Icelanders are known for many things, chief among them, their healthy appetite for some of earths most adorable creatures.  Here are a but a few:

Puffin and pony were too bold a leap for us to make, so instead we decided to start small with earth's largest animal - whale.

Minke whale is widely available in Reykjavik restaurants.  We had a really great seafood dinner in Iceland, anchored by the dish shown below.

The whale was blackened outside and raw inside.  It was served with potatoes, mini corn on the cobs, corn meal puree and some random pieces of popcorn.  The combination worked very well.  The meat was red, akin to a fresh tuna steak, but with a totally different taste.  It was unlike anything we'd eaten before.  But it was sensational.  If you find yourself in Iceland (or Japan, where I hear it's also available), definitely give it a try.  

We were really excited about the next leg of our Australian tour because we were going to visit our good friends, Nicole & Brad, and their two adorable children Jackson & Stella.  They live in a town along Australia's east coast called Gladstone, which is about a 2-hour boat ride away from one of the most beautiful islands we've ever seen - Heron Island. 

We drove to Gladstone from Hervey Bay on a Thursday afternoon.  We spent that afternoon catching up with Nicole, taking a quick spin around Gladstone and playing with the kiddos.  Jackson, who is almost 2, showed us his collection of cars and trucks (he LOVES anything on wheels), read lots of books with us (often about trucks) and taught us his personal rendition of Wheels on the Bus, which we are still singing over a week later!  Once Brad came home from work we had an outstanding dinner of grilled lamb chops and a delicious couscous salad. Best meal we've had in Australia! 

Heron Island
The next morning, we packed up and caught the 2-hour ferry to Heron Island.  Heron Island is a small coral cay in the southernmost part of the Great Barrier Reef.  It's about 40 acres and it takes 20 minutes to walk the circumference of the island. 

Heron Island Ferry & Resort
There is only one ferry that goes to Heron Island and it leaves from Gladstone once a day, so everyone who goes to the island must stay over night.  There is only one resort on the island where anyone stays as there is no camping allowed.  This means no day-trippers visit the island, so it never feels crowded.  We usually had the beach to ourselves, save one or two people passing by. The resort fees are all inclusive (except for drinks) so you don't have to worry about bringing food or choosing a restaurant at night.  It's easy and very relaxing! 

One tip:  The ferry ride is really pricey (roundtrip $200 per person), however, there are many travel agencies in Australia that run promotions that include a ferry transfer which are often the same as the resort rates posted on the Heron Island website. If you plan on going here, consider contacting a few Australian travel agencies to get a deal and save yourself the huge ferry fares.

Here are some photos from our ride to the island:

Sharks, Stingrays, and Gus the Grouper
Upon pulling into the jetty, you can immediately see all sorts of marine life below - colorful parrot fish, stingrays, sharks and a giant grouper named Gus.

Island Walk
When we arrived, the resort gave us a welcome drink and a quick briefing. Then Brad, Chris and I immediately went to the dive shop to sign up for a 2 dives the following day and collect our gear. After we sorted out our dives, we went for a walk around the island, followed by drinks at sunset and a great buffet dinner!

Star-gazing
There are many activities available throughout the day and night on Heron. One of the night activities was star-gazing.  Guests gather on the helipad and two staff members use a laser and a telescope to show various constellations in the sky.  While the lecture was really interesting, the best part about this experience was seeing the night sky. It was spectacular.  I wish I could have captured the starry sky on camera because my words can't do it justice.  I can only remember one other time in my life where I saw a night sky like this, and that was when I was a kid on a boat moored on one of the small islands near Puerto Rico. 

We saw thousands (millions?) of stars and planets including saturn (the rings were visible through the telescope), Sagittarius, Scorpio and the Milky Way.  We even saw a few shooting stars! That night, I felt very small on this tiny island.

Scuba Diving Heron
The next morning we all had breakfast together and then it was time for our first dive.  Diving while on Heron is super easy. You meet at the jetty 10 minutes before departure time. Since the island is so small, it's usually no more than a 5 minute walk to the jetty.  The crew does a quick briefing and then you are off to explore one of the many reefs within 20 minutes of the island. We did two dives - one in the morning and another in the afternoon. 

