The Great Barrier Reef

We hopped on an early cruise ship to a pontoon in the great barrier reef. The ship and experience was very different from the Whitsunday cruise from the day before. It was a hard sell - photo packs, helicopter tours and scuba diving lessons were pushed hard. They were even in chinese! There were also many more people on board so more of a battery hen experience. I know, first world problems. And we had to get up early!

The reef is actually many small reefs instead of just one big one. It was one of these which we sighted first as a light green band between the dark ocean blue and the horizon. The pontoon is just a few rooms and a deck in the middle of the reefs. There were also small pontoons for helicopter tours to land which was pretty cool.

We took a glass bottomed boat around the reef when we first arrived which wasn't  great. Half the time it pointed us out to sea the other half we were too far away from the reef. We figure that this is only for the surprisingly high number of people that don't snorkel. 

We ate a nice lunch then headed out for a guided snorkel that came with our package. The two staff with us were great but the parents of the young family along with us kept getting in front of us, kicking us in the face and the like. Not ideal, but the male guide with us took our go pro down free diving to look for 'finding nemo' fish which was good.

Snorkeling by ourselves in the designated areas was great. The reef is so imposing and colourful. Each pass over it you get to see different brightly coloured and patterned fish up close. 

The funniest moment was when we broke the surface, chatted about doing another pass of the reef, then kirren put her face down only to come back up shreiking because fish had swarmed around us whilst we'd been talking.

After an all too short hour snorkeling we got back on board just in time to see a turtle.

On the way back we saw the catamaran that we'd cruised the whitsunday islands in the day before and the weekly boat race just outside airlie beach.

Going walkabout in the outback (Alice Springs/Uluru/Kata Tjuta/King's Canyon)

These 5 days were action packed and seriously fast paced but absolutely amazing. 

We arrived into Alice Springs to the hottest weather we've experienced yet- 38 degrees and forecast to be hotter during our tour! We thought we had better try and get acclimatised quickly so had a wander around the 'city'. Alice Springs was the smallest place we had seen in a long time and we managed to wander around the main bits in an afternoon! We had fun making new friends at the reptile centre:

The next morning we were up bright and early to meet our tour group to see Uluru (Ayer's Rock), Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) and King's Canyon. The journey to Uluru took about 6 hours so we were very relieved to finally arrive at the campsite! After a quick lunch we headed to the rock. We've seen a fair few rocks during our travels but it really was stunning. The sheer size of it and the depth and breadth of colours mesmerised us as we took a guided walk around it's base. Our your guide was really good and gave us lots of information about the significance of different parts of the rock to the Aboriginal community, what the cave paintings meant and the different flora and fauna around. 

We watched the sunset over outback and then headed back to camp for some bush tucker (BBQ!). 

This was when we found out the extent of our accommodation overnight - we knew we would be sleeping in swag rolls (big sleeping bags) but had assumed we would be in tents. How wrong we were! Turned out we would be sleeping under the stars for the next 2 nights (or rather would have been if it wasn't so cloudy!). Our guide instructed us on how to avoid letting snakes into our swags and preventing the dingos from eating our trainers and then bid us good night! Needless to say most of us found it difficult to sleep that night (except Andy who was asleep as soon as his head hit his makeshift pillow!)! The other thing that didn't help our sleep was the sandstorm that kicked up followed by a thunderstorm and heavy rain! We pulled a kind of hood over our heads to protect us from the sand and I managed to fall asleep again finally. Unfortunately due to the heat I hadn't zipped up my swag so woke up rather wet once I realised it was raining! I found out later that it had been raining for about 45 minutes before I even realised! Needless to say we were all actually quite glad that our wake up call was at 4am to watch the sun rise over Uluru!

The sunrise again was pretty cool to see but I don't think we got the full impact of it as it was still cloudy and raining. Our guide assured us that our photos would at least be different to everyone else's as it didn't normally rain there!

The clouds finally started to clear as we began our hike through Kata Tjuta, some equally impressive rock formations near Uluru. 

