flight to Singapore by Zander

us at the water show

            Yesterday we flew from Bali to Singapore. I was excited to go because I have always wanted to see Singapore. I was also happy because we would be going to Cambodia from there. I have always wanted to go there.  The other reason that I wanted to go to Singapore was because it would be much more modern then Bali.  It was a relief to see sky scrapers and modern technology again.  Our flight to Singapore was much more comfortable but we had to get up earlier than normal.

            To get to the Airport on time, we had to get up at 7 on the morning. I woke up to my mom pounding on our window; I didn’t want to let her in. We ate leftovers for breakfast. As usual there was the last minute hustle to get everything ready to leave, and then the driver came to pick us up.  We got into the car and drove for about 1 hour to get to the Airport.  When we got there, the driver just dropped us off and told us which way to go. So we got our tickets and went into Duty free. My dad bought some liquor with all our extra Balinese money. We had a really long time to wait for our flight. But we just sat and waited it out.  

sarah nekt to the scince mumium

            When it was time to board we went through security. It was kind of weird because the security wasn’t at the front of the airport, it was right before the boarding gate. When we got there, we joined the line to get on our air plane.  We were flying Jet Star again, but this time it was different. It was like there premium. So the seats were a little bigger. When the flight started they gave us buns that were filled with red beans.  It was a little weird that on the ingredients list sugar was before the beans and that explains how good it was.  We had a 3 hour flight to Singapore. I spent about 1 hour playing on the Ipod and the other 2 hours trying to nap or looking out the window at the clouds.  It was pretty boring, I wanted to use the computer but my dad was playing games on it. My family has always found it hard to do long air plane rides, because all of our electronics die when we are about half way through.

            When we were about ten minutes from Singapore, we went below the clouds. In the water, was a ton of shipping vessels. They were everywhere. They were going all different directions. It was really amazing. In the distance we could see Singapore. All that we could see were the Sky scrapers. When we landed, I was so happy to see the Airport. It was so different from the one in Bali. It was modern and really clean. We went through customs and immigration with no problems and took the MRT to Mingdeap’s place. On the way, we saw lots of construction and a really cool casino that had a really big swimming pool on top. It was shaped like a boat. But it was on top of 3 sky scrapers. It was really cool to see such modern buildings.

            Finally arriving in Singapore was a relief after bean in Bali. Bali was nice, but I like modern stuff better. When we got to the Apartment, my mom’s cousin, Noelle from France was waiting for us.   She gave us a walking tour of Singapore. In Singapore there are lots of public events, from really cool water shows and fireworks to electronic cranes that dance. All in all Singapore is a really cool city to live in and I wouldn’t mind living here.

Water by Kayley

Rain:
Pouring down from the heavens,
Pounding on the roof,
Filling the gutters and overflowing the pools and fields,
Feeding the plants, animals, and oceans,
Cooling you off after tropical heat,
Sweeping away the dirt,
Greening and Cleaning the World.

The waves and ocean:
Brown sewage water,
pounding, crashing, and rolling,
A strong rip pulling you out to sea,
Towering waves about to break on your head,
Growing and retracting,
Bringing clutter from the ocean onto the beach.

Rivers:
Overflowing its banks when rain comes to visit,


Sweeping away the dirt with joy of having fresh water,

Water runs the world!

balinese road rage!! by KAYLEY

           Bali has the craziest traffic I've ever seen.  The roads are really narrow, people park every where and drivers ignore the lines on the roads.  But I've never seen an accident or injuries on the roads.

          In Bali everyone drives motorbikes.  I've seen up to four people on one bike at a time. The people not only overload the motor bikes, but they also cut through traffic and the motorbikes drive in the middle of the street.  Some of the people on the bikes also pile crates and produce on them. I'm surprised that none of the piles of crates fall over and I never saw an acident.  Sometimes cows, dogs and cats cross the road and lay really close to the roads, but they never get run over.

         Along with the crazyness on the roads, people seem to have some rules. For example, people honk to let others know they're there not to cuss them out like in the States. People take turns crossing streets without traffic lights.  And they never go very fast and they watchout for eachother, especially when there are ladies or children involved.  The traffic in Bali seemed chaotic at first, but now it seems orderly and safe compared to lots of other places.



