ET TRAVELWORLD

Glacier Peace Park

2008-10-26T11:16:00.000-07:00

Yellowstone

2008-10-26T11:14:00.000-07:00

So our Yellowstone adventure started out with a bang. As we entered the park from the east entrance we were almost immediately welcomed and at the same time ran off the road by two herds of bison and a lone buck elk. Then we made camp in the cold darkness and bundled ourselves to sleep. We awoke to find a light dusting of snow on our tent, and a wake up call from the park ranger telling us that we could expect another 12 inches in the next 48 hours. They close the campsite on us and we made a run for lower elevation. Along the way to the north entrance we made the most of it by spending time at the thermal pools and random geysers. All were beautiful in there own right. Lucky enough to see a lot more wild life. That night we stayed in a motel and "camped" making the most of the "john kitchen" and the heater. Turns out after the first snow fall a lot of the animals make there way down from the mountains due to the cold, good for us especially since we like animals. On the last day we went on a five mile hike in the snow and really enjoyed following the fresh tracks of the local mountain lion and the random slips and slides the snow cover trail provided us the hiker. The cold weather seems to be here to stay. To see a night with highs of 14F is not uncommon. Next stop Glacier NP, north of Yellowstone and yes even colder.

The haze in the distance is snowfall.

Devil's Tower

2008-10-26T11:13:00.000-07:00

Bad to the Lands

2008-10-21T22:18:00.000-07:00

Lots of water

2008-10-21T22:11:00.000-07:00

Crazy Horse and Mt. Rushmore

2008-10-21T09:59:00.000-07:00

So on our way out of the Black Hills area we decided to stop by the Crazy Horse Monument and the Mt. Rushmore Monument. Both were completely stunning in their own right. We found that the Crazy Horse monument has been under construction for many years now and probably will be that way for quite some time. It will in the end probably be one of the wonders of the world. To give you an idea of the size, the entire Mt Rushmore monument can fit into Crazy Horse's head, truly amazing.

A nice lady said she would take a picture for us in doing so she cut off a couple of heads. It's a great photo of us.

Second lady got the hole thing.

Brrr!!!!!!!!!!!! !

2008-10-20T20:24:00.000-07:00

So we cruised across "the middle" on our favorite road the 90, which we have been on since Boston nearly 2 weeks prior. Sometimes its nice making a left turn or a right turn but unfortunately for us the 90 is as strait as an arrow.

We made our way down to the Wind Cave National Park where we would celebrate my birthday along with exploring one of the first of our National Parks. Turns out Wind Cave is the fourth longest cave system in the world, spanning 129 miles!

The day started great with a nice hardy breakfast of SPAM, pancakes and eggs. Any camper would love to have that sort of start. We proceeded to take a hike about the prairie and the forest. The tricky bison started their own trails and we followed them mistakenly a couple of times. Then we made our way to the Wind Cave, where we got to see the Box Work Wind Cave is known for. The real topper came when we had diner. Nearly canceled due to rain, we enjoyed Apple Pie, BRCs and fire roasted sweet corn all around a free campfire! Life doesn't get any better.

Good ole' USA

2008-09-29T08:26:00.000-07:00

Back in the States again...

We landed in Maryland and stayed with my sister and the kids for about a month. Great to see a familiar face. Loved the time there. We went to Annapolis, Baltimore, New York and Philidelphia with my sister. About a couple weeks in we picked up a hitchhiker... she followed us to New York and Phili... just kidding it was BECKY!!

India - The Land of the Rupees

2008-08-28T11:34:00.001-07:00

Our Asia experience was enhance by adding India to the mixture. We don't think that the trip would have been complete without India, amazing on so many levels. You'll notice below we have more pictures than usual. The reason for this is we did more cities than usual, especially in the short amount of time we had. 15 cities and 3100 kilometers in five in a half weeks, thats fast movin'!

Also since this is the last blog for quite some time we thought that we would let the pictures do all the writing for us. :)

Mysore Palace

Bandipur National Park
Side Note: Hunting of any animal in India is illegal.

Picture was taken as our driver was reversing down the trail trying to escape the pissed off 15 foot elephant who was making a B-line for the truck. If you look closely in the bottom right corner you can see the outline of the top of her head.

This is a very funny and ironic sign, not just because it tells you where the correct placement of poop and pea goes but because no one cares and does it anywhere anyways(men and women).

Our host in Bangalore, MusH Jamal. Does he look familiar to anyone from Cal Poly, he went there once. Yes, we were locked out after 5 days. Apparently you use the helmet on your head, who knew.

Cochin

Jayanthan transformation...

Backwaters near Allepey.

Kanyakmari - the most southern point of India. Also the place where the Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea converge.

Mamallapuram

Varanasi

Our karma candle lady.

Agra

Jaipur - The Pink City

Jodhpur - The Blue City

Emma and I were asked by the mother and father of this child if we would like to have it. After a couple minutes of deliberating, we decided no.

So on August 21st we departed for Lexington Park, Maryland from Delhi. The last leg of our trip will be exploring the great country we left September 7th of last year. We look forward to the camping, the cooking and the hiking!

Mmm hamburgers, Cali. save us a burrito!

ET

Cambodia

2008-07-24T07:58:00.001-07:00

Cambodia began as an adventure. The border crossing from Laos was a bit of a hassle, but we did make it without paying any more money or being left anywhere other than planned. We went straight to Phnom Pehn, because that was the closest ATM and we were almost out of cash. We stayed there for a few days. We learned about the Cambodian history, which is enough to make run through most emotions within a matter of minutes. The first portion of this blog is not very pretty.

We went to S-21 Prison which was the main prison and interrogation center for the Pol Pot regime. All but 6 prisoners that went through this prison were executed, not all prisoners were adults. Thousands of children were also killed and not included in the body count of 10,500 to come through the prison. The prison used to be a school. It had large classrooms that had crudely constructed brick or wooden cells in each room, except for the "interrogation" rooms which consisted of a bare metal bed alone in the center of a room with a table next to it containing "interrogation tools". One of the buildings had pictures of all the prisoners that had come through.

This is a photo of a mass grave from "the killing fields". I cant even count how many there were in this one location, each marking the death of at least 100 people. They did not gas them, or many times even shoot them, to save bullets they cut their throats or bludgeoned them to death. In the few years during Pol Pots regime 3 million Cambodians were killed. 20,000 of these at the killing fields. Towards the end of his regime in 1978 up too 300 people a day were taken to the fields and killed.
They had constructed this memorial to pay tribute to those killed in the fields by the Pol Pot regime. The memorial was filled with all the skulls they had collected from the mass graves when they were excavated.

