Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Wedding Cake Ideas
I like the look of the frosting on these two cakes (above and below). It gives it that "tree bark" look.
I like the vines around the cake, but maybe with freesia or jasmine flowers (above).
Just an idea with the brown fern sprouts if I chose to use them in my bouquets. (above)
I like the hydrangeas on this cake, but not the ribbon (above picture).
I like the idea of having edible river rocks on it. That would go with the river rock idea for the table center pieces and table candles (above picture).
This is kind of cute with the birds, but I wouldn't use the birds. :P The twig approach is something different. Again, I like the tree trunk used as a base (above picture).
For this one, I wouldn't use pink flowers, but I like the idea of a branch climbing up the cake with possibly white freesia or jasmine flowers (above picture).
This is just a fun one, but neat. It would fit our wedding theme (above picture).
Incorporates the brown into the wedding cake, but I don't like the border at the base of the cakes. I would chose different flowers too (above picture).
More branch and leave idea. That's neat with the blueberries. Very foresty. Maybe even some brown figs could decorate the base (above picture).
This one shows the figs that I spoke of in the previous picture and again, the tree bark base (above picture).
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Wedding flowers
So, here are a few that I've been looking at. Still trying to figure out the arrangement for them tho.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Bridal Shoes
So I thinking of something like this for shoes for me...possibly with Bride embroidered on the side. But not sure if I want high tops or not.
So, possibly more like these, but I don't like this style of material.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Wedding 2010!!!
Yes! We are engaged and now the planning begins!!
First stop...dress. I arranged an appointment at David's Bridal on the day after Christmas to be fitted for dresses. My sister and mom were up for the holiday, so we cruised over to east bay on a very rainy Saturday. I look about 2 hours looking for the perfect dress, determined to find one here and not at any other store. Finally, I found the perfect two. I tried one on, then the other, then the first, then the second....and finally made my decision. This is the beauty...no, I can't show the dress on here! :P You'll just have to wait for the wedding! :)
But, I can show you the bridesmaid dresses. The sash color is not correct, but close to the color I want it to be.
Neat huh! Also, they will be wearing this shoulder sash.
Okay, that's all for now.
New Zealand Part 1
21 September 2009, Monday
early day to airport. Taxi didn’t show up, called taxi, dropped us off at airport; sat and waited for plane; didn’t have to go through security, boarded prop plane, flew to brisbane, flew to auckland new zealand, went through customs; had to declare david’s kangaroo jerky; went to pick up our luggage; only mine came out; went to baggage services; they said david’s bag would be coming in on a flight at midnight; they said they’d call us. We went out to the curb to be picked up for our transfer to Maui to pick up our campervan. It was about 4p. We were supposed to be picking up our campervan at 4p. The shuttle comes and picks us up and takes us to Maui. They have us watch a video explaining the campervan. We are getting a 2 seater that has a dinette that changes into a queen sized bed, a mini fridge, a microwave, a small stove top with a cooker, a sink and a shower/toilet combo. Just the perfect size for two people, right?
We had to sit in the waiting area for quite awhile. Then, got the camper ready for us, we piled our stuff in it, and they threw us out. It was almost closing time for them, so they were trying to get us all out as quickly as possible. They even forgot to give us a coin to get out of the parking lot so we had to go back in to get that. After we had everything put away in the campervan, we realized that it was a manual. Great. At least David knows how to drive a manual, but driving on the left, navigating around the roundabouts with a stick?! This is going to be interesting.
Our first stop: grocery store. We were supposed to get a little starter pack which included a roll of tp, dish soap, matches, etc. but they forgot. So, we had to buy all that at the store plus food and cooking supplies. David’s jacket is in his suitcase so we weren’t able to stay outside much since it was freezing and being to rain. We ate dinner in the parking lot in the RV. Nothing fancy for the first night. We decided we might as well find an RV park (or holiday park as they call them here) to stay the night at. We only had rudimentary maps to go off of to find the one RV park semi-close to the airport. We finally found it around 8p and they were already fully booked. Okay, back to the supermarket. We decided to rest for awhile in the parking lot of the supermarket until we got a call from the airline. But, they never called us. David tried to call them and their office had closed at 8p. It would have been nice if they’d told us that. We would have started looking for an RV park earlier in the day. We ended up staying in the parking lot that night, in the pouring rain. At least our duvet is really warm. We can’t turn on our heater because it only runs off electricity when the RV is plugged in. At least the fridge works off the batteries. We weren’t even planning on staying in Auckland overnight. We were planning on heading north as soon as we got the RV. Looks like we’ll be starting our drive tomorrow. Hopefully tomorrow will prove to be more productive.