 :) KAYLEY SIENNA ROLPH<>

The Happy Buddha By Sarah

       Once upon a time there was a happy  Buddha in the middle of the ocean but even though she was a statue she had feelings and something was missing.

Kecac Dance

            One day she turned in to a sad Buddha and all over the world there  was a huge storm that pulled every thing  to her. Some fishing boats saw her and they never new there was such a thing. The boats cheered her up and the was a happy buddha again. The storm stopped and she new what was missing: company.

             After that she never was a sad buddha ever again and she lived happily ever after!

Me with monkey <3

THE END

an original story by Sarah Rolph

typed by Mia!

Christmas and beyond!!! by Mia



Us at the restaurant next door for Christmas Dinner. Photo creds to our waitress!

          Christmas was really fun! I actually think it has something to do with the fact that everyone's hopes were way low, but whatever. We  woke up about an hour earlier than usual (not that early-- 7 am, we sleep in on vacation) anyway, just out of habit I suppose, we waited for a  few minutes before going to the dining room to where our presents were under the cardboard tree on the table. The tree was about a foot tall and mommy had a brilliant idea of putting it up on a wine glass so we could fit presents underneath it.
         

Sunset from the audience of a traditional dance at a temple.
Not Christmas.... 

           We didn't have stockings so all the presents we piled up under the 'tree'. Kayley, who was the first one over, spread them out and put  them into piles on our place mats around the table. There was some fruit, (the traditional mango, a few really yummy oranges) Tim Tams (the most delicious things ever!), some local snack thingies, $10- $15 iTunes credit, and another present like a sarong or dress in most of the kid's piles. My local snacks were fried shrimp roll things that were really yummy, except for the shrimpy part, and I ate my entire package of Tim Tams on the spot which I regretted right when I finished! I was so full of Tim Tams that I couldn't eat my fruit or much breakfast. Mommy bought a sarongs for me and Sarah at 50,000 Rp each which is way too much! They are seriously only pretty pieces of fabric, and Kayley and Sarah got equally pretty pieces of fabric but made into dresses for the same price. Anyway, they are gorgeous sarongs and mine looks like tie died fire. We had M&M pancakes for breakfast, which I couldn't fit in my Tim Tam filled stomach so I couldn't actually eat them. It was awesome even though I was a step removed from puking, though!

Monkey at the temple... flash wasn't a very good idea! RUN AWAY!!!

             We spent most of the iTunes money (which adds up to about $50 total) the other day but we have $14 left so we are going to spend that later. The time has to be perfect for daddy too because he supervises the entire thing and makes sure we don't go a cent over, then he takes off his credit card # the second we are finished so there is not potential for theivery. That is pretty much stupid because he is where we get all our money so there is no way we are gunna steal from him. We bought a bunch of awesome music and games for the Touch so it is entirely amazing! I spent mine on a bunch of Taylor Swift and Glee because I'm the only person (except Kayley, and she was in charge of the Adele) who listens to it. Zander got his gangstar game and some other games with his money and he has a few bucks left for his rap music that no one but him listens to. It was the absolute perfect amount and it was awesome of daddy to give it to us!

Us at the 'Mother Temple'. Huge! Also not on Christmas...

               Daddy (aka the money bag) also gave us money for presents for each other too, but I am way to picky with shopping so I didn't have time to pick out a present for myself within the time allotted by daddy's insubstantial patience. Sarah just gave me a 50,000 Rp bill instead. I spent that, along with my remaining allowance, yesterday at the little stand at Echo Beach. There I got all the time in the world while everyone else (minus Kayley who was my shopping buddy, shopping cart and mirror) had drinks. The small selection also helped so I could look at everything in there like three times without taking a million years! It was really fun and I ended up getting a pretty good deal on it too. I got two dresses, some sunglasses, and an awesome hat for about $15 USD (144,000 Rp). I ended up being a few thousand short, but the guy was ok with it so I am completely and perfectly broke!

