Well we're not in NZ yet, but we are in beautiful Cairns, Australia. Today we got to go snorkling in the Great Barrier Reef, another life goal for me (thanks, hunny!). We got up and walked down to the marina, got our tickets, and boarded the boat we were going on. It took a good half hour to 45 mins to get to the reef though (it's that far out there). What was awesome about the company we went with was that they had a platform in the middle of the reef where you got out at. There were a ton of things to do on the ship. If you weren't brave enough to venture outside the platform, you could watch the fish and divers from underneath it, they had a full (yummy) lunch buffet (FINALLY, NO FAST FOOD!), and it was pretty big so you could walk around or go upstairs and get your tan on.
Well, we are not that type of unadventurous people. We went out on a glass bottom boat as soon as we got on the platform. Bianca really liked it. "A FISH! A FISH"
We got back just in time to get on the next submarine ride! Bianca liked that a little less, since it was all closed in, but we still had fun.
The boat and platform!
The bottom of the floating platform
By that time it was lunch time, yay! Needless to say, we were sick of french fries and cheeseburgers at this point and we loved all of the fresh salad and veggies they had. Bianca even tried some watermelon for the first time (she's in love). After lunch we decided it was time to snorkel! We took turns. I went first and it was a lot of fun! They have a fish that lives around there that they feed everyday named Wally. He's big, blue, and cool looking. Bobby and Bianca got to see them feed him. While I was snorkeling, Bobby took Bianca to see the fish downstairs in the viewing area. When I was done, Bobby went in! Bianca and I just walked around the platform until I decided that she could go swimming a bit too! There's a little platform that's partially in the water that you walk on to get into the water, so I found the littlest life vest they had and we went on the platform! She loved splashing and when Daddy came back, he tried to take her deeper in the water, but she did not like that as much. Still, we had a BLAST on the boat! :-D
I have the red cap on!
WALLY!
Eat Wally, eat!
Loving that watermelon!
On our way back we sat by the same people on the way there. Apparently the lady and her kids get really sea sick and she was complaining the whole time that "they're taking the helicopter back, no matter how much it costs" (hundreds of dollars!). But no, they were still on the boat. That made me giggle a little bit.
When we got back to shore, we decided to check out this lagoon we heard about. I guess you can't go swimming in the ocean, so they build this lagoon for everyone to enjoy. And holy crap was it cool! This was seriously Bianca's favorite part of the whole trip. She screamed when we had to leave it was that awesome. I'll let the pictures do the explaining.
She didn't like those fountains splashing her head though...
...but these were so fun!
We showered and got ready to explore Cairns some more. Went shopping, ate, got yummy ice cream, and were sad that we had to leave tomorrow. I'd totally come back here (and to Sydney too!) Thanks for a much needed great time, Cairns. NZ here we come!
Our hotel!
What a view!!!
January 4, 2012
We flew to Auckland, NZ today! NZ is very beautiful. When we finally got to our hotel, we walked around where the water was and found a burrito place to eat at, score! Turns out NZ money isn't as bad as Aussie money, so we could eat real food here. Yay for being on a budget! We just walked around and decided what to do with our next full day of Auckland fun!
January 5, 2012
Today was our day to take on Auckland! First we went to this ice house that looked real cool, but wasn't worth the money. The lady working there was new and charged for Bianca (under 2 shouldn't be charged anything, just sayin') and then didn't tell us that we got 1 drink for free in there. Boo! It was kinda fun. We had huge jackets on and we played ping pong on the ice ping pong table. But it was too $$$ for what you got. Oh well!
Next we got on a ferry to an island called Davenport, which was really beautiful! We walked around the island, explored some parks and the beach, and then we let Miss Bianca play at the playground for a bit! I had more fun there than in actual Auckland haha.
Auckland!
Davenport!
We had heard about this really cool mountain, Mt Victoria, you could go up that had exceptional views of the city, so we asked around and they said it was walkable. Man was it a tough uphill walk pushing little girl! But we made it and yes, it was well worth the pain. It was so beautiful there! We walked around and let Bianca play in the grass. We also got in some Asian family's picture by accident. I smiled and waved in it HAHA! Very nice
Anyone else thinking Super Mario Bros?
The walk down was a bit better, still really steep.
Making friends lol
We took the ferry back over to Auckland and decided to go up the tower, because that's what Erikobbys do. It was a long walk too, but we got our exercise in for the day at least. The tower was neat, Bianca liked it. Nothing too exciting though.
Afterwards we got some food and retired to our hotel since there's not much going on after dark here (which is odd, maybe because it's winter here? Who knows).
January 6, 2012
Today we flew to Queenstown, NZ, which is one of the most beautiful places I have EVER been to in my life! The mountains there will take your breath away. Amazing.
We rented a car here and drove off to our hotel. We asked the concierge guy what exciting things we can do here and we decided on a few. Sadly, for lack of time, there was no way we could go to Fiordland, which is supposed to be the coolest place ever. We were so sad when we realized this, but that just means I guess we'll have to come back someday. Darn, haha. So for our first adventure we went on a speed boat down this river. We had like 20 mins to get down there and into the boat, which was crazy, but we did make it! I went on the first ride while daddy stayed with Bianca and then we switched. Holy crap it was AWESOME! It went so fast and did 360 degree turns. Very thrilling, even though I was stuck in the front in my ride. Bianca liked walking around on the "beach."
my boat!
