West to East by Train

I finally made it to Sydney. My ear has still not popped so I decided the only way I was going to get out of Perth was to take the long, torturous 3-day train ride from Perth to Sydney. I made friends with the man sitting next to me. He was from Holland, and he had trouble speaking English and turning his neck from side to side (some sort of spinal/muscle problem). The first night the train stopped for 4 hours in some small town with a long name I can't pronounce. It was night and the only thing to do was find a pub. Apparently pubs without extremely drunk obnoxious rednecks don't exist in this town. We found a pub that had the least amount of drunk men and sat down with a drink only to find that it was karaoke night. So, naturally I ended up belting out a few tunes on stage until we had to get back on the train again.

The scenery was a little monotonous. Very dry and flat. No kangaroos in sight.

I met a cute guy on the train... we played cards and he gave me a rose. Well...actually he was 10yrs old, we played an intellectual game of Go Fish and the rose was a picture of a rose that he drew for me. After 3 days of attempting to sleep in a chair and seeing the southern part of Oz, I arrived in Sydney. I have been here for a week now and am still job hunting.

I have a mobile now so call me!! Remember it is 17 hours ahead here for those in Vancouver. If you know how to text message do so too because it is much cheaper.

I am so envious of your warm weather in Vancouver. It is sunny every day here but cold. You will all be envious of me in a few months when I get my tan back again in the summer.

Raining in Perth

Didn't think you'd hear from me so soon? I had to miss my flight on the 14th to Sydney. I have had a horrible cold for the last few days and my right ear has been plugged for 4 days now. On the day of my flight I went to the Doctor and he told me that unless I wanted to go deaf I shouldn't fly. Of course my ticket was non-refundable so I am out $209 and bored out of my mind. I thought about taking a train to Sydney, but the thought of sitting and sleeping in a tiny seat for 3 days just wasn't appealing to me. I tried to shop for warm clothes but the fashion here is lacking in selection. So..... what to do in a cold, rainy city.....I should be an expert at this!! Honestly, I don't know how we tolerate our cold climate at home. I did, however, go to some of the beaches in Perth during the few hours of sun that Perth has had in a while, and I must say... NOW I know why people like Perth. The beaches are absolutely gorgeous!! They have huge waves and white sand and go on for miles. They'd be great in the summer. I have already chosen the beachhouse that I will buy when I make my first million : ) My day at the beach was spent with a cute, fun and extremely sweet English bloke named Paul who I had met the night before. We spent a romantic day sipping wine at a trendy cafe, walking along the beach and then going to a place called Sunday Sessions. It's a huge club with many rooms full of trendy 20-somethings sipping on cocktails and beer. It opens on Sunday morning and people go there as early as 9am to drink and socialize all day.

Whale Sharks, Cockroaches, Bakery Truck Drivers, Oh My!

One thing people forgot to tell me was how LONG it takes to get anywhere in Western Australia. There are very few towns (unlike the East coast) and each one is about one street long. On July 3rd I took an excruciatingly long bus ride (15 hours overnight) up to Coral Bay, which is not even half way up the west coast. The weather was perfect!! Sunny and 28 degrees every day. Because it was school holidays everything was booked solid so I had no place to stay the second night. It was either sleep on the beach or pay $120 for a crappy hotel. Well... I chose option 3, which was to catch a ride at 4:30am on the bakery truck to Exmouth with a sketchy guy named Smithy. It was quite the ride. Smithy looked like he was a Hell's Angels biker, with a long beard and chains. The house music blasting the whole way as I tried to sleep was an added bonus (at least it was house!).

The morning I got into Exmouth I had booked 2 dives at the Navy Pier, one of the best pier dives in the world. It was pretty amazing: giant, colorful fish everywhere. It really was like jumping into a tropical fish tank. I swam within 2 feet of a 2m long White-tipped Reef shark!! I wasn't scared at all. We also swam next to a giant yellow sea snake and a 1.5m Wobbigong shark (they are related to Leopard sharks). I bought a $50 underwater camera that apparently could be used several times, but when I went to rewind the film after the dive it hadn't rewound and is probably ruined now.

