Ep 116: The Great Barrier Reef and Queensland, Australia Itinerary Part 1

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Transcript

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Welcome back to another episode of the dare to dream physician travel podcast. I'm so excited. You're joining us today and we are going to talk about my Australia, a temporary part one this week. We're running and focusing on. Art trip to the great barrier reef and the rest of Queensland. The reason why I'm starting with this is because I've heard so many doctors say. When we asked what are your bucket list travels? And the great barrier reef comes up quite often. And for good reasons, the great barrier reef is just an incredible. Ecosystem it covers almost 350,000 square kilometers. And if we're just looking at the latitude, it ranges 14 degrees of latitude. So it starts at 10 degrees south. To 24 degrees south. And the great barrier reef if you look at the earth from the sky, it's visible from space and you have this breathtaking aerial views of this incredible natural formation. It comprises of 2,500 individual Reeves and over 900 islands. And we have over 1,500 species of fish over 400 species of coral, half the world's diversity of mangroves and many sea grass species. 4,000 species of mullahs and some 240 species of birds. Making this an area of unparalleled biodiversity and, um, for good reason, it is a world heritage UNESCO site. And the great barrier reef unfortunately has also been the subject of environmental changes. One of the things that's, happened is the bleaching of the reef. And I was doing some research when I first got into diving about a year ago and got my scuba diving certification. Six months ago, I was, reading about what are my bucket list trips around the world to go diving. And I can't remember where I read this by. I remember reading. out of all the great places to dive and the great places, and also, you know, the supplies to start going to, out of all the great places to see the coral reefs, or you want to go to the great barrier reef, make that a priority, go there as soon as possible because, it may not be there forever. And Australia is just a really fun place to visit. As is the rest of Queensland. The state of Queensland, which is one of the six states in Australia, um, is just really an amazing place. So I've never done an episode like this, where I share the itinerary, but because I did quite a bit of, trip planning for our Australia trip. I actually took a lot of notes. So I'm going to try this out. See if you guys like this and let me know. This is helpful after you listened to this episode. First of all, we were in Australia for about three weeks and the first part. Maybe the first week and a half. Of her trip. Most of the time we spent in Queensland. So when you are considering, visiting Australia, especially if you're coming from the states, one of the biggest hurdles is actually just finding a way to get there. Um, it's, it's pretty far away. So for us coming from Vermont, it's a really, really far away. We are quite far away from the west coast, which is where most of the direct flights to Australia originate. Plus, you know, flying with three kids, the youngest of whom was six at the time. Um, we, we wanted, I wanted to make this as easy as possible. So, what we did is we actually flew from Burlington, Vermont to San Francisco, and we stayed a few days in San Francisco then from San Francisco, there are actually multiple drug flights from San Francisco to different cities in Australia, and same with Lex. So SFO San Francisco airport and, and Los Angeles airports both have drunk flights to go to Australia. So from San Francisco I was looking at United flights you can fly direct to Sydney. Uh, Brisbane and Melbourne. So three major cities in Australia and Australia is very large. It's not like you can easily drive to the other city. So it is actually really smart to pick a place, to fly into the city that is close to where you want to go. And, we flew United back from Australia, but we didn't end up flying United over there. Part of the reason was we, I was a little bit nervous about spending an overnight trip on the plane with the kids, I wasn't sure if they could sleep. And I thought they would be really overtired and the United flights to Australia, start in the evening and it's an overnight flight. 13. Plus hours, direct flight to an Australian city. So I didn't. That was a little bit nervous about that. So instead we found a Hawaiian airlines flight, um, which had a layover in Honolulu. So we did San Francisco. To Honolulu and from Honolulu to Sydney. That is actually a daytime flight. So we basically started in the morning. So when we arrived in Australia, it was at around 7:30 PM in Australia time. So we could just go straight to the hotel and go straight to bed. one thing that I learned, I shared in the previous episode, that you will not make this mistake after hearing me talk about it is American citizens do need visas to go to Australia. So you can actually apply for this ahead of time. There's an app where you can apply. You just pay. I think it's like 20 Australian dollars per person. And you get an immediate confirmation of the visa. So you do have to show that when you check