           Despite what it may appear from all the money talk in my blog, this Christmas was NOT entirely about money!!! We did get fruit, food, and pretty fireworks (fireworks are cheap and very legal, so they go off like every night) out of it and it was a different Christmas than what we are used to but awesome all the same. We went out to dinner next door and watched the fireworks (colored red and green for Christmas, even though they are Hindu) before eating dinner. I had really yummy ribs and we even got dessert! This Christmas was actually better than I thought it would be, which hasen't happened in a very long time.
           

How slowly things get built in Bali by Zander

Bali is a developing country, so there is a lot of construction going on. But it is really slow. They don’t do there construction very efficiently. For instance, they don’t have heavy machinery, so there projects take way longer then they should. In the US, they industrialize everything and it will take  a few hours to do what the Balinese take a week to do by hand. They dig trenches by hand and mix concrete by hand. They do everything really slow.  They could develop way faster, if they used better equipment.  They don’t have dump trucks, so they empty the dirt from trucks by hand.  Why don't they  just get dump trucks? My mom says that it is the process, but I think that it is just plain stupid that they do things so slowly. If Bali industrialized, they would be building there houses and shops much faster and save a lot of time, money, and labor.

Christmas in Bali by Kayley

           Christmas this year was sort of disappointing, because I built my hopes up really high. I hoped that we’d get more presents because everything is so cheap in Bali.   I always build my hopes up for everything, and I always get disappointed.  But this was one of the most disappointing Christmases we’ve had in a while. 

             It was disappointing because I had hoped that mommy and daddy would have a big surprise and they didn’t.  Instead, I got a really colorful dress that I picked out for Christmas from the market on the way to a temple. In the “stockings”, we all got a box of Tim Tam biscuits, a mango and some tiny oranges.  Also I got 11 dollars on iTunes.  That was kind of cool! In all Zander, Mia, Sarah and I had 50 dollars’ worth of iTunes.  Zander spent his money on apps and Mia and I spent our money on songs.  Sarah still hasn’t spent most of her iTunes money. Also, we all got a fried Balinese snack.  Mine tasted like very crunchy sweet potatoes. On Christmas day, we opened our presents and went to the Ombak café next door for dinner.  That’s about all we did all day.

            It would have been better if we had gotten more money on iTunes and if I had gotten a sarong.  Also, I wish I had gotten a different colored dress because the yellow on the dress looks hideous with my skin.  And it would be better if we had gotten more yummy stuff in our stockings.  It would be an awesome Christmas if we had gotten more presents. But sadly, my bags are full and Bippy and gramps gave all of us lots of money that I don’t want to spend in Bali because daddy makes us negotiate and that’s hard work.

Farming in Bali by Sarah

                There are people who farm lots of different crops in Bali and sell them.  I’ve seen many fields of rice and other crops along the road on our drives around the island and have tasted many fruits and veggies.  I especially like rice, Rambatans, mangos, Durian and Jackfruit, banana, and many other crops that are grown on Bali.

                Rice is everywhere.  The Balinese people farm the rice almost everywhere on the island except high in the mountains and on the peninsula with Uluwatu.  They farm rice by starting really high and terracing down to the bottom where the deep gutters carry the water to the ocean.  They make retaining walls out of dirt and grass to the steps that hold the rice field.  Each terrace has a hole in the wall that lets the water run down so there is always new water coming in.  The top terrace gets its fresh water from the rain.  The rice gets harvested every 4 months, so farmers get 3 crops in a year.  I think that rice farming is a lot of hard work because it is done mostly by hand.

                Rambatans are yummy.  They are a fruit that have soft spikes on the outside and sweet white flesh on the inside with a pit in the middle.  They are sort of like lechees with the spikes.  They grow on trees in clusters like grapes but not as tight.  Komang, our house manager has a tree in her yard and she brings them for us for dinner.  They are my favorite fruit in the Tropics.