The next day I went on another dive to the Ningaloo Reef. Awesome!! The best dive I have ever been on! I swam through caverns and caves and there was incredible surge (the waves from above tossed us back and forth). I finally saw my first clownfish in the wild. The coral wasn't as impressive as the Great Barrier but the diversity of fish was amazing. Then we got back on the boat because they had spotted our first Whale Shark!! It was quite hectic, pulling off our gear and quickly racing into our snorkel gear and then diving into the deep ocean to see the biggest fish in the world. I didn't know what to expect and how BIG this shark was going to be. I jumped into the water and looked down into the ocean, and suddenly there was this giant shark heading right in my direction with its mouth open. I remember screaming into my snorkel "holy shit!". I would like to say that I was really brave snorkeling with a 20foot long shark, but actually they are completely harmless and only eat plankton and small fish. We swam within a couple meters of the shark and because they don't swim very fast we swam along side it for a while. The first one we saw had a huge chunk taken out of its dorsal fin and its side, most likely from a Tiger Shark. Remember when swimming in the tropics: spots are good (whale shark), stripes are bad (tiger shark). We saw 3 more whale sharks and then went looking for Humpback whales, which we saw 2 of. We also saw dozens of manta rays feeding near the reef.

I took the bus back to Coral Bay (booking my hostel accommodation well in advance) and just chilled on the beach for 5 days. I suntanned, read, and snorkeled, in that order about everyday. I hung out with a really cool guy named Ian from England most of the time. The Ningaloo Reef is right off the beach so you can literally just jump in the water and swim to the reef. Coral Bay is so beautiful; I recall staring at the turquoise water for a while with my mouth hanging open because it was so beautiful. One night I was cooking a stir fry and went to go stir it and discovered a little extra protein in the pan - a cockroach!! It was crawling in with my veggies and just about freaked me out. I carefully removed it (crushing it causes all its little eggs to come out and produce more cockroaches) and decided that the food wasn't ruined because of the heat.

I am back in cold Perth now: 5 degrees this morning! The bus took 15 hours to get back from Coral Bay. Along the way I tried to ignore the occasional loud thump in the front of the bus. Apparently the bus hits about 5 kangaroos a night :( I talked to the bus driver about it and he said that 25 'roos in one night was his record. It's like they are proud of it or something.

I booked my flight back to Sydney on Monday the 14th. From there I will look for a job somewhere on the East Coast. I have met heaps of people who have given me ideas of where to look. I'll write next in Sydney. Until then... keep happy and healthy.

The Red Centre

Genny and I spent 2 more days in Darwin planning our next flight and our camping road trip down to Ayers Rock. We got an amazing deal on a 4wd camper...$1 a day plus $25 a day for insurance. We paid so little because it was a relocation, which meant they needed to relocate the camper back to Alice Springs. We set off on our road trip on June 27th. The outback is definitely as desolate as everyone said. Each night we found a dirt road off the side of the highway and camped there in the middle of nowhere. It was so much fun!! We were expecting to see kangaroos hopping around everywhere but all that we saw was about 60 dead on the side of the road.

On the way to Ayers Rock were these bizarre rock formations, called Devil's Marbles. The rocks were massive, some 20 feet high and perfectly round, balancing on only a tiny portion of the rock.



We arrived at Ayers Rock (called Uluru by the Aboriginees). It was sooooo impressive, and much bigger than I had imagined. The landscape surrounding it was so bizarre. The only way to describe the area was that it looked like we had landed on Mars. There was red dirt everywhere and really sparse, funny looking trees. It was incredibly flat and then there was this giant rock jutting up out of the red desert. The climb up the rock was closed due to wind, but after learning about how important Uluru was to the Aboriginees we weren't going to climb it. One roll of film later we drove to another landmark: the Olgas (called Kata Tjuka). They were equally as bizarre, but not as impressive in my opinion.

