Kia Ora New Zealand

That was quite a seven week excursion around Australia. Some people may call it a walkabout, but I'd like to call it the round about!  Because of all of the u-turns we took! And thank god for round abouts because that makes getting lost or taking a wrong turn a bit easier. I wish we had more in the states. If you drive around oz, make note that the road signs are terrible, they are either not clear, or immediately before your turn or sometimes after the turn. I really got used to driving on the left side, I'm going to go home and be confused as of which side to drive on.

After the road trip we spent a week in Melbourne with Katie and Trina, Jessica's friends she met in New Zealand. We relaxed, watched movies, went to a Footie game, ate alot, walked their dog every day and went shopping. Then we spent a week in Daylesford, which is about an hour and a half outside of Melbourne.  The May's have a holiday house out there and they offered for us to stay there. It's a very cute, small town.  The cottage was just up the road from a small lake.  Most of the tree's in Australia don't shed their leaves in autumn, they shed their bark, but Daylesford was filled with leaf shedding trees and they where changing at the time so it was beautiful! We both got a pretty bad cold at this time, but I can't think of a better place or time while traveling to be sick! We watched twenty eight movies.

We stayed at a hostel the last couple of days in Melbourne, and tied up lose ends before we left. It had free breakfast-woo hoo!  Of course I stuffed myself to the max every morning and stuffed toast in my pockets.  On the way to the airport, I saw three Kangaroo's- goodbye Australia. The flight to Christchurch, New Zealand was easy and quick, slept the whole time on the floor. The view from the plane flying over the mountains was beautiful.  They had an announcement right before we landed that if you have been in North America in the past seven days you must see a doctor and possibly be quarantined.  That flu sounds pretty serious. The weather in Christchurch when we landed was beautiful. Hot and sunny, but that must have been a freak hot day because since then its been pretty cold.  We stayed at a hostel called Charlie B's in Christchurch for four days.  We visited the art gallery, the art center and went down to the ocean and played in the caves. There was a movie room in the hostel and the first night there, what else was on but Lord of the Rings.

We found a posting for a ride share down to Queenstown with a Kiwi named Matt.  After we met him and had coffee and made sure he wasn't a creep, Matt, a Canadian named Brendan and us headed down to Queenstown.  A six hour ride turned into a very fun ten hour ride.  We stopped and had a sit down lunch, stopped at a massive lock and damn waterfall, stopped to make cairns, which is a pretty big thing here. Cairns are just rocks piled on top of each other to make a tall balancing rock tower, kind of like Blair Witch . We stopped at a puzzle world and did puzzles for an hour, which was at the same place as the worlds largest sweater! Neat!

So we finally made it to Queens, it was a very beautiful ride, lots of mountains-got a bit carsick.  We got a hostel - Southern Laughter.  It was a nice small four bed dorm, with a TV, a bathroom and a kitchenette - luxurious.  Bordering Queenstown are mountains called the Remarkables, which most people come to this town to ski or snowboard on it snowed on them several days after we got there and it was remarkable. This is my favorite town in New Zealand.  It's also known for the Nevis bungee jump, the tallest in the southern hemisphere.  We spent three days here, then drove down with Matt the Kiwi to Milford sound, which was his final destination, he is a kayak tour guide down there.

We spent the evening by the fire with the other tour guides.  Sam wise the great-Matt the Kiwi's best mate, taught me how to loon call- image that, a Kiwi teaching me my own state bird call. I slept in a sleeping bag by the fire, it was awesome, until the fire went out, then I moved into an extra camper.  The next morning we got to go sea kayaking for free with the group they where guiding.  Later that day Sam wise the great drove us back up to Queens.  We went back to that same hostel, where we met our new best friends, Geoff (Brooksie) and Bryan (Northie-that's what they called each other), we shared a four bed dorm.  We spent the next four days just hanging out with them and having a blast with Brooksie and Northie.  We also climbed a mountain, there is a gondola up this mountain you can take, but we climbed.  It was like the Gross Grind in Vancouver.  At the top there is a cafe, para sailing, lugging, and of course bungee jumping. There's alot of bungee jumping in Queens, and sky diving.  I tried to sign up for the Nevis but it was all booked out, I was really looking forward to doing that.  But instead I did the canyon swing, twice.  The locals say the canyon swing is way more fun.  You chose your option of how you want to get dropped or how you want to jump/fall. You go straight down 60 meters then swing across a canyon. My first one I jumped sideways off the ledge, and the second one I was hung upside down and dropped-it was crazy wicked. I almost shit my pants. Also in Queenstown, you have to go to Furgburger to get a burger, it's famous, also you have to go to Hells Pizza. Yummmmy.