Our morning dive was so-so. We went to a spot called Harry's Bommie, which was a beautiful massive section of coral reef.  Apparently this is one of the areas they rarely go to as the conditions have to be just right.  However, this also meant that we were to follow the professional guide throughout the dive.  It was definitely better than Tweeds Head on the Gold Coast, but our dive guide rushed through the dive, so we were doing a lot of swimming and not as much observing our surroundings.  We also had really small air tanks, which made swimming really easy, but only gave us about 15-20 minutes in the water.  Once we surfaced, the three of us decided to snorkel a bit, but it just wasn't the same. The guide and a few other people in our group were underwater longer than us, which we found strange.  We later learned that they snagged larger air tanks. Afterwards the crew assured us that we would get the larger tanks on the next dive since our first dive was so short. 

The afternoon dive was pretty cool. Our guide brought us to Coral Canyons and told us that her style was to swim around slowly and look for wildlife. Perfect! She was great and we saw lots of different fish and tons of sea turtles. Brad and Chris ran out of air faster than I did, but still got about 35 minutes under water. My air lasted the full 45 minutes and I got to see some more turtles, one of which was massive.  After the second dive, we understood what diving in Australia should be. It was amazing! 

We didn't have underwater cameras but below are some shots before the dive.  Also, Google has done an underwater Streetview of Heron Island so you can see the reef too! 

Reef Walking
On our second day on the island, we also tried reef walking. During low tide, you can walk really far out onto the reef from the beach. The resort provides you with reef walking shoes and an underwater scope so you can see the many different types of coral, sea cucumbers, giant clams and fish in the reef. We spent about an hour walking far out on the reef. 

On the second evening we enjoyed sundowners, a massive seafood dinner of oysters (yay!), bugs (like mini-lobsters, a local specialty), mussels, prawns, salmon and lots more.  After dinner, we celebrated our last night on Heron on the beach, under the stars with a bottle of champagne. The white sand glowed under the bright stars while everything else was pitch black. The little ones were dozing off in our arms and us big kids were getting tired after a day of activities, so after our glass of bubbles, we called it a night. 

How Cute Are these Kids?!?!
The best part of this trip was that we got to spend time with Nicole, Brad and their kids. We already miss Stella's sweet smile and Jackson's singing and enthusiastic WHOAs when he sees something cool. Here are a few shots of these adorable kids:

Jackson Allen

Stella Rose

After two wonderful days and nights, we said farewell to Heron Island. We were so sad to leave and hope to return one day.  Luckily, we still had one more night left in Gladstone with Nicole, Brad & the kids before heading off to the Whitsundays. 

A HUGE thanks to Nicole and Brad for their hospitality and for introducing us to Heron Island. It was truly amazing!  

After leaving Noosa, we set out for our next stop, Hervey Bay, which would be our base for visiting Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world. 

Rainbow Beach:
On the way, we stopped off at Rainbow Beach to see the colorful sand cliffs.  It is also a popular spot for people to go off-roading on the beach, and its harbor is another launching point for getting to Fraser Island. The town of Rainbow Beach consists of a small collection of dusty old shops, but this is not why one visits Rainbow Beach.  This is:

Hervey Bay's Megabats
We arrived in Hervey Bay in the late afternoon and checked into our apartment at the Watermark, which was right across from the ocean.  This apartment was every bit as lovely as the one in Noosa, although the internet was lackluster.  

On our first night in town, we were driving around at dusk and heard a cacophony of squeals and squeaks coming from the trees above.   We thought it was some sort of bird gathering, but it turned out to be megabats or flying foxes as they are commonly called here.  By some estimates, 80,000 of these flying foxes call Hervey Bay home, and each night they fly over to Fraser Island to feast on fruits.  This is what you see each night during bat season:

Fraser Island
We had booked a day trip to Fraser Island departing early the following morning.  Fraser Island is the world’s largest island made entirely of sand.  It consists of many natural wonders including a huge beach called 75-Mile Beach, an interior rainforest and many beautiful lakes. It also boasts one of Australia’s largest dingo populations.  There are no paved roads on the island and it can only be traversed with a high-clearance four wheel drive vehicle.  There are a couple of resorts on the island, but most people go there to camp.

Our trip was through Fraser Explorer.  We were picked up at 7:20am and spent the next hour or so picking up people from other hotels, while discussing the American real estate market with the driver’s sidekick.  The guy was flabbergasted that we had not yet purchased several properties in Florida and Arizona, because evidently this is what all the Australians are doing, as they are so “cheap”.  

We finally arrived at the dock and boarded the ferry over to Fraser Island.  The ferry (or the barge as they call it) took about 45 minutes over calm, picturesque waters.  

Once we arrived, we were shown to our vehicle for the day, this bad boy:

We piled in along with 38 other passengers on this German build MAN 4x4 bus, specially constructed for traversing Fraser’s sandy paths.   The first piece of advice they give you upon boarding is to buckle up, and for good reason, as the bumps were huge and we were constantly flying out of our seats.  In fact, I would not recommend this trip to anyone with any sort of back problems! 

Our guide was David, a middle aged guy who grew up on and around Fraser Island. Unfortunately, we were a little put off by David, as it seemed he wanted to be anywhere other than giving this tour. 

Our first stop was in the island’s interior rainforest.   We spent about fifteen minutes sprinting through the forest behind David, while he told us to hurry it along and take pictures of this tree or that bird, commanding us to “click, click, click.”   I wasn't fast enough to capture pictures of the birds, so instead, I took a picture of this fern.  For those interested, it is the world’s largest fern.  It was also the most interesting thing we saw in the rainforest.

The Sandy Highway
Next came the best part of the day – 75-Mile Beach.  Our bus cruised northward on the beach for about 20 minutes.  It’s very common for vehicles to drive on this beach, in fact it’s the island’s main roadway and has speed limit signs posted along the way, topping out at 80 kph!

We made our way up the beach to visit a shipwreck called the Mehano.  This ship crashed here 70 years ago while being towed to Japan.  It has been decaying here every since in a very picturesque manner.

After this we went to see the ‘Coloured Sands’, essentially a pared down version of what we saw at Rainbow Beach.  Our favorite part of this stop was this sign:

Next we stopped off at Eli Creek, a popular spot for campers, consisting of fresh water fed by the natural spring under the island.  This fresh water spring is the reason so many plants and animals can live on this giant pile of sand.  Eli Creek makes for a great swimming and tubing spot.

Whales & A Lackluster Lunch
Next it was time for lunch.  In contrast to Iceland where we ate whale, here we simply gazed upon them from afar. On our way back along the beach, we saw two whales frolicking in the waves, which was pretty amazing!   

For lunch we stopped at the Resort that Time Forgot, which looked like the Dharma Initiative from Lost sans the maniacal hippie scientists.  

Lake McKenzie
After an average buffet lunch, we headed off to our final stop, Lake McKenzie.  Normally the lake is supposed to look like this:

Instead, it looked like this:

 It did not look like the famous pictures because all the recent rain had caused the lake to over-fill, covering the bright sandy beaches.  The water is highly acidic, so nothing can grow in it, making it very clear.  Chris said it was the second-clearest water he'd ever seen, following the cenotes in Tulum, Mexico.

Rush Hour on Fraser Island
Finally, it was time to head back.  On our way back, we got stuck behind another tour vehicle which had a flat tire.  Since the paths are so narrow, you cannot pass and we had to wait for the tire to be changed, which took about a half hour.  Luckily the ferry waited for our group since they did not want to strand so many people on the island.  The ferry took us back at sunset which was very pretty, and we arrived back at our apartment by 7pm.

Final Thoughts
It was really interesting to see a giant island made of sand and 75-Mile Beach was beautiful.  However, if we were to do it again, we would either skip Fraser Island altogether, or perhaps do it ourselves and either camp or stay overnight so that we could make our own schedule.  The problem with this is that you need to rent a proper 4x4 vehicle for the island, which is very expensive.  I am not a huge camper, however if you are into camping I think you’d really enjoy a few nights here.  Just watch out for the dingoes and the 12 species of deadly snakes that make Fraser their home!

