Where to, Gumshoe? – Page 7 – Follow us through our day to day travels and adventures

Cairns (Day 81): Great Barrier Reef

May 20, 2016

Today was the reason why we came to Cairns. It was our Great Barrier Reef day! We booked a tour with Seastar Cruises which was recommended by Chloe and it’s also rated #1 on Trip Advisor (we use Trip Advisor a lot). Our full day tour was $200 AUD = $189 CAD per person (which is the average price of full day tours).

We arrived at the marina at 7:30am and they began to board. The majority of the other passengers were from Australia and the US, we were the only ones from Canada. There were two couples (they looked like they were in their 20s) from China in front of us in the line up to board. One of the couples asked twice if they were allowed to smoke on the boat or on one of the cays we were going to (the answer was obviously no). Then they said they didn’t want to go in the water either. From that moment on, that girl looked like she would not have a very fun day. Tim said on the boat she kept saying that she wanted to go home (Tim: she only said it once). It’s a pretty expensive day out to be miserable!

The boat ride there was pretty rocky because it was quite windy out. I’m actually quite proud of myself for not getting sick on the boat ride (usually, I’m prone to getting sea sick). The crew was really good at taking care of people who were feeling sick. Tim and I sat on the upper deck so I think it helped that we were getting fresh air even though it was probably rockier being on the top deck.

Our seats on the upper deck. Waiting at Michaelmas Cay

Our first stop was about an hour and half away from Cairns. Michaelmas Cay is the largest uninhabited coral cay in the Cairns area, but it is full of birds (apparently 35 different species). We pulled up to the cay and some crew members went off on the rescue boat to get the glass bottom boat to bring us to the sandy beach. They gave us stinger suits to wear to protect us from jelly fish stings (although they said right now it’s not jelly fish season) and the sun. The water’s temperature was 28 degrees celsius, warmer than the current air temperature! There were two snorkel guides who took us around the reefs for about 30 minutes and then we had about an hour to go around on our own. When we went on our own we saw a turtle! We followed it for a while and probably swam quite a ways out because one of the crew members came out with the rescue boat and told us to swim back towards the boat since we were pretty far away.

We took some pictures with the GoPro but most of our better footage are videos (including the turtle and reef shark spotting). Here’s some of the better photos we have from each of the snorkeling spots. Michaelmas Cay didn’t have great photos since it was overcast and more murky as it was more shallow than Hastings Reef.

Waiting to get into the water at Michaelmas Cay

Snorkel selfies are always not very attractive

DCIM102GOPRO — Some of the reefs we saw. Pictures came out pretty murky on the GoPro

When we got back on the boat they had lunch ready for us. They had a selection of salads, deli meat, fruits and gave us a scoop of vegetable bake and two chicken wings. As we were eating, the boat was rocking back and forth. This was the only time on the boat that I felt a bit uneasy (Tim: me too). I’d rather the boat be moving quickly and be rocking than just sitting on the water that’s rocky. After we were done lunch, we made our way to the next and last stop, Hastings Reef.

At Hastings Reef, the boat stopped in the middle of the ocean and we jumped out to snorkel. There was another 30 minute snorkel tour with a guide and then we got about an hour and a half to snorkel around on our own. We both liked Hastings Reef a lot better than Michaelmas Cay. There was a lot more to see and the reefs were more beautiful and we saw a larger variety of fish. We even spotted a reef shark and we followed it for a while (actually Tim followed it longer). We saw a reef shark last year in the Maldives while snorkeling as well but this one was a darker grey and a bit larger. After we got back up to the boat we went on the glass bottom boat and went around the reefs with a crew member.

Blue large clams. I've never seen so many large clams before. — Blue large clams. I’ve never seen so many large clams before.

This really large fish was swimming around the boat

The boat ride back was an hour and 45 minutes and was even more rough because we were going against the waves. I was so happy when we got back to the marina and was actually very surprised I didn’t get sick on the boat. It was awesome to see the Great Barrier Reef with my own eyes and to experience with Tim. We took pictures with the Go Pro but looking through them the pictures don’t do the reef justice with all the different colours and things we saw down there.

We walked back to the hotel, washed up and headed down to the restaurant in the lobby. Tim got some vouchers for free drinks and an appetizer from the restaurant so we went down to redeem them. We shared two pieces of fried barramundi, coke, and a beer. The fried barramundi was very good with light crisp batter and the fish was nice and moist. It sort of satisfied Tim’s fish and chip craving.

We walked down to the Cairns night market to see what they had to offer. It was basically a Chinese food court with stalls of cheap souvenirs and massages. I often crave westernized Chinese food so this was actually perfect for me. All the Chinese food stalls were the same. You pay for what size plate you wanted and you can put as much food on it as you can. Since we had a small appetizer, we just shared a medium plate ($13.50 AUD = $12.75 CAD) and I went through and piled as much as I could too (so Chinese of me. Tim didn’t want any part of it).

After we finished eating we walked around a bit and headed for Gelocchio (of course) for dessert. This time we got two scoops, strawberry and passionfruit, in a cup. Two scoops are supposed to be $5.80 AUD but the guy only charged us for one $4.80 AUD = $4.50 CAD. I’m really enjoying all the fresh and delicious gelato.

It started to rain so we went back to the hotel and watched the much anticipated 2 hour finale of Survivor. This already aired back at home but we haven’t been able to download and watch it until we got to Cairns. It was a nice chill night and we planned to just take it easy tomorrow. We originally thought of going to the Daintree Rainforest but we’re both feeling pretty tired and it’s going to rain all tomorrow. So we’ll be taking tomorrow to catch up on blog entries and future trip bookings.

Steps today: 7,000

Cairns (Day 80): A Warm Queensland Welcome

May 19, 2016

Our flight this morning was at 7:40am to Cairns. We woke up at 5:45am and finally had the crumpets Jess bought for us. She toasted them and I had mine with jam. It was delicious! Jess and Robin both woke up early to drive us to the airport which was really nice of them. It was great being able to spend time with them. Since they live in Australia, I’ve only been able to see them once a year, if even. It’ll be nice when they eventually move back to Canada closer to us!

