Nine Weeks to Go!!!!

 

Well, it is nine weeks until we head down under. Getting so excited.

Great news, Kyle is going to join us for five nights on the Brisbane/Hamilton Island part of the trip!  Whoo-hoo!  It will be nice to have someone along to help us interpret that strange language they speak down under.




We have our visas.












And our International Drivers Licenses.

And all our tickets.























We are all ready to go.  All that is left is packing and getting to the airport.










Now, what to do for the next nine weeks!!

Flight to Australia and Queensland Plans.

Plans are progressing! 

This is why the flight takes 3 days!

We are flying Air New Zealand on March 19, arriving in Auckland on March 21. Staying in Auckland for the night to recuperate from the 14 hour flight. 

March 22 we will fly to Brisbane, rent a car and drive around for a couple of days. Explore Surfer's Paradise, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, stay overnight at The Moorings Beach Resort in Caloundra. 




Then drive to first highlight of many, the Australia Zoo .

March 24 we return the car and fly to Hamilton Island in the Whitsunday Islands area.  
Lying in the heart of the Great Barrier Reef, in the warm waters of Australia's Coral Sea are 74 tropical islands.  The beaches and water looks unreal!

These are true colours!

Stay for 5 nights at the Whitsunday Apartments on Hamilton Island,one of the Whitsundays.


Lots of beaches and exploring and snorkeling!


On March 27 we take a boat trip to the Great Barrier Reef and snorkel for 2 days including staying the night on the reef sleeping on deck under the stars.  Reefsleep.  



March 29 - fly to Sydney - look out Kyle, here we come!

Oz 2015

Australia, here we come!

We are going to Australia.  Yes, we.

That includes me...Bob... the person who hates flying any long distances!

I

CAN'T

FEEL

MY

LEGS!

Yes, Kendra actually convinced me that folding my 6"4", 275 lb self into a winged metal tube and enduring it for something like 14 hours is going to be "Ok".  Hah!

Yes, this is what it is like for me!

"At least it is a direct flight and you can sleep most of the way." - That makes it sound a much better, I will just do that.

Also, did you know that for someone who is as tall or taller than me, due to the curved fuselage wall and ceiling of the lavatory, it is nearly impossible to contort into a position that will allow one to pee into the toilet? Sitting down is not very pleasant either as those toilets have a very very shallow bowl - you figure that out. (I guess that is why they put the sinks at that convenient height! :-) )


Oh well, I am now committed, and I am actually going.  I will get to see my son, Kyle, who lives in Sydney. Hopefully he will still be alive by then and will not have succumbed to the poisonous spiders, man-eating sharks and crocodiles, killer jellyfish, and any one of the world"s nine deadliest snakes or being disemboweled by some rogue bad-tempered kangaroo!

Hmmm, so far I sound sort of negative, don't I?  Well, I actually am getting excited about the trip, even though it is almost a year away.

We will fly from Vancouver to Auckland.  (Resembles Vancouver, doesn't it?) Our plan is to spend a day there sightseeing and recovering from jet lag. New Zealand has some excellent wine to help with the recovery.

Auckland

We then fly up to Brisbane.



We will snorkel the Great Barrier Reef, explore some of the more exotic islands and beaches and generally act like a couple of tourists. (Sharkbait)



Next we plan to fly down to Sydney and visit my son and his partner, Pat, and explore the city and surrounding countryside and beaches.



The population of Sydney is greater than that of all of British Columbia! It will be nice to have a native to tell us where the good places to go are.  Hopefully we can visit Pat's parents place as well. They have a small farm with Llamas and horses.

There is so much to do while we are there that I am sure the couple of weeks will be way too short a time. That is a huge country and I would love to spend about three months there just exploring!


When our Australia time ends we board the Celebrity Solstice for an 18 day voyage to Hawaii.

 


We will be hitting New Zealand again (Bay of Islands & Auckland) then a bunch of tropical South Pacific islands: Moorea, Bora Bora, Papeete, Maui and Oahu. and then flying home from Honolulu. (Sailing in the opposite direction to the map below)



This trip is a total of five weeks!  It is going to be a once-in-a-lifetime adventure.  We justify it by saying it is for my 65th Birthday, but who really needs an excuse for something as cool as this?