in for your flight to go to Australia, so aside from that blip. The flight was relatively smooth, that the flight was delayed a little bit, and that led to our shortly over in Honolulu being even shorter than it was, but we were able to make the next play just fine. Um, and it was very comfortable. I really liked Hawaiian airway. It was the first time that we flew it and for this long distance flight, it was, as comfortable as I can imagine it to be flying economy class. Our ticket was relatively inexpensive. I think we flew for about$800 one way per person from San Francisco to Sydney. So we got to Sydney airport and it was maybe around seven 30 or so at night. It took a while going through immigration and customs. There was a really, really long line. A lot of people, I don't even know where they came from, but there was a lot of people. This is where I get to test out my new international plan. So I got a new phone service with Google fi Google F I, and that is a phone service based in the us. But if you go international, you don't have to pay an extra$10 like Verizon or at T and T per day. And since we were in Australia for three weeks, I wanted. To get something a little bit more budget friendly. So we got to test out Google fi, which actually works perfectly. I was able to call the hotel when we landed, just to make sure that they had my reservation and it was able to get an Uber, through the data because whatever data comes with your international plan on Google fi is how much data you get internationally, which is amazing. So yeah, we got an Uber. I made my first Popal was I tried to. I tucked all my kids in and their seats in the car. And, I will try to go into the driver's seat cause I went on the right side of the car and the driver was there. That's actually for the drivers. So the Uber driver laughed at me and it went to the left side where I would say in the passenger seat. So we got to the hotel. I intentionally booked a hotel that was relatively inexpensive, but had good reviews for being clean. And that was close to the airport. Because it was, it was much cheaper than getting a hotel in the part of Sydney where we wanted to stay later on. We stayed at value suites, which isn't green school year. It was perfect. It was exactly what we needed. It was a, maybe like a 10 minute Uber ride away from the airport. The room was clean and we got two rooms. And, it was much cheaper than staying in downtown Sydney. And, um, all we really need to do by that time. It was maybe like nine or 10 o'clock and we just wanted to S take a shower and go to sleep after such a long day of traveling. So the next day we woke up. Eight, a quick, a very simple breakfast at the hotel. And walk to the train station and took the train. Into downtown Sydney. It was pretty easy to navigate. And it was so much fun. And once the train got into downtown Sydney, it was so exciting. To step out of the train station and just, see downtown Sydney. So the hotel that I picked was, Sydney Harbor, Marriott near circular way. Perfect area to stay because it was just right in the action of everything. Um, and that's what I wanted. I just, we, we didn't have that much time in Sydney and I just wanted to make it easy and, have a, a nice clean hotel in a good location. we spent three days and two nights in downtown Sydney. And it was really a fun city. It's a really laid back city. Um, it felt like a very safe city. I actually asked our hotel concierge, you know, when he showed me the map, is there any place we're gonna be walking around and is there any place that I should avoid at night? And you know, he kind of laughed at me and said, no, no, you're in Sydney. Everything's okay. of course, you always want to take precautions and keep your streets smart, but, that was pretty reflective of my experience, in that it felt like a very safe place to walk around, and it's, it's a beautiful city, you have the, the Sydney Harbour, um, the Sydney Opera House, which is, you know, the iconic architectural structure, and My kids had just recently watched Finding Nemo again and they were so excited to, to see Sydney Opera House because that was in the cartoon, and it's just very picturesque and the, the vibe in that part of the city, was very, very pleasant and we also went to the Royal Botanical Gardens, which is also a short walk away from a hotel. And it was fun to see the different birds and the plants and they're totally different, from what we're used to seeing at home. we actually walked all the way to Chinatown. I think that day we probably walked more than five miles and my nine year old was starting to complain. My six year old and my thirteen year old was, you know, they were okay with the walking. It did get to be a little bit too much walking. But they have a very good public transportation system. Very interesting, actually, the ferry, going through Sydney Harbour. It's both a tourist ride but also means of public transportation, how people actually get around and commute there. So you have the train, you have the above ground they look like cable cars to me. I forget what they call them. And they have the, ferry. What I really liked about Sydney was just the vibe of the city and we were there in August and two and a half days we got pretty decent