I bought a little too much wine to drink in the two days before I head home so I've been having wine with breakfast lunch and supper. It's hard to pair wine with cereal! Actually I am leaving for the airport in a couple of hours and Nick and I have been busy packing and clearing his house out because he is moving out on Friday. Yesterday we went and watched 'Australia' the movie on opening night in a gold class viewing room. The gold class movie experience cannot be beat. We had an entire cinema screen for 32 people total [View Full Entry]

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Finally, I’m going on the wine tour that I have been anticipating for weeks. Our day begins at 9:00am when our tour guide Peter picks us up in front of Nick’s place. There are two young English people already in the van and with the addition of Nick and I; we had our group for the day. It is always nice to have a small group because you get more personalized service at the wineries…and we got just that. As we headed for the sub-tropical hills of Tamborine Mountain Peter explained how he and his wife had started their wine tour [View Full Entry]

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Sydney Okay, so Sydney is really beautiful. When we flew over the city it was all sky scrapers and water. This huge city has water everywhere and the extent of the urban sprawl outward from the city centre was astonishing. We visited the Opera House, Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Aquarium in the morning when we arrived. I took so many pictures and even a few videos at the aquarium, so I’ll let those speak to you however they may. Later in the day, we made our way to the Grand Swiss Resort and Spa where we had accommodations. The [View Full Entry]

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Okay, so I’m a little behind on my blogging but I’m going to make up for it right now. I might not go into excruciating detail about everything we’ve done since my last post, but I’ll make sure to highlight the salient points. Fishing in Cairns was a really interesting experience. We went river fishing with our, shall I say… rustic looking guide? His name was Darryl and he had more pornography on his mobile phone than any human being should ever have. He actually ran out of memory and was complaining about it on the boat. The name of the [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Sydney today and I saw the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. They were both very beautiful and I took many pictures but can't post them from the computer I am using to type this message. I will post them as soon as possible. We visited an aquarium today and I saw Sharks, so I was so happy. They look so menacing and dangerous but they move incredibly gracefully in the water, they just circle the tank over and over again. Nick and i spent some time on Bondi beach today and it may be the only [View Full Entry]

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“The Great Barrier Reef” It has long been a dream of mine to visit the Great Barrier Reef. Watching programs on the discovery channel and various documentaries has sparked a deep interest in this underwater city of biological diversity. November 19th, 2008 will forever be etched in my memory as the day that I dove below the surface of the Ocean and swam alongside this ancient and sacred Mecca for marine enthusiasts. At 8:00am Nick and I boarded the ‘Tusa T5’ which is an ultra modern, 24meter catamaran. It takes a maximum of 60 passengers and features a sun deck, [View Full Entry]

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‘Raging Thunder’ When we booked the white water rafting trip we had the option of regular or EXTREME…it didn’t take long to make the decision. We were picked up from the hostel at 6:30am and driven by bus into the hills towards the Tully River which was actually used to film a scene from Jurassic Park; how awesome is that? It was about a 1.5hr drive to get to the destination and much of it was up a very narrow, windy road through the hillside. Along the way we saw signs that warning of crocodiles and the guide informed us that [View Full Entry]

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Nick and I arrived in Cairns yesterday at 9:00am on a Qantas flight. Getting off of the aircraft we immediately noticed the intense humidity, Cairns is known as one of the most humid places in Australia. At 9:00am it was already 30C and we drenched with sweat before we could even take our shirts off. We were picked up from the airport and shuttled to our hostel which is called NJoy. It is pretty nice and has a swimming pool and pool table among other things. At $35.00 dollars a night for a room with a fridge, air conditioning (everything in [View Full Entry]

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I’m writing this entry in an exhausted state because I have just spent the past 9 Hrs on a boat in the ocean fighting waves and fighting fish. The trip was a lot of fun and I can now say that I have caught fish in the Pacific Ocean. It was not a good day for fishing however I was able to catch several fish including a snapper and a Jew fish. I cleaned the Jew fish and prepared it with a light breading and some lemon and orange zest. There were no leftovers, so it couldn’t have been so bad. [View Full Entry]

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I guess you were expecting to hear about my fishing trip but unfortunately it was cancelled due to high winds. This is the second time that I have had a trip cancelled for this reason. I was a little disappointed but did not let it ruin my day. Instead of fishing, I went to one of the local noodle bars and ordered the Mee Gee Seafood box which was incredibly delicious. It had prawns, tofu, squid, scallops and peppers with a very unique and tangy sauce covering the thick hokkien noodles. There was a wine store not too far away so [View Full Entry]

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