Kangaroo Island

Our trip started with a visit to Kangaroo Island, a very small island off the southern coast of Australia known for its diverse wildlife and natural beauty.

Admiral's Arch, an ancient limestone formation

Cape du Coudic, home to an active colony of New Zealand fur seal

Remarkable Rocks, natural granite formations

Once again our family's luck with finding wildlife struck again (we were very, very lucky to see all of the "big five" on our trip to Africa) and we found a mama koala and her little baby up in a eucalyptus tree. We watched them for awhile and the mama eventually decided to change trees--- take a look at the progression below--- it was awesome to watch and was probably the cutest thing I have ever seen!

A wallabie A koala bottom A male koala climbing (and then sitting in) a tree. Doesn't his fur look strange up close? A kangaroo and her (big) baby... they were very intent on keeping an eye on us.
Kolby and I getting a closer look at some wild kangaroos we happened upon.

A little joey hopping over to his mom to nurseSome pelicans

Seal Bay, home to the bulls, cows, and pups of the Australian sea-lion colony

Russell getting ready to sandboard at Little Sahara, a bizarrely huge sand dune in the middle of nowhere on the island. My mom is standing at the bottom (on the far right of the photo), just to give you some perspective. It was kind of like snowboarding (or sledding if you went down sitting on the board like I did) except you end up with sand in your ears and a sunburn. Still quite fun, though!

We went to a wildlife park (basically a really casual zoo) and Kolby fulfilled his childhood dream of hugging a koala. It was a BIG DAY for him. There were multiple times when I realized he was missing and eventually found him back in the koala habitat. One time I walked up and heard him whispering to the koala "shhh... shhh....shhh" as he stroked it back to sleep. It was a highlight of the trip for sure-- those koalas are just as cuddly and cute as they look!

We also got to pet and feed a lot of kangaroos, which was really neat. They weren't big like the wild ones we had seen, but they were fun to hang out with.
We also saw a kangaroo with her albino baby. At one point they were both standing and the baby got scared, hopped head first into the mama's pouch, and then had to wiggle its way inside. It was probably the grossest thing I'd ever seen. It was like watching a kangaroo give birth... backwards.
The whole family, overlooking the North Coast beaches.

Kolby and I at "Double Beach", a beach where one cove was nothing but big rocks and the other was nothing but white sand.

As we were driving back to the airport, Kolby spotted this guy up in a tree on the side of the road. He took this picture out of the window after we had pulled over. Unbelievably cute!

Great Barrier Reef

Next we headed to Palm Cove, a quaint little beach town on the northeast coast of Australia near the Great Barrier Reef. We spent five days there, including Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We went scuba-diving one day and the rest we spent just relaxing by the pool, walking along the beach, enjoying the boardwalk of shops and restaurants, and just hanging out together.

The family on Christmas Day

About to board the catamaran that took us out to the Great Barrier Reef for a full day of scuba-diving (we went on three dives, each at different locations along the reef). Do you think this family supports Two-Five? We're all seven sporting a Two-Five shirt (Brad's awesome company - www.25cloth.com - buy a shirt.. change a life!).

Ready to hit the water

Kolby and I at a depth of about 60 feet Mom petting a HUGE grouper that followed us around on our entire second dive (Kolby is in the background)

The fish and coral were absolutly beautiful! I didn't spend too much time trying to take pictures because I wanted to just enjoy the dives and I knew the pictures wouldn't do the scenery justice... which they don't... but here are the ones I took:

We saw three white-tip reef sharks (Kolby and Brad saw a fourth) that were about about 5' long! Something about scuba-diving makes you feel invincible so none of us were scared to see them, they were surprisingly cool to come across. The first picture below is one that I took (even though it was just a few meters away and we could see it perfectly clear, my camera's flash couldn't reach it so the picture is bad), and the second is just one off the Internet to show you what they actually looked like.

A giant clam --- we saw some that were almost 4' wide!

Just hanging out at the Great Barrier Reef

Here is a video of the whole family underwater--- can you tell who is who?

We're really glad that we were all able able to get scuba-certified this past summer and everyone did even better in the ocean than in our practice dives at the pool and lake (i.e. Mom didn't look like a wounded turtle trying to swim and Russell didn't accidentally let too much air into his BCD and dangerously rocket to the surface). We had a ton of fun together underwater and Kolby commented on how remarkably strange it was to have that many Webbs in one place and hear nothing but silence!