Stoddard’s Visit Down Under

3/3/12 – Melbourne, Australia

TOMMY’S FAMILY IS HERE!  WELCOME STODDARDS!  Well not all of them are here, but his mom dad and Peter all came out for Peter’s spring break.  I have to say we were quite happy to step into the luxurious life for a bit and away from our cookie and coffee dinner that I sneak out of the school! 

Today was also the kick off of the 20^th anniversary of the Food and Wine Festival held in Melbourne every year.  I was keen to enjoy some of the events on this great opening weekend, starting with breakfast.  I dragged Tommy into the city with me before his family arrived to go to Greenhouse by Joost.  This is a restaurant built for the 20 days of the Food and Wine festival made completely out of recyclable goods with a greenhouse on the rooftop where all the food made comes from.  It was such a unique and great concept; I had to try it out!  We had a delicious breakfast in which I had to grind my own oats to put in my yogurt, and enjoyed drinking out of old pots with wooden silverware.  We met Tommy’s family soon after, and it was adorable to watch Peter jump on his big brother and embrace him for 5 minutes straight.  It was like watching an excited puppy jumping up and down, tail wagging with excitement.  In the spirit of the Food and Wine Festival, Mr. Stoddard, Tommy and I entered into a fantasyland of 80 tents with beer, wine and fresh produce to taste.  There were 60 tents of the different wineries from around the Victoria region, and I had no problem filling up my glass at as many tents as I could to taste tall the delicious wines!  I can’t lie, I was a bit snoody pie, and was grateful to take a long walk afterwards while the Stoddards took a long nap!

3/4/12 – Melbounre, Australia

As Tommy, Peter and Mr. Stodds headed out to play golf at the Royal Melbourne golf course, I headed over to meet Mrs. Stodds for a fun day of shopping and walking around the city. 

3/5/12 – Melbourne, Australia

We had a delicious dinner tonight with the King’s who hosted Tommy for a few weeks of his stay in Melbourne while he searched for an apartment. 

3/6-8/12 – Melbourne, Australia

The Stoddards jetsetted to Hamilton Island this morning as I made my way to work.  This just does not seem fair!  But I guess I can’t complain because I really do love my job, and I am lucky enough to join them this weekend!  Their visit happens to fall over Labor Day weekend, so I get to enjoy a nice long relaxing weekend at Hamilton Island!

3/9–11/12 - Hamilton Island

I was lucky to get a day off school today to extend my three-day weekend into a four-day weekend so I could fly up to Hamilton Island to meet the Stoddards.  The Stoddards spent the week sailing around the Whitsunday Islands and diving some of the inner reef, but came back just in time for me to fly up to meet them.  The flight coming in over the reefs was absolutely gorgeous, but the landing gave me a bit of anxiety!  It looked like we were going to land in the ocean, but at the last moment the landing strip popped up below!  It was great to relax by the pool in the sun and get a break from teaching!

Tommy, Peter and I woke up at 5:45am for the sunrise and drove up to a great lookout point called One Tree Hill.  As I said in my very first blog post, my daddy taught me to always watch the sunrise and sunset everywhere I go, and this was a beautiful one highlighting the sky with strips of pink wispy clouds.  Of course a good old tennis competition is always expected while with the Stoddards, and no surprise that I was the champ against the boys.  We kept active, following up tennis with some kayaking where we spotted two beautiful turtles gliding over the reef below!  On the way back from dropping off some paperwork at the dive shop in town, we saw someone holding a koala at the small wildlife park, and had to stop to give Peter a close up of the cute and cuddly creature!  Boy did we luck out!  Not only did we get a look, but we got to each hold the koala as well as a new born kangaroo (known as a Joey)!  The 4pm tour was about to start, kicking off with the croc feeding, and to our great luck, we were led in with the tour for free and spent the next hour and a half watching, touching and holding all of the different native Australian species!  Nothing could beat holding the furry grey ball or seeing the joey stretch out his tiny little legs, but the croc feeding was pretty awesome as well.  The wildlife guy really liked us and it truly felt like we were on a private tour yet we were the only three not paying!  What a treat. 

We spent our last full day out on a boat to go snorkel and dive the outer reef.  Unfortunately the water was too rough and we had to stick to the inner reef.  The inner reef does not have the best visibility and it was pretty hard to see, but I still had an amazing time seeing the Great Barrier Reef for my first time.  I did two dives and saw some of the most unique coral formations with exquisitely vibrant colors.  The huge Napoleon Wrasse that swam by gave me quite a fright as I turned to my right and saw this massive fish less than an arm length away that was 6 feet long and thick!  I think it is important to find the positive in any situation so although everyone was a bit bummed out that the visibility was so low, I turned it into a unique adventure as I swam under water excited to see what surprise lay ahead as I could not see it coming!  It was pretty cool to look up and realize that I was swimming through a coral cave or had a huge overhang above.  

Now I also must point out that we were still in stinger season so we all had to wear head to toe stinger suits.  Stingers are what we would call jellyfish, and Australia is home to the box jellyfish, which just so happens to be the deadliest organism in the world…LOVELY!  Although we were coming to the end of stinger season, I had that suit tucked tightly around my fingers and my head making me look like somewhat of a mix between a human penis and a seal.  Not the most flattering outfit, but good for a laugh! 

I was sad to leave the Stoddards and head back to school as they headed to Sydney, but I was very lucky to get the long weekend away!  Tommy spent the next few days showing his family around our old stomping grounds, and they loved Manly so much that they actually spent two days at our old home.  I only had a small time spent with Tommy’s family, but it was so nice spending time with them down under.