Sunday, March 4, 2012

Brizzy and Coffs Harbor

Saturday, February 18 (cont.): Tayce and Josh left South Bank on a train to visit some other friends in Brisbane so the rest of us were able to fit in the car on the way home. Jade made us a delicious taco salad dinner while Matt mowed the lawn and we spent the rest of the night watching Biggest Loser and chatting.

Sunday, February 19: Sunday Jade and Matt had a large crowd for breakfast. Jade's brother Andrew, his wife Alex, and their brand new baby Savannah moved up to Brisbane and arrived early Sunday morning, but stayed with the Kroks for a few days while they got their house unpacked. Matt's aunt and uncle, Grant and Penny Owen were passing through so they stopped for breakfast and church. So, Jade fed us all breakfast and then we were off to stake conference. Once we got there the chapel was full so we went into one of the classrooms where they were setting up TVs to broadcast the meeting. After 45 minutes with no success broadcasting to our classroom, the unsuccessful IT guys informed us that the chapel didn't even have standing room, so we could either stay in the room and enjoy the A.C. or go home. We went home.

As we got to know Grant and Penny, they asked us what our plans were after Brisbane. We told them we were renting a car and driving to Sydney, and they kindly offered a room at their house in Coffs Harbor. We have either been incredibly lucky to run into the most friendly people while we've been here, or else, everyone in Australia and New Zealand is friendly. We're pretty sure it's the latter. We exchanged numbers with the Owens before they left and planned to stay with them Wednesday night.

After church Matt, Clark, and I went over to Alex and Andrew's apartment to help them get a few things unpacked. Their movers had unloaded all of their stuff a few days earlier so there were just dozens of boxes crowding the whole place. We stayed there for a few hours and were able to get a bit done. It was nice to be able to help out.

Clark and Pacey at church. These two were inseparable.
Jade had stayed home and watched the children and made us yummy enchiladas for dinner then we probably watched Biggest Loser and probably ate some ice blocks.

Monday, February 20: We liked South Bank and the good weather so much that we went back on Monday. Tayce and Josh met us there for a bit with their friends, and we watched some students lined up in pairs walk into the pool, fully clothed. It was some sort of initiation thing, but it was strange and entertaining for a while.

As you can see they had the attention of everyone in the pool.
Andrew and Alex, Josh and Tayce (holding Savannah), Jade and Pacey, Clark and me
She loved having her feet tickled. After Clark tickled the right one, she would stick the left out for tickling. Clark also encouraged the nose picking. Sorry Jade. 
Andrew, Clark, Pacey, Alex, Jade walking along the Brisbane River to the car.
Brisbane Temple, and of course... Clark and Pacey
 After swimming and catching some rays we picked Matt up from work and headed home for a little Dominos for dinner.

Clark and I went to Wooly's with Alex and Andrew to restock the ice blocks and drink we had consumed at the Kroks and bought a bunch of chocolate bars for our nightly Biggest Loser viewing. Appropriate, right?

Tuesday, February 21: South Bank again... haha. But this time it was just clark and me. We went into the city to see a movie and we decided we would cool off before hand. After the movie Jade, who dropped us off earlier came back to pick us up (such a sweetie) and she had dinner for us when we got home. Clark and I might have a hard time taking care of ourselves when we get home because we've been so well looked after while we've been on holiday. It really has been humbling and we haven't been able to express properly our gratitude to everyone who has housed, fed, chauffeured, and entertained us. I feel how I felt around the time we got married when everyone was just giving us awesome things. It was hard to show sufficient gratitude, and that's how we feel now. We want everyone to come visit us in Logan so we can repay their kindness.

For our indulgence while watching Biggest Loser, Jade made an incredible, knock your sox off, Chocolate brownie pudding stuff with ice cream.

Best couch ever. Andrew is demonstrating how comfortable it is.
Wednesday, February 22: As I'm writing this all up, I'm realizing even more now, how much Jade did for us. That being said, Wednesday morning Jade drove Clark and me to the Brisbane airport to pick up our rental car, and then guided us back through the city so we could avoid the toll roads. We were then on our way down the coast towards Sydney. We had until Friday night to return our car to the Sydney airport. We were "relocating" the car for the rental company so we got the car for only $5 a day. Pretty good deal however, we didn't trust ourselves driving on the opposite side of the road, so we got the full coverage insurance, so that upped the price a bit, but it made us feel a lot more comfortable.

