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Published: April 4th 2011
I've got some catching up to do on this blog! We've been without free internet for the last few days, so this will be a long one. 😊
Our time in Australia definitely had its ups and downs. We chose to take a harbor cruise over to the Sydney Zoo on Friday and spent a good 3 hours there. What a great zoo! We saw just about everything from elephants to giraffes to a duck billed platypus, my personal favorite. The weather was pretty good, mostly cloudy but warm, which was nice. Friday night Jonathan was able to get a few great shots of the Oprah House and the city itself. We checked out of our hotel on Saturday morning to catch an early flight to Mackay. Our plan there was to enjoy the sun and water, go snorkeling and for Jonathan to do some diving. We took a boat ride to Whitsunday Island so we could experience the Great Barrier Reef. The weather was pretty awful, rainy and windy, which lead to some pretty rough waters on our way out to the island. The swells were about 30 feet most of the way out. Thank goodness for sea sickness medicine! Jonathan and I did pretty well on the way in and out, but unfortunately there were quite a few people who weren't as lucky. It made for a long boat ride! However, once we arrived at the island, the rain had stopped! So, Jonathan suited up to do diving, and I decided to hang out on the "sun" deck. Jonathan had a great time underwater and even though the water was murky, he was able to see tons of fish and coral. I enjoyed my 20 minutes up on the sun deck, not thinking that I would have to worry about getting burned. It was cloudy after all. 😊 Note to self, wear sun screen even when it's cloudy.
After Jonathan's dive, we took a submarine down below to see more fish and more coral. It was beautiful! The whole trip lasted most of the day, leaving at 7:30am and getting back to land around 5:30. We headed back to Mackay that night so we could be ready for our 6am flight on monday heading out to Hong Kong. We picked the cheapest hotel we could find by the airport and arrived around 8:30pm. The hotel was a bit scary, but it served its purpose!
After a long day of travel, we made it to our hotel here in HK around 9:00pm Monday night. The plane ride from Mackay to Cairns and then to Hong Kong was incredible. We each had our own individual seat that fully reclined. There were privacy walls as well as great food and incredible service. Even after being on the plane for 6 or 7 hours (?), I wasn't ready to leave! Hopefully we will have a similar plane on our flight to Finland and then to London. Fingers crossed!
We're not sure what the plan is for tomorrow, but we do want to go to one of the temples here as well as do some other exploring. Our flight doesn't leave Hong Kong until 10 tomorrow night, so we have all day to play and have fun.
Good night!!
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Becky Mills
non-member comment
big Buddha
Not sure how much time you have there. It is a long and sort of scary trip, but there is a ginormous Buddha in HK that is pretty cool. If you are looking for something to do. That's all :-) Really enjoying the blog! Thanks for sharing your journey!