We had a wonderful time while Dan was visiting us!
Here are the pictures from the trip:
http://picasaweb.google.com/kersti.miller/2007NovDanSTripBrisbaneNoosaSydneyWe showed him a few sights around Melbourne, visited the Penguins on Phillip Island, and then had a wonderfully huge Thanksgiving dinner with fellow americans. After Thanksgiving we flew to Brisbane and then drove north to the beach town of Noosa. On our way, we stopped at the Glass House Mountains and did an impromptu death-defying free climb up a vertical rock face. Luckily we all went up and down without harm! Next time, when we read a sign that says "DANGER RISK OF DEATH", maybe we'll pay more attention. The view from the mountains was picturesque... little pineapple farms and woodlands... studded with a few sharp volcanic mountains.
Noosa is beautiful! The beach was fantastic... the water was wonderfully warm, and the waves were wild and made for some excellent body surfing conditions for the boys. After being tossed around violently under the water a couple times, I refrained from more body surfing! But I still enjoyed the water and lovely weather. We did have rain one day, but it still made for a great beach day, surprisingly! At the park adjacent to the beach, we saw a huge lizard (water monitor?) and a koala... and Debbie (Dan's friend from college) came across a 6 ft long python while running! Yikes.
After three days in Noosa we flew to Sydney. We saw the sights around town, visited the opera house, botanic gardens, and the rocks (the original settlement area). Very lovely... we also took a boat tour all around the massive harbour. It's the 2nd largest harbour/bay in the world... apparently Rio is deeper, making it the first. Anyway, the boat tour guide mainly just showed us where not to go swimming (sharks!) and where the most expensive real estate can be found (as if that wasn't obvious... the houses were ridiculous). Many houses on the steep cliffs surrounding the harbour are accessed only by elevators that go to the road at the top. Crazy.
The craziest thing we saw however, had to be the bats. We saw thousands of them hanging from the trees in the botanic garden. They were a foot long... with wingspans up to one meter. At dusk, we were standing on the harbour bridge, and we saw them flying above us and around the harbour. Fantastic! We realized that we had seen these bats on our drive up to Noosa... while driving on the highway, we could see millions of them flying over the highway... at first we thought they were huge black birds, but then we realized they were huge, huge bats!
Anyway, we had lots of fun while Dan and Debbie were here... (Debbie is Dan's friend from college).
That's all for now...
P.S... sorry for no posts lately. We've been enjoying ourselves a bit too much I think! The weather is just too good to stay inside and work on the computer!
I think the picture above was taken on their way to the airport to fly to Sweden... they were training themselves for long flights... this one, however, is a doozy. 15 hours from SFO to Sydney! YIKES.
Here is my mom, hiding from the camera for good reason.