Aussie time with Ian- Port Douglas

We woke up early on Monday morning and had coffee, toast with jelly and cereal. We talked about what exactly we wanted to do since we had the car. There were a few different options and they all sounded so great so we pretty much just had to go through the process of elimination.

It was a beautiful, blue sky day with no wind so we decided to use that in our favour (favour has a U in it in Aussie) and check out a few beaches. After our process of elimination we had the perfect itinerary planned. We were going to check out a few different beaches and make lunch on the beach. We packed a cooler with bread, veggies for sandwiches, apples, ice water with lemon, and a kit kat.

A few different people that we talked to suggested that we head north to Port Douglas. The drive that we went on to get there was a World Heritage drive with amazing sceneries. This drive is usually only about an hour and some change but because we were in no hurry in our day, we decided to take advantages of all of the stops and beaches that we passed and spend time at each place. This was the best option because we got to see a lot more and since I was driving I couldn’t stare at the scenery the whole time so stopping was to our best interest, haha!

Our first stop was a beautiful beach that was home to salt water crocodiles and jelly fish. It was so beautiful so we decided to spend a little time here before we continued our driving. We walked on this beach for a little while until we decided to keep on driving. There was nobody at this beach and I didn’t get why because it was so beautiful and the sand was soft and amazing. Maybe the crocodiles have something to do with it though. We continued driving and traffic came to a stop right at a pullover scenery view point. So we thought since traffic was stopped we would just park and get out and check it out.

It was another beautiful spot above the ocean so we took some pictures here and then the construction guy turned his sign around from ‘stop’ to ‘slow’ so we got in the car and continued driving.

We finally made it to our destination Port Douglas. This was home to a few beaches including a four mile beach. We could only swim in the parts that were blocked off and netted because of all of the jelly fish. So we set up here and stayed here for a while. We brought our top sheet from our hotel and used it as a big giant beach blanket and had lunch there. We had sandwiches, apples and split the kit kat for dessert. It was delicious. We spent a fair amount of time at this beach because the water was nice and clean and it was a really fun beach.

. There were a lot of people because the weather was so beautiful. After lunch we swam in the ocean for a long time because we didn’t want to get out. It was really warm water but cool enough for it to feel really good and cool us down. We tested out my underwater case that we got for my camera and it worked. No leakages there. We had to test it out because the next day we were headed to the Great Barrier Reef.

After eating lunch, swimming and hanging out at this beach for a while we decided we would go check out the famous rain forest. I wasn’t really that into it because I have seen 10 rainforests since I have been in Australia and I went to a few in New Zealand also and they are kind of boring to me now. But since Ian has never been to a rainforest we went and it ended up being really cool, just like all the other ones. This one had a swimming hole with fresh water so that was actually really nice because we had been swimming in the salt water all day.

. We swam in this little swimming hole for a while and then checked out the scenic trail through the rainforest. I wasn’t going to say anything about leaving because I knew that Ian had never seen a rain forest before so I just was nice and patient about it. Then Ian just said, “eh, actually this is kind of boring maybe if we leave now we will have time to stop at other beaches,” and I obviously did not argue there.

So we walked fast out of the rainforest and started driving back to our hotel with some more stops at beaches. Finally after our scenic road trip we made it back to our hotel. We unladed all of our beach stuff and food and backpacks and everything and gave the car a quick clean and drove it back to the rent a car place and walked back to the hotel. It was not a long walk, probably about a 15-20 minute walk but we turned it into longer because we made some stops.

Cairns has night markets every night that start around 7pm I think and end at midnight. We looked around in there for a while but didn’t really see anything that we needed so we left. They did offer 40 minute massages for 10 bucks though so that was a steal that I missed out on, haha! After night markets we stoped at Woollies to get an avocado and a tomato so we could have it in our salad that we were going to make for dinner but we also ended up getting pretzels and peanuts so we could have snacks on our Great Barrier Reef the next day. After Woollies we stopped at a gelato shop and got some ice cream and then walked back to our hotel.

