“Tour de Ash-Stralia” with the moon included.

I was back at the airport early on a Tuesday morning in February, eagerly awaiting the arrival of one of our favorite couples known as, The Waltos! The Waltos consist of one of my best friends, Stephanie Wald and her awesome boyfriend, Tony Dalto. Wald + Dalto = Walto! And the fun doesn’t stop at the invention of their nickname…it only gets better.

After a few meals, drinks and movies compliments of Qantas, and a dose of ambien…Steph and Tony arrived at Melbourne's International terminal, with alot of luggage. Steph gave me a huge hug and exclaimed that she was ready for "Tour de 'Ash'-stralia!"  We headed out on the town and checked out a lot of Melbourne while catching up and laughing often.

Ash and Steph Federation Square

Spying on sunbathers!

Yarra River in Melbourne

First Aussie beer and 7-11 Slurpee!

The highlight of their arrival day, I was told, was attending one of my basketball games that evening. Steph was so excited that they nicknamed me ‘Hoops’. We all talked it about it all day and I was looking forward to having a cheering section.  As we were walking in to the gym I got really nervous since it had just occurred to me that they were really excited to be here and although I've been playing bball for a few months now I am definitely not ready for my one-on-one game with Lebron or even a chipmunk for that matter. But Tony said he knew it was going to be great when I walked up to the door lady to pay our entrance fee and said “One player, Two spectators!” I didn’t make any baskets that game, but we did show our skills as a second-half team and came back to take the win. Steph and Tony were ecstatic! They loved my “defensive hands” and reassured me that the Vermont Eagles’ basketball game, “exceeded” their expectations! Entertainment for all! 

There's me! #7! Its blurry because I am so fast...

The next day we drove to Healesville where I set Steph and Tony free in the wildlife sanctuary so they could get familiar with some of Australia’s most loved icons. They took some really awesome pics.

 

(Pretty sure this is Charmaine the wiley monitor lizard I was telling you about!)

Lunch was at the local bakery where they had their very first of many flat white coffees and Aussie meat pies. It was amazing! Tony was instantly in love and Steph decided that her next job will be to open a party pie shop when she returns home to Cali. I wish I was going to be close-by when they start experimenting with the recipe back home! But I expect they will feed my tasting shares to little Boyd, their resident hummingbird.

 

Moments before Steph's near tomato (pronounced toe-mah-toe) sauce disaster...these little packets are tricky!

After meat pies, we began the Yarra Valley wine tour with me as their happy chauffer. We stopped at 4 wineries and had a fabulous time with the friendly and chatty locals. One lady told us about the ‘booze bus’ which I thought was a great idea! Until she explained that a booze bus is actually a booze ‘bust’ but they call it booze bus because the cops arrive to a spot on the highway and pile out of a bus to form a road block. They then check all the cars that pass through and if someone is to 'boozy', they put them on the bus. So then you have a “Booze Bus” that is definitely not the fun kind of booze bus.

How long do I have to hold this pose...Tony!

After their fourth wine tasting, Steph and Tony thought they were about done, but as their tour guide, I naturally encouraged otherwise. We stopped at one last boutique winery called Coombe Farms where the lady pulled out no less than 10 different wines for them to taste. I knew then that this would be the grand finale for the day.

Welcome to Coombe Farms..Steph and Tony tasted ALL those wines! Vino Champions!

Whose ready for the FUN booze bus! 

The next day we took a drive down the coast and had a much needed beach day. I won tour guide of the year after my skillful opposite side of the road (and car) parallel parking job. And we ended our day at the hot springs, which is incredibly relaxing, except for when walking across the reflexology pool.

Steph and Bathing Boxes at Frankston Beach

Afternoon at the hot springs

Friday night we packed our bags and the four of us were on our way to Cairns in the northeast region of Queensland for our Reef and Rainforest adventure. We stayed in Palm Cove which is a little beachside esplanade, 20 minutes north of Cairns. We had a great 2 bed apartment with a nice beach view balcony and the salty air was calmingly warm and heavy.

Coconuts!

Little Gecko in Steph and Tony's bathroom

We woke up early and headed to Cairns to catch our boat, The Seastar, our tour guide to the Great Barrier Reef. The Seastar was a small family-run boat equipped for scuba and snorkeling. It took about an 90 minutes to reach our first stop on the reef, Hastings Cay.