After the extremely tragic and disturbing education we received in Phnom Penh we headed north to Siem Reap. The Angkor Wat Temple complex is known as one of the Wonders of the World, right along side the Great Wall of China and the Pyramids of Giza. Truely this is one of the more spectacular moments of our journey.

We took three days to explore the temples. Because we were able to take our time we were able to see most of the temples without a ton of other tourists. You were much more likely to enjoy the temple and feel the piece of it by being in small crowds.

There were a few temples were the trees were taking back the land. They were incredible. They did cause the temple structures damage, so much of the time walking through the tumbled stones and half walled corridors.

Most of the carvings were worn and faded, but one temple, an hour outside the complex, had carvings in near perfect conditions. The detail was indescribable, with carvings on every stone that was used in the building.

Look closely and see if you can "find the Tony" amongst the Japanese Tour group.

Our three day journey around Siem Reap was a dusty experience on the back of the Tuk-Tuk adding to this we walked about 6 hours a day through the labyrinth of Angkor ruins. We were dirty birdies by the end of the day.

An incoming storm, unfortunately we have followed the rainy season for the last 10 months so this sight was nothing new to us. Still watching mother nature lay her blanket of moisture over the Angkor ruins was unique enough for a picture.

Its nice to enjoy the sunset with your loved one next to you and the hoards of other people taking the same picture as you. Makes you feel really special, like your the one of the only 400 people on this day to see this special moment. :)

This is Siem Reap tourist area lit up at night. It was here that we have had the best Mexican food we have had since leaving the states. Happy days. We ate there for four nights for dinner, mmm chicken chimichangas!!! Our friend Iaan enjoyed the changas with us for three nights and one lunch. Here is a kodak moment after a changan diner.

Laos

2008-07-23T07:14:00.000-07:00

Our journey through Laos began once we said goodbye to Uncle Keiran and Nam and crossed the Mekong on a small boat. The next day we boarded a boat filled with about 150 backpackers for our 2 day trip down the Mekong to Luang Prabang. The boat trip consisted of laying around and drinking for two days. Tough ride.

Luang Prabang was an amazing city with incredible charm. The night market was amazing, you could have easily bought one of everything from the home spun silks to the jars of whiskey with snakes and scorpians (they are supposed to add an extra bite). We ate grilled fish and chicken at the street stalls with the group of people we met on the boat.

All the bars and resturants closed by 12, but there was an "after hours" option... and that was bowling. Bare foot, drunken bowling.

We took an hour ride in a tuk tuk to the Kuang Si waterfalls. Easily the most beautiful waterfalls we have seen, and we have seen a lot.

This was the main falls, which we walked up a misty, slippery hill to see from the top. Passing through a number of smaller falls and streams, amazingly with out slipping.

There were numerous teirs and terraces, all with crystal clear pools at the bottom that begged to be swimmed in. It was chiily, but worth it.

We broke off from the group we were with in Luang Prabang and took a side trip to Phonsavan to see "the Field of Jars". The night before seeing the jars were stumbled across a group of men playing bocce ball. They invited us to play and put glasses of beer in our hand. One of the men had a microphone and drunkenly narrated the event. It was good fun, and our introduction to Laos style drinking. There is only one glass, they fill it and hand it to you, you have to finish it before anyone esle can drink. When the wives came to collect their husbands we called it a night. The next morning we began the exploration of the fields.

The scenery was beautiful, but much of the land was unusable due to unexploaded mines and bombs dropped by the US during the Vietnem War. The new sprouts in the rice paddies were shades of green that we have never seen before. The greenest green we could imagine.

The "Plain of Jars" are a unique and unexplained wonder. They have theoris about their use as burial markers but no one knows for sure what they were there for. There were hundreds of stone jars at three different sites, all in amazingly beautiful countryside. All the sites had to be cleared of the bombs to allow tourists to visit the sites and had clearly marked paths that were known to be clear. Walking through the jars was an experience we were glad we made the trip for. It is on the list to become a world herritage site. Some of the stone jars were as big as a small car, while others were big enough to put a small child in.

Along the way we stopped at a local distilery of the lao lao rice whiskey. The education was almost enough to stop us from partaking in the whiskey...almost.

We caught up with the group we had been traveling with in Vang Vieng but the photos were lost later when our unbreakable underwater camera broke when we took it underwater on our road trip. Vang Vieng was a backpacker party town with unlimited "special" menus and Friends episodes at all the bars. We rented motor bikes and rode to a nearby cave. After all of us lugging our butts up the hill in the heat and slippery mud the cave was too hot, dark, and cramped to explore properly, so we went swimming in a nearby swimming whole. On the way back we were caught in a down pour and drove through the rain. Vang Vieng is known for its river tubing, we supplemented this for the Plain of Jars. Historical for drunken tobachery I'd say in the long run it was definietly worth it. Leaving Vang Vieng we headed south to Vientiene, Laos capital city, to see about getting a visa for Cambodia. Turned out we get the visa at the boarder and didn't need to stay in the town at all. Stayed at a what seemed to be nice hotel, until at 2 in the morning we were woken by unfriendly bed bugs making a feast out of us. Then as we left they tried to charge us 13 dollars for the room instead of 3. I know that sounds like nothing, but in a country where the average wage is 20 dollars a month its rediculous. After stupid haggleing we got the price droped to 7.5o and we headed south again towards Pakse to meet up with the group. At the same time we said our good byes to Karra and Ned who were heading to China.

So with the bed bug town behind us we floated into Pakse with no problems. From there we rented motor bikes again for a three day loop through the countryside. We stopped at waterfalls, ate noodle soup at tiny food stall on the side of the road, and slept at little guesthouses we found along the way. On the second day we were caught in a downpour that lasted nearly an hour. The best part about the downpour was where we were stuck, a small snooker club. When we say small we mean 1 table surrounded by 8 locals and 9 soaked tourists and 2 snooker tables all enclosed in two rooms the big enough for just that and no more. It also just happened to be Stephanie's birthday. The day was filled with silly songs of happy birthday, laughs and Beer Laos.

