The Australia Chronicles, Part 5: Wrap Up

Now that the major recaps of each leg of our trip are done, there are a few random tidbits I want to share with you before moving along to other blog-worthy topics (like Christmas!).

First, one of the questions we were most asked about our trip was “how was the food?” I’ll be honest here –- it wasn’t really much to write home about. Sure, we indulged and had some great meals –- we were on vacation after all, so happy hour, appetizers, wine with lunch AND dinner and ice cream stops were the norm.

But have you ever gone anywhere that served “Australian food”? (And no, Outback does not count.) That’s because, a lot like us, Australian food is just a hodgepodge of other cuisines. They have Asian food, Italian food, Mexican food (albeit very BAD Mexican food), and your regular steakhouses and bar and grill-type places. And they’re still heavily influenced by their English roots, so things like fish and chips are standard fare.

Even though you can find pretty much any type of food we eat in America in Australia, it just wasn’t the same. Know what I mean? Even their McDonalds’ do things slightly differently. By the time we got home, we were seriously craving some sweet tea and Chick-fil-A.

One thing that was the EXACT same in Australia as it is here (well, except for the higher price)? Krispy Kreme donuts. I was super stoked to see these puppies in the airport.

They also have lots of Nutella in Australia. Much more respect for it there than here (as it should be!). Check out the grocery store real estate:

And when we went to Cold Rock ice cream shop (an obvious Cold Stone knockoff), they had Nutella as a mix-in. GENIUS! Why have we not thought of that here?! I got my normal birthday cake remix, except with Nutella in place of the chocolate syrup and it was abso-freaking-delicious.

We decided to branch out one night and eat at the Balinese restaurant in our hotel in Cairns. We ordered rijsttafel, which is a four course shared meal where you sample lots of different dishes.

Appetizer (those are hot coals in that mini-grill that the skewers are on -- very cool):

Soup:

Main course:

Dessert:

Some things were yummy, some were not so yummy, but it was a pretty cool experience and we were glad we tried it.

And one more comment about the food: Australians love their outdoor dining. I don’t think there was one single dinner (except the night we ate at McDonald’s) that we didn’t eat outside – on a patio, deck, or under an awning, overlooking an ocean, river, boardwalk or billabong. Now that I could get used to.

One of the downsides of our trip was how expensive everything was once we got to Australia. In the weeks leading up to the trip, we watched the exchange rate take a nose dive as the American dollar plummeted. While we were there, the Australian dollar hit a 27-year high compared to the US dollar.

Seriously, that WOULD happen to us.

So everything was more expensive than we expected. A meal at McDonald’s might cost $8. That’s normal for Australians (in relation to their salaries) and would have been fine if the exchange rate had been “normal” because everything would have been about 15-20% cheaper. But the exchange rate was pretty much even by the time you accounted for currency conversion fees.

This was a bit of a shock and a little disheartening, but we kept telling ourselves “at least the exchange rate was in our favor when we booked and paid for the majority of the trip.” And we decided within the first few days to throw caution to the wind and forget about how expensive everything was. No one wants to penny pinch on vacation and pass up that glass of wine or dessert. And we had paid A LOT of money to get there, so we were determined to enjoy it. And in the end, we actually spent a little less than what we had budgeted for, so it all worked out.

And now, for some lists (I bought a little notebook and kept adding things to my lists as we went along –- type A, even on vacation).

Things I Like About Australians:

1. No tipping. Seriously. They pay their service people fair wages and you aren’t expected to tip. However, I have to say the service is noticeably slower. But once we got adjusted to the slower pace of meals, it was fine.
2. No pennies! If your grocery bill comes out to $10.32 they round down (or up) to the nearest 5 cents.
3. Tax is already included in all posted prices. This just makes sense.
4. Their pepperoni is thick, spicy and delicious.
5. They eat hot ham & cheese sandwiches for breakfast, which I think is cool. (But don’t expect to see any biscuits. In fact, biscuits in Australia are what we know as cookies.)
6. Their cheddar cheese is white and sharp and umm umm good!
7. They make alcohol convenient. They sell Smirnoff vodka already mixed with Ocean Spray cranberry juice in a box-wine box. I need that in my life! And Jim Beam and Coke live happily together in the same can:

Things I Do Not Like About Australians:

1. They don’t use ice (and when they do, they use very little).
2. Their bacon sucks. (It’s more like Canadian bacon or ham. Not the fatty, crispy stuff we love.)

Things We Learned in Australia That Have Nothing To Do With Australia:

1. People from around the world don’t wear deodorant. (I guess because we were in tourist spots most of the time, there were a TON of foreigners everywhere. Lee said he felt like he had gone to Asia instead of Australia. There were lots of Canadians and Europeans too. However, we didn’t see a single other couple or family from America. Maybe because it’s too expensive?)
2. Lee will eat ANYTHING.