The Adelaide Airport was recently renovated but is quite small for a city its size (1.25 Million people). We were flying on Jetstar for the first time. Jetstar is Qantas’ discount carrier that’s based out of Australia and flies throughout Oceania and Asia (mostly SE Asia). Like any discount airline, you have to pay extra for everything – like checked bags (different cost according to weight class) and preassigned seats. Our flight from Adelaide to Cairns cost $212 CAD per person (including seats and checked bags). It was the first time I’ve weighed my bag since Japan and my bag has lost 6kg (it’s so light now)! It’s mostly because Mom brought back most of my Korean and Japanese purchases back home. And then the remaining deliveries to Melbourne and Adelaide.

The flight to Cairns was 3 hours and we slept the majority of the way there. When we got off the plane, we felt the hot air hit us and it was like we were back in summer weather again (29 degrees C when we landed at 11am). We’ve been going back and forth between hot and cold weather quite a bit during our trip.

Cairns (pronounced “cans”), is the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). Cairns is in Queensland and is on the north east coast of Australia, so it experiences tropical like weather all year round. Cairns is a small town but since it is the access point to the GBR, it is quite busy and full of tourists all the time.

The only options to get into town from the airport is a taxi or a shuttle. We read online that the taxi would cost around $25-$30 AUD to our hotel so we opted to take the shuttle which drops you off at your hotel, but each shuttle holds about 20 people. The shuttle costs $22 AUD for up to 4 people, so it cost us $22 AUD for the both of us. Luckily, we were the second ones to be dropped off.

We’re staying at the DoubleTree which is on Esplanade Street (the main drag in Cairns). After doing a lot of research and reading countless reviews on our options here, we decided to just book the DoubleTree. It was not that much more expensive than some other places ($150 AUD/night) and it looked a lot nicer. Tim also has a lot of perks when he stays at Hilton properties (thanks to all his previous work travel), like free WiFi, free breakfast, and room upgrades. Also, I wanted to stay in a nicer hotel since we were relaxing more in Cairns (and after all the motels we stayed in).

We arrived at the hotel at noon and checked in. They gave us an upgrade with a ocean view, some vouchers for free drinks and food, and their signature warm chocolate chip/walnut cookies. Since we wanted to check in earlier and didn’t want to wait until 3pm for another ocean view room, we took the next one available – which happened to be another double bed room. Oh well, we’re used to them now.

We were excited to just relax and chill. I love warm beach towns. Tim says I’m the happiest when I’m in places like this (Hawaii, Koh Samui, Maldives, Kenting, Okinawa). I think it’s because I’m a summer baby so I like warm weather and being able to just wear flip flops everywhere (maybe if I were Australian I would walk around barefoot too). We looked up places to eat for lunch and found a Japanese restaurant called, Four Cinq, that was highly rated on Trip Advisor, so we headed there.

Four Cinq is a ramen place that also serves other Japanese dishes like tonkatsu and karaage. Tim ordered the chicken ramen ($13.50 AUD = $12.80 CAD) and I had the tonkatsu ($16.80 AUD = $15.93 CAD). We sat on the patio and enjoyed our meal. The food was surprisingly good, but I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised because on the way to the restaurant we noticed that street was full of Asian stores and a supermarket catering to Asian tourists (mostly Japanese tourists).

After lunch we walked down to the Marina to check out where we would have to meet tomorrow morning for our snorkel tour. Along Esplanade Street, there’s a public salt water swimming lagoon which was very packed when we passed by. It was a good day to be in the water since it was quite warm out.

We made our way back to the hotel to relax for the rest of the day. I changed into my swimsuit and lounged on the balcony catching up on some blog posts. The sun was pretty strong and I thought it would be nice to go for a swim in the pool. The pool was busy when we left the hotel for lunch but when we came back the pool area was all shaded so it wasn’t very busy any more with people who just wanted to get some sun. I went downstairs and went into the pool and it was cold. I guess the water would’ve felt nice if the sun was still beating down. I stayed in it for a bit then jumped into the hot tub.

We washed up and looked up what to eat for dinner. We decided to go to an Indonesian restaurant close by that had good reviews and seemed a bit more local than touristy (although most of Cairns is pretty touristy). Bagus Cafe is on Esplanade but the part of the street that isn’t very busy. Bagus Cafe is a family run restaurant that has seats outside and you order at the counter. We ordered a chicken mee goreng ($13 AUD = $12.30CAD) and a beef rendang curry ($15 AUD = $14.19 CAD). When we arrived it was very busy and after we sat down we realized most of the people who were around us did not have their food yet, so we knew we would have to wait. There was an Indonesian family beside us (I didn’t know they were Indonesian until they started speaking to the owners) and they really enjoyed all their food so it made us look forward to our meals even more.

We waited for about 20 minutes for our dishes but it was worth the wait. The dishes were great and one of the owners came out (after they weren’t as busy) and was very friendly. He apologized for taking so long but they want to make sure everything is very fresh. I haven’t had Indonesian food before but from the menu items, it was very similar to items they would serve at Banana Leaf at home (Malaysian food). If I lived in Cairns, I would go there regularly.

After dinner we walked over to a gelato place that was highly recommended by my cousin, Chloe. She had just been to Cairns a couple months ago and said Gelocchio had the best gelato so we went to try it out. There are tons of ice cream and gelato places around town. If I didn’t know to look for Gelocchio we would have probably not tried it out (unless we read about it on TripAdvisor). It’s around the corner from Esplanade St. and the decor on the outside is a bit tacky compared to some of the other gelato places we passed by. But once you go inside the walls are covered in messages from happy customers and the flavours looked legit and are all homemade. Gelocchio is run by a local Italian family and their gelato did not disappoint! We tried the lemon basil gelato, it was awesome and refreshing. We’ll be back again.

We headed back to the hotel and slept early. It was a long day and we had another long day and early morning ahead of us. Tomorrow we were going to snorkel the Great Barrier Reef!

Steps today: 11,000

Adelaide (Day 79): Central Market and Semaphore

May 18, 2016

Today was our last day in Adelaide and we didn’t have much planned except for going to the Central Market. We didn’t have a chance to go during the week because they close on Sundays and Mondays. Adelaide’s Central Market is the largest covered market in the Southern Hemisphere (Queen Vic in Melbourne was the largest open air market in the SH). It seems like there are a lot of “largest/best…. in the Southern Hemisphere” in Australia.

