Sorry it's taken me a month to write something about what I did during the break in April, I've been busy as well as been bludgering (procrastinating). This is probably going to be short and to the point because of that....
So on the 9th, I took the train down to Melbourne, and a little more than 17hrs later, I arrived in Southern Cross Station. It was a pretty boring train, nothing much to do but sleep. After I got the Melbourne, I walked to my hostel... and got quite lost along the way (I should have just listened to the guy and not got confused by the signs). But I made it after a while and went out and explored the beautiful city.
I ended up just wandering around the CBD, and checking things out there. I stumbled down Bourke St. Mall, which is now one of my favourite places to be in general, and caught some busking acts, staying and watching one - Woodlock - every time they played and staying for the whole set. It was amazing. I missed a little of it because Comedy Fest. was on, too, and I was checking out some of the free comedy shows down the way for a bit, too. But everything was good.
The day after, while I planned on going to St. Kilda to go to the beach and all that, I decided not when I saw that the weather wasn't going to be nice. So I wandered around again, deciding to go see an exhibit at the ACMI about screens, which was really cool. And it was completely free, which makes it even better. I also saw Woodlock again, which was just awesome, because they were so good the day before I was glad to be able to see them again. And I saw another group busking just down the street, and they were great, too. Pierce Brothers - the one tapped his drumsticks on everything and anything he could to get a cool and authentic sound, and he played the didgeridoo, which sounded really cool.
The day that followed, I went on a tour down the Great Ocean Road, through the Grampians, and to Adelaide for three days. In no particular order, we saw lots of rocks, took tons of pictures, had a lot of fun, climbed a huge rock, took more pictures, saw a lighthouse, got a song suck in our heads about the lighthouse, went around a round-about like ten times, saw a jeep up a pole, saw two towns in a row completely closed down for the day already (at four pm on a Sunday), listened to music, played a movie song quiz, made yummy food, stood in Victoria and South Australia at the same time, and a whole lot more that I probably won't remember without looking it up (haha).
Went to the Barossa Valley for a wine tour the day that followed, and I found out that I do like some wines (sparkling, port), so now I'm on the lookout for those particular kinds now. haha. It was a drunken mess for some people (two people from Adelaide), and our tour guide took the blow (he was incredible through it all!). Afterwards, we all (GOR tour) met up for dinner and got our forgotten cheeses (haha, oops), and had a last night together before most of them headed off to Uluru and I headed off to Kangaroo Island.
Kangaroo Island. I was almost the only female on that tour, haha, since the other two girls almost missed the tour. Whatever, anyways, here's what we did in no particular order: took a ferry, saw and climbed Remarkable Rocks (REMARKABLE! haha!), kayaked, took lots of pictures, climbed a large hill, had a campfire, looked at the stars, saw sea-lions, saw New Zealand fur-seals, saw the wild life, had free iced-coffee (first time, haha), had a good time, (I) played DJ on the way back to the city, and lot more.
Adelaide. Here's what I did (in no particular order, of course): wandered the city, shopped at Rundle St. Mall, went to Glenelg for the beach, illegally road the trams (hahah), went to the chocolate factory (Haigh's! :D ), bought a ton of CDs ( :D ), walked around lost a lot, went to the Adelaide Central Markets for yummy fresh food, and some other stuff that must not matter if I can't remember, haha.
And then I flew back to Sydney, took the train/bus to Bathurst, and was home. And that is basically my trip in a nutshell. I met lots of cool people and can't wait to get the chance to go back! :)
Peace and love. xxxx
Pictures (if you're my friend on FB, you can look at these, otherwise it probably won't work) :
Around Melbourne
Great Ocean Road
Grampians
To Adelaide!
Barossa Valley
Kangaroo Island, 1
Kangaroo Island, 2
Spotting Adelaide
Videos:
South Coast Australia
I've been having sososo much fun on the west coast, I didn't even get a chance to write. Honestly I've had such a great time and I met such great people on tour that I really didn't want to leave Perth this morning.
I flew to Perth from Sydney last Thursday, the 21st of February. We were told by the airline people that it was about 37 degrees outside (found out later it was actually closer to about 42). So it was very hot, very humid, very windy (the west coast is subject to REALLY strong winds in the summer especially, I'll tell you more in a bit), and I was wearing carpis and a black tee - far from the best thing to wear in such a hot place.
Anyways, after checking in I found out about King's Park, the botanical gardens. It is also a great view of the city and river. And it was on a big hill. But totally worth seeing, as it is complete gorgeous.
The morning after, my tour started. The first stop we made was the Pinnacles Desert. You would not believe how incredibly cool that thing is. It's a bunch of stones - limestone, I believe it is, correct me if I'm wrong - sticking up all over the place. There are thousands and thousands of them. AND the sand is yellow, whereas everywhere else, it's whiter or it's dirt and it's red (the red desert dirt, ya'know). So that's pretty cool, too (and really soft. Unbelievably soft). We went around taking pictures with some of the Pinnacles, remembering to keep "one foot on the ground at all times!", as they have been broken by people climbing on them. Haha, that was fun. (Like one kind of looked like a camel, with two dips and a hump, so two of us at a time sat on it, haha.)