                Durian and Jackfruit are really spiky, green and brown, strange looking fruit.  They are both yellow in side and have spikes on the outside.  But Durian is smaller, about the size of my head. The inside is divided into 7 or 8 chambers that hold a stringy custardy flesh that tastes like a vanilla pudding.  It also has a very strong fragrant, not always nice smell. I tried the Durian first in Cairns and have seen many here for sale in roadside stands.  Jackfruit is larger than the Durian.  Some of them can fit me inside of them!  They are really yellow and stringy in the inside and have a flesh that is firm and tasty, really sweet and sticky.  I like the Durian and Jackfruit but I could not eat them every day because it is easy to overdose on them because they have strong flavors and they are kind of messy.

                Some other fruits that can be found in Bali are bananas, mangos, coconuts, corn, and peanuts.   There are some bananas in our yard, but they are not ripe yet.  I’ve tried baby bananas that are really small, about the size of my thumb, and regular bananas.  Mangos here are green, but they have bright yellow-orange flesh that is sweet and flowery.  There are also coconuts in our yard but I can’t pick them because they are high up.  I did have some coconuts at the beach though.  I also had fresh roasted sweet corn at the beach.  It was really yummy with butter on it.   I have also seen fresh peanuts being sold by vendors who walk around with them on bamboo wracks on their shoulders.  The peanuts that we bought at the store are crunchy and small, but good.

                I liked tasting all the different fruits and veggies in Bali and seeing the on the trees and in the fields.  It makes me feel good because I know they are fresh and grown nearby.  Plus, they are really yummy!

By Sarah

The dilema on Balis ocean cleanliness by Zander

        In Bali there is a real problem with the cleanliness of their water and beaches. Bali is an undeveloped country, so there aren’t very many regulations.  They don’t have dedicated sewer system and they don’t clean the water before it hits the ocean.  We can’t drink the water out of the tap, and there is trash everywhere. It is really sad that Balinese government doesn’t care more about the pollution in the waterways.

            The primary sewage system is the ditch by the side of the road. For example there is a really big gutter next to every street as the draining system and the sewer. People walk in it and wash their kids in it. When it hits the beach they don’t clean it and it runs into ocean right next to our house. You have to be careful of that you don’t fall into it. At some beaches the water is brown, and there are lots of floaters in it, but people still surf in it because they don’t know how bad it is to swim in their own poop. Today it was really hard to surf because of how slippery the board felt; I think that it was like that because of all the soap and detergent that was washed to the ocean by recent heavy rains. My mom was picking shopping bags out of her surf board leash, while she was surfing. Some locals were fishing in the draining ditch and lining the rocks that made up the draining ditch walls with mortar. If the Balinese government put down some pipes and cleaned the water then the Balinese beaches would be much more pleasurable.

            I really learned from my time on the beaches in Bali. For instance how to dodge floaters and logs. What was really sad was how undeveloped and unregulated Bali is. There is always something wrong with places. For example, California is too regulated, and Bali is not regulated enough. Sometimes regulations are good, like if you want a clean beach.

Tropical Fruit by Kayley

         Fruit in the tropics taste really good but they don't always look like fruit. Some of the tropical fruit look like big spiky seeds.
         The other day my family and I tried a piece of this huge fruit called a Jack fruit. The inside of a jack fruit is yellow and stringy. The seeds are about two inches long and Sarah says that the seeds are like nuts. To add to that, the fruit is extremely sticky. Also, on the outside the jack fruit is brown and spiky and about two and a half feet long!
          The Dorian fruit is about the size of a coconut that you pick off the tree. Also, the Dorian is covered in brown and green spikes. The middle of the middle of the fruit is full of compartments that contain a bit and a yellow custard like fruit. The custard is really sticky, stringy, and delicious.
         Most people probably think that coconuts fall off the tree with only the brown and hairy shell  but they are wrong. The coconut actually has a green or yellow, inch thick fibre coating. The fibre coating doesn't look like its edible, and it isn't, but the rest of the coconut is either extremely tasty or hard or both.

        As you see some tropical fruit looks inedible on the outside, but is really tasty on the inside. The pictures I have are from Google Images.

Travelling by Sarah

Travelling

Sarah, Bali driveway.