Since we were heading back downtown (or the CBD as they call it), we dropped Robin off at work before going to the Central Market. Wednesdays at the market are optional working days for the vendors, so only about 70% of the stalls were open when we got there. All the fresh produce looked really good and were nicely displayed. We found a charcuterie stall that looked promising. They had some delicious sandwiches so we decided to give it a try. The place was called Lucia’s Fine Foods. They have different stalls (coffee, pizza, Italian groceries, and deli/charcuterie) all next to each other. We shared a prosciutto, mozzarella, and basil sandwich which was really good. I haven’t had a sandwich like that for a while. I really missed (good) Italian food while traveling in Asia, so this was hitting the spot for me.

After walking around the Central Market, we saw that Chinatown was across the street. We did a quick walk down the main street (which is only a small block) and went in a couple of stores. They had a Gong Cha and CoCo bubble tea which are popular Taiwanese bubble tea chains. The passionfruit bubble tea we usually got in Taiwan for 45 NT = $1.80 CAD was $6 AUD = $5.67 CAD here (likely the same price in Vancouver).

We walked back through Rundle Mall to make our way to Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute. Tim wanted to show me Australian Aboriginal art work so we went to Tandanya which had a free exhibit featuring some art and pictures from tribes in Queensland. The gift shop had a bunch of didgeridoo and boomerangs with Aboriginal carvings and paint.

We made our way back to the townhouse since Jessica took a half day off and was already home. She bought us some pastries from her favourite bakery close by called, Red Door Bakery. Tim’s favourite dessert is creme brûlée, and she bought this creme brûlée tart that was really yummy. Actually everything she bought from that bakery was delicious. Next time we’re in Adelaide I want to go there.

Jessica took us to another beach area called Semaphore. It’s more of a local beach and not as touristy as some of the other areas. We walked along the super long jetty (think it was over 100m out into the ocean) and walked through the small quaint streets. It was a nice and relaxing afternoon just chatting and spending time with her.

IMG_20160518_152728 — Long Jetty at Semaphore Beach

Pretty Australian Seagulls crowding around anyone with food.

We decided to have an earlier dinner since we would have to wake up fairly early for our flight to Cairns at 7:40am. Tim and I suggested Vietnamese again since there are so many choices in the Woodville area. Jessica suggested a more homey and family run restaurant in the area. The food was good but the style of Vietnamese food was different than NNQ and what we’re used to at home. The vermicelli bowl’s grilled pork was more soy sauce based and not as fresh tasting as the one at NNQ. Jess ordered this chive pancake wrapped in a scrambled egg that was really good. I’ve never had anything like that before and that was probably my favourite dish at this Vietnamese restaurant. While paying, the ladies asked if I was Vietnamese, and when I told them I was Cantonese. The lady started to say some things in Cantonese to me. After we left, we realized the bill total was a lot less than what it should’ve been. Maybe I got us a Vietnamese/Cantonese discount.

IMG_20160518_172706 — Chive pancake with spicy scrambled eggs

We got back home in time to watch Masterchef Australia and have the rest of the desserts. We packed up everything so we’d be ready to roll out of bed and leave tomorrow morning.

Steps today: 19,000

Adelaide (Day 78): Cleland Wildlife Park and Hahndorf

May 17, 2016

Today was the day I’ve been waiting for since arriving in Adelaide (and Australia for that matter). We were going to the Cleland Wildlife Park to see and interact with koalas, kangaroos, wallabies and more. We waited for a sunny weekday so it wouldn’t be so crowded in the park. Cleland is about 30 minutes out of the city and in the Adelaide Hills. Robin had the day off so he came along and drove us there.

Cleland Park is massive, and unlike a zoo, the animals aren’t in small cages but are in enclosed large open areas that are separated by doors that visitors can roams through as they please. So basically it’s like a huge park where you can see all the animals roam around and interact with them. Admission is $22 AUD per person and we bought two bags of food ($3 AUD each) so we could feed the animals around the park. The small bag of food is a vegetable pellet mix.

The first animals we saw scurrying around were called potoroos. They are kangaroo-like marsupials the size of a rabbit and have long thick tails. These guys are all over the park and are fairly friendly. They came up to our feet a few times in hopes we would have food for them. They are basically like squirrels back home.

We went straight to the koala close up area, where you can come close to a koala, pet it, and take a picture. You can also hold a koala for $30 AUD. It would have been cool to hold a koala but I didn’t want to pay $30 AUD to do it. In the koala close up, we met a 16 year old koala named Ash. When I first saw her, she was a pretty good looking koala – clean, big and fluffy. Many koalas I’ve seen before in zoos in other parts of the world are a lot smaller and do not look as well taken care of. I later learned that South Australian koalas are a lot bigger than koalas in other parts of Australia. Since the park wasn’t busy, we were able to take our time with Ash and her handlers.

After our visit with Ash, we went over to where the other koalas were hanging out. The koala keepers were bringing in fresh eucalyptus branches for them to eat. It was entertaining to watch them because as soon as the koalas saw the fresh branches they all sat up and started moving to where the keepers would place the new ones. It’s funny though because the “old” branches that were there weren’t even old looking, but I guess koalas prefer super fresh leaves to munch on. There was even one koala that jumped out of his tree on to the ground to follow one of the handlers and wanted to be picked up (we later learned his name is Nicholas and he fancies one of the volunteers). These koalas are all rescues and cannot be put back into the wild because they don’t have the essential survival skills.

The next area we went to visit was where the kangaroos were. There were different types of kangaroos and they were all in separate park areas. There were red kangaroos (the large ones that are fairly common, more of a beige colour), western grey kangaroos (smaller and fluffier), and Kangaroo Island kangaroos (which are dark grey). The majority of the red kangaroos were just resting and lying down. Kangaroos are most active during dusk, which is why so many of them get into trouble while hopping around highways in Australia.

We found a few western grey kangaroos to feed. At first I didn’t know how close I should be to the kangaroos since you never know with wild animals but I quickly learned that the kangaroos here are extremely used to humans and are very gentle and friendly. It was a very different experience from feeding deer in Nara! There is a kangaroo “rest area” which is roped off to visitors and it was where the majority of the kangaroos were just lying around. We didn’t see the signs saying it was a rest area, which also meant do not feed them. Some of the kangaroos did come out of the area when they saw humans around if they wanted something to eat. Tim enticed one to come out to the open grass for some food.