Miscellaneous:

1. They feed you well on flights. In the U.S., you can fly 5 hours and they only give you a drink. One of our flights was 50 minutes long and we got a cupcake(!), bottled water and soda. Any flight that's in the morning, no matter how long, you get breakfast (cold breakfast for shorter flights and hot breakfast for longer flights). The service on all of our Qantas flights was excellent as well.
2. Glee is big, even in Australia.
3. It felt like their pop culture is our pop culture. Their gossip magazines have different names, but still have Katy Perry and Brangelina on the cover. A lot of their TV shows are the same as or knockoffs of our shows. All the music was American -- Lady Gaga, Beyonce, I even heard some Gary Allen in the grocery store.
4. Sports are BIG in Australia = rugby, cricket, Australian rules football, the Melbourne Cup (and other horse races). There was always one confusing sport or another on TV all day long.
5. On one of our tours, we were with an Australian guy, a couple from Canada and a couple from Wales. The group started making jokes about Bill Clinton. I told Lee later that I thought it was interesting how they obviously had a lot of knowledge about Bill Clinton and American politics, yet we couldn't name a single president/prime minister/whatever they have from Canada, Wales OR Australia.
6. It was Halloween there, yet it was hot and it was also prom season (since their school year ends in December). It was bit confusing to see people walking around in Halloween costumes and prom dresses at the same time. And it will be summer during Christmas. They go to the beach and have barbecues for Christmas. Weird.

And even though they speak English, I sure had a hard time understanding them sometimes (and I'm sure the reverse was true as well). Here are some of the differences in dialect:

1. Suncream = sunscreen
2. Surname = last name
3. Biscuits = cookies
4. Coach = bus
5. Chemist = pharmacy
6. Capsicum = bell pepper
7. "How you going?" = "How are you doing?"
8. Entree = appetizer
9. Main = entree/main course

All in all, it was a great trip.

I've talked to so many people who've said "oh I would love to go there" and "I've always wanted to go to Australia" and "if I could go anywhere that's where I would go" -- yet so few people actually make it there. So I'm really proud of us for doing it.

On our way home, Lee nixed all other international travel for the foreseeable future. He says there's too many places in the U.S. that we haven't seen yet, and he's right. So Paris and Italy and Greece will have to wait -- for now at least.

But even after 50+ total hours of flying and 16 nights away from our bed, we booked a cruise for the spring within two weeks of getting back home. We're gluttons for punishment like that ;-)

The Australia Chronicles, Part 4: Brisbane

Our last stop in Australia was Brisbane. It's a fairly large city (the third largest in Australia) and therefore had a much different feel than the other places we'd been, what with its skyscrapers, traffic, and constant hustle and bustle.

I've never actually been with Lee to a "big city" before, so I was surprised that he was a little discombobulated by it all. (Isn't discombobulated the best word ever?)

Brisbane is situated on the Brisbane River, which winds throughout the city and provides lots of beautiful water and bridge views. The view from dinner on our first night in town was amazing -- skyscrapers behind us, the river and bridge in front of us (please excuse the crappy iPhone pic):

The view from our hotel room was pretty sweet as well:



And even better at night:



(Yes, we got suckered into paying something like $30 to ride that ferris wheel.)

The main attraction in Brisbane was our visit to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.



We got to snuggle and have our picture taken with a koala. This little guy had just woken up from his nap, so he was all cute and sleepy-eyed:



What a poser:



One of my favorite parts was the "mama and babies" koala exhibit. I could have stood for hours watching these guys.

Up next was the Birds of Prey show. I'm still not quite sure how Lee talked me into this one. The trainers got SO CLOSE with the birds.











Right after this picture was taken, this owl got spooked by another bird and flew RIGHT AT ME. She swooped over the audience and up into a tree. One of the trainers tried for the rest of the show to coax her down, to no avail.

We visited some other exhibits:



The dingo ate my baby!



In case you were wondering, this is an owl eating a mouse:



Then it was time to chill with the kangaroos. We bought way too much kangaroo food and then headed to meet them. They were out in a field, most of them sprawled out relaxing. You could go up to them and feed them (although they weren't really all that interested in food), pet them, snuggle them, etc. It was amazing. I didn't want to ever leave.































Finally I had to tear myself away, as our tour bus was about to leave us. Our last stop was at Mt. Coot-tha lookout, with an amazing view of the city:



We spent an extra day in Brisbane, chilling and wandering around the city. Then it was time to head back home. To say I was excited about the 36 hours of traveling ahead of us would be a mistake, but we were glad to be making our way back to the good ole U S of A.

Thanks for being patient with me as I shared our trip with you. I've got one more Australia post in the hopper -- a wrap-up of sorts -- and then it's back to standard blog fare.

The Australia Chronicles, Part 3: Heron Island

Thanks for being so patient with me, it wasn't nice of me to leave you hanging for so long. But I'm UBER excited to tell you about the next leg of our trip -- Heron Island. Be warned: you might get sick of all the beautiful blue in the following pictures.

Our trip to Heron got off to a bit of a rocky start. You see, Heron is an island resort on the Great Barrier Reef that is only accessible via boat or helicopter. We were to get to Heron via their boat, the Heron Islander.



Looks pretty nice, huh?

It should have been renamed the Vomit Comet.

Guys, the water was SO rough. It's a two-hour boat ride, and even though the boat was pretty big, everyone got so sick. The staff was great, passing out cool rags and ice chips, but it wasn't enough to keep me from finally tossing my cookies just 5 minutes before we got to the island.

During the ride you're thinking "what could possibly be worth this god awful boat ride?" And then you get to Heron, and you understand.

It's just beyond beautiful. I've never seen blue like that before. You just couldn't get used to it. Every time we walked out of our room, and saw that blue water, it took my breath away.

Heron is fairly small, and the only thing on island is the resort (with guest rooms, a restaurant, a pool and bar, and a dive shop) and a research station run by the University of Queensland.

There are no phones or TVs in the rooms, no locks on the doors and everything you buy is charged to your room, so you never have to keep up with a room key or cash.

Our room (a "turtle room") was super cute and quaint, with its own porch.









After settling in, we took a walk around the island.





We had our first ray sighting:

At any time on the island, you could go to the water's edge and spot rays, sharks or sea turtles.

Even the jetty was beautiful:



Then of course we had to hit up happy hour:



After showering, we headed to dinner. Dinner on Heron each night was a 3-course meal from a set menu, and was honestly a little too fancy for our taste. But we made up for it during breakfast and lunch, which were served buffet style and were delicious. After dinner, we headed to bed early to rest up for a day full of snorkeling, sun and fun.

Unfortunately, we woke up to pouring rain. And it stayed that way pretty much all day:



We were super bummed, especially since we only had 2 full days on the island, but tried to make the best of it. We went snorkeling, even though the water was COLD (thank goodness for wet suits). Since Heron is literally on the Reef, you can just swim off the beach (at high tide) and do some pretty great snorkeling, like swimming with this fella:





During low tide, we went on a reef walk, where you can use viewing tubes to look at the reef life.







The rest of the day was spent reading (I got so sucked in by The Hunger Games -- have you read the series yet??) and just generally lounging around and being bored. Heron is all about being outside, in the water and enjoying the island, so when the weather doesn't cooperate there isn't much to do.

So you can imagine our excitement when Day 3 dawned bright and blue.



We took full advantage with more snorkeling (with a shovel-nosed ray!, an eel, and some bright blue starfish)...













And an afternoon of sunbathing on the deck...



And ended the day with a fantastic sunset...

A few more random shots from Heron:

And I can't leave our time on Heron without telling you about the birds. They were everywhere. The black noddy terns (above) were nesting all over the island and little brown chickens begged for your food on the pool deck. But these were nothing compared to the mutton birds, who flew in to the island at night to nest.

There were earplugs in every room, and we soon found out why. Those mutton birds sound EXACTLY like crying babies, right outside your door. It's so creepy. They'd tune up around 2 or 3 every morning and they were LOUD. But it was nothing the earplugs couldn't solve, and even though I'm still not a big fan of birds, the birdlife definitely added to the natural, unspoiled feel of the island.

But all too soon, our time on Heron was up. Because we were leaving on a Saturday, our travel agent had to book us on a helicopter flight for our return trip, so we wouldn't miss our flight back to Brisbane. Even though it was MUCH more expensive than the boat trip, we had heard it was an awesome experience and worth the extra money. And after the nauseating trip to get to Heron, I was SO glad not to have to get on that boat again.

The heli ride turned out to be by far our favorite experience of the whole trip. We had never been in a helicopter before, so that in itself was cool. I'm sure any scenic helicopter ride would be great, but I'm not sure anything can compare to a helicopter ride over the Great Barrier Reef.

It was magical.

Our pilot was great. He explained what we were seeing the entire time and took us "cloud surfing," which he compared to being on a magic carpet ride. It was a bit dizzying but absolutely amazing.

And then we smiled and waved at the Heron Islander down below and thanked our lucky stars that we weren't on that boat:

All too fast, the 30-minute ride was over and we were headed to our final destination -- Brisbane. More on that later (and I promise not to make you wait so long this time).