The Sydney Opera House After two months of relaxed touring in New Zealand, we were thrilled to to be off to a new destination.  We arrived in Sydney in the early afternoon and aimed ourselves straight into the city and our home base.  This was a hostel called Wake Up! that had come highly recomended by a Scottish couple that we had spent an evening with in Tongariro National Park.  Its a nice but bizarre onestop hostel-cafe-bar catering to the young traveller set with trendy pajama dance parties and big screen tvs.  It was quite a Chiange to go from our quietly self-sufficient lifestyle in the campervan to a bustling world of traffic noise, bright lights, and lots of people trying to be beautiful.  It took some time in the shower for us to fit in :)

Sunset Over the Opera After getting situated, we went out to explore the city.  Fortunately, Wake Up! is centrally located by Sydney's Central Station and walking distance to the harbor.  A day's walking showed us the iconic sights of the Sydney's Harbor Bridge and the Opera House.  We ambled through the Royal Botanical Gardens which offered a stunning views of the sun setting against the Opera House with the bridge in the background.  While the scenery that makes Sydney stand out as a tourist destination was quite lovely, the city itself is like any other thriving metropolis. 

Three Sisters Walking along the bustling streets, we could have been in New York, London, or L.A.  With that said, one day in Sydney was enough, so the next morning we hopped on a train heading west to the Blue Mountains.  This is a spectacular region only 2 hours outside of the city and a very popular destination for locals who want to get out into nature.  After finding a holiday park that offered cheap tent sites, we went off to see the sunset over another Australian icon, the Three Sisters.  On the surface, this geological formation is simply a lovely three towering rock outcroppings perched on the edge of the canyon, but on a deeper level, the Sisters hold a wealth of Aboriginal legends.  We had the pleasure of a spectacular sunset illuminating the Sisters in a red glow.  After sunset, we celebrated Brice's 30th birthday at a local cafe and finished it up with a viewing of the last of the three Lord of the Rings movies. The next day was spent hiking more of the trails in the area and another night of camping.

The Blue Mountains are hard to describe, the town of Kaloomba is the entry point into the park and sits on the edge of an ancient canyon with trails leading along and down into the canyon.  The best way to describe the view from these cliffs would be to imagine looking into the Grand Canyon covered in forests similar to those in the Appalachian Mountains - a unique site.  The area is called the Blue Mountains because of the dominant eucalyptus trees which emit a blue haze caused by sunlight shining through the oils.

A Sweet Koala After a brief overnight back in Sydney, we hopped on a flight to the town of Hobart, capital city of Tasmania. Tassie is a small island/state off of the southern coast of Australia and most notoriously known for its Tasmanian Devils.  The Devils are a rare, nocturnal marsupial; the only species of canrivorous marsupial in the world.  Tasmania is also home of Australia's most rugged mountainous regions.  We picked up a car in Hobart and headed north to the Cradle Mountain/Lake St. Clair National Park.  After a wet night of camping and a snowy day of  hiking around Cradle Mountain, we headed east towards the coast.

The Tasmanian Devil The next day treated us to the unexpected highlight of our trip to Tassie, the Trowunna Wildlife Park.  We stumbled across this park, which is one of the best in Australia and specializes in Tasmanian Devil research and conservation in addition to rehabilitating injured and orphaned animals.  Our day in the park treated us to incredible encounters with koalas, kangaroos, devils, and a host of other Australian species.  After roaming the park for a while, we hooked onto a tour that allowed us direct contact with the animals.  We got to pet koalas, Naomi got to hold a wombat (which promptly fell asleep in her arms), and watch a devil feeding, which is quite a spectical.  The park ranger went into a devil den with a bucket of wallaby parts (roadkill we hope!) and proceeded to toss the raw meat to the devils who tore the meat apart, chewing through every piece, including the bones.  They are truly ferocious animals and are considered both predator and scavenger.  They will share their meal one minute then attack each other over it the next.  When they fight, they make a horrible screaching growl that is a terrible and frightening sound like no other. Its no wonder that the first European explorers called them devils.  It was an unbelievable speactacle and one we hope never to hear outside of our tent! 

'Roo After the devil feeding, we got to spend a long time with the several dozen kangaroos that live in the park; we were even able to feed and pet them.  Watching mama kangaroos hopping around with little joeys (baby kangaroos) in their pouches was awesome.  Some of the park's other marvels were the Echydna, a marsupial anteater with the body of a small porcupine; the Spotted Quoll (sort of a little possomlike cat), and an array of Australia's most poisonous snakes.  Needless to say, Brice was in photography heaven, getting a chance to snap closeups of some very rare animals in the broad daylight.

From Trowunna, we worked our way to the east coast and back down to Hobart for our last night.  On the whole we were amazad at how similar Tasmania is to the central south island of NZ, with rolling hills, expansive farmlands, and incredible friendly people.  If only the weather had been a bit better, we would have been able to enjoy the parks & scenery more.

The Reef The city of Cairns is the premier departure point for getting to the Great Barrier Reef and in turn is a tourist mecca.  Cairns is a thee hour flight from Sydney along the northeast coast of Australia.  A bit of a culture shocked being so accustomed to mountains and parks, the Ocean City/Myrtle Beach feel of Cairns was a bit unnerving.  We ended up just spending the evening watching people walk by on The Esplanade.  From quarrelling families carrying bags of tourist trinkets to stylish kids strutting their stuff, it was people-watching galore.

Hmm, underwater The next day was the reason for our trip to Cairns: snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef.  The reef is legendary for its immense expanses of vibrant coral and the diversity of aquatic life.  Because of gloabl warming, pollution and overt human damage, the delicate balance of factors that sustain the reef has been upset and some scientiats predict that the Great Barrier Reef is doomed and will be nearly entirely dead in the next ten years.  With these dire and unfortunate predictions in mind, we couldn't miss a chance to see this natural wonder.