Sandy cay used as a snorkeling grounds

Prior to getting in the water we had to stuff ourselves into our full body lycra suits. November to April is known as 'stinger season' when the Irukandji and Box jellyfish come to breed in the warmest waters in Australia. The Irukandji are tiny and venomous little jellyfish whose sting may cause Irukandji syndrome, usually requiring treatment in the hospital due to the venom spreading through the body. They are reportedly not as dangerous as the box jellyfish (which can kill you in minutes) but are still extremely dangerous if not appropriately treated. The beaches along the northern coast of Queensland are roped off with swimming nets to keep out the box jellies and the Irukandji that primarily hang near the shore for breeding as well as with vinegar stations in the event of a serious sting. But the lycra suits suffice for being out in the reef as they say that the box jellies do not come out that deep and that the Irukandji (and other jellies) do not like the taste of the lycra.

So we suited up and hopped in. The moment I slid into the water I felt something brush my leg and when I looked down I thought I saw something big! My heart skipped but I put my head in and saw not one but tons of friendly batfish. They loved being by the boat and were so close you could touch them. We made our way through the swarm and met the group on the  little cay for our snorkel tour. This part of the reef had some cool fish and coral but the highlight was the giant clams, they were huge and sitting upright while rooted to the ocean floor. Tony volunteered his arm, and after some instruction, he dove down and triggered the giant clam to close-up. The clam rapidly shut tight but luckily Tony didn't get stuck or eaten!

Giant Clams! Just before Tony put his arm in.

After awhile we climbed back on the boat and sailed for another 20 minutes to an area on the outer reef where we could snorkel shallow and deep water. I have seen many pictures of the Great Barrier Reef and knew it was beautiful, but the moment I put my head underwater it absolutely took my breath away, and literally too since someone jumped in really close to me and the ripple filled my snorkel with water. The reef was exquisite. Bright and beautifully colored coral and the most incredible tropical fish each one more interesting than the last. Colors and flourishing life surrounded us, sunlight was shining through the water, and the only sounds were the gentle crackling of the algae-eating fish and the calming waves of my breath gliding in and out of my snorkel. Jaime and I swim together so we can point things out to each other and enjoy our discoveries. A turtle swims by, first slowly and then he takes off. There are fish swimming in schools, fish swimming with their mate, and fish swimming alone or peeping out of coral-shaded hide-outs. It was mesmerizing.
These are some pictures Tony took with the underwater camera.

We followed a guided snorkel tour out toward the wall of the reef and into deeper water to look for reef sharks. As we made our way out we often dodged small jellies that looked like little cylinders or blobs, they were everywhere, atleast the ones we could see. We got past the wall and all of a sudden our tour guide mentioned that we should probably head back toward the boat. Curious about the concern we took a look for ourselves. Just to our left was a stream of blurriness. It was like a river of jellyfish, all connected, and headed our direction. I have never seen anything like it! Just as I turned around to head back to the boat there was a little jellyfish right in my face, the first one I had seen with an umbrella top and little tentacles coming down. Needless to say, I didn't waste any time getting back to the boat. On the way back we all got a few little stings on our face from the teeny tiny little jellies that you can't really see. The sting is slight but noticeable and eventually dissipates. We climbed out of the water and peeled off our suits.

The little white spots are tiny jellyfish...millions of them!

Two jellyfish stuck together in upper left corner.
These were separate from the jellyfish river, but you get the idea.

As Tony was taking of his suit he complained of a stinging sensation and asked me if something was on his chest. Sure enough he had this tiny little jelly hanging on tight, which one of the crew members plucked off with a napkin. People were in and out of the water for the rest of the day but most people would get out after they swam by a huge jellyfish. A little later we had lunch on the boat and a few post-jellyfish drinks and dried off in the sun on our boat ride back to Cairns. It was a really great day out on the Great Barrier Reef!

We made our way back to Palm Cove and got changed for dinner. Since you can fly with liquids here in Australia, we always take a bottle of wine with us wherever we go so we had a pre-dinner drink and strolled down the esplanade to a little Thai restaurant. At dinner we noticed that we all felt strangely "dizzy and weird" like we were still on the boat! And the sensation lingered throughout the night.

 

On our walk back to the apartment we had an awesome view of a bright full moon beautifully reflecting off the water so we stopped to take some pics with the moon.

After we took pics with the boys, Steph and I decided to get our own picture with the moon. Now when I describe my friend Steph to people I always tell them how she is really tall and when she is excited to see me or we are out dancing, she likes to literally pick me up and throw me around. So people usually assume that Steph is this really tall, strong-looking girl until they see how slender she is! So for our picture Steph wanted to pick me up but this time, likely due to our sea legs, we tumbled into the sand, I was laughing so hard that I couldn't move and Steph was holding me down to pose for our picture. Tony initially tried to help us up but realized that he just needed to take the picture since Steph had us posed and was half yelling/half laughing "Get the Moon! Get the Moon!" Needless to say the moon was not in our picture since we were practically buried in the sand and we laughed for hours as this became one of the many comical themes of our trip!

More fun with the Waltos to come!