The kangaroo that came out of the roped off area towards us was a pregnant mama kangaroo. We saw that her pouch was full and at some points it was moving around quite a bit. We agreed that we should give her more food since she was eating for two. She stayed with us for a while munching on the veggie pellets. Then suddenly the pouch was moving around a lot and we saw a little head poke out. It was a joey! This was so awesome to be able to see a joey in its mother’s pouch still. He looked really young and a little like a puppy. He would pop his head in and out as he pleased for the rest of the time we were feeding his Mom. It’s one thing to be able to see kangaroos from afar but it was quite surreal to be interacting with one. After about 20 minutes, the Mom had enough food and hopped away to get some water.

The Kangaroo Island kangaroos seemed a bit more scared of humans compared to the western greys. Tim approached a larger kangaroo to feed it. He showed him the food and the kangaroo came and took a few bites. Tim tripped over his own feet as he was trying to get more comfortable and it startled the kangaroo and it hopped away pretty quickly. We found two smaller kangaroos around this part of the park that were interested in food. They were very sweet and sometimes they would put their paws on our hands to block the other kangaroo from getting any food. There were also a lot of ducks around that were just around for the leftovers that fell on the ground. Ducks aren’t featured at the park but it seems like a large population of ducks come to Cleland because they can just be scavengers there.

Before coming to Australia, I didn’t know what a wallaby was. We saw so many of them and they’re so cute. They’re just like mini fluffy kangaroos. We fed a few of them and found a very young one in the bushes around the walkways that was just hanging out. We offered it food and it came up to us and ate. It got really scared when two potoroos ran across the bush near it… it jumped back really quickly. I have a pretty cool video of that happening. By the end of the day, I had taken 500 pictures and 30 videos.

Along with Australia’s unique animals, they have vastly different birds. There were quite a few aviaries where we could see more unique birds flying around. There was also a large pond area that had huge pelicans hanging out along with ibises (garbage birds) and geese. I’ve never seen a pelican like that before. They definitely could eat as many fish as they like.

Some other animals that were in enclosed areas that you couldn’t walk through (for good reason) were dingos. Dingos are mainly found in the outback and in Western Australia. They are slowly becoming extinct as many of them are mixing with domestic dogs and there are not as many pure bred Dingos left in Australia. We learned that Dingos are Australia’s apex land predator because they can actually kill kangaroos. When we passed by the dingo area, we were just in time for a feeding. Dingos are actually very good looking dogs, you almost forget they are wild. The Dingo keeper was feeding them chickens with the feathers still on. The dingos that were being fed were three brothers that the park got in November. There is a dominate brother who basically ate all the chicken and a very submissive brother who just kept hiding behind the handlers and if he touched a piece of chicken, the older brother would growl and bark at him. The growl and bark was very loud and aggressive sounding. The third brother took his chicken as soon as it hit the ground and ran away to eat it peacefully.

The Tasmanian Devil was very cute. It kind of hid from us when we came by his area. The Tasmanian Devils are becoming endangered and have been prone to developing a facial type of cancer which is killing off a lot of them right now.

After spending about 4 hours at the park, we headed out. We started and ended with a koala close up and got to meet another koala. It was a really fun day and was definitely the highlight of Australia so far (for me). Tim had been to Cleland before and he never hyped it up to me so I wasn’t prepared for how awesome it would be. He told me after that he knew it was going to be amazing for me but wanted me to see for myself. I’m happy we waited for Cleland and didn’t just see all these animals in one of Australia’s many zoos.

Cleland is close to the summit of Mount Lofty – which has a view point of Adelaide. Most people hike up to the summit but since we were at the summit already we just drove into the parking lot to take a look. Unfortunately, the sky was very hazy so we couldn’t see much of the city from there. You could barely make out the outline of the skyline. Apparently there were some fires a couple of weeks ago so that’s probably why it was hazy.

Also in Adelaide Hills, there is a town called Hahndorf, Australia’s oldest German settlement. The main street in Hahndorf is really quaint and very charming. The architecture and feel of the streets does feel like you’re in Germany or Germany at Epcot. We had a pretty late lunch at the German Arms pub where we shared a burger and Bavarian meat platter. Everything was really good, I especially liked the roasted pork and crackling. We walked to a leather smith shop and looked around. The majority of stores and cafes in Hahndorf close at 5pm so as we were walking around after our late lunch all the stores were closing. If we’re ever in Adelaide again, I would want to spend a bit more time here when stores are open and it’s a bit more lively.

We headed back to the townhouse to meet Jess for dinner. Tim and I both fell asleep during the ride back and when we got back to the townhouse we all rested up. Jess and Robin made reservations for dinner later in the evening at a restaurant downtown called Red Ochre. It’s a restaurant that specializes in Australian and Native cooking and serve a lot of Australian specific meats – like kangaroo, emu, crocodile. It wasn’t ideal that we would be playing with kangaroos during the day and then eating them for dinner.

The restaurant is situated on the Torrens River and we were seated at a table with a view of the river and part of downtown. Since our dinner was at 7:30pm, it was already dark out so we could just see some of the buildings lit up in the distance. We ordered a platter that had kangaroo steaks, lamb, crocodile ribs, emu and pork sausage, and fried barramundi. This was a good way to sample all the different types of Australian meats. Unfortunately, my favourite meat was the kangaroo. They cooked it really well. It was extremely tender for a meat that is typically very tough. I actually felt a bit bad eating meat for the first time. We ordered our meat medium rare and when I ate the kangaroo, I even flipped it over so I didn’t see the meat juice. I probably won’t be eating any more kangaroo meat on this trip.

After dinner, we headed back to the townhouse, made tea and played some more of the games we brought. Tomorrow is going to be our last day in Adelaide before heading up north to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef.

Steps today: 12,000

Adelaide (Day 77): An Autumn Downtown Day

May 16, 2016

We woke up this morning to the smell of pancakes and pouring rain. Jess and Robin were both up early because Jess worked this morning and Robin was being a good husband and making breakfast. It’s also their first wedding anniversary today! When Tim and I went downstairs Robin told us the pancakes didn’t turn out well because the batter from yesterday had separated and it was inedible. Instead, Robin prepared a granola and fruit bowl for our breakfast. We had bought passion fruit yogurt yesterday so I added it in to make a fruit and granola parfait.

Jessica and Robin got us a 3GB SIM card for data from Telstra (one of Australia’s major cell phone providers). We got the SIM card activated at around 5pm the day before, but Tim and I had used all the data by 10am (whoops). I guess when we have 5 devices on WiFi, it’s easy to blow through that data. We added more money on to the SIM but we added it on to the wrong SIM card by mistake and had to call Telstra to get it sorted out. We waited the whole day for the credit to be added but no luck. So when Jess got home, she called Telstra again to help get things fixed. So many calls to Telstra!

Since it was raining this morning we decided to hold on off on going to Cleland Wildlife Park and just hang out downtown. Robin wasn’t working until 4pm today so we spent the afternoon with him. We went downtown for lunch at a vegetarian Taiwanese restaurant that Jess and Robin go to once in a while. The restaurant was called THEA and it was quite busy with what looked like office workers from nearby buildings. We ordered some dishes to share and a bubble tea – our first bubble tea since leaving Taipei. This bubble tea was not $1.40 CAD… it ended up being $5.70 AUD. The food was okay. Tim’s cold noodles were the best dish by far. The pearl milk tea was also surprisingly good – good textured pearls and solid tea. I wasn’t a huge fan of my dish or the special snack dishes for the day.

After lunch, Robin took us through other parts of the Botanic Gardens and to the Torrens River for a nice walk. The weather had totally changed from the gloomy rainy morning to beautiful blue skies and sun. Australian weather changes really quickly apparently. It was really nice to go for a long walk around some pretty peaceful areas of the city. Our end point of our walk before we turned around back to the city was to go to a suspension bridge that crossed the Torrens River. The bridge is scheduled to be updated, which made me a bit nervous while crossing since it is really old and it looked that way too.

We headed back into the city and Robin headed off to the hospital for his shift. Tim and I walked along North Terrace Road and went to the Adelaide Museum of Art for a quick look. All the museums are free in Adelaide, which is great. I like some museums, but I’m not a big fan of art museums so it’s good this was free or else I probably wouldn’t pay to go in. We did a quick walk through the museum and they had quite the mix of old English looking art to modern art that I don’t understand. They had a huge taxidermy horse hanging from the ceiling, which was really strange and a bit disturbing. We didn’t spend much time in the museum, just a quick walkthrough to get the gist of what it was like.

After walking down North Terrace Road, we headed back to Rundle Mall for the free and fast WiFi. We basically sat on the many benches and surfed the net, downloaded shows, and posted yesterday’s blog post for about 1.5 hours. Adelaide is great for having accessible free and fast WiFi throughout the downtown core. It’s too bad it doesn’t extend out to where Jess and Robin are in Woodville Park (5km outside downtown).

We finished with the WiFi and headed back to the townhouse to meet Jess for dinner after she was done her shift. We planned on going to a Vietnamese restaurant close to their place called, NNQ (Nghi Ngan Quan). The restaurant was in an old and charming building and looked like a very modern and somewhat trendy Vietnamese restaurant. Woodville and Australia in general has a very large Vietnamese community so you see a lot of Vietnamese restaurants around. The restaurant was full inside when we got there, so we got seated outside (with heat lamps that were really hot). The food was really good! I can’t wait to go to Vietnam where our meals will be a fraction of the price they are here. I enjoyed our dinner a lot more than our vegetarian Taiwanese lunch.

We came back home just in time for the last half of Masterchef Australia (the show started here). It’s on every day at 7:30pm except for Fridays and Saturdays (no wonder it’s such a popular show here), we’ve only watched a couple of episodes and we know some participants pretty well. Our favourite is Con, a guy from Melbourne who looks like a sad Joey Fatone from NSYNC.

Jess boiled some hot water and made some tea and we played a card game called SushiGo. She got the card game from a friend in Vancouver and we had actually gotten the same game from Hon before we left. But since the packaging is a bit more cumbersome we left it at home. The three of us played a couple of games – Jess won two out of the three games. Tim gets sad when he’s playing badly, it’s quite funny.

Steps today: 20,000

Adelaide (Day 76): Sunny South Australia

May 15, 2016

When we woke up this morning, Robin was downstairs making the batter for pancakes. This was really nice of him, but unfortunately we didn’t have time to eat the pancakes because we had to return our rental car to Hertz downtown at 9:30am. We did get to eat some of his cooked apple and banana compote which was a yummy breakfast in itself.

We dropped the car off and Jess picked us up from Hertz. She found parking downtown and we walked around the city. Since it was relatively early on a Sunday morning the streets were pretty dead. Adelaide has a much more small town feel than Melbourne. The sun was shining and the weather was very pleasant (low 20s C). We walked through the Adelaide Botanic Gardens (each city in Australia seems to have their own botanic garden) and walked down Rundle Mall, which is one of the main shopping and restaurant areas downtown.

For lunch Jess took us to a place called “Two Bit Villains”, it’s a vegetarian burger (Jess is vegetarian) restaurant that also specializes in cool flavoured sodas. We ordered our burgers and shared (soy) chili cheese fries. Everything was very tasty. It was very well seasoned so you didn’t realize you weren’t eating meat.

After lunch we drove to Henley Beach, west of downtown. When we pulled up to the boardwalk, it reminded me of Southern California. We walked along the boardwalk and out to the jetty, watching people fish and took in the fresh sea air. It was such a lovely fall day. The sun was beating down but there was still a cool ocean breeze which was perfect.

We walked to the Henley Library to take some travel books out for New Zealand and for the rest of our Australian trips. We’re going to New Zealand with Jess and Robin at the end of May so we’ll have to read up on what we want to do in Auckland and Wellington.

After the library, we walked back to the beach and walked down to the sand, took off our shoes, and walked back to the car. When I stepped on the sand, it felt super soft and almost powder like. I would compare it to the consistency of powdered icing sugar. Each time I stepped down I would hear sort of a crunching sound. Since the sand was a bit damp, and the consistency was like a powder, it was very hard and compact in some areas.

We came back into the city and stopped back home to clean our feet up and headed out to the grocery store. Grocery stores close at 5pm here (so early!). We went to Coles and picked up some fruit, vegetables, and breakfast for the next few days here, and Jess bought ingredients for vegetable lasagna for tonight’s dinner.

