A Beautiful Warm Musical Lagoon

March 13, 2010

Woke up to another storm - dark gray clouds and heavy rain. I really enjoy these rain showers that are so powerful , yet peaceful. And the weather changes within minutes - that saying “Wait five minutes and the weather will change” applies here in Australia.

We decided to spend the day exploring Cairns. Spent some time at the mall and browsing the local market downtown. We went to the public swimming area, called The Lagoon, which is the nicest public pool I have ever experienced. It is right on the bluff next to the water and is built as to look like it flows into the ocean. It has multi-depths of water, though all the outer skirts are shallow for the children. One side of the pool has beach sand. The pool has three lifeguards on duty. There was live music on the lawn - an Indie girls band - which I enjoyed very much as I LOVE live music - it set the mood so sweetly.

Stopped at a Gelato (ice cream) stand and I had Coconut, while the girl had Strawberry. It was a nice cooling treat that I would have ate more of it had it come from my own freezer.

We went back home to the hotel and chilled out by the pool until the sun went down. I could get used to this.

The Great Barrier Reef Experience

March 12, 2010

GOOD MORNING Australia Day 2.

I now know that the bug that greeted my day yesterday was some sort of beetle because we saw clearly this morning what a cockroach looks like. Those loud expressions that came from my voice yesterday came again this morning though from Kate. As she summoned me to her room, I saw a very ugly, large (about a 50 cent piece size) cockroach with antennas that were about 2 ½ inches long on the floor in her shower. I startled him and he sped across the bathroom floor - man he was fast!

Next I know, Kate is moving her suitcase to my room. “What are you doing I ask?” She replied, “I’m not staying in there anymore.” I’m sure he came up from the drain in the shower or the sink and that there are many more where he came from. At any rate, I have a bedmate for the duration. Seriously, like I am going to protect her from those creep crawlers…..eewwwww

We had an early morning departure from the hotel at around 730am. We drove 45 minutes northward up the coast to Port Douglas where we were to leave on our expedition to the Great Barrier Reef. The drive was beautiful - much like Turnagain Arm, except the road was narrower and a bit more curvy. It actually was giving me a little nausea and I was the driver.

It was an hour and a half boat ride from the marina to the Outer Reef. We took the complimentary ginger pills once aboard in hopes of deterring any sea-sickness and am thankful we did because it was pretty rough. We scoped out a spot on the upper deck (3rd story) for the ride and were splashed by waves most of the way out.

The salt on our skin was plentiful - love that natural exfoliater! The company we choose to go on has a platform stationed at the Outer Reef which we docked on. It is quite an operation that they have.

I was impressed by the knowledge, service, professionalism, and must mention the food! A delicious seafood lunch was served. Fresh prawns (which Kate wouldn’t eat because the heads were still on…didn’t stop me, of course), many salads - including a seafood salad with fresh crab, squid, mussels, and shrimp, fresh fruit, rice & beef vegetable stir-fry, and a curry (I didn’t eat that) dish.

Having been snorkeling in Hawaii and Mexico I have seen some pretty fish, but none like what I saw today. Though I didn’t see Nemo, I saw so many other beautifully bright (neon green, blue, purple, pink, striped, spotted) fish. I saw one with bright red lips like she was wearing lipstick. A pink one came at me like she was trying to kiss me, only she was telling me to back off (which I found out later from one of the crew). The underwater world is a totally different existence of life and again makes one think about the how intricate our world really is. We had three hours to explore - saw and learned so much. We also took a ride in a semi-submersible glass bottom boat. I was a little apprehensive as to what we would actually see as I have been in a glass bottom boat in Mexico and was not impressed. This experience was quite the opposite. We got up close and personal - it was almost like we were in Finding Nemo or The Little Mermaid.

There really are those big curved shells that the fish live in! The coral is amazingly beautiful and so diverse. It was such a wonderful experience! I am thankful we had this opportunity to explore a very small part of one of the world’s seven natural wonders.

