Ayers Rock Sunset

So happy to help this couple plan out a whirlwind honeymoon trip of Australia and New Zealand. Here is a great review of their adventures!!! I had a fantastic time! I just wished we had spent more two more weeks travelling. Thank you for letting the tour guides and hotels know we were on our honeymoon. We got lots of chocolates and little gifts from that. :) Cairns was a great beach town that you couldn't go on the beach lol. The hotel was nice and close to everything. We visited the casino' s zoo next door and enjoyed watching the salty eat a rat. The two scuba days were fun too. The first dive was good. It was about 20 people that were learning to dive, licensed or snorkeling. They just gave us instructions and let us go do our own thing. The second day we had a much larger boat with many divers, snorkelers and licensed divers. We had to go with a dive leader but it was nice and we got to see a white tip reef shark and a sea turtle. The food was good on both ships. It cost about 8 bucks to rent a towel from the hotel. The water was in the 80's and no one can complain about that. Ayers Rock was very warm. I loved the heat but Mary was not a fan. The flies took is by surprise. I recommend that anyone going there should bring a fly net and napalm. No American bug spray will work there. We tried to go to the pool but the bugs got really bad. The sounds of silence dinner was great! A nice buffet under the stars. We didn't really need any lights because the galaxy was so bright. The hiking tour was fun too but we did not get to go to Uluru. The tour guide was great and kept everyone going. We had fun with the camelback ride and enjoyed the sunrise. I recommend wearing old gym shoes over hiking boots when there. They will be more comfortable and a lot lighter when doing a hike in the sun. Due to the flies we couldn't wait to leave Ayers Rock. We basically sat in the hotel room and watch tv most of the time due to the flies. The hotel room had a great view of Uluru and was very nice. Sydney was fantastic and fly free. The hotel was good and at the perfect spot in old Sydney. We could see the opera house from our room and it was on one of the nicer streets. We were a 7 minute walk to the bridge. We enjoyed the climb at sunset. I would recommend that to everyone. It was a very easy climb/walk and you can see the entire city. Turns out you can't even wear a watch on the climb but they have free lockers to put your stuff in. The city tour was fun too. We took a large van and drove around to all the popular places. The tour guide was great and was pretty funny. The only problem was we got stuck in traffic. We took a train to the Chinese garden and China town. The Chinese market was a good place to buy gifts at a much discounted price. Many of the items were the same or similar to what you would see at a more pricey store. They also barter over everything there. We took a boat ride to Manly. I recommend people go there in the morning if they want to hangout at the beach. Our city tour guide recommend not swimming in the harbor due to the amount of bull sharks. Manly seemed to be a Spring Break town. It was filled with kids in their teens and 20's. We ate pizza there but it was a tad over price and was not very good. New Zealand was beautiful of course. The hotel was great at helping us with reservations and finding restaurants. We ate dinner at the harbor for Valentines day. It was a 100 New Zealand per person but ended up being about 70 US per person after the exchange rate. The island hike was fun and would recommend lots of water and sunscreen. Also, take the early boat out there. We walked quickly and only got 1/3 of the island covered. Also, it would be a good idea to get food for the walk the day before. Most stores close around 5 or 6 pm in the city. Hobbiton was a long long bus ride but we had an amazing tour guide that talked the entire time. We had time to hit the gift store then walk around the village. The buffet was massive and fun. They have three beers for everyone to taste and 1 ginger non alcoholic beer. Everything was unlimited food and drink. The cave tour was fun too. The walking portion was about 15 to 30 minutes. We then waited another 15 minutes to go on the 7 minute boat ride but it was still cool to see. The gift store was big and Mary was able to get two fleece jackets for next to nothing. The tour guide was able to get a souvenir store to stay open for us on the way home so everyone could get New Zealand ice cream. We did dinner at Orbit 360 at the casino. The food was good and we got a great view of the town. It's a $80 New Zealand dollar minimum to eat there. It was fun and worth doing.

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