Tassie -> Whales (the animal ;) )

My second trip to Tassie was just as much fun but unfortunately much shorter than my first.  Mom and Jan and I flew in on Saturday morning, waited for Todd at the airport and then started our speedy journey.  We fit in lots of Foster family time, a stop at the Raspberry farm for jam and fresh ice cream, BBQ, and a trip to the Nut, this Ayres Rock shaped formation on Tassie coastline.  It was a beautiful 3 km walk around the top.  We saw a wallaby in the wild (mom was ecstatic!) and then proceeded to the town bellow (Stanley) for some amazing fish and chips from this eccentric place with a lobster on the roof :)

Our trip came to a rapid close and we left on Monday for Sydney! Sydney is much different from Melbourne.  Melbourne is just a gorgeous city in itself and doesn't attempt to brag about its splendour.  Sydney is also beautiful but a tourist town through and through.  Most people say they would love to live in Melbourne but visit Sydney and I think this is a very good way to sum up my feelings for it.  With my mom and sis, I did much of the same as I did when Steph and Anna visited.  We walked a ton, visited Darling Harbour, saw the bridge, and took a few ferries.  The variations in this trip included a visit to the oldest Synagogue in Sydney, a tour of the opera house, trip out to the blue mountains, and a visit to the Sydney zoo.  The synagogue was beautiful with stained glass windows and place for a choir, and the tour guide was informative and gave everyone a surprisingly good overview of Judaism.  I was very impressed overall and was glad that we took this little cultural side trip :)

Blue Mountains 

The blue mountains were beautiful and blu-ish but I find most mountains are during a certain point in the day... It was still a very worthwhile trip but I was more impressed by the zoo :) I am a sucker for cute little animals even if they are in a cage.  We saw a seal show and I think I was as amused as all the little kids around us :) The elephants were cool although our experience was dwarfed by Janet pronouncing that they are much cooler in the wild.. duh... she saw them in Africa, lucky girl :)

The opera house tour was led by a 65 year old (or so) woman with an entertaining way of mingling her own stories with the history of the opera house.  She talked about how her favourite show there ever was sumo wrestlers from Japan and how she remembers our dear governor, Arnold, competing for the Mr. Universe title.  Although the price of tickets for a show weren't as high as the most expensive price ever for a show ($850 for one ticket!), we still felt that the ticket prices were a little ridiculous and so our opera house experience ended.

Inside one of the theaters at the opera house

From Sydney we went back to the Gold Coast for ONE day, ha ha in which we pretty much did nothing but gear ourselves for the trip up north.  We flew into a small town called Prosperine and then took a bus to Airle Beach, the home of the Whitsundays.  At this point, the cold mom had infiltrated Jan and my immune systems and so we weren't feeling up to much.  We walked around the tiny, touristy town for a day and debated which ridiculously expensive tour we would splurge on.  We couldn't decide if we wanted to go to the Whitsunday Islands or to the Great Barrier Reef (which was HEAPS more) but in the end we decided to live large and on Tuesday we headed out bright and early to venture to the Great Barrier Reef.  The snorkelling was, of course, very enjoyable although the water was a bit chilly for my still ill self and so I spent the rest of the totalled 4 hours on the reef in a glass bottom and submarine boat so I could see the amazing coral and sea life without constant shivering :) The glass bottom boat was truly miraculous and gave me a very different view of the reef.  We cruised along the top of the reef instead of just on the side, the view we got from snorkelling.

I have to say, however, that my favourite part of that day was the whales! Since landing in Australia I have seen many sea turtles and dolphins in the water but no whales up until this point.  At one point there was a few humpback whales showing off their flippers only 50 meters from the deck.  I could actually see the barnacles on their skin? hide? Unfortunately, we were all smart enough to think that the others were bringing a camera and so we have no pictures of them but we met a very nice couple from Canada who promised us shots of the whales.  If we receive them I will be sure to post them!

Ok I am now off to tackle my growing list of things to do before I go.  I have a few more adventures to tell so come back soon! :)
ps. since my adventures by the sea are ending soon I would like to know if you all want me to continue writing when I get back state side?