Where Australia meets Sweden: Vegemite and knäckebröd.

When I first met my Aussie husband 13 years ago, I liked to make fun of Vegemite. I likened eating the yeast extract as akin to eating petroleum. And I believe that I also called it the gooky leftovers from beer making. (Which is true, when you get down to it.) Of course, I also said that the American peanut butter and jelly sandwich was far superior to the Vegemite sandwich. But Robert began sneaking the paste into sauces and singing its virtues as a health food, full of vitamin B, etc. And somewhere along the line, I got used to its bitter, salty taste. Now I love it. I even crave it.

When I moved to Sweden, I had kind of a similar reaction to knäckebröd  – Swedish hard bread. “What’s the big deal about eating a kind of bread that could best described as cardboard,” I wondered. And then I had some of the homemade knäcke and learned just how good that stuff can be.

The old saying is that familiarity breeds contempt. But I think sometimes it also breeds love. Because my favorite go-to, in-between meal snack of late has been Vegemite and butter on a piece of knäckebröd. I like to think of it as where Australia meets Sweden.

Stockholm is glorious right now and that does make it a lot easier to be home again.

It’s 8.30 on Sunday evening and I just put my pajamas on. I was in a bit of a funk all day and I could not figure out why. So I went out for a long walk in the sunshine and spent some time on the couch watching travel shows. Funnily enough, it took me all day to realize the obvious: I’m tired.

Directly after arriving home from Australia, I’ve had meetings and plans every night. We traveled around 17,000 kilometers to get from Sydney to Singapore, then on to London and finally home to Stockholm. In Queensland, we drove 6,500 kilometers around the outback and north coast. To put that number in perspective, the flying distance between Stockholm and New York is 6,292 kilometers. The longest we stayed in one place was for four nights. I packed and unpacked my suitcase countless times during our four weeks on the road and by the end of the trip, didn’t even bother to dig down to the bottom.

It’s always hard for me to switch back to everyday life after a long trip. We had an amazing holiday and a wonderful time. But right now, I have to say that it’s good to be home.

We saw this kangaroo just outside our hotel room.

And this tree frog appeared to be living in another of our hotel's bathroom.

Toompine South Western Hotel is known as the pub without a town.

This was indeed a traffic hazard.

“You always have amazing adventures when you travel to Australia,” said a friend to me after I got home. And it’s true, we do tend to have interesting things happen to us. But I suppose we set ourselves up for it, in a way, by traveling into the outback. That vast, remote, arid part of the country tends to be unique and unpredictable in all sorts of ways. Last year, we were evacuated from a national park due to flooding and caught in a cyclone. In previous visits, we saw not one creek with water in it, took a jumping crocodile cruise, met people who live underground year round and encountered a whip cracking performer who showed off his talents while AC/DC blared and he struggled to stay upright at 10 in the morning. But that’s another story.

Outback Queensland is where cattle stations are bigger than countries, where there is a pub without a town, where trucks have multiple trailers behind them, where we drove for two days and passed only one other truck and where we had not one but two hotel rooms with tree frogs living in the bathroom. You just don’t run into this sort of thing in Sydney or Melbourne.

The infamous dingo fence.

I am guessing that country killed is a selling point.

Velvet Elvis is alive and well at the Simpson Desert Oasis Hotel in Bedourie.

There are cattle stations that are larger than European countries. Yes that sign says this station is 1,327 million acres.

Looking up at the observation tower in Queensland's Mamu Rainforest Canopy Walkway.

One of the lush views across the rainforest.

With a photo, it's hard to show just how dense the forest was.

Ten years ago on our honeymoon, we stayed on the Barrier Reef”s Orpheus Island just off the coast of North Queensland and briefly visited the Mossman Gorge as well. We vowed then we had to come back to do some more exploring of this area, so it seemed appropriate to do so on our 10th anniversary.

Tropical North Queensland – the wet tropics – is warm and rainy and the combination helps to create gorgeous, lush rainforest. Along the coast, the rainforest extends all the way down to the beach and when you stop onto a trail, it feels like you are absorbed by the dense vegetation and almost overwhelmed by the damp earthy smells and the cacophony of birds. Robert’s Dad Kevin spent a lot of time in this area in the 1970s doing survey work and described cutting his own trail through the forest with a machete. I can not even begin to imagine what kind of hard, sweaty work that was.

To get our own up-close view, Robert and I visited the Mamu Rainforest Canopy Walkway in Innisfail. Located in Wooroonooran National Park, Mamu gives you a head to toe look at the rainforest, from the floor to the canopy. There are standard trails along the forest floor as well as a 350 meter elevated walkway, a springboard cantilever that goes out along the brink of the North Johnstone River gorge and a 37 meter tower that takes you up into the treetops. The views are gorgeous. But be prepared to sweat and get wet.

I loved the gnarly vines on the trees.

Getting silly on the elevated walkway.

This kookaburra was sitting on the walkway fence as we left the park.

And these had to be the craziest looking mushrooms I've ever seen. Oh my! Apparently, there are stinkhorn fungi and in addition to looking a bit "interesting," they also smell.

The iconic shells of the Sydney Opera House.

The view from underneath Sydney's Harbour Bridge.

The North Sydney Olympic swimming pool.