After Paske we all jumped on the bus and headed south to the Four Thousand Islands. The best thing about Don Det is Don Det. No electricity after 10 pm and no worries (Bo pen yun)(spelling pending) for the hours before. Your day consisted of testing your hammock's pendulum swinging abilities and reading a good book. Our plot was the Sunset Bungalows and they hold true to their name. The nights were kicked off with natures kelidoscope and they ended with Laos Loas Whiskey Mojito smiles.

If ambition hits you at just the right time in Don Det you can rent bicycles and travel around the islands to see things like waterfalls and river dolphins. Well believe it or not Emma was cohersted onto a bike!! Here you have her trying to avoid the camera.
Thailand, Laos and Cambodia have BBQ's, well kind of. The difference is that with these bbq's you get a soup, eggs and noodles. As the shirt says "Same Same but Different".

The theme song for Laos, that was sung sparatically throughout our time there by everyone we were traveling with, was the Simon and Garfunkel song "li li li" because thank you in Laos was kup chi li li. "Kup chi li li, li li li li li, kup chi li li". There were numerous verses to the song including all the terms we knew in Lao... good times. We loved Laos and could have easily spent another month there. Stephani, Miki, Kaara, Ned, Saar, Kris, Pascal(Ruud), Matthieu, Vincent and Stefan all made the experience in Laos much more fun and eventful! Thanks guys!

Thailand

2008-06-11T00:13:00.000-07:00

I think we have labeled Thailand as "not what we were expecting". We spent a month here and it is a beautiful country. Bangkok was better than we expected, with none of the tourist horror stories happening to us :) We relaxed and wandered around Bangkok for a few days, seeing the sights and the Wats.

Since we were feeling like we were not moving at the speed we wanted to be, a little bit going throught the motions, we booked a tour for two days to the River Kwai to see the "death railway" and the bridge over the River Kwai. The area was not what we were expecting, with big city surrounding it and an incredible amount of tourist busses, but it was beautiful. We were taken to museums about the building of the railway and WW2, and one (of many) of which was actually informational and not just an excuse to take your money, imagine that.

"Death Railway"

We were also taken to a waterfall, which was surrounded by forest and food stalls. We took a little path out of the way to the "source" and found quiet, trenquil surroundings. We also stumbled across a cave temple that was better than the big one we had seen in Malaysia. It was very natural and unspoiled.

The Tiger Temple.... dadadaaaa. We got to touch tigers. Thats right. We were very excited, and humbled by the amazingly beautiful animals. We did pay extra, but we got to have the tigers head put into our laps!! Tony was pulled away half way through and replaced by someone we didnt know, so half of the pictures are of me and another girl. Still very good pictures.

We went south after that to Khao Sok National Park, but we didnt stay very long. We were rained out of all of our trecks due to potential flash flooding. We we eager to move down to the islands in the south. We decided to go to Krabi, and that was as far as we got.

This was Reily beach where we made our home for the next few days.

This picture is for those of you who dont think you have the money to travel... This room was cheaper than a Motel 6. We decided to splerge on the room because without realizing we had picked the most expensive beach in Krabi, tough huh. This room also came with little fuzzy headed monkeys that sat in our mango tree and ran across our roof in the morning.

From Krabi we went back into Bangkok and up to Ayuthaya (spelling correction in progress). The city was an amazing arrayof temples in various stages of ruin.

Find the Tony!! He is in there we promise.

There were a few temples that were like all the others in every way except for the fact that all the Buddah's were missing their heads. The Burmese did this when they come into Thailand during WW2 (but we can't back that up).

This temple (Wat) had a stone head, probably removed from one of the Buddah's on grounds, completely surrounded by a figs tree roots. It was nice.

We made our way up to Chaing Mai and stayed with Uncle Kieran and Nam. We went on an elephant ride through the jungle. They were great with showing us around the city and feeding us amazing Thai food. We took a road trip with them to Mae Hong Son and Pai, stopping at waterfalls, view points and coffee houses.

These are the Hill Tribe children, they all wear colorful and beaded clothing. Beautiful to see in an eveyday setting.

This was the highest mountain in Thailand... and it was actually cold. From here we walked up the hill and enjoyed the fresh air...all the way to the coffee shop on the top of the hill, right next to the American spy station.

We went to Chang Rai and spent time there before going to the Golden Triangle and making our goodbyes and crossing over the Mekong River into Loas.

Western OZ

2008-05-28T01:11:00.000-07:00

We were looking through our pictures clearing our memory cards and realized we never blogged Western Australia, so we figured we would throw some pics on there cause we enjoyed it a lot. We did mail about half of the photos home, so the pictures from Aunt Pats B-day bash are not there (sorry mom).

This is Perth from Kings Park. It was a lovely spot for a picnic. We stayed in Perth for about a week, recovering from our fast paced journey so far. We needed a break, and that week in Perth with everyone was brilliant.

Andrew and Emma let us borrow one of their cars and we made our way south to the wine region of Margaret River. We stopped at several wineries and stayed in the area for 3 days, unfortunately (for you), that time was spent wine tasting... so we forgot to take pictures.

We stopped at Hamilton Bay see the sting rays that are visible from the beach. The wind was too strong and the waves were too rough to be able to see anything but the beautiful beach.

We drove down to Pemberton to see the Gloucester Tree. It was originally used by the fire fighters to see where the fires were, but now was just for tourists. It was rod iron pikes hammered into a 180ft tree. It had no safety catches, only a lookout platform at the top. We were not quite brave enough to make it up, but we did give a token picture effort.

We had thoughts about a nice Valentines day in a hotel, but due to lack of planning and supplies we made due at a camp site at Windy Harbour with butter and jelly sandwiches, an orange and chips for dinner. The town at the end of the long long road to Windy Harbour was a little odd and reminded us of a horror movie setup. The guy walking around with the axe didn't help the "cozy" atmosphere any. We made it through the night and treated ourselves to a great breakfast in a little diner in Northcliffe.

These two pictures were taken in Yallingup, just north of Margaret River. Great place for waves and some body surfing. Emma wouldn't go into the water in the top picture (because the waves were breaking right on the beach) but would swim with her newly made friends pictured behind her in the calmer waters. They wouldn't take a picture with her so that's why she looks so grim. (Tony was making fun because I was swimming at the beach with the old people).

The Fremantle Prison is the Oldest Prison in Western Australia and housed a lot of bread and carrot thieves in the old days. Before its closure about 20 years ago (or something like that) they gave a lot of the known artist in the prison paint and brushes and told them to paint freely knowing that 6 months after the closure the prison would be turned into museum and tourist spot. It was the most colorful prison we have seen.

