It's been a while

Well I was waiting for Heather to post something here as it was going to be a fantastic post with great news and what's new/old, but that didn't work out to well when I realized we were a little off on our timing. So you'll have to wait a while to get the good post from her. Hopefully not too long, just depends on how much we are in the mood to blog I suppose. We being mostly her.

My post of course is an update on the 30 by 30 that you're all probably sick of hearing about on our blog because we don't post any real "What's going on in our lives" items. I generally leave those up to Heather.

So 30 by 30 is slow at the moment. I've mostly been doing reading and watching some movies. My lists for those still aren't complete for those however. I still need some help with the the whole book list thing a little bit...mostly deciding which piece of classical literature to read and what biography/autobiography to read. Help M&M?

#4-is very nearly done. I'm basically just waiting for the license to come in the mail. #8-had some debate during our last trip to Vegas in January, but nothing was resolved upon. Ideas? #24-was accomplished for the most part in I've had some fried things...that will be a post in it's own someday....I'm thinking I want to modify that post to be 30 fried things (and I'd count lame things like French fries and the delicious Monte Cristo sandwich I had in Vegas), but am still debating if my heart can handle it (and if I can find 30 different fried things). I have however already had 2 other fried things not previously mentioned that would go into that post. One was really good, the other was decent and frying it really didn't add much to it. I know you can hardly wait right?

#27-is complete. Only one more student loan left to pay off.

#21-we are also working on.....any ideas of where we should travel internationally to? So far we've thought of Italy, London, Ireland, Spain, Tokyo, Brazil, Budapest, and our latest are a 16-day cruise down the Danube, Main, and Rhine or a 7 day cruise from Helsinki, Finland to Copenhagen Denmark with some interesting cities on the way. Seriously, I might add a poll for you all to vote on for where to go, or add ideas in the comments. Any one want to shell out the money and come with? Or anyone already traveling internationally and looking for traveling buddies? I know we sort of are.

#29-Heather still doesn't want me to do this one. She apparently saw some hitchhiking once, but when we turned around and tried to look for them they were already gone. She also has apparently seen a hitchhiker when driving by herself, but thankfully didn't pick them up and beat me to accomplishing my own goal.

I still need help with blog modification in putting a nifty banner thing on the top with drop down menus. Sort of like my friend Dan's blog. I tried doing it with our current set up, but it just didn't look as good as his blog. So my 30 by 30 list remains as a side tab deal-ee until someone helps me in person or gives me a good template or something.

Anyway, sorry no pictures or good stories. A new poll though and a new quote wall item for you though. Enjoy!

Word of advice: This will take some time

Welcome to the coast of Australia.

Pretty, huh? So after a horrible first night in Melbourne (driving in circles in a big city on the wrong side of the road with very strange driving rules + not having our room ready at 2:30 am + not being able to find a parking space = very tired and a little bit grumpy Heather and Royce). But after a good night's rest (sleeping in until 11 never hurt anyone) we were ready to head out to the Australian coast to enjoy the Great Ocean Road, one of the most scenic ocean drives in the world. Other than the windy roads terrifying me a bit, it was pretty fantastic.

Our destination was The Twelve Apostles (the Great Ocean Road goes for a very long time, so you've got to stop somewhere). Unfortunately, due to our sleeping in so late, we didn't arrive until the sun was setting. We did a lot of experimenting with our camera before we got a couple of good shots.

But it was awesome to see! Maybe next time we'll shell out the money for the helicopter view. The drive back to Melbourne was pretty interesting--probably as close to the Outback as we would get in Australia. Totally deserted roads, pitch black, foggy, and overall just a little bit spooky. It really felt like a wombat or something might scurry across the road at any moment. Thank goodness we didn't have any incidents.

The next day we went to sacrament meeting in Melbourne. We didn't get a chance to mingle with the local members, but it was pretty awesome to hear the hymns sung with an Australian accent. After sacrament meeting we headed over to the Melbourne temple. I think the Stake Center it shared a parking lot with was bigger, but it was still neat to see it.

