A long anticipated family vacation came to an end last weekend.My parents came over for 3 weeks and my sister was here for the 2 weeks we spent in Australia (missing the New Zealand portion).

I flew down from Coffs to Sydney to meet all of them there.The weather wasn't all that cooperative (it's been the wettest summer in 40 years up and down the east cost) but we made the most of it.On our fist day we had an unexpected surprise.We were eating lunch at a café and during our lunch, Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman walked out of the restaurant.We were kicking ourselves for not having taken a quick photo.The next day we took a gruelling bike ride (for some of us) from Circular Quay to Bondi Beach, on the southern part of the city.It is one of the two most popular beaches in Sydney, the other being Manly.There were heaps of people sunbathing, getting their "Ozzie bronze," some going topless.Another day we did an architectural tour of the Opera House.We listened in to a rehearsal of the Sydney symphony for a bit.It is really amazing how difficult the construction proved to be.It was almost abandoned prior to completion because the "sails" seemed impossible to erect.The Dutch architect still lives but has never seen his completed Opera House. One afternoon we took a ferry ride through the harbour (officially called Port Jackson) to Watson Bay, near the entrance.We ate at a really popular seafood restaurant called Doyle's.Then we climbed a hill to get spectacular views of the ocean and harbour (and distant skyline).We also visited the Sydney Fish Market, the largest fish market in the southern hemisphere.You'd think it was in Asia if you didn't know better.It was really interesting to see after hearing about it so often from the fishermen in Coffs.We ordered seafood platters and sushi so we could try a bit of everything and ate out near the marina.The same day we did some shopping at the Queen Victoria Building, a really high class mall with one designer boutique after another.Even the clocks in the building were amazing.Then we took a walk through King's Cross, Sydney's drug and red light district.It's not a very big neighbourhood (a few blocks) but there is one hostel after another and no shortage of adult shops and prostitutes.

Our original itinerary was to fly to Heron Island, in the Great Barrier Reef, after 2 days in Sydney.Our stay in Sydney was extended by a day because stormy weather prevented us from getting to the island.When the island was accepting visitors again, we flew up from Sydney to Gladstone (a small town and hub for Heron Island guests) and took a helicopter flight to the resort.The story of our stay there was terrible weather, which prevented us from doing some of the best the island has to offer. We were able to snorkel off the beach, and though it was spectacular, it could have been far better.We didn't see any sun and we had off and on rain with very high winds the whole time.Dive and snorkel boats couldn't leave the harbour.The birds on the island were very cool, except the muttonbirds, whose goal it was to prevent us from falling asleep and making sure we were up at dawn.We also saw a loggerhead turtle digging her nest on the beach one morning.We weren't lucky enough to see any turtle hatchlings running down the beach toward the water.The food was really good and it was far too easy to over-eat.

After our disappointing stay on Heron Island, we all flew to Coffs and hoped for better weather.It was better but not great.I showed off my hometown to my family.We stopped by my work, spent time at the beach where I showed off my surfing skills (Sonja please delete that video you took of me - it was an unlucky fall) and my dad and I went jetty jumping.I think they enjoyed seeing Coffs and what I've been up to.We all stayed at the hostel together and it was nice for them to meet the staff and see the living arrangements.The next morning, my sister flew to Sydney and back home, while my parents and I went on to New Zealand.

New Zealand was our outdoor portion of the vacation, so it was good that Sonja didn't come along.We stayed on the south island for the entire time and saw a fair bit of it.Thankfully the weather was more cooperative and we really enjoyed the best of the island has to offer in such a short time.

