Week in Review (November 26 - December 2)

Tuesday (21,981 steps) - Australia Day 6 (Twelve Apostles, Triplet & Beauchamp Falls)
Wednesday (12,748 steps) - Australia Day 7 (MEL to CNS)
Thursday (23,781 steps) - Australia Day 8 (Turkey Trot, Lagoon, Night Hike)
Friday (10,050 steps) - Australia Day 9 (Snorkeling in Great Barrier Reef)
Saturday (16,900 steps) - Australia Day 10 (CNS to SYD, Bondi Beach)
Sunday (27,011 steps) - Australia Day 11 ( Sydney - Royal Gardens, Escape Hunt)
Monday (17,179 steps) - Australia Day 12 (Bonza Bike Tour, Darling Harbour)

Stats:

• 129,650 steps
• 6.9 miles run (wheeee)
• NO gym classes, but LOTS of walking & about 10 miles of biking!

Day 10 - CNS to SYD, Nap, Bondi Beach

Our earliest wake up of the entire trip was when we were flying from Cairns to Sydney. Our flight was to DEPART at 5:10. In the morning. Oh lord. We knew the drive to the airport wouldn't take long, but did you know that our hotel was only two doors down from a strip club and we had to wait for our Uber with some unsavory folks, haha.

Even with that, we ended up arriving at the airport by 3:30, which was more than enough time since nothing was open yet. I planned on spending my morning booking airline tickets for our upcoming trip. This opened up a host of issues.

First, logging into my email from my laptop was flagged as "suspicious." I was locked out of my email for over a half hour, because apparently I don't know enough about myself to answer security questions. Fucking crazy.

THEN, I'm trying to book and Capital One/airline wants to verify my purchase with... you guessed it, a text. I kept getting locked out of my bank account and had to re-verify my identity with THEM. (Why this airport of all places were such an issue, I'll never know).

I was NOT able to get the tickets purchased before we had to board. Ugh. Figured I'd deal with it in Sydney.

I was hoping to sleep on the plane, but surprisingly, I was not able to sleep. We arrived earlier than expected in Sydney, and had plans to use public transportation to get to our hotel in Bondi Beach. Once we figured out where the train station was, we figured we would need to buy an "Opal card" (similar to the Oyster cards we had used in London). We then figured out that that - 1). There is no way to be refunded if you put too much money on your card, 2). there is no "unlimited" pass since we didn't know what we were doing and 3). it was EXPENSIVE for four people to get to the beach.

We opted to just get an Uber (to the tune of $35ish) and decided to worry about it later. In the meantime, I was on the phone with Capital One trying to figure out a way to bypass the text verification, which I was assured was impossible.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I finally turned on my phone long enough to get the text verification (we will find out how much this ends up costing me later).

Once THAT was done, we were dropped off at the swanky Hotel Bondi, where we were able to check in early. The girls picked a "pizza" place for lunch, which ended up being more like flat breads. But it was good.

Even though it was cold and windy, we headed to the beach, although Ariel was the only one that got her feet wet. Once again, I enjoyed the unique Australian signage.

We spent a while wandering around and going to shops, mainly so Julia could finally get a hoodie, and we stopped at Ben & Jerry's for dessert of the day. I don't eat ice cream often, but this was delicious!!

All of us were pretty drained from a few crazy busy days, and we ended up all napping for a few hours. The restaurant in the hotel had a pretty good dinner special, so we got steak and potatoes that were amazing! 

It seemed like the clouds might be breaking and I suggested going for a walk in hopes of getting some good sunset pictures. We managed to find the famous Coastal Walk, and we WERE treated to one of the most spectacular sunsets I've seen.

We weren't sure how far we had walked, so we opted to turn around before we ended up on the beach in the dark. 

Even though we had all napped, we decided to go to bed early. This was a nice hotel and I slept amazing.

Day 9 - Snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef!

We got up early and made sandwiches to bring with us for breakfast/snack on our adventure of the day - snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef! We left enough time to get coffee on our walk to the marina, and found the right "finger" with a few minutes to spare.

