Traveling up the Coast

I left Sydney on May 9th and got on the Oz Experience bus. I chose this tour bus because you can get on and off when ever you want and it is a great way to meet people. Unfortunately, I chose the night before the bus trip to consume copious amounts of alcohol. Needless to say the bus ride was a day from HELL!!

That night we arrived at a VERY RUSTIC sheep station (not to be confused with a cattle ranch). The station was called the Dag Inn, and for those who don't know, 'dag' is the crap that hangs from a sheep's butt. I saw what life was like in the outback and met some very 'interesting' residents of the station, including the largest cow in Australia who was also a hermaphrodite! We were introduced to Carl, a man who has been sheering sheep for pretty much his whole life. His dog herded the sheep in the barn while he proceed to kick the sheep and his own dog to get the sheep where he wanted them. This is the part where my blood pressure started to rise and my hatred of him and the sheering process began. He brought a 'victim' to be shorn, and sheered the poor sheep right in front of us. He was >extremely rough on the helpless animal and cut it many times with the sheers. He said sometimes they have to kill a sheep if it moves >its head and gets cut by the sheers in the neck.

The next day we drove to Bingara, another small town in the middle of nowhere. We went horseback riding in the hills. I learned to ride English style instead of Western style (slightly different) and learned to trot, cantor and gallop on the horse. The scenery was breathtaking, supposedly the best in Australia. We rode through >rivers and through Eucalyptus forests.

The next stop was Byron Bay, the best place to chill out, dance on the tables in a bar, and learn to surf. And that is exactly what I did. Surfing was even more fun than I imagined. After 3 tries I got up and caught over 20 waves. I even have the pictures to prove it. The first 4 days in Byron Bay were terrible, non-stop torrential rain. I rented a beautiful holiday apartment with 4 other people I had met. It was heaps cheaper than a hostel and we had our own kitchen, TV, VCR, free laundry, patio, etc. One day Hanna (a girl from Victoria, Canada who was sharing the apartment) and I rented a car and drove to a national park to a gorgeous beach. When we got there we realized it was a nude beach. Hanna went topless, but I was too shy.

I am now in Surfer's Paradise. Even though it is only an hour and a half north of Byron Bay it is sooo much warmer and humid. It's heaven! Surfer's Paradise is as touristy as everyone had said. It's Miami meets Las Vegas. I don't care because heck I AM a tourist! The beaches are gorgeous and the nightlife is great. I got a really bad cold the other day so I have been taking it easy.

Tomorrow I head up to Hervey Bay to go 4 wheel driving and camping on Fraser Island, the biggest sand island in the world. I have tried to organize things so I will be sailing in the Whitsundays in the Great Barrier Reef on my birthday, June 3rd. Can't wait! I'm off to the beach now for some suntanning.

Sydneysider

I've been here over a month now, but it seems like 6 months. I've spent 2 weeks in Sydney and I did everything a tourist could do in Sydney: saw a play at the Sydney Opera House, visited the Art Gallery, took countless photos of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, visited the impressive Sydney Aquarium (much better than Melbourne's, but I haven't decide if it's better than Vancouver), suntanned in Bondi Beach where many surfing movies are filmed, went out to a fantastic nightclub in Darling Harbour called Homebar and partied 'till 8am, and wandered through different areas of the city. It is definitely a big city: lots of parks, lots of people, lots of pubs and trendy restaurants. The people are super friendly and laid back. It really did remind me of Vancouver in that it is centered around the harbour. I walked through one of the parks at sunset and saw strange looking 'birds' flying over me, then realized they were BATS!!

One of my favorite activities is to sit at a cafe, drinking a coffee or a nice glass or wine and watch the people walk by. I love listening to the Aussie accents. I am not a big fan of the coffee here. They don't really have regular coffee like we do in North America. It's all espresso. I miss a really basic cup of Starbucks coffee. They have Starbucks here and they serve "drip coffee", but it's not the same. I have discovered several great places to hang out in different parts of the city. Darling Harbour has some really trendy restaurants and cool bars. There are some great English pubs in The Rocks, an old part of town near the Harbour Bridge. There is a fun bar on George Street in the city centre called Jackson's On George where I spent a fun night. There are 'heaps' of restaurants in Manly along the beach.

I was staying in Manly with Deidre, a family friend, but wanted to see more of the city so I stayed in a hostel in Bondi Beach. When you share a room with 6 other people, you get to know people, fast. You also learn to get your pj's out and ready in case you get back to the room late at night while everyone's asleep and can't turn on the light. I learned the hard way. While suntanning at Bondi beach I met some fellow Canadians, named Alicia and Wing Man. We ended up going out that night to King's Cross, a dodgy part of town. Wing Man and Alicia had just met two days before, but seemed like they knew each other their whole life. My favorite thing about traveling is all the interesting people you meet from all over the world. To be honest, I have met so many people every day that I won't bore you with all the details.

I spent a really fun day hiking in the Blue Mountains with a small group of 6. The oil from all the Eucalyptus trees creates a blue haze that makes the trees look blue from a far. We hiked though rain forests, saw beautiful cascading waterfalls, and rode on supposedly one of the steepest trains in the world (a 52 degree angle up the mountain). We saw the Three Sisters - one of the most impressive rock formations in the area. Legend has it that the Three Sisters were aboriginee woman who were turned into stone by their father to protect them from the Bingin(sp?). The father turned himself into a Lyrebird, but couldn't turn himself back because he didn't have any arms, thereby, leaving the sisters to remain as stone forever. On the hike I ran into Alicia and Wing Man. Funny who you run into in such a big country.

The Sydney Aquarium was impressive. I went there one day with an English bloke from the hostel I was staying at in the CBD (Central Business District). There was a lot of conservation info and interpretive displays listing 'things you can do' to help the oceans. There was a tunnel you could walk through surrounded by Nurse Sharks, Rays and White and Black-tipped Reef Sharks. There were penguins, leapard sharks (really weird looking), crocodiles, and two touchpools (one tropical and one temperate)with shark egg casings, urchins, and blue star fish (the most common starfish on the reef). The touchpool attendant told me there were some job openings coming up, which I will look into when I return back to Sydney in a few months.