http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/FosterGibbons/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from FosterGibbons en-us Sun, 27 Dec 2009 20:24:03 +0000 Sun, 27 Dec 2009 20:24:03 +0000 WE have been here for just over a week now and it has been so so brilliant The weather is beautiful the sea is turquoise the sand is white and we have met some great people at the place we are staying Rarotonga Backpackers Hopefully you will like the photos we have taken to try and give you an idea of the beauty here. Really sad to be leaving tonight at midnight catching a plane to LA http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Cook-Islands/Rarotonga/blog-200224.html Fiji.......It's hot.The people are extremely friendly.The beaches are beautiful.The water is crystal clear.It's pretty amazingWe've been here and ten days so far and we been on the move a bit. After a night in Nadi we got away from the town as quickly as possible. It's not the best of places. There's nothing to see and the town is hectic with lots of people trying their best to get us to part http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Fiji/Yasawa-Islands/blog-196358.html HEY everyone sorry its been a while You probably heard about the travelblog problemo though Well heres lots and lots of photos of the North Island just thought we'd get up to date before we fly to . . .. . FIJI TONIGHTCAMPERVANOh Yes We've gone and got ourselves another smelly campervan. Have to say bigger and better than the last one but the bed seems to be a c http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/blog-192603.html As you all probably noticed there was some pretty big problems with travelblog over the last few weeks. We had added several new blogs and the following day logged on to check them and the site wouldn't load. A few days later we found out that the new ones had been lost along with another 25 Nearly all of our Australia and NZ so far. It's fair to see the mood wasn't too chirpy that day An http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Picton/blog-192622.html Well it just feels like we are in a magical land of some kind. Everything sparkles and glistens all trees and roof tops are sprinkled with snow lots of sheep about cold but the sun is always shining. The cobwebs freeze over with frost and snow flakes making them look like sparkling diamante candy floss which reflects the beautiful sunlight from the bright sun in the big blue sky a hint of http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Milford-Sound/blog-184023.html After the All Blacks game our time in Christchurch was at an end time to hit the road With the help of our very friendly host in our Christchurch hostel we've conjured up a plan for the next few weeks. Taking us around as many of the highlights of the South Island as is possibly in the little time that we have. So here goes a little on what we've seen so far... GERALDINE I small town in the http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Dunedin/blog-184086.html The time came for us to leave Australia. We really had settled in well and were sad to be going. Even the weather tried it's best to stop us going heavy rain and thunderstorms made for a slight delay on the flight to Christchurch. But without to much delay we were off and looking down on a miserable looking Sydney as we took off into the skies. Things quickly improved luckily and we were soon i http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Christchurch/blog-182876.html Yeah so for Chris's birthday I bought him a Sydney Harbour Bridge climb which we did on his birthday at twilight so we could see the sun set from the top of the harbour bridge watch the whole of sydney gradually light up like it was decorated with fairy lights and the stars slowly come out and the opera house slowly light up. Oh yeah and fire works that were going off at an international ru http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/New-South-Wales/Sydney/blog-178573.html So it's probably about time we gave a bit of an update. Fraser Island seems ages ago now and we've certainly packed in a few stops since then We've also been sharing a lot of it with some of our Fraser Island group. We got on so well and it turned out that all except a few of us were going to be travelling back down to Sydney so we decided to keep in touch with each other along the way. NOO http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/New-South-Wales/Byron-Bay/blog-173130.html Well we booked a 3 day3 night trip sailing around the Whitsundays getting off and snorkelling around when ever they anchored up the boat. We met some great people on the boat and had a great time swimming with turtles stingrays sharks lots of colourful beautiful coral and hundreds of amazing fish. We stopped off at the Whithaven Beach on the first day it has the purest whitest finest http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/blog-170441.html So we had booked our Fraser Island tour at the same place we sorted out our Whitsundays trip we got a package deal type thing. After our sailing we opted for a few days rest in 1770 a really nice little town on the beach and it was well worth going to. After that we moved to Rainbow Beach and checked into the hostel that we were booked to stay for one night before the Fraser Island trip and http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Queensland/Fraser-Island/blog-170445.html 4 hours down the coast from Mission Beach and we'd arrived at Townsville. We noticed on the way through the town that there was hardly anyone to be seen the place was like a ghost town Anyway we weren't stopping but taking a short ferry ride over to Magnetic Island. A fairly small place 2000 people and about 7km from the south to the north of the island. We've been staying in a great place http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Queensland/Magnetic-Island/blog-163269.html We bought ourselves a Greyhound pass that takes us from Cairns to Sydney as we start the East Coast Run back to Sydney for our flights to NZ. Our first stop was Mission Beach partly because we thought I'd be a nice place to chill for a while and partly because we'd rather avoid any long and uncomfortable bus journeys if there's chance. And so what to say about Mission Beach..... well not a lot http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Queensland/Mission-Beach/blog-163262.html HEY. So we bought our own little camera pouch thing so that we can now take our great digital camera under the water only up to 5 metres but still better than hiring one every time we go on the reef it alllllllll adds up and take some really good pictures. This time we went with a different company that took us to two different locations. At the first stop we spotted including all of th http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Queensland/blog-163263.html Lakes Waterfalls and amazing scenerynbspAustralasia raquonbspAustralia raquonbspQueensland raquonbspAtherton Tablelands By FosterGibbonsMay 18th 2007Chris Caroline After our stay in the Rainforest we still had a few days left on our trusty campervan and were surprisingly BOTH really enjoying life on the road even in the back of a smelly sweaty fairly unreliable campervan. So w http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Queensland/Atherton-Tablelands/blog-159566.html So we got the scenic railway tour return trip to Kuranda up in the rainforest to meet lots of indigenous people and see lots of wildlife and beautiful scenic views on the journey up there. As you can see I had to put the Koala photos first as they are THE BEST They are such sweet things They just literally sit in your arms and snuggle you. I had to pay extra to hold it and have a profes http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Queensland/Cairns/Inn-The-Tropics/blog-156984.html MORE PHOTOSnbspAustralasia raquonbspAustralia raquonbspQueensland raquonbspCairns By FosterGibbonsMay 9th 2007Chris Carolinehello heres some more photos for you Of the Reef Melbourne and just for some smiles. . . . http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Queensland/Cairns/blog-156649.html WOW It was amazing guys. The coral the fish the clams the starfish the aneomes the colours it was beautiful amazing Unfortunately I was not allowed to Scuba Dive but it turned out you could actually see more just doing the snorkelling So all was not lost and I had a great time the most incredible time. the reef was so colourful and there were fish every direction I turned Chris d http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Queensland/Cairns/blog-156321.html Hoorah It is hot and sunny again we have been sunbathing all day and have also booked an all day snorkelling trip on the Barrier Reef for tomorrow I can not wait we are going to hire an underwater camera so we can take lots of photos of the beautiful coral and fishys that we are hoping to see. Have to be at the boat by 8.30am and we dont come back to shore until 5pm so we have lots of time http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Queensland/Cairns/blog-155995.html It's hard to believe that we've actually been in Melbourne for 3 months already. Time has flown and although we never really much in the way of work we've had such a good time. Anyway so this the last of our blogs before move on up to Cairns. Since our little getaway up the Great Ocean Road with been out and about quite a bit. For one the International Comedy Festival has just been on over Apri http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Victoria/Melbourne/CBD/blog-154581.html