We are back home in Stockholm and the sun is shining. Today it feels like spring is coming and that winter has been left behind – the birds are singing even though nothing is blooming yet.

The four weeks in Australia passed so quickly. I have a lot more photos and stories to share from our time there. But I am fuzzy headed and jet lagged just now, so bear with me. And I am trying not to freak out about the fact that the woman next to me for 22 hours on the plane had a horrendous cold and that I feel a bit congested. For now, I will just revel in the sunny day here and the photos of Sydney sunshine I’ve included.

 Sydney morning.

Harry's cafe de Wheels in Sydney's Wooloomooloo.

Harry's meat pies are famous and the business is national trust classified.

Palm trees at Mission Beach, Queensland.

Robert and the coconut.

It rained a lot in tropical Queensland. Buckets, really. But we still had a lot of sunny, warm temperatures in the 30s. And we still managed to enjoy ourselves. One morning as we sat watching the downpour from Castaways at Mission Beach, we saw a man gathering coconuts in the rain while a parade of kids followed behind him. He lookedlike the Pied Piper. Talking to him later, we found out he was Luke Bice from Sunrise Coconuts and that he had just been live on the air for ABC morning news. Then he cut us a fresh coconut to share and even added a little umbrella for flair. Nice.

Crocodile warning sign in Lucinda, Queensland. The jetty behind it is 5.8 kilometers long and used for loading sugar cane onto ships.

Warning for the deadly box jellyfish.

The beaches of Queensland are beautiful. But like so many other parts of Australia, you never know what is lurking beneath the water in the oceans. These are just two of the many warning signs I saw in Queensland. Where we stayed in Mission Beach, there was a jellyfish net in an area of the beach so that you could swim safely. And when we went snorkeling, we wore sting proof wet suits.

On  lighter note, I could not resist taking photos of the signs below. When I walked up to these restrooms in Queensland, I saw the mangoes sign first and wondered if it was for the men’s or women’s toilets. Luckily, the women’s room provided clarity.

And no mangoes here.

A restroom door sign in Queensland for all the mangoes.

We saw this cassowary along the road just outside of Mission Beach in Queensland.

Cassowary road sign.

Along the coast of Queensland, the cassowary is a bit of a legend. The cassowary is a large, flightless bird who lives in the tropical rainforests of Queensland  where they are threatened with extinction. I had seen one in a zoo several years ago, but never in the wild. Cassowary warning signs were everywhere we went along the coast, but we did not see one until we were driving out of town. It was such a surprise and a thrill, too. These birds have quite a reputation for being viscous, but this guy just seemed happy to keep foraging. And look at how cool he is: he stands almost as tall as a person, has a cobalt blue neck, amber eyes and red wattles. The black feathers on his body are glossy and beautiful.  And he has a mohawk. Amazing.

After the snorkel, on much calmer waters.

We’ve been having more adventures involving water. This time, we were n a snorkel trip on the Great Barrier Reef. We were on a pontoon-like boat with about 10 others and the hour-long ride to the reef was rough. We were smacked by the waves relentlessly. And then the rain started. Not too hard. But the waves were white capping.

We finally pulled up to a buoy in the middle of the ocean and that was where we were supposed to get out. It was rainy and the water was choppy and I have to admit that I was not feeling brave. In fact, I did not want to leave the boat. It was chilly and I did not have a life vest. But after being given a noodle, I reluctantly slipped on my fins, jumped in and put on my snorkel. The water was warm and lovely. Looking down into the reef, I quickly forgot about the rain and waves and instead swam with Robert to check out fish in all shapes, colors, patterns and sizes – zebra striped, neon yellow and blue, long and thin, fat and round. Corals were pink and green and there were cobalt blue starfish and purple sea cucumbers. The clams were giant – three foot across. We swam along behind a giant turtle for several minutes. And then we saw a reef shark below us. Luckily, he did not seem interested in us.

It was all so magical. When we got back on the boat, everyone swapped stories about what we had seen on the snorkel. I thought I would be smart and put on dry clothes so that I would not get cold on the ride back in. And then about five minutes into the ride, it started raining. Almost immediately, it was pouring. We had a roof over our heads, but no side covers on our boat and the rain hit us from every angle. It rained so hard that it felt like needles hitting my face. It felt like it was hailing. I put a towel over me to block some of it, but it was all rather miserable. I had to force myself not to shiver. Waves were breaking over the boat and landing on us. It was a long ride. But we made it back safely to land. We were dripping, but happy for the adventure.

Yes, we have bananas everywhere. The bags over the bunches protect the fruit from birds.

These lady finger bananas that we bought at a roadside stand were not pretty, but they were oh so good.

Over the last few days, we have switched outback Queensland for tropical Queensland. From the barren and mostly flat lands of the outback, we are now in the dense, lush, rich rainforest region. It’s gorgeous and green. And wet. It’s not called the wet tropics here for nothing.

Beautifully green tea fields.

Roadside tea stand.

Sugar cane fields are everywhere, as are bananas. Tea too. I’ve never seen bananas and tea growing before. I am loving the look of it all. We have been staying at Mission Beach, an area that was hit hard by cyclone Yasi last year. You can still see the devastation. But you can also see the recovery of the green and the rebuilding of houses and businesses. It’s good to see.

Breadfruit on the tree.

Red papayas at yet another roadside stand.