Once we got to our hotel we made dinner. We had salad, soup and steamed broccoli with a lot of lemon water. It was pretty late after we ate dinner because we had to drop off the car and everything so we just relaxed and went to bed awhile after dinner. We went to bed early again because our itinerary for Tuesday was booked and we had to be at the boat at 7:30am to head to the outer part of the Great Barrier Reef.

Hike to Babinda Falls with Ian

We spent our first night in our hotel, Harbour Lights (Aussies have weird spellings for some things, so in this case HarboUr has a U in it). We woke up really early and started looking at things that we wanted to do. We really were not sure at this point because we had so many options so we just had to figure out what exactly we wanted to do. Of course, because we had so many options our minds changed 100 times before we decided that we wanted to rent a car for two days so we could tour all around and go to some hot spots that we heard about that were close to Cairns. So we started our very own tour without having to pay a tour guide!

After calling a few different rental places and going through a short but thorough interview with each place we found just the one we wanted to rent with. They picked us up from Harbour lights and brought us to the office to fill out the paper work. It was only a 3 minute drive and the paperwork only took 10 minutes so we had the car pretty early to start our day. I drove the whole time because I am used to it now. It doesn’t take much to get used to, it is only scary for the first 10 minutes you are driving and then everything else comes naturally. I already went through the 10 minute scary part when I drove in New Zealand so I think after being in Australia for 3 months and driving a little in New Zealand I was pretty used to it.

This picture is right outside our hotel.

We headed south to a little park called Wooroonooran National Park. We heard about this place because we met some people at the airport also travelling and they told us about this place. It is not a secret place but I don’t think that it is advertised anywhere in Cairns because we didn’t see anything about it when we wanted to go there and once we got there nobody was there. It was a little tough to find but we finally found it. It was about 45 minutes south of Cairns. I think this is just a little local secret. Right as we started hiking we ran into some locals with their dogs and they told us where exactly to go and stuff.

We started hiking and hiking and hiking and then we just hiked for a little while longer until we finally made it to this beautiful waterfall. We wished Abby was hiking with us but we just enjoyed each other’s company without Ab instead. We had a really great time at this place because it was so beautiful and we were the only ones there. It was not a tour destination at all. The swimming hole was really cold but it only took about 45 seconds to get used to it.

We had packed a lunch so we found a flat rock that we could eat on and then we went swimming again. Once we were done swimming we just hiked around in the rocks a little bit more before we left. Right as we were leaving there were a couple of people that had just arrived to the waterfall. Once we hiked back to the bottom we drove back to Carins and went to Woolworths to get some groceries to last us for the week.

After our grocery stop at woollies we drove back to the hotel and cooked dinner. I made a minestrone soup, a big salad with lots of delicious veggies, and we had a piece of toast that we pretended was a fresh piece of garlic bread (with no garlic, haha). After dinner we decided we would go rent a movie. The movie store was about a 5 minute drive and the lady suggested that we don’t walk because there is a sketchy park where a bunch of drunk and drug user bums hang out at. We took her word and drove.

We rented a really stupid movie that I couldn’t even watch after about a half hour. So once I decided that it was so stupid and that it was not possible for it to get any stupider then I just decided to write in my blog instead. Then we went to bed really early because we wanted to get an early start on our day since it was our last day with the car.

Last shot of Babinda Falls!

100% guaranteed- or your $ back

I am positive that Ians flight was a lot longer for me than it was for him. I feel like I got the short end of the stick on this one. I just waited and waited for like a bazillion, gazillion hours and tried really hard to keep myself busy. It was only a little successful, not all the way though. He got on the airplane to fly over the Pacific when it was Friday afternoon, lunch timeish for me, and finally arrived at 8:30 Saturday morning. So I pretty much had to wait all day long and then go to bed and wake up before he got here. The night before he got here I worked on my assignment, hung out with Hayley, counted down the hours till Ian finally arrived and then hopped in bed around 10:30ish in hopes of getting some sleep. Pretty sure I was far too excited to get any of that stuff though- I sure did try. And tried, and tried. Again, I don’t think I was too successful. BUT FINALLY, it was close enough to 6am that I could finally get up. Not that I wanted to, I would way rather have some sleep then to be getting up but the whole sleep thing was just not working out for me so my only other option was to get up and waste some more time.