We stayed at a ranch that night in Kalbarri. In the morning, we went to the national park to do a hike. On the hike, we could try abseiling (or repelling down a rock face) twice. And so I did, along with most of our group. And while it was kind of scary those first few steps off the cliff, once you actually get to the bouncing off the wall, it is incredible! Apparently, I could hear as I was about to take the big step before the jump, I was doing to walking pretty quickly, haha. So glad I did that! :)
The walk was pretty cool, too, as were the other places and views we stopped at. After lunch at the beach in Kalbarri, we drove up to Shell Beach (really cool, completely of shells!) and then to Shark Bay and Monkey Mia. Beautiful.
That night, we went to an aboriginal thing, where we learned a lot about digeridoos (or however it's spelled...) and, while most of us weren't allowed to try out the digeridoo - traditionally, only men play those - we got to play their female counterpart - a huge conch shell with the end cut off to blow into. Some of the girls got some sound out of the shell, some didn't as it was pretty hard. I was in the former group, getting a nice long and loud sound from the shell. Afterwards, he explained how the shell was traditionally used, which was interesting. It was a great night.
In the morning, we got to see the dolphins of Monkey Mia (pronounced like MY-a, not ME-a, just so you know). Let me begin here with this: these are wild bottle nose dolphins, they come in for a snack and just like showing off. The dolphins were really pretty and were really close. All the dolphins to come into the bay had babies, so we not only got to see the adult dolphins (here, aged 18 to 37), but their babies, aged 3 months to about 3 years. The 3 month old dolphin did some jumps for us, too. It was great. Two of the girls in the group also got to feed one of the dolphins a fish. It was all great.
We continued on to Coral Bay in the afternoon. There, we played a night game of water volleyball/Polo. It was a lot of fun and while it was a little chilly, it was still a great night for a dip in the pool.
The next day we could do whatever around Coral Bay. While half of the group opted for a three hour snorkeling adventure thing, the rest of us decided to head down to the beach and do some snorkeling off the shore. Before the snorkeling, we rented so kayaks and headed out to a sand dune where we could see some more wildlife there. (By the way, off the west coast is the Nigaloo Reef, vastly different from the Great Barrier Reef.) And we did, as we saw a ray of some sort. Really cool. And pretty big. After kayaking back, we got our snorkeling gear, directions to a great spot, and off we went. And it was absolutely incredible! We also rented a GoPro to get pictures and videos in the water, and I had my camera with me as well. It was a great day.
Exmouth was next. We went snorkeling in the morning at Turquoise Bay. Can you guess what colour the water was? The current was strong, so we had first make sure to pay attention when we were going along, it else we end up drifting to Madagascar, as we were told (we spent the rest of the trip saying we'd either like to all float to Madagascar together to extend our trip and time together, how we'd never been and wanted to, or how we'd send for the coast gaurd to get them once they start drifting away to Madagascar, haha).
The afternoon, we spent by the pool, which was just so relaxing. Some guys there were throwing around a ball, and a bunch of us joined in mostly for something to do.
Day 6 was spent driving back to Kalbarri, about 1000kms. We went to a karaoke night at the local and then tried sleeping in our room without an air con or fan, fun times.
The last day, we went to a wildlife park, where they take in injured and orphaned kangaroos, in particular, in hopes that they'll be able to send them back out in the wild once they're big and heavy enough (for the joeys) or well enough that they won't be in danger as soon as they leave. Not only did we get to see all the great animals, goats, a horse, a donkey, a llama, a crocodile, fawns, birds like a parrot (talking and all!), an ostrich (with at least three giant eggs, and a pair of emus, we also got to feed the kangaroos. In addition to that, for a small fee, we could cuddle a joey! Oh my gosh, have I told you how beautiful and cute joeys are? Because it's a lot! :3 Such a sweet little baby. 12 month old Francis is who I held, and she was just so precious.
In the afternoon, we went to the sand dunes where we went sand boarding! Oh gosh, was ever fun! At first, we were all going down on our butts and then some us decided to try standing up. Haha, on the last go, I went from the top-top and... fell off instantly. After getting back on, I went quite a ways down before landing in my butt. Haha, it was so much fun! I loved it and am sososo glad I tried it.
When we got back to Perth a couple hours later, that was the end of our tour, but most of us still got together and went out.
Friday, I went to Fremantle for the markets. It was good, got some things I'd been looking for and got some good deals.
In the afternoon, we went to the beach. And that was just a nice and relaxing afternoon. The water was great, the sun was hot, the wind was refreshing!
Oh, I also forgot about the wind. Okay so when we were enroute somewhere, Monkey Mia I think, we stopped to see some trees called 'leaning gums' because the winds ate so strong on the west coast that the trees are unable to grow properly and end up leaning on the ground. Really cool. And also, when they were sailing to Indonesia and area a long long time ago, the used to sail around Africa and then up. One sailor gut decided to stay lower, trying to find a quicker route there. That's when the 'Roaring 40s' were discovered. And this really helps with the amount of wind all along the coast.