West Coast

Sorry I haven't written for ages, I've been in jail. Yep, it's the truth, i was in for about a month. I got into a bar fight with a women that was way out of line and... ok ok I'm just joking. Where was I? Ok, Broome was beautiful and hot, did I mention on the way to Broome we saw about fifty brush fires? So after Broome I was driving to Dampier, about an eight hour drive, and right as we're getting into town, I hit a kangaroo- I was so startled and quite sad! Poor fella. It came out of nowhere. So we stayed in Dampier for the night, then moved on the next day to Exmouth, seven hour drive. We went to the beach for the first time since Noosa Heads! That was refreshing. I can't believe how salty the water is here. The next day we went snorkeling all day at Cape Range National Park. Saw two reef sharks! Got pretty sun burnt on my back! Then we drove to Coral Bay and played in the ocean while the sun set. Wow. The sun sets on the west coast are amazing.



So we where told we could extend our van hire if we call a week ahead of the return date, so we where planning to do that, but when we called they said there was nothing they could do and we have to return it at the original date. Shit. We are in Exmouth and we need to drive all the way back to Melbourne in a little over a week. We then booked it to Monkey Mia, which originally we where going to spend several days at, but only spent a night. Monkey Mia is famous for its dolphin feedings. Wild dolphins come to the shore to get feed every morning. It was a really nice resort. The staff invited us to a bomb fire on the beach. I learned how to circular breath for didgeridoo playing, but I wasn't aloud to actually play it because in the Aboriginal culture women aren't supposed to play-lame. They put nets out and caught fish, and threw them right on the fire- the freshest fish I've ever eaten! I nursed a baby shark back to life with a marine biologist. And the dolphins came around to say hello- it was awesome night. The next morning, after three hours of sleep, we went and watched the dolphin feeding. I got stung by a jelly fish! Oooouch! Then we drove a cracked out drive to Perth, where we got a campsite and crashed. The next day we roamed around for just a bit, but had to get moving. I have to come back to Western Australia, it is so beautiful, and has so much to offer, I'm really pretty pissed that I couldn't enjoy it all. But that gives me an excuse to come back.



So we just skimmed through wine country, stopped at a place called Capel Vale Winery, really cute place, and did a bit of tasting and purchasing. Then we began our insane trek to Melbourne. MELBOURNE OR BUST!! We drove from before dawn to way after dusk for days. Stopped at some huge sand dunes, and stopped to peak over at the Great Australian Bight, but that was pretty much it of our pleasure stops. I ran over a kangaroos tail! It was in the middle of the road and would not move, and I was not about to swerve. This couple days of driving is a blur, very little sleep, and endless driving. I drove the longest straightest road in all of Australia. We made it to our friend Katie's house in Melbourne at midnight the day before the van was due. And slept in a real bed! We got the van cleaned up the next day and returned it to the depot on time!

