More from the reef

Here are a few more photos from yesterday.  Of course the actual reef pictures are on my underwater disposable camera, but these are the ones from the boat.

We had breakfast waiting for us on the boat.  Yum!!

Here was in the cabin.

And up top where we spent most of our time.

The reef was between us and the island.  We took a small boat to the island to start our tour and then just swam around in the water in the afternoon.

Here are a couple of the sharks I swam close to.  The lighter one at the top was the one that looked at me.  So creapy!!!

And here is Lori and I in our stinger suits.  Don't we look amazing!!  haha...

Possibly the best day ever!!!!

Today Lori and I went on an all day snorkeling tour of the Great Barrier Reef. It was amazing!!! I think it may have been the fanciest thing I have ever done. We bought a tour on a boat for only 23 people. We walked on the boat to breakfast, then had a morning snorkel, had a nice lunch, swam with some sharks, went out for an afternoon snorkel, then finished the day with afternoon tea. So amazing!! Here is me on the boat feeling fancy.

Yes I said I swam with sharks. They were just the small friendly ones, but I still got completely freaked out when one turned around and headed straight for me. My fight or flight reflexes kicked in and all I could do was swim backwards and laugh in an uncontrollable nervous laugh. The others on the boat thought it was pretty funny. We swam though lots of soft corals and saw lots of colorful fish and a couple sea turtles. Probably one of the best days ever!! They gave us special suits to wear to not get stung by jellyfish; luckily the jellyfish were not around. :) I'll post a picture of us in our suits later.  :)

After Sydney, on to my second home....

After 5 days in Sydney, we hoped on a plane and headed for the Sunshine Coast.  This is my home away from home.  I lived here before when I studied abroad in College.  It's been an adjustment getting settled, finding a house and car.  I quickly found a place to live, but the car took a little bit longer to find.  It's not easy to find a cheap automatic car that doesn't look like it will completely fall apart driving down the road.  Here is my house and car.

It's nothing fancy, but it will get me around.  Also the first week we were here we climbed Mount Coolum.  I have wanted to climb it for years and I've frequently asked every time I've came back to Australia and never had the opportunity to do it.  I soon realized why as I was try to catch my breath and continue to put one foot in front of the other.  Here is how I looked at the very top.

After I caught my breath, we stopped for a nice photo.  This is Lori and I with my friend Muzz.

But we're still having a great time.  I've found a church that I enjoy and have met a few people there.  I'll be joining a homegroup next week, which I'm really looking forward to; meeting different people, building friendships, and talking about God, it will just be so great!!

From the city to the beach

Our time in the city center of Sydney was only 2 days, but kind of a long 2 days.  All Lori and I wanted was to get back to the beach (have I mentioned that we have successfully mastered the art of being beach bums) and luckily Lori had booked us 3 nights on Coogee Beach.  At first it was a little annoying to get there.  It meant that we needed to catch a bus from central station to Coogee and I'm not that great with buses, especially ones on the other side of the road.  We first went up the road where our receptionist had told us to go, only to find out it was wrong because of all the buses passing us that were the wrong number.  We finally lugged our heavy back backs to the right area and proceeded to wait.  Trying to ride a crowed bus with a huge backpack on your back is kind of hard, but we eventually made it.  Back to something a little less stressful than the city.  The beach was amazing!!!  The eastern beaches of Sydney are all connected; we walked from Coogee all the way to Bondi Beach.  It was about 6 kilometers one way and when we got there I was very glad that we were at Coogee.  Bondi was definitely the place where people went to see and be seen.  We didn't fit in to say the least; we weren't tan enough for that place.  Plus it wasn't anywhere near as large as it looks on tv.  Here is a map of what we covered.

Our hostel was by far the coziest.  It was a renovated house and everyone there was so lovely.  We met 2 girls from England and 1 from Wales and we really enjoyed spending time with them.  It was exactly how we expected our trip to be.

We moved on to Sydney

After an amazing 3 days at Uluru, we hopped back on a plane (actually a really nice plane with screens in every seat and lots of movies) and headed to Sydney.  It was a bit of a culture shock from the start.  Coming from the calm and peaceful outback, with very few people, and lots of red dirt, to the largest city in Australia, all people and all concrete.  It took us a little while to get out of the airport and find a shuttle where we both fit (everything was over crowded), but once we did, it took us right to the door of our new hostel.  This was way different than any of the other hostels we had stayed in.  Well, actually, no hostel we stayed in was at all the same.  In Melbourne, we stayed 4 nights in a 13 person dorm room with people to had been staying there for quite a while and in a hostel that was old, but with a lot of character.  In Uluru, we were staying at a lodge that just happened to have air conditioned multi-bed spaces; we stayed in a 20 room dorm there, but it was much nicer than in Melbourne.  In Sydney, we arrived to Wake Up!, a hip and active city hostel.  Lori and I were definitely feeling a little too old to be staying in this hostel.  haha...  But we met some really great people and we were only in a 6 bed dorm, which made everything much better.  We wandered around china town and found really cheap and large portion Chinese food.  So good!!  Then we toured the city and made it to the best part, the Sydney Opera House and Harbor Bridge.  They were also filming for the show Ellen across the inlet.  That's all they had been talking about on the radio for the week and all we heard the whole time we were there.  In all we spent 2 nights in the city center before heading to the beach.  Our new favorite home.  :)

More about Uluru

When we were in Uluru we went on a hike through the Valley of the Winds.  We started the day at 5:45 am for sunrise.

We could also see Uluru in the distance.

The hike took us 2.5 hours to walk around a small part of the valleys.  It was such a beautiful day, but very hot.  Uluru and these mountains are located in a national park; the park is closed in the middle of the day because it is too hot for people to be hiking around.  Here are some photos from out hike.

On last thing is I could use some prayers about getting a car.  I've looked at a few different options, but nothing has worked out yet.  I'm just trusting in God through everything.  :)

Bah! Sorry it's been a while.....

We have finally made it to the Sunshine Coast, my home away from home, and we have had an amazing time.  Lori and I have officially mastered the art of becoming beach bums.  Lol....  Here's what's been going on with us....

Ayers Rock!!  aka... Uluru!!!

So from one of my last posts that took days to actually post from my phone, we had a flight cancelation from Alice Springs to Ayers Rock.  We had left Melbourne (thanks to some amazing friends for dropping us off very early in the morning) about 9 am for Alice Springs.  Went went from the state of Victoria to the Northern Territory in a couple of hours.  From Alice Springs we were supposed to fly 30 minutes southwest to Ayers Rock/Uluru; the filght that was supposed to take us there didn't come in, so instead we took a 5 hour bus ride through the middle of the outback.  :)  It actually wasn't that bad.  Our driver was really nice and told us a lot about the local plants and animals along the way and I took a nap, so it didn't really feel like 5 hours.  Here we are on the road.

Don't mind my awkward face.

It wasn't long until Uluru came into focus.  We took several sunrise and sunset tours.  The town around Uluru is a resort.  There were 4 different places to stay, a campground and 3 hotels; we stayed in the Outback Pioneer Lodge.  It was really nice.  We went out for hikes at sunrise and then sat by the pool during the afternoon hours, then back out to Uluru at sunset.  The weirdest/funniest thing was the flies were so terrible, we had to buy fly nets to keep them away from our faces.  Here I am on my birthday at the Uluru sunrise.

But the place was amazingly beautiful; it was a once in a lifetime trip and we loved every minute of it.