Central Coast

Hey people

Well we went on a whale watching cruise today and it was incredible. We went right out of the coast and saw millions of humpback whales. We got picked up from palm beach at 8:30am and we were sooo excited!!! We went out for around 30mins and that was when we saw our first whale!! It was so gorgeous and he was really big, we then realised there was around 5 more with them and they were all breaching. Breaching is when a whale does pretty much flips and acrobatics out of the water, they are very talented. then we were allowed to go in the net of the side of the boat!! The water was pretty warm and the wales were only about 30m away from us. Humpback whales are meant to be very friendly and they sure showed that. Oh, they also know how to show off!!! We then kept going and we saw some more whales and we also saw some dolphins. We had a nice lunch and the cruise people provided it for us. The boat cruise went for around 4hrs and we enjoyed every moment of it!! We got back onto palm beach at around 12:30pm. We walked along the beach for a while and had a quick swim. We then went through the town and had an ice-cream. We then lunged around on the beach for the rest of the arvo and then watched the sun set on the Long Jetty. We then came back to the hotel and packed to go home tomorrow :(. We had a great holiday and we really look forward to seeing Chandler, Joey, Rach and Ross and we want our coffee!!!

Cya later,

Mon xo

Murray Darling River!!!

hey people

Well we are in Australia again and we went for a boat ride today down the Murray Darling River. It was incredible and really ruff in some bits but still really fun!! We went passed loads of massive fish and it is a really popular fishing spot. We went on the boat for around 2hrs enjoying the scenery and animals the whole way. The man taking us down the river was called Jack and he gave us some awesome facts about the river such as; the river is the 16th longest river in the world and runs for 2 310 miles and then leads into the ocean. Many animals are found in and around the river such as koalas, Western Grey Kangaroos, emus, Lizards (bearded Dragons), parrots, swans, pelicans and even dolphins but they are closer to the ocean. Then there is a plentiful supply of fish. There is a plant along the banks of the river known as the Willow which helps the banks and stops erosion. But the downside of the willow is it chokes the growth of other plants, Phoebe called it a murderer! The River hasn't been changed for over millions of years!!! Once we had been going for the 2hrs we stopped on a bank and explored while eating lunch. jack showed us the Willow and the roots were entangled in everything, like the bank, plants and pretty much everything. We also saw parrots all through the trees and they were beautiful! We then hopped back in the boat and headed back along the river. On the way back this time we saw some kangaroos on the bank that were huge!!! One had a joey and we got a photo of it, sooo cute!!! And we also saw some black swans that were so graceful, they looked like they had silk feathers! We then got back to the wharf where we caught the boat from and headed back to the hotel. It was around 4pm when we got back and we went out and did some shopping, had dinner and went back to the hotel to pack our stuff for heading to the Central Coast tomorrow. Cya then,

Mon xo

New Zealand

Hey people,

Well we went to Mount Cook today and it is the highest Mountain in New Zealand. The mountain reaches 3,754m high!!!We were very scared about how high it was because we weren't the best climbers in the world!!! The tour guide told us not to worry though. We hiked for around 40mins and even by then we were tired. We had climbed over rocks and round curves, getting higher by the minute but never looking like nearing the top too soon. We decided to sit and have lunch at around 12pm and in that we got a partial bit of energy back. We climbed for around another 30 mins and the views were amazing by then. We could see nearly all over the side of the New Zealand we were on and we were happy to sit there and gaze for a while. We started to move down and we saw a lot more birds on the way down than we did going up. We had to curve all the way down and Phoebe nearly slipped and fell down the mountain at one stage!!! When we were safely on the ground again we had to walk all the way around the bottom of the mountain to get back to our car which took nearly an hour!!! We found out that we only climbed around 350m so not near the top at all, but hay, for non-climbers we did well!!!It was around 3pm when we neared the cars and then we were back at the hotel in no time. We sat down and discussed our day for a while and came to a conclusion that climbing was definately not our thing but it was worth it for the views!!! We have to go to dinner now so I will see you all tomorrow back in Australia because we are going to the Murray darling river on a boat ride, fun!!! Oh we took some pictures from far away from Mount Cook because The tour guide said not to take them up incase we dropped them.

