North Queensland, Australia

The weekend after Thanksgiving we started our month of travel before heading home for Christmas. Since arriving to NZ, Erik and I had tossed around the idea of checking out an island or two in the South Pacific, however this seemed to be a bit out of our price range. Instead we decided to visit tropical Queensland (the northeast portion of Australia).

We spent most of our time in Port Douglas, which is a lazy tourist town north of Cairns. I had a great time in Pt Douglas, but it's not exactly a hotbed of social activity. What I mean by that is there didn't seem to be much to do at night. However our hostel had a fun bar and we met some nice people on our rainforest tour. We met up with them one night to hear some live music and have a few drinks.

The #1 item on my list in Australia was the Great Barrier Reef... Here is a picture of a very, very, very small portion of the GBR from the plane - so cool!


Anyway, we took a snorkeling tour of the reef one afternoon and had a ton of fun. The weather looked rather threatening on our way out, but the ocean was quite calm and by the time the afternoon rolled around there was some sunshine.

Here is a picture of us on the boat and of our captain - all of the tour guides were a riot.



(He sure is working hard!)

Our snorkel trip included 3 stops... I was bummed when we weren't able to see the "normal" stop #3. It was supposed to be the site with sea turtles, but the area was covered in jellyfish, so they turned the boat around and took us to a different place. However, we saw heaps of fish, beautiful coral, and some massive hundred-year-old clams.

Our other big adventure was a day-long tour of the Daintree Rainforest. There were only 6 people in our group (plus our guide). Everyone on the tour was very friendly and we all got along really well. I am not sure exactly when it happened, but at some point on the trip I became the guinea pig for all activities. I believe it began when our guide picked up an ant and asked "Who would like to taste this?" I was the only one to volunteer, so after that I was "volunteered by others" to be the first to try/do anything (such as tasting the exotic fruits, sticking my head in a tree, acting like I was going to get cut in half, you name it. By the way, tasting the ant involved sticking your tongue out so the guide could touch the ant's green butt to your tongue. It tasted like a chewable vitamin C tablet.)


(That little stunt probably had the highest risk of injury compared to anything else I have done here... but I survived!)

Another fun tidbit from the rainforest tour was that one of our fellow tourists kept calling Erik "Rick." At first I tried to emphasize Erik's real name by using it whenever I addressed him, but that didn't work. After awhile it was simply hilarious, and I became worried she might catch on and correct herself. Erik claims he didn't care... but I know better than to believe that. (Otherwise I would have started calling him Rick myself!)

Here are a few pics from the tour -

Bloomfield Falls w/ our tour group (we drove for an hour on a gravel road, through streams and all to see this... since I was in the backseat, I was not a huge fan of the driving part)


Cape Tribulation


Me swimming in Noah Valley (private land that the tour company leases - the water was perfect, nice and cool, and clear so I could watch for snakes... there were none)


After the rainforest tour we stopped at Hartley's Creek Crocodile Farm where we saw koalas, tons and tons of crocs, and a crocodile show. It was very interesting and there is no amount of money that could make me get into a pool with this guy!


The focus of the show we watched was on how easy it is for a crocodile to kill you... real family friendly.

The last thing I wanted to mention about Australia is to triple check your calendar if you ever decide to visit North Queensland. Killer jellyfish season had just started when we arrived, swimming was prohibited in coastal waters (ie. on the beach). This was awful. It was hot and humid, and you couldn't even dip your feet in since the jellyfish are known to be in ankle-deep water. The only place you could swim was in this minuscule netted area. (It's hard to see in my pictures that the deepest point in the netted area the water is barely above your knee.) This was also the least crowded we saw the area...


I cannot emphasize enough how disappointed I was about the beaches being closed. Look at all this beach... NO swimming on "Four Mile Beach" - What a tease!


Disappointed or not, the jellyfish didn't stop me from having some fun and building a masterpiece one afternoon...


...and true to Dillhoff tradition, I worked hard to save the castle from the incoming tide, but without my brothers' moat-building skills, the it fell quickly.

All in all, our Australia trip was great... to see all 200+ pictures (yikes!), check out the Queensland, Australia photo album -

Queensland, Australia

Yes, I do spend time in Wellington...

Seems like nearly all of my posts have been about traveling, so I thought I would share a little more about life in Wellington -

Starting with where I live -

My room - I affectionately refer to it as "the pumpkin." I will never have an orange room in my future house/apartment. This room is actually a converted dining room, which means it has a couple bonuses, but no closet!

Bonus #1 - the built-in hutch. The top middle drawer has built in cutlery dividers, perfect for socks and underwear!
Bonus #2 - the built-in wine closet on the left - pretty much only good for holding wine.

Our driveway/the house across the street. All the houses in this area are really nice. Andy (flatmate) and Erik like to call ours the worst house on the nicest block -
And we are real classy - Andy and Erik dragged the couch out to the driveway to show off their guitar skills.
We would have hung out in the backyard, but as you can see, the Wellington Motorway is cramping our style (ours is the one-story white house).
Everyday tasks

I forgot to mention in my NZ Observations post that most people in NZ do not use clothes dryers, so it's the old-fashioned, environmentally friendly clothesline for us. This is a pain when the weather is not cooperating because then we have to hang the clothes up all over the house... with so many people, space becomes a premium.
Birthday Party!

Here is a picture of me with Susan and Corey. Corey is Sarah's older brother, and Susan is another friend of Corey's. We all went to a Japanese restaurant for Corey's birthday, then hit the dance floor for a few hours - it was a ton of fun. Mount Victoria (Wellington)

Mt Vic is one of the city neighborhoods, and it is located "above" Oriental Parade (OP is right along the harbor - a put up some pictures of that area when I first arrived). One weekend Erik and I decided to take the time to hike up to the lookout... it was a gorgeous day and the views were amazing. It was the first time I had seen the harbor from the other side.

Here I am consulting my trusty map to make sure we are on the right course -

This is the view from Mt Vic towards the Pacific Ocean - if you look carefully, the Wellington airport is nestled in on this little strip of land. Given that Wellington, NZ is also known as the windy city and there isn't much shelter from the elements in this spot, it is no wonder that plane landings can be rough!

Some sailboats out enjoying the beautiful weather. On a clear day, I have been able to see the snow on the Rimataka mountains in the background.



A more current update...

I am actually in Queenstown, NZ at the moment. Erik and I just got back from a week in Queensland, Australia seeing the tropical rainforest and Great Barrier Reef (updates to follow). We have a couple weeks to tour the south island before heading home for the holidays. Then it is back to Wellington for a few more months in 2008!