Travelling is part of life and sometimes goes good and bad,
I am even travelling right now.
I like to see different places in the world,
Like the Taj Mahal, the Great Barrier Reef, the Great Pyramids of Giza, and Greek Temples.

Me surfing, Bali

.
I forgot my favorite part: surfing!
It always works: rent a board and stop travelling for a second.

Kayley and I at a temple in Bali.

Don’t forget the statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower.
I travel for life and good and bad things happen.
Hollywood, LA is always good.
New York, Washington DC even better.
The wonders of the world very interesting,
but you can’t see all of it and you can’t see everything.  

The intresting ride to our rental house in Bali By Zander

me with a fire truck passing, people donot get out of there way

My family landed in Bali really late Monday evening and we had to get to our house. I was really tired and we had not planned a ride to our rental house. When I got through immigration and regrouped with my family, we walked out of the Airport and I knew that we were in trouble. There were Taxi drivers there trying to get us to their car. At the entrance, there was a wall of taxi drivers and chauffeurs screaming out people’s names, which was really confusing. Some people were following us and saying that they had the best price. My dad tried about 5 of them, and then figured out that renting a car would cost more.  Plus he didn’t know how to get to the house. We finally found someone that my dad liked that gave us the right price and spoke okay English.  So we got into his van. We were squished!  I had a ton of bags on my lap and was so tired that I didn’t care.  I was so happy to finally do something that would get us closer to our rental, even though I didn’t know what to expect from it.

It was a really interesting ride home.   I was always on edge because there are absolutely no rules.  And there are no signs. I was so surprised that we hadn’t been hit.  Our driver didn’t know where we were going. We had to stop a few times to get directions. My dad kept on muttering about why we aren’t there already. Our driver had to stop to get some more minutes for his phone. I saw a lot of shabby looking shops and an Apple store with a broken glass window.  I knew that it was a fake. Our driver kept on calling all of his friends and asking them where our house was. It was really exciting!  People on scooters kept passing us and it took us about an hour to get there. I was so surprised that we got there because our car kept going in circles. But we finally got there! I was so happy even though it was not what I expected.  But I didn’t care as long as it had enough beds, I was happy.

the really cool tempal that has a really nice gate

                So the first thing we did was find out where we were sleeping. Then I went to bed right away. I ended sleeping on a queen bed with Sarah.  But I didn’t care, because I was so tired. I was so happy to sleep comfortably even if it was in my sleeping bag.   It was really hot and humid.  I didn’t know that there were 2 fans in the room. The next day we figured it out, and I was really mad that we didn’t use it last night, because I was really sweaty. None of that mattered because I was happy that we had finally gotten to Bali, and I couldn’t wait to see Bali during the day time.

me eating lunch

Bali by Mia

Getting to Bali at 11 pm was a bit disorienting and sorta scary. We had to take a taxi from the airport because we didn’t have a car and there was a ton of people trying to get us to go with them. The drive to the house was also scary because the roads are extremely chaotic! Some of them are pretty much one lane wide with a line in the middle, like a bike path. That sort of makes sense though because most of the traffic is motorbikes. The roads felt really claustrophobic because of the small size and the large traffic! The taxi driver didn’t know where our house was so it took a while to find it. When we did it was good though because it’s a really pretty house, though a bit unusual. There are two big bedrooms and a main room with a second story/ loft thing that is more like a hang out. There is a little yard with a wall around it and a little pool. There are plants and vines everywhere so the whole place looks a bit magical.

The day after we arrived we went grocery shopping and daddy got a driver to drive us to the market because the roads are so insane. Even though it takes so long to get places due to the traffic, you never get bored because there is so much cool stuff out the window! At the market there was a big grocery store and a bunch of other shops and restaurants lining the street. Everything was really cheap! We got lunch for all of us for about $20 USD! It was awesome, and that was a touristy market so everything was more expensive than at the local markets. We hung out there for a few hours grocery shopping and looking at all the stuff they were selling. The girls went looking for new bikinis while Zander and daddy did some other man stuff. The bathing suits were surprisingly expensive there so we decided not to get anything. When we were done we found our driver again and left just as it started to rain. The driver didn’t speak English very well so daddy decided to get a new one for the next day. We all agreed that we would need drivers for this trip! The driver did tell daddy that motorbikes cost next to nothing to rent so he got one of them for fun! Everyone but me has gone on a ride with him but, I decided I don’t want to die just yet.

