AND THEY'RE OFF!!

(check out the slideshow at the bottom, or at http://www.flickr.com/photos/heatherlforrester/)

Back in November 2008 Heather decided to take a trip to Australia....hey, I have a timeshare, I can exchange it, why not???? Now...who to invite? Well, of COURSE I'm going to invite my travel buddy LORIE!!! Fortunately, she said YES!!!!!! and so the adventure began......

Over the months of December to May we purchased flights (killer deal @ $900 each), found a great package for activities, and of course created packing lists, etc.! Plans were set.....and then, Jason got clearance to participate in graduation. So Heather sucked it up and paid the change fees - you only see your child graduate from high school once after all! New plans called for departure on June 11th for arrival in Sydney on June 13th, and returning on June 20th.

Thursday, June 11th finally arrived, and were we SO ready for our "vacation" to start!! Heather & Lorie left Fresno around 10 am, stopped in Gilroy for lunch & some shopping, and then ended up at Heather's new apartment in Foster City. Heather's sister, Lauren, came over after her interview with the San Francisco Chronicle to hang out for a bit before we got picked up. She took off, and Super Shuttle showed up early, which caused a bit of a rush for us. Heather ended up leaving her phone charger behind. Yikes!

Finally got up to check in at the SF Airport, only to find out that we had to have electronic travel visas. You should have seen Heather's face! Fortunately the airlines can do that at the counter.

After a restless 15 hour flight we arrived at Sydney International Airport on Saturday, June 13th! When passing through Australian Customs we found out that most of our snacks (beef jerky & almonds in particular) were not allowed in the country. BUMMER!

Heather made Lorie wear her sling (and if you don't know WHY she needs a sling, just ask her), which attracted the attention of several men. So Heather told the pole dancing story to the blokes that asked. Yikes...well, Aussie men loved it! We then went to pick up our rental car....well, you see driving on the opposite side of the road can be very adventurous! Obviously Heather was driving - thank Heavens for Betsy, our GPS - "recalculating" (heard that more than a few times)!! We went straightaway to Darling Harbour to pick up our Smartvisit cards, Cellar Door pass, and of course do a little shopping! Then off to find Bowral (bow-ruhl) where we were staying...fun, fun, fun! The apartment was really nice & had a full kitchen!!

After dropping off our luggage, we headed to find a SPA treatment! But we got there too late, so we had to book it for the next day. So we decided to go to the grocery store called Cole's - we were surprised to find that you have to pay to get a shopping cart unlocked. You know Lorie asked for a bloke to help us - he told us to put a dollar coin in & it will unlock. His remark to Lorie was "you're not even blonde!" Of course Heather was serious while Lorie had one of her laugh attacks and almost peed her pants. We managed to purchase the necessities - breakfast items, chicken noodle soup, bottled water, etc. We forgot to mention that we both got colds the day before we left - we needed that soup! As you can see NOTHING was going to stop us from this trip!

Back at the apartment we fixed dinner & got settled in. We managed to stay up until 8:00 - it's not easy getting on Aussie time!

Sunday, June 14th was a leisurely morning, then off to our spa treatments. Heather had a lovely massage & Lorie enjoyed her facial. Then we were off to the Illiwarra Fly - a treetop rainforest walk. During our walk an Australian woman (with 3 children aged 5 & under) was climbing up the tower ahead of us & commented "I'm puffed," which is now Lorie's favorite expression - go figure!! The weather conditions were scattered light showers, but it was clear enough for spectacular views of the valley & coast - see our photos ~ Miss Heather the Photographer & Lorie giving it her best!

After a very long drive home in the dark (it gets dark at 5 pm in NSW right now) and scattered showers, we fixed dinner & went to bed to rest for another busy day on Wednesday!

We quickly discovered how much time we would be traveling in our rental car. Lorie was in charge of the radio & found a great station (101.7 WFSN) that played all the old classics and new rock, too. Great tunes are essential! Funny how we both knew all of the old stuff SO well.... Heather not once wanted for Lorie to drive, just take care of the music and temperature (imagine that)!!


After a stop at the Wooley's (Woolworth's, which is a grocery store in Australia - it's less expensive than Cole's and doesn't require coins for the shopping carts), Sunday evening was spent fixing dinner and mapping out our plans for the week, then early to bed for a very busy Monday!


