We're home!!

we made it home! after four flights and a 10 hour lay over! but it feels great to be home!!! finally!!!
we had a great time!
B and C

White Water Rafting!

What a Blast!!!! We hit the rocks today and we hit them hard!

at one of the rapids it was a really steep drop and there was a rock in front of the jump so you had to hit it on the way down! and as we were going down i lost my place on my seat and slammed into Daniel who was sitting in front of me! my jaw still hurts from it! we have pictures that actually show me in slow motion hitting him! it starts with me with my mouth open screaming then the next shot is my face realizing what is about to happen and then finally the connection!!! awesome pictures!!!

we also got to float down the river in our life jackets and go down baby rapids in our life jackets which was really fun! you got taken under the water and then pushed back up and in other spots there would be rocks only just below the water and your butt would catch on it and you would be stuck like a turtle upsided down!!! it was so funny!! catie got stuck for like 4 minutes before she realized she could turn over and push off of the rock!!

after the rafting and swimming we loaded the boat onto land and the guides told us to change into dry cloths and they were takin us to a brewery here in town and we got free potato wedges! unfortunately me and catie didn't think to bring extra cloths.. so catie came up with a brilliant idea to take our wet shorts off and hang them out of the windown while the bus drove!! WIND POWER!!! anyways we looked absolutely ridiculous! and everyone laughed at us but it worked a little bit!!!

it was a great day!!!

At the GREAT BARRIER REEF!!

What an amazing day!! We went both snorkling and Scuba Diving at the great barrier reef!

our day started nice an early! we had to be at the boat by 8am before we headed off in the direction of the reef! It was a nice bumpy ride! beautiful water and sun amazing! Catie however couldn't wait till the boat stopped! her poor motion sickness got the better of her this time! so she spent most the ride looking into a paper bag. poor girl! went we finally got there it was so beautiful! we started off by snorkling! we throw on the flippers grabbed the masks and hopped into the water! its alittle disorientating at first until you realize you can breath with your head under the water! then its so cool! and the view once you put your head under the water was breath taking! with the sun shinign through the water you see the reef and all the colourful fish that live there!

and then as we were looking at this particularly colourful fish we saw him!! a reef shark! it swam right under us! it was so freaky! we froze in our tracks! so beautiful! so deadly!! after that we kept snorkling and found nemos and dorri! and so many cool looking fish it was unbelievable! i saw a fish fight another fish! or maybe they just ran into each other i dunno, but so cool!

then everyone hopped back onto the boat and we moved to another part of the reef were we got to do our first dive!!! we got all the instructions about how to equalize the pressure in our ears and to watch the gauge that tells you how much air you have and to make sure you never hold your breath!! your lungs could expand and you could die!!!!

then we put the gear on and jumped in the water! its such a weird feeling being able to put your body under water and still breath properly! well i was apparently not breathing properly, i was taking in more oxygen then everyone else so i was the one who ran out of oxygen first! well there is actually a red zone on your gauge and if you get in that red zone you have to go back to the boat. so i showed the instructor and he started leading us back to the boat, i don't think he realized how deep i was breathing cus i was running out of air faster than he thought i was. by the time i was half way up to the boat i started sucking the air in deep, (cus there wasn't much left) adn that made him move me faster! i was pushed to the top and had only a fraction of air left!! close call!!!

Naturally we did a second dive after that!! even though i ran out of air the first time the experience of being in the water wiht the fish like that is amazing! and apparantly i was a real natural at it! the instructor said so!! i caught on so fast and was swimming really fast! so fun! so the second time was even better because we didn't have to do all the safty stuff first! we knew the drill! and when we were down there was saw turtles! like in finding nemo!! we found Crush!! and we saw sting rays!! so cool looking! and the way they move is insane! and we saw huge clams! and we got to touch it!!! and it moves when you touch it! so crazy!! and then when we were heading back to the boat we saw another SHARK!!!! i saw it first out of the corner of my eye! so i started pointing to it and making the signal of HOLY CRAP THERES A SHARK! and then everyone else saw it and we just stayed perfectly still! and it got closer and started to circle us! and then as it got closer to me it turned so that it was facing me dead on and swam closer before quickly turning and swimming away! it got so close to us! it was unreal and really scary!!! once it was gone we worked our way back up to the boat. once on the boat and everyone had their masks off i looked over at one of the girls who was diving with us and she had a BLEEDING NOSE!!! no wonder the shark was circling us!!! holy crap!!!

but what an experience!!! after that we did one more snorkle and then headed back to shore!

