Aussie Aussie Aussie!

Still waiting to aggregate all of the wedding pics so I'll post about that later and instead provide an update on our honeymoon. :)

If you haven't seen the preliminary wedding pics yet on Facebook, you can try Ruth's Xanga post or this flickr set from one of our photographers.

Australia was a sweet two weeks and we spent our time in three different areas: Sydney, Melbourne, and the Great Barrier Reef.

Sydney
First stop was beautiful Sydney with its famous harbor and Opera House. After landing early in the morning, the preliminary event was taking a nice ferry ride out to Taronga Zoo where we had our first encounter with the Aussie wildlife:

The animals were alright, but we had to pay extra to get close to the koalas and they were all sleeping, so we had to keep an eye out for better opportunities.

We went back to the hotel to take a quick nap before a fancy dinner that evening but ended up sleeping FOUR HOURS on account of jet lag and woke up 75 minutes after our reservation time for the posh restaurant of Tetsuya's. They thankfully let us come late and enjoy the experience of the 3+ hour meal across 12+ courses, including some amazing desserts:

We couldn't come to Sydney without visiting the opera house, so we spent the second night at the symphony that is Mahler 6. Despite my best efforts, I don't think I managed to stay awake for more than 20% of the performance, but I think I had some pretty good mitigating circumstances (a 90 minute session without intermission, lots of food and drink beforehand, and still suffering from jet lag). The parts that I remember were pretty good.

Last on the agenda was a day trip out to the Blue Mountains area and enjoy the laid back environment. The mountains were fine and dandy, but the highlight was stopping by Featherdale Wildlife Park where we were able to get up close with almost every animal, even getting to pet koalas and feed kangaroos! There were so many animals there that we even saw some koalas that weren't sleeping and were actually moving around:

Melbourne
We actually didn't spend much time in the actual city, instead taking to the road and going along the Great Ocean Road, which is sort of like Highway 1 in California, but on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. While Sydney was nice, sunny, and in the 70s, the weather wasn't as cooperative on our first day. After renting a car, it also took a while to get used to:

Thankfully they also drive pretty slowly, so I was able to get the hang of it, eventually making it out to our main objective by the end of the day, the Twelve Apostles. The weather was still pretty bad, but we spent the night close by and had enough time to pay a quick visit in the morning as the sun was coming out:

We spent the next night at Phillip Island, the main highlight being able to watch the little penguins come in from the ocean at night back to their nests. I had signed us up months in advance for the Ultimate Tour, which gives you a private viewing right on the beach, but the tides were high and the winds were strong, so we had to settle for front row seats in a different area. Photos were also not allowed, but here are what they looked like at the zoo:

We spent the final day lounging in Melbourne, including a trip to the Crown Center. I didn't spot any poker pros to play against, so we settled for some time at the slots and managed to win a few bucks before going down 20 for the night :(

Great Barrier Reef
The final stop after cold Melbourne was tropical Queensland where we stayed near Port Douglas and took a trip out snorkeling. It was amazing to see the size of the corals out there and we even rented a digital camera equipped for underwater photos from the tour company, Wavelength. It was pretty difficult to just stay still enough to take a pic, much less try compose something interesting and make sure lighting was sufficient, but definitely something I'll want to try again in the future:

Okay, so I kind of cheated and the crew actually took that turtle pic since mine didn't turn out as well. But we did get to see a few turtles, a couple sting rays, and lots of coral and fish.

Our last organized activity for the trip was a day trip through the Daintree Rainforest region. It was raining that day, but we had a good time trekking through the forest and seeing some crocodiles along the river.

The last day we spent lounging on the beach and just plain relaxing. I even accompanied Roothie to spa for my first ever spa experience. It was actually pretty fun and especially relaxing, although I'm not sure I'd go back again on my own!

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We've caught up on some movies (Ratatouille and Potter) and laundry since we've been back, but now I have to go to work tomorrow! :( I miss Oz already!

More photos online at our Picasa web album: