We left NYC and flew to LA, that took six hours. From LA we flew to Nadi, Fiji, that took 11 1/2 hours.

We waited in the Fiji airport for 5 hours for the ferry to Nacula Island, where we were staying.

Fiji is made up of over 300 islands so it was hard pick to the right one. After 22 hours of traveling in the same clothes, were wondering if this island was worth all the travel. As we were pulling up to our island in a little boat to the Fiji's singing a welcome song, we knew it was definitely worth it. The honey moon had begun!

Welcome to Bure #5 at the Oarsman Bay Resort in Fiji. After looking at picture of it on the internet for the past six months it was so nice to be here in person.

In the background only 25 feet from us was the South Pacific Ocean.

If you are planning a trip to Fiji, Oarsmans Bay is one of the furthest islands away from the mainland, but you are rewarded with the best beach in Fiji, and that is backed up by almost all Fijians.

This was the dining room where after dinner it became the bar for the night, actually it was a bar all the time. Our three meals were served here everyday when you hear the banging of the Fijian Drum, it was time to eat. If you know us, you know we didn't miss a meal. The best part about Oarsman's is that everyone eats together and you meet loads of other travelers and learn a lot.

The Fijians drink Cava, which is a root that is ground down and mixed in water and then they drink it out of a cocoanut shell. So it basically tastes like dirt and makes your mouth numb. Amanda had one cup, Tom had about 50 cups. It is a very traditional drink that all the men drink every night, it makes them feel good. Tom had his share of Cava and it didn't make him feel too good, but the Fiji Gold (beer) made us fell just fine.

This was the sunset every night that we were there, not bad right.

It was hard leaving a place this, but you have to keep moving on. When you hear about Fiji you always here about the people and how friendly they are.

It's all true they are some of the most friendly people in the world and they all have such a relaxed life.

The only thing in Fiji that is hard to get used to is Fiji Time, and if you've been there you know!

Auckland , NZ

Auckland was a little bit colder than Fiji. It being the middle of winter, we couldn't complain too much about it being 40 degrees. But Amanda still complained.

It was a cool city, didn't spend too much time there because we were anxious to get on the road.

Mt. Taranki, NZ

This a volcano on the west coast. We stayed in New Plymouth, 20 minutes from this mountain.

Wanganui, NZ

One of Amanda's favorite places because we stayed in this big old victorian house on the river. However it was cold and rainy again, the heater in the car was our best friend.

Wellington, NZ

Spent the weekend with the best family in Wellington, The Reads. It was freezing there and Amanda did not feel too well. But we loved it. You could not pay for the tour that Dave and Loma gave us!!! We saw everything. Dave and Loma are full of knowledge, he is even in a history book.

Loma fed us well, very well. She even made mac and cheese and pizza for us. We also had Kiwi pavlova as you can see.

Bay of Many Coves, NZ

After freezing for 5 hours on the 3 AM ferry ride and sitting in the ferry terminal, we arrived at paradise. Our wedding present from Amy and Tom, could not of come at a better time. We had a two bedroom suite, with our own showers, bathrobes, slippers and heaters in every room. It was pure luxury, as you can tell from the picture.

We had a dinner of green tipped mussels, salmon, lamb chops, chicken curry, hokey pokey dessert ....

and wine of course. As you can see we loved it.

Thank you Amy & Tom for a great memory.

The View from the Mountains behind Bay of Many Coves

It is not an easy walk to get this view. Amanda fell 3 times and Tom slide down the hill. We would say it was worth it though.

Frans Josef Glacier, NZ

It's not everyday you can walk onto a glacier, but at Franz Josef you can. You just pull your car up and walk about a forty minutes and there you are on a glacier.You would think it would be cold but you can see Tom only had a t-shirt on, not bad at all.

Lake Matherson, NZ

We stayed at an awesome hostel at the Glacier and in the morning we drove down to see this lake that supposedly has one of the best reflections of Mt. Cook, the highest mountain in NZ.

What do you think???

For another photo of the lake see the Globaltickit photo of the month (June 05).