Aunt Pat, Uncle Tim, Nam, Tony and I made a day of at the prison, the Little Creatures Brewery and walking around Fremantle. This is us at the harbour in Fremantle.

"Lucy in the sky with diamonds", This is Lucy. The product of Emma and Andrew. She was adorable and so well mannered we barely knew she was there. My favorite roomie since leaving on the trip, Jay-Kay Tony's the best. Hahahaha. We both need sleep right now, we are laughing at nothing.

So cute.

Malaysia

2008-05-19T22:15:00.000-07:00

The first real stop in Malaysia, besides transit towns, was Melaka. This is the "square" which tourists congregated to take pictures, dodge vender's, and ride in flowered rik-shaws. We did the first two of those. We liked Melaka for its friendly, historical atmosphere. It was also from here we found out that we could hop over to Indonesia... so we did thanks to Nora and Nathan who loured us over .

A month later, we are back in Malaysia, Penang. This is one of the few picture we took of our time here... it was a bit of a culture shock coming back from Indonesia to tourist central that is Georgetown (and we were not sure we were feeling it). We stayed too long here and the only thing we really enjoyed was the food, which was amazing. It was here where we also saw our second dead tourist. We did try to do some sight seeing, but it just wasn't working out for us, so we saw a couple movies instead....we know how sad that is.
Lovers lane was home to many "lady boy" bars. We went from Penang, which is an island on the west coast, straight across to the Perhentians Islands on the east coast in time for Emma's B-day.

Our little oasis was Mira beach, which had only one resort...which wasn't really a resort as apposed to huts/bungalows. It was amazingly quiet and relaxing. The snorkeling was amazing, with reef sharks, turtles, stingrays (which were green with brilliant blue spots), tons of fish and a wide variety of coral. We had a nice trek to other beaches for food and mango shakes. At night it was card games and thoughts of beer.

This is our little bungalow, which was in the shade allowing us to sleep in as late as we wanted.

This is probably the best picture we have taken underwater so far... so it had to go on the site.

We made regular excursions from our beach in search of better food. We took a boat over to the big island and found an amazing little restaurant that had the most amazing mango shakes! This is one of the beaches from the big island called turtle bay. We saw two turtles here.

These little buggers littered the trails at night and were hell if stepped on. Three heads and six sets of pincher's were pulled out with tweezers from Emma's foot. Apparently they are used for some kind of ceremony where the people put their hands in a glove full of them. From experience we can say that that would hurt like... a mo fo.

We moved from the Perhentians towards Tamen Negara national park. We spent three days trekking in search of wild life. We trekked 7 hours into the jungle to a hide where we spent the night. Unfortunately, there was a thunder storm and 6 loud people at the hide as well.

The first day at the park we did the Canopy walk, which was cool, very high and a little sketchy.

On our long trek out to the hide we saw numerous droppings from the elephants and a couple footprints... we were very excited.

Just when we were about to give up on finding the river crossing (having heard numerous streams that we were hoping was it) we arrived. We were informed that there was a raft for the crossing, but as you can see, there was no raft.

This is the only "wildlife" we saw for our three days effort.

We headed to Kuala Lumpur where we pissed about in the city for a while. We saw the Batu Caves temple which was interesting. The steps were numerous and the day hot. Inside the cave was cooler and filled with Hindu statues and monkeys.

This Mosque reminded us of "Its a small world" because it was light up with tons of little lights and surrounded by water. It was a very pretty sight.

We went to the national mosque, but found the restrooms outside it more entertaining.

We loved the Petronas Towers. They were unlike anything we have seen, and we went almost every night to see them light up.

The free trip up to the sky bridge was well worth it. The view of the city was great and the air conditioning wonderful.

Overview:

So we made it back to Malaysia after our side track adventure in Sumatra and realized that the peninsula was going to be our first SE Asia round-about. We left from the south and returned from the north and just had to find out about the creamy filling. We discovered the magic of Chicken and Rice for breakfast in Penang, the crystal waters of the Perhentian Islands, the leach tracks of Tamen Negara National Park and the organized chaos that is Kuala Lumpur. From crazy bus drivers to the tranquil train rides, Malaysia really has everything to offer weary traveler. We met and traveled with some really amazing people. Daniel (again), Moroline, Pat, Dieter, Gavin, Hana and Tessa thanks for the smiles and the motivation to keep walking to Coral Bay for the great roti canai! Malaysia was kind to us and we enjoyed being here. Stay tuned for Thailand.

This one is for the kids...

2008-04-28T00:36:00.000-07:00

Adam and Liam, I made this little video for you from Lake Maninjau, Sumatra, Indonesia. Miss you guys and I hope to see you soon. Just a little thing to say hi. :) love you!

Indonesia- Sumatra

2008-04-13T08:23:00.000-07:00

The first day in Indonesia, after an all night bus ride, we were told that this day would be the only one to see the Raffelisia flower before it died. So into the jungle we trecked and were able to see the worlds largest flower... and we saved you the trouble of the treck by showing it to you. It is supposed to smell very bad, but we did not stick our heads in to smell the decaying fly flesh the flower consumes.

This is us on a bridge.... thats all we got. It leads to a very sad zoo and a very sad fort left by the Dutch, but the bridge had very pretty views.

This is the traditional Minangkabau house of Western Sumatra. They are a matriarchal culture and property is passed down through the women. They were at odds with Java (the island) because they were patriarchal society and wanted Sumatra to follow suit. To solve the problem the government set up a bull fight and if Sumatra's bull won they would get to keep their culture. Sumatra could only find a baby bull in order to fight the full grown bull of Java... so to compensate, they starved the baby and fitted it out with knife horns and metal teeth. When it saw the adult bull, it went crazy with hunger and tried to suckle from it... killing it with its new toys. Soo... the Minangkabau remains a matriarchal society. (history lesson) The roofs are meant to be like the bull horns.

We met a teacher that took us into her home for three days. Eti tought english in a small town outside the city. We rented motor bikes and followed her as she showed us around the Harau Valley and a few other places.

The Harau Valley was beautiful, with three waterfalls that we saw. One of which had an actual pool, cemented pool, at the bottom in order for everyone to go swimming. One thing we began to appreciate about the Indonesians is that everywhere they went, be it the jungle, a small town, or a waterfall there were always numerous choices of stalls to eat at (all serving the same thing).