Once we arrived back to the hotel, the little one stopped at the front desk to “complain” about the cockroach encounter this morning. In the most polite way, the front desk lady said “This is Queensland, Miss.” And gave her a bottle of cockroach killer that she said will kill it with one spray. I bet we don’t see him again…

Bugs, Beach, and Beauty

March 11, 2010

GOOD MORNING! Tossed and turned since about 3am, finally got up at 5am and decided I should make my bed right away as to deter any “friends” from wandering in my sleeping quarters. Mind you, I have yet to see any bugs, but I know they are there. I pulled the bedspread up over the sheets, fluffed the pillows, and was rubbing my hand over the bedding to “smooth out the wrinkles” when I felt something hard. I’m pretty sure I jumped about three feet in the air some loud expressions exited my mouth. Kate came running out of her room to my rescue - “Mom, What’s wrong?” Then laughter hysterically broke out. In a very mature manner, I walked to the bathroom, got a rather large wad of toilet paper, came back to my bed (thank you that he was still there) and pinched him up in the wad (too scared to hear the crunch so I didn’t squeeze), quickly ran back to the toilet and sent him home to his waterland. Now I’m not quite sure what it was - could have been a baby cockroach or a tropical beetle, but he definitely got my attention in the most innocent way. I can hardly imagine (well actually I can imagine) what else might find me during my visit.

Our plug-ins (curling iron, phone charger, camera battery, etc) do not plug in to the Australian outlets. We headed back towards Cairns early this morning in search of an outlet adapter. This proved to be an endeavor itself (with three trips back and forth to the store throughout the day), but now we finally have all of our electronics usable.

We talked with the front desk this morning about which boats/guides to take to the Reef. She gave us a couple recommendations. I told her and my little one that we may not ever get back to this part of the world and therefore, I want to be able to experience the best of it. We booked a trip to the Outer Reef leaving out of Port Douglas (an hour north of here) tomorrow. I have been snorkeling a few times and absolutely love it! Kate has never been snorkeling before - and so her first time will be at The Great Barrier Reef - talk about eating the icing before the cake!

The weather today was gorgeous! 30°C, party cloudy, and humid. On our way to the store, we stopped at Trinity Beach and beach-combed for an hour or so. I found a couple pieces of beach glass for my mama. And some shells. Kate saw her first speedo thong bikini - on an older gentleman, oh maybe 65 years of age with the hair (gray) and body (Buddha) to boot. LOL!

Kate wanted to go to The Cairns Tropical Zoo. I think she was in search of a couple animals, one of which was a giraffe. I told her we are on the wrong continent for those. We did get to see some other cool animals though - the obvious Koala and Kangaroo, but also the Cotton Top Tamarin Monkey, Cassowaries, Red Panda, and even the American Alligator (which were humungous BTW!).

and here we are - Palm Cove, Queensland, Australia

March 10, 2010

I hope we didn’t miss out on anything super exciting yesterday, because we have officially lost March 9, 2010 back at the International Date Line. And we are still enroute to our final destination, Cairns, Queensland, Australia. We cleared Customs in Sydney in a breeze (deep breath). The Australian Customs are very friendly and despite having answering “YES” to 5 questions that I should have said “NO” to on my customs form, I was told “No worries” and waved on through. There was an announcement overhead for everyone to put their purses and carryons on the floor and a cute little Beagle dog came sniffing around everyone’s belongings. We were told that after his “work” was done, he will be rewarded by a game of tug-of-war and fetch. After a 4 hour layover, we boarded for Cairns. And so one more movie accomplished for Heather on this flight - The Blind Side. Another feel good movie…just the way I like them. It usually takes me days or weeks to get through one movie at home and I just successfully finished watching three in less than 27 hours. It’s got me wondering what I’ll watch on the flight back to the US?

We arrived Cairns in a storm. Upon descent to the airport, we saw lightening. It was pouring rain - like those rainstorms that you can take a shower in. I love stepping off the airplane into humid tropical air. It is so different than stepping off the airplane in dry desert air, which gives me the sensation of choking. We got our luggage and picked up the keys for the rental car.

