3-8-12

Woke up to heavy rain and it continued to pour all morning. We kinda liked it since 99% of our days in Australia have been sunny.

So we hung out at the house with Martin (Ruth was at work and the boys at school), did some laundry and admired our feathered friends in their bird sanctuary:
Cathy the Cockatoo and...

Larry the Lorakeet. 

We ventured out for a little shopping. Bob and I bought this blue glass bottle. Martin and Ruth have one just like it and we saw them at all the restaurants (used to serve water). Glad we found one to take home with us!

Around noon the rain cleared and Martin took us sightseeing.

We visited a couple city beaches.

Another beautiful afternoon!

Kinda like using the fish eye lens sometimes.

Fun effect on this pic.

On the far left is Bondi Beach where the Olympic volleyball was held.

Big waves today!

All this touring made us hungry and Martin had the perfect place in mind.

The Sydney Fish Market!

The market was enormous. Fish everywhere and we had a hard time choosing.

I didn't pick this fish. Didn't like the way he was looking at me.

Bob and Martin ate fish & chips, fried calamari, fish sticks, crab sticks, and shrimp. I had 6 oysters, a whole eel (I love eel!), seaweed salad plus bread and butter.

We ate on the pier and left incredibly stuffed!

This strange bird and the seagulls joined us.

Around 5 Martin dropped us off at our hotel; The Holiday Inn, downtown Sydney. Thanks to Bob's travel points we're staying here our last two nights. Ruth, Martin, Adrian and Daniel will also be staying here tomorrow night!

This is the pool on top of the hotel. Views of the city, Harbor Bridge and the Opera House. Loving it!

 We also had a view of the Queen Mary 2 which docked for two nights in Sydney Harbor. The Queen Mary 2 is beyond enormous. It's hard to imagine until you see it in person.

We walked down to the harbor to get a closer look.

Here's the Queen Mary as it pulled out of Sydney. It was a thrilling event that brought hundreds of spectators out to watch. When the horn blew it sent chills through your chest as it echoed through the harbor.

A fun day with Martin and a good night in the city!

3-7-12

Morning sunrise from our room.

Airlie Beach Lagoon; a great local park with a terrific swimming pool. We enjoyed swimming laps in the rain there this morning.

Walked around town before leaving for Proserpine Airport.

We're going to miss Airlie Beach and...

the islands in The Whitsundays.

We're going to miss all the activity around town and...

the view from our room.
It was a wonderful 5 days here with terrific weather and daily adventures!

We also liked returning to Sydney to see our friends again! Martin and Adrian picked us up from the airport at 6:30pm. We talked all evening about our travels to Tasmania and the Great Barrier Reef while enjoying a delicious dinner of steak, prawns and octopus. Thanks again, Martin & Ruth!

We got to tour Martin's workshop that is in the process of being finished. He built the whole building! It sits right outside their house and is a handy place for Martin to do his work.

Martin is extremely talented in many things and wood working is one of his trades. He built this cool table that sits in their living room. It serves as a sitting bench too. He also made their dining room table that you can sorta see in this photo.

He designed their whole kitchen and made all the cabinets. Ruth and Martin have been in their home for over 20 years and did some major remodeling when they first moved in (removing walls, re-doing the whole bathroom, tile floors, etc). It is just beautiful - great job, Martin! Now could you fly to Arizona and help us with our house!

Martin also makes jewelery. Here are a few of the stones he has found that he can use to make into rings, earrings, bracelets or necklaces.

We didn't get the chance to go gold panning with Martin, Ruth, Adrian and Daniel. But we got to hear about their outings and see the gold that they have collected from all their efforts. Here is their stash of gold being displayed in a 5 gallon bucket (wink, wink).

We are down to our last 3 nights in Australia. :-(

3-6-12

Great Barrier Reef Day!

Today we took a 2 hour cruise on the Coral Sea and into the heart the Great Barrier Reef.

Here's our first sight of Reef World, a semi-permanent pontoon set up at Hook Reef for all the visiting snorkelers.

Expansive reef under crystal clear waters.

The cliff off the inner edge of the reef.

We transferred from our ferry onto FantaSea's pontoon where we had access to snorkeling equipment, submarine, slide, showers, and an underwater viewing chamber. FantaSea served us a yummy lunch buffet too!

Dressed in our designer stinger suits. It's jelly fish season and we saw quite a few.

We looked like Telletubbies! But so did everyone else. :-)

Let's go snorkeling!

With warm water it was easy to spend a lot of time exploring underwater.

We didn't have an underwater camera but we did have an exciting snorkeling experience! We saw a lot of interesting coral that goes on forever and particularly liked the clams that are small and huge (one that we could fit inside). We swam with a wide variety of colorful fish and a sea turtle! Turtles are special to find since they are rare. We watched him eat from the coral for at least a 1/2 hour.  Then as a bonus...Bob spotted a shark!!! We were startled, a bit unsettled, but excited to see him swim by us looking for some fish dinner. Apparently it was a reef shark and not interested in us, thank goodness. The Fantasea staff said we were quite lucky to see a shark. Yeah!

On the pontoon for lunch. What a beautiful day we had to experience the reef!

2 thumbs up for our snorkeling fun!

Back on the ferry to head for shore.

This was the calmness of the day. Glass waters on the ocean. Wow!

The captain said he hadn't seen a day this perfect for a long time.

Fantastic!