Champagne for the newlyweds

The crew surprised us with a complimentary bottle of champagned in celebration of the honeymoon. We had one glass and shared the rest...gotta keep on top of your game to dive early in the AM! Our schedule was: light breakfast, dive, big breakfast, dive, lunch, dive, afternoon tea, dive and then dinner. We're pretty sure we consumed more than we burned off. Fantastic food! On this particular night, they had BBQ crocodile, kangaroo, beef and chicken.

Taking the "Giant Stride"

Here we are diving off the boat. It was about 100 ft. long, and totally set up for diving. There were 24 passengers and about 10 crew for 3 days...pretty nice! In this photo, I'm entering the water in what they call a "giant stride" where you take a big step off a platform to the warm water about 8 feet below. We saw some really cool stuff down there - giant cod, lionfish, garden eels and nudibranchs, which is kind of a colorful sea slug. We did 3 or 4 dives per day.

We took a little airplane to Lizard Island, on the Great Barrier Reef, as a start to a 3 day live aboard dive boat called Mike Ball Diving, which was fantastic. We were really worried about getting seasick, but were A-OK...whew!

Now this is a high activity car!

Do you see the black plastic thing running along the side of the car up to the roof? We'd seen it on several local SUVs and finally asked someone what the heck it was. Turns out it is a snorkel, designed so that the car can be submerged in about 4 feet of water without the engine dying. With all the flash floods around here, it's a pretty practical accessory. Yikes.

All politics is local

Gee...sound familiar?

OK, so the food is a little different in the rainforest? Check out the crocodile cookies! How about the ice cream flavors...mango and passionfruit are pretty normal, but they also include SOURSOP and WATTLESEED?! The last two were actually pretty good. Mike is never one to pass on ice cream, no matter what the flavor.

Daintree Rainforest

This plant is deadly. Just to brush against it will cause extreme pain, swelling, and shortness of breath. If you fell into the whole bush, you'd certainly die. There were several nasty plants in the rainforest - the plants here are even scarier than the animals and bugs!

We did it!!

When we landed, I had trouble standing up, because my legs felt like jelly. What a hoot!!

Thank God for open parachutes

Cairns, Australia - There is an indescribable sense of relief when the chute finally opens. It pulls quite a jolt, definitely takes your breath away. The rest of the ride was peaceful, surreal and an absolute delight.

Here comes the bride

So this is what it's like to travel at 120 miles per hour hurtling toward the ground. After the initial shock, it was like the best roller coaster ride I ever had in my life! Fantastic, terrifying and a hell of a lot of fun.

Here goes Mike!

You have to kneel at the edge of the open door, then arch your back and lean forward. It is a LONG way down, and it is really windy. We had about a one minute freefall. Whoa.

In a plane with no seats

Here we are up in the air with our butts on the plane bottom. All crammed in. We did a tandem jump, so there were 4 of us jumping and 4 professional jumpers we were hooked up with. Mike and I are furthest from the open door on your right, so we jumped last. The adrenaline was pumping overtime as we rose up to 14,000 feet.

What to do??

A sunny day at least 22 hours between scuba dives. Gee, sounds like a sky diving opportunity to us! We walked around town and signed up immediately to fly in the next half hour.

Playing with Giant Clams

Wow, these are incredible, about 3 to 4 feet in diameter. They are so HUGE, with a very soft purple inside. If you touch the edge with your hand, they clamp shut!

Honeymoon kiss underwater!

Not as easy as it looks. For you non-SCUBA divers, we had to take a big breath, take out our air regulators, kiss, then get a mouthful of ocean water as we put the regulators back in and then spit out the water. A little dicey, but hey why not?

Great Barrier Reef

Nine dives so far on the GBR and all have been fantastic, despite the fact that the weather is cloudy and the water stirred up from the recent cyclone. Contrary to what we thought, there are no great white sharks at the GBR, but there are poisonous snakes, spiny fish, etc. so you have to be VERY careful what you touch! We always go with a divemaster to show us the way. So far we have seen a giant cod 4 feet long, reef sharks, turtles, sea cucumbers, moray eel, angel and butterfly fish, and some truly spectacular coral. Oh, and we found Nemo, and he is doing just fine.

Cyclone Update

For those of you who have been asking, yes we are OK. Cyclone Larry hit about an hour south of Cairns/ Port Douglas which is where we are now. As far as we know, no one was hurt, although many are homeless and without power. The airport was closed day before yesterday, but all is OK now. Cyclone Wati is brooding offshore, and hopefully will stay there. We had a fantastic day of scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef today. It doesn't matter if it's raining if you are diving!!

Burgers, anyone?

OK, here is the culinary review. Kangaroo is kind of soft in texture and not so good. Crodocile basically has no taste at all, unless you mix it with other stuff. Camel, however, is really good, very similar to lean beef! We have also tried Emu, or ostrich, which was pretty good as well. Their bacon here is more like ham. Mud crab is supposed be great, but does not hold a candle to Dungeness.

Vegetarian culinary review: Kumara is sort of a sweet potato that they have here. Salads are fantastic - always dressed in a light vinaigrette. They never ask you what kind of dressing you want.

We miss whole grain bread - have not found much of that here!

Our wild night ride

We drove from Litchfield to Kakadu National Park late at night, and really got to see some critters! There were poisonous cane toads, owls, and a huge python crossing the road. Mike pulled over at one point to see a dingo, which is like a wild dog. Turns out it was a pack of dingoes. We were very quiet as the alpha male circled our car, at which point Mike suggested I put my window up in case he decided to lunge. Fortunately, he decided we were not worth the effort.