It was a beautiful hike with fantastic views, but after about 3 hours of hiking in clear blue skies we were all baked and exhausted. This combined with about 2 hours of sleep the night before led to the majority of sleeping some of the 4 hour journey to King's Canyon. I probably would have slept more on the journey if our guide (who was driving us after probably only a couple of hours sleep as well) hadn't mentioned that we were going along the most dangerous road in Australia (due to wild horses and camels just appearing on the road) and the fact that there was a tremendous thunderstorm whilst we were driving! Our guide took pity on us for the 2nd night and wangled us some tents for the night as it looked likely to rain again. We had never been so happy to be able to sleep spider/snake/dingo/rain-free!

For our last day we hiked 6.5km through King's Canyon. Again this walk was stunning with amazing views and lots of interesting fauna and flora. Our guide taught us about the specific plants used to make spears and boomerangs as well as those used as antiseptic 'bush band aids' and sun screen. 

Once we arrived back in Alice Springs we were extremely grateful for proper showers and beds (even if they were dorms!) and decided to reward ourselves with a few beers. 

Although the rain and grey definitely helped it to feel a bit more like home, this was a run up to Christmas like no other and we'll have some fantastic memories of it.

A little taste of paradise (AKA The Whitsunday Islands)

Due to our limited time, we did a one day sailing cruise around the Whitsundays. We boarded a beautiful purple catamaran called Camira and sailed between a few of the Islands all day. We stopped for our first taste of snorkelling in Australia, and also had an afternoon on Whitehaven Beach which is Australia's #1 beach. 

I'll keep this post short and sweet as the pictures are definitely more interesting that anything I'd have to say! To summarise: this is a place that we are definitely coming back to one day.

Byron Bay

We arrived in Brisbane to meet up with a few friends from home - Natalie Kenny (friend and neighbour from Dubai) and Dangerous Dave Dean (aka Dave Crab thanks to autocorrect...). We battled horrendous thunderstorms that evening in order to have a whistle stop tour of Brisbane and dinner with a group of Nat's friends. 

The next morning, after a hearty breakfast, we set off for Byron Bay, 2 hours south of Brisbane. As Byron is known for its hippy lifestyle and surfing we were sincerely hoping the forecasted thunderstorms would hold off! We checked into our lovely holiday home and then decided to check out what Byron had to offer in terms of nightlife. The recommended bar in town 'Cheeky Monkeys' turned out to be full of school leavers - not quite our scene! However we did learn about some of Australia's drinking rules eg no drinking on the roads, no shots in bars in Byron and the bat closed at 1am - this led to Andy's quote of the trip 'Australia is a no fun zone!'

The next day we nursed our hangovers by heading to the beach, and what a gorgeous beach it was! Soft white sand, clear blue waters and once the clouds shifted a beautiful sunny sky! However that sun turned out to be our downfall as we hadn't realised just how strong the Australian sun was, and we both got horrendously burnt! I didn't even know I could get burnt! We definitely learned our lesson and have been applying sunscreen ever since! 

We also visited a lighthouse in Cape Byron that evening and got there just in time for sunset. The views were absolutely incredible.

For our final day in Byron Bay we tried our hands at surfing! It was so much fun! Andy actually became pretty good at it and could surf into shore pretty well on his own. I made it to my feet once (and stood for long enough to shout for Andy to witness it!) and didn't drown so I considered it a successful day! After a couple of hours, we were all exhausted and aching, so went for a refreshing swim in a lake full of tea tree oil before heading back. 

The next day we headed back to Brisbane after a slight detour to Australia Zoo, a zoo founded and run by Steve Irwin (the crocodile hunter) and his family. We had an amazing time there! Highlights included feeding kangaroos, petting koalas and watching the crocodiles being fed!

We had a fab few days catching up with our friends and relaxing on the beach. Next stop - Fraser Island, Whitsunday Islands and Great Barrier Reef!