weather, you know, nice and sunny, and it felt like it was in the 60s and 70s, definitely t shirt weather for me at least, there was one morning when it was a little bit cloudy and it might have rained a little bit, but, in the afternoon we, we got around and walked around, even though it was a little bit cloudy, it wasn't actually raining then, so on our last day in Sydney, the plan was to get an eight passenger rental van because we had seven people at the time, and start driving out of Sydney and go towards Queensland. This is definitely part of the adventure. The process of getting a rental car was actually not as hard as I thought. Technically, you should have an international driver's license. I did not get one. You can get them, it's pretty easy to get. I do have one now for, for our next trip, to Europe. But I just used my, American, Vermont driver's license., because it was in English, they could read it. And I went through Hertz rental car. Uh, they had several locations, and I picked the location that was closest to where I was staying, which is in downtown Sydney. So, we got a rental car from them. They had eight passenger vans. The Kia Carnival. It's a really nice, very easy to drive. Diesel van, it was very comfortable, very comfortable to seat eight people because they're, they have vehicles that say on paper, it sits that many people, but when you actually sit the third row, it's really uncomfortable. That was not true with the Kia Carnival at all. So I had to get the van and then drive it back to our hotel in Circular Quay, which is, you know, one of the busiest, densest part of Sydney. Because it was too far of a walk and I, I didn't think my kids could walk that far with their suitcases. That was a really good first practice. in Australia you drive on the right side of the car. So the driver's seat is on the right side of the car. For a long time, my brain had to get used to the parallax, so, when I sit on the left side and try to keep the car in the center of the lane, it's very different from when I sit on the right side and try to keep the car in the center of the lane because of the parallax that you get. So anyway, it took my brain a while, a good while, to adjust to that, and, the good thing is the new Kia Carnivals actually tell you whether you're driving in the center of the lane. I got a lot of beeps when I first started driving that van. I mean, part of the adventure of being in a new country, a new continent and in the Southern hemisphere is, I get to think on my feet and I get to try, try new things. So From downtown Sydney, my mom actually wanted to go visit Blue Mountain, which is maybe like an hour and a half outside of, Sydney, and it's a really, usually a really nice spot, you get this really nice vista, funny thing is, um, the day that we were driving out of Sydney, the only time that we could go to Blue Mountain, uh, it was pouring and pouring rain. So I got really good practice driving our van in the rain on the other side of the road, um, from the right side driver's seat. and then when we got to Blue Mountain, it was all foggy, so we didn't really see anything. But we got some pictures of the fog. From Blue Mountain, we started driving north and we were heading towards Queensland. First night we stayed in a town called Merriweather just passing through. And then, um, we kept going north and the second night we arrived in Queensland, we stayed in a town called Corumban Valley, and that was to, go to our next destination, which is to visit the Corumban Wildlife Sanctuary. This is right near the Gold Coast, which is, a little bit south of Brisbane, remember the big, the big city that I told you about that you could also fly into if you want to go to the Great Barrier Reef. Corumban Wildlife Sanctuary is one of the few sanctuaries, in Australia that actually allows you to hug a koala. There are many wildlife sanctuaries that have koalas because, koalas are quite threatened in the Australian bush. Because of the frequent bush fires, they often end up needing to be rescued. So there's, a lot of koalas in these wildlife sanctuaries. So I usually don't like very touristy things. But, um, one of the things that I knew I wanted to do when I got to Australia was to see a koala. And when I read that there are places in Australia where you can actually hug a koala, I thought, I gotta, I gotta do that. So we looked at several options and the best option was to, sign up for, This special offering they call it brekkie with koalas. So, you have breakfast with the koalas and, you basically get a very nice breakfast for each person and during the breakfast, they introduce the koalas, and they bring several, at least five, or if not more, koalas around the area where we're having breakfast, and there's hand sanitizer there, so you get to pet the koalas, um, as you're eating breakfast, they rotate through the table, so everybody gets a chance, and um, You just get to learn a little bit more about them, ask them questions about each koala. At the end of the breakfast, you also get to have a photo opportunity with the koala. To hold the koala, they can. Um, for the younger kids, if they aren't strong enough to hold the koala. They would hold the koala next to the child and take a picture. That was so much fun. The