Weird name, beautiful place. This is our largest expense, and what should be the greatest time in Australia. We will be renting a yacht for 10 days and cruising around the Whitsunday Islands, which borders the Great Barrier Reef. Yes I said a yacht, it's not a huge thing, but it is pretty awesome. We will have it to ourselves, being able to go where we want when we want. We will be going with Tripp and his friend Lisa, the same folks we are doing the zoo stuff with. We will be snorkeling and bumming on the white sand beaches.

Here is our boat, freaking awesome. It's a catamaran which should make the seasickness that Krissie and I will inevitably have less of an issue. It will also have a little powered boat so we can motor up to the beaches on whichever island we feel like.



The interior is sweet as well.









Do we shower or just go jump into 80° water...













Who in their right mind would want to watch tv??








Tripp is an awesome cook, and apparently so is his friend. We should be treated quite well while out on the open sea :}











Sunbathing on the deck.








We both get giddy when we look at these pictures :}







I need an eye patch!








There's really only one thing I am worried about and that is, well dying ;} We have to watch out for stingrays and box jellyfish, and other jellyfish that will just be painful, not deadly. We're going to be renting stingsuits just in case. I have no qualms about throwing on the suit for the first little bit while we explore the area and make sure it is free from said pests.



If we're lucky we'll be able to see some sea turtles! I plan on keeping one as a pet, along with the red panda I plan on procuring from the Australian Zoo.







Just beautiful, the water is so crystal clear and the beaches such a pristine white.








Camping out in scenes likes this, who could ask for more?

This blog is going to be a bit haphazard as that's how my brain functions right now :} So the plans will bounce around as I think about them. *edit*Also the formatting has been giving me issues, hopefully it won't look too bad. The preview of the post looks absolutely nothing like what actually gets posted...

Speaking of which, our New Years plans. For New Years we are going to be on a fancy little boat/yacht thing on the Sydney harbor next to the bridge and the fireworks! Here are some photos of what we will be seeing/doing.








This made us very happy!













Yup this is what we will be seeing, fireworks shot from the Sydney Harbor Bridge





And here are some more fireworks, I'm hoping that I can get some pictures of the fireworks, though just being there will be more than sufficient.


We will be on one of a select few boats participating in the Sydney Harbour of Lights tour. The tour consists of the select boats cruising down the harbor all lit up and purdy prior to the fireworks show. Here is an example of one of the boats:





A PIRATE SHIP!!!!





The boat we will staying on is the Starship Sydney, the largest all glass boat in the world! Okay, it's not all glass but pretty darn close. Food and drinks are included all night, it should be awesome.






Aint she purdy?






One of the reasons we chose this boat was because of the huge open air deck it has on top, the views from above should be spectacular!







Amazing...







They seem to redo the interior depending upon the event, we've seen some very beautiful setups for weddings that this boat seems to be used a lot for. here is an example, it is incredibly spacey, should be good.


I've always wanted to see the Sydney Opera House, and with a view like this from the boat, I'm not sure if I could ever see it in a better way.


I think I'm going to make Krissie split the posting jobs for the site, since it is for us ;} We'll see, you'll notice a large difference in that the grammar will be perfect, she constantly corrects my post... I tend to get sick of writing on the blog and just let it go as is, especially since there are only 4 of you out there that I know who actually read this...

We've made some more bookings in various areas that I will try and get up here soon. Until then!

So we've been going through everything we can find to figure out what it is that we want to do when we leave here.

So far we have a few things planned and ready to go as well as some other things that we are pretty darn sure we are going to be doing, though we need to work out the specifics.


Right now we know that we are going to be going skydiving, and we are almost 100% that we will be doing it over Lake Wanaka. Since I have a terrible fear of heights this should be interesting. It's something I've always wanted to do though.





We're also going to doing a 4 day hike through Milford Sound. It's one of the great walks of New Zealand, one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen, in pictures that is...


We are also going to be spending some time with Krissie's Mom and Dad. SCARY. We will so far be going on a horseback riding trip with them, beyond that dunno. It should be good.

Umm, I will add more about New Zealand when I remember and have time, for now I will jump to our Australia plans, which is where we will be going after our NZ adventures.

One of the two coolest things we are going to be doing is seeing the Australia Zoo in Brisbane. We are going to be doing the really cool stuff with my buddy Tripp, who I worked with all summer and who is still down here as Sys Admin, and one of his friends from back home. Now the zoo itself I'm not too terribly excited about, a zoo's a zoo right? Okay not even close to the truth. What we will be doing there though is going to be freaking awesome. We are going to pay a butt load of money and have personal "encounters" with a bunch of the animals.





We are going to go on a walk with both tiger and then get photos of us with it.







We are also going to go on a walk with a cheetah and then get photos with it.






And we're gonna see a terribly cute Red panda exhibit, where I will be stealing said panda and taking it home as a souvenir... Have you seen anything cuter than this??








Also gonna see an echidna, weird name for a weird animal.








And we're gonna see some Australian possums, not the dirty ugly ones we have in the states!





And we're gonna see some dingos, adorable little buggers. They say they are quite fond of giving kisses. :}









And we're gonna see WOMBATS--the original MANBEARPIGS!








And we may toss in the lemurs, or drop something and do the lemurs instead, unknown at this point.







And while you are there, you can hand feed elephants at certain times, and feed kangaroos, and get your photo taken with a koala bear! I hope that we get one like the one in this photo.

More info to come...