Spring Break...Australia

I am back in my happy place - sitting at San Francisco Coffee and blogging. I feel like it's been forever since my fingers have tapped away on the keyboard. Today's blog is dedicated to our trip to Australia for spring break. What a great trip! I think we all just loved it! It was a bit like visiting home, but not exactly! You immediately felt comfortable, but the accents were just different enough to make it feel like vacation - if that makes sense.

 

Anyways...our trip was to Brisbane and Sydney. We spent several days in Brisbane visiting our friends, the Stannards. (They moved from KL to Brisbane in January.) They graciously let us stay at their place - which was so nice. Nothing better than staying with friends. And they rolled out the red carpet for us - including light beer for me! Score!

 

Friday was our first full day in Brisbane and had us visiting the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. I have to admit that this was my pick for the trip! It is only in Queensland that you can actually HOLD a koala bear...and this was the only thing I wanted out of the entire trip! (Yes, I wanted to visit my friends, but of the quintessential "Aussie" things to do - holding a koala bear was tops on my list!)  And, while I thought the kids may be getting a little "old" for the whole feed the animals, see the animals thing - they LOVED it!

 

Grayson and a wallaby, kangaroo, and emu

Ah, koalas! The little bugger scratched me, but wish fulfilled!

Feeding the 'roos and wallabies

 

We decided that koalas are kind of like hungover college students on a Sunday morning - very sluggish, just hanging out, moving real slow.

 

Caleb and his koala

Grayson and his koala

Tasmanian Devil

We learned that large portions of the Tasmanian Devil population have been wiped out due to a cancer that is transferred via their saliva. (Grayson really liked these guys for some reason!)

More Koalas

There's about a million pictures of them on my camera

Caleb with wallabies, emus, and kangaroos

Posing with the sign showing the distances to KL and New York!

 

 

After a morning at Lone Pine, we went to Mt. Coot-tha to grab lunch and see the view of Brisbane. Great view and perfect lunch just sitting outside.

Lunch with Jim and Shannon

 

View of Brisbane

 

The afternoon had us returning to the Stannards so we could hang at the pool when their kiddos were done at school. It was a tough day, but we somehow managed.

Hanging at the pool

 

 

We spent Friday night in Brisbane. Dinner at a great little Mexican restaurant and then up in the ferris wheel to get a view of the Brisbane at night!

The Ferris Wheel

Ice Cream for the kids and margarita towers for the adults - sounds fair!

 

 

Saturday was a full day at MovieWorld in the Gold Coast. I've got one kiddo that loves the coasters (and thankfully, was tall enough for them all!) and one who is terrified. This worked out well as Abbey is not keen on the coasters - and hung out with Grayson, while Caden and Caleb could hit the coasters.

Grayson and Abbey and all the many coasters

Posing with some superheroes

Blaine with all the FEMALE superheroes and characters. This became the standing joke for the day that these were his new "wives."

Driving school

 

Saturday night was a mini-KL reunion with the Convey Crew coming for a BBQ at the Stannards. So, I figured out how to set the timer on my camera and it was group picture time!

One serious pic - and one with crazy poses!

 

Sunday was our last day in Brisbane and had us heading to Gold Coast to go to the beach. (Yeah, twist my arm!) Surf, sun, and lunch at an outdoor café. Perfect ending to the time in the Brisbane area.

Beach and beer - my faves.

 

We sadly said goodbye to our friends. This is the best part and worst part about expat life. You make fabulous friends, but you're not always going to be living near them. So, you cherish your time together and know that you always have a place to visit.

 

We grabbed a flight to Sydney and started the next day with a tour of the city. Now, I will tell you that we used Real Sydney Tours - and they are FANTASTIC. They arrange private tours and it's just your group and a guide! Our guide was Cameron - and we loved him! He was funny, knowledgeable, related to our boys (teaching them all about cricket and providing lots of little trivia) and he took fabulous pictures of our family. He was always asking if he could take our pictures - which was so appreciated. We will forever have awesome memories through the pictures that he took! And, the company provided snacks - vegemite, TimTams, ANZAC biscuits, lamingtons...a little taste of Australia.

 

The tour off Sydney was definitely more "adult" oriented. We saw lots of celebrity homes (Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman - just to throw out a couple of names), went to Bondi Beach, learned lots about the history of Sydney, and viewed some breathtaking scenery. But, I will say that our kids were troopers and did seem to enjoy the day.

 

Lots of pics! While the day was gray and rainy - we still had a BLAST!

 

Blaine gave me this at our first stop to see the Sydney Opera House. He never ceases to surprise me!

Lunch at Bondi Beach

 

More pics from our tour of Sydney.

(There are a gazillion uploaded on my Google+ account if you're dying to see more!)

Throughout the day, Cameron provided us with lots of suggestions on restaurants. We decided to have drinks at the Australian House - which has a huge on tap selection of beers and ciders. It was a relaxing ending to our day.