The next day daddy got another driver that spoke English a little bit better. He is a really good surfer so we rented boards and went surfing with him. The beach we went to was absolutely nasty! The water was a muddy brown and there were all sorts of things floating around in it. There were whole plastic bags and daddy even saw some toilet paper! It was gross I only went in for about five minutes and came out with a bunch of dirt in my bathing suit. I lay on the beach for the rest of the time watching them surf and guarding daddy’s stuff. It was hilarious how much better at surfing all the Indonesian kids were than mommy and daddy. I witnessed a few very embarrassing wipeouts by mommy. One was the board slipping out from under her and her falling backwards, and the other was her face planting on her board. She got a bloody lip out of that one so we all decided to call it a day. We showered as much of the dirt off as possible before getting back in the car to go to some temple somewhere.

The temple we went to was really touristy and we couldn’t actually go in to it. There was a whole street of shops selling fruit and clothes and stuff that led up to the temple. We ate really yummy lunch before going to the temple. The fruit juice we got was actual fruit! It was amazing! We had to wade across to the temple because it was on a rock a little bit off from shore and the pathway is only dry at low tide. When we got across some guys stuck rice on our forehead and put a really pretty flower behind our ear. The temple was closed off so we just went back and walked to a place where we could see it from afar. All along the pathways there were people selling things and cute little kids would come up and try to sell you postcards and jewelry. It was really sad. We made our way through the maze of paths and shops until we got to the car so we could go back to the house.

On Thursday we went to the Botanical Gardens. They were huge! There were trees gardens, flower gardens, and even a cactus garden! My favorite was the Orchid Garden because it was all mossy and old and magical looking, like the yard of our house. There was a pond and a little waterfall in it and everything. We went in the cactus garden, and walked up a hill to a little gazebo where we could see the lake. It was really cool! We walked around until we were about to fall over and die of heat exaustion. Then we found the driver and had a picnic lunch on the lawn of one of the garden's guest houses (thats how big it is! It has houses on it!). After that, we saw some more temples and stuff. They were a bit better because they were less touristy and you could actually see them. We saw like three or four temples that day and the best was called the elephant cave. It wasn’t like the other ones because you could actually go into it and stuff. There was a concrete tunnel, a few pools with fountains and fish swimming around in them (some of the fish were giant and had to swim on their side because the pool was so shallow). We waded through a little pool with a statue thing in the middle of it and then we went up to a little temple and a lady splashed water on our heads (that’s a blessing I think). By the end of that we were pretty much temple-d out! We drove home and stopped at the local market on the way to get some jackfruit (that stuff is good, though I think it is filled with glue). Mommy had asked the housekeeper, Komang to cook dinner for us so when we got home there was a really yummy dinner waiting! There was fried chicken, egg rolls, chicken curry, and chicken sate with peanut sauce. It was so good that everyone ate too much and we just sat around being fat the rest of the evening. It was delicious, and she even did dishes!!!!!!! I’m starting to like Bali.

Port Douglas by Mia

After we got off the ferry from Fitzroy Island, daddy rented a car and we drove to Port Douglas. The car was a little sedan so all the kids were squished in the backseat together! It was really squished and hot back there, even with the A/C on full blast. After the 45 min drive, we drove around some more looking for a place to stay. We went to like 10 different places and a few were closed, a few more were too expensive, and one was full of partying college students and was right next to a bar. We finally found an awesome Best Western and daddy told the lady there was four of us instead of six and got a cheap room that had enough beds for everyone except for Sarah (she slept on the couch cushions on the floor). We had to sneak around the whole time because there was only supposed to be two kids and that made it kind of fun. The room had a kitchen and everything so mommy made a really delicious dinner and we went swimming and watched TV until we went to bed (in beds!!!!).