What an amazing day!!

i can't believe we are actually doing all this stuff!!!

ATVing fun!!

we just got back from ATVing and it was so much fun!

they took us up in the mountains! and if you are thinking like the rocky mountains you are sadly mistaken! they are the complete opposite! no snow!! its all beautiful Jungle!!!! and the ride up the mountain alone was fantastic! finally when we got there they broke us off into groups and showed us the basics of what to do. and finally we were on our way!!

it was so much fun!! we got to go really fast! and kick up the dust and they we got to go up and down really steep hills and bounce on the rocks! it was so much fun! then it started to rain making it all muddy and creating puddles which were so much fun to ride through! we are so dirty now! its so much fun getting muddy and dirty!

a great day over all!!

WE'RE ALIVE!!!!!!!!

WE DID IT!!! WE JUST COMPLETED SKYDIVING!!! and it was AMAZING!!!

i still can't believe we actually went through with it!!

ok now for the play by play!

the bus picked us up at 12:30 sharp and took us over to the office to sign the papers saying we can't sue if our chute didn't open! no big deal!! then we got to meet our partners to go for the jump and they were great! Caties guy was named Ben and my guy was named Chopper! sweet name rigth! they really got us pumped up for the jump! there was seven people in total doing the jump! everyone doing it tandem!

then we all filed into the bus that would take us to our fate! and as we were sitting in our seats contimplating life and death i looked over and glanced at chopper and saw that he was drinking a beer!!! omg can they fall if they are drunk!! lol nah he said he always has a drink before a jump! luckly i was his first jump of the day! can you imagine being the 5th jump of the day!! they say they do sometimes 8 jumps in a day!! crazy! i wonder if you could get bored of jumping out of a plane?

when we finally got to the airport and saw all the little airplanes we were getting so excited jumping up and down! and finally the moment came! getting into the plane! we had to sit in the between the legs of our partners and can you believe it but CATIE WENT FIRST!!! she is crazy!!!!! so she sat by the door with Ben (she hit her head getting in haha) and then we took off! it was so cool one minute we were horizontal and then the next we were at 45 degree angle shooting into the sky! it was the best plane ride i have ever been on! and the view was great!!!

and then all of a sudden....THE DOOR OPENED!!! and i was thinking "are you crazy!!!" then Cate and Ben stuck there legs out teh door and 3 2 1 SHE WAS GONE!!!! omg that was the freakest thing i have ever seen! and then all of a sudden it was my turn and in the rush to get to the door my foot got caught in the mat on the floor of the plane so we were stumbling trying to get to the door, finally i stuck my legs out and then 3 2 1 HOLY SHITTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it was amazing!!! the initial fall out of the plane made my stomach have huge butterflies but then it just felt like we were floating in the air! cus it didn't seem like the ground was getting that much closer! it was so cool to see the earth from that angle! it was just so cool falling through the air with the greatest of ease!!! and then he opened the chute and all my fears were gone!!! MY CHUTE OPENED! IM ALIVE!!! it was so nice just floating down to the ground! seeing everything oh so amazing!! and finally touch down!!!!!! smooth landing!!!

We still can't believe we did it! but we are so happy!

We got a dvd each!!!!!

and we are trying to load it to facebook but we got pics up!!!

WE DID IT!!!!

a little fun in Cairns

we have had a great couple of days here in Cairns, exploring the town and shopping mall and beach! its so wierd here not only do they drive on the left hand side of the road but they also do not give pedestrians the right of way! something you have to get use to very fast! its scary trying to cross the road! definatly a luxury in Canada!

OH DADDY! you will like this! today we were walking down to the beach and only the way there was a whole bunch of trees that spilled over onto the side walk, and at first i just thought it was really pretty but then all of a sudden we heard it! a squeaking noise coming from above us and thats when daniel said "oh hey look at the bats! " OMG! gross! there was so many of them! i couldn't believe it! they were all just hanging upside down talkin to each other like nothing was up, or in their case down! and instantly i thought back to the time when we "caught" one in the fence! remember daddy!! gross!!! "eck eck eck!" so freaky! but other then that our walk was fantastic!

its been good fun! but we are getting kinda nervous to go sky diving now! its coming up so fast! we do it on this thursday!! (wednesday for you guys!) so keep your fingers crossed that day!

airport mayhem!

what a fun morning!
today we flew from Coolangatta to Cairns! and since we have already made the flight from calgary to sydney you would think we are pros at traveling by plane so today really should have been a walk in the park for us, sadly it was a whole other story!
it all started with relatively smart thinking! we should lock the laptop bag just in case, cus you never know at the airport! and put the key somewhere safe so that it is not in the same place as the laptop bag! naturally we put it in our big bags. then we checked in, easy enough!, and finally it was time to go through security! yaya we know the drill! shoes off, belt in the bucket and take laptop out of bag and put in seperate container!.... wait a minute.... we locked the laptop bag!!! and worse of all we put the key in the other bag which at that very moment was being loaded onto the plane!!!
we successfully locked ourselves out of the laptop bag!! crap!!!
so that left us running all over the airport trying to find a security guard who might have somehting to break open the lock! naturally when you are looking for a security guard you find none!! how is that always the case! sheesh we must have looked for some one for 10 minutes, constantly asking people who work there were they can be found and constantly being pointed in the different direction! finally we went back to the security gates and asked one of the people working at the metal detectors, turns out they don't like being asked if they could open your bag for you, i guess they think we might have somethign fishy in there like a bomb! well next thing we know we are being pushed into a small room off to the side and sat in front of a table! three huge security gaurds come in(well we found them at least!) and just look at us... we jsut started sweating bullets! then catie tried to speak saying we accidently looked ourselves out of our bag but the first big bad security guard stop her just by holding up his finger. then the second moved around the table and nelt down in front of us, and said "we can do this the easy way or the hard way!" i kid you not! it was like out of the movies! so i said "easy! easy!!" the third big duffes just laughed and then opened the door and 2 security dogs were brought into the room! then took the bag from catie and held it out to the dogs the first dog sniffed it and looked away but the second dog sniffed it and started barking!!! oh shit!! the weed! nah just kidding catie desided she was hungry and stuffed a beef jerky in the bag!!! so the dog must have been really hungry!!! but the security guards thought it was something else so they brought in the bomb squad and took the bag into another room leaving us alone with the three security guards... awkward!!!!!!
i tried explaining again but the damn first security guard held up his finger again so we just sat in silence....
finally the bomb squad come out and whispered in the third security guards ear then left...
they brought the bag out and put it infront of us. "your free to go" thank god!!!!!
thank god we were early for our flight or im sure we would have missed it!!!!!!!
good times at the coolangatta airport


so at what point during that story did you realize i was lying? the security guards in the room? the security dogs? or the bomb squad?
to be honest we didn't get taken anywhere the security girl by the metal detector had a nail file that she stuck into the zipper and made the bag open! easy as that! but wasn't the first story better!!!
anyways we are now at cairns and staying at the nomads beach house which is so nice! and it is so hot here! unbelievable!

B and C

soooooo relaxing!!!

wow this has been a great week! i have never felt so relaxed! hang out on the beach all day, then come back and watch movies! can't get better! today was really fun cus we went shopping!!! haven't done that in a while! felt good! i got an awesome new bag and a ring and a head band and a shirt! and catie got a ring 2 dresses(summer dresses) earings and a nice shirt! drove poor daniel crazy waiting for us outside the shops but we gave him warnings in advanced so his suffering was his fault!! lol

its been great weather here too just a little windy is all! can't really say we are missing the snow yet!

B and C

Coolangatta!

hey! so after our fun filled two weeks on the ranch we have moved on and are now in coolangatta! it only took a two hour bus ride, 6 hours train ride, 5 hours waiting, 8 hour train ride and then a 2 hour bus ride to get here but we made it!

and it is beautiful! the place we are staying at now we totally lucked into! its not a hostel but a holiday unit! Catie asked the guy about staying and he originally said it wasn't possible and out of our price range then pointed us in another direction, just as we were about to leave he ran down to us and said that there was a room open and if we each paid 26 dollars a night we could have it! deall!!!! it comes with a kitchen bathroom tv room bedroom view of the beach which is right across the street and a pool in the back yard. we would have paid the same for a hostel except you share teh bathroom and kitchen and bedroom and tv room and it wouldn't have had a beach view! talk about lucky!