After all that churchiness we were pretty hungry, so we headed to Hungry Jacks (you can judge us if you want).
Do you think Burger King ought to sue? Well, as far as we can tell they are one and the same (at least the menu would lead you to that conclusion). I think the US should change the name to the Australian version and then they can get rid of those lame commercials they've been using as of late.

That afternoon we headed to Phillip Island for an awesome experience: the return home of the fairy penguins. Each day a group of them come in with the waves and hesitantly scurry across the beach to their burrows to be reunited with their families. The fairy penguins are the smallest species of penguin and they are very scared when they get to the beaches. So naturally pictures are not allowed. But here is a picture of the beach.

After they came across the beach, you could go to the boardwalk and see their families welcoming them home (they had been gone for like 2 weeks). Anyway, it was awesome, even if we didn't get pictures!

On our third day, we decided to explore Melbourne since we had seen nothing of it other than some food joints and our hotel. They've got a free tour bus that goes to 12 different destinations, so it's very convenient.
This is a war memorial near the botanical gardens.

The Melbourne skyline.

The Arts Center.

Unfortunately we didn't get to spend a lot of time at each of these places, because we had a plane to catch.

Next stop: Cairns, aka the door to the Great Barrier Reef.

This was one of the most amazing parts of the trip, albeit a little terrifying at moments. But how cool that we got to snorkel in the Great Barrier Reef!

Unfortunately the underwater camera doesn't quite capture just how awesome it was (plus it's hard to take pictures as the current is moving you back and forth in the water).

Despite the fact that I don't like getting ocean water in my mouth, it was such a cool experience. We also got the chance to try SCUBA--without going into too much detail, suffice it to say that it was not a good experience for me. Royce had a slightly better, albeit brief, experience, but we were both fairly terrified.

Since there's not much to do in Cairns itself, the next day we headed into the rain forest. Here are some views from the gondola ride.

Here we are in the rain forest.
And here we are at a village in the rain forest. Can you see the aboriginal children? I just loved them!
We went to this pretty great park (some of the animal pictures came from here) where we got to ride a real army duck boat (goes on land and water) from WWII! Our guide told the best stories!

At the end of the duck boat ride we were treated to an Aboriginal cultural experience. Unfortunately, none of the dancers were real aboriginals. Totally disappointing, though still entertaining.

They showed us how aboriginals hunt, but they didn't let us try.
But they did let me try the digeridoo! It was hard, but I managed to make a few sounds.
They also let us try to throw a boomerang--Royce and I were horrible, but it was fun to try.
After all those adventures, we took a train ride back through the rain forest instead of the gondola. It was beautiful, but made us a little sleepy.
I managed to grab this shot before the train passed by.
This was the curviest part of the track.
Most people got off at an earlier stop, so we could grab this shot.
Also in Cairns, we got $15 massages from some Chinese ladies and saw The Karate Kid (we had some time to kill)--sorry, no pics.

A little sadly we headed to our last stop: Sydney! We were super excited to go to Sydney, but we were sad that our trip was almost over.

Our first day in Sydney looked to be a rainy day, but it only lasted for the morning. At least it made for some fun pictures.

Royce in front of the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge, aka "The Hanger."
Me in front of the opera house. Wahoo!

We are attractive, no?
The opera house up close.

The concert hall inside the opera house.

Mrs. Mcquarie's chair (famous for its views of the harbour).
Some sandstone stairs along the harbour.

We also went up in the Sydney tower, ate some good food, went to some museums, and went to a great zoo. And that's it for the trip we took in late July/early August. Hopefully now you'll hear about some more recent going-ons.

Good times. Good times!

Animals on our Trip!

Ready for more pictures from our New Zealand/Australia trip? Well here you go.

Before we tell you about our day-to-day adventures in Australia, we thought we'd show you pictures of all the animals we saw, and some that we were able to touch, in both New Zealand and Australia.

This was not on our list of animals to see, but when we saw them in the middle of the Auckland museum we couldn't resist snapping a photo.

