We hopped a bus North to Cairns driven by Peter Brady, yes this was his name. We have been really busy the last couple of days. We went SKYDIVING! Somehow we thought that jumping out of a plane a 14,000 ft was a good idea. We went white water rafting where Ryan got a fat lip from the back of our helmet. We also went Scuba on the Great Barrier Reef. All this in only 3 days. We have a couple of much needed days to relax before we leave this country.

Three days of sailing, snorkeling, bush walks and relaxation! We got upgraded for a cramped dorm room to a suite, the only room on the schooner with windows. The weather was perfect, except we only had enough wind to sail on the last day. Snorkeling was unbelievable, we swam with a giant turtle. We saw clown fish, sting ray, clams and tons of other sea life. Ryan has some photos he will upload soon!

The food was all prepared by Matty the cook and it was excellent. We were not allowed to wear any sort of foot wear as it was a timber boat. The crew like Ryan and I so much they invited us out for a cold one after we returned. They said that they don't usually do this.

Last weekend we went camping on the white sand island of Fraser. We joined a group of 8 and rented a fully equipped jeep. Driving the jeep on the sand is much like driving in the snow so Ryan didn't have any problems when he gave it a go. Some of the roads through the island were a bit rough though, I will be happy not to be in a bumpy jeep ever again. The camping was fun, we cook food on the BBQ, we drank and got to know our new friends. The beaches were amazing! We saw wild dingos and there were lots of bugs. The island had many fresh water lakes. The water was crystal clear and the white sand beaches were beautiful. The best part was the stars, it was indescribable. It was like the planetarium, from the horizon of the sea to the tops of the trees, the sky was filled with stars. We chilled on the beach at night, listened to the surf and stared at the sky.

We are now in Airlie staying at Beaches hostel awaiting our 3 day sailing trip. Our hostel has a pool, a bar and bistro and is a 2 minute walk to the beach. We actually got up and went running this morning, yes, Ryan came too. It was short and hot.

More updates and photos when we return from sailing!

We will create a new blog soon, in the mean time check out the new photos!

We are traveling up the east coast of Australia via Greyhound. All the cities are totally spread out so it takes quite a bit of time to get from one place to another. We stopped in Port Macquire for awhile and our host showed us around town and took us out dancing with all the "schoolies" (high school graduates who talk a week to a month after school to travel, get drunk and into trouble). We then went to Byron Bay which is a wonderfully bohemian town. Everyone walks around bare foot and bare chested. The beach front parking lot is filled with hippie camper vans. The beach is filled with surfers, drum circles and sun bathers. Angelene swan in the ocean for the first time in her life here, it was great! Our hostel was just a hop from the beach and had a beachie resort type feel, definatly the best in Australia so far. We headed for surfers paradise next. It was packed with schoolies, thankfully we were only staying for one day! We did a bit of shopping here and got some meds for Angelene's cold. We are now in Noosa Heads, a small resort town. We went swimming again last night. We may head to the national park today or just spend a lazy day on the beach, who knows!

We booked some exciting trips so we will have lots of exciting news when we return.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

***More photos on flickr

well we made it to australia.  it was a 14.5 hour flight from LA.  We both got swollen ankles from the flight, and it didn't go away for at least a day.  We are staying in Sydney, near downtown.  there's not a ton to do here, but it is nice.  we're getting back into the groove of walking around ALL day.  we went to the zoo yesterday and saw an Orangutan pee into a plastic bottle and then drink it.  it has been overcast here, so we are not sunburnt yet.  we haven't hit the beach yet because it has been a little too chilly.  we are heading north tomorrow on the greyhound.  we bought a hop-on hop-off ticket that will take us all the way up to cairns.  the beer here seems to be far superior to the european beer that we have gotten accustomed to.  everyone seems pretty nice here too.  we will try to post some pictures in a day or 2.

Cheers!