The Fishies We hopped on a charter diving boat early that morning and headed out to the reef.  Brice was more than a bit bummed to have to resort to a disposable underwater camera to document this experience, but luck prevailed and the boat had a digital camera in an underwater housing for rent - so he had a stand-in...he is obviously obssessed.  An hour and a half later, we were sliding in the warm waters of the reef and treated to an incredible spectacle.  The reef truly lived up to its reputation and absolutely teemed with life.  Everywhere we looked, there were brilliantly colored fish, from a few inches to several feet long.  We could see the various cycles that make up life on the reef, with the little ones feeding off of the coral as the bigger ones came up behind them and ate the little guys.  The colors were dazzling, with complex patterns and bizarre shapes.  We saw a reef shark, a gigantic eel, but to Naomi's disappointment, no turtles.  Overall, it was just as amazing, with endless shapes, colors and patterns.  We spent the entire day swimming around, taking it all in.  We spent the rest of our time, seeing the rest of Cairns, including walking in its botanical gardens and hiking the rainforests.

Uluru No trip to Australia would be complete without a visit to the outback. The outback is made up of the nearly unihabitated inner regions of the country.  It is a vast no-man's land of desert, scrub, and red sand.  There are few roads and even fewer paved ones.  The main roads are distantly scattered with roadhouses that offer gas, beer and food and often offer camping, camel rides and postcards. 

We were anxious for a taste of the outback, so we flew into the town of Alice Springs, located in almost the dead center of Australia.  We rented another Hiace campervan from Britz (it felt like a homecoming) and started out on the Stuart Highway, the primary and only paved road that connects north and south Australia. 

The Olgas Once on the road, we were struck by several different observations.  First, Brice was reminded of the southwest of the US, the desert scrub and vegetation were quite similar to places in Arizona and Utah.  Naomi thought it was nothing like the Israeli desert she once lived in, but the red sand was much like the Valley of the Moon Desert near Petra in Jordan.  Once the initial sense of familiarity wore off, several other things became apparent. First, this place is immense!  We were on the most accesible portion of this outback highway and gas stations were still 100km apart and we rarely saw other traffic.  Then we began to ponder some of the risks out here.  There's roadkill everywhere...big ones, including lots of once free-roaming cattle preceeded by long skid marks and lots of mess.  It made for a weird drive.  On one hand we wanted to put the pedal to the metal because it was an infinitely long, straight road, but we quickly realized that if a steer or kangaroo popped out in front of us at that speed, it could get real ugly real quick. 

We are amazed at how rugged the culture is here.  Almost every vehicle on the road is a 4 wheel drive, with a massive brush guard and winch, and a roof rack loaded with jerry cans of gas and water.  Imagine Brice every half hour or so saying, "Man, thats a tough truck!"  When we saw a main road turnoff with a sign that read "Unsealed Road - 4 Wheel Drive only - 815 km until next service center," we knew weren't on I-95 anymore.

King's Canyon After a day of travel we made it to Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park.  This park is home to Australia's most famous natural attraction, Uluru, a.k.a. Ayer's Rock.  Uluru is a massive rock that is 3.6 km long and rises 348 m from the ground (with another 700 m below the sand), and is considered to be the world's largest monolith.  This rock is steeped in Aboriginal culture and history.  We spent a day hiking around the base of the rock, taking in its size and bizarre formations. 

One of the more interesting aspects of our day at Uluru involved the nature of tourism.  Uluru is a sacred site to the Aboriginal tribe that lives there, and they own the land, partnering and leasing public access to the Australian Park Service.  There is a path that leads to the top of the rock and walking up Uluru is a significant part of a tribal man's rite of passage.  Because of the partnership with the Park Service, the tribe does not have full control over all uses of the park, including this trail to the top.  Climbing to the top of Uluru is considered to be a high point of a tourist's visit, yet it is a sacrilege to the Aboriginees.  Every sign in the park implores visitors to respect the wishes of the rightful owners of the rock and not to climb to the top, yet it is still a primary goal of every tour group to go up the rock.  It was interesting to observe the split of people at the base of Uluru, the climbers and the non-climbers.  We were among the later and unfortunately smaller group.  The climbers appeared completely oblivious to the wishes of the traditional keepers of the land.  It was maddening and embarrassing to us.  Can you imagine someone with ropes and harnesses climbing the Western Wall in Jerusalem or dancing a jig on the alter of Notre Dame Cathedral? 

Another "Tough Truck" The following day we made our way to the sister feature of the park, Kata Tjuta (a.k.a. the Olgas).  This rock formation offers a unique contrast to Uluru.  While Uluru is one massive rock, Kata Tjuta is a collection of similarly shaped conical rocks that are collectively larger than Uluru , and in our opinion, much more interesting and impressive. 

Our next geological visit in the Outback was to Kings Canyon National Park a few hundred k's to the north.  The park primarily consists of one circuit hike up, around, and back down the dramatic canyon.  It is another of the "must-do" walks for all tourists, so we joined the masses and alternated turns saying "excuse me."  No solitude to be found there, but it was nonetheless beautiful and worthwhile.  It must be said that it was great to see so many people of all ages taking part in a relatively challenging trek.  Too many visitors to US parks never go too far beyond the scenic viewing areas just off the road.

With our time in Australia drawing to a close, we eagerly anticipate our time in the Himalayas and the destinations that follow.  Our departure from Australia is significant in that it it will be a long time until we will be in an English speaking country.  From now until South Africa, we will be operating with a language barrier which makes travel both more challenging and in many ways more exciting.  All of our future destinations will also be less developed, making several aspects of travel and communcation more complicated.  Until then, hope y'all enjoy the photos and keep in touch!