We spent 10 days sitting by Lake Maninjau. We walked into town a couple times, swam, ate, slept and listened to the locals play music at the cafe every night... and that is all we did for 10 days. We loved every minute of it.

Our friend Danial wanted a coconut juice at the cafe. They told him that he would have to climb the tree because they were out of coconuts... so he did. About 20 minutes later, and much exertion on his part there were coconuts galore. Much to Danials dismay and our shock Yok, who worked at the place we were staying, sprinted up the tree in about 15 seconds, laughing the entire way.

This was our bus ride to Lake Toba... we sat at this one spot for about 10 hours and we think that you can see why. The only way to get up the hill was to be pulled up, and there were hundreds of cars, buses, trucks, and motorbikes in line.

This is Lake Toba, where we spent the remaining time in Sumatra Indonesia.

We rented a motorbike to ride to the "hot springs", which were just pools of extremely hot water. We did a little walking on our own and found the source of the hot water. There were volcanic hotspots entering into a steam. Two hot waterfalls joined into one to filter into the stream near the village, which was then piped into the various pools for commercial use.

This is the traditional Batak house, the culture of the area. There is a story behind the roofs here too but we already gave one history lesson.

Now this is what we call full service. We needed to get our laundry done... didn't we?

Butt, Board, and Buses

2008-04-02T04:42:00.000-07:00

Encounter with Indonesian mosquitoes on the squatter. No... its anti itch cream that is shiny and orangeish-brown.

Ghetto super star, that is what you are... coming from afar, reaching for the stars... drive away with me, to another place, we can rely on each other ahhahah. In Indonesia they take pride in decorating public transportation. The company with the loudest sound system and flashiest style gets the most passengers. The english titles of the busses were a nice touch, even though few Indonesians speak english. Our favorite was "Dik Tator" which we didnt manage to capture in all its glory, but we will keep you abreast of all the ghetto goodness!

Borneo

2008-03-09T06:32:00.001-07:00

Our Adventure in Malaysia began in Borneo for two weeks. The first thing we did of course was to see monkeys. The Semenggoh Wildlife center rehabilitated Orangutans who showed themselves when bribed with fruit. It was amazing to watch them eat the fruit- like coconuts by hitting them against the tree and peeling them with their lips. They were also fairly close in proximity and by close I mean you had to get out of their way while they were walking by you. This was also the beginning of the group we met and traveled with, meeting Marij (who randomly came up to us and asked if she could go to Bako with us), who brought Tom and Charlie to meet us later, and Natalie (our fellow American) who we had met in Singapore... let the good times roll.

Bako National Park was a land of monkeys, Macaque, Proboscis, and Lemurs. The little cheeky macaques steal everything that isn't tied down and some of them will chase you for what you have. If you don't have some sort of stick with you to scare them away you might as well run. Screaming doesn't help. The Proboscis are very regular in their daily feeding at the mangroves. We didn't know this of course and we went around on some treks to try and catch them in their natural wild state. Below here is a pitcher plant, the biggest we saw on the treks, about 9 inches tall. Brilliant colors and lots of dead bugs at the bottom. The beach was nice to have lunch at and to go for a dunk in to get out of the 90 degree heat and 100% humidity.

Notice the big noses, thats what they are famous for. And those noses are only found in Borneo.

The bearded pigs stand about 4 feet tall have big bearly beards kind of like Peter's here in the picture. While the days were spent treking and nature watching the nights were spent haggling for cheaper beer prices and drinking the rewards!

The last week we hired a car and drove around to the other two national parks we could get to . The first was Niah Caves NP where we able to talk to a man that lived in the caves to protect his stake in the collection of a specific swiftlets birds nest (a delicacy when put into a soup we are told). With a mixture of guano, bird, and rat poo the cave was a delight to the nostrils. It was crazy to see the ropes that the nest collectors would climb and suspend themselves on. On the way there we say all kinds of interesting insects- hammerhead worms, red millipedes, cotton ball spiders, a plethora of colorful caterpillars, the disco snail, and lots of dragon and butterflies (all technical names).

The river that bleeds tea

Lambir Hills NP was our last stop with the group and as such we made sure to stop at the liquor store. Lots of drunken video clips were the result... and a late morning getting to the trails to see the waterfalls.

The leech that ruined it all.... As we were driving back to town so Charlie and Tom could get their bus out Charlie noticed a big slimy thing on her foot. Once it was determined to be a leech (silly us not to check before we left because we had been taking pictures of them on the walk) we quickly pulled over, jumped out and took more pictures before burning it off. In all the excitement my bag, and Charlie's shoe were left on the back of the car. The shoe made it, while the bag sadly did not. Lost was the journal of Oz and all contact info, so if you are reading this send us an email with your addresses or you may never hear from us again. And what a loss that would be for you all (sarcasm).

The Chinese temple was closed, so we entertained ourselves outside. Free fun all day.

Got a new camera!!!! very exciting. The pictures will now be better than ever (?)

Singapore

2008-03-08T21:11:00.000-08:00

We went to Singapore as a stopping off point to Malaysia, but we were glad that we did. We only had about 5 days there but enjoyed it. There wasn't a lot to do so the time we had there was perfect for us... and magical. We made the end of the Chinese New year, so we caught a few of the perks such as... the lights and one show which we only caught the end of but we saw a dragon. Emma was too chicken to go up and take pictures with the dragon men when we saw them on the street. So sad, so sad.

The Buddah Tooth Relic Temple, true to its name, had lots of Buddahs. The Lotus Buddah above is about 8 feet tall and surrounded by the protectors. Next to him is the protector of the year of the rooster (thats us). He was definitely the most fierce looking protector and the only one with flames, so we are all good, but the rest of you had pretty tame looking protectors. It was one of the most impressive and breathtaking structures we have seen so far.

This is us in front of the Merlion... the iconic figure of Singapore, but we never found out why it was iconic. Sounds cool though, and it was a sight to behold. whooo. Next to it is a sight that some wish they had not beheld (emma), a whole shoe store filled with shoes already filled.

Tony's first night in Singapore was spent on a mattress on the floor due to an overbooking, but right outside our hostel was a pedestrian only street with little shops and an amazing Moroccan resturant. I (Tony) found a new love in Moroccan tea. (we dont know why this is underlined and we cant turn it off) help me the line keeps following me ahhhh runnnn!

This is a Hindu Temple, Sri Mariamman Temple... thats all we got. It was very pretty with amazing colors and intricacies.

