AO

To wind down a truly magical and adventure-filled summer, Aaron and I were invited to the Women's Finals of the Australian Open. Wow! Thank you, Mastercard!

Loved this sign giving visitors directions to AO!

AO logo filled with tennis balls!

Mastercard had a very cool beach club where guests and cardholders could relax, soak their feet in a cool pool, enjoy entertainment and have a bite to eat. There were spontaneous Priceless moments, too!

Glad there was a pic of the beach club online from Nadia Cameron of CMO.com.au

Like when Chris Evert came out to give us her predictions on the match (Caroline Wozniacki vs. Simona Halep, by the way).

Australian chef Neil Perry and American tennis star Chris Evert

Our view of the court

The tennis was incredible! The players were well matched (as you'd expect at world ranked #1 vs #2) and it was no sure-thing for either woman. The three sets were intense. In the end, Wozniacki won (and became ranked #1 for a short time) - and it was her first Grand Slam. It was great to witness that history.

Aaron and I rushed back from the AO to pick Micah up from our friends house and meet Eytan at the return bus from camp! We had one day before the school year started and our extracurricular activities resumed. It was a bit insane looking back, but I'm glad we had the opportunity to do so many great things over the summer!

Melbourne (but drop the 'r')

Before I get too much into our hot summer days in Melbourne, we need to clear something up. Aussies pretty much do no pronounce the 'r' sound. In any word. Unless there's no 'r' in a word, then it's available for use (example: Micah, pronounced Miker). Along those lines, the city Melbourne is not pronounced how we Americans think it would be: Mel-BURN. It is instead pronounced Mel-Bnn. You learn this very quickly when you're in country, and it helps you acclimate and gain "street cred" with Aussies.

Anyway, after Hamilton Island and Tassie, we flew to Melbourne for a few days. Between the previous 4 weeks of travel and the newly found Melbourne summer heat, exhaustion had set in. We were much slower to tackle things, but we still enjoyed our time there!

A LEGO Discovery Centre had opened in Melbourne a few months prior and the boys were quite keen to have a go (translation: they were very excited!). Great indoor activity to avoid the scorching heat outside.

Melbourne in LEGO

LEGO AFL

Melbourne Cup in LEGO

Goofballs!

At the suggestion of a friend (another mom of two similar aged boys, so a good person to get advice from!), we booked a tour of the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

MCG has hosted thousands of events in its history - the olympics (1956), World Cup final (1992), Commonwealth Games (2006) and thousands of cricket matches, AFL, rugby Union, rugby League, concerts, historic speeches and more.

MCG is awesome! It can hold more than 100,000 patrons at any given time. The largest estimated single-event crowd was for a Billy Graham appearance in 1959; low estimates put 130,000 people in attendance!

E and Aaron on the field

Aaron and the boys in the visiting team locker room

View of the field from the members only Long Room

We also got to see some "behind the walls" features - locker rooms, training facilities, media rooms and more.

It was so hot in Melbourne (did I already mention that?!?) - I'm pretty sure we collapsed in our hotel after the MCG tour.

On our final day in Melbourne we visited SCIENCEWORKS. We all enjoyed it!

City planning

After some great (and hot!) time in Melbourne, we flew home to Sydney to pack E for sleep away camp, pack our house to move down the street, and pack Nani and Papi to return home to the US. 

Just after we moved houses (the day Nani and Papi left) and while E was at sleep away camp, Aaron and I would "boomerang" back to Melbourne for the Women's Finals of the Australian Open!

Tassie

From Hamilton Island we flew to Tasmania, an isolated island state off Australia’s south coast.

Simple yet valuable map of Australia from Gold Coast Australia Travel Tips.

Tassie is known for its rugged wilderness, much of which is protected land. We spent our time in Hobart, the capital of Tasmania. Though occupied for thousands of years prior, Hobart was founded as a British penal colony in 1804. There is so much history in this city!

Our first full day was quite cold but that didn't stop us (too much). We explored Salamanca and took a carriage ride through that part of town.

The five of us that went for the carriage ride loved it! The man with the horse allergy opted out.