So I woke up, showered, wasted some time online (that’s the real ticket) and just waited some more. Even though Ian should have been getting to my house soon I still thought I would have time to run to Fruit ‘n’ Veg to get some bananas to make smoothies and come back before he got to my apartment. I got Nigel and my purse and raced out the door so I could make it back in time for him to get to my house. As soon as I got out the gate and hopped on Nigel and started peddling I ran into IAN! Woo Hoo!

We were both so, so excited to see each other but it was a little weird for the first 5 minutes because it was so crazy that he was actually in Australia with me. After being on skype and an airplane for so long he finally, somehow made it to see me. I skipped the bananas and walked Nigel back to my apartment with Ian so he could drop off his bag and shower. He said he wasn’t tired but I thought maybe after he showered and had something to eat it would hit him—It didn’t, still hasn’t. Magically he managed to get a full 8 hours of sleep on the airplane, with the help of Tylenol PM and Melatonin. So since he wasn’t tired at all and it was such a beautiful day in the Sunshine Coast I walked him to my school and showed him all of the buildings and lakes and trails and stuff. We were also in search of Kangaroos but surprisingly enough, they were not awake yet. I bet it was close to 9am. They like to sleep in though, haha. I also showed him around my apartment complex. Showed him the office, tennis courts, pool, Pav, the games inside the Pav, and then we walked to the school.

When I was showing him around the school we thought we would take the short cut which is on this trail and it is way faster to get back to my house from this trail but when we got to the part where we cross over water we saw a brown snake which are dangerous, poisonous and deadly. So then we decided not to go that way and take the scenic route, which only takes about 12 minutes anyway.

When we got back to the apartment we just visited for a while, had coffee, he briefly met Sebastian and Lucy but Hayley, Ian and I hung out quite a bit. Alyce also stopped over to say hi and meet him and so did Anas. They were both excited to meet him because they have met him on skype 100 times but never in real life. Once they left we hung out for a bit longer and then Hayley, Ian and I caught the bus and went to Mooloolaba to have lunch and show Ian around a little bit before we had to leave to catch our shuttle to the airport at 3:15 to go to Cairns.

We ate at a little café that was outside on the beach and we all got the same thing- fresh salad wraps with ‘chips’ (Aussie’s call French fries ‘chips’)- it was delicious. We walked around the beach and the town for a while and then headed back to the bus stop to realize that if we took a bus back we would not make our shuttle that was picking us up from home and taking us to the airport so we took a cab instead which was way faster. We had lots of spare time in the end this way. We went back home and finished packing our bags for our 5 day trip to the Great Barrier Reef.

The shuttle was late so we just waited for him and then we hopped on around 3:40 and drove 1 hour to the Brisbane airport to catch our flight at 6pm. Did the whole airport thing and blah, blah, blah. We reached Cairns after about 2 hours and got our bags and took a shuttle to our accommodation for the next 5 nights. We got to our hotel and thought we were for sure in the wrong place because it was way too nice for us and we bought a package that included this room and we thought there was no way they put us in this beautiful hotel. But they did and we are here for 5 nights.

It’s beautiful and it is in the middle of the town so there is everything we need (except internet OF COURSE!). It was pretty late and we were both starving so we went on a food hunt. Our food hunt was unsuccessful. Everything was closed except for bars that were no longer serving food. Our only option was to get gas station food. We got a roman packet, a heat up pasta, cereal and a small milk. We went back to our room and cooked our delicious dinner and split it (our room has a small kitchen). It was the best first date after three months ever : ). What else could I have asked for, haha! Don’t worry, the next day, at decent hours we made it to the grocery store to get food for our week. After dinner we were both really exhausted and worn out so we hit the hay right away.