22 September 2009, Tuesday
We woke early with the rain pounding on the roof of the RV. Luckily, we weren’t kicked out of the parking lot last night. There was a 4 hour limit there to keep out people like us but lucky for us, we were able to stay there all night. We really didn’t have anywhere else to sleep. We called the airport and they confirmed that David’s bag had arrived last night. We drove to the airport and rescued his bag. Okay, now we can head north. We got on the 1 and drove north. We had to drive through Auckland to head north and ran into rush hour traffic. We were trying to avoid that by leaving last night. Ugh. Oh well. Just north of Auckland, we stopped at a service station and had breakfast. They are similar to ones we encountered in England. They are like a giant truck stop in the states where you can get fuel, food, they have bathrooms and a place to park overnight if needed. The drive was very pretty and scenic. We drove east off the motorway and checked out a beach town: Mangawhai Heads.
click here for gallery
We had lunch there and enjoyed the view. Our next stop and place to sleep is Keri Keri. We decided to stop at a Top 10 Holiday Park to see how they were and how expensive they were. They sounded to us like KOA’s in the states which are way over the top and very expensive. Surprisingly, they are reasonably priced and nice. We drove through the town of Keri Keri first (rather quickly since it was pretty small) and decided we really didn’t need to walk around it. Plus, we were pretty tired from the driving today. We settled into our spot, plugged in and enjoyed a delicious campervan made spaghetti dinner. We took much deserved showers and are heading to be early. Tomorrow, we are heading further north to the upper most point on the Northern Island: Cape Reinga. Goodnight!
23 September 2009, Wednesday
We woke up bright and early this morning in Keri Keri to, you guessed it, more rain! Looks like it is the rainy season for New Zealand. Drove up towards the most northern tip of the north island. Stopped to see 90 mile beach. David got us stuck on the beach. We got unstuck once but got stuck again. People were coming to beach and taking pictures of us. Someone went and got us help. 2 4x4 jeeps (both tourists from Australia) tried to pull us out with a metal cable. The cable snapped. 1 jeep left. The other stayed to help us with his bungee cable. He pulled while we gunned our engine. The tide was coming. It was only a few feet from our back bumper. We called for a tow truck: 45 minutes away. Told them we would be in the ocean before that. David told me to start packing up the RV. We were gonna need to bail soon if we weren’t pulled out. Finally, the 4x4 jeep pulled us out safely away from the tide and back on land. We called off the tow truck (the rental company sounded relieved). We continued our trek up north to Cape Reinga. There was construction on part of the way there: they were resealing the roads. We reached the top just before lunch and walked down to see the lighthouse. Here at the cape, the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean converge. The sun came out momentarily and we snapped some pictures. We had lunch back in the RV and started our way back down south. We drove and drove and drove for hours on end and we stopped for dinner just north of Auckland at a petrol station. So as to miss traffic the next morning, we drove south past Auckland to a service station where they had RV parking spots. It’s basically like a truck stop in the states. We are so tired that I doubt that we’ll have trouble falling asleep tonight. Today we drove a total of ___ km. What a day! And to think we almost got swept out to sea this morning. Fun! K, night!
