Thailand Continued (Part 2)... After all the pool, beach, and diving time, we headed north to Chiang Mai to enjoy some 'real' Thai culture and see the jungles. On our way north we picked up our good friend Shaun who we know from Sydney (he's now living and working in Hong Kong) and the three of us landed at the Chiang Mai Airport, where we were met by our Cornell friend, Josh Plotnik. Josh has been living in Northern Thailand for about a year and a half studying cooperative behaviour in Asian elephants for his PhD thesis. He was excited to [View Full Entry]

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Welcome to Asia! We finally made it out of Oceania for a 12 day trip Thailand. We did a lot in 12 days, and took A LOT of photos, so we had to split this blog into three parts: 1. Phuket - 4 days at the beach with Heidi's best friend Melissa and three other friends from NY; 2. Northern Thailand - Almost a week visiting elephants in the jungle with our friends Josh and Shaun; 3. Bangkok - a quick tour of the city during our 18 hour layover. So - Phuket! One of the main reasons we planned our [View Full Entry]

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Happy Easter! As always, we're a little behind on our blogging, but better late than never... Since Easter is a 4 day weekend here in Australia, we decided to take advantage of the free vacation time and head up to the Far North Queensland and finally see the tropics. We flew into Townsville on a Friday morning and over 4 days made our way up the coast, stopping along the way at Magnetic Island, Mission Beach, Cairns, Newell Beach, and the Daintree Rainforest. It was a spectacular trip, and we only wish we had more than 4 days to see it [View Full Entry]

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Welcome to South Australia! (a new Australian state for the travel blog) The last leg of our visit by the Harpers was a spectacular finale and finished off the coast of Adelaide on Kangaroo Island. This relatively unspoilt terrain (about a third of the island is national parklands) is Australia's third largest island and is full of wildlife and impressive land formations and views. Although the island can be reached by ferry, we decided that we would have more time to spend exploring the island if we flew there and the airplane ride from Adelaide turned into an experience in itself [View Full Entry]

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It is considered one of the top scenic drives in the world and we had heard it compared to the Pacific Highway along the coast of California before we embarked. With all the hype we had high expectations to say the least, but it lived up to them and more as we drove along the southern coast of Australia from Melbourne heading towards Adelaide. We headed out in our mini-van and had a leisurely breakfast on the coast in Torquay and an afternoon swim in Lorne. Keep in mind that as we started this journey the media was calling the weather [View Full Entry]

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Hello all, After an excruciating 3 weeks back at work following our trips with the Barnes', we were saved by the arrival of the Harper family where a whole new adventure began and another week on vacation. We started in Sydney showing everyone around our digs and had a great evening out that started out with a picnic in the botanical gardens with fresh seafood from the Sydney Fish Markets and finished with an outdoor movie with a screen that emerges out of the harbour water with an incredible backdrop consisting of the Sydney skyline, the opera house, and the harbour [View Full Entry]

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After 90-95 degree in the Whitsundays, we were in for a surprise when we landed in Tasmania. Wearing shorts, tanks, and flip-flops, we were met in Launceston by 60 degree temperatures! Launceston is in Northern Tasmania, about 3 hours north of Hobart (the biggest city). We arrived late to Tasmania, and after 5 nights on a boat, we were all excited to have a good night sleep in a stationary bed. Getting up bright and early the next morning, we set out on our drive west out to Cradle Mountain National Park. From what we saw, Tasmania is mostly countryside. We [View Full Entry]

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Our first Christmas in Australia - and what better way to spend it than travelling around the country with family and friends! On December 21 the Barnes family (and Heidi's friend Sme) descended on Sydney to start off their two week whirlwind Australia tour. After 3 days getting over the jet-lag in Sydney, our group of 8 boarded a plane to Hamilton Island. Hamilton Island is part of the Whitsunday group of islands on the middle barrier reef in northern Queensland. The Whitsundays are a fairly consolidated group of islands so, if you have a boat, its easy to travel between [View Full Entry]

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Hello Everyone! Today we take you to the underworld of Australia and the Blue Mountains with our visit to the famous Jenolan Caves. Heidi and I have wanted to visit this network of caves for a while and with one of our friends on vacation and us left to car-sit his ford falcon, we headed up to the Blue Mountains for a day of spelunking. We decided to take two different tours during our day trip, the Lucas cave (1st section of pictures) and the Orient Cave (second set of pictures after the above ground photos in the middle). There are [View Full Entry]

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Happy 2009! New Years Resolution #22: Write more blogs (and catch up with all the old ones that still have been written) We've gone missing for a while, but only because we've had so many visitors in the past two months that there hasn't been time for Blog writing. Before we get to the blogs on our holiday travelling with the Barnes family, we feel the need to do some catching up: So, what is the ACT? No, not the 'act', but the 'A' 'C' 'T'? Well, it stands or the Australian Capital Territory, and is the equivalent of our Washington [View Full Entry]

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