Surprisingly, it doesn't feel weird to be home at all...maybe it will just take a while to hit me. Right now I am looking forward to getting some good home-cooked meals and sleeping in my own bed for awhile (until I figure out where I'm going next, that is).

Merry Christmas everyone!

After gearing up with thick wetsuits (including hoods) and some snorkels, we took a boat out into the bay until we spotted the dolphins. The dolphins are in the area year-round living in the wild, not in captivity. The tours go out everyday and find where the dolphins are playing and let you swim with them in the open ocean. Dusky dolphins are very playful and curious and they like to do acrobatic jumps out of the water. As soon as we came across our first pod of dolphins, we all slipped into the water, and the dolphins immediately came right up to us. One was just a foot or two away as it swam in circles around me and I tried to keep up. We all had lots of interaction with the dolphins as they would keep swimming right up to you and veering away at the last second. They especially liked it when you dove down underwater and/or made noises through your snorkel.

Besides the dolphins, we also saw some interesting birds. We saw a couple types of Albatross, which have the longest wingspan of any bird in the world. It is hilarious to watch them take-off because their wings are so heavy that they need to run along the water to gather up enough speed to get into the air. We also saw a penguin! As we were swimming with the dolphins, I saw a yellow-eyed penguin swim by and I followed him for a good 5 minutes. Penguins aren't usually found there, but this one got off course and has been living in the bay for awhile.

After we were done swimming we got to watch the dolphins from the deck of the boat. They liked to come right up next to the hull of the boat and ride the pressure wave. The water was really clear and you could see them just below the surface of the water. We even got to see a couple do some jumps.

All in all a great day and a perfect ending to a great trip. All that's left now is a couple days in Christchurch before we fly home.

Abel Tasman
Kaiteriteri is right at the southern edge of the Abel Tasman National Park. On our first day there, we took a water taxi into the middle of the park and hiked ("tramped") back through the park. It was a pretty walk along the coast and we had a great time. The next day, Jon went for a full-day guided kayak trip (called the "royale with cheese" trip) while Emily and I took a much needed day off from all activities.

Marlborough
From Kaiteriteri we had a short drive over to the town of Havelock. From there we all went kayaking together on the Marlborough Sounds. We went in the Tennyson Inlet and had the place to ourselves, very peaceful. We also got to try some raw oysters from our kayaks (that was a first for me).

Our next stop was the small town of Renwick in the middle of wine country. Marlborough is one of the most famous wine regions in New Zealand. We rented some bikes and went on a private wine tasting tour. We had a good time, and we all made it back without falling off our bikes!

Skydive
We got there in the evening, and Jon went to look into skydiving for the next day. He came back with a grin on his face and said he was jumping in 30 minutes! We went over to the tiny airstrip across the street. Jon got suited up in his flight suit and briefed on what to do. They loaded up the tiny Cessna plane with what appeared to be a 15 year old as pilot. Emily and I watched as they took off down the runway, and then we went to wait at the landing area. The landing area was, appropriately enough, a sheep field down the road. The conditions were just about perfect - the sun was just about to set and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Jon had a great time and said the view over the mountains and the glacier were amazing. (Don't worry, Mom, he's fine!)

Heli-hike
The next day we all signed up for a heli-hike on the glacier. We took a helicopter flight up to the middle of the glacier, hiked around for 3 hours, and then took a helicopter back to the ground. I had never been in a helicopter, and it was a fun ride. Felt a little unstable to me but was a cool experience. The hike was alright; unfortunately, it got cold and rainy just after we started. It was interesting to see the blue ice, though, and we saw some neat ice caves and crevices.

While we were in Fox Glacier, we also checked out Lake Matheson and Gillespie's Beach. We went to Lake Matheson on a beautiful night (just after Jon's skydive) and were able to see an incredible reflection of the mountain in the water. We went to Gillespie's Beach the next day for a bbq, but we weren't allowed to make a fire so we had to scrap that plan. The beach was still quite pretty though. It was a stone beach with huge waves crashing in.