While we trip planned for the remaining days in Australia, Jess was making dinner for everyone. She made a really tasty vegetable lasagna and roasted vegetables for dinner. It may have been our healthiest dinner on this whole trip. After dinner we played a card game we brought from home (Thanks, Hon!) called, Hanabi. By the time we finished our first game it was already 11pm and Jess had to work early tomorrow so we called it a night.

We picked up a lot of brochures from the tourist information centre downtown, so we’ll probably be browsing them to see what else we want to do while we’re here. The number one thing on my list is to go to the Cleland Wildlife Park and see koalas and kangaroos. So far the only kangaroos I’ve see in Australia were ones that were hit by cars on our way to Adelaide.

Steps today: 16,000

South Australia (Day 75): Mount Gambier & Adelaide

May 14, 2016

Last night was pretty cold, we woke up and it felt like we had woken up outside. Tim said it felt like we had been camping last night. After some examination of the air conditioner, we realized that it’s also a heater! Oh well, now we know that air conditioners in Australia are different than the ones in Asia (which don’t turn into heaters).

We checked out of the motel around 10am and went to the main attraction in Mount Gambier, a crater lake called, Blue Lake. The lake was a lot larger than I thought it would be. During different times of the year, the colour of the lake changes. They say in May it’s more of a grey blue but some parts of the year it can become a bright and vibrant blue.

After Blue Lake we headed to Mount Gambier’s main street, called Commercial Street, for breakfast. Jessica, suggested a bakery in town but when we got there, it looked like the bakery had shut down so we walked around to see what else there was. We walked down Commercial Street a bit more and saw a building that said “OK Pie Shop”. We were intrigued by their modest name and were up for trying more Australian meat pies. OK Pies was a bakery that sold pies, pastries, and coffee. We shared a beef & mushroom pie and a curry beef pie. Both were quite tasty, I’m actually enjoying them quite a bit. The pies were better than the ones in Port Campbell because I think OK pies actually makes their pies in house.

After lunch we set out on our way towards Adelaide. It was about 400km to get to Jess and Robin’s townhouse in Adelaide. The drive was a fairly easy and non-eventful drive. There’s not much to see on the way there besides seeing lots of cow and sheep farms and wineries. Apparently South Australia is wine country. I saw some names that I recognize – like Penfolds and Lindeman’s. The majority of the highway is one lane, with some segments that are two lanes for passing (or overtaking as they say here). There are a lot of signs that say “Drowsy Drivers Die” – we must have seen over 20 of them.

We got into Adelaide around 3:30pm and passed by Jess and Robin’s townhouse to see where it was. They were at a conference today so they weren’t home yet. All we knew was that they would be home before dinner since they wanted to change after the conference ended before heading out for the closing dinner. We decided to get something to eat and then come back and wait for them to come home.

We drove around their area in Woodville, which seems like a very multicultural neighbourhood. We saw a lot of Asian and Indian restaurants around. We were both craving pizza so we looked at Tim’s offline maps at what was around, but every place we went to on those maps was either closed or didn’t exist. While driving around we spotted a Domino’s. We went there and ordered two pizzas. The pizzas were very cheap, they have $5 pizzas any time before 9pm for pick up. We asked how big they were and they said they were all larges (Australian larges are like Canadian small pizzas). We sat in and ate some of the pizza before leaving. When we first got to Domino’s they were really busy with delivery and their phone was constantly ringing. But while we were eating, so many people came in to order and the demographics reminded me of home. It was like we were in East Van – there were a lot of East Indians and Asians.

We headed back to Jess and Robin’s townhouse and parked in their driveway waiting for them. Since we had unreliable internet, Tim’s message saying that we’d wait at their place around 5pm didn’t go through so we were hoping that they were still coming back before their dinner. It felt like we were on a stake out since we were waiting in the car with a pizza.

Finally, we saw them pull up! They were wondering why we were waiting outside. Jess had sent Tim a message about hiding their key for us. But we told them that we didn’t get it, so we just waited. Their townhouse is nice and spacious and all the pictures around are nice and homey. It was so nice to see them and to be able to spend time with them in Adelaide.

They headed out for their conference dinner and Tim and I washed up and watched Aussie TV (and I blogged). We’re having fun watching AFL games (Tim is constantly giggling about how silly he thinks the rules are) and Masterchef Australia. Jess and Robin don’t have Wifi here but they got us a sim card that needs to be activated, so hopefully we can get that sorted out tomorrow.

We’re dropping our car off tomorrow morning at the Hertz downtown and will spend the day with Jess (Robin has to work tomorrow).

Steps today: 2,000

Great Ocean Road (Day 74): Twelve Apostles & More

May 13, 2016

We had a really comfortable night’s sleep at the Port Campbell Motel. The bed was extremely comfortable and cozy. Check out time was early, at 10am. This was okay though since we wanted to head out relatively early to see the Twelve Apostles and see all the other sites along the Great Ocean Road. Today was finally sunny, so I was really excited to get the day started.

We had to back track about 5 minutes down the highway to get to the 12 Apostles. I’ve seen pictures of it from Tim and others but when I saw it for myself, it was absolutely breathtaking. It was very windy out (I wished I had tied my hair back) so the waves washing on to shore were huge, but created a dramatic effect while looking down at the limestone formations. We went to each view point to take pictures and take in the scenery. After about an hour or so, we walked down to the beach to view the Twelve Apostles from sea level. We had to walk about 20 minutes to “Gibson’s Steps” from the 12 Apostles viewpoint to get to the beach. We could have also backtracked about a 1km or so but the walk was nice and refreshing. If you’re traveling to Australia, I would highly recommend this drive to everyone. It’s the highlight of Australia so far for us (or for me at least).

When we got on to the beach, we quickly learned that the water from the waves crash quickly on to shore and the tide comes up quite high. A lot of people around us who were walking by the shoreline got their shoes wet. If we were to go back, I would have brought out my flip-flops and walked along the beach in those and also dipped my feet in the water. But since we were wearing our only pair of runners we were pretty cautious about getting our feet soaked and having to walk around the beach with wet socks and runners. We found a higher rock that we stood on for a while looking at the Twelve Apostles, taking selfies, and watching everyone run up the coast to escape the waves.