this is now our third day here and as of right now it is raining!!

as of yesterday we offically tried surfing! yes i said tried... as in they make it look alot easier then it actually is!! we rented the boards and the wet suites and looked all offical! you would think just by looking at us that we know what we are doing but you would be very deceived! we tried for hours chasing the waves, i (becky) almost got up once... well i got to my knees and road a wave for about 2 seconds before going under agian! cate did great too... she managed to get hit with the surf board in the head lol (caties mom don't worry she is all good... tho she is slurring her words now... did she do that before? jk jk jk) after we were good and tired we retired to our hotel to grab some dinner then we went out again and just swam with the waves and made fun sand castles! over all a great time!!

we are having a blast here and just relaxing it has been great!!!

B and C

the second week on the ranch!

what a week!! whew!!

it definatley had the good, the bad and the ugly!

oh were to start!?

i guess the good is always a good place to start! we got to go this week as intermidiate riders which ment we went with the faster group and got to gallop and go really fast! i was scared for my life! but had a blast! Catie took it up rather naturally! she was born to be on a horse!

we also met a bunch of great people and had a lot of fun with them, more fun then last week because the girls last week always spoke in their own language so it was kinda divided but this week everyone mixed together! good fun! we had an amazing camp fire on the wednesday night were everyone had to much to drink adn funny drinking names came to play... haha cate!! this guy shane got cate good! the trick was to lick a coin and stick it to your forhead then hit the back of your head to get it off. the one to get it off in the least hits would win! only he pretended to put the coin on cates head instead of actually doing it! so she was hitting her head with nothing on her for head!! it was so funny! hope that makes sense!! another reallly good thing that happened was we witnessed a baby foal being born! it was amazing! but the mom was having troubles getting the baby out so john started pulling on it to get it out! it was just so cool and not something you would see every day thats for sure!! oh and i got to ride a ram!!!! so fun and wierd!!! cate did it last week!

the bad... i almost died twice and cate nearly lost her foot!!!!! i know! you are intrigued now!!!

first for caties poor poor foot. while we were wrestling the biggest meanest tuffest cow in the lot it stepped on her foot! but she didn't let that stop her from helping us get that cow down!! and we did it in under a minute!!! very impressive i know! but unfortunatly caties foot is still healing from the blow!

as for my near death experiences well those are interesting stories

first was the barbed wire incident! we were riding our horses and mine decided to go dangerously close to the barbed wire fence we were riding beside then we started into a trot and all of a sudden the guy on his horse beside me moved in and was pushing me and my horse closer to the fence! i pulled back on the horses rains just in time to save my life before i got caught on the fence and pulled from my horse into the barbed wire! i could have lost my leg or hand or life!! ! very life threatening i can assure you!!

then the second incident was even worse! if you could barly handle the first i recommend you stop reading here and skip to the next paragraph! for those of you who are brave enough please carry on! we were rounding up the cows and calf's and going to divide them so we could wrestle the calfs. well we were down to only one momma cow and her baby, but she was the angriest cow we had met so far! so we spread out so that we could make her go the way we wanted her to go. i stood between the fence and a tree to make sure the cow wouldn't go that way. and the rest of the people stood to the other side so they wouldn't go that way which left only one way to go and thats the way we wanted them to go. unfortunatly shane(one of the guys on the ranch) wasn't thinking properly and ran at the cow straight on blocking the way we wanted the cow to go so the cow reacted by bending her head (which had horns on it by the way) and aiming at shane, when shane jumped out of the way the cow charged at me! its head still down aiming at my stomach i was momentarly trapped with fear before my feet moved me to the right, unfortunately the cow followed my movement so i moved to the left and again the cow was there!it was inches from me before shane ran up behind her and scared her the opposite way of my!! wow that was so scary! i was scared to be around the big cows after that!

