Daintree Rainforest tour

Aussie Slang Word of the Day is...

Away with the pixies and/or off with the fairies: Daydreaming

When I was doing prac at Fremantle Hospital, a cute little old lady whom I worked with use to always say... "oh sorry I was off with the fairies again." ha Such a cute saying.

As time goes on I have a harder time coming up with Aussie slang words to share with you all. After living here for just about a year, it's all becoming a blurr now what's an Aussie slang word and what's not. I sometimes catch myself using slang words and other times I'm completely oblivious until my lovely sister Michelle, points out over skype that I'm using strange words. Also, strangely I am always shocked when I hear an American accent. Like "Whoa where did this person come from?!?!" Of course I'm use to hearing Brandon's voice, American accents in movies, my families voices on skype etc. But when I hear an American accent out of context it always throws me for a loop... I'm so use to hearing an Aussie accent that anything else sounds strange now. Weird, but true. And no Brandon and I haven't picked up an Aussie accent since living here. I still somehow manage to sound British/Southern when I mimic an Aussie accent. Apparently I'm suppose to have an ear for accents and speech differences?!?! ha guess I picked the wrong career path (I'm in majoring speech pathology).

Anyway on to the trip part 2: Daintree Rain forest tour. After our Great Barrier Reef scuba trip we arrived back at the Travellers Oasis to do some land traveling. Our first day back we went on a day tour to the Daintree Rain forest.

I will warn you early on that there are mostly pictures of me on here... not because I'm being vain, but because Brandon likes to be the photographer on trips (that or he doesn't trust my photography abilities).

The first thing we did on the tour was go on a river cruise to spot wild crocodiles in their natural habitat. I should have taken a picture of this, but on the boat there was a sign that said "Do not lean outside of the boat. Do not hang arms outside of the boat. Warning crocodiles can jump." Well that's comforting... You don't want to mess with a croc. Most of the croc's we spotted were on land sunning themselves and taking a nap.

Crocodile river cruise

All aboard

This water looks perfect for crocodiles. You would never see it coming. Only Bear Grills would attempt to swim through a river like this.

We spotted a croc!

The bus dropped us off in a little town to have a browse through the gift shops, where I found this lovely piece of merchandise.... A stuffed crocodile.

Facing my fears head on! Who's the boss now croc? Take that!

After lunch at the Daintree Tea House where we ate fresh barramundi, we went bush walking up the Daintree rain forest. It was so beautiful. I felt like Jane in the jungle with my handsome husband Tarzan. :)

Daintree Rain forest


Tarzan

Going for a swim in the Daintree river

Beautiful view of Cairns

The tour ended at Hartleys Crocodile Adventure where we got to watch a live crocodile attack show. I'm not going to lie my heart was pumping pretty fast watching this. This show is insane! This guy goes inside a small cage with a wild crocodile (do not be fooled into thinking they somehow train these man eaters) and fed him. He showed us how the crocodile can jump nearly half it's body length and showed us the famous crocodile death roll. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. There was a new guy on the job (first day), who had to feed the crocodile with a piece of meat tied to the end of a rope (this was to show us the death roll) and basically played tug-a-war with the crocodile. The poor fella was sweating bullets. I would be too! Crikey these creatures are vicious. Crocodile attack show
All I gotta say is this guy is nuts! The tour was so much fun. Lot's of good memories. :) Next up... white water rafting!

Christmas in Cairns: Great Barrier Reef

Aussie Slang word of the day is…

Stickybeak: A nosy person

Hope everyone had an amazing Christmas and new years! Happy 2011! :) I can't believe next month we'll have been in Perth for a year. Time flies! I’ve decided to break up our holiday in Cairns into 4 different posts, one post for each activity we did. It would take too long to cram it into one post… because let's be honest, you know how I like to ramble. ;) We'll start it off with our 5 day trip to the Great Barrier Reef. yeeee haw! here it goes...
We arrived in Cairns (pronounced Cans) in Queensland Australia at about 6:00 am (Perth time 4:00 am), after a 4 hour red eye flight. We had to sleep in the airport for an hour to wait for the hostel to open. Luckily the airport was deserted so we sprawled out on the benches and zonked out for a good hour. The shuttle bus then took us to the ‘Travellers Oasis’.

It was pouring rain when we arrived. It is currently their wet season and since Cairns is in the rain forest, they tend to get a lot of heavy rain fall this time of year. There has been massive flooding in all of Queensland, so we were a bit worried that the weather would put a damper on our holiday. Fortunately we had great weather the rest of the trip!
We spent the day lounging around and napping until the shuttle picked us up to go on the boat.