24 September 2009, Thursday
Today we drove from Auckland down to Waitomo Caves. These are the glowworm caves! We decided on a dry 4 hour tour of the caves where we abseil 100m down into a cave, climb around the cave, see the glowworms and then climb a 30m ladder back out of the cave. Since it had been raining nearly all day, the tour wasn’t going to be dry. Our tour guide Rob drove us and another couple (Annie and Brian) out to our starting site. We put on blue jumpers and wore our rain jackets over that. Then, we geared up with our harness and helmet and headed out into the rain. We had a bit of a walk ahead of us to the lookout hole and then to the actual hole we descended down to. We hooked up our cables to the abseil ropes, our guide took pictures of us and then we abseiled down to the bottom. It was awesome! We dropped slowly and reached the bottom pretty quickly. Then we walked along a path through the cave. At certain parts, we had to hook up our harness up to cables to ensure we couldn’t fall to our deaths if we were to slip. We had a snack and another photo shoot before we finally saw the glowworms. We didn’t see as many as I thought we would, but it was neat to see them glow on the ceiling. We had to take a different route from here due to the water level rising in the cave from all of the rain. We were safe tho. We took turns hooking ourselves up to the safety hook and climbing the 30m ladder. That was hard! The ladder was a straight vertical climb. It would have been slightly easier if it was at an incline. Plus, it was covered in water and mud. About halfway up, my hands were freezing and my arms were giving up. And, since I was still getting over a cold, I was coughing all the way up. But, I reached the top! :) I’m not sure how long it took me. The fastest time is around 30 seconds. The couple with us each made it up to the top in about a minute. They were in good shape. David banged his knee on the way up so that slowed him down a bit. Next, we had a series of easier ladders to climb before we climbed out of the cave. It was still raining outside and walked back to where we started from. That was fun! It was hard work climbing out, but it was fun! We changed out of our jumpers and were shuttled back to the info center. We decided to stay at the Top 10 Holiday Park there in Waitomo for the night. Since we were exhausted, we opted for a local restaurant for dinner. It was wonderful! We were both surprised. We had an olive, cheese and bread platter, I got an asparagus salad and David got a steak. Everything was wonderful. I ordered a chai latte to go and that was great as well. We both took showers and did laundry since we got our clothes muddy from the cave. We’re heading to bed now just before midnight. We’re gonna sleep well tonight! Night!
25 September 2009, Friday
Today we are driving into Wellington. We need to take a ferry from there to Picton to reach the south island. We left out of Waitomo around 10 and drove south all day, reaching our campsite, a few minutes north of Wellington, just after dark. We are staying in Lower Hutt at another Top 10 Holiday Park. It was pretty easy to find and the beach of the harbor is literally a 2 minute walk from our site. David took some pictures of the stars.
26 September 2009, Saturday
Explored the city and museum
Had dinner with Dan and his girlfriend at burrito place and went to a Cuban bar
27 September 2009, Sunday
Checked out Weta Cave, tried to get in to see Weta: denied; had lunch with Dan, drove to ferry terminal. Waited in line to board ferry. Boarded ferry…
early day to airport. Taxi didn’t show up, called taxi, dropped us off at airport; sat and waited for plane; didn’t have to go through security, boarded prop plane, flew to brisbane, flew to auckland new zealand, went through customs; had to declare david’s kangaroo jerky; went to pick up our luggage; only mine came out; went to baggage services; they said david’s bag would be coming in on a flight at midnight; they said they’d call us. We went out to the curb to be picked up for our transfer to Maui to pick up our campervan. It was about 4p. We were supposed to be picking up our campervan at 4p. The shuttle comes and picks us up and takes us to Maui. They have us watch a video explaining the campervan. We are getting a 2 seater that has a dinette that changes into a queen sized bed, a mini fridge, a microwave, a small stove top with a cooker, a sink and a shower/toilet combo. Just the perfect size for two people, right?
We had to sit in the waiting area for quite awhile. Then, got the camper ready for us, we piled our stuff in it, and they threw us out. It was almost closing time for them, so they were trying to get us all out as quickly as possible. They even forgot to give us a coin to get out of the parking lot so we had to go back in to get that. After we had everything put away in the campervan, we realized that it was a manual. Great. At least David knows how to drive a manual, but driving on the left, navigating around the roundabouts with a stick?! This is going to be interesting.
