Happy Christmas!!!

This is us with the whole family and a few extras by the pool on christmas day! What was it you were doing? We didn't have roast turkey but my god we had a feast, spitroast pork, morton bay bugs (like small lobsters which were delicious) - I'm still full now! The day was brilliant, an early start to open the presents, playing 3D snakes and ladders all day, in and out the pool and never far from a drink! We had a quiz too, our teams didn't win but its the taking part that counts! Hope you guys all had wonderful days too, happy christmas and a happy new year! sara and gav and the Whiteheads!! xx

HAIR CUTS!!!!

Hello everyone!
I feel that I really should update you all on the gav hair situation since the photos are a little out of date! about a week after my bag got stollen we were shopping in a place called townsville and it was there that gav and i both had our hair cut, I admit that I pretty much had to sit Gav down in the seat but the hairdressers both agreed that he was in dire need! The problem was that Gav wanted to have a hair do with straight hair and was convinced that if he kept growing it long it would eventually go straight! The hairdressers told him that would never happen and that straightners were the only answer but hes too much of a man to use those! So he had his hair cut, he made sure he still had the german curls at the bottom but it was a lot shorter on top (not short enough i might add - a french crop would have been much better because it would have lasted longer but he reckons thats gay?!) So he did have a hair cut, but that was about a month ago so its pretty much back to the same state! I will be asking Miles (my cousin) if he has any clippers and maybe Gav will let us near his hair while were here! Can't believe I've written a blog all about Gavs hair! hope you're all well, my plans to catch up on our blog whilst at my cousins has taken a back turn as they don't have DVD readers here! nevermind! Hope you are all well, i hear its cold and foggy back home, i think its around 30 here, very nice, going to jump in the pool and i think were going to the beach on xmas day! what a life!! love and miss you all! sara x

And now heres the writing ....! (this didnt work twice so this writing matches the photos with no writing!)

Would you just look at that beautiful sunset! I cannot get enough of watch the sunset over the water its just stunning. Unfortunately since Cairns we havent seen that many more it tends to get very cloudy in the evenings blocking out the sun completey but it just means when it happens and we see it, its even better!

A beautiful pic of whats under the sea! It doesn't quite come out as well as seeing it for real because the blue of the water distorts it but for those people who have not seen the barrier reef at all this is a little glimpse! Look how many different types of coral are all packed together next to eachother, and how many different colours there are! And this is just one little pic, imagine this going on for miles and miles under the water! it really is amazing and I'm sure anyone who has seen it will agree!

The last pic from our boat trip, I couldn't resist the floor photo! with the 5 million stars above us, our skipper playing guitar and singing to us all night long, i was sticking to soft drinks - no way did i want to mix hangover and sea sickness - and it was such a pleasant evening. So while everyone was relaxed I rallied them all up for a pic, but they're always so good its worth the effort!

These last 2 pics are of the day I lost my backpack, I know I probably look ok and yes I had already lost my backpack by this time but I was innocently thinking that it would get handed in! As part of our bus journey we went to a place called Atherton (where I lost my bag) to see a lake and some waterfalls - all very nice, and then our last stop was a crocodile breeding farm to watch them feed the crocs. These crocs are all nuisance crocs captured from the wild which they then use to breed. The feeding was pretty cool, some of them were definitely still wild, as soon as they opened the gate they were hauling towards us! The one I'm pictured with has been there a while so fairly tame by now, and the other pic, we had the opportunity to hold EITHER a snake or a croc, I asked what they thought of eachother and before I knew it I had the python around my neck and the croc in my hands! They obviously didn't mind eachother at all as the python slide over the croc quite happily and the croc didn't mind either! I was fine until the python started to go around my neck and get tighter and holding the croc with both hands there wasn't much I could do about it! But hay, I lived to tell the tale! Gav once again didn't hold or touch anything - sorry, he did try to hold hands with a parrot and it grabbed his finger so hard it made him bleed- very funny!!!

Whilst we were in Cairns we decided to go on a trip on the Great Barrier Reef! we were on a boat called Rum Runner and it was fantastic! the staff, the boat, the weather, the snorkling, the diving, the food, the coral the fish - everything! oh, except that Gav got really really sea sick :( Here is Gav on a rare occassion going snorkling, he only managed to go twice whilst we were out on the reef and probably totalled 30 minutes because in and out of the water he just felt rough. He did say that he enjoyed it though (the little bit that he got to do) and we went off snorkling together which was very romantic, very cool seeing nemo and friends together!


As part of our boat package we got to do an introductory dive - gav asked about what to do if he felt sick and they said if he was he would have to be sick in his oxygen tube and tank so he wisely decided not to do it! Here is me on my first dive swimming around absolutely loving it! It was so cool getting so close to the coral, seeing it up close, the corals were so beautiful in colour, in shape - everyone should dive in a coral site somewhere in the world! the fish were amazing too, swimming through literally thousands of fish was quite an amazing feeling - and they are so totally unfazed by you! the next pic is obviously of nemo, had to put at least on of him on the website!!!