breakfast. Was, about a hundred Australian dollars for adults and 90 Australian dollars for kids. And, not only does it include breakfast and the photo, it includes admission into the park for the whole day. So it was a really great bundle. And they gave us some insider's tips, like, hey, right after the breakfast, the first place you want to go is the petting zoo where you can feed and pet the kangaroos. And there's also emu that you can pet. And if you do this earlier, the kangaroos are, are, are still hungry. So they're more interactive when you try to feed them. So it was a lot of fun. For the adults and the kids. It was a really nice experience. That was probably the most touristy thing that we did in Australia and it was completely worth it and I would do it all over again. The other thing about the wildlife sanctuary is it felt like it was a zoo. These were rescued animals, but it really felt like a zoo. You really get to see the different animals, wombats and, different animals that are in Australia. There's so many different birds. They have this. It's this really phenomenal bird show, it's really interactive and the bird is flying from one end of the auditorium to the other end of the auditorium. It's all outside and, that is also highly recommended as well. There's also a train that goes, you can of course walk from one end of the park to the other, and get your steps in that way. But, if you have little kids and they don't want to walk as far, there's also a train that stops throughout the different parts of the sanctuary. Koalas are harder and harder to see. Out in the wild in Australia, if you don't want to leave Australia without being guaranteed to see a koala, then I would definitely go to, Rumba Wildlife Sanctuary, or at least one of the many sanctuaries. Just remember there are, states in Australia allow you to, hold the koala. So if it is on your bucket list to hold and hug and touch a qua and get a photo. You may want to double check that, you know, the sanctuary that you're going to does allow that. In my research, Queensland is one of the states that does allow you to do that. We also switched gears a little bit and visited Q1 in the city of Gold Coast. Q1 is the name of the building. It's the tallest building in Australia. And it's the perfect place to have this building because, you can buy tickets to go up to the Sky Point Observation Deck, there's a restaurant there where you can order food, and you get this beautiful view of the Gold Coast, the city, you get the view of the ocean, when you're traveling with a large group of people, everyone has their interests, So, you know, I have a kid who loves birdwatching. I have a kid, who loves, animals and, going to hug a koala made the day for my daughter she talked about it for days and months afterwards. And then our middle child he, he went and hugged the koala, but it wasn't his, it wasn't the thing that made him most excited. For him, it's skyscrapers and cities. So that's why we stopped at Q1 and he was so excited to go up on the SkyPoint observation deck to get the view and he just, he loved it. So, um, that day was a little bit of everything for everyone and it was, it was really a fun time. Then we left the Gold Coast and Brisbane area. We drove to our next destination, which is Hervey Bay. We had quite a bit of traffic going towards Brisbane during rush hour. It was supposed to take four and a half hours to drive to Hervey Bay. It took a little bit longer than that. Hervey Bay is this really cool place in Queensland. It's a little bit out of the way, but with a vehicle, it's an easy drive to get there. What Herbie Bay is best known for is being the best humpback whale watching in the world. Certainly it was the best humpback whale watching I have done. Oftentimes when you go on whale watches, they'll say, Oh, you'll get your money back if you don't see a whale. And, you know, if you go to Hervey Bay during whale season, I don't even think they need to make that statement because I don't even think that's possible for you not to see a whale. The, the town itself, the town near Herbie Bay is, is quite small. It's about 55, 000 residents. So, so it's kind of a sleepy town, but, it is just really, really pleasant, there's fresh seafood that you can buy directly from the seafood shops. We stayed at this, one of our favorite places to stay for our family. It was basically just this apartment hotel. It was so clean and it was just, just really comfortable Hervey Bay. That was called the Akama Resort, A K A M A, Akama Resort. Really nice people. One of the things that's also amazing about Queensland is it is one of the few places in the world where it is legal to swim, to be in the water and swim, when humpback whales are in the water. When I first read it, I thought, yeah, of course, that's where I'm going to go. I'm going to go there so I could go swim with humpback whales. Doesn't everybody want to do that? And it turns out that not everybody wants to do it, but, if this is your thing if you hear, I did a whole podcast interview regarding swimming with humpback whales and other amazing creatures, With Dr. Oksana Ormonova Those back, episode, 102 and 103 You can hear a little bit more about her experience of doing that And other places in the