We Made It!

Hey everyone we just wanted to let you know that we made it home safely. The trip was long but we arrived last night at 630. We had a good sleep even if it was till noon hehe. Anyway thanks again for everyone who supported us through the trip. We have lots of pictures and stories to share. Until our next adventure so long.

The Final Chapter...

So yesterday we explored Phillip Island its not a very big island so it was fairly easy to explore the whole thing in one day. We got on island around 9ish and we left around 5 so it was a nice long day. At first we were just bouncing from beach to beach then we decided it would be much more time effective to just take a cruise along the coast. So dad got us a cruise while i parked the car we got some chips(fries) and headed on down to the dock. Where we waited a little while then borded the ship...we secured the only seats facing backward off the top deck and we were very pleased with ourselves for the choice. The coastline was quite beautiful but after a while it all kinda looked the same. Soon though we came to the highlight of the trip. Seal Rock...this rock has almost 10000 seals living on it currently that's right 10000. It was amazing to see all of the seals on the rocks and swimming in the water. It was truly an amazing experience and one that dad and I are quite blessed to have been apart of. Thank you so much for reading along on our adventure. Tomorrow we are getting on a plane at 6 am and then we will arrive in Los Angelas at 7am. So that will be a nice quick flight hehe...just kidding its 15 hours. Anyway thanks again for all the support this has truly been a life changing experience and one that we both feel incredibly blessed to have gone on. So from our hotel room here in Melbourne Vic, Australia we say so long and we will see you soon!

90 Mile Beach...

So yesterday we drove from mallacoota to a place called bairnsdale. It was a nice drive with some very beautiful beaches. We were very fortunate to find a room in bairnsdale we had been looking for about 3 hours in previous towns and such when we finally found bairnsdale. It was a nice little town but nothing was open and so we just called it a night. Today we drove from there to a town called Wonthaggi. We stopped at a couple awesome places. One was the 90 mile beach and the other was Eagles nest. The 90 mile beach was amazing it was about 100 feet wide and just strethed in either direction as far as the eye could see. Dad and I hiked on down the beach skipping rocks and looking for shells just enjoying the sand and the sun. Then we moved on and on the way to wonthaggi we just drove past the eagles nest and thought we would stop by and see it. It was awesome, these pictures I took when I jumped over the guard rail and headed down to the side of the cliff. There were people surfing down in the cove below us so we hung around for a while and watched them. It was a very nice relaxing day. Tomorrow we are going to go to Phillip Island and watch the penguins there then we are going to get one more room before returning our car on tuesday and getting ready for our super long flight back. Thanks again for following along with us on this incredible journey. Until tomorrow see ya around.

The Snowy Mountains

Due to technical difficulties and to the fact that no stores are open because its good friday I dont have any new multimedia content. However I do have some pictures from when we crossed the Snowy mountains on our long trip to Sydney from Corryong. Think of it as the "Lost Blog" that is just being published. So we headed out of corryong on a bright and sunny morning(Actually it was closer to noon)and soon we found ourselves climbing out of the valley up into the hills. After about 45 minutes we came to one of several hydro-electric stations that make up the Snowy Mountain Scheme. This was amazing to see, instead of using a river to spin their turbines they actually pumped water through pipes over the top of the mountain and let the gravity feed do the rest. We kept going up into the winding hills and the hairpin turns after about an hour we came to a massive lookout with an amazing view of the pass and the major mountains that we between us and the coast Then we head on our way after marveling that the highest peak in australia is only 6000ft roughly. We crossed more and more mountains and more twists and more turns in the road until finally we broke out of the hills onto vast plains. These were just forever going it seemed almost kansas like but even dad remarked the sky felt way bigger. Another couple of hours pass and then we started to notice huge huge rocks just out in the middle of the fields. Every where we looked there were rocks coming out of the ground and sheep grazing all around them it was very strange. Soon after that dad took a nap and I drove on for another 100 km or so finally stopping in a town called Golburn to get some food. We ate and then dad drove for another hour or so till we started to get into a city like area. Then we switched places and I drove the rest of the way into sydney and our hotel. Thanks for reading along I will try and find a place to fix our camera tomorrow but failing in that I will take some pics with my phone and post those.