Monday, June 15th - okay, don't fall over...Heather got Lorie out of bed before 5 am so that we could make it to Sydney by 8 am (Bowral to Sydney was a 1 1/2 hour drive). Lorie of course still wanted an Aussie man to bring her coffee & sliced banana before she got out of bed - Heather's response..."NOT going to happen Lorie!" While we were getting ready we heard the weather report for the week and made a change in our plans so that we could go to the Taronga Zoo on what could be the only dry day of our week.


Okay, here we go trying to find the car park - very adventurous - and then the bus terminal for our GrayLine City Sights tour at 8 am...Betsy is "recalculating" and we are late!!! Heather got on her cell phone w/her newly acquired Australian accent to keep them from taking off without the American girls!! Phew!! Made it!!


The bus tour was great, with several stops along the way. The first was at Mrs. McQuarie's chair for photos of the Harbour Bridge & Opera House. Then we headed over to Bondi Beach! We befriended a couple from Florida (but she was an Aussie)...fortunately they felt generous enough to educate us on the do's and don'ts of Australia! Don't eat the pizza, but DO eat the meat pie! Don't tip - oops, we American girls didn't know any better, but we had only tipped at the spa!


Now we're at Bondi Beach - looking at the guy in the Speedo!

Keep in mind that it's winter in Australia right now! Lorie always finds nice people to take our photo together. Once back on the bus we tried to figure out which stop to get off at so that we could catch the ferry over to the Taronga Zoo...somehow we became the group leaders! Go figure!


The Taronga Zoo is celebrating 100 million visitors, so we wore the hats they gave us.

As you can see in the slideshow below, the giraffes had a hey-day performing for us! Not camera shy, are they? We also had an elephant that wanted our attention. THEN we found Morgen's brothers & sisters (the Chimpanzees) - aren't they cute? The put on a great show for us. We took the skycar from the top of the zoo back down to the wharf landing & the view was to die for! UNBELIEVABLE! We rushed right over to another ferry to take us back to our next destination...Darling Harbour.


We missed the Wildlife Park by 5 minutes, unaware of the winter schedule change. So we headed over to the Aquarium ~ WOW! It was fabulous! It was here that a slight issue with Walker and her choice of shoes really came to the forefront. she wanted to look good & not go for comfort....BIG mistake! Now it's time to take a long walk back to the car. Lorie is not only whining about being in pain, but she is also starving by this time! After a desperate stop at Subway we quickly found our car in the Star City Casino/Hotel car park. Heather is by now searching for some duct tape to shut Lorie up - too much whining about her poor feet....as Lorie is saying "poor poor Petrie." Finally Lorie can take her shoes (boots with heels) off! Holy Moly! What happened to your ankle?!? Heather thinks it looks like a grapefruit!


While driving home Heather almost fell asleep at the wheel (she woke up at 4), and we were swerving from one side to the other trying to avoid the big trucks & stay on the road. Well, we obviously made it! Once home Heather looks at Lorie's ankle and says, "you might want to get in the hot (spa) tub." You know her reasoning behind that....so she didn't have to listen to Lorie whine anymore. And then she passed out from exhaustion! Good night Heather!!


Tuesday, June 16th arrived - it's Wine Tour Day for us!! We get ready and head out to visit Mudgee & Hunter's Valley to use the Cellar Door pass (free wine tasting, free bottles of wine - sounds good to us). We got in the car and loaded in our first destination on trusty ol' Betsy, and Lorie says "um, Heather, it says that we're going to arrive at 1:30!!! This is a 4 hour drive?" "Apparently so" says Heather. Okay, so maybe we'll hit Mudgee and make it through that list of wineries.... So the journey began. We went deep into the Blue Mountains, which is a beautiful sight! By now Heather has gotten the hang of driving on the "wrong" side of the road. Due to the mountain ranges, Lorie was unable to do her job with the great radio station, so she popped in the CD that came with the wine package - it helped to educate us on the region, the different types of wine, and which ones are the best in the Mudgee area of New South Wales, Australia. Of course Heather had mapped out the wineries prior to our trip, and we were able to visit 4 of them ~ High Valley Wine & Cheese, Frog Rock Winery, Robert Stein Vineyards, and Pieter Van Gent Winery. Keep in mind that there were numerous wineries, but Heather's focus was for Lorie to see FROG ROCK (since Lorie is a BIG frog collector), as well as to visit wineries that would give us a free bottle (hello...it's Lorie - free wine!) and offer a large variety of wines. Well...we stopped at Frog Rock to find that they no longer participate in the program - BUMMER! But we still enjoyed our visit there. The most friendly and entertaining staff was Andrew Stein (son of Robert & the current vintner) and his assistant Jenn. They served biscuits (crackers to us) and cheese & Lorie ate them all! Heather had to help Drew figure out how to use the Cellar Door card to show we participated with them - imagine that! Sabine Vane Gent helped us at the Pieter Van Gent winery, and Lorie tried port for the first time there & loved it! She even got port for the free bottle!!