Next stop Borneo

Mungo Mungo, don't cha wana....

2008-02-18T22:52:00.001-08:00

Ok, Mungo Mungo national park is the site of many archeological wonders. They include what is thought to be the oldest known human remains found on earth and the oldest forms of ritualist burials and cremation known. These date back some 50,000 years. Walking on the same ground where life posibly began was a real humbling experience. There was a time line in the vistors center that had the Egyptian the Aztec and Myans shown and they date back only as far as 5000 years. The aboriginal people here were hunting and gathering and growing crops some 45,000 years before an Egyptian even thought about a pyrimid.

Uncovered at the park was also the largest cache of fossilized footprints in the world. There were footprints of 23 individuals, including a man thought to be running up to 12kmh based on the patterns and a one legged man seeming to move at a normal stride with no aide. We didnt actually see the footprints because they were reburried for preservation. The park is also one of the few run by the aboriginal community and they wanted to preserve their own history. The park has great wild life like Roos and Emus and snakes. We only saw the first two. Definitly worth the drive out here. We didn't get a good picture of the sunset the night before this one, and we are kicking ourselves for not doing it. The sky was blood red, I don't even think that taking a picture of it would have given it any credit.

Victoria - Very nice, how much?

2008-02-18T19:47:00.000-08:00

We entered Victoria from the outback in New South Wales. We stayed and camped several days in the Grampian Mountains National Park. While at the park we did a number of trecks and all with amazing views. It was one of our favorite spots. The surrounding areas of the park are flat and dull, you know instantly when you are in the park because the hills turn into mountains and the road begin to follow gorges and narrow canyons.

This trek above was called the Pinnacals. The entire trek was over and through the segmented rock leading to the tip of the cliff called the Pinnacal. We followed the trail through the "grand canyon" and the "silent street" were almost as impressive as the views from the top. Both sections pass through the narrow sections of stone that was almost close enough to touch on both sides and tall enough to tower a six story building.

This trek was the Hollow Mountain trek that led to amazing views of the forests and mountains surrounding. It was here that we tried our hand at rock climbing... but I (Emma) got stuck. While Tony was debating about how to get me down he took pictures of my vunerable state. (But she made it and she was rewarded with a great view and the patch of courage!) We had no idea that this walk was going to so amazing, partly because the Victorian Park service is crap, we just decided to do it because it had a really cool name. The climb up the rock was completed despite the initial difficulty and we were rewarded with a large wind and water erroded cavern that looked out over the mountain. We took advantage of the shade.

The Grampians had a number of aboriginal rock painting sites. The content mainly consisted of stick figures, emu and kangaroo tracks, tally marks and hand prints. The picture to the right was a cavern that was almost entirely covered with the tally marks with just a few other markings. The meaning of the markings have been lost over time. One carvern had over 90 hand prints. They made the hand prints by mixing the red sand in their mouth and then spraying it over their hand to leave the void.

From the Grampians we drove down to "The Great Ocean Road". The entire coast was made up of these limestone formations. The most famous along the coast road are the Twelve Apostles, which are actually 7 now. The ocean has not been kind to the other four. The water was unfortunely really cold and you can see here that I have a jacket on. The southernly winds are coming accross the ocean from Antartica and making the wind chilly. There was one formation where you see us at here called the London Bridge, you used to be able to cross over there but the bridge fell down. This happend just a couple of years ago, no one was hurt but there were a dozen or so stranded on the new island formation.

Camp cooking is hard to do when you have a kitchen with views like this, distractions were prevelent and often. This particular campground was near an amazig river and a koala meca. And the last night here we found a koala just 20 feet from our tent hanging out in a tree. We had coffee, he had herbal tea and shared some biscuts. It was an amazing evening.

The last stop we made was in the beautiful city of Melbourne. I know we use the word beautiful to describe cities and national parks all the time but this city was beautiful in a different sence. The city had a real multicultural feel mixed into an Australian background. The city had excellent public transportation used by everyone. Our friends Aysen and Tim were kind enough to put us up in their beautiful new home. And having them there made the transtion from tent and national parks to the city life a lot easier and a lot more fun. We met Asyen and Tim in New Zealand and had a great time with them there and had just as equally good time with them here in Australia. The two of them just moved to Australia from Holland and were in the mists of setting up job interviews and getting their stuff out of port at customs. In between that we found time to eat mexican food and drink some wine and beer. We will definitely be going back in the near future. Here we have some pictures along the water front and some pictures taken around the city. Emma and Aysen had a tagging session in one of the allies, its more fun to run from cops when they don't carry guns.

Western Australia here we come!

OZ- Queensland

2008-02-11T17:06:00.001-08:00

Frasier Island was the first time spent on the coast in Queensland. We rented a 4wd with seven other people and drove around for three days on this the largest sand island in the world. It was amazing...with all the beautiful beaches on the lakes and massive sand dunes in the surrounds. You can't go swimming in the ocean due to Tiger sharks and killer jellies but the lakes make up for it. The trip was three days, camping on the island. The impending cyclone off the coast almost prevented our trip but we made it to the last day before getting kicked off (with everyone else) when they evacuated the island due to the storm. We mannaged to miss the leaky tents and running out of food so our trip went smoothly, unlike a lot of other groups. We even were able to get one day of sun before leaving... of course it was the calm before the storm, but it counted.

This is lake McKenzie, one of the most beautiful beaches we have seen. And it is also one of the most beautiful beaches in the world according to many travel guides. Life is really hard when you have to spend hours laz'n about here. Our group had a lot of fun together, with alot of great group jump shots and laughs. The camp site held all the tours from the booking agent we went through so the site seeing and swimming in the day turned into debauchry by night. I actually believe that we had an excess of drink that we were unable to consume despite our best efforts. It just ment that we had another night together once we got back to the main land to try to rectify the situation. All in all Frasier Island was an amazing time.

The logger head turle below came to the beach to lay her eggs for breeding season. We saw her pop out seemingly hundreds of tough leathery little ping pong ball eggs. She was beautiful. Aparantly turles are deaf and can really only see light above water so we were not supposed to have disterbed her nesting even though there is no dought that she knew we were there.

The under water pictures were taken various places along the Great Barrier Reef. Some were taken on the Whitsunday Island sailing trip and others were taken on the snorkling tour we did in Cape Tribulation. Both amazing places and bright colored fish. The Whitsundays did seem to have a wider range of coral and brighter colors but it really depended on the weather... and since we went at the begininng of the rainy season we really were very lucky.