A day at the beach

Hello again everyone today was fantastic! We just spent the day walking along the beach looking at tide pools and playing in the waves. We went into the sleepy little town of Milton where we found dad some swim trunks for 2 dollars thats right 2 dollars needless to say dad was tickled pink. After wandering around the town for a while we headed back to our room and then after a tip from the lady at reception we walked around a point on the beach to find a rock pocketed with hundreds of little tidepools. It was very cool to say the least. Then we had some real authentic fish and chips at a little cafe down by the water. Tomorrow we are heading to malacoota which is on the southeast corner of Australia. Ok so I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that are camera battery is dead and for some reason is not charging properly. The good news is that we are going to buy an adapter tomorrow so we should be back in the picture business soon. Alright well we will be back tomorrow. Here are some pictures where we are staying.

Relaxing Down the Coast.

Today we took a nice leisurely drive down the coast from sydney. We are 219km south of sydney and man our we in an amazing place. There is a huge beach with the softest sand imaginable. We stopped at some really gorgeous places along the way. Places with nice views and sandy beaches. Also some places that had really cool rocks jutting out into the water. Then we finally came to Milton. We actually just stopped for gas and dad just asked the guy at the gas station if he knew of any places on the beach and here we are. This place is so cool we booked another night. Tomorrow we should get the sun rising just over the ocean hopefully as long as the clouds are not in the way. We are going to lay low tomorrow and just chill. But we will definitely take many more pictures tomorrow and let you guys know whats up.

Sydney!!

Yesterday we drove from Corryong down into Sydney. It was a long drive and thats all I will say about it. We got in about 7:30 monday night and since we didn't have any internet we also didnt have any hotel reservations. Fortunately we used the GPS to find a Holiday Inn which turned out to be amazing. It is a really nice room and in a great location. Today we walked down to the wharf and then over to the Opera House which was pretty cool to see. Also tonight they are having the new Star Trek red carpet premiere. We just saw it on the news that all the celebs were there crazy I know. Anyway after we hung out there for a while we headed over to the train station and took the train over to the sydney aquarium. This was hands down the best aquarium I have ever been to. There were so many cool things to see but the best was probably this huge tank with sharks, manta rays, turtles and an assortment of fish. There were two walking tubes about 200 feet long that went along the bottome of the tank. It was amazing to have all these animals swimming right next to and over us. Dad and I were very impressed. After that we made our way back through the big city with dad feeling very out of place. Then we saw the perfect sign and we had to get a picture of it. We made it back safely and then laid low for most of the rest of the day. Tomorrow we are heading down the coast to somewhere. We will be sure to keep you guys updated.

Man From Snowy River Day 2

Today is Sunday April 5th. Last night we actually went through daylight savings again! This time we fell back as it is the australian fall. So that just messed us up for the rest of the day. We got down to the festival about 10 just in time for the team penning. This was flat out the coolest thing we had seen yet. 3 riders had 2mins to pen 3 steers. It was fantastic with all the sorting and nice horses dad was in heaven. Then after that we waited around for awhile and then the brumbie catch started. The riders had to put a halter on a brumbie and break it to lead from horseback in 4 minutes. Needless to say only a couple of all the contestants actually managed to get a halter on the brumbies. Then we hung around and watched some of the other acts and then it was time for the closing ceremony. We headed out before that so as not to get caught in "traffic" as dad put it. We ate at a local Pub and shot about 6 games of pool/snooker. It was a snooker table but we still played 8ball on it and blasted the jukebox all in all it was a great day. Tomorrow we are headed to sydney.

The Man From Snowy River

So we actually made it to the Festival the anchor of our whole trip. It was very exciting even though we werent sure what we were going to find. When we got down to Corryong the first thing we saw was the dog jump which was cool but not what we were expecting finally we went into the festival office and got the information that we needed. Also I talked pops into getting a nice shirt and hat that have the official logo on them. Then we headed down to the reserve which is basically just the fairgrounds. When we first got there we walked over and checked out the whipcrack contest. They had to crack the whip on specific paper targets and cut them clean through. There were some on the ground and some on poles about head height from horseback. It was pretty cool to watch dad was enjoying the horseflesh. Then we wandered over to the bareback obstacle course this was another part of the whole man from snowy river challenge. The contestants had to complete a series of tasks on their horses bareback.They had to open a wooden gate drag some brush and do some pretty fancy maneuvers. They did a backwards slolem and backed up a hill as well as a jump. This impressed dad let me tell you. It was an excellent display of horsemenship. We walked around the booths for a bit in between the different things they had going. Since it was my birthday dad bought me a stockwhip which is really cool. They had a school down there so one of the guys showed me a thing or two about it. It is 4 feet 6 inches long and it can break the sound barrier, very fun to play with. Anyway we went to the rodeo that night but were disapointed as it took a long time to get going and wasnt very impressive compared to the Ellensburg Rodeo. After that we headed back to the cottage for the night. It was a great day. Ill cover sunday in the next post as it is a whole new set of things to talk about.

