Sorry for the BIG gap since the last post - over the past few weeks, however, we have spent quite a bit of time "offshore" (sailing and diving) or in "the middle of nowhere" (i.e. Australia's Red Centre) with limited or virtually no opportunities to connect. As I am writing this, though, we have arrived in Paihia on the North Island of New Zealand, a little town on what's called the "Bay of Islands". But before we get to NZ, let me just catch you up on Australia!

After our visit to Sydney we flew on to Proserpine which is the main (and pretty much only) airport to get into the Whitsunday Islands on Australia's east coast. In fact, the airport was so small that the baggage claim consisted of the little car/truck that pulls the luggage carts simply driving up next to the airport building and people taking their luggage straight off the carts! :-)


Our sailing trip was very very fun - the scenery was beautiful, we had just the right amount of wind to do some real sailing and the food was great (surprisingly so when you considered the size of the kitchen).


There were 14 of us onboard consisting exclusively of - Germans and US-Americans!! :-) Seriously, there were three other Germans and then a group of US College kids who were doing an exchange year in Australia.
We spent our time hanging out on the deck of the boat (sunbathing etc.), reef snokeling and also made a stop at a beautiful beach called Whitehaven Beach where we got to swim with stingrays.



In short - it was a great trip and pretty much relaxing even though I have to admit I didn't sleep too well in the very tiny beds on board (and you couldn't sleep on deck without a proper sleeping bag).


After the Whitsundays we drove up north to Cairns for our diving course - a seven-hour drive! Lauren and I actually like going on road trips together, but this one was slightly hampered by the fact that our rental car started making a crazy loud wind noise right around 100 km/h which could only barely be drowned out by the car stereo!! Luckily, the speed limit was 100 km/h anyway, so I wasn't too bothered going 95 km/h for the rest of the trip.

Cairns turned out to be a major backpacker hub - and our hotel was right in the middle of town! We actually didn't have to walk more than two blocks to any of the places we needed to get to - a real bonus since we usually were pretty wiped out after our diving course. The course was very good and in retrospect (now that we've gone for a couple more dives here in NZ) just the right one in the right place, i.e. nice warm water! Our instructor was a German who had been living in Oz for a few years and he sure showed his Tschoerman traits - well-organized, extremely punctual, a bit strict on us students, but always fair and of course......very fun!!! :-)


Anyway, we really enjoyed the course even though it was quite challenging at times, but diving on the Great Barrier Reef was simply AWESOME!! After two days in the pool, we spent three days on board of a big dive boat with 30 other divers and finished both our "Open Water" as well as our "Adventure Diver" certifications incl. a night dive, a deep dive and a photo dive (see evidence below).


So much for our diving experience, next stop was Central Australia, i.e. Alice Springs and on southwards. The scenery once again was breathtaking as we rumbled along dirt roads for several hundred kilometers. We stopped for walks into a couple of gorges and chasms along the Western McDonnell ranges inclusing the rim walk along Kings Canyon - 3 hrs hiking in 37 degrees Celsius! Accommodations on the way had adapted to the environments - basic ruggedness.




Final stop was Ayers Rock (that big red thing in the middle of Australia that pretty much everyone recognizes) which we got to see both for sunset as well as sunrise. It turns out, though, that the much less well-known "Olgas" (or Kata Tjuta in Aboriginal language) in fact look a lot more interesting - at least for sunset. Temperatures topped out at 40 degrees and our average daily water consumption at four liters per person.




To wrap up our visit to Australia, we stopped in Melbourne where we visited Jen, Amar and little Maya who had moved here from Geneva three years ago. It was a good "downtime" for us with a very relaxing itinerary - morning coffee in a street cafe, walking along the beach at St. Kilda's plus lunch (all with Jen and Maya), ice cream downtown, tour of the famous Melbourne Cricket Grounds,


visit to the Rialto tower and finally dinner in an excellent Middle-Eastern restaurant with Amar. Too bad we missed the Melbourne Cup (one of the world's most famous horse races) by just a couple of days - instead we were there to witness the Oaks Day (another famous race day) with hundreds of very dressed-up (and extremely sunburnt) people wandering the streets after the race.
Needless to say, we both enjoyed Melbourne very much and especially seeing little Maya and Jen and Amar was great fun!


On to NEW ZEALAND! Well, we've only been here a couple of days, but the first impressions have been very positive. We had a good day diving the "Poor Knights" yesterday (one of Jacques Cousteau's top ten dive sites worldwide) and today went sailing (unfortunately not swimming) with a pod of dolphins.



Alright, this post is already way too long, so I'll leave it here and we'll try to give another update soon - at the latest before we head for Hawaii next week.

All is well with us, no major inuries or sunburns, the credit card is still working and best of all.... we're still enjoying the travelling!! (Only downside at this point - we're past the halfway mark! :-( )