The Final Entry

Sunday, July 29

It’s our last day in Australia. We can’t believe it. This month completely flew by. We did so many awesome things. Therefore, as part of our final hours before packing everything up, heading to the airport one last time, going through customs, and getting on our 2pm Sunday flight that lands in San Francisco at 11:45am on Sunday (time travel, woo!), we decided to rank everything we did. For this final blog, we could also tell you about the 13 and a half hour flight home, but the movies weren’t that good (a Zac Efron/Nicholas Sparks sad chick-flick and the Three Stooges remake), Stephen didn’t sleep well because the jerk behind him didn’t turn off his reading light the entire time, and customs in the US turned out to be just a quick stop before my parents picked us up. See? Not so interesting. 

On to the interesting part. Here are the final tallies of everything we saw/did:

27 days

18 public buses

9 flights

9 trains

8 boats

7 different airports

6 tour buses

4 gondolas

739 km driven (by Stephen)

43 hours, 56 minutes on a plane

6 hours, 31 minutes spent underwater by Stephen

10 hours in a car

6 hours, 2 minutes spent underwater by Sabrina

7 hours in (and getting out) of wetsuits

16 kangaroos hand-fed

6 sea turtles swum with

2 zoos visited

1 dog on a motorcycle

1545 pictures taken

43 meters jumped

13 SCUBA hand signals invented

10 passport stamps

9 movies seen

30 Luna bars consumed

14 Clif bars consumed

9 bars

6 dinners that weren't Asian

4 FergBurgers consumed

	SABRINA
RANK	EVENT	LOGIC
1	SCUBA diving in GBR	Takes the #1 spot only because it was a 3-day event
2	Bungee Jumping	Would be #1 if it lasted more than 7 seconds
3	Whitsunday Island Cruise	Best all-day adventure
4	Featherdale Wildlife Sanctuary	Best animal interactions
5	Dart River Jet Boat	Totally out-did expectations, lots of adrenaline
6	Sydney Bridge Climb	Another adrenaline rush; great views
7	Hot Water Beach	Made our own beachside hot-tubs; lot of sand
8	Fraser Island	Way cool – lot of car time though
9	Opera House	Gorgeous; worth staying for a show
10	Blue Mountains	Super fun to hike, main area pretty touristy
11	Kurunda	Great picture opportunities
12	Rotorua Park	Luging was fun but cold
13	Polynesian Spa	Not all the pools were clean
14	Milford Sound	Gorgeous, but too long a day with too much sitting
15	Waitomo Caves	They were caves
16	The Rocks	Reminiscent of Boston - plus drinking
17	Sydney Aquarium	Nothing too special – minus the shark tank
18	Sydney Harbor Cruise	Would have been better to do on our first days in Sydney, not last
19	Whitsunday Jet Ski	Too many s-curves; ended up bruised
20	Sydney Tower Eye	Neat way to see the city at night
21	Cairns Night Zoo	Way overpriced/ over-hyped
	STEPHEN
	EVENT	LOGIC
1	SCUBA diving in GBR	Awesome. Enough said
2	Whitsunday Island Cruise	Relaxing, beautiful, and snorkeling with sea turtles
3	Hot Water Beach	Appeals to the little kid in me. Fun every time.
4	Featherdale Wildlife Sanctuary	Kangaroos roam free all around you!
5	Sydney Bridge Climb	Unique experience you don’t really find anywhere else
6	Rotorua Luge Park	Maybe next time Sabrina can keep up :)
7	Bungee Jumping	Wee! (Skydiving is better though)
8	Dart River Jet Boat	Sustained adrenaline, stunning photos
9	The Rocks	Fun pubs, sound less like a tourist now
10	Fraser Island	Driving on the beach is super fun
11	Opera House	Glad I did the tour, next time I’d take in a show
12	Milford Sound	Views are worth the long drive
13	Kurunda	Vast rainforest, big waterfall, cute town
14	Blue Mountains	Too touristy, but fun “bushwalks”
15	Polynesian Spa	Nice and relaxing but can only do for a  few hours
16	Sydney Harbor Cruise	Great photo op, nothing overwhelming
17	Sydney Tower Eye	Didn’t know what to look for on the 1st day
18	Waitomo Caves	Glow worms over-hyped, not worth the detour
19	Whitsunday Jet Ski	Pricey, bad weather, you could do this anywhere
20	Sydney Aquarium	Same as any other aquarium
21	Cairns Night Zoo	The animals were asleep and awful music

KEY:

GREEN: Would do again in a heartbeat

YELLOW: Would recommend but not do again

RED: Would not do