The whitsunday sailing trip was a three day boat trip on an americas cup boat called the Southern Cross. All of us slept on the boat and snorkled many hours of the day. This trip was almost cancelled due to weather as well... but again we got lucky and had amazing weather, while on the main land the flooding and rain continued. The town we left from was land locked due to the flooding the day we left and this turned out great because our group of 14 was down sized to 9 because no one could get into town. We came into town a day early on an accidental logistics problem. The night prior to our trip leaving the town recieved a half of a meter of rain over night and our tent nearly got washed away by the river that was a creek. Very exciting!

Terrorist marsupials!!!!!no dont do it! They threatened that they were going to blow us all up if we didnt hand over the food. After three long hours of negatiation we were able to talk them down peacefully without any bloodshed. It was a victory for mankind.

On our way inland in Queensland we took a road called Waterfall Way and on it were waterfalls.... many waterfalls. Since one waterfall can begin to look like every other waterfall we only put one on. It was in this area that we also saw our first Platypus, out of two. We were very excited but due to the rain and the dusk and the Platypus's preference to remain in the water none of the pictures came out very well. Also Australia has recieved record rainfall since we have arrive so every waterfall we have visited has been amazing. We spoke to one park ranger and he was telling us that for years this one particular waterfall we are looking at here was usually a trickle. As you can see it is not!

The Undara National Park is in the outback of Queensland and was defenitely worth the drive. The features were huge lava tubes extending over 100km. The lava from the nearby volcano flowed steadily for a long enough time that a number of these huge tunnels formed. With this picture it is hard to capture the enormity of the caves. That small tree in the background is a full grown eucalyptus and the tiny rocks on the ground are any where from 4 to 8 feet in diameter. So from that you can see that the tubes are big, really big.

Let us set the scene.... we were in Cape Tribulation walking back from a nice refressing swim in the croc free river when Tony looks down and gets excited at what he recognizes as Cassowary droppings from an information site that we had seen (the casaway is extremely important to the rainforest because their droppings spread the seeds of many of the trees, and they looked exactly like the wax version at the information site). We continue walking with Emma leading the way... when out of the bushes stands a very tall, very big Casawary, which Tony has not yet seen. I turn to Tony with wide eyes unable to say what lies ahead due to (at the time) unprovoced fear. Tony sees what lies ahead and pops the camera out of his pocket and begins snapping away with the pictures, following down the trail. The event was amazing to be able to see one of these rare creatures in the wild. About a week later I was flipping through the guide book looking for dangerous snakes and came across a picture of a Cassowary. Apparently Cassowary is one of the most dangerous things in Australia! They have massive nails on the end of their foot that can slice through human skin like a knife through butter and will kick out with both legs. And we were following it. Luckly for us they usually only strike when there are chicks around or in the breeding season, apparently both were not the case. The guide book suggest that you place a large object between you and the cassowary like a tree (or travel partner).

This picture was also taken in Cape Tribulation. We were camping at the national park camp ground which was rainforest. It is the oldest rainforest in the world and was one of the few places where the rainforest met the reef. It was an isolated beach, probably because you weren't able to swim in the water, but there were a few swimming holes nearby. All kinds of curious little creatures lulled us to sleep everynight.

A close encounter of the leech kind. We had heard that the leeches were very bad during the wet season and we did check ourselves after every treck to make sure we were leech free. This time we were not even trecking, just walking trough the trees to somewhere and hoped back in the car. It took a while for the little bugger to actually make its way up Tony's sock to his leg. Mmm, tasty man flesh!

Another aspect of the rainforest of course is the amzingly moist climate, which breeds all sorts of biting insects. This face was pretty much the feeling of the day with all the dang mozzie bites. The itching fades and the memories of the woderful things we have done and seen remain.

Oz - The New South Whales Trail

2007-12-22T18:54:00.000-08:00

So we arrived in Sydney the fourth of December and have since done may things. Here is run down of the New South Whales. In Sydney we searched for a car, and ended up with Princess... she is a rented Outlander with 4wd that cant be taken on any unsealed roads. But we figure unless we break down and there is no possible way of pushing or towing the car off this unsealed road... then we will be fine. We Started our trip with the Sydney Opera House and the Harbor Bridge. We only spent 3 days in Sydney though, after NZ it was a little crowded for us.

This is the Three Sisters in the Blue Mountains an hr outside Sydney. We started the walk down the Giant Stairway, which consisted of 840 steps, through the rain forest at the bottom of the range, and up the Ferber steps that were another 1040 steps. It was great weather for it until a thunderstorm rolled in and soaked us within minutes. The small river we had to cross needless to say got bigger and we had to trudge across it.

This is me crossing the river... like a drowned rat... or a mouse

The next day we recuperated at the Jelonalan Caves. We went into three caves, these pictures were just a highlight. Apparently one of the men that found the caves lowered his 8yr old daughter down a cavern that he couldn't fit into with a rope and a candle. Pretty brave kid, no way would either of us do that.

This is Bald Rock in Bald Rock National Park. We walked up it for an amazing view. It is the largest granite rock in the southern hemisphere.

One of the many campsites we inhabited so far. Note : For the picture the camera is balanced on a tree branch. Tony is becoming an expert at it.

The Natural Bridge in Giraween National Park. We are wearing our matching fly prevention hats. Tony isn't wearing his face net, but maybe I will get lucky and get a picture to post.

The hike up this rock took a little more than an hour. From the top we could see everywhere.
Note: Granite is slippery when wet!!! On our way to the rock it rained for about 5 min. When we started climbing we noticed that when the rock was really wet our feet slipped a little. That is ok... except when there is nothing to stop your fall down a steep granite cliff about 200ft up. This picture is what we like to call "the place of death" where Tony slipped, landing on his belly, nearly spread eagle to prevent this fall from becoming something much worse.

Some of Australia's friendly marsupials seen in "the wild".

This is how we have been spending our nights. You can see Princess, much prettier than our last car but not as much charm. (but she does have air !!) The wildflowers below have all been out by the rain. Makes for a beautiful drive.

ITS A GIRL!!!

TO ALL THOSE WHO DIDN'T KNOW BIG SISTER WAS PREGNANT AND NOW SHE IS NOT. SHE HAD A BABY GIRL!!! HER NAME IS ALANA DIAN, SHE WAS 8 LB. 6OZ., 20 1/4", AND HEALTHY. Congratulations Laura, Ray, Adam, and Liam to your new addition!!!