Cya tomorrow, Mon xo

Sarengeti

hey people

we ware not at New Zealand today that is tomorrow, me and my mistakes!!! Anyway we are in Serengeti now and that is also in Kenya. It is a grassland and they say the lowest degrees it has been in the recent couple of months had been around 53 degrees!!! oh man. We woke up late this morning so we had no time for breaky and had to run straight out to the car that was taking us top Serengeti. It was 55 degrees today and the amount of animals we saw was incredible!!! We saw giraffes with zebras and the zebras were absolutely incredible. We saw Hyenas, birds, snakes and also 2 baby cheetah cubs and their mother which were so cute. We also saw a female elephant that was pregnant and the tour guide told us that elephants are usually pregnant for around 2 years!!! Pheob's and I couldn't get over how dry it was here and how incredible it was that the animals could survive in such hazardous conditions, it only rained about 4 inches every month!!! The tour lasted around 4hrs but we headed home then because we needed to pack and board the plane for heading to New Zealand to do some mountain hiking!!! Will talk to you all tomorrow, cya then,

Mon xo

Kenya

Hey

We caught our plane at 5am!!! We arrived in Kenya at around 6:30am and relaxed for most of the day until 1pm when we caught our plane to the savanna. We got off our plane at around 2pm and it was boiling!!! It was just over 45 degrees. The guy driving the plane bought ice-creams so we had one but it melted like straight away. We had a safari ride at 3pm so we were very happy to get in the bus when it came!!! We drove for around 20-30mins before we saw a male leopard, it was hunting some wildebeest and then caught a calf. It was horrible to watch and we were happy when we moved on. A few minutes later we saw some Giraffes, they were massive!!! They could run really fast when they wanted top and they were interesting to watch. A while later we saw some rhino's and also a baby with it, it was gorgeous. The tour guide said it was really rare to see rhinos around at this time and so were very lucky to see them. We started to head home and when we were just coming to the end of the Savanna we saw a massive lion lying under a tree, he was sooooo big!!! Phoebe was mean and said he was nearly as big as me!!! I said It as nearly as big as her head and then she got annoyed at me!!! We got home after around 6pm and we were really tired. We really enjoyed the safari ride and the interesting facts that w the tour guide told us about. Guess what, there are over 40 tribes in the Savanna and they all have their individual languages and cultures. One tenth of the land has been dedicated to national parks and specifically for Safari's. The main animals of the savanna are known as the big 5, they include, elephants, leopards, lions, buffalo's and rhinos. There are 17 species of different mammals alone. Anyway I guess we will go to bed now. We are so sad to be leaving tomorrow so we will talk to you in New Zealand!!

Cya later, Mon xo

OOPS!!!

Sorry people but I got confused, there is no emus in the Sahara Desert there are Ostriches, sorry!!!
Mon xo

Oopsy

Sahara Desert

Hey,

Well we woke up at around 9am this morning and had to quikly have breakfast because we were going on the tour at 10am!!! We packed a little backpack with sunscreen, hat etc. Then we ran outside just as the tour bus pulled up at the hotel. We jumped inside and we had a 2hr drive to the Sahara Desert.

We talked and introduced ourselves the whole way and the scenery was lovely to watch too.We arrived at the Sahara Outscirts at around 12:30pm and had a quick lunch break. The we were on the move again by 12:45pm.

