Here in Australia, apparently size does matter.... Not only do australians have an affinity for big landscapes, big beers, and big people (recently ranked the #1 fattest nation in the world), but they also love making larger-than-life road side replica's of the things dearest to them - like koalas, bananas, lobsters, and even macadamia nuts. You could spend your whole life touring the country looking for these 'impressive' road-side attractions, and we were lucky enough to happen upon our first big thing a few weeks ago, on a weekend road trip. Taking advantage of the fact that we had a [View Full Entry]

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Hi Everyone! We know it has been a while, but we are trying to quickly catch up on the blogging - its getting to be summer and we've been getting lazy with writing and promise to get better. So at the beginning of September Heidi got a new work assignment in Melbourne. Luckily enough it worked out that she had to be there on a Friday and a Monday for meetings, and it turned out to be cheaper for her to stay for the weekend than pay for another round trip flight. SO - free weekend in Melbourne! Matt flew down [View Full Entry]

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Well, we're back in action to give you the exciting second edition to our whirlwind trip around the South Island of New Zealand. If you were able to make it through our lengthy "Part 1" to this story, you should be able to pick it right back up below as we leave Te Anau and head a couple hours North-East to Queenstown... Queenstown's an active town and is known for it's skiing during the winter and extreme sports and activities year-round. It was one of the busiest areas we visited due to it being in the middle of the ski season. [View Full Entry]

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G'day! Apologies for being a bit behind on our blogging - we've been too busy travelling, working, moving apartments, and admittedly a bit lazy. But don't fret - we're back and we have lots to report! Some exciting news - at the end of July Matt's company decided to officially sponsor him for his long-term work visa. As good as that is, what was even more exciting was that in order to apply for the visa, he had to leave the country. SO, we were "forced" to take a vacation on somewhat short notice - and NZ is the closest international [View Full Entry]

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Welcome back sports fans! I come to you with another exciting sporting event that is unique to Australia. The sport, which is most popular in Melbourne, is best described as a form of rugby where the ball is advanced either by kicking to teammates, punching the ball from your own hand, or running with it while you bounce it on the ground every so often. There is a lot of running involved and the players are much smaller than the traditional rugby players. Points are scored by kicking the ball through a set of 4 uprights at your opponents end of [View Full Entry]

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Hey Footy Fans! We write to you today about our first rugby game... and what a game it was. Every year during the Rugby League season there is a State of Origin series between New South Whales and Queensland. We soon realized that these are 3 of the biggest and most important games of the season as the best players are hand chosen from the entire league to represent the team from where they grew up. Each year the two teams alternate who gets to have two home games and this year NSW had games 1 and 3. NSW dominated game [View Full Entry]

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Just a quick entry about a really great art exhibit we went to here in Sydney. The Sydney Biennale is an International Contemporary Art exhibit that goes on every other year (hence the name). This year, the art show took over a place called Cockatoo Island, which is in the middle of Sydney Harbor. The island itself is really fascinating - it was originally built as a prison way back when, and then converted into a "industrial school for wayward girls" and then a shipyard during World War 1&2. Its basically a bunch of old industrial wharehouses and shipyards filled with [View Full Entry]

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This walk/hike is an extension of our earlier walk from Bradley's Head to Balmoral. You can actually walk in a complete circle around the Sydney Harbor and up and down the norh and south coast line - which is what we are doing in small sections. The Spit is a short 10 minute bus ride from our place in Neutral Bay, and you can walk along the coastline for the next 8K all the way up to Manly Beach (a very popular syndey surfing spot). Anninka and Heidi started walking around at around 11 - Matt was a little under the [View Full Entry]

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June 9th is an Australian holiday recognizing the Queen's Birthday - We aren't actually sure of the significance, since her real birthday seems to be in April, but regardless, it means that it's a three day weekend. To take full advantage of the Royal weekend, we decided to take off an additional two days for our first extensive vacation. We flew on Friday morning from Sydney to Coolangatta Airport, which is in Queensland's Gold Coast (Very South Shore of Queensland bordering New South Wales). From Coolangatta we drove north heading towards Surfers Paradise, Broad Beach, and Mainbeach, [View Full Entry]

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We are constantly impressed with the amount of parks, beaches, and "bushwalks" that are easily accesbile from Sydney. This particular hike was in the Royal National Park which is about an hour train ride south of Sydney. Similar to our Blue Mountain walk, we hopped on the train in the morning and rode to the town of Waterfall. Once off the train, all we had to do was walk across the street, and we were at one of the Park's trailheads. We took a section of the trail that led north through the Park to the Uloola Falls. After the falls [View Full Entry]

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