Sydney>Cairns

G'day mate!! Currently blogging on our plane to Cairns(pronounced Can-nes). I'm going to begin with Friday but can't wait to share more about last night in Sydney. Our final night in Auckland was just as all I wanted it to be and it was great to party with some locals. We ate at Ortolana for dinner which is a Mediterranean rez in BritoMart. The food was ok! Plamen had Spatchcock- some fancy bird and I had a pumpkin pasta dish. Afterwards we headed down the way to a roof-top bar called Ostro. They had a superb drink menu full of various cocktails & loud music. We were happy kids!! Plamen ordered a "Dark Walker" & I got some concoction with the "..Trouble" in it. ;) We headed out to the balcony and sat by the fire pit.. The atmosphere was chill and the crowd seemed to be a little older- prob. 30's. 30's is the new 20!! 

After taking in the harbor views on the other side of the bar, we headed to the next bar. It was called Tyler's St. Garage and it was super dark & ominous inside. Very much rock & roll! Buncha neon lights and a completely different vibe.. Loved it. There was also a live band playing a cover of Schoolboy Q & another rock band. We hung for a bit and made our way to the bar 1885. The music was even louder in this club/bar! The crowd was more touristy than local so we fit right in with our All-Terrain jackets. Hah!! ;))) Shook our buns a little to some pop & rock then we left for the RV! Party was still going outside so stopped at a few more joints on the way back. Most were empty and didn't have the vibe of BritoMart. :/ Ps- the fun of BritoMart comes with a price! Cocktails were upwards of $15 & up!! 

So the bars on the route home looked like fun but they had a cover charge! So we decided to skip em b/c it was already late!! Our last stop was memorable b/c the club was full of 18 y/o!! Apparently that's the legal drinking age here. Would love to hear your thoughts on that!! Needless to say, we both felt old in there so we took the queue and went "home". 

We got up the next morning and packed up for our flight out to Sydney. We moved a little slow but somehow we managed to pull it together!! ;) It wouldn't have been a satisfying trip if we didn't try the popular national snack- Pie! So we went to PieFace (speciality pie bakery) before we headed back to the RV center. PM got a chicken pie & I got classic minced meat. Yummy!! It was a nice warm snack (I saved mine for the plane). Made it back to the RV center and did some last minute dishes etc. b4 we could return the car. Kea rentals require the tanks are emptied from the car also so that took a second. Quick and all but it's much different than dropping off a standard rental car. I have to say the overall experience with the camper was good. It was satisfying to do all we wanted without having to wait around for buses and shuttles. We got to experience New Zealand from every angle!! However, I missed my space and the road was becoming exhausting. I could tell it was starting to hit Plamen too. Forgot to mention how fog-ridden the last part of the drive from Taupo to Ragland was. It was like a scene out of "Silent Hill" & the kind of fog where you don't see the headlights of the car on the other side of the road until they're almost right next to ya!! Eek!! Oh yeah the poor guy was too nervous to let me drive so he did all week. I got to drive it once in Tauranga- guess that was enough for him! Anyway, a week was just right!!

Flight to Sydney was on time & it was a smooth ride. We found a decent hotel for the night close to the airport and had some downtime before we headed out to town. Let me tell you- it was VERRRY nice to have a good sized shower space and a fluffy bed!! I know not to waste water but it was nice to not have to check the water tank after every use like in the RV. So having it for a week definitely made me realize the amount of water we consume on the daily! It's plentiful!! 

After some rest, we took the train to Circular Quay which is the main area right next to the Sydney harbor bridge. The ride was packed! It was full of locals, families and tourists. It was so congested that we had to be let off at a stop before Circular Quay- St. James. This was not a bad thing at all because we got the experience VividSydney. It's a light walk all over the entire city!! You'll see the pix soon- it was amazing!!! Many AU artists have come together to create structures and designs for this 2 week-long presentation. Each piece was so creative and unique.. I was blown away!! It was a really great experience and can't wait to be back there next weekend!! They had food vendors set up (very similar to what we see at a local Farmer's market) and I had a serious craving for an oriental dish so I got a combo dumpling dish. YUM!! Plamen got an oversized sausage dog.. We both enjoyed our good. Walked around some more.. Experienced some light shows including one over the Sydney Opera House. Can't wait to share the vids. Grabbed a couple beers on the pier and headed back to the hotel. We had an 0500 wake up call for our flight out to Cairns so no party-party for us!

Hello Sunday! The airport was about a mile away from the hotel so Crazy P wanted to walk there. It wasn't an easy wake up call to say the least!! Anyway we made it and dropped our bags to be checked. We flew with TigerAir for this ride and huge relief b/c we pre-paid about $40 to check in luggage. If we didn't pre-pay for this it would have been $180!!! Wild right?!! That would of been the cost of the flight! It was a rocky ride to Cairns but 3 hours later, we got there and were welcomed by some really humid air after deplaning! We are staying at a place in Port Douglas for the next 5 days (which is about an hour away from the Cairns airport). A shuttle here would have cost $90 so we opted to rent a car for one day which was $60. Not a bad outcome b/c the rental enabled us to stop in Downtown Cairns and we had lunch at a really cool seafood rez. Many of these dishes were dairy & gluten free. These types of rez seem to be to be common in AU! We headed back to the car after lunch and we noticed a crazy amount of Flying Foxes a.k.a. Fruit Bats in some of the trees in Cairns! They make a really distinct noise and that got our attention. Cool but creepy!! 

Got back to the ride made our way to Port Douglas. By some miracle, Plamen let me drive! Driving on the other side of the road here is shocking at first but you just get used to it!! Though, the signals really threw me off today b/c I kept hitting the wipers instead. ;) We stopped at a really cool tide pool-like beach along the way to P.D. There were many baby Mud crabs poking out of the sand there!! An hour later, we made it to the hotel. Relaxed a bit then headed out to grocery shop for the week.. Just ate dinner, laughed over some Modern Family and about to hit the pool now! :) 

Missing home and hope all is well with my loved families & friends! 

Would love to hear how the weather has been, anything new and how the last day of school was for the kiddies. B.t.w, summer is just kicking off at home and the first day of Winter just began in AU!  

Ps- here's some shots from my phone.. Plamen hasn't uploaded his pix yet-- that's where the goods are!!