We kept driving through the desert for around an hr with the man driving was telling us about what we would be doing today and the things we could look forward too seeing. He said we would run into some animals like jackals, goats, maybe hyenas and maybe emus. He said that there is not many animals in the Sahara due to the harsh heats and usually a lot of the animals live under ground and some don't even come out of the ground! At about 2pm we got out and had a look around. Phoebe and I took our shoes of and played in the sand but not for long because as he said the heat was awful!!! Then the man taking us on the tour pointed over to a pack of Jackals walking along slowy. There was about 10 of them all in a big huddle looking very tired and sorry for themselves. There were two bigger ones that were a lot more muscular and fed than the others and then some were smaller and skinnier. Then there was one at the back that was very small but it looked old instead of like a baby, it was a grey colour and had brown and black on it's legs. It was pretty skinny and was stragling along behind the rest of the pack. We took a photo of herwhen she had stopped at one point and then got one of the pack but I don't know if it worked because of the sun, so I will put it on the next post if it worked.

The Jackals were soon out of site and so we went back to what we were doing before. Then Phoebe and I spotted an Emu not to far away actually and just stood and stared for ages. Then we told the man and he pointed ot out to everyone else. But with all the yelling it got scared and ran away, boy could it run fast!!! Luckily I got a photo of it while it was just me and Phoebe so I will show you that one too.Then the leader of the tour told us to gather close so he could tell us about the Sahara he said:-

• The Sahara Desert is the largest desert in the world covering atleast 3000 miles from east to west.


• The desert is the second largest in the world, Antarctica is in front.


• The desert was thought to have had a quite a lot of water because crocodile fossils have been found.


• Dinosaurs fossils have also been found meaning there must have been quite a lot of water for them to live there
• Most of the people living the Sahara are known as Nomads(People who move one place to another) There are around 2.5million people in the Sahara Desert so there is around 1 person per square mile!!!
• There used to be millions more people populating the Sahara because the heat wasn't as harsh as it is now.

We started to head back home at around 3pm and we were all very hot and tired. We got back to the hotel at around 5:30pm. We headed inside with our belongings and then went up to our room. We had a shower and decided to have dnner in the resturant in the hotel. The food was lovely, Pheobe and I both had fish and chips. After dinner we went upstairs to pack to pack for going to Kenya tomorrow. It should be really nice up there.

Anyway I am really tired now so I think I will go to bed.

Cya tomorrow

Mon xo

P.S. Pictures on the next post!

Sahara Desert

Sahara Desert

Hey Mon here,
Well once again we were up bright and early 7:30am. Because we were leaving today Jake made us pancakes for breakfast, they were so nice and Phoebe and I thanked him profusely. We sat and talked about everything for about 1hr!!! Then we quickly gathered our stuff and headed to the airport once again. It was 8:30am by the time we left and the flight left at 3:30 so we arrived there at around 1:30 and for once had a while to go shopping. We said our goodbyes to Jake because he said he is not the best fan of shopping so decided to leave. We went to heaps of different shops and I brought a toy Jaguar and Phoebe brought a squirrel monkey toy. We then looked at clothes and I brought some swimmers and Phoebe brought another hat!!! Then we sat down for a coffee and had a quick lunch at around 2:30 then headed through customs.
The plane flight was again fine (mostly because we slept most of the time!!!) and the movies were OK too.
We were in North Africa at around 6:30pm and weren't very tired so decided to dump our stuff at the hotel and head out for dinner. We had Italian(even though it is Africa!!!). Then it was around 8pm so we went to the hotel and talked and watched TV for ages. Then it was around 10pm so we are just about to go to bed.
Cya tomorrow we have organised a tour in the Sahara desert, can't wait!!!
Mon xo