Anyways, that's the highlights of my trip. Or the outline. We did sososo much and had sososo much fun, it's actually kind of hard to remember it all and tell it all. I'm currently enroute to Sydney and should be there really soon (it was delayed about 30 minutes, and they were going to try to go a little faster than they're supposed to, so I don't know when were landing now). Got to see Adelaide for the first time, as I missed it on the way to Perth, and we flight right over. Didn't see much, though, haha.
Well, they just announced that we're starting to make our descent into Sydney, so I should probably go. Ta! Xxxxx
Have I mentioned ow much I love Bondi and Manly Beaches? Because if I haven't, there's something wrong. Both are great. Both are large and have a great surf and lots of sandy areas to spread a towel out on. The only real downsides I have with the beaches are that it takes awhile to get to them and they're popular, so there's lots of people at them. But they are still great and I enjoyed going to them and spending some time on each.
Today, I flew to Perth. You know how when you're checking the weather being going out and it's something a little different than the usual, and you're all, Oh that'll be fine! Well, that was me. I was excited over what I was finding out what the weather was like in Perth and along the west coast. Don't get me wrong, I still am. This is great, to be experiencing such warm weather when I'm used to it being minus like forty.
Anyways, the pilot told us it was like 37 out, no biggie. I got lost, biggie. I walked up a huge hill, biggie - going to King's Park, worth the hill... mostly. I wenr back and chilled out by the pool, no biggie, it was great, actually. Being in the water, even just my legs, really cooled me down - so much so that when I went back to my room, I was shivery because of the A/C. Hehehe.
Anyways. That was boring. I'm going up the coast starting tomorrow for a week. There will be excitement. And I have some ideas about what to for when I get back to Perth next week. Heh.
TTFN! Xxxx
Hi there! I haven't yet written up my Five Weeks of travelling stories out, and maybe I never will, but for now, I've just arrived back in Australia - Sydney to be exact.
Let's start on Saturday, even though I didn't start travelling until Sunday. Saturday, Grandma called and we went out for Asian at a place called Asian - go figure! Auntie Sue stopped by, so I got to see her, too. And that was nice. I showed Grandma when we went back to hers where the postcards I sent her were from in Australia and New Zealand. Auntie Wendy also called, so I got to talk to her too.
Sunday. We went to the airport. And the lady asked to see my connections. And then, when she was on the phone, she explained how my flight to Toronto was delayed getting there, so it would be late leaving (about an hour, as it turned out). Which meant missing my flight to Denver, and in turn, missing my flights to San Francisco and Sydney. So it was a really good thing I booked my whole flight to Sydney together! She ended up getting me on a flight to Vancouver and then direct from there to Sydney. Thank you awesome Air Canada lady! You rock!
The new flight meant that rather than having an hour in Toronto where I would have to get my checked bag and go through US Customs, I would have four hours if just waiting. And then I would get on a five hour flight to Vancouver, where I still wouldn't have to get my bag and go through customs. What I did gave to do, however, was as soon as I got off the plane, go see the guy at the counter, where he checked my documents. With that already checked before boring the flight to Sydney, it would save time. I had an extra long wait in Vancouver as the flight was a little less than an hour late (leaving at 12:25 instead of 11:45).
Anyways. You know how just before they start letting the passengers board the plane they call out passengers that they need to check stuff or whatever? And it's never your name they call? Well, I was sitting there, waiting and listening to my music when my name was called. Of course I heard it because anytime they made an announcement, I made sure to listen. I was called up because they wanted to get the coupon thing attached to my ticket because of my route/flight changes. Except, when I went to board, something must not have been punched in correctly, as he had to do a bit of an override to say that I had everything and could go on board. Haha, that backfired a bit.
Anyways. The flight was just less than fifteen hours. In that time, I ate the dinner, watched any and every current movie that appealed to me (except one, as I haven't seen the first one yet, sooo), only not finishing one because we arrived. And I jumped because whenever an announcement was made, and you were watching something, you'd have sore eardrums because the volume was down so low to watch them and their announcement volume was really high (I jumped because I was really into my surfing movie and it was really calm and quite).
I also slept a lot. I'm kind of tired now, but my jetleg is not as bad as it was last time or it could have been.
So, I arrived around 11am, and then had to jump into the mile - no exaggeration necessary - long line for customs to enter Australia. That probably at least half an hour.
And then it was on to Central, where I'm staying for the next two nights. Lucky for me, my room was ready when I arrived. And I was the first one I there. And I've stayed in that EXACT room before. Haha. So then it was off to the beach!
Manly is absolutely gorgeous! One of my favourite beaches. Anywhere. I'm currently catching some rays - don't worry, in the three hours I've been here, I've put on so.much sunscreen, I think I must be covered I a permanent sun barrier. Haha, just kidding. But I'm really oily now.
Oh yeah. Weather's like 25 and sunny. That's 50 degrees warmer than it was when I left home. Hehe! Yey! :D
Talk soon! Xxxx
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
- Follow Us on Twitter!
- "Join Us on Facebook!
- RSS
Contact