Michelle and Gary's Honeymoon

We flew to Sydney and spent the time fascinated by the outrageous looking birds with shocking patterns, colors and sounds - checkerboard patterned crows (butcherbirds and magpies), noisy bright colored parrots (rainbow laurikeets and cocateels), weird birds like sacred ibis, spoonbills and masked lapwings. We identified more than 100 new bird species on our trip. We photographed the classic line up such as the harbor bridge and opera house. We ate first class meals with high quality ingredients, thoughtful sauces and artistic presentation that cost next to nothing. We walked miles. Went to the near by Blue Mountains (a canyon with 1000 foot shear walls) and saw a rain forest and waterfalls; slept above a bar with noise and smoke wafting up, arguements and screetching tires coming through the single pane windows from the parking lot when the bar closed. It was great!

Up the coast, just below Brisbane, we stayed in Coffs Harbor for nearly a week getting certified to scuba dive. Michelle only learned to swim less than 2 years ago but did OK. She got frightened a couple of times finding herself alone in 1 foot visibility cold salt water - threw away her regulator once in an irrational moment. I could have been a better diving buddy. I had a lot of trouble clearing my ears. Still we made it through it. Had a great canoe trip in an estuary by the botanical garden seeing pelicans and sea dragons. Got a leech trying to blaze trails in the hills over the harbor. Ate kangaroo (like antelope). Drank some beers with the locals. Walked a lot.

Dumped the rest of our rail pass to fly from Brisbane to Cairns.Dove the Great Barrier Reef four times. OK, just like TV. Every color fish (that’s single fish with every color and every color of single fish), leopard shark, a sting ray, giant clams with purple lips, barracuda. Mountains and canyons of corals - fans, brains, stag horns, plates in all colors being chomped on by a variety of colorful parrot fish. A sandy floor with big slow sea cucumbers leaving trails, a white tip shark. It was fun to fly slowly along a deep canyon weightless. We drove up to Cape Tribulation to see the tropical rain forests with plants climbing over each other to get on top, mangroves with bats arguing over branch space and hot beaches with kingfishers and marching armys of crabs.

In New Zealand, the food was cheaper and almost as good. There were fewer birds and no mammals but the forests were exotic with tree ferns and easier to walk in. We viewed parks and Auckland with Michelle’s parents, sister (Sushma and Derek) and nieces (Danielle and Serena) before heading out to circle the North island. We drove past manicured farm land like a more hilly England to see some limestone caves with glow worms. We climbed near Mount Ruapehu in 50+ mph freezing winds to see upper and lower lakes Tama in old volcano craters. We pitched the tent in a geothermal basin where it rained then froze our tent solid. We couldn’t hardly see the hot pools in the morning for the steam and cold air so we went to see the famous geyser that erupts every morning at 10:15 exactly. The scene didn’t look right - the miniature Old Faithful cone wasn’t even surging at 10:10, the calcium deposits in the area were too few and fine for such an active geyser (apparently, I’m a geyser expert from living near Yellowstone). A ranger started giving a speech then threw 1.5 kg of soap into the geyser cone which commenced to spit up foam for a minute before giving a nice fountain of hot water at exactly 10:17. There were all the Yellowstone geothermal features in smaller scale. The twin geyser at Rotorua was notable for a continuous eruption to more than 30 feet (too bad the Maori caretakers of this sacred area chose to build hotels right up to the edge of the attraction). Another day of forests and beaches, including a fantastic lunch of steamed NZ green mussels in wine sauce, and we were back to Auckland.

... who ever had a nicer honeymoon?

Go to the MICHELLE and GARY TOGETHER page : www.biopatent.com/prewedding2.html

Go to the WEDDING page: www.biopatent.com/wedding.html

Go to the BABY SHOWER page : www.biopatent.com/ucbshower.html