Pics of the amazon

Hi,
Well we woke up this morning at around 7am!!! Thanks to Jake cluttering around in the kitchen with breakfast. So hesitantly got out of bed and headed for the family room. Breakfast was on the table when we arrived and we had bacon and eggs, it was really nice and woke Phoebe and I up perfectly. While eating breaky Jake announced what we were doing for the day. Phoebe and I choked as he said 15km walk!!!! Yes we choked on our food and dropped the cutlery as he spoke. He said we should both be fine because it was MOSTLY flat and he also said we would she a load of animals. That cheered us up a little. So once we had finished we went into our bedroom and got ready for the day. Phoebe and I carried a tiny backpack to help the walk a little and to our surprise Jake carried an absolutely massive bag, full of food, water, cameras, first aid gear and probably the kitchen sink judging by the size of it!!! Anyway, he said he would be fine because he is used to it, but Phoeb's and I doubted that we would even be able to handle our bags for 15kms let alone that so called bag!
We headed out at around 9:30am and we walked through different varieties of trees, bushes vines and loads more and we saw a lot of a lot of birds of different shapes, sizes and colours. We walked for around 2hrs before we caught site of a monkey. According to Jake it was a squirrel monkey and they were also called Saimiri sciureus (Don't worry I can't pronounce it either!!!) They were so cute and only grow to about 10-14 inches long, how adorable?! We took some great photos and then we had to move on. We had walked about 4km now and so we still had 11km left, bit with the beautiful scenery around us we didn't notice the distance.
We kept walking and suddenly Jake told us to stay completely still and look straight in front. We were a bot shocked at the alertness in his voice but did as we told. We looked in front and saw a big, lanky Black Jaguar and boy was he beautiful!!! He was black and silky and looked as if his fur was velvet. His walk was graceful, sneaky and luckily didn't notice us. We got a photo of him because Jake didn't want to scare him with the flash. He said they are usually called Panthers.
We decided to take a long path around him because Jake said he would probably be hunting, so we went with that!
We kept walking for around and 1hr and a half and then we decided to have lunch. We sat on the ground under a tree and Jake pulled out some sandwiches he made this morning, probably at like 5am!!! Then he got some fruit and biscuits. We all started eating and then he told us some facts about the amazon:-

• Amazingly it covers up to 40% of South America!!!
• It is the biggest rainforest in the world
• It is the only large rainforest that is densely covered with plants and animals
• Out of 5.5million square kms in 2.7 acres of that there is 700 different species of trees and double that in plants.
• In just 4 square miles of the Amazon there was found 125 mammal species, 400 species of birds, 100 different reptiles, 60 different amphibians and 150 species of butterflies!!! Just in 1 square meter of leaf liter there was 50 different types of ants found!!!

Once we were totally in awe over the facts we kept eating and that was when I realised that the tree we were under was incredibly tall!! I asked Jake how tall it was and he said it was only around 90m but they can grow to around 130m tall and some can be around 200ft!!! I kept looking at the trees and then I realised that I was struggling to see because of the trees covering pretty much all of the light coming from the sun!!!

Jake said we had walked as far as we could go if we wanted to get home before dark and he said it would be safer if we did, so we packed up and started to head back.

We had walked around 2km from the tree when i saw a beautiful bird. It had an orange, green, yellow, red and black bill that was absolutely massive!!!! It had a black body with yellow down its chest and green around its eyes. I showed Jake and he said it was a 'Keel-Billed Toucan'. I took a million photos, but I will only put a few on my next post. Oh I will also put a map of the wetlands and Antarctica on there because i forgot to put them on my last picture post.

We kept walking and it took us around 2hrs to get back to camp. That was with a few stops because Jake showed us some different ant and other insect species.

Once we were inside and relaxed it was around 5pm so it wasn't too late but we were pretty tired because of all the walking. We sat and talked for a while and then had dinner, cheese on toast (we weren't very hungry!!!) Then we all had showers and Phoebe and I packed to go back tomorrow. We are off to the Sahara Desert next and are really looking forward to it, thought it is a little different from the amazon!!!! We will actually be able to see the sun!!

Anyway cya tomorrow,

I will put the pics on another post along with the maps!!!

Cya Mon xo

Change of plans!!!

