Australia

Vanessa and Cecelia met us in Sydney and it was great to see them after not seeing them for 2 months. Cullen was very excited to see his Mom and even more excited he would finally be headed home to see friends, family, and familiar after spending 7 months crossing the Pacific. I did promise him a quick trip thru Australia first before hopping on the plane with his Mom.

The One and Only was gorgeous and a touch of luxury to boot. We saw kangaroos, wallabies (kind of looks like a kangaroo), and wombats (kind of looks like a big guinea pig).

You could spend a year getting to know Australia but alas only had a couple of weeks with Vanessa and Cullen but the resort and the mountains were beautiful.

Sydney

It’s a 3 hour drive to Sydney and it was time to leave the country and head to the beauty of Sydney. It really is a special spot. They say Melbourne is a bit like San Francisco and Sydney a bit more glitzy like LA. We only had 3 days to explore the beautiful city, the harbor , the shopping and the tour of the opera house…..and 1 Irish Pub(What are we savages?)

Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef

I promised Cullen I’d get him to the Great Barrier Reef for some diving before he headed home.But first we had to get Vanessa on a helicopter out to Heron Island that’s right on the Barrier Reef. She was less than excited!

Man was it pretty…..and cold!!!!!! They have something here called Christmas in July as it’s their winter and after diving in 85F water all the way across the Pacific the 63F water was a bit of a shock..even with 7ML wetsuits but there is a payoff when you can see a manta ray from 6 ft away and it just hoverers and watches you.

We didn’t do a ton of diving as it was cold and very windy. Instead we watched some beautiful sunsets, took walks and played a lot of cards- I usually lost BTW.

Ok, so Cullen and Vanessa head home tomorrow. I head back to the boat and Mike spends a week with his family and friends on Hamilton Island and then Mike and I have about 6 more weeks till we head home. The 7 months have gone very fast in some ways and very slow in others. Seems like a long time since I left home and ages since I’ve seen my daughters, family and friends. I will miss having Cullen around who’s been my typist and caught a lot of errors as I’ve been beer blogging. His favorite was when I said” I can’t wait to meet the Kuna Indians where we will exchange crayons and coloring books for their children”. To which he responded,” Dad, I don’t think you want to say that!!” I’m so happy he came but it’s time for him to get to college and get on with the rest of his life. More from Australia later. John, Mike and Cullen