June

Canberra- The capital city of Australia. Apparently Sydney and Melbourne fought over which should be the country's capital so they decided on a location in the middle of nowhere somewhere between the two. Canberra has a reputation for being super underwhelming and isn't exactly a tourist destination. Why am I going? Sylvie's passport expires this year and she needs to renew it at the Belgian Embassy, so what better excuse for a road trip! We plan to hit a few destinations along the way including Lakes Entrance and a couple national parks.

Happy to be back on the ground.

Overall, the flight was a really cool experience and Peter and I both thought it was more than worth the money! That said, I'm not sure I'd be brave enough to do it again ;).

Taking a quick break from blogging about our Airlie Beach vacation to bring you some random food pictures. Because there is nothing better in this world than food and Melbourne has the best food in the world. And that's a fact.

Manchester Press- CBD

Soooooo good. My go-to brunch order is avocado on toast so I was interested to see if it would be as good on a bagel and it definitely was. There was also a good selection of bagel sandwiches that I want to go back and try at some point.

Today I'm continuing the recap of our Airlie Beach vacation; so far I've posted about arriving in Airlie Beach on Sunday and our jet ski tour to Daydream Island on Monday so check those out if you haven't already!

We woke up bright and early Tuesday morning for our snorkeling trip out to the Great Barrier Reef. We decided on the day trip with Cruise Whitsundays and had a really good experience, especially since all of our snorkeling gear and meals were included in the price. There were tons of activities to choose from once we got out to the reef like diving, snorkeling, a glass bottom boat for those who didn't want to get in the water, and you could even schedule a massage on board. Peter and I both love snorkeling so we chose to spend the day doing that!

We left from Airlie Beach and made a stop at Hamilton Island to pick up some more passengers before heading out to Hardy Reef, a three hour trip in total. The marina area and the island in general were so pretty we took some pictures while we waited for everyone to board:

The floating items in the background of this picture (a rope and various rest devices) lined the edge of the Reef which was nice, as swimming in the open water is a bit intimidating. The Reef was shallow, but we obviously couldn't stand on it to rest, and once it dropped off you could barely see the ocean floor.

We docked and quickly put on our snorkeling gear. It wasn't required, but was strongly advised to wear stinger suits. Apparently there are a few species of jelly fish in the Reef that are deadly, so ya, we wore them.
I've tried to take so many underwater selfies in my life and maybe it's just me, but I always look possessed.
The tour company had an underwater photographer who I think also secretly fed the fish because they were obsessed with him.
They literally attacked him.
After about an hour we swam back toward the boat to eat lunch and there were hundreds of these guys.

The fish were amazing, but some of the coral was even cooler. It's weird to see it move because you kind of forget it's alive.
Love this picture!
Because I took an embarrassing selfie I also had to snap a super flattering picture of Peter.
These little guys weren't scared at all and ran into my mask a few times.
A bit cloudy but loved this fish!