Cairns... the land of lazy

Hello again,
We are back, safe and sound in Oz. Well, we've been here for 6 days now. In our typical fashion, we booked 2 nights and have continuously been extending our stay. Carins has had some freakishly great weather since we've arrived. It's the end of the rainy season, and other than getting caught in a 5 minute downpour our first day here, it's been HOT and SUNNY. Carins is pretty low key. Lots of day trips to do and cute shops and such, but for the most part the main activity for us is laying by the lagoon. You can't swim in the ocean because of deadly jellyfish, so they have a man made lagoon with sand all along one side and such. it's beautiful! and since the "beach" here is just mud it's great! So, we've had about 5 days of that. And one day of going out and snorkeling the great barrier reef.
What an experince! We sailed out (as opposed to going on a cruise type boat) 2 hrs to Green Island. It was great! Just laying on the deck of the boat enjoying the sun. We set up shop far out from the island and snorkeled some amazing parts of the reef. the fish were so cool! colors i didn't even know existed. the multi-neon ones were my favourite. they looked they they were decked out in really bad 80's clothes... or scales i guess. There were massive ones under our boat and we even saw little sharks (harmless ones). We then got taken over to Green Island where we went to a crocodile zoo type thing. I got to hold a little one and we saw the largest croc in captivity. It had to be captured because it was eating a bunch of people. He's 5.5 m so... close to 18 feet. CRAZY. his head was positivly massive. They even had a hall of horror where it was all grusome pics of crocs and things/people they've eaten and attacked. Really freaky, but so interesting. Kind of like a car accident, you don't want to look, but you just can't help it. The ride home was even a bit better than the ride out, because the really attractive crew walked around and served us fruit, cheese and crackers, and wine. Finally the man servent i had previously requested!
The going out scene is great here because of all the backpackers. Our hostel has a cute little bar where everyone hangs out and plays pool and enjoys cheep drinks. And we've found ourselves a couple of really fun bars. Which we go to with our friends Michelle (from England) and Cathy (from Montreal). These girls are just so sweet and so fun. We are always laughing our heads off. It's great to just finally meet and hangout with travellers, since we have a tendency to hang around locals. One of the bars is Gilligans. it's in a 5 star hostel which is AMAZING. So nice and a good club. We have danced more than i have in ages there! Didn't leave the dance floor one night! and the Woolshed. It's a pretty decent place. Reminds me of somewhere, but can't figure that out. It's more pub-ish and is all wood. it also smells really funny.
We are moving 300km south of Carins tomorrow to a place called Ayr. It's small-ish (18000 ppl) and we're going to do a couple of weeks of fruit picking. It's going be BRUTAL, but well worth it when we actually have some cash for the rest of the trip. And i really need it, since I just bought a nice new dress, wore it the night i bought it and got dirt all over the bum. So i left it to soak overnight and it went missing. So frustrating! grrrr. Oh well, at least we save money by buying the 5 pack of 2 min noodles for $1.19. hahahaha. OH! And we got the BEST $10 meal i've EVER had. A proper meal is something that is such a treat when you're backpakcing and this one took the cake. For $10 i had a massive chicken parm, baked potato and salad and it included a beer! Mind you, i had to give the beer away as i wasn't feeling so hot from the night previous, but, that's not the point. Such a great, yummy, HUGE meal. all for $10!
Will probably not be in touch too much whilst fruit picking, but will try by bestest. I'll need to vent about how horrid it will be! And the exercise and sun are good for me! :)
i must be off to enjoy being lazy some more.
love you and miss you all! think of you so often. only 2 months til i'm back! will be so sad to leave but SO happy to see you!!!
xoxoxo

i'm 1/2 an auntie!!!!!

