Posts in “Australia and Oceania” Category

Hello everybody! For this blog's adventure we go to Sydney. The first thing we did in there was go to the famed Opera House. The Opera House is a huge wavey structure and it is right next to the Harbor Bridge, which connects the two sides of Sydney. Speaking of famous things - we spent New Year's Eve in Sydney got to see the world renowned fireworks, which are considered the best in the world. One thing Sydney may not be well known for are the thousands of fruit bats that hang out in the gum trees of the Botanical Garden right in the middle of the city. At dusk, they all go flying off for the night and you can see them all.

Hello mates, I'm still in Australia and having a great time. Since my last blog, we have been to a few new places, including Sydney.

Here's a pic of me and the Opera House in Sydney:

Hello, I'm in nature loving Tasmania. In Tasmania, we went to the towns of Strahan and Bicheno. Strahan was our first stop and there, we went on a boat cruise on the Gordon River and checked out Hentry Dunes. The dunes were huge and really steep to climb up, but sooooo much fun to run down.
 
In Bicheno we went to a small zoo. The first thing we saw was a bird that said hello to us. It was cool. Then, we went further into the zoo and we saw some kangaroos and one hopped right over to us.  Tyler and I fed it, but two big birds with green beaks got mad because we were feeding the kangaroos and not them, and the birds pecked at the kangaroo's butt. Take a look at the video:



The birds were so mean, but we chased them away so that we could keep feeding the kangaroos. The zoo had lots of other really cool stuff like wombats and venomous snakes. We learned the difference between venomous and poisonous. If it bites you then it's venomous, but if you eat it and then get sick, it's poisonous. We also saw some Tasmanian devils which are actually really cute. We saw the babies drink milk and the mommy's pouch.  I loved the Tassie devils.

Hi everyone! For this blog, we go to the amazing land of Tasmania. The first stop on our Tasmanian tour was the town of Strahan to see the infamous Sarah Island which was a prison for British convicts over 150 years ago. We went over to the island on a boat trip and saw all of the ruins of the old buildings. While looking at the buildings we saw things like the old commondant's (or leader's) cabin, the shipyard, and the solitary prison. Although Sarah Island used to be a place you definitely didn't want to be, now it's a pretty island. The surrounding areas of Macquire Bay and the Gordon River lead to World Heritage listed nature areas, so we also got off the boat and took a cool walk through the rain forest with trees that are hundreds of years old. One was even over 200 years old!
 
After Strahan, we went a small beach town called Bicheno for Christmas. When we got there we were really surprised to find that we were in an actual house, which was a lot different than the "beach shack" we were expecting. We were really excited to be in a house for Christmas and not a hotel room. Anyway, on Christmas Eve things started to feel a little more like Christmas when we went to see penguins come in from their day of fishing. It was actually quite cold even though it is the middle of summer there (now if that's not Christmas, nothing is!). On Christmas Day we did what the Aussies do--go to the beach!

Hi everyone! For this blog we start out in Mt. Lamington National Park at O'Reilly's Rainforest resort. At O'Reilly's we stayed in a cottage that stuck out of the side of a mountain and in the mornings, we could see and hear all types of colorful birds. When we were out exploring, at we came across wild birds feeding, so soon we had trays of bird seed in our hands and were being swarmed by big colorful birds called Crimson Rosellas that would perch on our shoulders and land on our heads. We also did a lot of hiking while we were there and on one of the treks we saw a memorial for a Stinsen plane crash that happened in Lamington State Park in the 1930s. One of the original founders of the resort, Mr. Bernard O'Reilly, went out to search for the missing plane and discovered it with two survivors, after over a week, so he was a big local hero.

Hello people on the computer. I'm writing from Australia and after going to the Great Barrier Reef, we spent three days at O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat in the Green Mountains. There were lots of cool and amazing birds and animals found there. The first day we went on a tree-top walk on a bridge that took us around the top of the trees in the rainforest. It also had a ladder that climbed to the very top.

Hi everybody! Right now we are in Australia and we've been doing some really cool things since we got here.

First we flew into Brisbane and were met by our friends Dick and Liz. After spending the night with them, we went back to the airport early the next morning to take a plane to Hamilton Island. Once we got to Hamilton Island we headed to our resort to settle in.

The next day for breakfast we went to a place called the Koala Gallery where you can eat breakfast with koalas. It was really cool to be able to go get cereal or something to eat and pass koalas on your way. Later that day we went on a catamaran ride called "Adrenaline Sailing," where we got to literally hang out on wires over the water at really fast speeds. We also got to go and sit on a net in the front of the boat and we got totally splashed by the water and ended up soaking wet.  

G'Day Mates! I'm in Australia, land of the Aussies.

When we arrived in Australia, we were picked up at the airport by our friend Mr. Green. When we got to his house, we were excited to find out that they have a dog named Sebastian. Tyler and I can't wait to get a dog when we get home.

The next day we left Mr. & Mrs. Green's house to go to Hamilton Island. Hamilton Island is near the Great Barrier Reef. Half of the island is stores and restaurants and the other half has hotels, pools and a beach. The first thing we did was go to the pool because it's really hot here in Australia because it is their summer, even though it is December.

In the morning we went to a breakfast and ate with koalas. Koalas aren't really bears, they're just koalas. They're really cute but they're usually not doing much ... they sleep for 20 hours a day!

Another thing we did this day was a catamaran ride around the island. On the catamaran we got to ride on "the trapeze," which meant we were hanging off the side of the boat by a wire. It's really hard to explain, so look at this picture...

Hi everybody! For our last week in New Zealand, we lived in a house called Maggie's Cottage, which was on a farm. I was very excited to have a house because we haven't had one in five months. This means that we didn't have to eat at restaurants all the time, which was great.

And speaking about eating, there was a pig at the farm where we stayed that ate all of our food scraps. There were also goats on the farm that really liked our leftover toast. During our stay, they were shearing the sheep, which means they were shaving them so they could sell the wool.


The sheep are much cuter when they are all fuzzy, but it was still fun to watch them get sheared. This farm also had chickens, llamas, horses, and a couple of cute dogs that we played with.

Our cottage was in a town called Nelson and we had lots to do there. One day, we went four-wheeling on ATVs, which is short for all-terrain vehicles. I was sitting on the back of my Dad's four-wheeler. One of the first things we did was ride through a stream.

Hello again! During our last week in New Zealand, we stayed in Nelson on a farm called Harris Hill. We stayed in a house called Maggie's Cottage that had a beautiful view of the Tasman Bay.

At the farm we got to make our own meals instead of always eating out at restaurants. But it wasn't eating the food that was so much fun, it was getting rid of our leftovers that was cool. At the farm they had a pig that ate scraps. When we started feeding him, a goat would arrive and a battle would begin over the food scraps. They all got some scraps, so everyone won.