Our first stop: grocery store. We were supposed to get a little starter pack which included a roll of tp, dish soap, matches, etc. but they forgot. So, we had to buy all that at the store plus food and cooking supplies. David’s jacket is in his suitcase so we weren’t able to stay outside much since it was freezing and being to rain. We ate dinner in the parking lot in the RV. Nothing fancy for the first night. We decided we might as well find an RV park (or holiday park as they call them here) to stay the night at. We only had rudimentary maps to go off of to find the one RV park semi-close to the airport. We finally found it around 8p and they were already fully booked. Okay, back to the supermarket. We decided to rest for awhile in the parking lot of the supermarket until we got a call from the airline. But, they never called us. David tried to call them and their office had closed at 8p. It would have been nice if they’d told us that. We would have started looking for an RV park earlier in the day. We ended up staying in the parking lot that night, in the pouring rain. At least our duvet is really warm. We can’t turn on our heater because it only runs off electricity when the RV is plugged in. At least the fridge works off the batteries. We weren’t even planning on staying in Auckland overnight. We were planning on heading north as soon as we got the RV. Looks like we’ll be starting our drive tomorrow. Hopefully tomorrow will prove to be more productive.
22 September 2009, Tuesday
We woke early with the rain pounding on the roof of the RV. Luckily, we weren’t kicked out of the parking lot last night. There was a 4 hour limit there to keep out people like us but lucky for us, we were able to stay there all night. We really didn’t have anywhere else to sleep. We called the airport and they confirmed that David’s bag had arrived last night. We drove to the airport and rescued his bag. Okay, now we can head north. We got on the 1 and drove north. We had to drive through Auckland to head north and ran into rush hour traffic. We were trying to avoid that by leaving last night. Ugh. Oh well. Just north of Auckland, we stopped at a service station and had breakfast. They are similar to ones we encountered in England. They are like a giant truck stop in the states where you can get fuel, food, they have bathrooms and a place to park overnight if needed. The drive was very pretty and scenic. We drove east off the motorway and checked out a beach town: Mangawhai Heads.
click here for gallery
We had lunch there and enjoyed the view. Our next stop and place to sleep is Keri Keri. We decided to stop at a Top 10 Holiday Park to see how they were and how expensive they were. They sounded to us like KOA’s in the states which are way over the top and very expensive. Surprisingly, they are reasonably priced and nice. We drove through the town of Keri Keri first (rather quickly since it was pretty small) and decided we really didn’t need to walk around it. Plus, we were pretty tired from the driving today. We settled into our spot, plugged in and enjoyed a delicious campervan made spaghetti dinner. We took much deserved showers and are heading to be early. Tomorrow, we are heading further north to the upper most point on the Northern Island: Cape Reinga. Goodnight!
23 September 2009, Wednesday
We woke up bright and early this morning in Keri Keri to, you guessed it, more rain! Looks like it is the rainy season for New Zealand. Drove up towards the most northern tip of the north island. Stopped to see 90 mile beach. David got us stuck on the beach. We got unstuck once but got stuck again. People were coming to beach and taking pictures of us. Someone went and got us help. 2 4x4 jeeps (both tourists from Australia) tried to pull us out with a metal cable. The cable snapped. 1 jeep left. The other stayed to help us with his bungee cable. He pulled while we gunned our engine. The tide was coming. It was only a few feet from our back bumper. We called for a tow truck: 45 minutes away. Told them we would be in the ocean before that. David told me to start packing up the RV. We were gonna need to bail soon if we weren’t pulled out. Finally, the 4x4 jeep pulled us out safely away from the tide and back on land. We called off the tow truck (the rental company sounded relieved). We continued our trek up north to Cape Reinga. There was construction on part of the way there: they were resealing the roads. We reached the top just before lunch and walked down to see the lighthouse. Here at the cape, the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean converge. The sun came out momentarily and we snapped some pictures. We had lunch back in the RV and started our way back down south. We drove and drove and drove for hours on end and we stopped for dinner just north of Auckland at a petrol station. So as to miss traffic the next morning, we drove south past Auckland to a service station where they had RV parking spots. It’s basically like a truck stop in the states. We are so tired that I doubt that we’ll have trouble falling asleep tonight. Today we drove a total of ___ km. What a day! And to think we almost got swept out to sea this morning. Fun! K, night!