The boys got a quick turn at driving!

Our tour guide / carriage driver / all around awesome human told us some great history about Hobart and even pointed us towards some American history in town. Nani and I went for a quick exploration and, sure enough, found the stone marking of what used to be a US Consulate in Hobart!

Little connections to "home" are so valuable to us!

On day two we were supposed to go to Port Arthur but the weather didn't cooperate so we instead went to Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary. Bonorong was super cool! They offer 24/7 wildlife rescue service and have an eclectic collection of animals.

For example, they came into a few koalas, but never meant to. They actually started with one, who they quickly learned was expecting! They plan to continue to care for them until they pass. With a lifespan of 20+ years in captivity, they'll (hopefully) have koalas for a lot longer.

There are Tasmanian Devils (of course!). These critters have been through the wringer IMO, and are quite misunderstood (they can also be vicious, no sugar-coating here). They've been hunted for many years and often fall victim to roadkill (while they're eating other roadkill...). For the last 30 years, the wild population has been impacted tremendously by devil facial tumour disease (DFTD). The Tasmanian government is working around the world to help breed healthy Devils that can one day be returned to the wild.

Randall the echidna lost a fight with a dog and had to have a leg amputated. He happily trots around Bonorong now!

There are HEAPS of kangaroos hopping around the grounds and there's kangaroo feed available to brighten the 'roos day!

M feeding a 'roo!

Papi feeding some 'roos!

Love this mum and joey!

Day three was meant to be MONA but E got sick so he and I stayed back. The crew that went was...intrigued. MONA was founded by David Walsh, an eccentric Australian gambler who hit it big and founded the Museum of Old and New Art. I guess, why not?

One of Nani's pics from MONA

M enjoyed the ferry ride to get to MONA from downtown! And yes, he's sitting on a cow statue.

On our final day before heading to the airport, we did a tour of the Hobart convict penitentiary (aka the 'tench'). Another winner that kept us all engaged and interested!

The tench was the convict prisoners' barracks for Hobart Town. Most prisoners lived at the tench but worked around Hobart for the government. They had some freedom to move around, have a beer after work and buy their necessities at the local shops. They had a curfew and rules - including mandatory church on Sunday.

If you look closely at the bricks that form the outside of the tench, you'll see some imprinted with the Broad Arrow; this meant these bricks were government property (leading to a decrease in theft). Today, these bricks are incredibly valuable and collectible!

Much of the original buildings from the tench were torn down; several courtrooms inside the penitentiary like this was were still used until the 1980s!

M had a go at playing piano in the chapel.

E learning about capital punishment from the days of the tench 😨

We all enjoyed the tench tour. It was fascinating to learn a bit about daily life for the convicts and gave us interesting insight into Tassie's history.

From Tassie we flew to Melbourne, where the cool weather became a distant memory...

Fidlers ON the Reef!

After NZ and some time in Sydney, we set off for a tour around some east coast Aussie cities: Hamilton Island, Hobart and Melbourne. If this all feels ridiculous, it was!

Hamilton Island is part of Australia's Whitsunday Islands in Queensland, and is known as the commercial centre for the area thanks to its close proximity to the Great Barrier Reef.

While lovely, Hamilton Island is a bit manufactured; what I mean by that is most everything is owned and run by one company. Though there are restaurants of different cuisines, many food and beverage items cross-over from menu to menu. It's still a magical place, though!

The island is mostly car-free. Our accommodations included a "buggy" for transport around the island. What fun! Seat belts must be worn, driver's licenses are required, and each buggy is registered / plated.

Though the driver sits on the left-hand side, they also drive on the left-hand side! Those are some serious right turns.

A boat bringing a box truck full of island supplies

Beautiful sunset + buggy parking

We had a pretty full itinerary for our time on Hamilton Island: swimming at our pool, snorkeling (and SCUBA!) at the Reef, a day cruise around the islands, golf / spa / kids club and KOALAS!

Our first full day was a ~3 hour boat ride from Hamilton Island to the Heart Pontoon above Hardy Reef. (It should be noted here, the Great Barrier Reef is a collection of *thousands* of smaller reefs; Hardy Reef is one of the reefs that makes up the GBR.)