Upon completing our scuba certification, we headed north about two hours to the small beach village of Noosa.  Noosa appeals to retirees, families and yuppies with equal fervor.  We were excited about chilling out on the beach for a few days after our intensive scuba program.

We booked an apartment in the Metzo Resort which was beautiful, located between Noosa Heads and Noosaville.  There were cafes and restaurants within walking distance, although you had to drive to reach the main beach in Noosa Heads. 

We arrived later in the evening, when most of the grocery stores had already closed down, so we decided to celebrate our scuba achievements with dinner at a place called Rock Salt.  This spot was highly recommended by both the Metzo staff and Tripadvisor.  The food was wonderful, but pricey (although most restaurants in Australia are pretty expensive).  It is BYOB, as many restaurants are here, and located in a sort of strip mall.  It was a solid meal.  

The next day, we had breakfast (or brekkie as the Aussies say) at a little café on the river, pretty much the only place in town to get breakfast for under $20 apiece.  This also meant that we shared the café with a bunch of retirees, which we enjoyed!  We spent the rest of the day in Noosa Heads checking out the shops, enjoying the beach and watching the sunset.  There is also a national park that runs along the beach here. We were pretty tired so we passed on hiking through the park but it is supposed to be lovely. 

The next morning we departed for our next stop, Hervey Bay and Fraser Island.  We thought Noosa was a nice place to relax.  We found it very similar to small upscale beach towns in south Florida, so don’t travel all the way here from America just to visit Noosa.  Save yourself some money and go to Florida.  However, if you are driving the Australian east coast, it makes a nice little stop off.

We'd been meaning to learn to scuba dive for years, but never got around to it, which is particularly shameful when you have family in Puerto Rico!  So, with an upcoming drive along the Great Barrier Reef, we figured it was now or never.

Brisbane Dive Academy:
We booked a weekend recreational diver certification course with the Brisbane Dive Academy. We chose the Brisbane Dive Academy for four reasons: 

1. It got pretty good reviews online.
   
2. It was a good deal because they were having a Winter Special promotion (much cheaper than our local dive shop in Boston).
3. We wanted to get certified before our trip to Heron Island so we could dive with our friend Brad, who was already a certified diver.
4. They didn't require us to book a medical exam with a doctor which would have cost us additional time and money (many of the other dive schools required this). Since we had both had check-ups before we left on our trip, we were confident we met the health requirements for recreational diving.

Steps to Get Certified:

• Step 1: This step is the least fun - course work. Each of us spent about 8-10 hours  taking courses and tests online in Brisbane. You must pass the final exam in order to continue on to the confined water dive. 
  
• Step 2: Complete basic swimming challenges in the pool to prove you can swim.
  
• Step 3: Learn how to put your equipment together.
  
• Step 4: Confined dive which consists of several dives in a swimming pool where you prove that you can perform various tasks underwater.
  
• Step 5: Four dives in the ocean, where you do the same tasks over again in a real world setting.  

Our certification course crammed this all into a busy Saturday and Sunday.

Our class consisted of eleven students and three instructors.  I'm pretty sure Chris and I were the oldest people in the entire lot.  Everyone kept asking us which school we attended and if we were in Australia for our semester abroad! 

The Long Journey to Tweeds Head:
We finished up our pool stuff by lunchtime on Saturday and embarked on an hour and a half drive to our dive site.  Brissie is surrounded by loads of water, so we assumed that the fact they were bringing us an hour and a half away meant we were going to a really amazing dive site.

We were wrong.  We ended up in Tweeds Head, diving in the mouth of some river south of Brisbane, as the tide was going out.  This meant you could see for about a foot or two in front of you because of all the silt that was being stirred up.  It also meant we had to swim against a serious current.  It was a somewhat disappointing (and slightly scary) first dive experience.

The next day we returned to the same spot for our next three ocean dives.  Fortunately, the tide was coming in at that point and the water was clear, so we could see a lot more.  Anyway, we jumped through a few more hoops and three dives later, we were officially certified scuba divers!

