Australia Highlights Part 2

Australia treated me very, very well and I am very sad to be leaving, but I've known New Zealand was coming for awhile and my excitement to finally arrive there has been growing simultaneously!  (However, it will be about 30-40 degrees colder so it's a bit harder to get excited for that!)

Here's just a bit of a rundown of the highlights for the second half of Australia:

Sydney:  I was warned that I would not like it as much as Melbourne and that turned out to be very true, but it has (beautiful!) beaches and I was lucky to meet some of its nicest people so I still had a good 5 days there.

Darling Harbour at Night... Dancing with the Swan Fountain behind me :)

--Going out dancing both weekend nights with two different great guys who knew how to dance!  It was really sooo much fun and a nice break from playing tourist... felt like just a weekend on the town with friends!

--A friend of a friend from Melbourne (apparently Michael Bloomberg's right hand man in Australia!) took me out my second night to the north beaches and showed me just the most awesome spot where you have the view of the entire skyline all to yourself!  Granted the reason you have it all to yourself is because it's about a 20-25 minute trail walk in the dark under only moonlight.  It was definitely worth it though and we were surprised with a few fireworks going off over the water/harbour completely unexpectedly!

Huy and I viewing the Sydney Skyline at night

--Finding a Bikram yoga studio where I did an unlimited week pass for "traveler's/visitors" ... it felt good to sweat and get back into Bikram!

--buying a Droid smartphone!  Two weeks without one in Melbourne was more difficult than I expected it to be, so first on the agenda in Sydney was finding a smartphone!

--the beaches!  I prefer Melbourne still, but Bondi Beach earned its reputation and I suppose is the jewel of Sydney along with the Opera House... It is beautiful!  A beautiful way to spend a day, or two, or three!  I was loving the sunshine in Sydney!

 

the Blue Mountains:  Just what I expected!  Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!  I'd say it's the "green" version of the Grand Canyon.

--A deal was struck my first night there while we dined on the best German dumplings and discussed other great comfort foods.  We agreed if I made banana bread French toast the next day I would be treated to homemade profiteroles for dessert.  My host used to be a pastry chef and he was offering to teach me how to make one of my favorite desserts!!  They turned out amazing and I got to enjoy the leftovers for breakfast!

 

Piping profiteroles!

--Getting to sample a large number of Australian wines -- wine is very, very cheap here unlike everything else!

--Climbing (or should I say, first descending and then climbing) about one-third of the Giant Stairway (weather and timing got in the way of finishing it!  It's fall here and the sun starts setting close to 5pm!)

Byron Bay/Surfers Paradise/Coffs Harbor:  I was told Byron Bay is the place where two days turns into two weeks which turns into two months until you end up never leaving.  So therefore I was very excited leaving Sydney to get to Byron, but unfortunately I ended up with only one day of good weather there with rain forecasted for the entire next week, so I didn't stay as long as I thought I would and started chasing the sunshine up the coast.

Coffs Harbour

--Finding so many venues for live music in Byron Bay!  I listened to some great Australian cover bands (though they were covering American music :) acoustic MGMT = really awesome!) and went to my host's friend's band the second night in a proper concert format!

--Byron Bay attracts a lot of younger travelers and besides being known for its sprawling coast of beaches, it's known for its nightlife so I was out again past my bedtime dancing the nights away again!

--Pretty immediately upon arrival and on the one sunny day there, my host whisked me (and other friends of his) off to an amazing spot in the mountains/forest outside town where we spent the afternoon jumping off waterfalls!  Very unexpected, but what a thrill!  I hadn't jumped off cliffs since the gorges in Ithaca at school!  (next up though:  jumping off bridges in New Zealand bungee-style!)

Waterfall Jumping!

--I made a day trip to Springbrook National Park further inland from Surfer's Paradise (the largest "city" on the Gold Coast) and it was just spectacular!  We did a long loop walk that took us by several giant waterfalls where you could literally walk through or behind some of them!  (photos of walking behind them on my friend's camera still!) and the walk ended with another thrill.  Just when we were almost back to the "carpark" (parking lot :) and we weren't paying attention so much to the trail, we came across an 8 or 9 foot long python crossing our path!  The girl walking farthest in front, Alana, had grown up in Indonesia and was deathly afraid of snakes because she's known people who have died from bites.  So when she first saw the snake she just turned back and started running towards us not saying a word, but only shrieking!  The three of us assumed someone or thing was chasing her, but had no idea it was a snake.  It blended in so well to the trail that even after she sprinted by us screaming we still weren't clear what the danger was.  We finally saw and had to wait a good while (much farther back since it apparently has a large strike zone) for it to pass by.  I think it had already eaten its big meal for the day because it was moving very slowly so it hopefully wasn't interested in us!

Springbrook National Park

It was such a beautiful trail!

One of the waterfalls you have to walk behind

Ale and I by one of the waterfalls

The giant python on our path!!

--Participating in a "Beats and BBQ" drum circle in Burleigh Heads on the beach.  My host knew pretty much everyone in town and had organized a gathering one Sunday evening for about 30+ people to have a BBQ (again, I found a veggie burger!) on the beach where we could dance, drum, and even play with some fire (some friends were practicing their fire twirling).