About an hour South of Brisbane is Surfers Paradise

Pretty good, eh?



Awesome  lounges that were all along the beachfront

We laid on the beach a little too long and fried ourselves. Then we walked along the beachfront, had some Macca's, went to Wooly's for some road trip grub, then started the 4 more hours to Coffs.

The drive to Coffs was absolutely beautiful. So green and so hilly. We loved it.

When we arrived in Coffs, The Owens had prepared a lovely pork chop dinner for us. Grant is the District President mentioned that he had to eat and run because he was late for his meeting. I said, "Sorry, did we make you late for your meeting?" and he said "oh no.... well.... yes." hahah and we all had a good laugh. After dinner Penny gave us a tour of Coffs because they would both be at work all day the next day and wouldn't be able to show us around. So, she showed us where all the beaches were, which restaurants we could try, and where we could jump off the jetty. When Grant got home from his meetings he had set up a surfing appointment for us the next morning with Garth Mackie. Garth works for a surf shop and was the Branch President of Coffs Harbor when Clark and his family lived in Sydney, so when the Walkers came up for district conferences he took them surfing. The Owens did all of this for us and we barely knew them. But as Penny put it "there are no strangers in the church," and Clark and I are living proof of that.
The Owen's dog, Xena. If you were within two feet of her, she would roll over for you to scratch her belly.  Really cute.

We set the alarm for 6:00 to give us enough time to throw on our swimmers and make the 2 minute drive to the beach by 6:30.

Thursday, February 23: So it turns out Australia is quite nice at 6:30 in the morning. Almost as nice as the Owen's king sized bed. Surfing was fun. I almost made it onto my knees once with a push from Brother Mackie. Clark did a little better than me. My swimming suit has a removable strap that goes around my neck and i've never used it, but it turns out it would have been quite useful for surfing. That made things tricky, but we had a good time. Brother Mackie and his son Noah were sweeties.
I held Brother Mackie's board for the photo so I looked like a real surfer. Clark brought me out my shirt for the last wave or two so I wasn't so concerned about my swimming suit. 

Brother Mackie had to go to work, so we finished up around 8 and headed back to the Owen's house for breakfast, a shower and a nap (we're not accustomed to waking up that early.) After our nap we packed up our stuff, wrote the Owens a thank you note and headed out to explore Coffs Harbor. First we stopped by the Pacific Bay Resort for a photo, because that's where the Walkers used to stay when they went to coffs for holiday/district conference. Then we drove up the banana clad mountain side to an amazing lookout that Penny had told us about.
The Pacific Bay Resort
The Lookout 
Awesome view of Coffs Harbor

There are Banana Plantations all over the hills of Coffs Harbor so on the way back down the mountain we stopped at this little garage for a few "Bananas with 'Apeel'" Unfortunately bananas give me heart burn these days so I didn't eat any, but Clark said they were delicious. 


This one was pretty sweet. 



Reminds me of Mowgli
Right???
After buying the Bananas we headed to see the famous "Big Banana." Australia is known for their big things....

Funny
So we got the experience The Big Banana and ate a peanut and chocolate dipped banana, unfortunately  they weren't selling them from a giant banana stand (shout out to any Arrested Development fans out there.) 



I had one bite of the banana and instantly regretted it. Is it common to get heat burn from bananas? Anybody know?
At The Big Banana they have a sweet candy shop where they make the candy right in front of you. Clark and I were mesmerized for ages. The workers were super cool too. 

This turned into.....
this. And they do it all by hand. No machines. 
After we pulled ourselves away from the candy shop we headed to the jetty at the harbor to do some jumping and swimming.



Clark was doing some serious jumping
I was doing some standard jumping
It was a beautiful day and we had a blast jumping off the jetty and swimming around but as soon as we saw this guy and his buddy, we decided to stay on the jetty

There were two of them and they were legitimately huge. Probably at least 5 feet wide. They were swimming right under the jetty and right under a few swimmers that we had to warn. 
We watched the stingrays until we couldn't see them anymore then jumped back into our car and kept driving south. An hour or so later we stopped at a place called Southwest Rocks to see the southwest rocks.



Then kept driving south until we were about 20 km from Newcastle and found a rest stop where we could spend the night. Clark wanted to pitch our tent at the rest stop but I was a little hesitant because I knew that wasn't allowed in the states, and didn't want to find out at 3:00 in the morning that it wasn't allowed in Australia either.