Back in OZ

We were supposed to be home on Saturday by 4pm but instead we made it home at 10pm because of long delays and plane trouble. I was so anxious and overly ready to be home because I had been traveling for 15 days so I was ready. Although I loved every second of every adventure and every day I was still so excited to be home. I put my key in the gate and watched it slowly open and once I stepped foot inside my apartment complex it was the best feeling because I knew I was home. Anas and I walked back to our "flats" (Aussie name for apartments) and I think we were both excited to be back. I don't think he would admit it because he wanted to stay longer but inside I think he was just as happy to be home as I was. We gave each other a high five as a successful trip cheers and walked back to our rooms. He lives about 30 feet and 30 stair up from me. I live at the bottom and around the corner.

So I made it home and I was SOO happy. I said hi to my roomie Sebastian (Seppy) and unlocked my room. As I was unlocking it this little treat came out from the crack at the bottom to say hi, it was a cockroach. I screamed but once I realized it was just a cockroach I was fine. It ran into Hayley's room right across from mine anyway so I didn't have to kill it. Apparently they are very clean bugs. And they are harmless so I don't know why people hate them so much. I mean I don't love em or anything but if its not gonna bite me I am okay with it. Not that I would want it in my bed or anything I am just okay with them, nothing more.

Anyways Seppy and I just gossiped about our trips for awhile as I unpacked and then I went to bed. I had the best sleep I have had since I have been here.

I think I forgot to add something in my blog so I will just add it here. It is a very inconvenient spot but I just really don't want to forget it. And if I already put it in where it was supposed to go then it can just be in my blog twice: We were in a 5.3 earthquake at 7:08am the same morning we left Christchurch. As of today Christchurch has had 7,000 aftershocks so that is just crazy. I am glad we didn't spend much time there. I slept through the 5.3 earthquake. I don't really know how because I woke up about 20 minutes after it and was wide awake. But I think I had a dream of the earthquake as it was happening, I just didn't wake up. It was weird. I just had to add that really quick. Now I will tell you about my week.

My week has been pretty boring. At the beginning of the week I was not bored. I was stressed because I thought I had to do so many assignments and turn them in so I wouldn't have to do them while Ian was here but then I figured out I labeled my calendar wrong because I counted the weeks we didn't have school as school weeks so they really are not due for a while. I will still have to work on them while Ian is here but not a lot and now I am not as stressed. It would make more since if our teachers just gave us dates that our assignments were due but instead we get what week they are due in. Oh well, at least my mistake benefited me and I got a lot of research done way before my assignment was even due (that is what an over achiever would do) :).

So I still have one assignment to turn in while Ian is here and I am just finishing it up to turn in early. I have all day tomorrow to finish it. The rest of the week I just hung out with Hayley and it was really nice so we went to the pool.

And I just did other important productive stuff all week. Homework, laundry, clean, classes, grocery shop etc. The morning I woke up I rode Nigel (bike) to fruit and veg which is a store that only sells fruit and veggies and milk and eggs (if you didn't catch on the the name of the store, haha). It is the store that is really close to my apartment and the other grocery store is far so I waited and went with Alice cus she has a car. And then I went with her roommie Brenden again a day later to get the stuff I forgot. He just asked if I need to go and I said okay cus I know I forgot some stuff, hahaha. Everything else this week was pretty boring. As I said just homework, laundry, cleaning, pool time, gym, etc. I cant really think of anything else I did.

Oh yeah, Workout Wednesday with Hayley. We got our butts kicked (as always).

Tomorrow morning (Friday=no classes)I am waking up at 7:30am and taking Nigel to this gym that is a mile away. I got a free trial so I am going to do a 30 minute ab work out called "ABS BLAST" and then right after that I will do an hour workout class that is called "BODY COMBAT" sounds fun huh! I will get done around 10:15, ride Nigel home (hope I don't get pulled over for not wearing a helmet), eat and then work on my paper. When I think I need a break from my paper I will go to the pool and lay out in the sun for an hour or something and then come home and finish my paper again after relaxing for awhile. Then I will turn it in, have dinner probably and do whatever else comes up that will waste time. And then I will go to bed and hopefully fall asleep and then when I wake up IAN WILL BE HERE!!! The most exciting part of my trip will start (yes, when I say trip I mean studies) :). He will be here Saturday morning around 8 or 9am. It depends on how fast he can get through customs and how fast his shuttle driver drives. But I am SOOO excited.

