Melbourne, Feb 22-26

On Sunday, I flew from Brisbane to Melbourne. I checked into a hotel in Melbourne because all the hostels I checked were booked. Sunday was a pretty low key day. My hotel was in the St. Kilda area which has a lot of cool restaurants, cafes, and bars. I hung out around the city and had a nice dinner.

Great Ocean Road Tour

On Monday, I took a day trip. I went on a Great Ocean Road Tour. The Great Ocean Road is about a 200 mile stretch of highway that rides along the Southern coast of Australia. I got on a bus with about 15 people and we had a guide take us through the hot spots. There were some unbelievable views of the coast.

I also took a helicopter ride over the Twelve Apostles which is the most famous part of the trip. These are some rock formations that jut up from the coast line (there's not 12 of them??). The helicopter ride was great!

And the view of the Twelve Apostles from the ground...........

Some other good views.......

And finally I saw some live koala's in the wild.............

Melbourne

On Tuesday and Wednesday, I just toured around Melbourne.

Here's good view of the city from a war memorial:

From the botanical gardens.......

Along the Ybarra River.......

My favorite part of Melbourne was Brunswick Street. This street was so rich in culture. It had restaurants serving food from all over the world. I ate at an Afghan restuarant the first night and an African restaurant on the second night. They were both great.

On Thursday, I flew to Sydney where I spent my last night in Australia. I stayed in a great hotel that had a view of Sydney Harbour and took in the city on my last night. On Friday I came home. Due to the time change, I landed before I left. I left Sydney at 3:00 pm on Friday and landed in LA at 9:00 am on Friday.

Overall, it was a great trip. I would highly recommend Australia to anyone!

Brisbane Feb 19-22, Continued

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary

Friday was a day of rest but I was back at it on Saturday. I went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary to see some koala's and other Australian wildlife. I was hoping this would be similar to seeing the animals in the wild but it wasn't. It was more like a zoo. But I still had fun.

Here's some cool pics of some koala's:

Here is one of those miniature horses. For some reason, this made me think of Josh. ???

I took some other great pics of kangaroo's and emu's but unfortunately I lost all of these pics. Sorry!

Brisbane Feb 19-22

On Thursday, we took the bus from Hervey Bay to Brisbane. This was my last day to travel with Anke because she is flying to Melbourne on Friday and back to Germany on Saturday. We also met my friend Alexa in Brisbane. Alexa is from Switzerland. She was one of my roomates for 2 nights in Sydney and now we are reunited in Brisbane!

Last night, we hit the town to celebrate. That's Alexa on the left and Anke on the right.

I'll post some more pics of Brisbane after the weekend.

Feb 16-18 Hervey Bay and Fraser Island

Hervey Bay, Feb 16

On Monday, we took the bus from Surfers Paradise to Hervey Bay. Hervey Bay is known for 2 things. First, it is one of the best spots in Australia to whale watch during the winter time. There were no whales to see this time of year though. Second, it is the most popular launching point for Fraser Island. That was our purpose for Hervey Bay. We spent the night here and took off for Fraser Island the next day

Fraser Island, Feb 17-18

Fraser Island is a good sized island off the east coast of Australia. It is the largest sand island in the entire world, meaning it is built entirely of sand. It has some really unique wildlife and scenery.

Alot of people like to camp on the island. We didn't have time to plan this so we took a 2 day, 1 night bus tour.

There are no paved roads on the island, only sand roads. So, you have to have a 4WD vehicle to drive there. We had a huge 4WD bus. I am told this is one of the largest 4WD buses in the southern hemisphere (I thought Tony might be impressed by this). Here is our bus:




And here are some other typical 4WD vehicles for those who do a self drive tour.



It was an adventure just riding around on the bus.....That was one bumpy ride! My back is still sore!

We saw some cool wildlife on the island. There is a huge population of wild dingos and I saw 2 of these on the trip. This is the best picture I got. It just looks like a big dog.



I also saw a huge, ugly lizard!

I also saw my first wild kangaroos on the bus ride to the ferry but didn't get any pics. They were just hopping around in a field. I will get some kangaroo pics before I leave!

Fraser Island is known for its perched lakes and these were my favorite part of the trip. Perched lakes are fresh water lakes that form in the hollow of a sand dune. The water was crystal clear and the scenery was beautiful around the lake.

Here is Lake McKenzie.

It rained most of our trip but we got some great sunshine just in time for Lake McKenzie. As you can see below, I was pumped!

We also went to Lake Wabby which was another perched lake. First, we had a 1.8 km hike through some sand dunes to get to the lake. I really loved the sand dunes. I have never been in a desert before so I'd never seen so much sand!

Finally, I arrive at Lake Wabby. Another crystal clear lake.

I even saw some catfish swimming around in the water.

We spent a lot of time driving down the 75 mile beach which serves as a highway for the island. This side of the beach faces the Pacific Ocean. Nobody swims here though. The undercurrents are very strong and there is a significant shark population in the water. Yikes!!!

You can fish from the beach though. We even saw a lady catch a fish!

Two of my roomates, Caroline and Leonard from France.

A massive shipwreck on the beach.

We climbed to a nice look out point on the island. The views were great but again it was raining so they could have been even better! We were told that you can often see sharks swimming in the water from this look out point.

The view of Fraser Island as our ferry pulls away. It was a great trip.