With our good friends (the only ones that we have) Fran and Keith

Scroll down the page or click on on any highlighted words to jump right into the action. We did have one rule, and that was to RELAX. Keith turned out to be the most proficient in this particular exercise. In this page you can see a map of Australia, beaches, crocodiles, other strange animals, cockatoos, fierce creatures, moray eels, coral heads, a shark, the rain forrest, the Love Brothers, their babes, a shopping mall, the Hunter Valley, and a wine tasting.
 
 

We took off for the great state of Queensland. Queensland is located on the northeast coast of Australia, about a 2 hour flight from Sydney.
 
 

If you look closely at the the scale, you will see that Australia is just about the same size as the contential United States, but with only the population of California...just 18,000,000 people. The beaches in Queensland were beautiful, wide open and empty.
 
 

The beaches didn't have many people, that's for sure. But in Queensland you have to learn to share your beach blanket with:
 
 

More animal life. If you look closely, you might spot more than just one famous Australian unique form of wildlife.
 
 

Some people are just not good with animals, others just have that amazing knack. Completely unafraid and accepting of God's creatures.
 
 

It was the reef that we couldn't wait to see. Here is a peek at some of the things we saw while diving.
 
 

The corals were not to be believed. The colors, the size and the sheer numbers of fishes surrounding them.

We did see some larger fish, like this pesky criter that kept following Nelly (note the spelling) around.

 
 

The area around the beaches was mainly rain forrest. It was very beautiful and kind of spooky. To be a rain forrest the overhead canopy must be 80% of what you can see. That means there is not much light and the little light that gets through the thick canopy is a sallow green and yellow.
 
 

We met some interesting people in Sydney. At the Opera House, we ran into these studley beings of pure male sexuality.
 
 

These guys were tons of fun. They always had plenty of good looking women around them too. Here are just a couple.
 
 

Nelly was quite taken with Sonny and spent a lot of time just hanging out with him in shopping malls (Sonny and shopping are actually synonyms).
 
 

What trip to Australia would be complete without visiting one of many wine areas. Nelly, Fran and Sonny took off to the great Hunter Valley, while Nick went back to work. Someone had to pay for the wine/whine?
 
 

Once you have the crib out of the way, it's off to the vineyards.