24 September 2009, Thursday
Today we drove from Auckland down to Waitomo Caves. These are the glowworm caves! We decided on a dry 4 hour tour of the caves where we abseil 100m down into a cave, climb around the cave, see the glowworms and then climb a 30m ladder back out of the cave. Since it had been raining nearly all day, the tour wasn’t going to be dry. Our tour guide Rob drove us and another couple (Annie and Brian) out to our starting site. We put on blue jumpers and wore our rain jackets over that. Then, we geared up with our harness and helmet and headed out into the rain. We had a bit of a walk ahead of us to the lookout hole and then to the actual hole we descended down to. We hooked up our cables to the abseil ropes, our guide took pictures of us and then we abseiled down to the bottom. It was awesome! We dropped slowly and reached the bottom pretty quickly. Then we walked along a path through the cave. At certain parts, we had to hook up our harness up to cables to ensure we couldn’t fall to our deaths if we were to slip. We had a snack and another photo shoot before we finally saw the glowworms. We didn’t see as many as I thought we would, but it was neat to see them glow on the ceiling. We had to take a different route from here due to the water level rising in the cave from all of the rain. We were safe tho. We took turns hooking ourselves up to the safety hook and climbing the 30m ladder. That was hard! The ladder was a straight vertical climb. It would have been slightly easier if it was at an incline. Plus, it was covered in water and mud. About halfway up, my hands were freezing and my arms were giving up. And, since I was still getting over a cold, I was coughing all the way up. But, I reached the top! :) I’m not sure how long it took me. The fastest time is around 30 seconds. The couple with us each made it up to the top in about a minute. They were in good shape. David banged his knee on the way up so that slowed him down a bit. Next, we had a series of easier ladders to climb before we climbed out of the cave. It was still raining outside and walked back to where we started from. That was fun! It was hard work climbing out, but it was fun! We changed out of our jumpers and were shuttled back to the info center. We decided to stay at the Top 10 Holiday Park there in Waitomo for the night. Since we were exhausted, we opted for a local restaurant for dinner. It was wonderful! We were both surprised. We had an olive, cheese and bread platter, I got an asparagus salad and David got a steak. Everything was wonderful. I ordered a chai latte to go and that was great as well. We both took showers and did laundry since we got our clothes muddy from the cave. We’re heading to bed now just before midnight. We’re gonna sleep well tonight! Night!
25 September 2009, Friday
Today we are driving into Wellington. We need to take a ferry from there to Picton to reach the south island. We left out of Waitomo around 10 and drove south all day, reaching our campsite, a few minutes north of Wellington, just after dark. We are staying in Lower Hutt at another Top 10 Holiday Park. It was pretty easy to find and the beach of the harbor is literally a 2 minute walk from our site. David took some pictures of the stars.
26 September 2009, Saturday
Explored the city and museum
Had dinner with Dan and his girlfriend at burrito place and went to a Cuban bar
27 September 2009, Sunday
Checked out Weta Cave, tried to get in to see Weta: denied; had lunch with Dan, drove to ferry terminal. Waited in line to board ferry. Boarded ferry…
Sept 19-20: Hervey Bay
19 September 2009, Saturday
Beep…beep…beep. Yep, it’s 3:00a already and time to get up. I’m glad we decided to take showers last night. One less thing to do this morning. David got up and made us some tea while I tried to pull myself out of bed. We got all our stuff together and made it out to the waiting car at 3:50a. It was lightly sprinkling. Hopefully, we’ll have better weather in Hervey Bay. He drove us to the airport in Cairns and we hopped on our first plane at 5:10a this morning. As we climbed up the stairs to the plane, it started to rain again. Luckily, we got inside before it really started to come down. We saw Susan also boarding our flight and tried not to make eye contact. Luckily, she didn’t recognize us. She was probably half asleep as well. Our first plane took us to Brisbane and then we boarded a smaller plane to Hervey Bay after quite a long layover (we boarded at 10:15a).
We flew on another little plane: Quantas Link: it’s a prop plane holding around 50 people. We were served a light breakfast or breaky and shortly landed in Hervey Bay. The airport there is quite small. I still find it odd how people can meet their friends/family at the airport gate on arrival. I wish we could still do that in the states. We took a taxi to our hotel and checked in. Our room wasn’t ready yet since it was only 11:30a, but they held our bags for us. We have a whale watching tour at 1:00p and they guaranteed that our room would be ready by 2p. We left the hotel to look around the marina. It’s pretty small and not too much to do. Also, there are very few restaurants. We wanted a light snack since we would be fed lunch on the boat, so we found a snack shop and I got some garlic chicken balls. They were pretty good!! Imagine a chicken tender shaped in a ball with butter and garlic in the middle. Very tasty!
Shortly, we boarded the boat for the Whale Song whale watching cruise. We found out that it’s international pirate day today and our crew on the tour were all dressed as pirates and talking in pirate: Gar! We opted to sit in the pilot’s deck, away from most of the people. We headed out to sea and were served a cold meat and salad lunch. The boat was so rocky that a crew member carried our plates upstairs to where we were sitting. I was so happy about that; I was certain I would have lost my plate over the side. :) Upon finishing our lunch, we were in whale territory and saw several whales.
click here for gallery
It was so cool to watch them jump out of the water. We even saw some calves! We were out on the boat from 1p to about 5p. Halfway through our tour, we were given cheese and crackers. On the way back, we saw a rare whale that even the tour guides don’t see that often: a southern grey. We even saw a calf and it was jumping out of the water too.
We’re pretty tired from being out on the boat and all the flying we did today. We grabbed dinner nearby and now we’re heading to bed. Tomorrow, we have an all day safari tour on Fraser Island. Not really sure what to expect, but it should be fun. Night!
20 September 2009, Sunday
Fraser Island Safari today! The green tour bus picked us up from our hotel and drove about a minute to the marina. We would have walked if we knew that it was gonna be that close! Oh well. Then, we boarded a ferry over to Fraser Island. The ferry took all of about 30 minutes to cross the way. We sat out on the front of the boat and spotted some sea turtles along the way. They were swimming in the waves. Pretty neat! Upon docking at the pier, we followed our tour guide off the boat and onto our 4x4 green bus. This was gonna be interesting. Our tour guide had a German-Aussie accent which was pretty difficult to understand at times, but I managed and shot some video of him too.
click here for gallery
Our group loaded onto the bus and put our seatbelts on. The guide assured us that we would be “kissing the ceiling” if we didn’t wear our belts. And, boy was he right! The island is mainly made out of sand, hence the need for a 4x4 vehicle. We listened to his jokes as he toured us around the island. The roads on the island were pretty small so when we would happen upon another vehicle, the other vehicle would find a place to pull over so we could pass them. That’s the advantage of having a larger vehicle. We got lost (he missed a turn) and had to back track a bit to find the turn we missed so we saw more of the island than we thought we would. :) Our first stop was ____________ to top up the fuel on the bus. We could see the beach and the ocean.
From here, we drove onto the beach. The speed limit is 100km/hr. It was surprising to see the amount of cars on the beach. It was literally a highway with at least 2 lanes going each way. People were out fishing on the beach or camped up on the rocks above the beach. We continued north on the beach to our first stop the Cathedrals.
Our second stop was an old wreck of a ship left by Captain Cook.
Then we stopped
For the rest of the day, here are notes: Lunch, cathedral, wreck, swim stop, back to the place we ate at for lunch, picked up chef to take off island, drove to lake, drove to virgin rain forest, dropped us off and we walked behind bus, had a tea stop, drove to beach to be picked up by ferry; put bus on ferry, rode ferry back, watched sunset; back at hotel, had a quick dinner and went to bed.
Beep…beep…beep. Yep, it’s 3:00a already and time to get up. I’m glad we decided to take showers last night. One less thing to do this morning. David got up and made us some tea while I tried to pull myself out of bed. We got all our stuff together and made it out to the waiting car at 3:50a. It was lightly sprinkling. Hopefully, we’ll have better weather in Hervey Bay. He drove us to the airport in Cairns and we hopped on our first plane at 5:10a this morning. As we climbed up the stairs to the plane, it started to rain again. Luckily, we got inside before it really started to come down. We saw Susan also boarding our flight and tried not to make eye contact. Luckily, she didn’t recognize us. She was probably half asleep as well. Our first plane took us to Brisbane and then we boarded a smaller plane to Hervey Bay after quite a long layover (we boarded at 10:15a).
