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I traveled to Australia to visit my friend Michael who moved to Melbourne this past June. It was a great trip and one that I won't soon forget. I was able to do some really cool things while there like climbing the Harbour Bridge in Sydney, holding a koala & scuba diving at the Great Barrier Reef. I was able to visit the 3 states of Victoria, New South Wales & Queensland while there. I hope you enjoy this latest entry to my blog.
I figured I'd start the blog off with an image that most people recognize Australia with, the Sydney Opera House. It is truly something to behold.
Michael, Joanne & I outside the show "Wicked" in Melbourne. My friend Zac has always talked about this being one of his favorite shows. For those of you that do not know, this is a musical that is a prequel to the "Wizard of Oz" and tells the story of how the good & bad witch came to be. I've never been a fan of the "Wizard of Oz", but this play was awesome. I would highly recommend seeing it.
Isn't he cute? Here is a baby koala inside a nature preserve on Philip Island.
Coastal shot of Philip Island. This island is very unique. I don't have a picture of it because we were not allowed to take pictures, but every evening at dusk these small penguins come in from hunting for food all day to bed down in their burrows. It is the coolest thing. Suddenly huge groups of penguins come in & start walking across the beach. So funny to see.
Great shot of Michael & his sister Joanne at the Anglesea-split point lighthouse.
This is some of the beautiful countryside along the Great Ocean road outside of Melbourne.
We saw this cute little sucker along the road. He was slowly waddling along. I can't remember the name for this species, but it is not a Hedgehog.
While we were driving on the Great Ocean Road we came along several wild Koala's. Look just over the top of my head in this photo and you can see a Koala in a tree. So cool to see them out in the wild.
Joanne & I acting silly since we had just seen all of these Koala's out in the wild.
The main attraction along the Ocean Road is the Twelve Apostle's. Are these beautiful or what?
Another shot of 2 of the Twelve. Absolutely beautiful here.
Our jug of Coca Cola. So I finally found someone that loves Coke just as much as I do. We had spent a long day in the car driving around all the sites & needed a pick me up. Can you tell that we are high on caffeine? We didn't have just one jug, we finished off two. Ahh, good stuff.
Michael set up a wine tour one day of the Yarra Valley. We caught a train out of Melbourne and traveled about 1 hour to this region. 
Last winery of the day. Michael & Joanne loved the wine. I mainly ate cheese. As most of you know I love vodka. Hmm, next trip Russia. I wonder if they have tours of the vodka plants. That would be awesome. :)
Here I am with the Sydney Opera House in the background. It is absolutely beautiful around the harbor. The opera house was projected to cost 7 million and be finished within 3 years. It actually took 16 years to build and cost 107 million. While I was there the architect Jorn Utzon died. He resigned from the project due to budget & timelines. He never came back to Australia after it was completed.
Me with the background of the Harbour Bridge.
Joanne & I at the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney. In the background you have the Three Sisters rock formation. It is kind of hard to see as the weather was pretty bad.
The highlight of the whole trip for me was being able to climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Such a cool experience. Here I am with my group of 10. I was the only American in the bunch.
I made it!!!!! Here I am at the top of the Harbour Bridge. What a beautiful backdrop with the Opera House & harbor.
I traveled to Cairns (pronounced Cans) so that I could finally see the Great Barrier Reef. Cairns is very tropical and reminded me a lot of Hawaii. Here is a shot of 4 mile beach.
Look closely at this picture. These are bats & they were HUGE. Probably about a foot long. I have never seen a bat as big as this before.
So I was tickled to death when my concierge at the hotel told me where I could go to hold a Koala. Isn't he cute? He weighed about 10 pounds. I'm just thankful that he didn't use those claws on me. He smelled like Eucalyptus. **Note: I hate this picture of me and only put it on here because it is the only one I had holding a koala.**
View of the mountains right out the front door of the Riviera Resort & Spa where we stayed.
Grey Goose & tonic anyone? As Jeanne puts it, "I didn't realize GI Joe & Ken knew each other. The resort had a great pool & we spent the day there the whole trip.
We picked blue eye's (Mark) up from the airport and the shenanigans began :). 
Mark, Colin, Joe & myself on New Years Eve.
So I finally put the Speedo on. I figured what the hell. I'm single so might as well go with the flow. 
Last night in the desert. Myself, Joe & Colin at Wangs in the Dessert.
