Today’s word: laughter

We were bummed to leave Palm Cove on this day — it is the cutest town I’ve ever been to. We are back in Sydney for a couple of days before heading back to the states.

When we checked into our hotel, we did a bit of unpacking. As I talked to my sister, I noticed a dark spot on the carpet out of the corner of my eye. This spot sort of blended in with the carpet, so I thought it was just a stain. Moments later, I noticed this ‘spot’ started moving…upon further inspection, I found that it was a gecko. We weren’t too skiddish about it, but we definitely weren’t excited to have it in our room.

We were actually nervous that we might have brought it over in one of our suitcases — since we saw so many in Palm Cove. We thought, ok we’ll just switch rooms and run away from the little guy. My sister went down to the front desk and asked, but they were all booked — Oprah’s fault. She then went on to say, so do you have geckos in Sydney?

Reception Guy: You mean Lizards? Yeah, like in the parks. Why?

My Sister: Oh…um…no reason…

Reception Guy: But they wouldn’t be in your room or anything.

My Sister: Oh…yeah…so, there’s actually one in our room.

I don’t think he quite believed her at first. So he came up to have a look. Yeah we weren’t kidding guy. So the three of us sort of hummed and hawwed over what to do. Finally the solution was for him to grab a dust pan. He returned with another hotel staff member and a small paper box — sort of the size and shape of a tampon box.

By sister was on the look-out, while the two guys tried to corner the gecko — I mean lizard. Finally after some chasing and moving furniture, the little guy was captured.

After that hilarious ordeal, we were ready for a drink. My sister and I started at a wine bar in the Rocks — I think I’ve mentioned before how it’s like a Pearl-esque neighborhood of Sydney — and then headed to dinner at a place called Sake. Here I ate some of the best sushi I’ve ever had. I also had to try wagyu beef skewers because I’d heard Andrew Zimmerman talk about it on Bizarre Foods. It was ok.

My sister’s friend from college is living abroad in Sydney right now so he met up with us for dinner — which turned into, and then some. At the point he met up with us, we had already been filling our bellys with food and libations — which then continued again so he could catch up with us.

From there we ran, skipped, jumped, swinged, danced and laughed around the Sydney Harbor. Sort of one of those crazy, adventuous — but don’t worry mom, also safe — nights where it’s just silly, belly laughing fun that you wish was captured on video.

We also did some long distance and international texting and dialing — what-up Portland at 5 am, excited to hear from Australia?! Can’t wait to get that phone bill…

Oprah is also over here on an Australia adventure. Leading up to her arrival, the local news and talk shows have been bursting with excitement. The flags in Sydney have also switched from saying “Happy Christmas” with cute animals, to flags that have “Oprah’s Australian Adventure” with a picture of her, arms open like Moses parting the sea.

My sister and I have been going around doing the Oprah announcement voice to narrate random parts of our trip; holding our hands out like Oprah does on the flag; and also bursting into songs from Grease — because apparently John Travolta flew her and her audience winners here.

We also wonder, what would Oprah do if she was here in this part of Australia right now…

We get a lot of people thinking we’re from Canada. When we tell people where we’re from, they always want to know where specifically in the states. We get a lot of blank stares when we say Oregon. We had one person say, oh yeah I know where that is, it’s in the middle. Yeah, no. So now we just go with, ok do you know where California is — yeah by that.

For our last full day in Palm Cove, we decided to head out to the rain forest.

A short bus ride takes you to the base of a sky rail — think OHSU tram or gondola at a ski resort. 

We had a quick breakfast and bought some more souvenirs — me a handkerchief with a map of Australia and creatures and my sister a stuffed Koala bear we named Mercedes…

Once we were ready to board the rail, we found that it was shut down due to a storm coming in…we waited and waited as each “it’ll just be about 10 more minutes” passed. When we finally slid in the little pods, we felt a rush of anxiety — palms sweaty and nervous laughter — don’t look down, don’t look down. I’m not too terrified of heights, but it was really creepy floating so high above the rain forest canopy — we did decide that if it did fall, the canopy would probably do a good job of breaking our fall.

What we got to see was beautiful — rich tropics, the tops of trees looked like florets of broccoli, hills and rocks and waterfalls. Along the sky rail you can get off at different stops and hike around.

At one look-out point we were snapping pictures when a lady asked if we’d like one together. We did the, oh where are you from, and come to find they were from Oregon — OSU and Ohio State fans though.

At the end of the sky rail was a little village with shops and whatnot. Again, browsing and stopping to buy more souvenirs — who wants a bommerang…

To get back ‘down’ you can either hop on the sky rail or take a train. We opted for the choo choo. It was a slow ride that winded through the mountains of the rain forest — hugging the side of the cliff, with not much room on the side. Which again made our palms really sweaty.

Which brings me to today’s word of the day: breathtaking — for both seeing the beauty of the rain forest and the fact that our breath was smacked out of us for fear we’d fall out of the sky or crash down a cliff.

Today we were supposed to check-out and head somewhere else. The weather has been so nice here, and not so much in other parts of Australia so we decided to extend our stay. We’re taking a break from being tourists and be on vacation.

We mostly spent today lounging around by the pool and then the beach to mix it up. As well as roaming the shops of the little beach town in search of Christmas presents.

Today’s word: vacation

Sharks, sting rays and turtles — oh my. On this day we were up bright and early to go out to the Great Barrier Reef.

When we got on the boat, we were greeted by a crew with people from every nationality — so it seemed — and hard muffins and coffee.

We booked it out to the reef in about an hour, threw on our stinger suits and hopped in. I thought I’d feel a bit more frantic in the big open ocean with who knows what swimming by me, but it felt more adventurous.

I had so much trouble keeping my snorkle mouth piece in which meant I kept drinking / tasting the salt water. After bobbing around in the ocean I started to feel sick so I paddled it back to the boat, took some sea sick pills they had and threw-up — gross, I know but it made me feel better and after a lay down I was back in the ocean.

The reef was amazing — different shapes, colors and textures of coral everywhere you look. We swam right through schools of fish, right next to a sea turtle and over a sting ray. At one point the snorkle guide waved for us to come by him because there was a shark for us to see, but we all just froze and floated in place — my gut reaction is to not swim toward someone who is yelling shark.

Today’s word: adventure

Word of the day: relax. Today was spent consuming sun, beverages, food and the local culture.

We spent much of the day on the hotel premise. Wandering out in the early evening to check-out the local shops and grab a bite to eat for dinner. The UV rays here are so potent that I needed to stock up on an even bigger hat and white cover-up.

While roaming the town, we found flyers posted: Santa Claus will visit and the Mayor will turn on the Christmas tree lights at 6:30. I’m a sucker for holiday related this and that so we scarfed down a pizza to make sure we could partake in the festivities. We found about 100 or so folks (presumably locals and tourists) gathering round a band playing both Mumford and Songs and Christmas tunes. The tree to-be lit was also adjacent to the band — a 6 foot ‘fake’ tree. Directly across the street was the beach. It was finally announced that Santa was coming down the street — I whispered to my sister SANTA in the tune of Buddy the Elf. He was riding in a golf cart trimmed with Christmas lights.

He stepped out of the cart to cheering kids racing to his side, when they finally parted, you could see Santa was wearing a beard (being held-up behind his ear with a string) and red swimshorts — rock on Santa, shorts are the only way to do Christmas in the tropics, as the mayor observantly pointed out in her speech, right before lighting the city’s Christmas tree.

Pretty much one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen. I feel like this town is out of a storybook.