We flew on another little plane: Quantas Link: it’s a prop plane holding around 50 people. We were served a light breakfast or breaky and shortly landed in Hervey Bay. The airport there is quite small. I still find it odd how people can meet their friends/family at the airport gate on arrival. I wish we could still do that in the states. We took a taxi to our hotel and checked in. Our room wasn’t ready yet since it was only 11:30a, but they held our bags for us. We have a whale watching tour at 1:00p and they guaranteed that our room would be ready by 2p. We left the hotel to look around the marina. It’s pretty small and not too much to do. Also, there are very few restaurants. We wanted a light snack since we would be fed lunch on the boat, so we found a snack shop and I got some garlic chicken balls. They were pretty good!! Imagine a chicken tender shaped in a ball with butter and garlic in the middle. Very tasty!
Shortly, we boarded the boat for the Whale Song whale watching cruise. We found out that it’s international pirate day today and our crew on the tour were all dressed as pirates and talking in pirate: Gar! We opted to sit in the pilot’s deck, away from most of the people. We headed out to sea and were served a cold meat and salad lunch. The boat was so rocky that a crew member carried our plates upstairs to where we were sitting. I was so happy about that; I was certain I would have lost my plate over the side. :) Upon finishing our lunch, we were in whale territory and saw several whales.
click here for gallery
It was so cool to watch them jump out of the water. We even saw some calves! We were out on the boat from 1p to about 5p. Halfway through our tour, we were given cheese and crackers. On the way back, we saw a rare whale that even the tour guides don’t see that often: a southern grey. We even saw a calf and it was jumping out of the water too.
We’re pretty tired from being out on the boat and all the flying we did today. We grabbed dinner nearby and now we’re heading to bed. Tomorrow, we have an all day safari tour on Fraser Island. Not really sure what to expect, but it should be fun. Night!
20 September 2009, Sunday
Fraser Island Safari today! The green tour bus picked us up from our hotel and drove about a minute to the marina. We would have walked if we knew that it was gonna be that close! Oh well. Then, we boarded a ferry over to Fraser Island. The ferry took all of about 30 minutes to cross the way. We sat out on the front of the boat and spotted some sea turtles along the way. They were swimming in the waves. Pretty neat! Upon docking at the pier, we followed our tour guide off the boat and onto our 4x4 green bus. This was gonna be interesting. Our tour guide had a German-Aussie accent which was pretty difficult to understand at times, but I managed and shot some video of him too.
click here for gallery
Our group loaded onto the bus and put our seatbelts on. The guide assured us that we would be “kissing the ceiling” if we didn’t wear our belts. And, boy was he right! The island is mainly made out of sand, hence the need for a 4x4 vehicle. We listened to his jokes as he toured us around the island. The roads on the island were pretty small so when we would happen upon another vehicle, the other vehicle would find a place to pull over so we could pass them. That’s the advantage of having a larger vehicle. We got lost (he missed a turn) and had to back track a bit to find the turn we missed so we saw more of the island than we thought we would. :) Our first stop was ____________ to top up the fuel on the bus. We could see the beach and the ocean.
From here, we drove onto the beach. The speed limit is 100km/hr. It was surprising to see the amount of cars on the beach. It was literally a highway with at least 2 lanes going each way. People were out fishing on the beach or camped up on the rocks above the beach. We continued north on the beach to our first stop the Cathedrals.
Our second stop was an old wreck of a ship left by Captain Cook.
Then we stopped
For the rest of the day, here are notes: Lunch, cathedral, wreck, swim stop, back to the place we ate at for lunch, picked up chef to take off island, drove to lake, drove to virgin rain forest, dropped us off and we walked behind bus, had a tea stop, drove to beach to be picked up by ferry; put bus on ferry, rode ferry back, watched sunset; back at hotel, had a quick dinner and went to bed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