Heres one of me just kinda hanging on the boat - how good is that weather, not used to that in the middle of november! you may have had a heat wave in july while we had freak storms in new york at camp but we are loving the sun now whilst you're all enjoying winter!!! I think the time this pic was taken the sun was roughly setting, beautiful!

the last is of Gav, i thought i'd give you an idea of the sleeping space we had on board! at least he wasn't feeling sick anymore! most of the rest of us slept under the stars on the decks, i think i counted 5 shooting stars! amazing! you will only ever get 5 million star accommodation from a boat on the reef!

gotta love you and leave you, going to have a barbie on the beach! well the park next to the beach! love and miss you all! s&g x

This was another part of our fruit tasting tour! I don't know if you can see but i'm licking a green ants arse!! its basically a very high concentration of vitamin c and the aborgines used to make juice out of squashing loads of them! it gives you a little tingle on your tongue but actually tastes quite good! gav wimped out on this occassion but he has since risen to the challenge when we were in Rockhampton! and he liked it too!

These 2 photos of Gav with the animals are at the Wildlife Habitat in Port Douglas - we stopped here on the way back from Cape Tribulation. It was a really good environment for the animals, none were caged up, the birds could move around anywhere they wanted, fly anywhere they wanted and there was plenty of food and fauna for them to enjoy! (oh they couldnt go outside though) outside was crocs (which were kinda caged up but had a big lake swampy area); the kangaroos and wallabies and more birds which were completely wild and came and went as they pleased! the other animals just bounced around as they pleased! one of the staff gave us some food so heres gav giving one of the kangaroos a feed! we saw our first joey in its pouch here but didnt have the camera ready in time! so cute!! apart from the animal sanctuary we spent the remaining time in port douglas lying on a very nice beach!

These final 2 pics are of us enjoying our time in Cairns, apart from going out on the barrier reef there isn't much to do in the city, you can't go in the sea because of the deadly jellyfish and the beach isn't that nice so they have a lagoon which is very nice so heres me lying just outside it and gav enjoying the lagoon itself! very nice!

Hello!! so after leaving the red centre we headed to Cairns! Really nice city, very cool, very easy to get around - had our first shock - you can't swim in the sea! we wondered why the beach was deserted! They had a lagoon instead which was nice to lie next too.

Ok so whilst we were in the cairns area we went on a 3 day trip up to Cape Tribulation - the only place in the world where 2 national parks meet, reef and rainforest; the daintree national rainforest park and the great barrier reef marine park. Pretty cool huh! so on our way up we stopped at a few places, this photo is of us in the mossman gorge a river that runs through the daintree rainforest, was pretty cool, gav was extremely hungover from a very good night the night before (out for a girls birthday from the red centre trip) and was throwing up the whole way so a dip in the cold waters of the mossman gorge did him the world of good! i swam up to some rocks and where the water was pressurised through it felt like a jacuzzi all around me only refreshingly cold! we also went for a crocodile cruise along the daintree river but being high tide we didnt see any crocs :( ! never mind! Oh, it was the melborne cup race that day too, the bus did a sweep stake and all i can say is its the fastest $10 we lost so far!

So up in cape tribulation, the first afternoon gav just slept off his hangover whilst i went walking with another girl off the bus, was nice to have a change of company!! hehe! the next day feeling bright eyed and bushy tailed gav and i went walking up to a water hole along a little river running through the rainforest! ive completely forgotten the name but it was very pretty! the pic below is of gav sitting in the river with fish swimming all around him, we went there to see the turtles and although gav says he saw one im not convinced! we met a family there who gave us a lift back which was awesom as it took us over 2 hours to walk there and the heat was just about bareable!

So the family dropped us off at the cape tribulation beach which was incredible, lovely soft sand and clear waters, you cant swim in the sea up here either because of the jellyfish, we paddled a little and then wimped out - not ready to die yet! the beaches here were the nicest we'd seen so far, ok we hadnt seen many but they were stunning! we took a stole and then walked back through the rainforest you see in the background of the photo to the other beach where we hoped to see the croc thats always there but he wasnt! we didnt have much luck with wildlife here! still it was a nice walk!

on our last day we went on a fruit tasting tour of fruits that are only grown in rainforests, some of which are only grown in cape tribulation in the world! some were tasteless like chocolate fruit (very disaappointing!), but others like the soursop im eating in the picture were delicious, texture a bit like pinapple but like sour and sweet at the same time! hard to describe! but lots were good! was cool to do something like that you cant experience anywhere else!

before we left we took a few walks in the rainforest, i love these fan palm tress and they are everywhere up here! the walk was really nice, very peaceful, very green, saw lots of insects and reptiles and lots of trees weve never seen before! was kinda strange being in australia and being in a rainforest but i guess it has a bit of everything! we didnt see any famous cassowary birds, but that could be a good thing since they could kill a human in a matter of seconds anyway! lots of scary animals out here!

ok gotta go, out of time, miss you all loads still, oh, gav had a great birthday, a trip round the whitsunday islands and a bush walk the day after, not bad! lots of fun! love you all xxx