Ben & Emily XX
Tuesday, 22 July 2008
NEXT STOP JAPAN...
Just a quick update to let y'all know that we're flying to Tokyo tomorrow morning. We arrive in the evening just in time to meet Simon off his flight from the UK. The next day we'll be heading to the FujiRock Festival, where we'll be incommunicado for at least 4 days. In fact, there probably won't be another update on here for the 2 weeks we'll be with Simon in Japan. So til the next time, we hope you're all well and enjoying the blog!
CROCODILES & KANGAROOS
Another very different part of Australia - we were hoping for hot, sunny, tropical weather but of course it's the Aussie winter... so we had 3 days of grey skies, rain and wind, but at least it wasn't cold! Cairns is a small city in the north east and now mainly caters for the tourist industry, offering many trips to nearby islands, the surrounding rainforest, diving on the reef, skydiving, bungee jumping, etc, etc. The city itself, although without much character, has a nice tropical feel to it with plenty of good restaurants & bars and many parrots & flying foxes flying overhead.
Day 1 was spent sussing out the various excursions available and we eventually plumped for a 2 day combo deal which took us snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef on Day 2 and then up to Cape Tribulation and the rainforest in Daintree, feeding roos and hunting for crocs, on Day 3. All good, but probably better in bright sunlight and as with everything in Oz it cost a small fortune!
The world's largest reef was beautiful, even under cloudy skies, and we were able to see all kinds of weird, wonderful & colourful marine life. The water was freezing though! Sorry, no pics as the light was very poor that day. And we finally saw some real live kangaroos, albeit in a wildlife sanctuary - it was great to get up close and personal with them. And we saw many other amazing native wildlife, but sadly no koalas! We'll have to save them for our next trip down under.
All in all, our whistle stop tour of Australia has been a great and varied taste of what this huge country has to offer - we look forward to returning one day to explore further (once we've won the lottery).
Monday, 21 July 2008
IT'S ONLY ROCK N STROLL, BUT WE LIKE IT (Sorry!)
After a short flight we found ourselves in a very different environment - from metropolis to outback. It was good to get away from the city again, albeit in a huge resort in the middle of the desert which held us all to ransom with phenomenal costs for everything! Having recovered from the initial shock, we resigned ourselves to the fact that the next 3 days would cost us a fortune - in fact, Emily's credit card was so exhausted it disappeared altogether, never to be found again...
Over our 3 days at Ayers Rock (or 'Uluru', to use its Aboriginal name), we walked the 10km base walk around the rock, we watched the sunrise, the sunset and the moonlit sky over the rock. It's fair to say we saw the rock in all its colours and from every angle and distance (including from the plane on to Cairns and even from the back of a camel). The landscape really is awe-inspiring and we can understand why it remains such a sacred place. We also went to the rocks of Kata Tjuta (which means 'many heads') nearby. The 10km walk at Valley Of The Winds takes you through the rocks themselves and in many ways was even more spectacular than the more famous Uluru walk.
Even though we were completely blown away by the outback and the colossal red rocks, we were glad to move on from our Aussie Butlins/prison camp-style accommodation!
Sunday, 20 July 2008
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