Australia 🇦🇺

Cairnes…Melbourne…Brisbane

I will be honest, we are really excited to see New Zealand and Australia is on the way there. But we were surprised by how much we enjoyed Australia. At first it felt shocking compared to Bali. Cairnes is full of western conveniences like malls, fast food, big box grocery stores but it also has a lot of charm.

And so many interesting flowers and birds…

And we loved the bats, specifically the speckled flying fox and black flying fox species! Every day at dusk there would be hundreds that would fly over the town roosting in the fig trees or flying to the Daintree forest for food. It was a highlight for us. (I have a lot of videos)

Another highlight was the Great Barrier Reef. We went for a day trip to snorkel and then out to Green Island to see the turtles.

After a few days in Cairns we flew to Melbourne to get the true Aussie experience. We had fun exploring the bustling city, from Victoria Market to the hidden laneways filled with cafes and street art, there was so much interesting culture and history.

We ventured on a vineyard tour outside the city to sample some of Australians famous wines (they only export the cheap stuff!).We also experienced Australian Football at (MCG) Melbourne Cricket Grounds-birth place of test cricket and AFL. It’s a real crazy sport with non stop action and tons of scoring. Who could have guessed that the home team up 42 to 3 would end up losing 96 to 84 or was it 94 to 86, what an incredible comeback! Another interesting fact is the NFL recruits punters from the AFL. One is our very own Seahawk!

We filled three days in Melbourne and would love to return.

We also visited Brisbane for a quick 24 hours in between flights. The highlight was seeing my niece and having dinner together. She is living in Brisbane and playing rugby there. Brisbane is a multicultural city with a warmer climate than Melbourne but also shares a vibrant riverfront culture. It is a very walkable city with many outdoor parks, paths, and people and bike only bridges over the river.

Overall we we really liked Australia. We hope to return one day because we didn’t see one Kangaroo or Koala and Tasmania is supposed to be an amazing island to visit.

We are heading south to Christchurch, New Zealand next and moving into autumn in April.

Thinking about you all and sending our love!

Michelle and Jim