Queen of the desert

After fox flying we started our journey to the middle of the country. We drove for about nine hours to a town called Charters Towers and slept for a couple of hours, got up and drove through the desolate outback, and entered the Northern Territory. Right away I almost hit a kangaroo, it jumped right in front of the car, and shortly after that I hit a batch of birds. The road is very long and very straight, and I drove for 13 hours. Oh, and our AC went out a few days prior to this, so were in the outback with no AC and 115 degree heat. Then we here an alarm go off in the car, and sure enough we find out later that means the car is overheating. We make it to a "place", not town, but a place called Barkley Homstead which isn't even on the map, and decide we have to camp there, and have the auto mechanic check it out in the morning. There were so many grasshoppers, beetles and flies here you couldn't even stand outdoors with out getting attacked by a grasshopper. So the next morning, Dusty, the auto mechanic, who obviously heard about our troubles rolls up next to us in his huge tractor and goes to work on the van. This guy is quite a character, he looks seventy but hes probably only fifty because hes so wrinkled from the sun. Dusty figures we will be all right if we stop driving 150 k an hour and sends us on our merry way. We make it to Alice Springs, the town in the middle of nowhere, why did we come here again? Oh yeah, to see a big rock four hours further into the outback. So the next day we headed for Ularu, where Ayers Rock is. There is a really nice resort there, and we stayed at the campground. Its weird to see this oasis in the middle of the desert buzzing with tourists. It was so very hot, and the flys were terrible. Everyone was walking around with fly nets over their heads. At all times until the sun went down there were at least twenty flies feverishly trying to get up your nose and in your ears, it was extremely irritating. At sunset we went to a look out at the resort and watched the sunset on the rock, it was really beautiful. The next morning we got up at five thirty and joined the convoy into the National Park, which is a lot closer to the rock then at the resort, to watch the sun rise. After, we walked around the thing, it is 10k around and took about two hours. There is a spot for you to climb it, but the Aboriginals advise not to because it is sacred, so I don't know why they let people do it in the first place.

We drove back to Alice and stayed at the Wicked campers garage for two nights with our new friend Matt that works at the place by himself and lives in the vans. It was his birthday and he had no friends there so we bought him a cake and played charades for two days. We drove the long distance up to Darwin only to find there is really nothing in this town except for bums and drove right back out. Just out side of Darwin there is Litchfield National park were we stayed and played. It was so much fun. There were rock holes called Buley Rock Holes, and other waterfalls that we played in for hours, there was a rope swing and cliff jumping, and thank god no crocs. There was a waterfall closed off for crocs and flooding though, this is their territory! Every day the paper has a front page story on crocodiles, whether it was a sighting or attack or other. After the funnest National park ever, we spent a couple days driving to Broome (i said a broome chicka broome...), and it was the hottest I've been so far, so very humid. Broome is an extremely cute town, with a lot of plant and bird life, which is refreshing after two weeks in the outback. But it is so unbearably hot, we have to keep moving south.

Cairns or bust!

We arrived in Hervey Bay on Monday the 16th. The following day (st patricks day!) we went to frasier island, which is the largest sand island in the world. Only four wheel drive is aloud on this island and rarely do people go by themselves without a tour group. Oh but we did. After skimming through our camper guidlines fine print, and accidently skipping the large bold letters saying NOT to take the van on frasier island, we bought tickets for the ferry. Wow. It was AWSOME. I drove the whole time and it was intense. We almost tipped a couple of times, it was two feet of soft sand we were in and an extremely rough track. I actually had alot of fun driving! But it was very beautiful, we went to Lake Mckenzie which is right in the middle of the island, pure blue fresh water. This island has a big population of wild dingos, you know the saying, a dingos got my baby, well I believe that happened on this island 30 years ago. We saw one, and alot of different lizards, including a huge black one with yellow speckles that was four feet long. I also got over a houndred sand fly bites and I look like I have the chicken pox. Its ridiculous, they itch terribly. St patties day night was fun, met a bunch of different people.

The next day we drove for eight hours and stopped to sleep in a town called Marlborough. Oh by the way, I'm quit a year yesterday, yea! Go me! At dusk we saw the bats start swarming as usual. The bats here are incredible, they have a two to three foot wing span. They start off by flying in a big circle, like they are rallying, but we were not prepared for what we saw, it was probably the most incredible sight Ive seen so far, there were hundred's of thousands of bats, they said there was over a million in that colony. They are very stinky noisy creatures. There is a video on utube under Jrompls, I'm having a hard time getting pics on this blog, sorry y'all. That night a construction crew cut down most of the trees in the area, so when the bats returned at dawn, they had no idea what to do, they all flew around chaotically, they had lost there home, it was actually quite sad. Also at this campsite there was a large green frog in every toilet!
The next day I drove eleven hours to Cairns, woo hoo! We decided to treat ourselves and got a cabin for a few nights- very luxurious. We went on a full day sailing trip through the great barrier reef to an island to go snorkeling. I thought I was going to puke at first but I got used to it. There where several other people puking off the sides and puking into bags. We decided to up grade from snorkeling to scuba diving- it was awesome, Ive never been and I'm very afraid of the ocean, but I felt pretty calm and really enjoyed it. Saw a bunch of beautiful fish, held a sea cucumber, saw several sea turtles, and found nemo. I enjoyed it so much I bought a second session. The next day we went fox flying in the Dain Tree Rain Forest. Zipp cording that is-so much fun. The rain forest was beautiful! Now we are off to a town called Alice. ALICE SPRINGS OR BUST!