The Queens Cottage

Thanks for being patient everyone. We made it to Sydney and now we have internet so now we can let you guys know all about it. First of all it was awesome! It was one of the coolest things we have every seen. We stayed at this little place called the Queens Cottage in a town about 15 mins away from Corryong. It was such a gorgeous place. This picture is on the way up to Khancoban which is pronounced(Can-co-bin) we drove through a huge thunderstorm 3 times on the way up to Corryong. This was our view from the back deck of our room. This place was so awesome the couple who owned it were so nice and welcoming they really set us up nicely. Andrew and Annie were the best tehy were so good that we had to get a picture with them. Our time staying at the cottage was truly a memorable one and it was definately the best place we have stayed yet.

Coffee and Internet FTW!

Today we woke up feeling refreshed and ready to go. That was until we couldnt find any coffee and the Internet at the place couldn't be used for our needs. So we set off into ballarat searching for both but mainly for coffee as poor dad was having some withdrawls. Our trusty GPS led us through many roundabouts and left turns until we came to downtown Ballarat. We parked and went insearch of the coffee house we had found. The coffee in question turned out to be watered down instant which as you can imagine did not sit well with pops. Naturally I resumed our quest with much spirt and vinegar. Along the way we stopped to exchange some money and buy dad some new shoes and a new shirt as well. He picked them both out himself you will be happy to know even though I had to prod a little on the shoes. Then we headed towards the only place left that had coffee we could trust...McDonald's as it so happened this was a Mcafe complete with WiFi so we headed on inside. The coffee was great as far as dad was concerned and fulfilled a much built up caffeine craving, meanwhile i was trying to connect a hotspot that barely existed and would connect and then disconnect after a few moments. Finally I was on the verge of giving up when a lady from the red cross who was sitting near us suggested that we go to the library. This turned out to be the best suggestion of the trip so far from any aussie we have talked to. We walked right in and got connected for free at quite nice speeds. So hear we are typing away in the Ballarat Public Library. Tommorow we will begin heading up towards Coryong and hopefully we will find a place that had internet up there but I doubt it. So until next time see you later or G'day!!!!

Wyndam Resorts, Ballarat

The place we are staying in ballarat is very nice. Some friends from the church were kind enough to let us use their timeshare and for that we are very grateful. This place is huge they have about 15 acres of land behind the housing part that has a lake and lots of trees that are just starting to change colors. We were still tired from the previous days travel on top of just general jetlag so we hung around the resort for the day. I swam in the pool for a while while dad laid on the lounge chair and directed thoughts my way as well as taking pictures. We walked down to the lake and I enticed about 20 ducks and 3 black geese over to shore by pretending to throw bread crumbs in the water. We went to a local store to get some food and bought Australia the movie which we were quite content to watch in our room after another exciting day in Aussie Land.

Driving through the countryside

Yesterday we made the journey from Port Campbell to Ballarat. The way we took was very backcountry with a good portion of the trip on a single road with gravel shoulders. This proved nothing of a task for our fancy four wheeled drive susuki. We motored right along even when we had one tire off the road as was the case when other cars occupied the road with us. We drove through beautiful rural country with rolling hills and dairy farms everywhere. This reminded us a little of the East coast in the states. There were also many fields of sheep and beef cattle just not as many as the dairy. Dad has become convinced that there are no kangaroos in australia and they are made up. That was until we passed a dead one on the side of the road, we went back to inspect it and it was a dead kangaroo just as we had thought. Dad was mollified for the moment but soon came back with the idea that it was planted there just to keep tourist's hopes alive. So we moved on and found a quaint little town called Cobden there we stopped at a local bakery and got some cinnamon rolls which had some weird fruit in them. Nevertheless we scarfed them down and got back on the road bound for Ballarat. we stopped a couple of times to admire the great openness of the land once we got away from the rolling hills. It really just flattened out and you could see for miles...err...kilometers
at one point we came to a narrow strip of land in between two huge lakes. Atleast that was how it looked on the map. If you google foxhow, vic on the google maps you will see a road that just barely squeezes between the two lakes. It is all dried up and for kilometers there is nothing but dry lakebed. Soon after that we reach our destination of Ballarat.(Trip Time Aprox 4 hours)

Ballarat

Hello again I must apologize in advance because this will be a very short post. Apparently there is very little internet in the resort we are staying at. however on the other side of that this resort is amazing. I will take lots of pictures and post them sometime when I have a nice connection. Maybe we will mosey into town and find a place there anyway I just wanted to let you guys know in case I dont get anything posted tonight. I promise I will post stuff asap...