--My awesome host again had a friend that was DJing at one club on the Saturday night so again a giant group of friends went out to support him and dance til dawn again!  (he didn't even start until 2:45am!)

Brisbane & the Sunshine Coast: Chasing the sunshine and more laidback life further north and lowering my chance of missing my flight, I headed to Brisbane.  I was really excited to just be back to a big city again (it had been almost a full week since Sydney) where there are more things to do in case of rain!

--In Brisbane I ended up staying with a group of three guys in their earlier-twenties-than-me (23 and 24yo) who had known each other since elementary/primary school.  They were a lot of fun to stay with and as Wednesday the 25th was ANZAC day (Australia New Zealand Army Corps day - a national public holiday - EVERYTHING is closed) they threw a Running of the Bulls party on Tuesday.  I must say I felt like I was in college again.  (though I felt old!)

--I was invited to come and stay with a couple in Dicky Beach on the Sunshine Coast, but due to work conflicts I ended up just meeting Matthew and we enjoyed a lovely few days together.  It was "off the beaten traveler's path" and I'd never heard of the town or knew anything about what to do there, but when I received the invitation, I immediately knew it was just what I needed!  Three days at the beach without another tourist or traveler in sight was just a dream!  Matthew is also a big TV fan and had nearly every TV show available for me to watch so I actually stayed in (and stayed up late!) catching up on the last 4 episodes of Grey's Anatomy... it was such a treat I must say!  Add in a resort style bathroom complete with jacuzzi tub, towel warmer, and waterfall showerhead and I was just in heaven.  I was actually sad I had to leave and be a "traveler" again!

--Surfing!  Finally!  It took more than 3 weeks for the weather, waves, and waiting for the right teacher to align, but I finally got to surf!  And I stood up!  The water was perfect and surfing first thing in the morning was a new feeling for me.  I loved feeling like we had the entire ocean to ourselves (because we kind of did for as far as we could see for the start of our surf) and even more I loved the feeling of accomplishment when you're leaving and heading back home for a shower at 9am and you already know you've done something awesome for the day!  I will definitely need to get back to doing morning yoga and morning bike rides when I get back to the US.

--My first morning in Brisbane I wandered over to South Bank and into a visitor's center to look for a better map.  What I found was way better - a small pamphlet advertising drop in meditations and classes on a range of Buddhism topics and I was in luck!  There was one starting in 45 minutes just about 10 blocks away!  So not having a clear plan for my day anyways and with the sky looking more threatening than I like, I made a beeline for the class/meditation and found just what I needed for the day. 

And a few general highlights from across the country:

--I've been amazed at how easy it's been to find rides everywhere I'm going.  I only took my first Greyhound bus just two days ago!

--The people in Australia are either incredibly friendly or I have been picking just the most awesome hosts.  Well I know the latter is true; I have been staying with truly the best hosts in every city! 

Which leads me to the list of the "not-so-highlights"

--Saying goodbye to everyone I have met is just the worst.  It's even harder than when my CouchSurfers say goodbye to me in Tampa and I thought that was hard.  Not knowing exactly when or if you'll ever see new friends again is very difficult

--Saying goodbye to Australia.  But I'm making my peace with it.. I know I'm coming back one day... there's soo much more to do and see!

--So buying my droid was a highlight, but finding out that when it was reset it became relocked to a different cell network in Australia (I was told it was unlocked) was definitely a problem.  I had already paid cash and the seller was leaving for Canada the next day and I felt stranded and defeated!  I was feeling it was a big waste of money and not sure I should try buying a used one again (new smartphones here without a contract are also in the $400-$600 range and I had ruled those out!) However, that night I was having dinner with friends of my friends in Melbourne and one of them turned out to be a professional hacker!  He took the phone overnight and gave it back to me unlocked with the Master Pin written down in case it ever became relocked in Europe or something.  (another highlight in disguise!!)

--Being rained out of seeing Fraser Island.  To do a tour of Fraser Island (which includes driving a 4 wheel drive jeep on a 75 mile beach, seeing what is a World Heritage Site, camping on a beach under the stars, swimming in Lake MacKenzie and experiencing its skin benefits and seeing the Champagne Pools) was one of my expected highlights and one of the reasons I kept "moving north" more quickly than I liked.  So arriving and finding out that rain was in the forecast for the next 4 days straight was the biggest bummer.  Bigger than big.  But again, just another reason why I know I will be back!

--finding out that Surfers Paradise is NOT a surfing paradise!  I was fine leaving Byron Bay early because I thought a paradise was waiting for me in Surfers.  Ha, that's what you get when you don't do your research!  Surfers Paradise is really anything but that!  It is the most commercialized and developed city on the Gold Coast and is FULL of tourists!  It is full of skyscrapers, but they are all just condo/time share/resorts.  I found the only things to do there were shop and lay on the beach because most days the rip was too strong and the beaches were closed to swimmers and surfers :(