As I write to you I am staring at a Krispy Kreme light up logo and a sign for the international flights departing out of the Melbourne airport. Random, I know! We are flying to Christchurch, NZ in the morning and while we are not totally cheap we really did not want to pay for another night in a hotel so we decided to head to the airport a day early and sleep here! Sounds a little crazy but really it is quite nice. We have even been directed to a couch by the security officer! Plus we are not the only ones here. We saw a group of 3 people in the same situation as us but unfortunately they missed their flight this evening so they are waiting until tomorrow night. Ugg..

So yes, NZ tomorrow!!! I excited for many reasons. 1. I am excited to see something totally new! We have heard so many awesome things about NZ and the pictures that we have seen look stunning. 2. I am excited to be starting the next leg of our journey! I have looked at this whole adventure in 3 parts: Australia, NZ and Asia! We are finally to stage 2. 3. I am happy that NZ is getting close because it is one step closer to coming home. No, I am not sad or wishing I was not here but as the date quickly gets closer I am getting really excited to see everyone and have certain things back as I know them! 4. I am excited to get Brett to Denver and into nursing school. He has been taking his online ethics class for Regis and he is totally into it! He loves learning about anything medical and has been expressing an interest in so many different types of nursing. It is really fun to see him growing, getting excited and falling in love with his chosen career path!

While in Melbourne we did EVERYTHING we could have ever wanted to. The city has two different free public transit services so basically we rode them to our heart's content. By the end we were even able to quote some of the tourist information being announced over the speakers! We saw the Melbourne Park, which houses the Melbourne Cricket Grounds and the Rod Laver stadium for the Australian Open. We saw Little Italy, Chinatown, Avatar at the 3-D IMAX theatre, tons of gardens, St. Kilda beach and the Australia kiteboarding competition and so much more! We had such a great time and quickly realized why Melbourne has such a great reputation!

I have been hearing a lot about home and I am excited about everything that is going on there! Please continue to update us and we will do the same. For now I am off to search the net for some flights and hotels in Kuala Lumpur. We have tickets to fly into there on March 4^th and I am thinking it would be nice to have a place set up for our arrival!!!

Love,

B and K8

OK, I know it has been awhile since posting but we have been busy and waiting for a few things to happen since the last post. We officially sold the van and somehow we made $1000 in our sale! We got into a bit of a bidding war and without asking we made money! Pretty sweet huh?!?! The extra money will definitely be funding our trip and allowed us to have a nice Valentine's Day dinner out! We went to Little Italy here in Melbourne for dinner and it was awesome. We had homemade pasta, an antipasto place and some supper yummy house wine. It was a great day.

We also drove the Great Ocean Road a few days ago which was breathtaking! The sights and beaches were simply beautiful. We had a little bit of misty ocean weather but it made the beaches and oceans a little spooky which was neat! We are now in the Miami Hotel in Melbourne!







We stayed here last night and will again tonight. We have been seeing all the sights and thoroughly enjoying Melbourne! It is a very nice, clean and friendly city that, thankfully, is a lot like Sydney when it comes to public transportation! It is easy to get around and Brett and I have been spending all our time on free transportation. It gets us right where we need to be and is really quite fast as well. Today we are headed to the AC/DC exhibition before the concert tonight. I have a feeling I will be a little out of my element at the show but I guess that is what this entire trip has been.

While in Melborne we attended the St. Kilda festival which also had a lot of kiting! Brett was stoked!

We are getting really excited for NZ and our upcoming travels. We have a little less than 2 months and than we get to see all of you!!!!!! We hope all is well at home. We miss everyone but we are excited to see you soon!! Please wish us well in all the upcoming flights!

Love,
B and K8

I thought I would give you a little update while we are driving! Brett is rocking out to AC/DC in preparation for the concert he recently bought tickets to. We are going to a final farewell AC/DC concert in the bands hometown on Monday the 15th! It costing us an arm and a leg but Brett felt totally obligated to attend and I am actually quite excited to see something so rare and exciting for my husband!

We are currently driving to a smaller town outside of Melbourne to show the van to an interested buyer. We are meeting a ladies son who is going to look at it for her. She is looking for a van to take to Tasmania for a little while. Brett and I were recently talking about going to the island of Tassie but unfortunately the time is not allowing us to do everything we want so we are going to instead continue with our plans of the Great Ocean Road, NZ and Asia before returning home! The people calling seem very interested in the van which is bittersweet. We are excited that it seems like the chance of it selling is really good but we are also sad because it means we are leaving soon.

Some fun things we have done lately are:

We got to see the world smallest penguins, Fiery Penguins, make their daily trek across the beach on Phillip Island to their burrows in the sand dunes. We watched about 1000 penguins cross the beach and than we got to follow them up to their burrows. It was incredible and so crazy! It is amazing that they are wild and we didn't disrupt their daily commute from water to burrows. Many of the penguins had chicks waiting for them with hungry tummies and some were simply returning for a sleep, a mating session and even some didn't even leave their burrows because they are stuck on land for 3 weeks without food and water because they are in the molting process. Every year the Fairy Penguins grow a new layer of feathers and during this process they cannot go in the water because they are not waterproof. It was well worth the $20 admission price per person! The penguins were so cute and watching them walk/waddle makes you wonder if their flippers are really there for help or just flapping aimlessly! :) Unfortunately no camera were allowed so we had to simple look and we don't have anything to share with you. However, I am sure there are pictures on google if you are dying to see them!

