A Holiday Down Under...

For the Christmas Holiday Mark and I were able to take a trip of a lifetime to visit Marks great Aunt Betty in Australia! And what a trip it was! We spent the first 7 days, including Christmas Eve and Day with Aunt Betty in her home in Runaway Bay, Queensland... We also spent a few days with her niece Trish and her husband Ray. The last three days of our vacation, Mark and I took a trip to the northern point of Queensland and spent 3 wonderful days just the two of us in Cairns. We were so blessed with all the different experiences we had... If you ever get a chance to visit Australia, we totally recommened it! The people were so friendly, there is so much culture and the country is simply beautiful!

One day in Cairns, we took at Crocodile tour in the Daintree Forest... 45 minutes on a boat, on a beautiful rainforest river... we only saw two little guys, but it was a pretty cool experience. After the croc tour, we headed back towards Cairns, but made an afternoon stop at Hartley's Crocodile Farm. At one point Crocodiles were going extinct because of poaching for their skin, so people began to "farm" them...something we should look into Farmer John. Needless to say, poaching has decreased because the farms have made it easier for people to get croc skin... So now their are many more left in the wild. At Hartleys, they also had a little tour boat which we took around, this is one of the crocs lying on the side of the bank... Wouldn't want to get in a fight with him, thats for sure.

The downer part about Cairns is that there is no true place for swimming. So if you want a vacation full of beach lounging, don't go to cairns. BUT they did have a lagoon built in the downtown that is free to the public. It was clean water, life guards watching and pretty awesome. We spent 1 afternoon there and the evening before we flew out. It is open until 10pm during the summer hours and has really nice shower halls for free! Pretty sweet place to bring the kiddos.

Down on the Gold Coast, our last day, Trish and Ray took us to Brisbane and we hopped on a city taxi, which is really a taxi that takes people down the brisbane river, but many people use this as their daily commute... It was pretty cool, a cheap tourist attraction, and a great way to see down town brisbane.

Myself and Coco, Mark and Aunt Betty in downtown Brisbane.

One day with Aunt Betty, we took a long afternoon/evening drive and drove south of Runaway Bay to another near rainforest that was known for all of their lookouts. I think we hit up 6 of them,it was pretty amazing and they had some beautiful views... We even saw aboout 50 wild wallabies (a type of Kangaroo). This picture Mark and I are looking out over Surfers Paradise.

On the second day of being on the Gold Coast Aunt Betty told us to take a day for the two of us and go play... so we did! We spent a little time on the beach in Surfer's Paradise, the sand was sooooooo soft, and beautiful... But the water was FREEEZING! We weren't in Saipan anymore. We could hardly get our toes in without screaming like little girls =)

Brit, Coconut, Paula, and Mark.... Notice the handplacements of the Koala, bad Koala.

On the same day that Aunt Betty told us to go play, we went to Curumbin Wildlife Sanctuary... I had never been to the zoo in my life so we thought this would be a great place to do! Unbeknownst to us, This wasn't just your typical zoo. Here you could touch and pet alot of the animals! We saw dingos, koalas, kangaroos, wombats, tazmanian devils, emus, snakes, crocs, birds, etc.. I think this day was one of our highlights! The Kangaroos were amazing and so soft and gentle (but out in the wild it is a different story)... Our favorite animal by far was the Koalas, yes I took about 75 pictures of them =). We even got a professional picture taken with them! We tried finding a stuffed Koala to bring home for Coconut, but for a little tiny one, they wanted like $25... so we said we will just have to bring her back here someday so she can hold one herself...

This was a great time to see Aunt Betty and spend some quality time with here. She is doing so well, and is still on top of it! We Miss her, and wish she were closer the the Sawyer's in the states, but, we recommened you go visit her! She is also making small talk about trying to get to the states once more =). Thanks Aunt Betty, Mom and Dad Oliver/Sawyer for making this trip possible... It was amazing and we are so glad we had this opportunity!

To check out all 710 (yes, I said 710) photos, you can click on the link on the right of this blog called a snapshot into Mark and Brittany's Wonderful life and take a look! Can't wait to get scrapbooking this awesome adventure!

So Long Mates!