The next day we went on a self-guided tour thingy of the area and the rainforest and stuff. There was a map that told you where to stop and a CD that had a narration with history and information. We went for a bunch of short walks on boardwalks through the forest and one to a swing bridge over a big river that was called a creek but I think it was too big to be one. The forest was full of trees (well, duh) and plants with giant leaves and lots of bugs. There were vines hanging down everywhere and the trees were all really straight and thin and tall so they could get to the sunlight as fast as possible. We saw a tree that looked like a bunch of vines that had melted together to make a big hollow tube with holes in it. That particular rainforest is the oldest in the world and it has plants that are so old that there have been fossils found of them! The rainforest is way different from all the forest I have ever been in.

On the way back to the hotel after the tour thing we went on a few more hikes and stopped at a café on the beach for some slushies. The beach was covered in holes with little balls of sand all around them. We had no idea what they were until I saw a sand colored crap scuttling around. It was really hard to see unless it was moving because it was really well camouflaged. The holes were little houses for the crabs and some were really big! It was quite cool. Then we went on a wildlife cruise on the river to see if we could see any crocodiles. We didn’t find any, but we saw lots of birds and a big lizard (which is almost a croc, but not quite). The guide was really cool though and he talked about all the crazy plants in the jungle. There is one that has little pickers all over its leaves that shoot neurotoxins into you and give you a really painful rash thing that last for like 6 months and nerve damage that last a year! It’s like the plants think the dinosaurs are going to come along and try to eat them or something!

Tourists by Mia

It is hilarious to watch all the tourists get all their gear! When they are snorkeling they rent stinger suits (to protect against jellies, no one ever even gets stung and I have only seen one stinging jelly this whole trip and it was smaller than my hand) and get lifejackets and everything. Most of them could barely even swim! It was so funny to watch them wave their legs around without actually pushing any water. I think they gave out life jackets on the reef trip so they could sell more scuba gear. The lifejackets made it impossible to dive and the water was definitely shallow enough to get to the bottom without scuba gear, even in the deepest parts of the reef. I was going down level with the scuba divers! It was funny how much they could sell to all the tourists! There were photographers wandering around taking pictures of you that they would sell back to you for like $20. There were ads for helicopter rides back to Cairns if you get seasick and there were all sorts of other boat tours that they had going off the float. Tourists are so funny!

Cairns and the Reef by Mia

The plane ride to Cairns was killer! We flew to Melbourne from Auckland starting at 9 pm and ending at midnight (local time, so for us it felt like 2 am) and ‘slept’ on the floor in the airport for six hours. Needless to say, there really wasn’t much sleeping going on. Kayley, Sarah and Zander made a bed out of our luggage and the rest of us pushed together stools from the coffee shop we were sleeping in at the airport. The stools would move around every time I moved so it was hard to sleep. I only slept for like 3 hours that entire night! I slept through the flight from Melbourne to Cairns because I was so tired!

 We got into Cairns at 6 am and it was boiling! It was really hot and the air was so full of water that everything was all sticky and gross. We caught a taxi to the hotel we were staying in for the night (it was free, and it was nice—at least compared to where we had been staying!). We got two rooms and together they were pretty much bigger than the house we stayed at in Christchurch! There was a kitchen and everything! We were very excited, mostly because we had beds to sleep on. We took a 2 hour nap and swam in the pool for a while before heading to the mall for groceries. We stopped at Target for flip flops on the way. I didn’t get any because I already have sandals and I will get new shoes in Bali anyway (CANNOT WAIT!!!). We got food for dinner and breakfast at the hotel as well as the few days on Fitzroy Island. I got to pick out some ice cream to eat because it was so hot! I was very happy about that.

The next morning we got on the ferry to Fitzroy Island. Fitzroy is a little tropical island (palm trees and everything!) with a big fancy resort on it. There is also a campsite which is crap. Our absolutely lovely parents got themselves a nice two person suite and us a tent site. The tropics have got both giant bugs and giant rainstorms every night so we just pitched the tent and left it there. We brought our stuff to their room and are just sleeping on the floor in the World’s only tile floored hotel room!