Clark won, but you can see from his puffy eyes that it wasn't a rewarding victory.
We woke up from a very uncomfortable and very restless nights sleep at about 6 and decided to take down the tent and sleep in the car so people wouldn't see our tent in the daylight. We reclined out seats, pulled our sleeping bags on and slept like rocks for another 3 hours. Clark admitted that I was right, and that we should have slept in the car all night.


Monday, February 27, 2012

Auckland (cont.) and Queensland down to the South Coast

Sunday, February 12: (Michelle here) Sunday we had a nice sleep in because church wasn't until one. Church was great. Really nice ward, friendly, great teachers. After church we headed home for some amazing homemade lasagna that Andrea made for dinner. Andrea is an amazing cook and she spoiled us all week long. After dinner Paul, Andrea, Clark and took a drive up to Mt. Victoria to have a nice view of the city.


It was a bit rainy and hazy so it wasn't as clear as it could have been but it was still beautiful and sweet to be able to see the city in relation to Takapuna and all the other areas of Auckland. On the way home, Paul gave us a tour of the Church Offices where he works. There were a few conference rooms he showed us where he set up a hi-tech audio-visual conference call thingy. It was very impressive and the chairs around the conference table may as well have been lazy boys, they were that comfy. When we got back home, the four of us played 5 crowns, (Clark and I have probably played a dozen games since we left Salt Lake, we love it) and finished the night with a movie called Touching the Void.

Monday, February 13: Monday Clark and I used the tickets to the Auckland Zoo that Andrea bought us (you'd think we were their own kids the way she and Paul spoiled us while we were there) and enjoyed a perfect day with the animals. It was a sweet zoo and luckily we gave in and bought the $2 piece of paper that had a map of the zoo on it, so we were able to see all of the animals. We love the zoo, no matter how many times you go, or how many you've been to, they never get old. Here are just a few photos from the zoo because unlike the zoo, photos at the zoo get very old very quickly.



I thought these guys were so cute. 
While we were looking at the awesome seals this little girl came running down the ramp and yelled to her family "OOO, OOO, OOOO. SEALS!! I'VE BEEN WAITING MY WHOLE LIFE FOR THIS MOMENT!!" It was so hilarious. 


Andrea picked us up from the zoo that afternoon (she and Paul were so nice to drive us and pick us up everywhere we went. We could have taken the bus, but they always insisted. So kind)
After Paul got home from work we helped the Bennallacks clean their church, it was their turn. It was nice to be able to do a little bit to pay back all of the many favors, rides, meals, zoo tickets, etc that the Bennallacks had given us even though we were no where near even. After we finished cleaning, we picked up Rachel and some fish and chips for dinner then headed home. The fish and chips were probably the best we'd had so far.
After dinner we had a FHE and watched 17 Miracles which neither of us had seen then off to bed.

Tuesday, February 14: (Clark) Woke up early to catch a bus in the city that would take us to Rotorua. It was called the Naked Bus. It was not as exciting as it sounds. It was much cheaper to take a big tour bus than to even drive, so we went for it. Rotorua is very popular for many reasons but it is basically a city built on top of a giant hot spring/lake. 'Geo-thermal pools' are all over the place and it can smell very eggy because of the sulfur. It was not too bad while we were there but pretty strong in some spots. There is a big mountain, or hill, depending on where you are from, where you can catch a gondola up and see the view. It was actually very pretty but honestly not as impressive as the views in Queenstown. You wouldn't say that to everyone, but we thought Q'town was sick so this just felt like second best the whole time. There is a luge track there that we had wanted to do really bad on the south island but were feeling too cheap to do, but we instantly regretted it so we didn't let another chance pass us up. It was pretty sweet. About a trillion times better than the Alpine Slide in P.C. because you have complete control of your speed and you can steer yourself. You can seriously fly down those things and anyone can do it. We saw old ladies doing it and then five year olds screaming down the tracks. Michelle actually got a little over confident and took a nice spill on the advanced track. Good views and good fun for sure. Maybe we'll just open one of those up on a mountain somewhere, run it for a couple years, then retire. On our way home we stopped at the store and picked up a box of ice cream, a couple spoons,  and took it back to the hot tubs/pools at the campground and sat on the lawn chairs watching the sun go down. That was valentines day.