Then he will want to shower and eat because that's the first things I wanted to do after that LOOOOONG, never ending flight. And then he should sleep for an hour or two. and then at 3:15 we will go back to the airport and catch our flight to Cairns to the Great Barrier Reef. So it will be a long day for him but 1-2 hours of sleep will be good then he has to try and stay awake until at least 10pm so he can get on an Australian sleeping schedule right away. And we have a 5 hour energy shot that will help him. I doubt those shots are good for you in any way but situations like this is when its okay to have 1. It will be necessary. Unless he happens to get a good nights sleep on the air plane and is wide awake when he gets here and ready to start his day. But I think that is pretty much impossible. If he is anything like I was then once he gets that one night of good sleep then he will wake up abnormally early for a few days. I woke up around 5 am for the first 2 weeks I was here.

Anyway, I am tired and this blog is boring me! I will write agian once Ian is here since you already know exactly how my day is going to go tomorrow!

Bye Bye!

So our very last day together we woke up early from the ski lodge and had breakfast all together and then hit the road (the usual). We made a few pit stops to take some pictures and then our last stop for the whole tour was a sheep farm. It was really interesting but as you can guess it will not be labeled as one of my highlights : ). However, the sheep were so cute and nice and it was cool to feel their wool coats. I also have to admit that it was really cool to see the Border collie gather up all the sheep on demand and keep them in a bunch and keep them all together.

Pretty much we got a short introduction of this one guy that works on the farm full-time and he is the only person that works there every day besides his father who works part-time there. It is a small local farm with 2,000 sheep and 500 cows so it was pretty unbelievable that only one person and two dogs can manage that whole farm by themselves but it is the dogs that do most of the work. This family had a beautiful house in a beautiful location. The scenery reminded me of the back porch of my parents old house so beautiful and peaceful with the big mountain in the background.

After we watched the sheep get gathered by the puppy the family prepared snacks for us. I just had cookies and a scone and some water, (I skipped the coffee). Then we just sat at the tables and enjoyed the company, scenery and dog. Seeing dogs really makes me miss Abby but I know she is having a lot of fun right now. She is at Ian’s parents and getting a couple walks a day and also swimming a lot at the lake that is right by their house. I am sure they are taking the best care of her. She is there right now because Ian comes to visit me in ONE WEEK! Anyway after we left there we drove all the way to Christchurch (earthquake central) with only one pee stop.

Once we got to Christchurch we had two different hostels to stop at to drop people off at. Myself and the friends that I hung out with all week stayed at the hostel the ‘jail house’ and the other hostel that dropped off people was the Bealy street hostle. Most of the hostels are closed down because of damage that happened from the Earthquakes. Our hostel the jail house used to be a women’s prison in the 1800’s and was turned into a hostle in 1999 so it was a very interesting place to stay at. It was a lot of fun though and clean but the best part was I got to stay the last night with all of the new friends I made.
When we got there we all headed to subway for our last dinner together (we thought we would go all out). After subway we just hung around the hostel, watched a dumb movie that was about fighting and guns and stuff that mostly only boys like (I voluntarily opted out of this one within the first 20 minutes) and then played a bunch of cards until we were really tired and went to bed.
It was nice to sleep in this morning but a lot of people were woken up by their beds and doors shaking from a 5.3 earthquake. It happened at 7am and I somehow didn’t wake up to it. A lot of people did but me and my roomie Sarah didn’t feel a thing. I thought I had a dream about it but it was really vague and I don’t really remember because I was half asleep.
This morning I woke up and showered and got ready right away at around 8 or 8:30ish. After I woke up I bought 3 dollars of internet and called Ian for a quick hello and goodbye and then hung around the hostel with friends. We had to say some goodbyes to people that we met during the tour which really sucked but it wasn’t too hard, (must be facebook or something). It’s funny how well you get to know somebody after just a week of hanging out with them 24/7. The first person to leave was Ben and he is going home to Michigan after studying and working in Asia for the last 3 months. He took extra time off after his internship and stayed in Australia for a while and then did the week tour with us in New Zealand. He was a lot of fun and we kept each other company during the long drives we had throughout the week. He is only in Michigan so I am sure we will see more of each other because we became really good friends after a week.
After he left a few of us that stayed at the jail house walked over to this café and got our last brekky together. It was also good company and I think for the most part everybody was ready to go home and get back into a schedule. We had a nice breakfast and nice company and then walked back and Erica, me and Anas waited for our shuttle. Alex and David were taking a bus back to the town in New Zealand that they are studying at Dunedin which is way south of the south island in New Zealand. They decided they would stay at the hostel until our shuttle came and then walk to lunch and then walk to their bus stop to catch the bus back to school.

