After our expensive ice cream and Sling we headed over to see the Fountain of Wealth. The fountain is supposed to be the biggest in the world and is supposed to symbolize good fortune the way the water flows inwards or something like that. We were hoping if we walked around it we would have some good fortune, but unfortunately it was closed for maintenance so we couldn’t see it in action. By this point we were really hungry since it was mid-afternoon so we headed to a hawker food market for some cheap eats. There was a sweet potato stall so we decided to try their sweet potato smoothie…it tasted like sweet potato, which we like, but we wouldn’t recommend it as a smoothie.

Next we wandered into Chinatown where we went into the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum. It was a beautiful temple and we learned a bit about Buddha in the museum. For supper we went to one of the many hawker food markets where Eero had some Indian food and Sarah had fried carrot cake. Fried carrot cake is not actually carrot cake that has been fried but white radish cut into pieces and stir fried with soy sauce, eggs, garlic, and spring onion…it was tasty.

On our second day in Singapore we went out to the Zoo. We saw lots of interesting animals, including white tigers, elephants, orangotangs, chimps, baboons, mongoose, otters, a polar bear, saltwater crocodiles, giant tortises, hippos, proboscis monkeys, manatees, white rhinos, etc.

After the zoo we went to the Haw Par Villa, otherwise known as Tiger Balm Garden. it was built by one of the Tiger Balm brothers for the other. It is a bizarre place. The description of it from the Singapore tourism website is “Twenty-five clusters of original statues and figurines replicate Chinese mythology characters like the Laughing Buddha and the Fu Lu Shou (Taoist deities). A must-see exhibit is the Ten Courts of Hell, featuring the ten steps of judgement before reincarnation. Literal and leaving nothing to the imagination, the statues and sets immortalise moral values and Chinese cultural heritage for generations to come.”

On our way back to our hostel in Little India we stopped at Vivo City, a giant mall, and checked out the view of Sentosa Island from the roof.

Day 1:

• First stop was Torquay where we ate lunch looking out over the Southern Ocean.
• Jan Juc Beach and Bells Beach to check out the views and to watch the surfers. Torquay and it’s beaches are part of the Surf Coast and obviously are known for their surf culture. Unfortunately, it was a cool day and their wasn’t much going on at the beach.
• Anglesea Golf Club to see their resident kangaroo population. They figure they have about 1000 kangaroos living at the golf course. We watched a few golfers tee off near the kangaroos. We were curious if they would move when the ball was hit but they just kept lying around not even noticing the balls flying over their heads. We’ve been told that sometimes the ball lands right next to them and they don’t move for the golfer to get the ball. It would be a quite interesting place to play golf.
• We checked out Split Point Lighthouse
• Short walk to Erskine Falls. The falls weren’t overly impressive mostly since it hadn’t rained much lately so there wasn’t much water going over them.
• We drove up a back road in Kennett River to see some wild koalas. There were lots of them up in the trees. We were suprised at how many were awake eating considering they sleep about 20-22 hours a day and eat for the other 2-4 hours. We even watched one climbing down the tree, then run to the next tree and climb back up, it was cool to watch plus we were only standing a few feet away from it.
• We stopped in Apollo Bay to spend the night. We picked up some kangaroo meat and cooked that up for supper. It’s a really really lean meat and it tasted alright. Eero really liked it but I wasn’t completely sure what I thought. It didn’t taste bad but I think I just felt wring eating kangaroo for some reason.

Day 2:

• Maits Rest, a short walk through sub-temperate rainforest, in the Great Otway National Park. We also drove down a side road through the park and saw some more koalas on our way to check out the Otway Lighthouse, which we didn’t actually see, since it cost $14 to get onto the grounds to be able to see it and go in it. We weren’t really interested because we have seen and been in a few lighthouses already on our long trip.
• The Twelve Apostles. They are 8 giant rock stacks that come out of the Southern Ocean. There used to be 9 you could see but one fell in 2005. Apparently there are a few more that are out of view from the viewing areas.
• Loch Ard Gorge where we went for a walk and saw where the Loch Ard ship from England was wrecked in 1878. There are lots of shipwrecks along the coast of the Great Ocean Road.
• The Arch which is, as it’s name implies, a giant rock arch coming out of the ocean.
• On our way back to Melbourne we stopped in Colac at the Otway Estate Winery and Brewery to sample some wine and beer.

Afterwards we wandered to Circular Quay towards The Rocks market where they had all sorts of neat arts and crafts as well as some gourmet foods. As we were looking for somewhere for lunch the skies let loose and it thundered and lightninged and poured rain for a good 30-45 minutes. So we ate our fish and chip lunch under an overhang before making a run for it. We quickly checked out the Modern Art Gallery before heading down to Paddy’s Market near Chinatown. We definitely had a market day. Paddy’s market was huge and had all sorts of different things…souvenirs, food, clothes, shoes, electronics, wigs, and an odd assortment of other things. After spending a few hours wandering around there we called it a day since our feet were hurting from all the walking.

The next day we hopped the metro to Circular Quay and went to the Police museum to see their exhibit on the history of pubs in Sydney. It wasn’t as exciting as Eero expected and the rest of the museum wasn’t overly thrilling either, although it did have a few interesting things, but it gave us something to do while it was raining. Afterwards we watched a busker juggle a chainsaw and then we walked across the Harbour Bridge. After walking across the bridge we caught the metro down to Darling Harbour/Cockle Bay and went to the Maritime Museum. They have a Lindt Chocolate Cafe at the Cockle Bay Wharf so we had the yummiest hot chocolate on our way back to the hostel.

Today we took the ferry to Manly Beach. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t cooperating and it was cool, windy, plus it rained off and on most of the day, so we didn’t get to relax on the beach. We did go for a nice walk along the waterfront trail and saw lots of surfers, some scuba divers and a pod of dolphins swimming in the surf. We also saw some giant spiders in the trees which Sarah really didn’t like. After Manly we caught the ferry back to Circular Quay and then hopped onto the ferry to Darling Harbour since Eero wanted to check out the fish market. Once we were on the ferry we realized the market closed at 4pm and it was 3:45pm. Instead we went to Luna Park to check it out. Luna Park is an amusement park that is really small with old fashioned rides. It was pretty dead since the weather wasn’t very nice and we didn’t stay long because each ride was $8. We then headed to the Lord Nelson Brewery pub so Eero could continue his sampling of foreign beers. Later on in the evening after supper we went for a walk to the Royal Botanical Gardens to see the view of the city at night. We saw some flying foxes eating fruit in the trees and we almost got peed on by a couple of them! Luckily they missed!

That’s all for Sydney, tomorrow we are off to do drive the Great Ocean Road and then Melbourne.

We have gotten some more photos of NZ finally posted as well.

He’s got a bit of shoulder hair, but that only means he takes after his new dad. Actually, its just a koala, and we didn’t adopt it. Unfortunately the laws in Australia prevent you from owning koalas, and in most places even holding them.

The next day, June drove us around the Wollongong region. There we went hiking in the Minnamurra Rainforest, seeing Superb Lyrebirds, waterdragons, and strangling fig trees. We followed that up by visiting the Kiama blowhole that sprays sea water high up into the air. After a lunch in Berry, we had a nice windy drive on the narrow road through Kangaroo Valley over the Hampden Bridge, which was castle-like, and then stopped r a walk to the Fitzroy Falls which poured over a very high escarpment. We finished off the day by driving to the Mt. Keira lookout for a nice view over the city of Wollongong. Peter made us a delicious fish curry for dinner when we got back.

The next day we drove into Sydney, stopping at the Symbio wildlife park, which actually had a tasmanian devil. He was an odd sort of fellow, and enjoyed romping around his pen. We did get to see him yawn and show his teeth, but he didn’t make any growling noises, even when eating. Eero was well impressed though.

Later we had lunch in the Rocks area of Sydney at Phillip’s Foote restaurant, with Peter and June’s daughter and her family where we BBQ’d our own meat which was fun.

We are spending the next 3 days in Sydney before flying to Melbourne…more on our adventures in Sydney in a few days.

We went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary on the second day after we drove to the Brisbane city centre and caught the Mirimar river cruise to Lone Pine in a neighbourhood called Fig Tree Pocket. There we saw koalas, kangaroos, wallabies, emus, dingos and crocodiles. They also have special enclosure for feeding and peting the kangaroos and emus. There we got to see and hold a koala as well. Unfortunately, Eero left somewhat saddened unable to see any tasmanian devils, which they were supposed to have. Sarah also got stung by a catarpillar, but she’ll live. Unlike almost everything else here in Australia, they aren’t super poisonous but she did get a welt like a bee sting.

We had a blast in Brisbane visiting Eero’s extended family, but we we had to move on so we hopped a plane to Sydney!

We spent the first day in Airlie Beach just hanging out and gathering supplies since there isn’t much to do there. Although they do have a nice waterfront trail and a large lagoon for swimming. The main reason we were there was to go on a 3 day 2 night sailing trip around the islands. We went out a 66ft sailing ketch called Enid, with 12 other travellers and 3 crew. We started early on the 1st day and sailed between Hook Island and Whitsunday Island out to Border Island where we did some snorkelling. After that we sailed down to Whitehaven beach on Whitsunday Island for some appetizers while watching the sunset. Whitehaven Beach has to be the prettiest beach I have ever been on. It is about 7km long where they have the whitest fine silica sand contrasted with the crystal clear aqua coloured water. Absolutely beautiful!

We anchored that night just off the beach so that the following morning we could go back to the beach and hike up to a lookout point to see the beach from a different vantage point. Still beautiful! On our way back out to the boat we saw a huge turtle swimming at the surface. We then sailed up to the northern end of Hook Island where we had the opportunity to go scuba diving. It wasn’t the best dive since the visibility was only about 5m but we did see lots of nice coral, a hawksbill turtle and a small stingray.

We woke up to a very windy day on the 3rd day so we had a nice sail back to Airlie Beach. Before sailing back we had one last snorkel and swim. There were also some big batfish swimming around the boat right at the surface which was pretty neat to see. We had a great time on our sailing trip and couldn’t have asked for better weather.

Today we left Airlie Beach and flew back to Brisbane where we are staying with some relatives of Eero’s, Rick and Liz and their 4 kids (aged 5 and under).

Well I guess we are up to date on our posts finally, now we just need to catch up on our photos.