Pictures.... http://picasaweb.google.com/spora0814/BabyAlana?authkey=sPU2doH7YiQ

The Town of Broken Hill is in the Middle of the OutBack NSW, where the temperatures average in the summer around 110 degrees. It was a good thing we decided to go there in the thick of summer. Outside of town there is a Cultural Hike you can take to explore the Aboriginal and White ancestry of the area. These are story poles, that where made by local artists that combined the ancestry of the Aboriginals their own Modern artistic flare. I think we took around 30 pictures at this one location, gotta love digital!

The town of Broken Hill is an Artistic Oasis, there are over 40 galleries in the area. The best of which is found atop this hill where the sunsets are amazing. The town had an international syposium and had 12 limstone sculptures created. The artists tried to include the areas history with a dose of their international background. This sculpture here is our favorite, and was done by a fellow from Mexico City. Can you see the Mexican influences?

And here we have Mundi Mundi lookout, it is one of the few places in the world where you can see the curvature of the Earth! Take a minute and soak in the wowness of it.....ok so we couldn't really get it all with the camera and so we decided to take a picture of us instead. As it turns out the town information center has this wonderful hadout about the area and in it is a panoramic view of the lookout. Woo hoo! At this spot if you look closely and have something flat to jundge the curve you can see the curvature.

NZ

2007-12-10T17:06:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately we have no further pictures to post of New Zealand because we were silly and mailed them home before updating our blog. We are really bad at this. We can give a run down of highlights verbally however, if you are game to read it. Here we go:

After the Pancake rocks we moved further down the coast to Fox glacier, where we went on an all day hike across the glacier. It was amazing. It is one of the few glaciers in the world at the time that are growing. They cut out the steps with an ice pick as we moved along. We drank from a pure glacial pool and went through some glacial ice tunnels (tony is next to me throwing in all the "Glacial's", it is cute). We then headed south to Lake Wanaka. There we visited puzzle world (the only thing to do there if you went bungee jumping), and spent two hours in a maze. We ended up cheating to get out... so sad. When saying the name puzzle world you are required to sing it to the theme of Waynes World. Next we moved to Queenstown where we indulged in chocolate bliss every day (one day twice) at Patagonia's. Tony has turned into a chocolate fiend...who knew. We met up with a friend, Hampus, from Auckland and he and Tony went mountain biking. We made a quick drive to "middle earth" in Glenorchy, very pretty. We travelled south along the southern scenic route, stopping at Milford Sounds, penguin watching and sheep dodging, to the southern most point of the south island. Heading around the tip to the city of Dunedin to the Cadbury factory... again indulging in ridiculous amounts of chocolate. North to Moreaki Boulders where huge almost perfectly spherical boulders rested on the beach. The pictures are amazing, wish you could see them! We stayed here for a couple days and headed north to Omaru where we saw 200 blue penguins storm the beach. It was so cute, they were so tiny, and the babies came out of their nests to greet them and beg for food. We also saw about 28 of the rare yellow eyed penguin which is one of the rarest in the world! Very cool. Inland, stopping at the elephant rocks, that look like elephants, to the clay cliffs, reenacting the scenes from Indiana Jones. Back to the coast, for a nice Thanksgiving in Fairley. Then on to Christchurch where we sold our Chug :(, and :), making new friends at Stonehurst hostel, Brian, Stuart, Inga( thanks again for waiting up with us till 4am for the airport ride), Ana, and meeting up with Hampus once again...then on to OZ! (in a nut shell)

Fiji, Nacula and Kandavu

2007-11-08T14:26:00.001-08:00

Again, tony roughing it. The beach is our view from our room.

This is the view on the way to Nacula. (i think)

We swam through this underwater passage to a whole cave system the Fijian tribes used to hide in during wars, obviously when they were not at the advantage.

This walk was called "the hill" ... oh your going to "the hill". It was about two hrs up but it gave a view of the whole island and the surrounding ones. It was hot as heck and not a cloud in sight.

Our plane to Kandavu, it sat about 6 people, including the pilot

The room below is our "private" Burre, not so private with flax and bamboo walls but it was great!! It tilted down just enough so that we had an ocean view laying in the bed... under the mesquito net. (always under the mesquito net)

This was the view from our porch/balcany

The resort was all spread out among the jungle so you could barely see where the other rooms were. There were about 13 people staying there, and you only saw them at dinner. It was amazing. This is where we met Andrea and Martin who we stayed with in Wellington. Low tide gave us a sand beach with a thin layer of warm water that you could lay in. The waterfall is in the village nearest the resort. You had to climb up a smaller waterfall to get to the cavern where this waterfall was. The water was freezing but you would barely notice. When you swam up to it it pushed you back so you really had to fight to get to it.

Our room mate

Fiji, Nadi and Waya

2007-11-08T14:00:00.000-08:00

This is where we stayed our first night in Nadi Fiji, We had the entire dorm to ourselves. We took a boat the next day to Waya in the Yasawas.

This is the view from the boat out to Waya

This was our first "island resort", complete with outdoor dining and swimming pool.

The picture above is of the fijian village that we went to on Waya. The burres were made of tin or concrete, rarely the traditional flax and bamboo that the tourist ones were made out of.

Tony "roughing it"

Our home "Chugg"

2007-11-02T13:04:00.001-07:00

So we are really bad at this game of "picture posting". Here is just a couple, its our "Chugg", complete with kitchen, recreational area/sofa, portable fridge/counter top/chopping table/nightstand, and bed. It screams down the road at a blazzing speed of 90km/h. Luckily everyone else drives slow, so it doesn't seem like we are.

First Set of Pictures

2007-11-02T12:40:00.000-07:00

The one of us together is at the tip of the South Island Marbough Sounds. We took an eco tour to a reserve and this was the view from the top. We saw endangered birds, dolphins (tiny ones) and little blue penguins nesting.

The sunrise was taken the day we were on the Able Tasman Coastal Great Walk and had to cross the estuary before the tide came in. The other picture is of tony crossing the estuary in ankle deep freezing cold water just about 10 min after sunrise. The boat was our ride home from the walk, they just pulled it out of the water... and we were all still in it as it drove down the street to our car park.

The rocks above are the Pancake rocks. There was a coastline of these rocks with numerous blowholes. It was amazing to see!