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Published: August 10th 2006
Whitehaven Beach
A little slice of paradiseHi again guys,
Back on the road again and homeward bound but not too fast! We are taking our time and savouring every day.
We were both a little sad to leave Melbourne because we had such a wonderful time there but its great to be travelling again. Our first stop was Sydney to take in the harbour and the surrounding beaches. Took in the Opera house, the harbour bridge and took a cruise around the harbour to Manly beach. It must be great having the beaches so close to the city, makes it easy to escape.
From there we flew to Cairns and rented a campervan for the drive back to Sydney. We kept to the east coast and saw some beautiful beach towns. Cape Tribulation just north of Cairns is gorgeous, the rainforest comes right down to meet the beach.
We went sailing around the Whitsunday Islands for 3 days after that, they are part of the Great barrier reef and all I can say is the pictures and posters just about do it justice. It is a magnificent part of the world, a little slice of paradise! The weather was a little mixed but
Colin "surfing"
Honest, I was actually standing on the board! we had a great time and had our first ever scuba-dive off the great barrier reef. It was beautiful, the colours under the water are so vivid and the fish swim right by your head. We spent an unbelievable afternoon on Whitehaven beach which is one of the most beautiful in the world (apparently, and its hard to disagree, see above) 15 of us had the beach to ourselves for the whole afternoon, only in Australia are beaches so beautiful virtually empty!
We spent a day whale watching in Hervey Bay after that. Humpback whales on their southern migration come into the bay and the come right up to the boats, its amazing. They were pretty quiet for most of the day but one of them breeched and splashed about just before we left them.
Took Paul's advice Annike and stopped in Noosa for a surf! The picture tells only half the story, I did manage to catch a few waves! It was great, got a lesson for a few hours which helped a lot, hopefully less falling of the board when I get home!!
Our last stop in Australia was a few days in the Blue
On the slopes
Check me out! Mountains outside Sydney. Another stunning place with spectacular views but it was pretty cold up there in our little camper van!
We are now in the South Island of New Zealand, and have had an action packed week. We went skiing for a couple of days on The Remarkables resort near Queenstown. The sky was blue and the sun was shining. The first day was spent learning the basics and staying on the flat slope. The following day and one more lesson later we went up the mountain in the chair-lift and had a ball skiing and falling on our asses!
Onto Fox Glacier then and we went trekking on a glacier!!!! Where else in the world would you get to do that!! The glacier runs right down into the rain forest! Its truely crazy.
And if that wasn't exciting enough we decided we wanted to scare ourself's sh*tless and jump out of a plane at 12,000ft. We booked it and then tried to not think about it, but it was brilliant. We jumped out right over the glacier we just trekked. The view was amazing! We could see the glacier, the rain-forest, a river, snow capped mountains
Glacier walking
A 23km long block of ice 200m thick - cold! and the ocean! New Zealand is just such a beautiful country!
We are heading to the North Island (Middle Earth country!) now for a week or so and looking forward to it. Hope you're all well and be seeing you real soon!!
Colin & Gemma
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Sarah Vallance
non-member comment
Good To Hear From You
im glad your having such a great time it sounds as though you are really havin a ball. Well take care and enjoy the rest of your travelling.