From Queenstown, we drove down to Milford Sound in Fiordland National Park. Although the area gets about 200 days of rain a year, we lucked out with a beautiful, sunny day. Jon went out kayaking for the day, while Emily and I took a boat cruise around the sound. We learned that it is actually a fiord, not a sound, although the difference seems rather technical to me. Anyway, Milford Sound was absolutely beautiful. The area is surrounded by tree-covered mountains with lots of waterfalls from the rain the days before. We spotted some seals and dolphins on the cruise too.

We spent all of the next day driving from Timaru to Queenstown. It took a while to get used to the narrow, windy roads, but the drive was beautiful with lots of mountains, lakes, and sheep (the sheep are everywhere). We stopped along the way to check out Lake Tekapo and Lake Pukaki, both of which are a glowing turquoise blue color. The interesting color comes from rock-flour in the water. We stopped for lunch in the small town of Twizel before pushing on to Queenstown.

Queenstown
Queenstown is nice, well-to-do ski-town in the mountains. Since it is summer here, there is no skiing now, but there are plenty of other options to keep you busy and get your adrenaline pumping. Queenstown is known for its extreme sports; I think it is probably the adventure capital of the world. You can do just about anything imaginable here - jetboating, white-water rafting, bungy jump, river boarding, skydive, skiing, mountain biking, etc, etc. Since that is the thing to do here (and because we are with my brother who is the most active person I know), we booked mountain biking, white-water rafting, and I signed up for a bungy jump.

We spent our first full day in Queenstown mountain biking. We rented bikes and asked for advice on a good, intermediate trail. He recommended a 3 hour ride around Moke Lake. Turns out, the ride was a bit harder than we expected. There were lots and lots of hills plus riding on grass and steep gravel downhills, not to mention having to climb over sheep fences multiple times. We ended up making it, exhausted, but it took us 5 hours.

Our second day in Queenstown went much more according to plan, but we were even more busy. We started with whitewater rafting on Shotover River in the morning. It was freezing when we woke up, but they suited us up with wetsuits, jackets, lifejackets, and helmets, so we were nice and warm. Getting to the river was a bit scary since we had to ride in a bus along the second most dangerous road in New Zealand. It is right along a cliff with a sheer dropoff on one side. It is so bad that rental cars are not insured on this one road. Once we made it to the water, the rafting was great. There was one section, called "The Mother", which has 4 class 4 rapids in a row. We finished by going through a tunnel and then down a great cascading rapid.

After whitewater rafting, we got in a quick wine tasting at Chard Farm. The Central Otago region is known for their Pinot Noir. I like it but I don't know much about wine; Jon liked it too, though, so that probably means that it was really good.

After I'd had a couple samples of wine, I was ready to go across the street for my bungy jump. I went on Kawarau Bridge, which was the first bungy jump site in the world. It all happened surprisingly fast. I checked in, walked out, and was ready to jump in about 5 minutes. Let me preface this by saying that I have never been bungy jumping in my life. I didn't really have time to think about what I was doing, which probably helped. When I got to the edge, I saw how far up I was and hesitated slightly. It is hard to will yourself to jump when you can see the ground so far below you. They counted down "5-4-3-2-1-Bungy", I jumped, screamed my lungs out, and then was plunged into the water up to my shoulders. What a rush! (Don't worry, Mom, I'm fine!)

On our last day in Australia, I found out that Andy Chomer, an old friend from high school, is living and working in Australia. We were able to get in touch with him and he went out of his way to drive up from Surfer's Paradise to meet us on our last night in Australia. It was completely unexpected, but it was great to hang out and catch up on the last 5-6 years. This was definitely one of those moments that makes you realize what a small world we live in!

I ended up taking 2 lessons and Emily took 3 (she is a pro now). She went on an extra lesson the day I went scuba diving. On our last lesson together, we had a slightly insane instructor named Egor. He took us "out the back" which means that we paddled out past the first set of breaking waves. From there, we caught bigger waves that hadn't broken yet, which means that it was a LOT harder. Emily had a particularly rough day including a near collision with another surfer and getting stung by a jellyfish. Luckily, this hasn't dampened her spirits and she can't wait to get out and ride some more waves.

