Our last Australian sunset, on our drive from Gladstone to Brisbane.

Day 32 recap (Sat Mar 12) - The Last Day

[Stef] At 3:30AM we arrived at the airport, and got ready for our long trip back to the USA. Since we didn’t sleep much we weren’t that tired – yet! We returned our rental car and went to check our luggage. The very nice woman at the Qantas desk was able to check all of our luggage all the way to Denver for us. We would have to get it in Los Angles for customs but then it would get put all back on again to go to Denver with no troubles. We were even more excited about this, since we were both over the domestic weight limit. If the bags were never re-weighed, they would never find out and charge us more! PERFECT! That was a nice option too because we wouldn’t be worried about it in our groggy state that was sure to come that day.

Our flight to Sydney was only a couple hours and we fell right asleep. That was the last sleep I got. We asked for an exit row to LA – which is a great thing on an international flight because we had a lot of legroom. Well, seeing as I am so short, I was having trouble reaching the floor with my legs. When we have a seat in front of us, I can put my knees up on the back of the seat. Here, I could not, so, my legs got really cramped as they strained to touch. Yes, I really am that short! It was really hard for me to sleep. Scott was able to fall asleep, so I watched 5 movies while in flight and attempted sleep a half a dozen times. 12 hours on a plane is awful; sleep or not!

We arrived in Los Angles and made it through customs very easily. Even though I declared some silver-fern seeds I bought, the woman asked me one question “are you American?” and once we said yes, she let us through without even so much as opening our bag.

We knew we were in Los Angles when someone offering to help us find our gate also asked us for money. We missed Australia and New Zealand already! We declined to give them money- it wasn’t like we had any left at that point! And we split up to get to our airlines. I was flying on a voucher through Frontier and Scott was flying on American Airways. It was the first time we were separated from each other at all in 5 weeks. What a weird feeling… it was almost a tearful goodbye but our eyes were so sleepy that our tear ducts didn’t work! I was able to take an earlier flight but my bags wouldn’t get there until an hour after. I agreed to it.

In Denver, I was able to relax while I waited for Scott and my luggage. Luckily, the woman in Brisbane who checked our bags, checked them all the way through under my name, so all 4 bags came in together on my flight. I fell asleep a few times at a table in the corner of an airport restaurant (looked real classy to the public, I am sure…) while I waited for Scott. Once he got there, we were picked up by Melinda, Joaquin and Cruz (thanks gang!) and we were officially back in the USA.

The entire trip was a dream for both of us. I often tell Scott that if I had known I would get two honeymoons in my first year of marriage, I would have gotten married years ago! In all seriousness, I have traveled a decent amount worldwide and I have seen many amazing, breathtaking sites, but nothing I have ever done beats the month I have spent with Scott exploring. It didn’t matter where we were as much as it mattered that we were together. This trip will be one that I will never forget. I hope you enjoyed reading about it as much as we enjoyed doing it! Therefore, in closing, thank you Intel, you have provided us with the most unforgettable 5 weeks of our lives!

Our last look back at Heron Island - taking with us many fond memories.

View of the rusty shipwreck as we pull away from the dock at Heron Island.

Scuba divers getting ready for a training dive right off the beach. The darker spots in the water are the live coral.

Waiting by the dock for our boat back to the mainland.

Scott at our final lunch eating fresh fruit and shrimp.

Day 31 recap (Fri Mar 11)

[Stef] We got up at about 8 am and got dressed for breakfast. We enjoyed our last delicious pineapples and tried to act as though we were happy to get going. I think Scott and I could have stayed there for a really long time. It was a quiet breakfast, to say the least. We got back to the room, showered, and packed. We then put our bags outside of our room for the bell service to pick up and load on the boat. Since the boat leaves at 2 PM and we checked out by 11am, they gave us lockers to put our personal stuff in and a place to shower if we do any swimming in the two hours prior to the launch. Scott and I hit up the gift shop before he went on the 11:15am tour of the Research Center. I was not interested in doing anything like that on my last day, so I grabbed a lounger by the pool and enjoyed my last few hours in the sunshine.