Big news!!! Katherine's water broke at 7am (calgary) on the 23rd and she received an epidural at 2pm. I have yet to hear any news, as my phone was out of a service area when dad tried to call. I'm about to call home and find out if anything has progressed.
While all of that excitement was going on, i spent time in queensland jumping off a 109m cliff and free falling for 60m. it was AWESOME. (note: jeff, i sent pics home because i forgot my camera, and bought some. i'm hoping you can scan them and email them to me so i can post them). i ended up jumping twice. the first time just forwards with rafters underneith me whitewater rafting, and the 2nd time from a position called the chair. they strap you into a plastic lawn chair and you lean back and flip around while falling. SO SCARY. but SO COOL. i remember the 2nd jump much better. not sure if it was because it was the 2nd time going down or if it was because i was going a bit slower due to the chair?? not sure. marcy went once and i was SO proud. after a bit of psyching herself out, she just backed up and did it. so awesome to watch. they do dvd's of you so we all got to watch ourselves do it too. we then went home and calmed down over lunch and then hiked up queenstown hill. the name is decieving as it's more than a hill. it's 907m up and steep! but wicked views and a not too bad walk down. that night we went out and celebrated our not being wimps. the following day we were up at at 'em with a fine start to the morning with fergburger at 10:30 am (i had a "southern swine" which is a buger w/ avacado, tomato relish, aioli, lettuce, tomato, red onion and bacon, but i also added cheese. and marcy got "holier than thou" which is a tempured tofu which has coconut and satay sauce, cukes, onion and lettuce. both were amazingly delicious).
then we drove to wanaka where we looked at a beautiful photo display along the river and went to this puzzle museum. jeff - you would have LOVED it. SO COOL. we laughed a ton and it was a good way to spend an afernoon. we weren't really aware of how far it was to fraz joseph, so we didn't leave there until 4pm and it turns out it was a 4 hr drive. on the typical nz on-a-cliff-and-twisty roads. only an hour of driving (very slowly and cautiously) during the dark. but we finally got to see lots of live possums. we just went to our hostle and crashed. the hostle was so great! for $24 a night we had a 4 share room with an ensuite bathroom AND kitchen and they had a free hot tub and free homemade vegetable soup! what a deal. the tub and soup were really handy last night. we did a day hike of the franz joseph glacier. we went higher than any other group has gone and went through deep and narrow crevices that were bright blue because the ice was so dence. quite cold in those, but otherwise a beautiful, warm sunny day.
today we just woke up and made our way back to christchurch. we're meeting up with a friend we made in melbourne tonight and our flight is out at 7am on monday morning. so tomorrow evening and night will be spent at the airport. boooooo.
that's all the news. hope to get lots of news from home. i'm off to try to call about the BABY. yay!
miss you all. love. xoxo

The land of adventure.....

So long since i've last written! in fact... i just checked it out and i wrote a blog since then, but apparently it didn't load. and now i have NO idea what it said. so, sorry bout that. i'm sure you weren't missing out on much. so, i have a bit of time while my pics upload to try to recap as much as possible. i hate this cause i never get much detail in, but i'll do the best i can.
Melbourne: quit that horrid job with one week left to enjoy the city. So marcy and i did a whole lotta nothing special, but fun: read and lazed in the botanical gardens for an afternoon, went shopping for a few odds and ends, did our laundry, went out with the crew from work, visited melbourne museum, and basically bummed around. we had booked our flight to NZ, but changed it last minute so we could go to the great ocean road with our girlfriends from work, Jo and Rory. Rory's family has a beach house (or beach mansion if you prefer) there so we went with them for 3 glorious days. What an absoutely amazing spot! There was Jo, me, marce, rory, her nephew Fab (yes, his name is fabio. who is 32), her other nephew Thomas (fab's brother who is 2), and Rory's friends Michelle and Amy. Went to Lorne to the pub, hiked to the lighthouse and did a whole lot of relaxing in a house with a 180 degree view of the ocean. so wonderful. Went back to melbourne and stayed at jo's over night before heading off to...
New Zealand: if you've heard this is the most spectacular place on the planet, you've heard right. it's really kind of a condenced version of canada with lakes, moutains, fields and small towns, but with a TON and a half of sheep (~40 000 000 actually - so you see them EVERYWHERE. even running down the side of the road looking either really happy or really confused) , extra extra windy roads and people with funny accents (is that ten or tin? they don't quite know what vowels to say when). We have rented a little ol car to travel around the south island in. It's a called a toyota starlet and is most definitly asian noted by all the labels in funny characters. we're doing a great job of driving on the other side of the road! so proud of us.
anyway, we began our journey in christchurch where we landed late at night to 7 degree weather, so just went to the YMCA where we stayed and crashed. The next day it was pouring out and a great oppertunity to plan our trip and do a limited amount of sight-seeing around the town . Thanks to some guys from england we ran into in the most delicious bagel shop, we realized it was much more affordable than we thought to rent a car. So we picked up our little blueberry the next day and proceded to tour the area around christchurch such as going up the gondola and going to taylors mistake which is a beach from volcanic rock so the sand is black. pretty cool. Up bright and early on fri. (16 march) to head to Lake Tapiko (so beautiful and turquoise) and Mount Cook where we did a quick glacier hike, but didn't stay too long because it was SO windy. We drove down to the bumpin town of Twizel (pronouced Twy-Zell, not twizel like the licorice like we 1st thought). The extent of excitement there was seeing a kitten eat a dead hedgehog. i thought they were friends at first cause they were just sitting beside each other. i prefer my nice world bubble. We stayed in a cute little motel lodge that had dorm rooms. Up early again the next day to head down to Omaru where we were supposed to see penguins but due to our "top-knotch" planning skills had to miss out on because they only come out at sunset and we had more of a drive to Dunedin where our hostel was booked for the night. but we found entertainment there and went on a brewery tour of Speights (had to forego on the cadburys because of timing and they weren't running at full production anyway). Which was a good way to start st. paddy's day. that night we just went to a couple of local pubs in the octagon (town centre). The next morning we treated ourselves to a nice big greasy breakfast, as we had a 4 hr. drive to Te Aanu. It was raining on and off all day but this drive was amazing and filled with so many sheep and roadkill (found out that here it's ferrets, oposums and bunnys) that we were entertained. mostly by the sheep. and partly by trying to figure out what road kill was previously what animal. sounds gross, i know, but there's just SO much of it. Te Anau is right on a lake and it was raining so we did some browsing of tourist shops all afternoon. that night we went on the coolest tour of the glowworm caves. they are in a spacticular cave that you have to hunch right down to enter for about 10 feet and then it opens right up to a huge cathedrial ceiling. a gushing stream and waterfall lead up the walk to the groto where you get in a little boat and it's pitch black and all you can see on the walls around and above you are little blue dots that look like stars but are the glowworms. they move and it looks like twinkleing lights. the coolest experience ever. as we were leaving marcy and i almost got trapped in an asian tour group. it was a close call but we found the right way out and the people where we were supposed to be. The next day we had a wake up call of 5 am to drive out ot milford sound where we kayaked 14 k over 4 hours around the sound, which is really a fjord. it is by far the most beauiful place i've ever seen. Regardless of the hilarious looking thermal longjohns, clouds and drizzle it was ... no words can discribe it's beauty. a 168 m waterfall that is miniturized by the height of the mountains which are so lush and green with trees growing right out of the rock and seals that are 5 feet from your kayak. We finished that at 2 in the afternoon and arrived in queenstown at around 6pm, after running a few errands in Te Anau. We showered since we smelled of bug spray (the sand flies in milford sound were so bad) and sweaty. Then went and walked around downtown Queenstown which is such a resort town. nothing but restaurants, bars and sports shops. all overpriced. i went to the infamous Fergburger and had a massive chicken burger (plans to go back for a beef one). Today we hiked Lake Hayes and booked ourselves in for the Canyon swing where we drop 60m free falling before Swining out between the canyon. the cliff we jump off is the height of three 747's end to end. SO excited and a bit scared. But i must log off. I have added new pics of the end of Melbourne and what i have of NZ so far on CD. Will try to update again soon, hopefully before we get back to Oz. We fly to Cairns in 5 days, before which we are doing the Franz Joseph glacier and working our way back to Christchurch doing hiking and such along the way.
Miss you all... check out the pics and hope to get updates from you all soon.
xoxo

very VERY QUICK

20 sec to say i'm in NZ renting a car and driving around south island for 10 days