On the lift to the top of the luge tracks
Thats how fast Michelle was going
Cutie
Making Luging look good since 1986
View from the top

After the day on the hill we got stopped at some of those hot spots that were just in a huge park by our campground. There were some big ones that were just full of boiling egg smelling water, and others that were bubbling mud. The mud was the coolest, easy.


These were pretty sweet. Bubbling mud pools


The clouds are the best in NZ. The Maori word for New Zealand is Aotearoa, which means 'land of the long white cloud.' It's pretty spot on.
Posing by the thermal pools
Land of the long orange clouds

Wednesday, February 15: The other thing that attracted us to Rotorua were the rumors of the Redwood forests they had and that you can mountain bike them. Because of some pretty horrible advice from the visitor center we were under the impression that they were just rumors, that you can't actually ride there, so we planned on just walking around them (we would soon find out he was dead wrong and probably missed out on some stellar riding, bummed). We packed up camp and caught a bus there. While we waited for our bus, we met a very generous man named Borneo. He started chatting with us right away and even offered us some 'hash cookies'. If we weren't on our diet, maybe we would have taken some. HA. He was strung out like some laundry! He told us all about himself, his life, and how good our american cannabis is. When we told him where we were going, he was disappointed he had to go home, otherwise he would show us where all his mushrooms were all around the forest. He even taught us how to pick your mushrooms so that they keep growing instead of just dying. Good guy, that Borneo.
Caught the bus, walked around the gorgeous forest, slightly depressed that we were not Riding around it. If it had not been raining we would have just turned around and hired some bikes for the day, but we were soaked and already enjoying the hike (so annoyed at that guy though!). The forest was awesome. We did about a 5 or 6 km hike I think, and at first it was just a typical campground, but in no time it went from a Washington looking redwood forest to a tropical jungle.
The Holiday Park we camped at
Beautiful hike through the redwood forest




After the our hike, we wandered back to town and shopped around for a little bit, made our way to the mall, felt tired so we sat down in front of the TV's and started watching some cricket. It was NZ vs Zimbabwe. After about an hour we were trapped and ended up just watching the rest of the game. Good stuff. Then we hopped on our NakedBus back to Auckland. Of course the Bennallacks picked us up and being the day before Michelle's birthday they had a couple gifts waiting for her. They bought her an authentic Maori bone necklace and some movie tickets for us. Made me feel like a dirt bag. . . But yeah, extremely nice, Michelle almost cried. My gift to Michelle was a trip to NZ. I think she liked the Bennallacks gift better.

Movie tickets and necklace with Paul and Andrea
Thursday, February 16: (Michelle) Thursday was my birthday, and it was perfect for me. I woke up to some toast that I'm pretty sure Clark made for himself but as soon as he saw me, he gave them up for me. Sweetie. Then we had second brekky when Rachel made some eggs Benedict and we used up the rest of our morning watching Modern Family. For lunch we went to Burger Fuel where we had some kumara fries and a tasty burger then headed to the movie theatre. We saw The Vow and drank a large coke which would have been a small in America. The movie was good and it was nice to relax with my honey.  It was so so nice of the Bennallacks to give me those tickets and the necklace for my birthday. They really blew me away with their kindness.

The beach was just around the corner from the movie theatre so we went for a beautiful walk along the beach, something that I've become very fond of since we've been in Australia and NZ. After enjoying the beach we headed home for a roast beef birthday dinner.

A few days ago when Andrea found out my birthday was coming up she asked what I would like for my birthday dinner. (Are you beginning to see how wonderful the Bennallacks are?) Not being able to request a dinner from our wonderful hosts who were already doing so much for us, Andrea asked if I liked roast beef, and who could turn down a roast beef dinner.

It really was so delicious. Beef, veggies, corn, and an amazing homemade ice cream cake to finish the meal off. We have been so overwhelmed by the kindness we've been shown our whole holiday, especially with the Bennallacks, and especially on my birthday.



After dinner Paul, Andrea, Clark and I went to a NBL game to watch the Auckland Breakers play the Wollongong Hawks. NBL is a little different than the NBA for a few reasons but one is that the referees let the players play to the death (either that or they were really bad refs.) The game was certainly exciting because of that, plus the Breakers won. It was good fun. 



Clark and his Rainbow Paddle Pop, one of his favorites from before
Gary Wilkinson, Utah State alumni. Also in Bennallack's ward.
We ended the great day with more ice cream cake once we got home. My birthday exceeded all of my expectations. 

