip island, So it was (i must admit) my idea that we should get some sushi. The mall was full of fresh sushi places so we got quite a large box of sushi and we headed on our way. So now (picture this) here we are, new country, backwards cars, backwards roads, very little sleep, no detailed maps, downtown Melbourne, about 10 min of driving experience and . . . eating sushi at the wheel while driving. Another moment of stupidity that had us crying with laughter. So did we quit? - hell no can't waste good fresh sushi.

Right now it is Saturday Feb 6th at about 1o30. we arrived on Phillip island last evening checked in at our bed and breakfast (which is sooo lovely) and had a shower and hit the town. We had supper outside under the sun and had some really lovely Australian company. we are up and walking about the town and beach - lovely. i am sad to report that its a bit cloudy at the moment but we are hoping for better weather soon. we are going to see the koalas, penguins and to some wineries today. We are marvelling in the all the greenery and the smell of flowers and ocean - sooo nice.

We are so far having a blast and are excited to get out of the library!

Talk soon!

And were off !!!!!

Well we are off, a huge thanks to the warm send off at work. Keep in touch all. hmmm I wonder how long the adrenaline rush will last. My back pack is extremley heavy hence the forward stance in the picture - good thing for lumbar support!!!! See you all in a month!

Up and Comming Adventures.

Hello everyone out there, I just wanted to let you all know to keep posted because Colin and I are off on another adventure in 2010. We are lucky enough to be able to go to Australia. We will be touring the country From Feb 3rd to the 28th, so keep posted for more blogging adventures! Hope everyone has had a great fall.

Andrea & Colin