Remember that awesome aquarium bus? Well here are some of the other great things we experienced at the Kelly Tarlton Aquarium.

Say "Aaaaaahhh."

Here are some of our penguin friends I told you about. I think we were invading bath time for these guys:

You may not be able to tell, but there's fish in there with Royce. We should have more moving walkways in the world, don't you think?

In Hobbiton, we saw this guy relieved of his winter coat (too bad for him it was winter).

And then we got to feed some of his younger friends.

Aren't they cute?! (And they were so soft--all that lanolin.)

If you know us at all, then you know that we love a good deal. So when we chose from the many Maori Cultural Evening packages available, we chose the one we did because it included free tickets to the Paradise Valley Springs Wildlife Park. Where you can feed and pet the animals.

This guy was probably overfed because he would not eat--he was only interested in charging at us with his antlers.

I don't think he was too hungry either, but isn't he cute?

Royce and this guy had a special bond.

I love this picture, just because both of their eyes look so creepy.

Now, what's that animal that Royce is petting?

And is biting his arm?

Oh yeah, it's a lion cub. And you could pet it. For no extra charge! And it was awesome.

I didn't venture quite as close as Royce. He was surprisingly not as soft as I would expect. But he sure was cute.

Later we got to see his mom and dad (or brothers and sisters?) eating lunch. Mmmm, raw horse meat.

Kind of glad we weren't on the same side of the fence as them (though I did want to touch the electric fence to see how electric it was. Royce totally didn't understand the impulse).

Lots of animals for a country whose only native mammal is the bat, huh! There was one native New Zealander that we didn't get to see. It would have cost too much extra, and would have been iffy whether or not we would actually even seen it had we paid the entrance fee.

Moment of silence for the kiwi bird. What a funny, little, nocturnal, flightless bird. Maybe we'll catch up with you next time.

Now time for animals actually native to the country where we saw them. Ready for some kangaroos and wallabies and koalas? Here we go!

This is a wallaby. It kind of looks like a kangaroo, but it's much smaller. See the little baby? We saw him crawl into his mother's pouch. It was awesome. And these guys were just wandering around free. They could go into a fenced off area if they wanted to get away from the people, but they were kind of like peacocks in American zoos--free as a bird.

Ok, so he's actually native to Italy. This is a replica of a famous statue in front of a hospital in Italy (although, the picture was taken in Sydney--confused yet?). Rubbing his nose is supposed to bring good luck.

Ok, so that's a bit more Australian, eh? Yup, a real kangaroo.
As is this.

And this. These species, whatever they are, are very docile. Kind of like deer, except more used to humans because they're in zoos.

One more kanga, or is that roo?

Now let's not forget about our reptile friends. This is at an Aboriginal "village" where we had an Aboriginal "experience". More about that to come.

These guys were not free as a bird, thank goodness!

But here are a few birds.

In the Australian rain forest we met a friendly turkey. Hullo there little guy.

We were not a big fan of this guy. It's an emu. They are not shy and they are very pecky. He was trying to eat Royce's shoe here. And then he suddenly sprang up and was almost as tall as Royce. I didn't stick around for another picture.

I bet you've never seen one of these. It's called a cassowary and it's one of the most important birds in Australia (and very endangered). Want to know why it's important? Because when it eats food in the rain forest it doesn't digest the seed completely, so it poops them out and thus acts as a planter of the rain forest. There you go, things you never knew but wish you had.

I don't like birds. Then why on earth am I petting this one? Because, it's a kookaburra! You know the old song: "Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree, eating all the gum drops that he can see . . . " Classic. There were a few in cages, and a few roaming around free like this guy. And you can bet that I sang that song every single time I saw one! And Royce loved every minute of that, I'm pretty sure.

Ok, enough birds.

Can you tell what that is? Peer closely into the darkness and you'll see a real Tasmanian devil. Also not free to roam around.

Ok, last but not least.

Can you see the baby! Sooooooo tiny! Makes me giddy inside.

Have you bought your plane tickets yet? It was all pretty darn amazing.