Along the Great Ocean Road from Port Campbell are several other limestone formations that you can see. We went to all of them on the map and each one was amazingly beautiful. Our favourite part was watching huge waves wash up and crash against the limestone. You can see how strong and violent some of these waves are. Slowly, these formations will be gone due to erosion (there’s already only 9 Apostles left) and the shoreline will move inland over time (2cm/year). (Tim: but new formations we be created too!)

We finished more than half the Great Ocean Road sites before taking a break for lunch in Port Campbell. As you could see from our Port Campbell dinner, there wasn’t much selection in town. We planned on going to the pizza place but they were closed for lunch. We headed down to the pub to take a look at their menu and were slightly horrified at the prices. We ended up going to a sandwich shop cafe that served Australian meat pies. I ordered a mushroom and beef and Tim had a sausage roll. They were both decent and filled us up for most of the day.

After we finished the Great Ocean Road, we continued on the A1 Highway towards Mount Gambier, which is in South Australia (the Great Ocean Road is still in the state of Victoria). The A1 Highway is inland and is basically a single lane, highway through farms all the way until we reached Mount Gambier.

When we crossed the state line to South Australia, I missed taking a picture of the sign. In my defense, the sign was pretty sad looking. I was expecting something nicer, but it was just a small red sign (smaller than some road signs) saying “South Australia”. We also saw signage that said there are quarantines ahead and they had bins for people to dump their fruits and vegetables in. I don’t get why you would need to dump fresh produce between state lines within the same country (Tim: we later learned that there are no fruit flies in South Australia, and to keep it that way, you can bring fresh fruit and vegetables into the state…). Also, when we crossed the state line, we gained 30 minutes. South Australia and Victoria are in different time zones.

We finally made it to Motel Mount Gambier, our motel for the night. Motels remind me of horror movies or scenes of murders in suspenseful crime dramas (Tim: Or at least what Kaitlyn imagines horror movies and crime dramas are like… she doesn’t really watch any). We tried to read reviews on Trip Advisor to make sure the motels we were staying at were decent. Port Campbell and Mount Gambier’s hotel selection are basically all motels. I suppose if you had more time in each town you could look into Airbnb or a traditional B&B, would probably be nicer. Since Mount Gambier isn’t near a tourist attraction like Port Campbell, the room was cheaper at $98 CAD a night (not cheap for motel standards in NA but cheaper than other places around).

We checked in and were given the keys and WiFi vouchers for our stay. Usually the first thing we do is log on to the internet after a day without any. The problem here was that the internet wasn’t working, or it was but barely. We were in a room quite far from the reception so Tim asked if we could change rooms to one that was closer in hopes of getting a better internet signal. We changed rooms and though the WiFi signal was stronger, the internet was still pretty bad (which is the reason why I wasn’t able to post this on time). Also, when booking this place on Expedia, it said “Free Wireless Internet” and when Tim asked why the Wi-Fi vouchers had usage times of 2 hours each, the guy said that he couldn’t control what Expedia puts on their website (that’ll be in my review on Trip Advisor).

We grabbed dinner at the McDonald’s close by since it didn’t seem like much was around. We figured that road trips would probably be our best chance to eat fast food since most major cities we’ll travel to will have better food options. All the McDonald’s we’ve seen in Australia have the “create your own burger” option, where you can build a custom gourmet burger. We tried this out in Hong Kong last year and it was actually really good. The custom burgers here start at $10.95 AUD. We were both craving Big Macs so we ordered two meals – one with “loaded fries” (with cheese and bacon). Everything tasted the same. The only major difference is that in Australia, their medium drink size is equivalent to a small back home. Apparently if you order orange juice at breakfast and don’t upgrade your drink size, it’s like a Dixie cup.

After a quick dinner we headed back to the motel, washed up, and climbed into bed and watched TV shows that Tim downloaded.

Steps today: 13,000

Melbourne/Great Ocean Road (Day 73): Road Trip

May 12, 2016

This morning we finished packing up and went to the cafe downstairs for breakfast with Marcus. Our plan was to have breakfast at Kitty Burns and then Marcus would drive us to the Hertz downtown to pick up our rental car.

Kitty Burns is a very good looking cafe with lots of natural light, attractive pastries, and Melbourne coffee. Marcus said on weekends the place is packed and there are line ups for brunch. We grabbed a table and started with some flat white coffees (even Tim ordered one). They had cruffins (croissant muffins) that looked really delicious so we shared a lemon meringue and a strawberry mascarpone. They were as delicious as they looked. It was my first time eating a cruffin and it was awesome.

We also ordered off their breakfast menu. We ordered a chorizo burrata scramble and Marcus ordered a coconut chia parfait. I was impressed with the food here. Both items were very good. The coconut chia seed parfait was so beautiful, it even had edible flowers.

After an enjoyable and relaxing breakfast, we headed downtown to Hertz. We waited for a while for our car since they had issues with customers returning their cars late, so we waited for them to wash the car and fill up the gas. By the time we left Hertz it was about noon.

I’m happy that Tim enjoys driving and is comfortable driving on the left side of the street. I was in charge of holding Tim’s phone for the GPS. Navigating outside of downtown and getting on to the right highway was the “hardest” part of my job today, the rest was smooth sailing. Turning right when driving on the left side of the street was the most tricky. I’m happy I’m not the one driving. (Tim: Melbourne CBD has a weird thing where the right turn lane is actually the far left lane. You pull ahead and to the left out of the way of traffic, and then when the light turns yellow, you can make your right turn).

Once we got on to the Great Ocean Road, it was amazing. The Great Ocean Road stretches for 243km along the south coast of Australia and is a war memorial dedicated to the Australian soliders who fought in WWI. We pulled over quite a bit to take in the scenery, take pictures, and watch all the surfers. The drive reminded me a bit of the Sea to Sky at home since the roads are winding and you have the water right beside you. The coast line on the Great Ocean Road was very “cliffy” and you have the huge waves crashing on to shore. Everything was so beautiful, despite the weather not being ideal.

There are stretches of the Great Ocean Road that go inland where we saw lots of sheep and cows on rolling green hills and some stretches were just tree lined (like a rainforest). There was a stretch on the highway that turned off to go to Cape Otway (one of the most southern tips of Australia), which has a light house and according to the sign is the “most significant” lighthouse in Australia. So we made a detour of about 10km towards the coast to see the lighthouse. When we got there, we discovered it would cost $19.50 AUD each to go see it. It’s a shame it isn’t a national park and not private. We thought if they had admission it would only be like $5 AUD, not $19.50 AUD.

Our goal for tonight was to make it to a town called Port Campbell (228km from Melbourne). Port Campbell is the closest town with accommodations to the Great Ocean Road’s main attraction, “The Twelve Apostles“. We finally made it to Port Campbell just before 6pm. At that time the weather totally turned and it was windy and pouring rain. We passed by the Twelve Apostles on the way to the motel but the weather was bad and we had to check in before 6pm. So we’ll just visit them tomorrow morning when it’s light out and it’s supposed to be sunny.

We checked into the motel, Port Campbell Parkview Motel & Apartments, just before the reception closed for the day. The man at the reception was very friendly and showed us to our room for the night. It’s quite spacious and very clean. As there isn’t much selection in Port Campbell for accommodations, the price per night of this motel was $119 CAD a night.

We settled in and headed into town (a block of restaurants and shops) for dinner. Tim was craving fish and chips and saw there was a decent place called “Frying Nemo” (haha) off Trip Advisor so we went there. It turned out to be a take out place (attached to a gas station…). We ordered fish and chips and a “Bay Pack”. It was a good sign they were frying everything fresh so we waited for about 10 minutes for our order. Marcus taught us the term, “Bogan”, which are Australian red necks. We sent him pictures of our dinner and called ourselves Bogan.

We brought our fish and chips back to the motel and were really shocked at how large the portion of fries were. We ate less than 25% of the fries in our order. Now our room smells like fries.

We’re having a pretty early night since we’re back on the road tomorrow and there’s nothing to do in Port Campbell. Looking forward to seeing the Twelve Apostles and the other sites along the Great Ocean Road. Hopefully the weather will be nicer tomorrow and we’ll see a bit of sun and blue skies – it’ll make for much nicer pictures (Tim: overcast skies can actually make for better photographs!).

I’m enjoying our Australian adventure so far and being on the road with just Tim and I.

Steps today: 2,500 (Tim: our low for the trip)

(Tim: I just realized it’s day 73 and we’re already half way through our current trip before returning to Vancouver in July! Time really flies. It’s a good reminder to try and make the most of each day and not take this time for granted).

Melbourne (Day 72): South Melbourne Market & Botanical Gardens

May 11, 2016

This morning we woke up and got ready to meet Chloe and Alex for lunch at the South Melbourne Market. We’re staying in North Melbourne so the tram ride to get to the market would took around 40 minutes. We went through downtown (CBD), went over the bridge south of the river, and got off on York Street. We got there about 10 minutes late and saw Chloe and Alex waiting for us outside the market.

As soon as we saw Chloe and Alex from the distance, Tim said we should have gotten them to be our models when we took pictures of the graffiti art around town. Their outfits would work a lot better with that background than our hoodies. They showed us around the South Melbourne Market and introduced us to the friends they made there (they don’t just seem like locals, they’re regulars). It was nice to see how friendly everyone was and that they met some really great people at the market.

The first place we went to visit was the coffee shop Alex used to work at and the tea shop across the ways called, Tea Drop. At both places, everyone was so happy to see the two of them (we felt special by association). Chloe treated us to a fizzy fruit tea that they have on tap at Tea Drop. It was really good and refreshing. Tim’s stomach wasn’t feeling too great so the fizziness was good for it.

South Melbourne Market is a lot smaller than Queen Victoria Market, but it seemed like more of a neighbourhood market (a bit more like Granville Island). They had a variety of stores, speciality food shops, and a good looking food court. Chloe and Alex recommended a Vietnamese stall that was clearly a popular choice at the market. Tim had a regular beef pho and I had crispy pork with rice. Both dishes were $10 AUD, which was really reasonable (for Australian prices). Tim said his pho was good and I quite enjoyed my crispy pork (Tim would’ve too if his stomach could handle it).

We walked around the market a bit more and grabbed some croissants from a French bakery that sold some pastries and a variety of croissants. I got an apricot danish ($6 AUD = $5.60 CAD) which was really good. We took our pastries and decided to walk to the Melbourne Botanical Gardens. Before getting to the gardens, we stopped by the Shrine of Remembrance.

The Shrine of Remembrance was built to remember all those who served in WWI, but now is used as a memorial of those who have served Australian in all wars. The building is nicely situated and has a view of Melbourne’s skyline from the balcony.

The Melbourne Botanical Gardens are quite large and the gardens are very quiet and peaceful. It was nice to walk around and observe all the different types of plants, trees, and birds. The birds here are all different from the ones back home. Their seagulls are a lot smaller and their crows don’t caw they make more of a “ughhh” noise.

After walking through the park for a bit we walked back into the central business district (CBD). We said bye to Chloe and Alex as they made their way home. We’ll probably see them when we’re back in the beginning of June before heading to SE Asia.

Tim and I walked around the CBD a bit more and got a quick snack at Sushi Hub. We had passed by this sushi place the other day and I thought it was interesting that Australians served their sushi uncut. You would think we wouldn’t want to eat sushi any more but I was intrigued and the prices were quite reasonable. We tried a roll and an inari. They were average and decent for the price.

We took the tram back to Victoria Gardens and stopped by Coles for some groceries before heading back to the apartment. We still had some salad mix and 1.5 avocados left from the other day so we bought a couple items to supplement it for dinner. Apparently avocado mashed on bread is a popular menu item at restaurants here, so since we had extra avocados we bought some bread for that. We also bought some salami and snacks for our upcoming road trip.

We headed back to the apartment and I assembled our simple dinner. After dinner we booked two hotels for the next two nights along the Great Ocean Road. I’m looking forward to exploring more of Australia and Tim is excited to be able to drive. We’re both looking forward to getting to spend time with Jessica and Robin in Adelaide in a couple of days. We were on a travel booking spree as we booked our Cairns hotel and our Great Barrier Reef snorkel tour today too. I can’t wait to see the Great Barrier Reef before it all disappears.

We’re going to wake up a bit earlier tomorrow and go to the coffee shop in this building for breakfast. We tried to go the other day but it closed at 4pm. Then Marcus will drive us to pick up our rental car and we’ll be on our way along the Great Ocean Road!

Steps today: 18,000