Cruise Whitsundays, who provided this map, took us to Hardy Reef.

The boat ride to the pontoon was choppy and long. There were plenty of ginger tablets and motion sickness bags to go around. No further elaborations required.

Once aboard the boat to the pontoon, the sales pitch began - underwater camera hire, upgraded snorkel gear, photos, SCUBA lessons and first dives, helicopter rides and much more.

Nani and I took the plunge and signed up for SCUBA lessons and were able to do our first dive at the Reef. Incredible! I personally didn't care much for the sensation of SCUBA, but the sights were awesome. Giant, colourful fish swimming all around! Oh my!

Ready to test my SCUBA skills!

Nani with a humphead wrasse fish!

We could hardly get E out of the water to do anything but snorkel. He absolutely loved it!

The ride back to "Hamo" was equally as treacherous as the way out to the pontoon. And it was cold! M and I cuddled up in towels and dozed off for a bit.

I don't remember what we did the rest of that (late) afternoon and evening, but I'm quite certain we were all in bed asleep at a very reasonable time. What a fun-filled and tiring day!

Day three included a bit of R&R. The boys went to the clownfish club and had a great day - scavenger hunts, the amazing race, loads of activities, sport, and fun all day!

The ladies had lunch, shopped a bit around town and went to the spa.

The men had a chance to play 18 holes at the Hamilton Island Golf Club. Papi noted it was one of the more difficult courses he's played.

Day four was another full day! We visited Chalkies Beach, hiked to hill inlet, snorkeled the coral gardens and walked along Whitehaven beach. We also saw the beach where a few scenes from Pirates of the Caribbean were filmed. I swear there were more stops than just those on our itinerary -- it felt like we were on and off the boat all day and hardly had a chance to enjoy much.

Hill inlet photo op

Whitehaven Beach

The fam

Our boat captain was super strict on making sure we wore stinger suits if we were in the water. He was less concerned about stingrays and more concerned about Irukandji. Irukandji are nearly translucent teeny tiny venomous jellyfish.

The boys rocking the stinger suits

How cute are Nani and Papi? They went snorkeling off the back of the boat!

Day five was departure day. We snuck in a quick morning visit to WILDLIFE Hamilton Island. A few mornings per week, visitors can pay a small fee to hold a koala. Queensland is the only state in Australia where visitors can hold koalas. (It can be quite disruptive for the koalas sleep cycles; the staff at WILDLIFE Hamilton Island assured me their koalas are rotated and held only when they're awake -- but you have to be careful to hold them almost uncomfortably so they don't snooze on you.)

From our koala encounter, we raced to the airport and set off for Hobart, Tasmania! Read about that next time!

Sydney in summer

We arrived back from our wonderful New Zealand trip around 5PM on New Year's Eve.

Sydney is a spectacular place to ring in the New Year! The city puts on a multi-tiered event over the Harbour. The first round of fireworks begin around 9P for the early crowd. Here's the official video of the fireworks.

One of my photos!

We were pretty exhausted from New Zealand and were all asleep (I think) before midnight.

We were back in Sydney for about 10 days before we left for the next set of adventures. We went to beaches, bowling, the Opera House for a show, climbed the Harbour Bridge, spent time with some Aussie-American friends who were in-country, packed to move houses and just enjoyed summer!

I'm not generally a fan of sand but this wasn't terrible (until we got home and had to deal with the clean-up)

Beach bums!

Surfers rinsing their boards

We happened to pick the hottest day of the year to climb the Harbour Bridge. It was a beautiful view but lacked in physical challenge. Cool experience, though, and glad I did it. I think Rhona agrees.

Only Nani and I climbed!

Bowling with Papi

Hanging with our buddies from Bentonville, even though none of us live there anymore. So thankful to have stayed in touch with this crew!

We were really on the move over the summer! After New Zealand and some time in Sydney we hit Hamilton Island, Tasmania and Melbourne. Read about the Fidler's ON THE REEF next!