Friday, February 17: Friday was our last day in Auckland so we woke, packed up, caught a bus into the city to do some last minute souvenir shopping, and then caught a very long and windy bus ride back to the Bennallack's home. 

Paul was traveling to the states that night for work so he was able to get off work early and we all went to lunch together before they dropped us at the airport. 

Clark found the Wendy's that he thought was no longer around so he had to get a shake n' dog while we were in the city 
Wonderful lunch, wonderful people, wonderful end to our wonderful time in Auckland.
We finally had our first completely smooth checkin at the Auckland airport. Plus there were beautiful women all over the airport handing out free lollies. Once we were on the flight we thought I'd lost Clark's passport for about ten minutes until I found it under my seat. 

I managed to buy this $4 bottle of L&P while clark was in the toilets before we boarded the plane. It's "World Famous in New Zealand" and we both loved it. Clark was so happy when I pulled it out of my purse. 
So we were flying to the Gold Coast airport and the Bennallack's daughter, Jade and her husband Matt Krok live in Brisbane which is about an hour north. Andrea had kindly arranged for us to stay with them for a few days however, they were going to be at a reception when we landed so wouldn't be able to pick us up at the airport (we were really glad that they didn't have to come pick us up when we realized how far they lived from that airport.)

During the flight Clark looked at me and said, "what are we going to do when we land?" I just figured we'd catch a train up north somewhere near where Jade and Matt lived so I asked the lady sitting next to me if she knew much about the train and our options for getting to Brisbane. She said she wasn't sure which station would be closest to the suburb we were heading to, but she informed us that the closest train station to the airport was about a twenty minute drive away from the airport. We were bummed when we found that out because we figured there would be a train from the airport, but Kath instantly offered us a ride to the train station. We were hesitant because we didn't want to be a burden or put her out, but she ensured us that it was on the way and insisted that we let her give us a ride. She was such a sweetie, seriously. A heart of gold. 

So Kath waited for us to get through customs and meanwhile her husband arrived in his ute to pick her up (for those of you who don't know what a ute is, it's basically a two passenger truck) so she called her son to come all the way to the airport just to give us a ride to the station. Amazing right? So her husband headed home and Kath and her son took us to the station. They saved us. We have no idea what we would have done without them. Probably would have wondered around until Matt and Jade were able to pick us up which would have been so inconvenient for them. 

Kath walked us into the station and made sure we got the tickets and instructions we needed to make it to Rochedale South. We hugged her goodbye and she wished us "all the best" in her thick kiwi accent. It's people like her that make you want to be a better human. Clark and I hope that we will have lots of opportunities in our lifetime to help others the way we've been helped out so many times on our holiday so far.

We hopped on the train and made our way to a station near the Krok's house, where we waited at a gas station for our ride. The attendant at the station asked us if we were lost and informed us that we were on the wrong side of the train tracks so to speak. Luckily the Krock's friends came and picked us up soon after and we headed over for a fun evening with Matt, Jade, their daughter Pacey, Tayce and Josh Davison, and the friends who picked us up, Kirsten and Heath. 

Adroable Pacey. 
It was really fun to meet them all and Clark enjoyed catching up.

Saturday, February 18: Turns out Jade is a lot like her mother because we woke up Saturday morning to pancakes, plus they tasted exactly like her mom's and she didn't even use her recipe. So good and so nice of Jade. After breakfast was finished and cleaned up we were all planning to go swimming at a place downtown called South Bank, but there wasn't enough room in the car for all of us to go at once, so Jade took Clark and me into the city so we could walk around the shops downtown and then went back home and the rest came a bit later. Once again, just like her parents. She was so willing to make two trips into the city just for us. 

So Clark and I walked along Queens Street where all the shops are and enjoyed some window shopping and Chocolate from Crazy Clarks. I think it's safe to say we are addicted to Chocolate.

Really bad quality because it's just a frame from a video, but you get the idea.
Crocodile Dundee  
South Bank is a man made beach/pool right on the side of the Brisbane River. Queens Street was on the opposite side of the river, so when we were done at the shops, we walked across a bridge and met the Jade, Matt, Pacey, Tayce, and Josh at South Bank. It was a really nice day and really fun swimming around with Pacey, who is going to be quite a good swimmer. She has no fear. 
South Bank

To be continued...