We ate our lunch (our last fresh mangos and fresh catch shrimp) and grabbed a couple mangos for the airport. Scott and I then decided to go sit on the docks and wait for the boat. We took a few last minute pictures. It took all we had to smile for the pictures – What’s so great about LEAVING paradise? We saw some snorkelers going out and we watched with jealous eyes. We realized we did not get our launch tickets, so Scott ran back to the gift shop to pick them up. The woman there gave Scott some motion sickness medication. Thank goodness! I took that without any problem! We went to the lower level of the boat and to the back. Not long after the launch did I start to drift off to sleep. Apparently, the medication makes you drowsy, too! I woke a few times to see the boat was on a 45 degree angle because of the huge swell in the ocean. It was pretty scary, so I was happy to shut my eyes and got back to sleep! We both woke for the last 20-30 minutes and that was ok. We got off the boat to a nice day in Gladstone. Scott went to get the car and I waited for the luggage to come off. We loaded the car and we were off! We stopped for gas and then switched drivers – It was my turn!

We got going right away so that we could drive for the majority of the trip in the daylight hours. It was about 4pm so we did not have much time. Scott was going to sleep now in order to be well rested for his shift. When it comes to driving, I am my father’s daughter, especially with the challenge of driving on the left! I drove for most of the drive - about 4 or 5 hours. We stopped for dinner in the same small town we stopped in on the way down. We got subs at Subway, but we weren’t too hungry yet so we decided to eat on the road. There was a flock of lorikeets coming through. They were so loud and they all sat in one tree outside the sub shop! It was amazing. I am convinced that they remembered that we fed them a week before and so they were just following us to give us a proper send off! We drove for a bit longer and on the outskirts of Brisbane, we switched. I was starting to get tired but also anxious to “just get there”. We found a hotel near the airport called “Formule 1 Hotel”. They do not have a person at the desk after 10pm, but they have an outdoor machine where you can pay with credit and get a code to enter the building and get a room. We settled in, ready to sleep… we only had 3 hours of sleep before we were to be at the airport to fly to Sydney. We both had a vague memory of someone opening our door in the middle of the night, and we have no idea what that was all about. What a day….

Here we are in our Heron Island evening attire.

The snorkel/scuba boat.

Our favorite guide Paul, who led the scuba divers on this trip.

Shark below! This picture was taken with our (lousy) underwater camera. Scott got to within about 10 feet and snapped the shot.

Looking back at Heron Island from the snorkel boat.

Here we are on the boat heading out to the reef's edge for some snorkeling.

This baby turtle surprised Stef a bit when it climbed across her beach towel! The ipod gives you some perspective of the turtle's size.

Day 30 recap (Thurs Mar 10)

[Scott] No bird poop on Stef today, however my hair was the recipient of a good dumping. When we say there are a lot of birds on the island, we’re talking about more than you can possibly imagine really. I read that at peak times of year, there are over 100,000 birds here and we’re talking about an island less than a mile long! Anyway, we did sleep well last night, and we had decided before we went to sleep that first one up would wake the other up so we could go watch the sunrise. It’s no problem waking up early here with all the birds singing at dawn. I woke up at about 6:30 (about 20 min before sunrise) and we quickly got out to the beach in less than five minutes (we were surprised too!). It was very nice and a good way to start the day, but this particular sunrise was not nearly as nice as the sunsets we’ve seen here on the island each night. It’s pretty cool being a 3 minute walk to the sunrise in the morning and a 3 minute walk to the sunset at night! We also checked out the turtle nest right behind our room where we watched a mother lay her eggs last night. Stef pointed out the tracks in the sand where the turtle headed back out to sea. After walking up North Beach to Shark Bay for the sunrise, we didn’t discover any other turtle tracks so we quite possibly had the only one on the island right behind our room. We were amazed at how well the turtle disguised the nest. In addition to covering it back over with sand, she moved two or three large tree limbs over the nest. The dexterity of these animals is much greater than you would imagine. Her ability last night to dig a rather narrow two foot hole with her rear flippers was quite impressive.

After watching the sunrise, we went to the restaurant for breakfast. They have really great fresh fruit, and I think between the two of us we’re eating a whole pineapple each day. They have incredibly fresh mangos at lunch, which are my personal favorite. After breakfast, we headed back to Shark Bay and I snorkeled while Stef relaxed on the beach. I was hoping to get a glimpse of some reef sharks and manta rays up close, but there were none to be found. At this same spot last night, we saw dozens of sharks and rays circling close to the beach awaiting the little turtle hatchlings. So the snorkeling wasn’t so hot there, as the coral was mostly dead with few fish cruising around. There is a huge difference between snorkeling on just off the beach versus taking the boat out to the reef edge. Out at the reef edge the coral is so much more brilliant and there are many more fish in those deeper waters. The depth of the water on the reef around the island is only about 10 feet at high tide and about 2 feet at low tide, which prevents the coral from growing very large. Since today is our last day, we decided to sign up for two boat trips out to the reef edge – one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Each trip will give us one hour to snorkel in the water.

The 11am trip took us out to the same spot we were yesterday afternoon called “Blue Pools”. They didn’t have to twist our arm at all to go back out there. Yesterday when we were out there it was low tide, and this morning it was at high tide that time of day so it’s a completely different experience. Today was even better. The water was so clear and there was so much to see. We saw four or five reef sharks with the largest being about 8 feet long. It’s really exciting to see one of those – gets your heart rate up a little bit! Even though this is a relatively harmless small shark, it still has a pretty powerful look about it. There is such a variety of coral out there - it’s really hard to put in words. It’s all built up on top of each other, with so many different varieties with every color imaginable. Some look like big boulders, some have the look of tree branches, others like huge mushrooms, and that’s just to name a few. The size of these varies from rather small to 30-40 feet or more, and there are many caves and canyons in between all the reef colonies which make it exciting and sometimes even a little eerie. There are also many clam shells, which exist in a variety of colors with interesting patterns - some of them as big as three feet long. We bought some disposable underwater cameras, and we are really hoping our photos turn out well (turns out they didn’t turn out well at all). We saw many bright colorful fish of all sizes. I really like seeing the schools of large fish (1’-2’ long) – it’s exciting to watch 40 or more of these big fish cruise right by you. Maybe our most exciting viewing was of a manta ray swimming through the deep water just off the reef (maybe 50’ deep). I squeezed Stef’s hand tightly and pointed excitedly and she whipped around to see it maybe 10 feet behind her (I think at first when I got her attention and pointed behind her, she thought maybe Jaws was behind her!). The ray looked so graceful cruising past. I don’t know if it sounds exciting, but it’s really thrilling to see these animals behave in their natural environment – and from minute to minute you never know what you’re going to see! That particular snorkeling trip was probably the best of our vacation, and we had so much fun that we decided since it was our last day we just had to go on the afternoon trip as well. The best thing about this place (for us) is being right on the reef. The boat trips out to spectacular snorkeling only take about five minutes!

We had a good appetite after that adventure so we got showered up and headed to the buffet lunch. Today’s specialties were Salmon Provencal, Pork Meatballs, and a Spinach Tortellini. All were excellent, but I just couldn’t seem to get enough of the Salmon – I think I had four or five fillets (which they pronounce fill-its here in Australia). The breakfasts are pretty similar from day to day, but the lunch has been varied and really quite good. I don’t think that they’ve had any repeats on the lunch menu, other than the fresh fruit. It’s so nice having it all-inclusive so you don’t have to find out about a place to eat and get directions or decide how much you want to spend or any of that. I can’t think of a single thing we’ve had to worry about this week, not even if we grabbed the room key since they don’t use keys!

In the afternoon we headed out on the 3pm snorkel boat to a spot called “Hole in the Wall”, just up the Heron Reef a bit from “Blue Pools”. They call it “Hole in the Wall” because it used to have a big archway underwater, so the name was fitting. Apparently a few years back it collapsed when a cyclone passed through, but the name has stuck anyway. This was our fourth and final snorkel boat trip. The afternoon trips aren’t as popular so they take the scuba divers out on the same boat as the snorkelers, and it is interesting to watch those guys get all geared up with their tanks and everything and hear the stories of their dive. All the trip guides are fun people, but our favorite is Paul, so we were glad to see he was heading out since he wasn’t on our boat this morning (that was the only bad thing about this morning’s trip - the guides were – well they just weren’t as funny as Paul). Paul has a real quick Australian wit, and always had us laughing. Anyway, we jumped in the water and had a look around for a bit and about half way through we were taking a break just treading water and talking above water. Stef put her head back underwater for a check of our water depth, and lo and behold within about five feet of her was a sea turtle swimming by. Five feet away and out of nowhere! It wasn’t full grown like the one we watched nest last night, but it was probably a good two feet in diameter (maybe half the size of a full grown adult). I headed off following it for a bit at a distance, which was really fun. They are slow boring animals on land, but very graceful in the water. We were really excited because that was the one large creature we had yet to spot in the water. We did see another reef shark and this guy was cruising around pretty fast looking for food right below us maybe 30-40 feet down. We also spotted probably our biggest fish of the vacation – this one must have been 6’ long by 3’ tall and I’m guessing it weighed over 200 pounds. He popped out from under some coral just 15’ below us and made both Stef and I flinch a bit! It was brown with lots of spots. Another snorkeler, who also saw it, thought it was a Potato Cod. I don’t think they have dolphins here along the reefs, or at least no one has made mention of them. In the winter time, they say this is a great area for watching whales migrate. That will give us a reason to come back someday – on top of many other reasons!

We had another nice dinner. We’ve been getting the latest reservation (8pm) so we can get the most out of the daylight hours. The sun sets just after 7pm here, so it works out perfect. Their dinners always have great presentation, and they give us three choices each for appetizer, main course, and dessert. We had a nice bottle of wine from Hunter Valley with our dinner. Stef had a spicy quail salad that she said was delicious, a slow roasted beef entrée, and the lemon lime tart with crème anglaise. I had a tian of tomato and mozzarella to start that was okay, a pretty good pork entrée, and a strawberry dessert that was unexpectedly jello-like. My meal was good, but somehow Stef’s selections seemed to be much better across the board. As we were walking out of the restaurant, we started talking with an Australian couple from Sydney that we’ve snorkeled with a couple times. We ended up sitting out on the veranda for two or three hours listening to the waves roll in and chatting about differences between America and Australia among other things. One of the best parts of our travels has been talking with the citizens and learning about their culture, so we were really glad that we got to spend some time with them before we left. We’re sad it’s our last night on the island, but it has been a great four days.

The mother sea turtle laying her eggs on the beach right behind our room. The shell is probably about 4ft long by 2.5ft wide.

Heron Island sunset

A seagull snags a baby turtle. These turtles are a threatened species. Interesting statistic from the turtle talk: only 1 out of 1000 of these baby turtles survives to adulthood.

A dozen or so manta rays just off the beach.

The newborn turtles making a mad dash for the sea. Little do they know that there are sharks and manta rays circling in the water, as well as sea gulls in the sky above.

The nest of baby turtles starting to hatch.

Day 29 recap (Wed Mar 9)

[Stef] Today was a good morning, and it felt good to sleep in until 8AM. Scott woke up a little earlier and walked the coast around the entire island – which only takes about 30 minutes! We went to eat and after breaky (as the Australians call it), Scott took a little nap and I relaxed on the balcony. At 11AM, Scott and I went over to the Marine Center to hear a speaker talk about the turtles on the island, and it was really interesting. The Marine Biologist talked about the breeding, nesting, predators, and endangered list of turtles in Australia and specifically to this island. It was about 90 minutes long. We also got some good tips for turtle watching on the beach in the evenings. One thing we have discovered here is that all the workers here have a great sense of humor and heaps of personality. That makes every event more exciting. The interesting thing is that the Marine Biologists have many jokes about “science stuff”. It really cracks me up. Our Turtle lady started her presentation by cracking jokes against birds. Since birds evolved from reptiles, when she sees birds she thinks – “perfectly good waste of a reptile.” She used it a few times, actually. Luckily the subject matter was more interesting than that.

After the turtle talk, Scott and I hit up the lunch buffet. It was, as always, tasty. After lunch, we got ready for the 3PM snorkel boat. This snorkel trip was even better than the preceding trip. We went to a place named “Blue Pools”. It was a really amazing snorkel trip because this part of the reef had two areas next to each other where the reef had been naturally cut out and pools had formed on the top of the reef. We were able to swim over the reef’s edge into pools and see all that the underwater world had to offer. We were able to see so many beautiful corals and varieties of fish. The tide was going out so it was pulling the sand and debris off the reef, but that did not effect the ability to soak in the brilliance of the pools and the reef’s perimeter. We did find out later it made our pictures cloudy. The pictures may not be the best, but our memories will never fade. At one point, a school of squid came upon us, circled and swam off. There were also tons of electric blue fish swimming together. It was surreal. We would reach out, hoping to touch them, as if they were fake exhibits in a museum. Of course, they scattered, but they were so blue and mirage-like against the orange, yellow and tans on the reef walls it constantly astounded us.

We got back to the island and we showered and got ready for a walk on the beach. Although we still have a few more days here, we want to use every minute to our advantage. Who knows if we will ever get back! We signed up for the late dinnertime so we could see all that there is to see in daylight. Scott and I walked out to the beach behind our room. There were several people out enjoying the setting sun and hoping for the chance to see some baby turtles hatching. We came upon a group of students who were working at the research station on the other side of the island. They had found a baby turtle’s head poking out from the sand and they sat around it, waiting for the clutch to come out. We waited with them, and not long after we got our camera lens focused on the little heads, the clutch exploded from the sand. There must have been a 100 of these little turtles, and in minutes they were at the waters’ edge hoping to get a chance at life. Many people walked along side of the turtles to shoo away the seagulls. The help is always nice for the little sea biscuits, but unfortunately, there were countless manta rays and reef sharks waiting for a snack. It was an incredible, spiritual experience to see Mother Nature at work.

After the hatching was mostly over, we walked down the beach and caught a few shots of the sun set reflecting in the sky. We were at the opposite end of the island where the sun rises, but the colors were so radiant and picturesque. It was like being on the set of a movie. Once it was dark, we walked back to dress for dinner.

Dinner was another new experience. I ordered a delicious duck salad for my appetizer and coral trout for my main dish. Scott ordered an eggplant salad for an appetizer and for his main dish – KANGAROO!! The server explained to us that it had a “gamish” taste. It definitely did have a different taste to it. Overall, it was pretty good, but the problem was, a few days before this meal, we played with the kangaroos and fed them. However, as unintelligent as they are, they are adorable, and so it was hard to swallow! We both enjoyed a mango mousse for dessert though! We enjoyed relaxing and sipping our drinks with the warm ocean air blowing through.

We decided to go back and see if we could see any mother turtles laying their eggs on the beach. Scott bought a small infrared flashlight from the marine biologist station so we could see our path but not disturb the turtles. It really wasn’t much help on the path and we stumbled our way to the beach. About 15 feet from our room, when we stopped tripping on everything, we could hear the sound of sand being thrown methodically. Quickly, we realized it wasn’t either of us throwing at each other – it had to be a turtle! So, we started looking and sure enough, in the brush, we found a mid-sized mother digging her whole. It was even more amazing than the video footage we saw earlier in the day at the “Turtle Talk”. Scott and I found a nice log to sit on and watch. It must have taken her 2 hours to dig and then lay, but we saw it almost all of it! After she was done, she began pulling dirt back onto the nest in order to cover her clutch. We were getting tired and thought maybe she would want some privacy, so we left. I cannot wait to check it out in the morning! What an experience!!!