We went swimming for a while and then rented some snorkel gear and went snorkeling right off the beach. The water is really warm! It’s so amazing. Compared to the only other time I have gone snorkeling it was incredible! There were actual fish and actual living coral (in Kauai there was only one fish and all the coral was dead). It was really pretty! The only bad thing was that it looked like people had dropped anchors or something on the coral because there were little dead patches every here and there. Also, there were little stingy things in the water that were really annoying! We were in the water pretty much all day because it was so hot outside. Cooked dinner on the BBQ at the campsite and there was a giant cloud of horseflies that kept trying to eat our steak so we went back to the room to eat. It was an awesome day! We just played all day long.

On the second day we got on a big boat with overzealous air-conditioning to go to see the reef. I was wearing my wet bathing suit and Daddy’s giant cotton t-shirt (also soaked—you don’t feel the humidity as much if your already wet, it also cools you down) I was freezing! The boat ride lasted for like 45 minutes before we got to a big float on the reef. We listened to a 20 min coral talk during the boat ride that mommy thinks is 50% fake, but she did learn about coral like 20 years ago, so they are looking it up. They fed us really yummy buffet lunch before we went out to snorkel on the reef. There were tons of fish and colorful coral without anchor holes! The coral was also a lot bigger that the stuff at Fitzroy Island. We even saw some sharks, which wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be. We took hundreds of pictures with the new waterproof camera that daddy got at Duty Free in Auckland. We snorkeled for like 3 hours and everyone had huge sunburns on their backs when we were done. After everyone was done snorkeling they gave us afternoon tea and biscuits. Everyone could only get four each, but of course we went back and got seconds! When we got back to the island, we went out to the fancy resort restaurant for dinner to celebrate us seeing the Great Barrier Reef!

The Great Barrier Reef by Sarah

This is a picture of me before we went to Fitzroy Island!!!

On the 15th of December, my family and I went to the Great Barrier Reef with Sunlovers Cruises.  The Sunlovers Cruise provided snorkel equipment but it was really bad.  But, I learned and saw lots of fish and coral anyway.  Some coral looked like grass and some looked like brains. The animals and coral were amazing. 

Jellyfish at the Great Barrier Reef.

The snorkels that Sunlovers Cruises provided for us were really bad.  The other snorkelers on our tour wore lifejackets, even the grownups did!  There was an old man who got all the gear and couldn’t even swim so he asked his son to swim with him! It was really funny!  The water was a bit choppy so water kept getting in my snorkel. I couldn’t clear the snorkel properly without taking the mouthpiece off because the self-clearing spout was missing a cover piece.  The goggles that I got leaked a lot.   I ended up not using the snorkel and just use the mask and fins. 

This is a shark with fish.

At the Great Barrier Reef, the animals I say were fishes, sea cucumbers, clams, and coral. They had lots of fishes and they were all different colors, sizes and shapes. The sea cucumbers were in a tub and they were still alive.  They breathed by getting water in through their mouth, taking air out of it, and squirting it out their backside! It was funny because it looked like they were peeing.  The clams that we saw were huge! One of them could fit me inside of it. The clams were really colorful and pretty inside, too.  If you closed them up and saw them, they would look like a rock on the outside. I think that is to camouflage with the rocks.  The coral was really pretty and there were all different kinds and colors. Some looked like brains, and some looked like flowers.   There was such a big variety! 

I learned that coral is an animal and they are related to the jellyfish. Coral makes seaweed around it so fish can eat it and they get food. The coral eat little particles in the water with their tiny mouths they have all over them. They grow by splitting in half every time each piece gets big. They make baby corals by laying eggs that float up to the top and hatch and the baby floats down to the bottom and lands on a dead coral. The baby grows and splits in half over and over to grow big! The seaweed that grows on the coral is a food source for the fishies and the coral. The coral gets some of the nutrients that the seaweed gets from the sun because there isn’t enough food for the coral.

I saw and learned lots of amazing sea life on the trip to the Great Barrier Reef. Despite the bad equipment the funny tourists, the trip to the Great Barrier Reef was so magnificent!

 Sarah