Wedding Video - Pine State!

Day 21 – Flying

Sydney to Melbourne – 1.5 hours
Melbourne to LA – 13 hours
LA to NYC – 5 hours

Thanksgiving was spent almost entirely on an airplane, but at least we got some bacon.

Kristin got quite a bit of sleeping done.
Tony watched the following on the way to LA from Melbourne

• In Bruges (very good, actually)
• Step Brothers (had its moments)
• Batman Begins (very good)
• The Happening (it's even worse than you can imagine)
• The Dark Knight (saw it in a theater, but still pretty darn good)
• 3 episodes of Family Guy
  
• 1 episode of the Simpsons
  

Day 20 – 18 hours in Sydney, Australia.

We landed and took a cab into the city.
We shopped for souvenirs and gifts.
We took a cruise of the Sydney harbor.
We walked around The Rocks and the Harbor area.
We had dinner at Tetsuya’s, which seems to be consistently listed as one of the “ten best restaurants in the world.” (It was pretty good, and the best part is, the US dollar buys quite a bit more here than in the States right now.)
We went back to the hotel, packed, slept for a couple hours, then went to the airport.

Bacon? Yes, of course

The view of Sydney Harbor from our hotel room. It was right down there that Europeans first started settling Australia in the late 18th century. And it's true that most of those people were convicts, petty criminals and grifters from England. Aborigines have been in the area for between 40,000 and 60,000 years.

This, I'm told, is where the rich people in Sydney live.
Bridge and Opera House.
Another view of the opera house:

Our final free bottle of champagne (this one with a view of the Opera House in the background). Just tell everyone you're on your honeymoon when you travel...and, voila, free champagne!
Drinks before dinner.

Day 19 – Hamilton Island

Today, the planned called for us to be in Sydney, but we ended up staying at the GBR and extra day. The weather forecast in Sydney called for cold, gray, rainy weather – and we can get plenty of that in NYC. So, the second major itinerary change was effected.

Alas, more bacon was consumed.

An interesting bird and the last kangaroo (or wallaby) that we saw...

Day 18 – Hamilton Island

Today consisted of little more than lounging about the beach and pool area.

The only other notable thing that happened today was that we witnessed someone being attacked by a giant bat. We were invited to watch the sunset with the “esteemed General Manager” of the resort where we were staying. Since free drinks were involved, we decided to attend. After the sun disappeared behind the islands in the distance, several large fruit bats began circling the area where our party was gathered. The highlight occurred when one of these bats, about the size of a Nerf football, landed on the head of some guy from Chicago. Blood was drawn, chaos ensued.

Bacon was consumed.

This pretty much sums up today:

This was the scene moments prior to the giant bat attack:

Day 17 – Great Barrier Reef

Today started with the consuming of bacon.

Finally, the weather was suitable for small aircraft flight, and we were able to take a helicopter from Hamilton Island to the Great Barrier Reef. Between the two points, we did a fly-by of Whitehaven Beach, which, according to the BBC, is the “3^rd best beach in the world.”

I got to fly in the front seat, next to the pilot. Seeing the GBR from the air was actually superior in some ways to the boat ride and the snorkeling at the reef. We looked down from 500 feet into the water where gigantic black manta rays swam in the shallow pools (only saw a couple though, no turtles…). At the reef, we dove among countless different fishes in full-body “stinger suits” which covered us from head to toe, protecting us against the world’s deadliest jellyfishes (fyi, no jellyfish were sighted, and stings are rare…but deadly nonetheless).

Whitehaven Beach from the air:
Heart reef (it's the one that's shaped like a heart...).
Some more views of the reef from the helicopter:
This bathroom is nicer than our bathroom in New York, and larger than our whole apartment, I think.
I was sort of sad to see that you really don't come across many of those giant beer cans in Australia (at least not where I was looking). Although, I did become a big fan of the Cascade Premium.
Sunset at One Tree Hill.
Hissing Rhinoceros Beetle next to Kristin's foot for comparison.

This guy made it all the way into the house. I was gonna smush him until I saw how pretty he was.

Day 16 – Hamilton Island

Some kid on the airplane this morning broke the world record of “kid crying on an airplane.” Totally shattered it. The kid was the Michael Phelps of crying on airplanes. I’ve honestly never seen anything like it. It YELLED at the top of its lungs for over an hour of a 2.25 hour flight. Unreal. And it sat in the chair directly in front of me. Perhaps this is what we get for staying in a place that doesn’t allow children.

Hamilton Island is our base to the Great Barrier Reef, as well as the “nice, sunny, beach-y” part of our honeymoon; the last stop before a brief layover in Sydney, then back to New York.

After getting settled in, we treated ourselves to massages. Well, a couple strangers did the massaging…afterwards, as we were “enjoying the view” (as we were told to do), a three and a half foot lizard walked by. Later in the evening a gigantic hissing beetle flew into our bungalow. I can't overstate how loudly this thing could hiss. Then we saw some bizarre bird with really long legs.

But no platypuses.

Also, the bad mainland weather has followed us here. It rained much of the afternoon, but it’s still very warm, in the high 80s. Wind permitting, we’re supposed to fly out to the barrier reef tomorrow morning. We’ll see…

Another free bottle of champagne...

Champagne bathrobe sunset party on the deck...that screaming kid is but a memory.

Our own little pool...