Byron Bay
We have spent the week in Byron Bay and have loved it. This is one of my favorite places of the whole trip. Byron Bay is a small, laid-back beach town that is between Brisbane and Sydney, just south of the Gold Coast. It doesn't have all of the skyskrapers of Surfer's Paradise but rather a small town feel where everyone just seems to get along - surfers, hippies, tourists, and locals of all ages. It has lots of good restaurants but no McDonalds or any of the big chains (except Subway).

Byron Bay has several nice beaches including Byron Main Beach, Clarks Beach, Wreck Beach (which has a shipwreck sticking out of the water just off shore), and Tallows Beach (where we had our first surf lesson). It also has good scuba diving at Julian Rocks, one of the top ten dive sites in Australia. I did one dive there and saw lots of Wobbegong sharks, scorpionfish, and cool starfish. We also did a short hike up to the beautiful Byron lighthouse, which is located on the most Eastern point of the Australian mainland.

Cooking a Thanksgiving dinner in a hostel kitchen was a bit of a challenge. We ended up taking over about half of the kitchen but we managed. Well, I can't take too much credit...Emily was the chef. My only contributions were mashing the potatoes and going on a beer run.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Snorkelling on the Reef
Emily and I took a day trip out to Wheeler Reef, the closest part of the Great Barrier Reef to Magnetic Island. It wasn't really "close" though, it is 48 nautical miles from shore and took about 2-3 hours to get to by boat. We lucked out with a beautiful day, the sun was shining and the water was almost like glass. The snorkelling was absolutely amazing. It easily surpassed Koh Phi Phi Ley as the best snorkelling in my life. The reef ranged from 5 feet below us to about 30 or so, but you could easily dive down and look under the coral shelves whenever you wanted to. The coral itself was beautiful, in every shape and color imaginable. There were some shades of coral that I don't think I had ever seen before like a bright, glowing blue. And the fish were the most amazing part. There were so many different species of colorful fish that it was like swimming in a big tropical aquarium. I can't even begin to describe or even remember everything that we saw there. All I can say is that it was amazing.

Once that was all figured out, everything went rather smoothly. We cooked our food and sat down at a picnic table with our burgers and XXXX's (the local beer of Queensland). We were enjoying our meals when suddenly, as I was bringing the burger to my mouth to take a bite, a bird swooped in over my shoulder and grabbed it out of my hands!! We later found out that it was a Kookaburra, a rather small, stout brown and white bird with turquoise on its wings that loves meat.

While that bastard was enjoying the rest of my burger, I had plenty of time to look around the rest of the park. The sun was just setting and the animals were starting to creep in all around us. There were some other sneaky birds (I forget the name now) that would run on the ground and then just freeze in place. They had long, stick legs and big eyes. Then we saw some small figures bouncing around in the distance. They were little wallabies, which are kind of like miniature kangaroos, and there were several of them bouncing around the park. Finally, we saw a marsupial possum crawling around looking for some leftovers. Marsupial possums seem to be a bit more adventurous and quite a bit less disgusting then the possums back home.

We got to experience the Australian wildlife a bit more than we expected, but it made for quite an unforgettable bbq.

Even though it cost a small fortune to dive it (so much for the budget), it was worth every penny. We lucked out with great diving conditions - relatively calm at the surface, barely any current, and 15-20 meters of visibility. I had two great dives, some of the best dives in my life. The ship itself isn't very much to see, in my opinion. It is hard to even tell it is a boat at all because it is so completely covered with coral. What makes the dive so amazing is all of the marine life there. I saw five bull rays, three turtles, four sea snakes, one shovelnose shark (aka guitar fish), some big wrass fish, as well as thousands and thousands of different, colorful fish. The smaller fish would congregate in huge schools right up next to the reef, while the bigger fish would swim a little ways away and occasionally dart in to the schools of small fish for a snack. The bull rays were about 5 feet wide and would let you swim right next to them, just an arm-length away, as they glided through the water. Pretty cool.