The 5 day, 4 night trip consisted of 14 dives around the Great Barrier Reef. We typically did around 3-4 dives a day. We woke up every morning at 6:30 had breakfast and were in the water by around 7:30 am. Each dive was an hour long or until you reached 50 bar of air. Then we would pick up anchor and move to another site. My favorite dive sites were Light House Bommie, Steve’s Bommie and Sandras (you can google them if you are interested). Below are some of our scuba diving pictures! I only selected a few to post. To see more pictures click on the link.

Onboard TAKA

Brandon and I got advance scuba certified on the trip, so we could go down to 30 meters (100 feet). Us with you our dive instructor Katie. :)

(the okay sign is what you do underwater to let your dive buddy know you are okay).

Scuba gear

Scuba diving the Great Barrier Reef was one word, a-ma-zing! It was by far the highlight of the whole vacation for me. It is something I have wanted to do my whole life. (My parents like to think I was a fish in another life). There is no way to describe how beautiful the Great Barrier Reef is. You feel like you are swimming in a huge aquarium where you are surrounded by schools of fish and fascinating, vibrant aquatic life. The pictures don’t do it justice. Some of my favorite sea creature encounters were nemo (clown fish), puffer fish, pipe fish, sting ray, lion fish, reef shark and sea turtle.

Scuba Brandon and Scuba Lisa

Scuba diving on Christmas Day

Merry Christmas!


Reef shark
We saw this bad boy circling the reef. Thank goodness it didn't get too close to us.


Lion fish= very poisonious, but beautiful

We found Nemo!

One downside to the trip was due to stong winds, we weren't able to make it out to Cod Hole or Osprey Reef as originally planned. The Shark feeding frenzy was suppose to be at Osprey Reef (it is one of the only places you can feed sea animals), so we weren't able to see it, which we were a bit bummed out about. However, overal it was a blast!We met a lot of cool people on board from all over the world, had outstanding food and got to see lots of cool sea creatures. I highly recommend it!

A preview of what's to come

Aussie slang word of the day is...

Servo: Gas station

Tonight at 9:50 pm our plane takes off and our Christmas adventure in Cairns begins. I thought I would give you a little preview of what's to come in the next week. Yesterday we got a message from our travel agent in Cairns letting us know that our 4 day live aboard scuba diving trip to the Great Barrier Reef had been canceled. Apparently not enough people had signed up for the excursion so they had to cancel. However, due to the inconvenience they offered to upgrade us to the 5 day Great Barrier Reef trip as well as upgrade us to a suite, that leaves on Christmas Eve (originally we were leaving the 28th). Our travel agent had to move our schedule around a bit so that we were still able to do the white water rafting, sky diving and rain forest tour when we get off the boat. But luckily it worked out and is now is better than originally planned! The 5 day trip consists of 14 dives, typically 4 dives a day, with some night dives... which i'm freaking out about. Dark water is not my cup of tea. Who knows what's lurking below??? but i'm sure it will be really neat once I get over it. We get to go out to Osprey Reef in the coral sea, and "The Cod Hole" in the northern Great Barrier Reef. Typical wildlife encounters include pelagic fish, manta rays, giant Australian cuttlefish, loggerhead, green turtles, moray eels (yuk), red flame file shell, lionfish, various nudibranchs (what they crap is that?!?) and giant potato cod. I have no idea what most of these things are, but i'm excited to find out!

Giant Cod fish

On Sunday (Dec. 26th) (Heather and Michelle get ready for this....) we will get to watch a shark feeding frenzy. Yikes! Brandon is super stoked about this, as for me to be honest i'm slightly petrified at the thought. Luckily we are watching from a far and won't be in on the action ... but still we are out in the open unprotected and there is no cage involved. Brandon keeps reassuring me that people do this all the time and no one has died yet, so I guess let's just hope that these vicious creatures are content with the meal provided and don't come looking for more?!? Also I'll make sure to not make any sudden seal like movements to attract attention. haha

To check out our diving schedule and see more pictures click on the link: Taka Dive

Once we get off the boat we will be doing a relaxing rain forest tour to the Daintree rain forest. I am really looking forward to this and have heard it is absolutely amazing! The rain forest tour also includes croc spotting and watching a live crocodile attack show. Anyone who knows me well, knows that i'm terrified of crocodiles (a strange fear having lived in utah my entire life up until now)... something about watching a rescue show when I was little, about a boy being attacked by an alligator or crocodile, left me scared for life. So I will be facing my fears head on and get to see wild crocodiles up close and personal. Crikey!

The next day we are off to go white water rafting. Awesome.

Then our final day we will go out with a bang by skydiving from 14,000 feet! aye carumba! Don't worry I am flying tandem with someone experienced, so if by chance I pass out the parachute will still open. ;)

Can't wait for our amazing adventure. However we will be missing our amazing families like crazy! Love you guys so much.

Merry Christmas everyone! Lots of pictures to come when we get back. :) xx

Bootcamp

Aussie Slang word of the day is...

Have a yarn: To have a chat with someone

In novemeber, with summer just around the corner and having spent the entire winter in a classroom and/or sitting at the computer for Uni, Anouck and I decided it was time to get in shape. Initally we had planned to join a boot camp, or join a gym to do group work out sessions (spinning, aeorobics, boxing etc), but after looking at the hefty prices we decided instead of forking out all that cash, why not do it ourselves. Thus marked the beginning of Anouck and Lisa's bootcamp.Bootcamp takes place every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday at 4:20 at Kings Park and consists of running up Jacobs ladder (explained below), sprinting up hill street, and doing various strength building exercises (weight lifting, lundges, crunches, squats etc.).

For those of you who don't know what Jacobs ladder is, it is 242 steep concrete steps that take you from the bottom of the CBD up to the top of kings park. It is a popular site for ambitious work-out gurus, and also (so i'm told) the #1 pick up place in Perth. So whether you are seeking a hot date or need to break a sweat this is the hot place to be. Just thought I would post some pics of Jacobs ladder so you can share the pain with me.

Goooo bootcamp!

Jacobs ladder

Jacobs ladder

Celebrations

Happy Birthday (yesterday) Jade. Hope it was a good one! Love you. xx

Where are you Christmas?

Aussie Slang word of the day is:

Chrissy: Christmas

The count down begins. It is officially 10 days until Christmas. Christmas is my all time favorite time of year. I enjoy getting into the holiday spirit by going out in the mad holiday rush to buy gifts, buying holiday almonds at the shops (Michelle you know what I'm talking about), putting up Christmas decorations, decorating a Christmas tree, making Christmas goodies, spending time with family, going to temple square to see the lights, drinking hot chocolate by the fire, going sledding, skiing and ice skating, listening to Christmas carols and snuggling up in a blanket to watch my favorite Christmas movies Elf, The Santa Clause, Christmas Vacation, and the Christmas Story. However, this year has been different. The song 'Where are you Christmas' by Faith Hill keeps playing in my head.

Where are you Christmas
Why can't I find you
Why have you gone away
Where is the laughter
You used to bring me
Why can't I hear music play

My world is changing
I'm rearranging
Does that mean Christmas changes too

I don't want to sound like the Grinch who stole Christmas, but I can't for the life of me get into the Christmas spirit. This could be due to the lack of snow and the fact that it is 100 degree weather here and all I want to do is go for a nice cold swim at the beach to cool down.

It's quite strange walking down the aisle at the grocery store and hearing Christmas carols in this type of heat. It takes me by surprise every time and I think to myself "Nah, It can't really be Christmas." Brandon and I didn't bring over any of our Christmas decorations when we moved because we were planning on coming home for Christmas each year. Unfortunately, greedy airlines see 'the season of giving' as a chance to take advantage of people and charge ridiculous amounts of money to fly. Sigh. So here we are in Australia without a Christmas tree, Christmas decorations, not a chance of snow and the thought of drinking hot chocolate (or shall I say Milo) in this stifling weather is purely unappetizing. How to get into the holiday spirit? In response to Faith Hills question "Does that mean Christmas changes too?" The meaning of Christmas never changes no matter where you live and it's important to not get blinded by Santa clause and Christmas traditions, although they are wonderful, what we should be celebrating is Christs life.

However, Since we will be calling Australia our home for the next three years or so, and it's pretty unlikely the season is going to miraculously change to winter, I guess it's time to take on an Aussie approach to celebrating Christmas and make some new traditions.

Time to light up the barbie and hit the beach for a swim.

Adventure World

Aussie Slang word of the Day is...

Mozzie: Mosquito

This past weekend I worked my first job in Perth. Anouck invited me to help out at the annual Rio Tinto Christmas party held at Adventure world. Adventure world is an amusement park here in Perth. The job was a four hour gig, that consisted of wearing these ridiculous sandwich boards, handing out presents to children and best of all, going on all the rides for free!

Santa's little helpers About to go on the 'Free Fall' ride
Race cars

Thanks Adventure world for all the memories! See you next year. :)