Dunedin, NZ

Chocolate anyone? This was one of our favorite cities, not only because it was home of Cadbury NZ, but it was just a good place to hang out. The main reason we went there was to go out to the Otago Peninsula to see some wildlife like Sea lions, Penguins, and Royal Albatross.

Mission Accomplished!

Amanda swore the sea lion was dead because it was sleeping. It wasn't dead and neither is Tom from getting so close to sea lion to wake it up. Though the warnings were pretty clear not to approach the beast.

Sydney, OZ

This is our first glimpse of the famous Harbour. This is where we caught the ferry out to where we stayed at Manly Beach. It was a half hour ferry ride that took us right past the Bridge and Opera House everyday!

Sydney does have an Opera House.

This is the view from the Manly ferry that we took into Sydney everyday.

See if YOU can find
the Opera House.

This is the Anzac parade looking down to the Parliament, the office of Amanda's friend the Prime Minister, John Howard.

(NO JOKE - Keep reading)

The Capital of Australia is Canberra. More importantly it is home of our friends Monique and Jaymima.

Here we are outside of the Greek Club that Jaymima works at, it has damn good food and we are now members of the club. It costs us .75 cents to join!

Amanda and the Hostesses with the Mostestes, you know what we mean, they were Awesome!

Our first Kangaroo Sighting. Canberra has a lot of Kangaroo's and we loved it.

Tom walked into the field and ran out of the field was this big roo sized him up.

HOCKEY IN OZ?

This is Tom and Shaun an ex professional for the Canberra Knights, you may not of heard of him, but trust me he is famous and has a lot of pull. Can you say free Seagrams and Ginger ale.

The game was like Slapshot the movie and those are nets behind us not glass. Which made it easy for the fan standing next to Tom to punch one of the players which was the highlight of the game. Hockey in Oz is freaking awesome.

Yes, the
Prime Minister!

Like we said Amanda has a friend that works in Parliament and is visiting George W. right now in Washington D.C.

This is Amanda and the PM John Howard.

It is unbelievable that we were able to meet him and we have to thank Monique, who like here famous hockey player boyfriend has pull too.

Wine Tour,
Hunter Valley, NSW, OZ

Amanda + Tom + Free Wine + Bikes + 3 Irish Guys = Do we need to write anything?

But we will, Amanda refers to this as a sophisticated pub crawl. We started at 9am and finished at 5pm. We rode our bikes 24 miles, we can't count how many glasses of wine we had, but went to 12 wineries we think. We learned a lot, it's all about the Grapes, and Peanut Butter and Jelly doesn't go well with wine at all!

Do you know what goes well with wine? How about some stinky cheese. Shawn this picture is for you, but the cheese was for us!

(NOTE: Despite the vegan attitudes of the owners of Globaltickit, this photo was approved due to family ties.)

Somehow after a wine tour Tom managed to secure a position as a Miner in the town of Cessnock. This is Tom and his new Boss Donny, they share the same joke about going camping, and the same drinking habits. Yes that sweatshirt is in Tom's backpack.

After the wine tour we went to the pub that we stayed above. We made friends with the locals and had a great night! We love Cessnock.

1.Wake up at 7:30 AM to go Running to a wrecked boat.

2. Realize wrecked boat is 10k away instead of 3k away.

3. Hitch a 4WD drive on the beach with a 19 year old!!

4. Realize that 19 year old Jordan was right, it was only a bloody pile of rust. Then realizing we had to run 10k back to the hostel to check out in an hour.

5. Hitch a ride with a park ranger. Scharle we were thinking of you.

6. After a riding with the ranger that drove over 80/kph on the beach, made it back by 9am.

7. What's for breakfast? Jordan offered us a tinny, but it was warm, so we'll settle for toast instead.

Hillsborough National Park, QLD, OZ

This is Amanda and her dream, a beach ALL TO HERSELF!!

It was only us and 5 people on the secluded beach just north of Mackay.

Mom/MILLY, you would love it!

Airlie Beach, QLD, OZ

You can thank our friend Schmidt for these pictures.

Fruity Lexia, my birthday and new friends that knew football songs, what more could a girl ask for the night before her birthday.

It was a great way to start Amanda's birthday.

I had the best birthday!!