Bobby doing a 360!
After that awesome ride, we went back and went for a walk to find food. We ate, explored, and marveled at the beautiful scenery. We were back in time for the sunset, which was spectacular as well. I think we're just gonna stay here and not go back to Ithaca...
January 7, 2012
This was our busy day here! We woke up early and went to the big mountain here. We took the (scary) furnurcular to the top of it. We had to close our eyes for parts of it, it was that steep/crazy.
When we were up there, we just took in the beautiful views. After that we decided it was time for the Hall family to luge down the mountain. Yes, even Bianca could come! The only thing was that we had to take a ski lift to take us up even HIGHER to luge down. Oh boy! It was crazy, esp with a wiggly baby, but we survived. Bobby got on his own luge thing and I took little girl with me. It was so fun that we ended up doing it twice! The whole way down Bianca kept saying "wheeeeeeeee!" So cute!
How you go up and down the mountain
The luge
How you get up to the luge...
Stamped.
This was amazing and I'm glad we got to go! After this we ate at a Mexican restaurant and planned out the rest of our day. (BTW NZ doesn't have good salsa, sad)
We went to our hotel and got our car, GPS, and book of Lord of the Rings sites! You could go on a tour for this, but Bobby got the book online for really cheap so we figured we'd just venture off on our own and do some things. It was kind of hard to find a few things, especially when the GPS coordinates took you off roading...but it was a good adventure indeed. And the roads around there...took our breath away. Be prepared for lots of scenic pics because we just fell in love with it.
The car seat meant for like a 4 year old lol
Gah! Do we have to leave? We walked around again that night and then did some laundry (right by a room with a party going on and really annoying kids, ugh) and said goodnight at last.
January 8, 2012
Bye bye, Queenstown. :( We shall be back though! We were back to Australia that day, Melbourne to be exact. It was the last stop in our journey and we were exhausted by that point!
Our cute rental car!
It's even beautiful from the sky, *sigh*
We were tired when we got to Melbourne. We showered and hung out in our hotel for most of the afternoon. Then we went exploring a little bit. There's not TOO much to do there it seemed. We went in some cool stores and got some DELICIOUS hot chocolate, yum! Then we got a movie from the front desk, attempted to watch it before learning that we had already seen it, and then went to sleep.
January 9, 2012
Today we heard of this beach that was cool to go to, so we put that on the itinerary. But first, of course, we did the whole tower thing haha. It was colder and a bit windy out surprisingly (well it IS winter there). It was your typical tower EXCEPT that you could go out in this glass box that juts out of the building to get awesome views. Bianca and I went on it, Bobby didn't haha.
The gold part is where it juts out!
We took the bus to the beach afterward...which was super lame. First, it was kind chilly out. Second, it was rocky and the water was cold. And third, there's not too much cool things down there. Bummer. So we got some ice cream and sat on the beach, which made Bianca super happy, so it was worth it for that. She'd chase the seagulls and had a grand old time actually. At least one of us had a blast.
I thought that was appropriate
LOVE this pic!!
There was a carnival there too, but it didn't look that fun.
So then we just went back to the hotel to get out of our bathing suits since we were obviously not doing in the ocean today. We then decided on one more cool place to visit and it was the Royal Exhibition Building. Sadly it was closed but we still got to walk around it and walk through the gardens there, which were really pretty!
January 10, 2012
We headed back home today! We were sad to be leaving such fun countries behind, but were excited to relax. So. Did I mention in our previous post how horrible Virgin Australia is?? Well, it sucks. We check in and the lady's like "ok, so you have a bassinet seat, right?" and we said yes. And she confirmed to us that we did. Yet I remembered that the bassinet rows were rows 20...our seats said 21. Hm. Maybe it's a different set up on this plane, she said we had one, ok! So we get on the plane....AND WE WERE ONE ROW BEHIND THE BASSINET ROW!!! Really????? We tried sitting in row 20 and explaining it to the people who come to sit there, but they didn't care. THEY DIDN'T EVEN HAVE A BABY. They just wanted extra leg room even though we reserved the bassinet seats a year ago. GRR! This time I was a little bit more stern (but not mean) with the flight attendant because there was no way Bianca would last with us squished in with another person in the row when we were supposed to have a bassinet for her (note: they only hang on the wall, not on the seats, so if you weren't in the front row, too bad for you). This lady was nicer and she found an empty row and moved us there, which actually was better than having a bassinet because she could spread out and stay buckled and sleep rather than us having to take her out every time there was turbulence. haha these other people who tried to take that row got mad when the flight attendant kicked them out for us. I am thankful that we got everything at least settled this time, but my goodness, if they ran out of bassinets (even though we requested it a year ago...), just tell us before, SERIOUSLY! Blah. NO ONE EVER TAKE VIRGIN AUSTRALIA, OK? :)
It was more fun for Bianca with her own seat. She listened to her Taylor Swift songs, fell asleep and it was a better ride back to LA, even though it was still wicked long. We got to LA and it was morning, but we slept anyways.
We headed back to Ithaca the next day and this is what we found:
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