I rented a camera for the dives too. I'll upload those pictures as soon as possible.

We also took two daytrips out of Sydney. Our first one was to the Blue Mountains. Rather than spending our money on a tour, we just took the city train out to the town of Katoomba. It is a nice, quaint little town that has beautiful views of the Blue Mountains (which aren't actually mountains but giant tree-filled gorges). The best view is from Echo Point, where you look out over the Three Sisters rock formation. We also took a short hike to see Katoomba falls. It was a very pretty area and it was good to get out and get some fresh air. Our second day trip was wine tasting in Hunter Valley. Hunter Valley is known for its Semillon (a white wine I had never heard of) and Shiraz, but it all tasted good to me. Our tour stopped at three different boutique wineries - Ivanhoe, Golden Grape, and Drayton Family Wines.

THE FLIES!!!!
Sydney (and all of Australia) is blessed with great weather and lots of outdoor activities, but there is a catch (there's always a catch). In order to enjoy the outdoors here, you must put up with the flies. This may seem trivial, but as anyone who has been down under can attest, these are no ordinary flies. These guys are relentless. I think it might be some rare species that is actually attracted to human faces - particularly mouths, nostrils, eyes, and the inside of ears. Luckily, it is only one or two at a time here, but supposedly in the Outback there are swarms of them around you all the time.

We are currently at our first stop, Melbourne. Emily has been a bit under the weather lately so we've been spending alot of time in the hostel trying to help her recover. Melbourne is a nice city but there doesn't seem to be too much to see or do here. The highlight of our time here has been a trip to Philips Island, which is 2 hours south-east of Melbourne.

Philips Island
We took a daytrip to nearby Philips Island to see the famous Penguin Parade. On the way, we got the quintessential Aussie experience - hand-feeding kangaroos and spotting koalas sleeping in the trees. Our first stop was at an Aussie cattle farm which had a load of other animals as well, including kangaroos. You were free to walk right up to the kangaroos, and they would eat right out of your hands! Our next stop was a koala conservation center where we could walk through the eucalyptus trees and spot the koalas sleeping in the branches. Koalas spend 20 hours a day sleeping because of their very low calorie diet. We were lucky enough to see one feeding and moving around; he even climbed down onto the handrail of the viewing platform just a couple feet away from us.

Our final stop was to see the little penguins. Philips Island is home to the smallest species of penguins in the world. Everyday, they go out to sea just before dawn and then return to their homes on land just after the sun sets. Small packs of penguins land on shore and waddle up the beach together until they get to their burrows. We got to walk on the boardwalk right next to the penguins as they made their way back to their nests where the baby chicks were waiting. We were afraid it might just be a tourist trap, but the penguin parade turned out to be a surprisingly interesting and fun experience.

The main activities here are shopping and eating. It seems like every block there is an another enormous shopping complex. I have never seen so many shopping malls in one place (even more than Dubai, I think). The number of restaurants and food stalls is unbelievable too. A traditional greeting in Singapore is "Have you eaten yet?" I'm going to have to bring that one back to the US. Singapore is known for their street food. "Hawker stands" all over the city that sell great, cheap food. We have tried some of the local favorites such as kaya toast, a traditional Singaporean breakfast, and chili crabs, steamed crabs covered in a chili gravy.

There isn't a whole lot for tourists to do here (besides shopping and eating), so 5 days was probably more than enough time for us to stop here. One of the highlights, though, was the Singapore zoo, which is probably the best zoo I have ever been to. There aren't really any cages, so you are in closer contact to the animals and it feels more like you are out in the wild. My favorite part was feeding the baboons, who would do tricks such as backflips to get our attention/food. Besides the zoo, we also saw the Fountain of Wealth, which is the largest fountain in the world and was built on the principles of feng shui.

We are in the airport now so I am pretty sure we will make it out without being caned. Off to Australia next!