Wednesday, June 17th was another early day. Our goal was to be at the Opera House by 9 am for an early tour....however, we didn't leave on time and there was an accident on the M5 that further delayed us. We ended up just missing the 10:30 tour (again by 5 minutes), but got our tickets for the 5 pm one. Then it was off to get our tickets for the Oz Jetboating ride at 12, and then wandering around & shopping until it was time for our ride. Keep in mind that it was now cooler with scattered showers....which showed up just as it was time for our ride! The handed us some jackets and then we had to wait for the heaviest part of the rain to pass before we boarded. Our driver, Darren, was really funny and went through the basics of the ride (hand signals, safety, etc.) with us before we left the dock. What a great ride! Darren got us all soaked with great spins and pitching stops, and drove right into the rain storm as well. He would also stop after every spin to make sure everyone was okay and give us a little history on the spot where we stopped. Between the rain and Darren's efforts, we all looked like drowned rats by the time we got back to the dock, but we sure did have fun!
Next we went to the Museum of Sydney, which was smaller than expected, but full of very interesting info about the history of Sydney. We dried off a bit here & were able to take our time looking around. Then it was off to the wharf to take our Harbour Cruise!! Wow!!! If you could do only 1 thing in Sydney, this would probably be it. Plus, with our Smartvisit card we each got a free beverage...of course, Lorie somehow turned that into two free beverages once we were onboard. The ship operator, Nick, was helpful in educating Lorie about local beer and she tried Crown. Heather took picture after picture throughout the cruise.
After our cruise we did a little more shopping, and then headed to our last activity for the day - the tour of the Sydney Opera House. What an incredible history it has, and it is so beautiful. We got our picture taken beforehand, and Lorie negotiated Liam (who also took our pictures on the Oz Jetboat) down on the package deal - I know you're not surprised! Then we headed back to Bowral for dinner & some rest.
We had determined that we would alternate our busy days with more relaxed ones, so Thursday, June 18th was our day to journey to Canberra (can-burr-uh), the nation's capital (like our Washington, D.C.), which was about 2 hours away. We had no plan, but every area has visitor's information centers, so we just planned to get to Canberra & head to the visitor's center. Upon the advice of the lovely people there we decided to head to Parliament first. Fortunately for us they happened to be in session that day! We went up to the roof to see the entire area from there, and then headed down to sit in on the House of Representatives (green) in session. We got to watch one of the Reps arguing a bill, which was fascinating. We decided to go over to the other side, but first stopped and engaged in a lengthy conversation with one of the security guards. The people of Australia are generally some of the nicest you'll ever meet. Afterwards we went into the Senate (red) to watch them in session. Shortly thereafter we left the room and headed to the cafeteria area, which was really pretty and very reasonably priced (EVERYTHING in Australia is expensive!). Another security guard that we had spoken to briefly earlier sat down behind us, so we invited him to come sit at our table. He was a very nice guy & suggested that we go to the National Museum of Australia & the War Memorial. We decided we didn't really care about the War Memorial and headed to the Museum...THAT was a great decision. We spent about 3 hours there and both thought it was fantastic! There was so much history about the entire country, and it was really well done. Then it was back home, after a quick stop at Wooley's for more groceries. We fixed dinner, had a loooong talk & went to bed.

It was hard to believe that our last day was upon us so fast, but Friday, June 19th was another packed day. Lorie actually woke up BEFORE the alarm went off (I know, it's hard to believe, but it's true) and was finally ready on time...early even! So we headed off for our final day in Sydney. Our first stop was the Featherdale Wildlife Park in Doonside, which is just outside of Sydney. OMG!!! This is where we had an opportunity to interact with the animals and feed them. First on that list were the adorable wallabies. They were SO cute! There was even a mum with a joey in her pouch! Heather was of course all over this! After having Lorie take pictures of her feeding and petting the wallabies, Heather was able to convince Lorie to try it. She did it!! After the wallabies were the koalas....they are so adorable! First we looked and took pictures of the koalas that were up in their trees, and then we went to the spot where we could take a picture of ourselves with a koala. After double-checking with the staff there Heather gave the koala a good pat - they are super soft, kind of like thick cotton balls. Lorie was next, and yes, she did touch the koala! We moved on to the kangaroo area - you could buy an ice cream cone full of feed for $1 as you walked in, so we did that. The kangas were very friendly and loved to eat the feed and cone right out of your hands. Of course, they have a nasty emu in the same area, and he stole Heather's cone right out of her hand - she gave him a piece of her mind! We moved over to a mob (that's what they're called) of kangas and Heather knelt down in the middle of them and started petting away. She managed to find the one that didn't want any food, but he sure wanted attention. She spent about 15-20 minutes just petting him and talking to him, and we Lorie was pretty sure Heather would try to take him home! But there was lots to see, so we moved on. We walked all over the rest of the park, checking out the other animals there - lots of birds, wombats, tasmanian devils, dingoes, and other assorted animals. What a great stop this was!

After that we went into Sydney at Darling Harbour. After having a nice lunch at a restaurant in Harbourside (shopping area), we finally got to visit the Wildlife Park at the Harbour (that we had missed by 5 minutes on Monday), and got some great pictures with one of the koalas there (Fraser). They also had a butterfly enclosure, and one of the butterflies decided it liked Lorie's hair, so it stayed there most of the time that we were in the enclosure.
Finally it was time to do the last of our shopping (Lorie was already pretty much done, but Heather saved almost all of it for the last minute). Then we went back to Bowral to start packing, clean up the apartment, and get a good night's rest for the long flight home on Saturday.
Saturday, June 20th dawned, and we got to sleep in a bit, as we didn't have to leave until 10 am. So we got ready, threw the last of our things in our suitcases, and had our last breakfast in the apartment before checking out and heading to Sydney. As we drove the storm that spent most of the day in Sydney began, so we had to drive in pouring rain. We located the airport, and rental car return area, then headed in to turn in Betsy & the keys. Then we went upstairs & checked in for our flight (faster & easier than in the US, but Lorie's bag was WAAAAY over on weight, so we had to throw some of her stuff in Heather's bag). We filled out our Customs forms and breezed through there, but then Lorie was pulled over for a random search by some officers. We think it was her cowboy hat! As if it wasn't scary enough to have him talking to her about bomb threats, etc., you have to understand that Lorie had a dream Thursday night about having to pass some kind of test to get out of the country!! Heather asked, but they wouldn't allow her to take pictures of the ordeal, so she had to settle for trying to keep Lorie calm by joking around a bit. Drinks were required after that, so we found a place to get some food & wine (they don't have restaurants in the airport the way that we do in the US) until it was time to board. Our flight home was long and uneventful. Lorie was sitting next to a nice Aussie guy & a couple of newlyweds from, of all places, Coalinga! Heather was across the aisle next to boring people. Although Lorie was able to get some sleep Heather spent the entire flight watching great movies and reading. We arrived safely back in the US, sped through Customs, collected our luggage, caught Super Shuttle quickly, and were back at Heather's apartment by 12:30 pm.
Our goal was to stay up until at least 6 pm in order to start forcing ourselves back onto US time. After both of us spent hours watching TV and catching up on the computer, Heather was in bed & out cold by 6:15. Lorie had trouble sleeping and woke Heather up at 2 am as she wandered around the dark apartment - none of which she remembers. LOL!!!
Sunday, June 21st - Lorie's friend Monty drove all the way to Foster City to pick her up (what a sweetheart!). Heather had a quiet day sending out resumes, working on this blog, and then a visit from Lauren (yay!).
After an amazing trip to an incredible, beautiful country, now it's back to reality........for Lorie that's back to work on Tuesday. For Heather that's looking for a job & getting completely moved to Foster City! Hope you enjoyed a taste of Australia - you should really go there for yourself.

(check out our slideshow below, or at http://www.flickr.com/photos/heatherlforrester/)