Saturday, February 16, 2013

The Next Big Adventure

You may have noticed the lack of a Thursday Adventure post this week.  This time I have the best excuse of all: this week I've been busy planning and booking the Schafer family's next big vacation.  And yep, this vacation's a serious getaway: we're heading back to Australia to spend quality time with my husband's family and friends.  It is truly quality time, because my husband's parents are awesome.  They cook us delicious meals, treat us like royalty, adore playing with their grandson, urge my husband and I to run off and hike in the Blue Mountains, even offer us the use of their campervan to go on a family wilderness adventure...seriously, Best Grandparents Ever.  Plus, Australia is just gorgeous.

Robert and I enjoying some precious couple time in Sydney, on a previous trip
Robert helping our son enjoy the waves.  Yes, all the beaches are this beautiful.  Plus, there is sea-cliff climbing!
This time we're trying something new: instead of flying Denver to LA to Sydney as we've done in the past, we're flying Denver to Honolulu to Sydney.  Not only will that break the long flight up into slightly more manageable chunks (the memory of the 15 hour LA-Sydney flight with our then-18-month-old son still makes me shudder!), it'll give us the chance to stop over for a few days on Maui on the way home.  My husband's never been to Hawaii, so he's excited to have the chance to visit.  I've been once before for a 2-week scuba diving trip and enjoyed the heck of out it, especially the time spent on Maui, so I look forward to going back.  (I really want to visit Kauai and hike the Na Pali trail, but that's gotta wait until our son's old enough for serious backpacking.)

No, I won't tell you when we're going...but suffice it to say, the trip's happening sometime this year, I'm ridiculously excited about it, and I'm sure it will generate tons of new Thursday Adventure fodder.  In fact, it's inspiring me to dig up my old (pre-digital-camera) pics from Australian adventures my husband and I shared in the past...trips to Uluru and Kata Tjuta, canyoning in the Blue Mountains, exploring the Queensland rainforest, etc.  Just gotta scan the pics in.

In the meantime, here are a few links to posts elsewhere that I found interesting this week:

3 comments:

  1. And yep, this vacation's a serious getaway: we're heading back to Australia to spend quality time with my husband's family and friends.

    Wow, neat!

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  2. Sounds like an awesome trip. And Hawaii to finish it off? Definitely something to look forward to.

    Also, one thing I've learned about Australia is they have the coolest names for towns. Uluru and Kata Tjuta? Not only are that poetic and exotic, but it gets one wondering - if you get pulled over down there, and they ask where you're heading, how do they know you're not drunk?

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    1. Heh! Yeah, Uluru is the aboriginal name for what Europeans called Ayers Rock, and Kata Tjuta is the real name for the Olgas. And yes, so many awesome town names! Some of my favorites are "Bong Bong" in the Northern Territory (supposedly it means "mosquitoes buzzing" in the local aboriginal dialect), "Ozenkadnook" in Victoria, "Wonglepong" in Queensland, and "Wurt Wurt Kurt" (Victoria). Not to mention the classic "Woolloomooloo" in New South Wales!

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