world, but, they're just such amazing creatures. And, even if you don't get in the water with them, it's just so amazing to watch. It's just so you get, they get really, really close to the boats. Um, and it's just, I think it probably ruined humpback whale watching for me in North America. After having gone on that tour, but totally worth it. If you are really gung ho about swimming with whales, I just googled whale swim, and a bunch of different, tour operators offer it, they're all a little different. So the one currently, you know, as of August 2023, when I was there, if you're really serious about, wanting to swim with the whales is the, herbie Bay Dive Center. So they don't you don't dive with the whales. You really are only swimming with them with your snorkels, no fins, they are the, tour operators for hardcore people who really want to have that whale experience close up, and they will go out there for five and a half hours to look for, opportunities to swim, so that is, you know, so that's the one to book. I didn't quite understand that when I was looking. And so I saw that as an option, and they have a very strict age limit. And because I was traveling with my kids, I wouldn't be able to take my daughter, who is the one who's most excited about doing this, because she's only six years old. So I hesitated to book. By the time I got closer to Herbie Bay, they were all sold out for the dates that I was going to be able to make. So I did not go with them. However, I went with another company that I was really, really happy with. And honestly, if I were to go again, I'd probably go with them again, because of a very unique tour that they offered and it worked out really well for the whole family. And that's Tasman venture. All of these companies have their website, so you can just Google and find it. But what I booked with them was a full day experience that included that we're watching and the whale experience and a Kigari Island remote experience, which Cagari is formerly known as Fraser Island. It's also a World Heritage listed site and it is an island off of the coast of Queensland that is the largest sand only island in the world. it's, It's such a cool place. It's got sand dunes, it's got, mangroves, it's got this river running through the center of it. So that the full day experience involved, they were looking at the weather, about half of the time we're doing whale watching and if the opportunity allowed. If the whales came to us, so you can't chase the whales, but if the, the whales came to the boat they let people go and swim, hold onto a rope and wear their snorkels and go in the water with the whales, and then the other part of the day, we are going on Cagari Island and doing various activities, including tubing, climbing and hiking the sand dune, which is very easy to do. I did it in my flip flops. And, kayaking. Through these beautiful mangroves, through a very peaceful and calm stream in the middle of the island. It was just glorious. It was so beautiful just to be able to, to have that, really unique experience. I actually asked them if, they would allow my daughter who's six years old to get in the water for the whales and they were totally okay with it as long as I was comfortable and she was comfortable. That was really cool that they didn't make any hard rules, but looked at things on a case by case basis. We saw so many whales. We saw some moms and the calves and, just the adults alone. And, when it comes to swimming, there was an opportunity to get in the water and that was so incredible, when the whales got close and, we got our wetsuits on and, what was interesting was maybe 10 percent maybe 15 percent of the people on the boat actually wanted to get in the water, everybody else just watched, so there was plenty of opportunity to get in, it turns out that day, which I heard is, is not an uncommon condition. That day, the water was fairly calm, but the visibility was not good. So I was in the water when the humpback whale was really, really close to us. And I could hear the whale while I was in the water, I could see the whale breach when my head was above the water, but in the water, I couldn't really see anything. The visibility was so poor, so I couldn't really see the whale underwater, but I still count it as an experience. It was just, it was just really incredible, I couldn't have asked for a better day. I couldn't have asked for a better day. That was, that's really, yeah, highly recommend. And the price was very reasonable for what they gave you because you were there for the whole day. They gave you, a breakfast or a snack in the morning and they gave you lunch. And by the way, I'm incredibly impressed overall by how well Australia caters to dietary preferences. I have certain food allergies, I'm allergic to wheat, I'm allergic to, nuts. They were extremely good about it and that was true during the breakfast we had with the koala, brekky with koalas I was really impressed by that. So that tour, that full day, Ramon Island and whale watching experience was just really really memorable. We all loved it, herbie Bay is actually a great access point to a really incredible sounding island on the Great Barrier Reef called Lady Elliot Island. It's about a 40 minute small aircraft flight to Lady