Great Barrier Reef here we come!

Rainbow at Bondi Beach

I have to let you all know that we going to be off-line for a while – we have arrived in Cairns (North East Oz) and are about to embark on a 4 night dive cruise.  And the boat has no internet access.  In this day and age!  So, much to my dismay, I won’t be able to watch the Royal Wedding.  Sniff!  Okay, I’m sure they’ll re-broadcast it over, and over, and over again.  So, I’ll see it eventually.

Check out the tatoo!

The point of the expedition is to dive the Great Barrier Reef, something I’ve been wanting to do for a very long time.  And now the day has arrived!  We’ve been lugging our wet-suits all across the world, so they will finally be put to some good use.

We arrived in Australia 2 days ago, landing in Sydney.  Andy, having lived there back in the day, gave me a whirlwind tour of the city yesterday.  Scenes from “Finding Nemo” came to mind.  We managed to see all the famous landmark synonymous with Sydney: the Harbour Bridge, Opera House, Darling Harbour (pronounced “Dahling Haaba” if you’re an Aussie), Bondi Beach, the Fish Market, Sydney Tower etc.  (Weird to think that the first foreign settlers (including convicts) arrived in the late 1700’s!)

Sydney Harbour

It’s a really pretty city.  Very cosmopolitan, so probably not representative of the rest of Australia.  And freakin expensive!  The Aussie Dollar is currently costing us R7.20 (compared to R6.59 for the US Dollar).  A banana from the supermarket cost us the equivalent of R21 yesterday – what the heck??  And I thought the US was expensive.  Hopefully our Rand will go further when we reach South East Asia.

Okay, so, goodbye for a few days.  (Hope all you South Africans are making good use of all the public holidays!)

 

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

7 Responses to Great Barrier Reef here we come!

  1. Kerry says:

    Sounds like you’re having a fab time! We’re also keenly watching the price of bananas soar on the east coast as they’re Danny’s favorite! A$17 a kg seems like day light robbery doesn’t it? Hope you have a brilliant dive!

  2. Gerda says:

    Hi Denise & Andy
    Enjoy your 4 day dive cruise at the great barrier reef! It is our dream to one day experience that as well!

  3. Vasku Pech says:

    World tour…. Wow…. when did you start?

  4. Vasku Pech says:

    Lucky you…. how did you manage to take off so much time from work?

  5. Vasku, I have a very reasonable boss 🙂

  6. monré says:

    I also missed the royal wedding (no TV or internet while we where in Namibia…), my mom taped it and you can watch it with Anell!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *