Australia 2002

Australia 2002

Anne's Notes

(Lots of pictures below!)

The summer of 2000 opened our eyes and made us see how precious life really is! I had two major surgeries in 6 weeks one to save my mother's life and the other to remove a tumor from my inner ear. Later in the summer Brian II at the age of 21 was diagnosed with cancer (he is fine now-praise God). These events made us realize that we should stop staying someday we will go on my dream vacation to the "Land Down Under!" So we started making plans!

Brian submitted his request for 3 weeks of vacation during the time that I had off for the summer, as I am a teacher. We had purchased a book off EBAY. Brian from Motortraders was kind enough to hold the book for us until we came to Sydney so we could save the shipping costs! He was also extremely helpful in helping us choose things to do and places to go while we were on our vacation. He helped put in perspective how BIG Australia is. We decided to visit Sydney and Cairns. Thanks to Brian's encouragement we climbed the Sydney Harbor Bridge. It was a real celebration for us as I finished climbing that bridge by myself. Two years previously at that time, walking across the living room without loosing my balance or feeling sick was a great accomplishment!

We stayed at two bed and breakfasts and we would highly recommend them both. These people know the area well and can give you advice you would never figure out on your own!

When we visited Sydney we stayed in Rose Bay at Syl's Homestay. The whole family including the dogs made us feel welcome. The house is beautiful and the view is awesome! It was a very relaxed atmosphere. Everyone was anxious to help make our stay as pleasant as possible.

In Cairns we stayed with Abbey and Cat at Abbey's Bed and Breakfast! We loved the welcome environment! Abbey was able to tell us which tours were better than others. Abbey loved to hear our stories of our adventures! She especially loved the story about me waking Brian up at 10:45 PM by telling him that we had overslept and probably missed breakfast and our tour! Cat greeted us each night when we returned from our adventures! We loved going to breakfast each morning, as there were other guests there from all over the world! We hated to leave Australia!

We learned some valuable lessons we would be happy to share them with anyone considering a trip to Australia. First and foremost, don't take your own Wisk Laundry Tablets and expect to get through customs without your bags being searched and BIG armed security guards standing behind you while this searching is done! Laundry soap shows up on the scan as "organics", however they did not think we were bringing just any kind of organic matter into the country, they thought we were transporting some illegal organic matter! When we left Australia, the laundry soap stayed there too!

If you have any questions about our trip, please feel free to email us! Enjoy the pictures below! This is only a small collection of our pictures!

Our trip to Green Island on the Great Barrier Reef! Brian made friends with Alice who was visiting with her mother Christine from Paris, France. In less than 2 hours Alice had made Brian and I her Aunt and Uncle!

We could have stayed at Wild World all week!

We loved the up close and personal time with the animals.

The rainforest was more beautiful than we had ever imagined!

It didn't matter if you were in a cable car, on a train or on the winding roads, it was fabulous!

The flowers were beautiful in the Botanical Gardens.

The cockatoos loved the sunflower seeds a kind man shared with us!

The Botanical Gardens were off to the side of the Opera House where we saw Art Garfunkel!