Elliot Island from Herbie Bay. After having spent time in the Great Barrier Reef, talking to some of the the staff that works on the island that we ended up going to I heard is an incredible place, especially from May to August. Because that, that's when they have the really large sea creatures. It's the island of Manta rays and the visibility is especially good around May and June. So just keep in mind, you can go to Herbie Bay and basically, have this incredible whale watching experience, go to, Cagari Island, formerly known as Frasier Island, do that in a day, and then, go to Lady Elliot Island and spend time in one of the most incredible islands on the Great Barrier Reef. That would be something I would consider the next time I go back. we didn't end up going on Lady Ali Island because I think by the time I looked, most of it was booked and it looked a little bit intimidating with the, the flight. Where we ended up going. Is our next destination. So we drove about three and a half hours to the next town, the town Gladston. And by the way, the driving in Australia, where we drove in Queensland, people were polite drivers. It took a little while getting used to driving from the right hand seat and the vehicle. And, being on the left side of the road. One of the hardest things to get used to, which, you get better with practice is going through traffic circles. Instead of having stop signs, most of the time there are these traffic circles where it's a challenge. The most challenging part is making sure you're turning the right direction, you basically make a left at each traffic circle and you go around the circle and, when it's your, whichever road you want to end up on, you know, whether it's the first left turn or the second left turn or the third left turn. I hear from my friends that these traffic circles are also in and other countries, like Scotland. So, once you get some practice in Australia, you might also get comfortable and driving and other parts of the world with these big traffic circles. the next stop, was Gladstone this is, an industrial town, when we arrived in Gladstone, we returned our rental van. And the next day. We boarded the ferry to go to Heron Island. Heron Island is, an island, it's a little bit over 70 acres. And it is an island in the Great Barrier Reef. We took the ferry, I forget exactly how long the ferry was, maybe about an hour and a half. And, when you get there, it is just this island and the ocean. And the color is just stunning. The color is this aqua blue, clear water. It is just stunning. It is, up until then, when I look on the coast of Queensland, the, the water doesn't look anything like that. The water is not, it's not clear but, once the ferry arrived on Heron Island, it was just, just beautiful. And the island is a coral cay, so the entire island is made of coral sediments. And, and it's, it's incredible. I can't speak highly enough of our time in Heron Island. We spent four nights there, it's not very big. And at first my mom said, Oh, maybe we shouldn't spend so many days here. But I think, after. Day after day and when it was the third day I still didn't want to leave and I thought the four nights that we spent here was perfect I probably would have been happy spending more time there. The things that you can do on here on the island so first of all, you know you get to the island on a ferry and it seemed like everybody on the boat was there to stay, stay at least one night there. They tell you when you get there at the welcome presentation that, there are no locks on Heron Island and there are no keys. It's one less thing that people would lose and one less piece of trash that could potentially go in the ocean. And they said, there's anything that's really valuable that you went locked up, just go find us. But, I just kept everything in my luggage and in my room. And I felt pretty comfortable with that. Highlights from Heron Island. It's just a beautiful place to be. And it's just magical to be in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef, like literally in the ocean standing on a coral cay. Activities that you can do. It has a few nice, beaches where you can just sit. You can certainly go swim in the water. Everybody who, is staying there gets, access to, goggles, snorkel and fins. Cause when we were there in August, it's their winter, the water is a little bit cool. So most people also would want to rent a wetsuit. so you can snorkel from the shore, you have to wait until it's high tide. When it's low tide, you can walk, just be careful not to walk on the coral. You just don't go on your own and explore, right from the shore. The coral there is brimming with fish, there were soft corals with colors. But there's also quite a bit of brown color, and that's the hard coral. In addition to that, they have, friendly sharks, they call them. They said, you'll see sharks here. None of our sharks are going to hurt you. so it's pretty cool to see a black tip or a white tip shark swim right by you. Even as you're standing in the water. That's the snorkeling. That's all pretty much included in staying in the island. You can also pay extra fairly inexpensive to go boat diving or snorkeling. And I did a total of six scuba dives when I was there. They were all drift dives, which