Jesus Bird

You got it, this bird walks on water. The talons on the feet are as long as the legs themselves. Amazing stuff in the billabong. By the way, a billabong is a lagoon that floods in the wet season and is surrounded by dry land during dry season.

In the Grass

Spear grass grows up to 14 feet tall here. Reminds me of that quote about Mike:

Ants in his pants keep him a goin'
Forget the fact that the lawn needs mowin'

Jumping Crocodiles

OK, here is the real thing. These crocodiles jump out of the water, which is truly scary because they keep reminding you to keep your head and arms inside the open air boat.

Crocodile Holiday Inn at Jabiru, AUS

We have arrived at the Crocodile Holiday Inn. The whole place is shaped like a crocodile, with the swimming pool in the belly of the beast! Swimming at 9pm was incredibly refreshing, as it was still about 80 degrees outside, and very humid.

After a day of hiking in high heat and humidity, a swim in this 80 degree water was just what the doctor ordered. It took some powers of persuasion to convince Sue that there were no crocs, snakes or water rats here, but we finally both got in for a welcome dip. It is one of a handful of places that I’ve seen that has 100 meter waterfalls and 80 degree water. A rare find indeed.

Litchfield National Park, AUS

Behind Mike is a cathedral termite mound, quite the architectural structure. Here in the rainforest, frequent flooding causes the termites to build these incredible structures to avoid the water. They can be up to 20 feet tall and over 100 years old. Built from termite feces and saliva.

Northern Territory, AUS

We are now near Darwin, at the north end of Australia. More bugs, more snakes and now the largest crocodiles in the world, up to10 meters in length. This is a replica of SHREDDER, who is about 8 meters long and still alive in the river where we took our jumping crocodile tour. Each male croc has between 25 and 50 female crocs in his harem. Crocs can smell through the water, sense motion and hear for many miles around. One guy fell in the croc infested river and was rescued 800 meters downstream. He remained perfectly still by floating, and is now known as Calm Jack.

Harley Ride at the Olgas

The Olgas are the only other mountain range that sticks up around here, everything else is flat. We rented a Harley to ride out to these pink granite mountains for a hike through a wind canyon between the rock plates. Kind of like the Furnace in Arches National Park in Utah. Central Australia must be one of the best places in the world to ride a motorcycle. Wide open roads, beautiful scenery and no flies. The blowflies are unable to hang on you, although you have to go about 30mph before they blow off. Tenacious buggers, at least they don’t bite.

Sunrise camel ride at Ayers Rock, AUS

Just look at the brick red color of that sand. It is absolutely beautiful. Also crawling with interesting things like legless lizards that look like snakes, thorny devil lizards that drink water through their feet and large hairy spiders that I have not seen and am NOT looking for. One bite from the Inch Ant can sting and swell for weeks. The weight of the biomass of insects exceeds the weight of all the mammals above ground.

Flora is bizarre as well. The trees keep their leaves and shed their bark, so the age of the tree is not discerned from tree rings but from carbon dating. Spiniflex grass dies from the inside and grows on the outside, creating a donut ring of green with dead grass in the center several feet in diameter. Cozy place for dragon lizards to hide.

Look at the teeth on Sandy the camel. If that isn't enough to make you floss, nothing will. One million wild camels now populate Australia; so many that they export camels to the Middle East. Camels are amazing at recycling liquids within their body to conserve water, which they only need every 5 days. They spit not saliva but smelly cud, so we quickly learned not to approach from the front. The other camel is a long legged orphan baby, only 4 months old. Her keeper let us hold the bucket while she slurped down some formula. VERY cute.

Hundreds gather here for sunrise and sunset each day, as it pops over Ayers rock and bathes it in a spectacular glow from all the red sand. This group of Aussies on holiday adopted us for the evening. Since the queen was in Australia last night to open the Commonwealth Games, they brought champagne and tiaras. I was an honorary Lady Susanna for at least 20 minutes.

Outback Spear Throwing

Mike now knows how to properly throw a spear, with an extra piece of wood called a spear launcher that gives it extra leverage for a more powerful throw. He also knows how start fires from camel and emu dung. Now that is useful information.

In the Outback

We are officially in the outback, smack in the middle of Australia at Ayers Rock, which is a huge red rock, the world’s largest monolith, that rises out of miles of flat red desert. Quite hot, dry and lots of flies. Native Aborigines with a translator showed me how to carry things on my head, which will undoubtedly come in handy the next time we run through the airport with our arms full.

Tiger Snakes

This one is just a baby, and has no stripes yet. Tiger snakes are one of the 3 most venemous in the world, and a common cause of snakebite death in Australia. Good thing the zoom on the camera was working today.

Flinders Chase National Park, Kangaroo Island, AUS

Sculpted by sea and rain, these are on a bluff 75 meters above the water. The ocean was pounding below.

Kangaroo Island, AUS

Contrary to the name, this island is not hopping with kangaroos, but we did find some to hand feed and hold in a sanctuary for injured animals. There are something like 64 species of kangaroos in AUS. There is also frequently kangaroo on the menu, but we just can’t bring ourselves to order it.

You know how koala bears have that vacant stare? Apparently their brains are extremely tiny for their head size and they are really clueless. Cute but dumb animals, we are told. At least they were smart enough to call themselves bears so they sound tougher than the other marsupials.

Attack of the 50 ft. lobster

Run for your lives...it's the giant lobster! Even big lobster are called crayfish down here, and they are fantastically good. Mike narrowly escaped the giant vat of melted butter.

Firestation B&B

Our bed and breakfast used to be a real firestation from the late 1800s. That's me holding a very heavy brass nozzle. Good thing they converted the sliding pole into a circular staircase, or we would have been playing into the wee hours of the morning.