Our shuttle came and we all said our goodbyes again. I maybe will see them in the future also because they just live in MN and I think our schools may play each other in sports. They go to a small Lutheran school in MN that is division D also. After saying goodbye to them and a few other friends I met we loaded our shuttle and were off to the airport. We got to the airport and of course there was airport drama, our plan was delayed a few hours but I am on the plane safe and in the air. I will be landing soon and I am so excited to get back to see my roomies and relax at home! Travelling for two weeks and living out of a ripped suitcase is sure tiring and I am ready to be back in Aussie with my mates! So good bye for now : )!

Last night with Top Deck Tour

So yesterday we left the boat and loaded our bus and hit the road (again). Yesterday was a pretty uneventful day and kind of a drag because we did so much driving but we did make a few good stops, including one to take a group picture.

We made a couple stops to take some pictures and then we stopped in Te Anau for a 45 minute lunch break. After that we loaded the bus again (of course). And drove and drove and drove. And then we drove to this fresh fruit store that had every kind of fruit you could possibly think of and some that you have never even heard of or saw before. It was pretty cool. I got 3 apples and chocolate covered peanuts and then since it was famous for the fresh fruit ice-cream I got some of that also. We had about 3 kinds we can mix the fruit with and I was a dummy and chose to mix mine with cookies and cream because I really wanted chocolate, but it wasn’t gross it was just interesting. It was still delicious enough for me to eat it all : ). After the ice-cream stop we were on the road again until we reached our accommodation.

. It was a pretty sweet accommodation only because it was a ski lodge and that’s my favorite! Allegedly it was voted the best ‘ski field’ in all of New Zealand for the last 3 years but I think I don’t believe that for a second. I mean, I suppose I can’t judge until I have skied there but there was maybe 15 runs total. Those 15 runs would have a lot to prove to me before I voted it to be the best in New Zealand. The name of it was Ohau so if you are interested then do some research and get back to me : ).

So for dinner we had another buffet and a brownie alamode for dessert. Then everybody just kind of hung out and did whatever we wanted since it was our last night together. I did some laundry and had a couple glasses of wine and sat by the fire and gossiped with some people from the tour and tried to get on the internet for a little bit but it’s too expensive to spend a lot of time on there so I just had a few minutes. There was a hot tub there also but I didn’t go hot tubing because everybody kept getting out and saying that it was not warm and it was very cold outside so it would have to be hot before I got in. The people who did get in the hot tub saw a ton of shooting stars though so that’s the only thing I am sad about. The stars here are amazing! Anyway, I just hung out in the lodge till about midnight and then hit the hay because yet again, another early morning was on the agenda.

Overnight Cruise = Breathtaking scenery

Well, I am back on the bus on my way to … somewhere.

We have a few pit stops planned before we get to our accommodation for the night.

We stopped at a few different picture perfect places and then we also made a quick stop to fill up our water bottles (yes, it resulted in me having to pee 100 times, but it was worth it). We filled up our water bottles in a creek that had the best water ever. Fresh as it gets, haha!

Anyway, moving on to the boat cruise.

Yesterday, early evening around 4pm we loaded the boat for the overnight cruise. It was nothing less than amazing! Beautiful views, awesome company, great food, nice boat and everything was perfect!

We got on the boat and went for a little cruise to this waterfall. It doesn’t look like it is very big but it is actually twice the size of Niagara Falls. It just looks so small because the peak are so high.