It was a bit unfortunate that we had clouds and cooler temperatures for the one day that we were going to be on the water. Once we boarded, we were given breakfast of muffins and beverages (although I wasn't feeling spectacular, so I didn't eat). We were given our stinger suits, snorkels and fins,The longer we were on the boat, the less "great" I felt.

We got on a smaller boat to head toward our first snorkeling location of the day - Michaelmas Cay.

Ashore the small beach, which was also the Upolu Cays National Park, we got a crash course in using our snorkels. (Did you know that over 20,000 birds reside on this tiny reef? Crazy. Apparently it is one of the most important bird nesting sites in the area). Lets also take a moment to appreciate how amazing and ninja-like we look in our suits!

Thankfully, we had the option to use pool noodles for snorkeling. I felt better about that because I wasn't feel very good/strong, and A felt better about it because she had never been snorkeling before. 

Towards the end of our snorkeling we had the chance to go on a glass-bottom tour in a smaller boat. It was filled up before we had the chance to get on, so we went back in the water. I think it was at that point things started to go wrong. I may have grabbed the wrong snorkel, but the valve came off and I swallowed a bunch of seawater.

Once we got out of the water, lunch was served, but I was NOT hungry at all. I picked at a few things, but in general had no desire to eat. I sat outside on the deck and felt a bit better in the sun.

We then went on to our next location, Hastings Reef, for open water (not beach initiated) snorkeling with a different guide. A opted to not use the noodle on this one, although I still did. I wanted to do the second boat tour, so I got out, and as I was stripping off my suit a bout of nausea came over me. Within minutes, I was puking off the back of the boat. Ugh. Good thing is that I felt much better after that.

(All pictures below are taken from the Seastar Cruise Facebook page and were taken by our snorkeling and/or diving guides with their awesome underwater cameras).

The tour wasn't very long, and we learned all about the different reefs and corals that live in the area. We were also told to pass the message along that the Great Barrier Reef is NOT dying, and that we as a whole, need to work on protecting our environment and natural resources.

We had spent the day sitting near an older couple from Florida, and he was kind enough to give me his last Dramamine before we headed back to shore, and I felt a lot better by the time we docked.

We took the kids back to the Lagoon for a bit so they could swim, stopped at the night market so Lisa could buy a necklace, picked up some last minute stuff at the store, then had dinner of sandwiches at our hotel.

The girls weren't interested, but Lisa and I went back out to watch the bats one more time since it was our last night in Cairns.

Day 7 - MEL to CNS, Flying Foxes

We were able to "sleep in" since our flight was very late morning. We had no desire to eat at the hotel restaurant, so we drove to turn in the car and figured we would get food at the airport. Australia is a lot like Europe, you show up to the airport and have no idea what gate you're at. We also ran into an issue that bag drop wouldn't open for another 45 minutes, so we had to get breakfast at a little coffee shop outside of security. (The only reason we were even checking bags is that the max weight for carryon was 15 pounds, and since we all only had one bag, there was no way to get it under that weight, although we were all pretty close).

As soon as our gate was announced we headed over, only for me to realize that there was not a bathroom at the gate. I headed back to pee and nearly missed the flight. (Good information if you are flying between states there, eeesh).

The flight to Cairns was uneventful and didn't seem as long as it was. I can't remember if I watched Netflix or listened to music. We landed on time and had a slight hiccup when I realized that since I hadn't set up Uber since getting a new phone, that I wouldn't be able to verify my account through text, so we added my card number to Lisa's account. The Uber dropped us off at our hotel - and we were impressed with the location and it's proximity to everything we wanted to do.

The kids were psyched to have an "off" day and WiFi, so they stayed at the hotel while Lisa and I walked to the marina and hit up Hemingway's Brewery.

The only other thing we had planned for the day was grocery shopping (check, the store was right across the street from the hotel) and going to the night markets. Downtown Cairns was really cute, with beautiful trees.

And flying foxes hanging out in the fig trees!!

After we wandered the market, we sat outside and watched the flying foxes. It was pretty neat!