NOTE: some of the above my have been exaggerated a little bit...

if you choose to skip the last part you can start here agian! tho this next part is also very gory!

now for the ugly!! one of the poor cows had cancer in his eyes, he looked so sad because its eyes were gone and there was only blood and the flies were flying around its eyes so sad! so john decide he needed to kill it!!! i know!!! that is so sad!!!!!!! i couldn't watch!!!! they shot him in his straight in the forhead, killed with one shot which was good but it was twitching after it went down and then they dragged the cow behind the truck to a spot where they could cut it up and keep the meat for the dogs i couldn't watch that either!! i couldn't believe what they were doing... the smells and the sounds were almost enough to push me over the edge and puke! catie handled it alittle better then me. she was able to watch and see how things were done "all part of the ranch life" as she says. not my cup of tea!!!

so to sum up we faced both life and death this week! amazing! thursday night a cow left the world and friday morning a baby horse was born! i faced life in death and cate nearly lost a foot! very very trying week!

now we are in Bingara again and we have decided we are going to do the ranch week agian! catie loved it so much! so i can't say no lol its going to be so great! meet a whole bunch of new people again and take down those calfs! so our blog wont be updated for another week if you are wondering what is taking so long!!! love and miss ya

B and C

Day 5 on the ranch

this was so much fun! we got the horses together and rode them done to the river which was about a 45 minute ride, unfortunately this was the day that on of the girls fell off her horse, don't worry it wasn't us thank god! tho sometimes it felt like it could happen, they get going so fast and you are just bouncing along for the ride holding on for dear life! at least thats how i see it, im sure my face the whole time looked hilarious, and catie the natural pro at riding just laughin at me! anyways we rode the horses to the river and then we stripped into our bathing suites and took the saddles off the horses then rode the horses into the water! it was amazing! the water felt so nice on our feet, until my horse decided she wanted to lay down in the water and take me with her! the water went up to my chest! brrrr that was so cold! she did it three times! i think she was trying to get me off of her! how rude! but like i said i held on for dear life! it was so beautiful there and so much fun! after that we still had time before we needed to catch the bus so we took the shot gun out and did some practice shots! it was so cool! and catie is a pro at that as well! she is definately ment for the ranch life! tho i think i stilll have her beat on the whip cracking! haha!!

it was a great way to end the ranch week!

day 4 on the ranch

today was interesting, both awesome and really gross!

first of all we got to wrestle with the sheep which was so much fun! they would be brought into the circle and we had to divide the wooly sheep from the ones that have already been sheared. you had to grab them by their wool and direct them into the path you wanted them to go! and once again the CANADIAN girls kicked ass and were totally awesome! that was fun. but when it came time to actually shear the sheep it was totally gross! i dunno if this is normally how they do it or if they were going to fast or the shears where dull but they kept knicking the sheeps skin and it would bleed and some times they got it deep and i just felt so horrible for those poor poor sheep! but the wool looks cool... lol then the rest of the day we drove around his farm and took pictures of some of the horses they were going to sell.

a very interesting day for sure!

day 3 on the ranch

This day was a blast, we started out like every other day by rounding up the horses and getting them saddled then we took a short break to practice whipping again and we did it!! well i got it first(Bec) ahah its so cool you whip it over your head then in front of your face and it makes the loudest sound every! everyone was in shock when i got it! then i was trying to show the other girls how to do it and Catie got it too!!! go CANADIAN GIRLS!!!! after that we took the horses and rounded up the cattle! which was just like in the movies, we were like the sheep dogs moving sheep! fantastic and good fun. to make the cows move you have to yell and make noise to scare them so everyone was yelling OI!!! and then my throat started hurting! lol after we rounded up the cattle we got to wrestle with them!!! well the baby cows anyways. two of us would go in and turn the head and pull it to the ground so they could tag the ear... that part wasn't cool! we couldn't watch when they ripped the skin. but the wrestling was awesome and once again me and catie were the best! we think our judo skills helped us in that department anyways!! but we weren't going to tell them that!! !hahah it was a fantastic day and at the end of it we went out to collect firewood by chopping down the dead trees and i(bec) got to use a chain saw!!! they clearly don't know me well enought to think twice about giving me once of those but everything turned out as it should and the tree went down!!!!!!! then we used the firewood to make a bon fire! it was fantastice and a great way to end the night!!!