The Great Ocean Road

We woke up today which is Tuesday refreshed and renewed even though I woke us up at 2am with a mis-set alarm.(Whoops) We checked out early and after a quick stop at Safeway...which is not at all like safeways at home fyi...we headed out towards the GOR (Great Ocean Road). The sun nice and warm and the breeze refreshing.

We didn't make it far however before we came to a very beautiful beach. Naturally we had to pull over and take a walk. There was a nice walkway to get down to the beach and having recovered some of my swagger in the hotel bed I decided to climb some stuff. Dad had a better idea though, he felt that since he was on vacation he would take a mid morning nap.
I suggested that he probably should get up as we were burning daylight and also he looked like he was getting sand down his shirt. We headed on down the road toward Port Campbell which is our final destination for the day. .After about 30 mins we passed a dirt road that said Otway National Park, not wanting to pass up an opportunity we turned down the one lane red rock road. This went on for about 5 miles deep into the middle of nowhere. Finally we came to a turn around and there we found a nice place to park in the shade and we headed down a trail not sure of what we would find. What we found was pure paradise...it was amazing...huge cliffs overlooking a nice beach. After that we moved on down the road toward Port Campbell. There were many amazing sites to see and Ill try and put up a slideshow so you all can see the different countryside. We drove through hills right along the coast, farmland in valleys with cows and sheep, and barren fields where nothing stirred. Finally we came to the site we had been waiting for all day. The twelve apostles are one of Australia's premiere wonders. It was definately worth the wait, the sun was setting and the cliffs were fantastic. After that we got a room in Port Campbell which was only about 10 mins past the apostles. All in all it was a great day!

Geelong (How Long?)

After getting turned around twice once due to my error once do to the GPS although that may have been my error also we were on our way to Geelong. Driving on the wrong side of the car is one thing but remembering to turn into the correct lanes and not drive on the wrong side of unmarked streets was quite another.
Even looking in the review mirror was a challange. Dispite my initial trouble we soon made it to our hotel in Geelong (The Four Points Sheraton). We will probably post some more as we are just getting in around 2ish so we have some daylight left that we will most likely use to explore but anything can happen on this our magical journey.

Arriving in Australia via New Zealand

Even though I had been briefed as to how long it would be and how annoying sitting in those cramped seats would be I still didn't fully appreciate it until I finshed my second movie after I read about half of my book and we still had about 7 hours to go to Auckland, New Zealand. Fortunately the plane was only about half full so we could spread out which was good cause dad found a nice front row seat where he had lots of leg room. When we finally got to Auckland (Dear God finally!!) we had to disembark and go through security which turned out to be a walk in the park. We walked around some of the shops and I bought a cool tshirt. Then we boarded the same plane again to fly another 3 hours to Melbourne.

We were a mere 15 mins from landing in Melbourne when the captain made an announcement that we had been diverted to a holding pattern due to severe rain in melbourne. So we did donuts in our 747 for about 30 mins before being cleared to land. Once there we breezed through customs and baggage claim and customs again before finally making it to our car. This car is a beast plus it is gold which is the best color to blend in with right?

Los Angeles

We made it to the City of Angels around 130. We had to get our bags since we were changing flights so we dollied on down to baggage claim where our bags appeared almost too fast for us to get them. After that we met up with Uncle Rocky who had a fantastic tour of the city lined up for us. The weather was nice and sunny with a cooling breeze.

Uncle Rocky took us to see his work. We got to go up on the roof and see a great view of downtown LA. Then we made a loop around through Hollywood Blvd. Along the way we drove up into some very nice homes up on the hill finally we found a good place for a look out. This lookout included a very good view of the Hollywood sign.

(Aprox Time 6 hours)
Then we let the GPS system guide us to a hole in the wall resturant.. on our way back to LAX...called Billingsley's. We had a fantastic steak dinner with excellent service and a very downhome atmosphere. After that it was on to LAX for the long arduous part of our journey.