Hello,
Well last night we had a very drastic change of plans!!! We heard that the Amazon Rainforest is full of life right now and Pheobe is dying to see some monkeys so here we are now in the Amazon rainforest in a tent, with a small fire outside and it is 10pm at night. Yes I did say it we ARE in a tent, well a massive tent at that!!! It has 3 rooms, 1 is Pheobe's and mine, another is our tour guides', Jake. The last room is the biggest of the so called 'family room' even though none of us are realated, but Jake is really hot!!! Don't worry though Chandler I wouldn't do that but Pheobe would, sorry Mike! Nah, I will keep her in line, don't worry!!! She just read that bit and said she wouldn't dream of it. Anyway, we had a good flight, overall and it took us around 5hrs to get where we are now and we have been here for around an hr and a half. We had dinner which was baked beans on toast!!! It was ok! Then we got settled down and I am falling asleep while I am writing this so I will talk to you about what we do tommorow, I think we are going a walk but hopefully not too far!!
Cya Mon xo

Pics of antarctica

Antarctica!!!!

Hey from down below!!!
Well we are in Antarctica now and in our base camp. It is pretty warm in here though the outside air is soooo cold!!! It is about -27 outside and everything is obviously ice. We arrived here about 10am this morning and it was at the hottest point of the day -20! Yeh so hot! We have a very cosy camp and we have 3 tour guides with us. Their names are Rob, Jenny and James. They are all very nice and before took us around Antarctica on a sled led by huskies, I will tell you about that next. Phoeb's and I have to share a bunk in a separate part of the camp to the others because of the lack of space. The bunks are very comfortable though.
Anyway onto the trek. We headed out at around 11:30 and Phoebe and I were kind of worried we would fall down a cravasses or something but Jenny told us not to worry. After about 30mins we saw some emperor penguins!!! They were beautiful. They were yellow, orange, white, black and had a bit of red. They also had some cute, fluffy babies!!! Jenny went closer for us and got some pictures. Then she got some of the landscape, cliff edges, and icebergs. We then moved over to one of the cliff edges and had a brilliant look at some whales and there babies, which are known as calfs. The were so graceful. We also got some brill photos of them too. We then went on and Jenny taught us how to tell the huskies what to do. 'Mush' means go, and you just really have to say'wohhh' to stop them. That was all we learnt though.
She then taught us a bit about antarctica. She said that Antarctica was actually 98% ice and snow and 2% percent of rock. She then said it was supriseingly the driest contenant on earth and was sometimes known as a dessert! It is the 5th largest of the 7 contenants on earth and was found in 1820 by Captain John Davis. It has 90% of the worlds ice and holds between 60-70% of our fresh water! The animals on antarctica include wide varieties of fish, whales, seals, arctic terns sharks and penguins.
Well after our lesson on Antarctica we then headed on to find....yes, seals!!! Jenny said Antarctica has 6 species of seals including fur seals, crabeater seals, elephant seals, leopard seals, Ross seals and Weddel seals. My favourite is the fur seals and to our surprise that is the breed we had just encotoured. There was also elephant seals not far from them. The fur seals were incredible and extremely cute! Phoebe and I were jumping up and down at the spot whenever we caught a glance of the babies. They did actually have a lot of fur and were rather petite. We got some incredidble photos of them and one inperticular photo of a baby holding it's nose that was soooo cute!!! We then moved onto the elephant seals, now they were a different story. They were absoloutly massive especially the males!! And they weren't exactly what you call cute but if you looked close enough they were in their own way!!
Jenny then said it was time to hed home, else the dark would kick in and it would be unbarably cold.
It took us around 1hr-1 and a 1/2 hrs. And when we were back at the camp we told Rob and James all about our trek and what we had learned. They were rather impressed that we took all of it in! We the had dinner of pasta with a tomato sauce. We talked for a while and then me and Pheobe decided to pack for tommorow seen as though we were leaving at 10am!!!
We are heading to New Zealand tommorow so that should also be as fun as everywhere else has been! I will put the photos of here on another post to save space hope you like them.
Cya tommorow,
Monica xo