After 5 days in the desert our adventuresome road trip, and my time with Genny came to an end. I flew to Perth and she flew to Sydney, where her boyfriend is going to school. It was soooo sad saying goodbye after spending every minute with her for the last month. We will definitely keep in touch.

So...here I am in cold, rainy Perth all by myself. I am heading north to Exmouth where it is warmer and where I will chill out on the beach, scuba dive and perhaps swim with whale sharks. I think my travels are coming to an end. I will spend about a week and a half on the west coast and then fly back to Sydney to start looking for a job.

I hear Vancouver is having fabulous weather...figures!! I hope you are all enjoying your summer and that everyone had a happy Canada Day. I actually forgot all about Canada Day because there were no Canadians around to remind me.

Salties vs. Freshies

The next day Genny and I went on a 3-day camping trip to Kakadu National Park. What a great experience! It was exhausting but worth it. The fire alarm going off in our hostel at 2am the night before didn't help us get off to a good start. We started the tour at 6:30am!! This was definitely a sign of things to come! On the first day we saw Barramundi fish swimming in a lake, took a tour of a wetland area that apparently has the highest concentration of wildlife in the world, took a walk through a paperback tree forest, saw giant 10-foot tall termite mounds, and got a chance to eat bush tuckers (ants with green butts), which I politely declined, and then went on an amazing crocodile cruise. This cruise was even better than the first one I had taken. We got a few feet away from 4meter long crocodiles that would eat anyone in a second if they fell over board. I learned all about crocs and can now tell the difference between the man-eating saltwater crocs (called "salties") and the supposedly not man-eating freshwater crocs ("freshies"). The wildlife and the scenery in the area were breathtaking!

That night at the campsight we were invited to an Aboriginal Corroboree, which is a traditional Aboriginal ceremony. We watched the Aboriginal men, who were all painted and only wearing loin clothes, do dances around the fire and sing and play the didgeridoo. We even got to get our faces painted and join in on the dancing. What a unique experience! The next morning we got up at 5am!!!!!! I had gotten about 2 hours of sleep thanks to all the mozzies (mosquitos) and the uncomfortable bed. It was still dark out when we were forced to get up. The day ahead would prove to be worth the early start though. We went to Ubirr, the sight of ancient Aboriginal rock art dating back 20,000 years old. We were taught all about Aboriginee culture and way of life. We hiked to a gorgeous lookout, which overlooked the floodplains and escarpment country below. That lookout was also where they filmed Crocodile Dundy. Next we hiked to the top of a beautiful waterfall and swam for the rest of the day in the jacuzzi-warm pools of water above the falls.

The next morning we were allowed to 'sleep in' until 5:30am!! We went on a long hike to Jim Jim Falls. Words can't describe how beautiful this place was. We swam under the waterfall surrounded by rock faces 200 feet high. After 6 hours of driving we were back in Darwin and at the end of our tour. That night all 16 of us from our tour partied the night away in a bar in Darwin.

More Adventures in Oz

I am now on the west coast of Australia in Perth. It is WAY too cold here compared to what I have been used to up north. They weren't joking when they said it gets cooler in winter.

Just before I started writing this, I was on a pay phone and all of a sudden I hear a loud screech and a bang. I hung up the phone and discovered a woman had been hit by a car! My curiosity got the better of me and I ran down to take a closer look. An old lady's head was sliced open and blood was everywhere. It was a disgusting sight. Apparently a truck had gone through a red light and hit her. When I first saw her I thought she was dead, but by the time the ambulance came she was moving. Hopefully the lady will make it.

