Australia here we come...

January 10, 2007
My first post of the new Year! And it’s already the 10th of January. Wow. We had a wonderful holiday in Australia! It’s been my dream to go to Australia and the Great Barrier Reef for many, many years. Although it wasn’t exactly in my dream to take 3 kids along on the trip, that’s life, though, isn’t it. Better with 3 kids than never going at all! It was a long flight there, although overnight, so the kids did sleep. Ryken was in a carseat, which is so much easier on planes than having to hold him. We arrived in Sydney on the morning on the 17th. We stayed at a hotel in Darling Harbour. For the first day, we mainly just walked around, trying to find diapers and baby food and checking out Darling Harbour area. We found Sydney to be very expensive food wise and grocery wise, at least compared to the States.

On the 18th, we shopped most of the day. I was in heaven with all the stores! It was wonderful, although I must say, would have been much more wonderful had we not had kids who were completely bored and tired of walking and just wanting to play. To satisfy their appetite for fun, we stopped at a mall called Myer, where we saw that there was a Santaland train. The girls got to ride the train and look at all the Christmas decorations. Santa was also visiting Myer mall, but due to Liz’s complete fear of the man in red and white, we didn’t get to see him. After shopping, we went up the to Sydney Observation Tower and go to see Sydney from high up in the air. It was pretty cool and amazing how far you could see, along with how green and pretty everything is. Definitely a sight for sore eyes after being in polluted Beijing. After the observation tower, we took the kids to the Sydney Aquarium, where we got to see lots of fish, sharks, rays and even a croc.

On the 19th, our first stop was to the doctor, Liz had a UTI and needed to get some antibiotics. Fast, efficient and cheap, we were happily on our way after about an hour. We visited Taronga Zoo by taking a ferry from Darling Harbour over to the zoo and sightseeing along the way. It was windy and a bit chilly, so the sky ride (a gondola from the ferry dropoff up to the top of the zoo) was closed. The zoo was beautiful, with amazing views of Sydney from lots of places in the zoo. It started to cloud over and sprinkle a bit, so we headed back to Darling Harbour on the ferry. Once there, we went to a fancy seafood restaurant and had a good meal, while Ashley ran outside in the rain trying to scare people with her lion mask on. It was hilarious and I think she managed to scare a few people, along with make a few people laugh.

On the 20th, it was time to depart Sydney and fly to Lady Elliot Island via Hervey Bay. We had to get up early for our early flight, so we ate breakfast at the Sydney airport – we had Krispy Kreme donuts! YUM! What a treat. The flight to Hervey Bay was uneventful, although they wouldn’t let us take Ryken’s carseat as it hadn’t been preapproved and it wasn’t an Australian carseat brand (that was frustrating). Once in Hervey Bay, we waited for our flight to Lady Elliot. At boarding time, they came and got us and walked us past security and to the tiny 14 seater plane. Guess when you’re flying on something that small, no additional security measures are needed. The flight was about 45 minutes and the island was absolutely gorgeous from above. Amazing. I was so excited to get down and check it out.