This peak is about a mile high starting from the water going up. It also goes down into the ocean really deep. It is the world’s largest mountain coming out of the water. This area is called Milford Sound but I forget the name of the peak but I will figure it out and put it in the caption of pictures. After we went to this waterfall we went into this little bay area and dropped the anchor for the night.

We got to go kayaking or speed boating for about an hour before dinner was served. Our cruise boat had two speed boats on it and 20 kayaks. I chose to go kayaking and it was awesome! It was so much fun and the views were amazing. Right as I was getting done kayaking and heading back to the boat dolphins started to jump out of the water.

. I think there were about 15 of them. They were everywhere jumping all around the speed boats. It was quite a distance from where I was but it was still amazing.

After watching the dolphins for a few minutes I rowed back to the big boat and hopped back in and warmed up with tea and waited for everybody else to get back. Once everybody got back a big group of people jumped into the water off the boat. Remember, they are just starting winter so the water was freezing!

After that fun festy that I did not participate in (other than being a photographer), we all sat down for dinner. I am going to have to say that this was the best part. I sat at a table with Francis, Zaid, Ben, Anas, Alex and David and our table was the last to get served which meant the first to dive into dessert.

We waited and waited for our turn to get to the buffet but we were not starving during this time. This was a four course meal. We started off with bread and delicious toppings for bread. The toppings for the bread were; Fresh spicy tomato basil, avocado oil, hummus and one more thing that I don’t remember. After our bread we got a choice of soup. The choices were Thai pumpkin or seafood chowder- that’s what I got! It was a good choice. After we ate our soup that is when we had to wait our turn to hit up the buffet. The buffet had everything, artichoke hearts (my personal fav), beats, a couple different kinds of salad, mashed potatoes and gravy, lots of veggies, vegetarian lasagna pasta stuff (amazing) and then meat for the meat heads- lamb, pork, chicken etc. And then the best part happened. Dessert. They had about 10 different kinds of dessert and my table got to dive in first. I pretty much got a little of everything and I don’t regret it : ).

Although, all of my workouts from the last 2.5 months got flushed down the toilet in the past two weeks, the meal on the boat trip was just the icing on the cake (literally). So I suppose I will try and get back to where I was once I get back to Australia. I will be excited to get back to the treadmill, weights and workout classes though. I think I will have to do an hour morning and an hour evening workout for the next 3 weeks to work of this trip and that’s not going to happen, haha! That’s okay, it was worth it.

After we ate that gourmet meal I went outside and star gazed for a while hoping to see a shooting star, but I didn’t. I also watched a seal that was swimming up and down our boat for a while. Then I came back inside and we played cards again for a few hours until we were tired and ready for bed. It was perfect night and a lot of fun. Our bedrooms were really nice :).

Francis and I shared a room. Most all of the rooms that were for our tour were double beds for two people with a bathroom. We went to bed fairly early because we had a morning cruise to the Tasman Sea starting at 7:45 but we had to be up even earlier because breakfast started at 7 and only went until 7:45.

Francis and I woke up around 6:30 and showered and went upstairs for breakfast (our boat was a 3 story boat). Francis is from Chicago and her travelling buddy Zaid is also from Chicago. Francis worked at the hospital in Chicago as a nurse for almost 6 years and then decided right about when she turned 27 that she needed to do this big backpacking trip around the world. So she quit her job and started planning her 3 month journey in different parts of the world.

While she was travelling she ran into one of her friends from school who was signed up for this tour and Zaid asked her to go and she said well sure, because she didn’t really have a plan at that point so she came on the New Zealand tour with us and she is great : ).

Her family is from the Philippine’s so I think that is her next stop and then she has a few more stops before her backpacking trip is finished. She has been travelling alone for about 2 months but then she ran into her friend Zaid and now they have been travelling together for a week with TOP DECK (our tour name).

This was our Mariner! She has been through a lot of storms and she is a true champ! But anyway, that was the end of our boat cruise and I will update you on the rest of the time in New Zealand, even though time here is almost up and I am happy about it because I am excited to go back to Aussie land! STAY TUNED! :)