I had not had that much experience doing before. So it was a really good learning experience for me. The visibility, varied depending on, the weather and the time of the day. Usually the morning dives have better visibility. I have to say that the snorkeling from the shore had way better visibility than the diving. The diving visibility varied, because I love diving and it was relatively inexpensive to dive because of their packages that they're offering. I really loved my six dives and, during two of our six dives, we spotted a manta ray, which is so, so magical to be in the water with them. Everybody was just, Everybody was in awe. Okay, so there's diving, there's snorkeling. Also just have included activities where you can, do hikes around the island. You can also do the hike on your own. There was also the option to go on the I spy glass bottom boats, which I booked for my family. Actually we happen to be on Heron Island for my dad's birthday. And my dad passed away. About a year prior, July of 2022 and everybody that was there when he passed away, my mom, my aunt's uncle, who had flew in from San Francisco to help with the caregiving. Me and my three kids were all there, the day that my dad died and, it was just a little bit over a year from when he died and it was his birthday. It was just such a special day, to spend on the Great Barrier Reef traveling together as a family. Was a great way to just travel and honor my dad to remember my dad. So, on my dad's birthday, we went as a whole family on the I spy glass bottom bow. And that was fun because everybody, even the people who didn't snorkel, even my mom, got to go on the boat for over an hour and, and just see what you would normally see snorkeling, just sitting on the boat because of the glass bottom. It was fun to be able to point to things and, talk about it, whereas if you're struggling or diving, you can't really talk because we don't know sign language. We saw sea turtles too, we saw manta rays, sharks, and sea turtles. Some of the other highlights was, You know, the, the plants and the birds, on the island, they were really special. And then, the sunsets. Wow, the, the sunsets were just so amazing. So beautiful. Just unforgettable sunsets. every, every night when it was time for the sunset, we all just... You know, pick, pick our favorite spot to watch the sunset and just sit there and enjoy that moment. Usually was took about an hour because you see the sun starting to set and you watch it. And the, the, the, the colors after the sunsets is also really beautiful until, until it goes completely dark. And then after sunset, if the moon is not out, there's an incredible night sky because you don't get the light pollution being in the middle of the ocean. that was really, that, that was really amazing. You got to see the Milky Way from the Southern Hemisphere and everything looks a little different. And, it was really special to watch as well. So, highly recommend Heron Island. We picked the four nights because they had a special I think it was something like you pay for the three nights, but you get four. We got to choose whatever kind of room we wanted. That was really great. Highly recommend Heron Island and the Great Barrier Reef. After four days on Heron Island, we went back to Gladstone. We stayed at the hotel overnight and then just got a taxi to go to, the airport to fly out of Boston to Darwin the next day. So that wraps up part one of our Australia itinerary, I, there were many other places that we didn't get to visit in Queensland, that I've heard about from other people. So I talked about Lady Elliot Island. That is something I definitely would love to go. If I'm going to Australia again between May to August and have a chance to stop by Queensland. The other places, Whitsunday Islands, apparently that's a great place to go yachting. And I heard that's also a good place to see the soft corals, which tends to be more colorful. I learned this also when I was talking to people on Heron Island. One thing that I noticed was that there wasn't a ton of color. There was color, but just not as much as I thought there would be. And apparently, the Whitsunday Islands and that area of the Great Barrier Reef has more soft corals, and so you get more of the color. The other place that we didn't get a chance to go to, that's consider the center point of the Great Barrier Reef is Cairns, so it's actually spelled like Cairns, um, all the Australians pronounce it as Cairns, and you can fly directly to the airport in Cairns, and from Cairns, you can, Take a boat to tour different places in the Great Barrier Reef And you can also just go to separate islands like Green Island and Fitzroy Island So that's another destination to consider and then near Cairns is Daintree Rainforest Which is also I read and heard is another beautiful area that we didn't get to visit. In the future. We'd love to We'd love to be able to visit that. So that wraps up part one of my Australian itinerary. And, we just highly recommend, highly recommend this country. It is just exceeded all expectations. you want to get to the Great Barrier Reef as soon as possible. And while you're visiting the Great Barrier Reef, Queensland just has a lot of other great attractions. All right. Until next time.