We flew in to Christchurch on the east coast, the south island's most populous city.It is a beautiful city on a river with many parks and gardens.It's very European and has a large central square with a Victorian style cathedral.It's a city for walking and that's what we did.From Christchurch, we took the Tranz Scenic railway to Greymouth, a small town on the west coast.The ride was very pretty, meandering through river valleys, pastures of countless sheep, and fairly rugged mountains.After 5 hours (most of it spent in an open-air train car) we arrived and picked up our rental car.We ate lunch in town at a restaurant that had a little information centre about the extensive jade mining on the south island.Then we hit the road and drove north a bit to an area called Pancake Rocks.There were rocks along the coast that resembled stacks of pancakes.Then we drove south working our way to our accommodation for the night.We made a few stops along the way to do really nice hikes along the rugged coast.We stayed the night at a lodge in a town called Fox Glacier in the Southern Alps very near Mt. Cook and Mt. Tasman.The town is basically there as a hub for guided trips on the Fox Glacier (nearby is Franz Josef Glacier, which is the other big accessible glacier).The following day we did a guided trip.It's a very impressive glacier, stretching 13km all the way down to a temperate environment (this is why it is so accessible).We hiked up onto the glacier and walked around on it for most of the day in the pouring rain.The next day we drove on to Queenstown, stopping along the way to do numerous hikes.After 5 hours on the road we arrived and walked around the backpacker crammed city.A town of only 8,000 permanent residents, it receives 1 million tourists every year.It is known at the "adventure capital of the world."The area offers skydiving, paragliding, bungy jumping, jet boating, kayaking, white-water rafting, river surfing, and skiing: one million and one great ways to spend your money.We did many spectacular hikes and saw pretty surrounding areas.The landscape is really awesome and because many of the tourists are older people (in big greyhound buses), trails are not crowded at all.There is one beautiful lookout after another.We did one day trip to a small town called Arrowtown, which sprung up as a gold-mining town in the late 1800's.It has a very interesting "Chinatown" where Chinese gold prospectors came to try their luck.We also visited a winery called Mt. Difficulty, set in the foothills.The state of Central Otaga, which includes Queenstown, produces a lot of wine, especially Pinot Noir.We did a fair amount of wine tasting and I am now a wine connoisseur elitist.There was a wine tasting place in Queenstown where they have stations with wine dispensers for many makers of every kind of wine.It's a debit card system, where you choose which wines you want to taste and the money gets taken off your card.Really cool idea.

We left Queenstown to spend our final days in Fiordland, the southwest region of NZ.We stayed in a small town called Te Anau, which is a hub for tourists doing tours of the fiords (aka sounds).There are two sounds that are accessible for guided trips, Doubtful Sound and Milford Sound.We chose to do the full day tour of Doubtful Sound because it tends to be less crowded.We set out from a nearby town on a catamaran/ferry to first cross a large lake.From there two coach buses picked all of us up and shuttled us across to Doubtful Sound, stopping at a power station along the way.The power station lies in a tunnel of rock beneath the lake surface.The generators take advantage of the potential energy of the water flowing through pipes from the lake down to the sound, a drop of over a hundred meters.It is a very impressive project.When our coach bus arrived at the tip of the sound, we unloaded and boarded another catamaran for our 3-hour tour of Doubtful Sound.The sound is an amazing place, a place to find yourself, you could say.It is a narrow inlet of the ocean surrounded by towering, steep granite peaks.The near continuous rainfall means waterfalls are everywhere.The boat was once parked directly underneath a waterfall but because of its height and the wind, the falling water was diverted and we stayed dry.The silence of the fiord (because of the protective peaks) is deafening, as they say.For a few minutes during the tour, they captain turns the boat motor off and we have a moment of silence.For once the clicking of the cameras had to stop as well.Every moment of the tour there was the opportunity to take a national geographic photo.We were very fortunate to see some rare marine life.For a while we were surrounded by a large pod of bottlenose dolphins.We also saw a fur seal colony lying on rock islands.A short time later, near the opening to the ocean, we spotted two really pretty Fiordland Crested Penguins standing tall on a rock.There are only 2000 pairs of this species left in the world.The sound is awesome and it'd be really cool to spend more time discovering it in a more intimate way, like kayaking or sailing (when there's enough wind).After the tour of the sound, we did a short hike on one of the long backpacking (tramping) tracks called the Kepler Track.In the evening, my dad and I watched a video of footage from Fiordland shot by helicopter pilots.It gave a different perspective on the scale of the landscape.The following morning, we drove back to Queenstown to catch our flights; back to Coffs for me and to the States for mom and dad.

Since returning to Coffs, I've been busy at work and in the process of finishing up my internship.My official end-date was on the 7th of March but I am sticking around for one more week to finish an experiment.Then I'll have to go back up to the field station in Arrawarra for a few days to complete some work up there.After my internship, I will be travelling and working in Australia for as long as another year (but probably not that long).I got another visa that lets me do temporary work as I travel.I really want to spend some time in the Great Barrier Reef and seeing more of Australia.We'll see how far I can stretch my money and how fast I get tired of being a real backpacker.But for the moment I'm still loving being a pseudo-backpacker.

Until next time!