We made it back to the USA will all of our baggage.  We spent 2 days in Cambridge with our Irish friends Cathal and Eimer, and Eimer's boyfriend Lee.  We had a very good time.  We went punting on the river, which is boating but where the boat is propelled by a person who uses a long pole to push along the bottom of the river.  We got the lazy mans' tour though, and had someone else do the punting for us.  It was cold and wet there, as it was in England.  Then we went to Dublin for about 2 days.  It was cold there, but not wet.  We walked around a lot, and went to the sites that we missed the first time around.  We did a fair amount of shopping; we got all our last minute gifts taken care of.  Angelene said that we had to spend the rest of our Euros so we wouldn't have to be bothered by carrying them around, and we pretty much succeeded at that.  Now we are in Chicago.  The weather is beautiful, 51F and sunny.  I couldn't believe that i would ever think 51F was beautiful, but it was... until the sun dissapeared.  We went to the post office and to Chipotle for lunch.  We leave for Aussieland tomorrow.  We fly to LA, then it is a 14.5 hour flight to Sydney, ouch!!  I'm sure it will be worth it.  We have also replenished our supply of reading materials, so that should help as well.  That is all. 

Who knew that a skill such as tree climbing would ever come in handy?! We have been harvesting olives for about a week now and it still seems like there is so much more to do. It has been a dry year so the olives are not as plentiful as they could have been but what is there takes time and work to extract from the trees. We talked about Ryan trying to train monkeys to pick the olives for us, it seems much more natural for them to be hanging from the flimsy branches of an olive tree then for a clumsy human to be. We use a few methods for removing the olives. One is to whack the tree with a long stick. This method is effective but also brakes a lot of branches off the tree and ends up pelting the other workers with hard, little olives. Another method, my favorite, is using a small hand-held rake and combing each branch. This is the cleanest method but is hard for the out-of-reach branches. The last is to prune the branches off the tree with a small saw and use a combination of the first two methods for removing the olives from these trimmed branches. You may wonder if there is an alternative to human labor, other then monkeys, to getting this job done. There is...a machine was invented for doing this work but has been know to harm the tree. Also, Armenian workers have helped in the past and we are told they are much more productive then the current American worker.

We are leaving Greece on Friday and start a 10 day journey to Australia via London, Dublin and Chicago. We are excited for the beach and the sun but sad to leave this wonderful little village of Antirrio. Two nights ago Dimitris took us to the local fish cafe and ate octopus, calamari, anchovies, sardenes (the last two are surprisingly good here), beet salad and chacolate cake for desert. We washed everything down with couple of small bottles of Ouzo. All this only set us back 41 Euro! Everything was very fresh and Dimitris said the owner of the cafe is a grilling genious, we agree. Tonight, we will grill in the fireplace the two meters of sauges Yannis purchased and watch the Champions Futball League on television.

PLAY...
We visited Zakynthos, one of the Greek island this last weekend. Getting there was quite a journey, we had to take a ferry across the river to Rio, then a bus to Patras (20 min.), then another bus to Killini (was sold out so we had to wait in Patras for 4 hours), then a ferry to the island of Zakynthos. When we got to the main port on the Island, the buses had all stopped running so we had to catch a cab to our hotel which was about 7 minutes away. It was dark by the time we go there. Much to our surprise, the hotel we had spent much time picking out on the internet before our trip WAS CLOSED FOR THE SEASON!!! We were confused and were just wondering around the hotel grounds knocking on doors and searching for someone. Soon, a nice women came and motioned for us to follow her. She took us to the Petrol station where there was another women who did not speak English. They talked it over for awhile and decided it was best to bring us across the street to the bar where there was a person who spoke both Greek and English. Long story short, they worked it out and were accommodating enough to open up a room for us.
The next morning we woke up eairly and wondered over to one of the many car rental shops. We rented a little Kia for the day which only set us back 20 Euro. We spent the whole day driving around the island, which is not too big. It was relaxing. We were informed by one of the bartenders that in the summer the streets are just filled with people. Now, it is the last week of the season and the streets are empty. Like our hotel, many places had already closed down.
The Next day was spent pretty much like the first day but backwards. We had much trouble finding the bus back to Rio though, who know one town could have so many #6 buses?!

WORK...
We started the olive harvest today! It is a lot of hard work but good. We use a method the involves beating the tree with a stick, kinda theraputic actually. Dimitris, our host, says we will get to see how the olive oil is made and how to pickle the olives. He had 135 trees and today we harvest 6, we have quite a ways to go.