The not so sunny sunshine coast

We where on the sunshine coast, named because its sunny three hundred days of the year, at the perfect time, right on the edge of a cyclone! We had planned to be in the great barrier reef a lot earlier, but it was really badly flooded, and there was a cyclone hanging around that was unpredictable. So we spent the time in the stormy, but not as bad as if we went north, not so sunny sunshine coast, and waited quite literally till the storm blew over.
We spent three days in Brisbane. Brisbane is my favourite of the bigger cities so far. It reminds me of Minneapolis, its right on a river, and has the big town small city feel. We did a lot of shopping there, visited some museums, walked all over, it was rainy most of the time. Our car wouldn't start the second day we were there, so i held up jumper cables and tried to wave some one down. Finally this crazy but very generous Greek guy named jghsvijdfhgkjashgs stopped to help, and when he couldn't start it after a half hour he let me use his phone to call the camper company (who couldn't help us till the next day), and then gave us a lift in his pickup to the city cat, which is a river ferry. We took the city cat to Jessica's very flamboyant friend Scott's uni apartment, that he shared with five people, were we got a long needed shower, and enjoyed Brisbane's night life. After sleeping on their two very small couches, we bid a very thankful farewell and went back to the car to wait for the wicked people to come jump the van. I really haven't had a more successful car breakdown, they came, they jumped, we followed them back to the station where they fixed the problem and we were off! The rest of that day we spent on the city cat going up and down the river, which is only a couple of dollars, just enjoying the view and the ride.
That night we drove to Mooloolaba and bang, we where in the hurricane. Cyclone Hamish, I think it was called. We watched the waves that night, along with half the town, and ate pad thai. I saw a three story wave, it was incredible, and it scared the crap out of me, as soon as I saw it I wanted to run just out of instinct, but we were a safe distance away. It was so windy it was hard to walk. We were too late to get a campsite so we stayed in a parking lot where there were other vans camped. The van shook violently from the wind all night, it was pretty eerie and I dreamt about killer waves all night. It was a lot calmer the next day. We explored the town, its a cute little surfers town, and got a campsite. Although we really were not planning to spend money on campsites, its really a lot easier, less stressful, and a real treat to have one, plus you meet a lot of travelers. We went to the Australian Zoo the next day, which is the second largest zoo in the world and its the one Steve Irwin started. It was amazing, I feed an elephant, watched a crock show, touched a koala, feed and hung out with a ton of kangaroos and wallabies. There my favorite. I'm getting one. There were reptiles, a million birds, koalas, dingos, Tasmanian devils, camels, wombats... I think i'll just stay here and work there.
That evening we headed to Noosa Heads (which is right next to Gympie, which is right next to Kin Kin.. how did they come up with these names? ill find out) where we stayed for the next four nights. It was completely storming by the time we got there and had to cook in the wind and rain. The next day we RELAXED. There was a TV so we just chilled and watched TV, I haven't watched for over a month so I was probably the most excited person in the world to watch the Ellen show and the biggest loser Au. The day after that was the Saturday before Saint Patrick's day, so of course we went pub hopping all day, what else are you supposed to do? We nursed our Guinness hangovers at the beach the next day, the only sunny morning for a while, and chatted with an older British and Israeli couple for a couple hours. After eating a lot of greasy food, and feeling lazy, we decided to treat ourselves to a movie, hes just not that into you, which I actually really enjoyed. We camped on the road that night next to the campground, deciding to save some money after spending so much the day before. After getting woken up by the lawn mower guy the next morning, warning us the trooper was going to be around soon to hand out tickets, we headed to Hervey Bay.