We left Boston on Sunday afternoon and spent the next day and a half making our way down under by way of New York, LA, and Sydney, before ultimately arriving in Brisbane (called Brissie by the Aussies).  This entailed flights of one hour, six hours, fifteen hours and two hours separated by layovers of various lengths.  Fortunately, we lucked out and were able to cash in some of our frequent flier miles toward business class seats, which made this a much nicer experience!

We arrived on a Tuesday afternoon and spent the next three days exploring the city and completing our online SCUBA lessons in advance of the certification course we had booked for that weekend (more on that in the next post).  Here are some of the highlights from our time in Brissie:

Cream Gables
We stayed in a great little B&B in the New Farm neighborhood of Brissie called Cream Gables.  While I don't care for the name, I highly recommend the B&B.  It's run by a hilarious lady named Anne and I'm pretty sure the name of the B&B is based  on the book Anne of Green Gables.  Anne has spent the last decade renovating the house into a very comfortable B&B.  It was really convenient, with parking in front, a grocery around the corner and a nice stroll to the downtown area or the water taxi.  Anne serves a delicious breakfast of eggs, bacon, mushrooms, toast, fruit & cereal on her backyard terrace each morning.  She was incredibly helpful providing us with tips on places to visit and Aussie culture. She was quite funny, especially when she came around the breakfast table and did a little cha cha dance while putting fresh pepper on our eggs.

River Walk and South Bank
On our first afternoon in town we were tired, but we forced ourselves to stay active till nightfall. We took a walk through town, down Brisbane's beautiful riverfront and across the river into the South Bank neighborhood, completing a big loop and heading back through the main downtown area.

Bulimba
The next day, after a few hours of online SCUBA lessons, we walked over to a neighborhood called Bulimba located across the river just east of New Farm.  While small, this neighborhood is full of cute boutiques and cafes. We had a great coffee at Mugged. 

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary
South of Brisbane is one of Australia's most famous Koala habitats, the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.  While it's called a sanctuary, it's really more of a zoo focused on animals native to Australia.  In particular, they have over a hundred koalas and even more kangaroos.  You can walk through the kangaroo area, petting, feeding and chilling out with kangaroos and wallabies to your heart's content.  But the best part was the koalas.  This is one of the few places where you can pet, hold and hug koalas.  Other local animals on offer included dingoes, wombats, platypus (platypi?), Tasmanian devils, and lots of colorful birds.

This next one was so cool that he may replace SLOTHS as my favorite rock & roll animal. 

Mount Coot-tha
This is the main lookout point over the city of Brisbane.  If you know nothing more about us from reading our blog posts thus far, you know we can never resist a good lookout point shot. 

Gold Coast
One day, we drove down to the Gold Coast, which starts about an hour south of Brissie.  The area is anchored by the city of Surfer's Paradise, which is, obviously, the epicenter of the surfer coastline.  This town boasts numerous glitzy beachfront high-rises slightly reminiscent of Miami Beach.

Squeaky Sand
A short drive further down the coast brings you to the small town of Currumbin, where we stopped to admire the beautiful beach, featuring sand that squeaks when you walk on it!

Commie Vans
We next headed a bit inland through a scenic bit of Australian countryside, passing through the hippie enclave of Nimbin.  Anne, our B&B hostess, thought we'd get a kick out of this town with its 'old hippies' and 'commie vans'.  Nimbin consists of one main drag with lots of hemp-themed shops and a host of inhabitants who seem to have been forgotten by time.  And of course, commie vans.

Byron Bay
Our last stop was Byron Bay, where we arrived in time to watch the sunset.  This was a really cool little beach town with a laid back culture and lots of fun looking little shops and restaurants.  We wish we could have spent a night or two here.  As an added bonus, Anne told us that Paul Hogan (that's Crocodile Dundee to you and me) now lives here 'with his mates and his facelift'.  Good ol' Anne.  Nevertheless, Mr. Dundee chose a nice place to hang it up.

Gold Cost Driving Route:
Click here to see the day drive we took along the Gold Coast & through the countryside.