Ranch Day 2

We had to be ready by 7:30am, lucky for us our internal clock is still waking us up at like 6 in the morning so we didn't need an alarm clock again, i think it also has to do with the fact that we didn't sleep much worrying about the damn spiders in our room!!! yuck!!!! So everyone ate breakfast before we left to gather all the horses to be saddled. We got to learn how to shoe a horse today and lucky Katie(caties horse not catie), she was choosen to do the demonstration! we each got to hammer a nail into place which at first sounded so painful but it doesn't even hurt them at all!!! its just like clipping our nails doesn't hurt, well its the same thing!!! what a relief that was when we found that out! after that we saddled up our horses again and went for a long ride over the hills our butts were still sore from yesterdays ride but we weren't going to let that stop us!! catie has an awesome farmers tan now that she is very proud of and to get that tan she had to use spf 50!! lol and she is still sick which kinda sucks. but it was a great day all together!

Becky and Catie

last night in Sydney and Ranch Day 1

The train ride was a tiring one, even though we slept for most of it! We partied hard our last night in Sydney! Ha ha, almost pulled an all-nighter! It was really fun! We meet a bunch of people in the hostel and all decided to go to the Gaff (a bar) and we didn’t leave there till like 3 in the morning and the streets were still so alive with people everywhere! It was crazy!! We ended up getting lost trying to find our way back to the hostel. Which wasn’t our fault either! The guys thought they new which way to go so we were following them until I saw a map and realized it was the exact opposite way that we wanted to go… so typical of men. Lol when we finally go to our hostel it was 5 in the morning we tried as hard as we could to stay awake cuz we knew that if we were to fall asleep we wouldn’t wake back up, especially since we didn’t have an alarm. We tried watching some tv but the guys jus found stupid things to watch like sponge bob, an other boring shows so we were pretty much falling asleep in the tv room, so we decided to go up to our room, an we crashed for about an hour an a half haha, it kinda sucked but at least we got a lil bit of sleep to give us some energy! After we slept on the train we had to get off an find where our bus was. It was only a two hour ride to where we needed to be, the ride was amazing and horrible depending on who you asked! Poor Catie had motion sickness the whole ride and was just praying for it to be over! Becky on the other hand had a blast on it, an saw wild kangaroos!! She tried to show me but I didn’t want to open my eyes. When we finally got there, it was pretty much dark an we had to carry our bags to the hotel thingy where we stayed for a night before we left for the ranch. It was a terrifying walk, like ones you see in scary movies! There was hardly any street lights and just as we started walking a dog barked out of no where and scared me (Becky) half to death! Finally we found the motel and of course there were spider webs everywhere in it!! Omg! An then beck found actual spiders above the door of the bathroom an in the corners of the ceiling, haha it was horrible for us, an only for us! None of the other girls are really scared of spiders like we are! It nuts! But I’m tryin not to be as afraid as I usually am, seeing as I can’t really help it! So I have to accept that they are going to be everywhere, an not think about it! Especially when we’re going to sleep! Haha oh dear! Its amazing how catie can think like that!! Me(becky) I have been terrified of these damn spiders!!! Stupid things!!

There was 8 other girls here with us, 3 Swedish girls, 3 Dutch, 2 German, and us 2 Canadians! And the owner dude, his name in John, an he is really kewl! An very nice and pretty much the first Australian we’ve met! When we woke up we were taken into town which it like a 2 minute walk from where we were haha. We were told to get long sleeve shirts for the ranch so you didn’t get sun burnt!
When we finally go the ranch we got our first lesson on how to us a whip!!! None of us were good at it!! But it was so cool to try. The girls teaching us made it look so easy!! We were determined to get it by the end of the week! Then we all jumped into the back of the truck and rounded up the horses. Its cool we just spread out and heard the horses in the direction we want them to go! Once we had them we were taught how to put bridle on the horses and we learned how to saddle them ourselves. An every time we ride we have to have a helmet on (which I have no problem with haha) then John taught an “walked us” through of how to ride them when trotting an galloping, it was crazy fun!! We have so many pictures! :D funny enough Catie’s horse was named Katie! And Becky’s horse was named hazel, which was pregnant and very hormonal!! Don’t mess with hazel!!!! We believe John put Catie on Katie so he could remember her name better!! Smart guy! And there are also two girls that stay on the ranch that help john they are very nice!!

Becky and Catie. hope that wasn't to confusing lol

we are back from our week on the ranch

We just finished our first week on the ranch and had a blast!!! to keep things organized we are going to make a post for each day of the week because there is so much to tell you!!