The Gold Coast

Its Sunday the 8th of March and I'm in Brisbane, just got here this morning. For the past week we have been traveling the gold coast. Its very hot here, and its just going to get hotter so I best get used to it. Last Sunday we ended up going to the koala hospital which was excellent, they have got to be the most adorable creatures I've ever seen. They had a huge outdoor area were the koalas stay and we went on a very interesting tour. It was very windy and 3 huge branches fell, I needed a helmet. Later that day we drove up to Coffs Harbour and just spent the night by the ocean. On Monday we took off right away for Byron bay. We heard by almost everyone we have talked to that its the best town in basically all of Australia , and it is a sweet funky little town, full of all different types of people and shops. We spent a few days there, walking around the shops, beaching it (I played in the waves for about an hour, y'all should be proud of me!), and met different people. We couldn't find a place to camp for the first night, they are really strict there about backpackers camping any were they want, probably because there are so many, there were tons of other wicked vans and camping vans. We were asking around and ran into two English couples we made buddy's with who took us under their wing. They led us to an old abandoned hippie camp called the quarry that they have been sleeping at for the past week, and we slept there after chatting all night. The second night our friends and us found an old abandoned hotel and stayed in the parking lot, but got booted out at 6am, so we went to the quarry, but got booted out again by a huffy cop. So we moved on to Surfers Paradise and got a camp site, which is pretty much paradise to us! Toilets, showers, laundry, internet and a TV! We stayed there 3 nights and it was a blast, it was mostly other backpackers in vans cuz they to realized you can't park on the streets on the gold coast. We went to an amusement park, which not only had sick rides but a small zoo as well-I fed a kangaroo, saw a hundred different kinds of amazing birds, there is a bird called the Ibis that you see everywhere and its the funniest bird! Dingos, which look like any normal dog, wombats, which look like RUS's- or pigs, crocs, koalas, lizards, snakes... it was fantastic. We went to hooters that night cuz we NEEDED wings, plus they were buy 20 get 20, they thought we were amazing cuz we got the hottest ones (they really don't know hot here), and were drinking pints, no girls drink beer here. The next day we went to the ocean and played in the waves, and theses are serious waves . Biggest ones yet, dangerous. Never turn your back on the ocean. Playing in the waves have got to be one of the funnest things for me, but i'll only go in if there are loads of other people. Some times I psych myself out and think i'll get eaten by a shark and have to catch a wave in. Yesterday we went zorbing!!! It was hilarious! You basically get in a hamster ball with some water in it and roll down a hill. Genius. We stayed in a camper park in Jacobs Well last night (down by the river), I got stung by something I stepped on. It was pretty painful. My flip flops broke about four days ago and all though I have trainers i've just been going barefoot, actually that's pretty common here, some people never ware shoes, no shoes no shirt no problem! I did get some flips today though in downtown Brisbane. Jess has a friend here so we'll meet up with them, and hopefully stay in their driveway! Yep, we're bums!

Its hot

So first and for most, sorry if my speling is bad, the blog has spell check, but does not tell you the correct spelling, it just shows you that its spelt wrong, and I can't be bothered. So its Sunday Sunday, so good to me... We got the heck out of Sydney, just wasnt our scene, the real reason I wanted to go there anyways was to find Hugh Jackman. On thursday evening we drove to Newcastle, which is where they kept the worst of the worst convivts back in the day. We spent a couple days there, pretty much just hanging out out the beaches, there is really good surf there, lots of surfers to watch. Went in the water up to my knees!! Getting risky! We moved on yesterday, stopped at Forster, which is pronounced Foster which had beautiful blue water. I actually went all the way in, although I was in a netted off bath. But that town turned out to be pretty bogan so we moved on to Port Macquarie, which is were I am now. Still anxious to see a koala bear! There are alot of gum trees in this town which is the koalas habitat, so hopefully I'll see one today, there is a koala hospital here that is open to the public that we may go in. It is very very hot here!! Can't sleep past 8:30, its like a sauna in that van with out air flow. And there are COCKROACHES, and la cooca raches (spelling?) really freak me out!! There are camel rides on the beach that sound pretty cool that i might do. I know this because a man in a pickup is driving around the town in circles with a great big plastic camel in the back playing arabic music, every time i see him i think, there goes camel toe. Ok by!