Everyone had smiles

 

Dinner had us at another of Cameron's suggestions - Pancakes on the Rocks. All of us like breakfast for dinner and the kids were in pancake heaven.

Chocolatey goodness for Caleb and "Funny Face" for Grayson

The next day had us touring again with Cameron - this time to the Blue Mountains. Cameron was born and raised in the Blue Mountains and he works at Scenic World - which is where we spent a good portion of the day. Now, because he works at Scenic World - he knows everyone. This provided our family with some special perks - like kids learning how to drive the railway and cable car. So while it was another rainy, gray, cloudy day - it did not deter our fun! Cameron dropped us off so we could take the skyway over and then we met him at the railway.

The rail car. This is the steepest incline railway in the world - and we rode it many times!

The Three Sisters were trying to peek out, but it was super cloudy!

Getting ready for the cable car
 

Touring the old coal mining area and Cameron sharing his knowledge with the boys

 

After lunch, Cameron took us to a place slightly off the beaten path - Lincoln's Rock. It had some incredible views - without any railings and allowed for some spectacular pictures.

This is my favorite - and the panoramic version is incredible!

More photos! Love the kids "saving" Cameron!

The boys and Blaine and Cameron joking around!

 

You leave the Blue Mountains and head to Featherdale Wildlife Park. My kids did not ever get tired of feeding the 'roos and wallabies and enjoyed seeing the wombats and Australian penguins.

Just a fraction of the animals at the wildlife park

 

After leaving the wildlife park, you drive back to Sydney and take a ferry back to Circular Quay. (Our hotel was soooooo close to Circular Quay - which was ideal.) It was sunny by the time we hit Sydney and we grabbed a seat on the deck with some beverages to enjoy the cruise back.

Selfie time!

Opera House pics are mandatory!

Just enjoying the views

We returned to Circular Quay, ran to the hotel to change and then grabbed a ferry again so we could go dine in Darling Harbour. We saw some beautiful restaurants while cruising over to the Harbour - which Grayson declared were "too nice for us." Yes, I hope he was just referring to him and Caleb, but my fear is he felt they were too nice for the entire family!

They do occasionally get along! And you've got to love the Opera House at night...

 

 

Our last day in Sydney had us at Taronga Zoo. (Yes, more animals!) You can take the ferry over and then catch a cable car to the entrance - which allows you a great view of the elephant enclosure and some views of Sydney Harbour.

 

Here we go!

Animals and shows were the order of the day!

Selfies again! And our new favorite snack - Honey Soy Chicken Chips!

 

After the zoo, we walked to Paddy's Market for some souvenir shopping. The boys had money to burn and Cameron recommended this to us for some cheap trinkets! (A bit like our KL ChinaTown.)

 

While we were in Australia we learned the term: bogan. Here is the Urban Dictionary definition:

In Tasmania, Australia there are 2 breeds of bogans, there's the typical male "aussie" style bogan: who wears "wife basher" shirts (singlet tops) with many torn holes, tight stone wash jeans or some other pants, usually either wearing one or tied around the waist or slung over there shoulder a flanelette (flannie) shirt or holden/ford tops, and a pair of old blundstone boots (blunnies) and usually drives and old Holden Commodore or Ford Falcon. And swear the faces off, usually every second word is f**k. And are commonly seen with a can of VB in their hand.
Then there's the 2nd type usually teens who are seen decked out in dada, wutang, fox racing, eminem plastic crap, and the baggy wutang, fubu, eminem brand etc. jeans and usually topped off with a cap of some kind, thinking that they're so damn cool, but they're not. The female version is jeans that are so tight like you would not believe, have their hair pulled back and slicked down with a whole tub of gel except for 2 front bits which are pulled out and are the same length as the rest of their hair (commonly called "bogan bits") and wear dada, wutang, fubu, fox racing, etc., jumpers 10 times too big for them and wear whole stick of eye liner on each eye and way too much foundation and are seen pushing prams around followed by a colony of young children (all to different fathers)

My god there is so many bogans around Hobart! It's like Bogan Central or something!
or
Nah, not going there too many scary bogans around!

 

When I posted this picture of Grayson, an Aussie friend of mine said that I had my own little bogan. Yup, I've got to agree!

 

 My little (Type 2) bogan

 

 

Our last night in Sydney had us having drinks at Ryan's and then dinner at Jamie Oliver's. (Just had to!)

Pre-dinner drinks

Italian for everyone

The kids enjoyed every bite!

 

And that's all she wrote for Australia! (Except for the lingering credit card bill - which we'll deal with this month. While there we pretended we were paying in ringgits to make ourselves feel better.)

 

Sorry for the novel, but we crammed in a lot of stuff in our time there!!! A big thank you to the Stannards for letting us bunk in with them and showing us around Brisbane!!! And Sydney...well, it was just lovely! Everything I hoped it would be!