On a happier note, the last 3 weeks have been fabulous! I last wrote about Magnetic Island, a gorgeous island just outside of Townsville. We (my friend Genny and I) had originally planned to stay for 3 days but decided to stay for a week because we were having so much fun. We stayed in a resort that felt like Club Med (minus the outrageous price) that was apparently the only hostel in Australia that was right on the beach. We stayed in little bungalows overlooking palm trees and the ocean. Most days we suntanned by the pool, took a dip in the warm ocean, and chilled out on hammocks, sipping cocktails. On our more adventurous days we horse backed on the beach, jet skied, and rented scooters around the island. Horseback riding was so amazing because we actually swam in the ocean with the horses and I got to canter on a horse for the first time. I had ridden horses many times before so I thought I had cantered before...I was wrong! Horses essentially have 4 'gears': walking, trotting, cantering, and running. I had apparently only gone to 2nd gear before, and boy was I surprised when the horse started to go... I almost fell off. I can't imagine what running is like!! We even got to ride bare back which is a little more unstable and uncomfortable than I thought. We had a few wild nights dancing in the open air club on the sand. Oh yeah... and I met a really hot scuba diving instructor named Kevin. My ear was plugged with water so I couldn't go diving, but I may just have to go back there again now that my ear has unplugged.


After reluctantly leaving Magnetic Island we hopped on the Oz bus again to Mission Beach, the Cassowary capital of Australia. Our hostel was in the middle of nowhere so there wasn't much to do and the weather sucked. On the way back from the beach one day I had a brilliant idea to cut through someone's back yard. Suddenly we were confronted by 2 animals running towards us and growling. We thought they might be wild dingos, but we weren't sure. I remember reading that with dingos you have to keep eye contact at all times. We stood there frozen staring at them while they ran towards us, stopped and turned away... thankfully. We had a hilarious night that night, consisting of copious amounts of red wine. After nursing our hangovers the next day we headed up to Cairns, which was the last stop on our Oz Experience bus. On the way, we stopped at a crocodile farm and saw dozens of HUGE crocs. I even got to hold a baby croc. Next, the bus stopped at a bungee jumping sight. We were both tempted to take the 40meter plunge, but I decided I would sky dive later in my trip instead.

Cairns was touristy as they said it would be, but lots of fun. Our hostel room was about a foot bigger than the bunk bed that was in it...it was the size of a closet! We went to a bar one night that was mostly full of Hells Angels bikers. Very strange night to say the least! The weather wasn't great and there are no beaches there, just mudflats, so we booked a tour up to Cape Tribulation for the next day. Cape Trib. was beautiful! It's where the rain forest meets the reef...literally. There are fascinating mangrove forests everywhere. Did you know that water flows in the opposite direction in the southern hemisphere? No...I don't mean upwards, but I mean in a clockwise direction instead of a counterclockwise direction in the northern hemisphere. It's called the cordialus effect. Try looking at the toilet flushing and seeing the direction the water flows. The vines on the trees in the rain forests in Australia all wrap around the tree in a clockwise direction because of the water flow. Interesting eh!!

The next day in Cape Trib we went on a crocodile cruise in Daintree. We saw tonnes of crocs and even a Python hanging from a tree. I felt like I was on the jungle cruise at Disneyland, but this time the crocs were real.

We took a ferry ride to Green Island... a GORGEOUS tropical island, surrounded by coral and clear blue water, and packed with Japanese tourists. The day was spent suntanning and snorkeling and buying identical shirts in the gift shop. While snorkeling I saw my first wild sea turtle!! It was so awesome, I swam with it for about 5 minutes and watched it glide through the water, looking back at me from time to time.

That day we hopped on a plane and flew to Darwin, or as the Aussie's call it, the 'Top End'. It was 35 degrees all day and night, sooooooo pleasant!!...we could wear tank tops at night. Darwin is a small town filled with crazy 20-year-old backpackers and lots of drunk aborigines stumbling down the streets. We spent a day poolside baking ourselves in the sun. Every half hour we would get so hot that we would dive into the pool to cool off. What a relaxing day!! Genny and I have moved from the 15 sunscreen to the 6 baby oil now.