We also have been to the Mornington Peninsula which had two major attractions for us. I really wanted to go to Sorrento, which is my favorite city in Italy and this town is doing its best to mimic the sleepy Italian town. We, of course, got a cappuccino, window shopped, browsed a few stores and took it all in! Second on the list while on the peninsula was the wineries. The Mornington Peninsula is very well known for being the Pinot Noir capital of Australia and if you know my husband's wine taste he is a pinot man so a trip there was a must! We purchased a bottle from a winery there and thoroughly enjoyed it while eating dinner at an impossible place to describe!

We are spending the next few days meeting people for the van and seeing more and more before we leave! We have lots on the list and once we cross them off we will inform you!!

Love,
B and K8

Pictures From Our Australian Adventure!

Apparently I don't mind camping if I can pick the location and cook the dinner- Snowy River Natl. Park

A fairly common occurrence especially while driving at dusk-Jindabyne

Instead of paying for a tour of the area we just rode the ferry around and around with our all-day all-access public transport pass- Sydney Harbor Bridge and Opera House from the ferry on our last night

Largest satellite in the southern hemisphere- Canberra Deep Space Communication Center

On top of the TALLEST mountain on Australia- Mount Kosciusko

The amazing and beautiful Sydney Opera House

Wild kangaroos at Pebbly Beach- NSW

Brett has become an even more amazing kiter- Port Welshpool
(The latest picture I plan to frame!)

After jumping into the waves in the Bass Strait I realized that most of you don’t even know where we are. Haha, allow me to catch you up on our latest adventures. Since the last post we have been to two new territories, up to the top of the tallest “mountain in Australia”, the very south coast of mainland Australia, to the capital of Australia and to the most famous river, well at least in my mind.

We left Wollongong, after Brett’s birthday celebration ended and headed for the capital of Australia, Canberra. We visited all the major monuments as well as the Parliament House and the War Memorial. At each monument and museum we decided to get in on the free tours and it made all the difference in the world. We learned so much and got a great explanation of each thing we saw! Canberra was a nice city and we managed to find a free street to sleep on right across the street from the most beautiful park which had restrooms and bbqs for us to use! We treated ourselves to a coffee from a café in the morning with a buy-one-get-one-free coupon on the back of our grocery receipt. On the way out of Canberra we stopped at the Australian Deep Space Communication Center where we got to see real moon rocks, hear all about the latest expeditions to Saturn and also see the largest satellite dish in the southern hemisphere. The communication center works directly with NASA and the different satellites in space. It was an awesome experience, not to mention everything in Canberra was free for us to visit!

From Canberra we decided to head to the famous Snowy Mountains to get our own slice of The Man From Snowy River. Not only is this place beautiful but my favorite movie of all time is based here. If you have not seen The Man From Snowy River you should rent it immediately and see exactly what we saw in the mountains! While in the national park we spent two nights around a camp fire where we made all our meals over the flame!!! It was so much fun. We also spent most of Saturday hiking to the top of Mount Kosciusko (2228m) where we got to be some of the few in the world to stand in the highest place in Australia! It was beautiful and such a great hike up! We also got the see the headwaters for the great Snowy River and experience a bit of Snowy River country while in each town. Brett also got to kite one day on Lake Jindabyne which made him a very happy camper!

We have been on the road for most of today (Monday) driving out of the national forests back to the coast. We have made it into Victoria and Melbourne is on the horizon however we are going to continue to take it slow and enjoy our time here. It is hard to believe it is already February 1^st and we have plans to leave Australia on March 1^st. So today we made it to a place called The Entrance. It is a small town on the Bass Strait which is also the entrance to the Gipps Saltwater Lakes. We will stay here tonight and enjoy the free amenities!

One other thing I wanted to post on is Hillsong. We attended a Sunday night 7pm service at the Sydney campus and wow is all I can say. It was everything from amazing, overwhelming, welcoming, and fun! We caught a Hillsong shuttle from the central train station and were dropped off right in front of the warehouse that doubles as a church. Once inside we were greeted by information booths, a coffee shop, a bookstore, a bbq with dinner cooking and tons of people. It was totally overwhelming at this point so Brett and I just wandered around until the service started. We stumbled into a place labeled welcome center and were immediately greeted by a man who wanted to chat with us and take our coffee order. Apparently new people and or visitors get a free coffee and a volunteer to chat with. The volunteers are there to answer any questions, get to know you and make you feel welcome! At 7pm we all filed into the hall where the rock concert started. I don’t know if the music is always like that or if we were just at the younger crowd service but it was crazy. The music was loud, people were dancing and everyone was just plain living God. It was pretty cool! The message was also amazing and we quickly realized you would have to be a very confident and interesting speaker to be asked to deliver a message. While our service only had about 2000 people other services are known to have 10,000 in a single sitting. It was quite the experience and I am really glad we went.

Well, as you can see all is going great here. We are seeing so much and enjoying every moment of being on the road. I think reality is going to hurt when we get home but it has all been worth it so far. We have a few more months and I will do my best to be diligent about posting! Thanks for reading.

Love,

B and K8

Pictures to follow!