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!

Sydney

Its thursday feb 26th. I just visited the Sydney Opera House and the botanical gardens. I drove for over 11 hours on tuesday and made it to Batemans Bay. I saw my first kangaroo!! Actually saw about seven of them, but I don't know if they were kangaroos or wallabees. They just chilled at the side of the road with no worries. The drive was beautiful, Melbourne is so dry and brown, what with the twelve year drought and everything. But the land scape was very lush, lots of rolling hills, looks like Ireland. It was an ear popping jaw dropping drive. We got into Sydney last night and desperatly needed a shower, so of course we just found a beach and used the outdoor ones, I think that will become a normal routine, that was probably my highlight so far. Thats all for now, cheers!

Great Ocean Road

Its tuesday in Melbourne. We spent the weekend on the great ocean road. My first time driving in Australia was the most zig zag up and down road right on the north shoreline, just like over the sun road in Glacier Montana. We spent the day in a little town called Lorne, went up and down the steepest hills to get to this 'fabulous' water fall (which was actually a water trickle), we were going to stay the night there but we couldnt find a street flat enough to sleep on, so we kept on to Apollo Bay. Apollo Bay is a really cute surfer town, and the first night we hung out with an entire AFL team, Australian Footie League at a pub, it was hilarious. The next day we spent at the beach and walking around the shops. We slept at a no parking over night park, but noticed there were two other wicked vans and three other camping vans so what the hell. Showered in the out door showers were you are supposed to just rinse your salt water off, everyone else was doing it! So now we are back in Melbourne and are going to get this trip really started and head north east up the coast.

The Mays

Its friday night in Oz. On tuesday we went to fed square, then caught a train out to Brighton were my aunt Pam's long lost friends live, the Mays. They live in a nice neighborhood, right at the beach. They own three lots, the middle being their house, to the left is the tennis court, and to the right is a house that they use as their office, oh, and the pool. I didn't expect to be staying in this kind of luxury! Its terrific! The Mays really helped us out a lot, food, shelter, resources, they are really friendly and fun. So on tuesday afternoon we arrived here, and we had a lovely family dinner, garden salad, bbq chicken and KANGAROO KABABS!!! They were pretty good, gamey, a bit sweet, similar to beef. That night their daughter took us out with some friends to bogan bingo which was hilarious. I'll have to explain what that is another day. Wednesday we spent the whole day at the beach, beautiful clear water, good dog watching. Thursday we spent the day at the pool, cleaned all the leaves out of it to. That night we went in to town to play trivia. Its really been pretty stressful...
Today we got our wicked van, it was all the way in Footscray, took a train to a train then walk then bus then walk. But we got it all right, on one side there is funny green men and on the other side its a band, think its the ramones, on the back it says just because you can breed doesn't mean you should. We are going to test sleep in it tonight in the Mays driveway, then tomorrow we are going down the ocean road to go whale watching for the weekend. I'm off, we are going to an Indian restaurant with the family.

Hostel

Our first day in Melbourne was spent getting settled. We are staying at a hostel downtown. Ten room bunk, theres a Canadian, a couple of Sweds, and Fins, and a british couple. We walked around the city for a bit, ate at a cute cafe and had a garden salad and a trio of spreads plate and a Victoria Bitter, walked around a bit more then hung at the hostel. We ended up falling asleep by 6pm, jet lagged and exhausted. We slept until six the next morning. That day we walked around the whole city, stopped at the farmers market, it reminded me of global market on lake street, and to the beach at St. Kilda- which is about a 1.5 hour walk. Went window shopping, got a "burger", and played at the beach for a bit. We walked 11 hours that day, and fell asleep by 7pm. Yesterday we were up early again and spent the morning at a park reading. Spent the afternoon at Melbourne Museum. They have a live rain forest with birds lizards and snakes. A bug exhibit with live and dead bugs. It was helpful to see that to prepare myself for whats to come. There was a mind and body exhibit, and an aboriginal exhibit with lots of artwork and historical information. That evening we hung out at the hostel with the dorm mates, and I was asleep by 8. Today we visited the Federation Square, which is a the National Gallery of Victoria. We looked at all the aboriginal art, which is unlike anything i've seen, they use a small round tool and dip it in natural earth colors and make their pictures out of little dots. I really like them and if I come across an affordable picture i'd like to purchase one. There was also a ton Austalian paintings from the 18-1900's. The highlight was an exhibit called No standing only dancing, which was a collection of photographs by Rennie Ellis, an Australian photographer who died in 2003. His collection comprised of pictures from Australian society in the 70's and 80's. It showcased over 200 photographs of famous parties with the Bee Gees and ACDC, to every day photos, just great ones of getting people off guard and doing their daily things, I really really enjoyed this gallery! One more night at the hostel and then we are off to the Mays. -Cheers!

Making it to Melbourne

I made it to Melbourne! Our first flight from Mpls to LA appeared to start smoothly, but once we started to taxi, they realized a problem with the computer system so we headed backto the gate and said they "had to go to plan b and make some phone calls" I knew we where going to switch planes. And switch planes we did, about two and a half hours later we took off on a different plane. We made it to LAX with 45 minutes to connect to our next flight, we had to hustle. This is possibly the worst airport i've ever been to, having to walk a mile, go out side then back inside, check in, buy a visa, then dash to the gate.
I am very impressed with Quantas airlines. We rode a huge double decker plane. Each seat included pillow, blanket, tooth brush, tooth paste, eye mask, head phones, and a screen on the back of each seat with a variety of movies, tv shows, and music you could pick from. The food was excellent as well! For dinner we had chicken with cous cous and vegetables, lovely garden salad with balsamic vinagrette, roll, molten lava cake, and wine. Throughout the flight they gave out snacks-fruit, chocolate, trail mix, cookies and water, also hot towels. For breakfast we had spinach and vegetable frittata, muffin, fresh fruit and juice and tea.
Finally we landed, grabbed a bus and headed to our hostel. It is smokey here, looks like smog, smells like burning and sawdust. Hot too. Well thats all for now, cheers!