Now I knew it was going to be a challenge for me to drive in this country. The driver sits on the right side of the car. The lane directions on the streets are opposite of the US - so to me it is like driving on the wrong side of the road. Well, my family will be happy to know that I acted responsibly when I got to the car I had rented (after running through the rain in a torrential rainfall and becoming sopping wet). I sat in the drivers seat, put the key in the ignition, and turned it over. The car jumped forward - AH! It is a manual! There is NO way I am going to drive in the wrong side of the car, drive on the wrong side of the road, and shift with the wrong hand. So, back to running through the rain to Thrifty’s rental car counter. Of course, the guys helping me just chuckled, but they were kind enough to let me trade it in for an automatic though it was a smaller car. Our luggage had to be stacked in the back seat, as the only thing that would fit in the trunk were our purses and the computer bag. Thankfully I had a backseat driver with me to help keep me on the right side of the road. In the 30 minutes it took to get to our hotel, I only drove on the wrong side of the road twice. Though one of the bigger challenges for me was the simple task of turning my blinker on. The blinker is on the right of the steering wheel and the windshield wiper is on the left. So every time I wanted to make a turn, I either turned my wiper off or on super speed.. Surely I will become more accustomed to this way of driving during our short stay here.

We arrived at our hotel in Palm Cove, about 30 minutes north of Cairns. I took much time in selecting the place for us to stay and having never been here, I relied a lot on travelers reviews that I found on the Internet. I wanted to stay someplace lush, tropical, relaxing, central, affordable and most importantly clean with no bugs. Okay, the no bugs part…I know that is impossible in this climate. I just don’t want to bring home any new crawling pets for the family. As you can see from these photos, I was very pleased upon our arrival to our suite…

The Australian Adventure Begins

March 8, 2010

We finally boarded the flight out of Anchorage after a Passport/Visa snafu that got us to the gate to board only 5 minutes prior to take-off. I practiced more of that patience that I have been working so hard on over the past couple years.

There was no movie on the flight from ANC-MSP. I had brought a Cosmo and my IBCLC curriculum to read and so was kept busy most of the flight, despite a couple “short” naps. We arrived at MSP and had lunch at Chili’s Too - typical airport food - package prepared and overpriced. Nonetheless we filled our bellies and headed to the gate of our next flight to LAX. When I had purchased the tickets, we had 1 hr 20 min layover in MSP before catching the next flight to LAX. Well, a slight mechanical delay in MSP with a subsequent aircraft swap, put the little girl in quite a tizzy about missing her flight out of LAX. We left MSP 1 hr 15 minutes late. Be assured that she let the crew know as soon as we boarded the flight in MSP that we had a connection to make and had our seats moved up from row 21 to row 6 to expedite our disembarkment once we would arrive in LAX. And the captain must have heard her cries, as he put the pedal down (or pulled up - however they do in a cockpit) and we arrived in LAX with 25 minutes to connect and our transfer gate was only five gates down - no problemo.

Whew! We made it on the flight to Sydney. The first person that spoke Kate made her jaw drop. It was cute to watch. And so she says “Are you from Australia?” Gee, I wonder what made her think that? The accent, perhaps. The conversation continued awhile between the two as they talked about where we were going and what exciting things we were going to do or should do.

Traveling on this international overseas flight was quite the experience. The only thing that could have made it better is if they had luxury bunks with down pillows and bedding. 14+ hours on an aircraft in an unergonomically correct seat does not do wonders for the body, or the butt for that matter. We got fed three meals (two hot) which we did not have to pay extra for. Oh, and complimentary beer and wine. I remember those good old days from Alaska Air way back when (when I was too young to parktake). We had our own screen in each seat to watch a wide selection of movies. First I choose to watch Precious. Talk about a disturbing movie. It is a very very sad story that will make those heavy emotions surface. Definitely nothing “feel good” about it. But it was another Oprah endorsed production - must I say any more? I definitely suggest no one under the age of 13 (at least) watch this movie. Though there were many naps on this flight, I did manage to squeeze in another movie during the near 15 hours of travel; though this one was a bit more on the “feel good” side. I watched the classic Fame. It sure brought some good memories back of what good TV was all about before trashy reality ruined it all. Anyway, after a LONG and enjoyable flight, we finally made it Down Under!