Thanks to my husband.

My first birthday as
Mrs. Tom Clark..........

Bowen, QLD, OZ

Home of the BIG Mango.

I don't know if you can see it, but it was pretty big.

One of our favorite photos.

Daintree River, QLD, OZ

I didn't think Tom would actually get close to a crocodile,
but as we all know Tom has no fear.

Like the Crocodile Hunter himself, he went for it!!!

Cape Tribulation,
QLD, OZ

Where the rainforest meets the Great Barrier Reef. A very cool place filled with wildlife. We also did a crocodile tour, if you can see the croc in the boat picture (above left)..... you win a trip to meet up with us in Australia. : ) (You pay!)

One of our last pictures of the east coast of Australia.

We had a great time there, great beaches.

One of our first glimpses of Ayers rock. It took us awhile to believe that we were actually there after looking at so many pictures of it.

It is truly in the middle of OZ, nothing there but an airport and a resort or the hostel where we stayed with our roommates from Hong Kong. Wong and Jones we say hello to you.

Amanda hugging Ayers Rock.

We know we're good photographers.
: )

Our first sunset at Ayers Rock, it was freezing. Amanda went back to the room, but Tom went back out to get some pictures.

We know who wears the pants.

This was the beginning of our 50K bike ride to Ayers Rock. (You would think that we would have learned after the wine tour.) We love a challenge.

It was awesome. This was our view the whole time.

It took us two hours to get there, it would of been 10 mins. in a bus. Buses are for wusses!!

You would think Ayers Rock was only a couple of minutes away from the picture. Oh no, it was still another 45 mins away.

Can you see Tom on his bike?

We had to wear helmets after the police stopped us, but then again who do we know at Ayers Rock.

Imagine. This photo was taken looking almost straight up!

It was steep!

After biking for two hours we didn't think it would be a good idea to go two hours up the rock!

Tom did go about 5 minutes up.

There is a chain to hold on to while you climb - it's not that bad.

The Clarks at the bottom of the climb.

This is as far as we would go.

We had two hours to bike back.

You have no idea what your butt feels like after a four hour bike ride do you?

Kilometers are .62 of a mile, so 50k is roughly 31 miles, round trip.

This is on our way back and if you can make it out Amanda is not giving the peace sign to the measurements behind her.

'The Sounds of Silence', Ayers Rock

The Sounds of Silence is a dinner in the desert where you watch the sunset and eat all sorts of Australian Foods.

We ate a lot and drank even more as the sun set.

An astrologer talked us through the stars and the planets in the sky.

It's not everyday you get to see Venus and Jupiter right in front of you. You can see everything in the sky out there, there are NO CLOUDS!

This is one of the coolest thing we've done on the whole trip.

On the left is a picture of the Olgas which are rocks in the middle of the desert that people say are even more impressive. We were not about to ride our bikes out there it was another 40K, so from our perspective Ayers Rock was just great.

I think our last picture (above right) pretty much sums up our trip out there, it was gorgeous.

After a flight like that we were met at the airport by E.J. and he took us back to his house to Lisa and Devon!

It was amazing to be here because we have talked about it for so long and here we are!

They have a great house which is set back off the road just outside of Fremantle, which is twenty minutes south of Perth (on the coast).

From what we've seen of Fremantle (Freo) we would say it's the where the Wild West meets the Ocean. It's the Indian Ocean at that!

Lisa and E.J. have an awesome rental property right in downtown Fremantle which they have put a lot of time, work, and money into. You can see it all on globaltickit. But we would describe it best as a "Real World" house.

Honeymoon Lovenest.

It's freaking awesome! As a wedding present they are putting us up in from now until Friday.
(Please forward all correspondence!)

Check this place out, if you are ever coming out here this place is a must. See their website for it here.

It has everything you need and is bright and clean. It's just makes you feel like somebody!

We're hanging out down here with the Australian Clarks for the next few weeks.

We really miss all you guys and we did this so you can see that
we are excellent!

We're heading to Asia next. If you want to talk to us (we want to talk to you) over the next three weeks EMAIL US!!!

We will be online and ready to chat.

Lots of Love - Amanda and Tom