Australia

Today, I'm working on a trip to one of my favorite countries, Australia!  I thought I'd also go ahead and blog about it since it was on my mind!

Sydney - we had a lot of fun here!  There is so much to see and do, we didn't have time to do it all. 

The Blue Mountain 4x4 tour was amazing.  We spent the day on this small tour with 2 other people and our driver, who grew up camping in this area.  We started with a stop at an area where the kangaroos gather.  It was really crazy how close we could get to these wild animals.  We then went to a little town and stopped at this famous huge candy store (yummy!) as well as a hotel that was built in the late 1800's.  We were then off to see the "3 sisters" rock formation as well as going to some beautiful areas that most tourists don't get to see.  We got some amazing photos here!

On the way back to our hotel, we went to a little zoo - the Zoo's here are so great - you can actually get in the enclosure with the 'roo's, wallaby's and many of the other animals.  You don't see that in the States very often!

A quick summary of the other things we did in Sydney - the Sydney Aquarium was really awesome!  We spent quite a while there looking at HUGE crabs, rays, sharks, and other exotic fish.  There was the Taronga Zoo, a short ferry ride from where we stayed, and of course we had to see the Opera House!  We did a private tour, dinner, and the show, "Carmen".  This was on Valentines Day, so it was quite romantic!  We had a Sydney Pass which has a hop on/hop off tour of the city, and that really helped us get to know our way around!

After Sydney, we went to Cairns (pronounced  like Cans).  I think this was our favorite place.  Kind of a small town, but big (like Norman!).  The town had lots of shops and restaurants that we could walk to and this is where you would be able to hit the Great Barrier Reef!  We spent a day on our tour to go snorkeling, and it was so awesome!

We also did a train/sky rail tour to Kuranda and the Aboriginal Cultural center.  This was REALLY fun - we took the train up in the morning to the village of Kuranda.  We got to see the country side and met some nice English women (who were not enjoying the 80 degree weather like we were!).  Once we got to the town, we had some lunch and walked around.  They have a butterfly sanctuary, a zoo, Koala gardens, and more.  Then we took the SkyRail town with stops in the rain forest.  The Aboriginal Cultural center is at the bottom and you can spend as much time there as you want.

Our last stop was in Brisbane.  This is one of the only places you can cuddle a Koala, so we had to stop here!  The town reminds me a bit of Denver - they have the "Queen Street Mall", which would be similar to the 16th St mall.  It was a fun town to walk around in. 
We didn't realize it, but this is where the Australia Zoo is located (run by Steve Irwin when we was alive).  We only had 1 tour booked for Brisbane when we arrive, which was a city tour and the Koala cuddle, so we were able to take a day to go to the Australia Zoo.  It really was an amazing Zoo, although Steve was in the states, so we didn't get to see him (he was still alive when we went).  After all the Zoo's we had already been to, you would think we would have been tired of them, but they are all so neat!

We had a good time in Brisbane, but it's probably our least favorite of all the stops.

When we go again, we for sure want to do Cairns again, that was our favorite!