Hello families!
Ryan and I are in Hervey Bay at the moment, arrived here yesterday morning after a 24 hour bus ride. Traveling long distances has gotten quite a bit easier over the past few weeks. Tonight we're staying with a really great guy named Jamie who was nice enough to drive us around to some of his favorite spots. We went to a swamp he calls the "Shrek swamp" and a nice little cafe for lunch, and we saw our first kangaroos! I wish I could put up the video for you guys, it was a really exciting moment for us ; ) When we get home we'll have tons of pictures to show you.
Cairns was really unbelievable. We went snorkeling for hours right over the great barrier reef and got to scuba dive with giant clams and tropical fish. The sights were absolutely phenomenal. Hard to describe, but we rented an underwater camera so we have over 300 pictures and videos.
The next night we went on a tour up to the rainforest, which consisted of a few stops along the way up (different lookout points, an aboriginal sacred gorge...) and a night in a hostel right smack in the middle of the rainforest. We saw quite a few spiders, lizards and tropical plants. It's so amazing to step out of the shower and into the rainforest. The nightwalk was by far my favorite part. We walked through the forest with a really knowledgable guide and saw a family of forest dragons, all in seperate locations. I asked the guide how the mother and daughter find themselves in the morning (we disturbed their slumber with our flashlights) and he explained that if all goes well, they won't find eachother. He said that the daughter was about 12 months old, and at that point the mother has done her job and her daughter becomes competition. He told us that if the mother lives a normal life span, her daughter will end up stealing her territory (by killing her, I'm guessing). The whole nightwalk was really informative and interesting.
We're packing up right now and leaving for Fraser Island in the morning to spend a few nights camping on the beautiful, white sand beaches. After that we'll head down to Gold Coast, then Byron Bay, then Coffs Harbour, then back to Sydney. We're couchsurfing a lot, which has been a great experience so far.
I love and miss you all. Mom, send everyone my love and give Alice a kiss for me!
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I love you too Elisha! Hugs and kisses.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Alice
Dearest Goose,
ReplyDeleteGlad you're having fun and have thus far avoided being eaten by a kangaroo. Seasoned a traveler though you are, I thought you would take comfort in an update on some of the more unusual happenings here in the Northern Hemisphere since your departure:
1)A certain American league ball club headquartered on 161st Street in the Bronx signed Mark Teixeira. Hank and Hal Steinbrenner, the undistinguished sons of a distinguished man, committed $180 million to the covetted free agent. While the rest of MLB has spent about $402 million on 47 free agents this off-season, the Yankees have committed $423 million to three free agents. Well, you gotta keep up with the Rays.
2) I recently took the 4th (and, if I passed, final) section of the cpa exam. I'm a little embarassed that I devoted so much of my precious time to this rather dry pursuit. So I'm working on ways to turn it into a pick up line of some sort. Sadly, all my attempts thus far ("What do you say we go back to my place and work on those straddle positions...") seem to invite only confused looks or, worse, tax return questions.
3) Our friend B-Bop, after a successful run of work as a stone-mason, seems to have settled, for the moment, on his next travel plan: a several month surfing expedition to Morocco. I am not at all confident that I could locate Morocco on a map, though I'm told it is just slightly west of Get Me The Hell Out of Here. But what with the hand-outs he's receiving from a rather ulikely source (who knew the government bail outs included weekly payments for amateur surfers?) I'm sure he'll have quite a happy adventure.
3) Saving by far the best for last: To the joy of music lovers and chemically enhanced people everywhere, PHISH has announced they will play 10 shows this June, including one in Mansfield. If you're reading this, then presumably you have access to the internet, and you should go to http://phish.portals.musictoday.combefors January 17 to enter your name in the lottery for tickets. Perhaps some of your adoring fans who frequent this blog will even join the lottery themselves...ultimately resisting the temptation to sell the tickets for a tidy profit, and instead giving them to you as a returning-home present (that would be the flip side of a going-away present, if you're keeping score).
Anyway, enjoy Australia (don't drink the water). Pray, as always, for good health, good company, and the Boston Red Sox, and I'll talk to you a little bit later on.
Cheers,
Legs