Chilling out in Aus

Arrived yesterday too Byron Bay after a fun night out with Aleisa and roommate Matt in Manly....for a chill town fancier dress than I possess in my backpack was required!  Aleisa lives in a gorgeous place with a  view of they Ocean from the deck (and shower...).  Great place to wake up Saturday morning, a quick walk or lazy drive down to beach for a snorkel before heading to the airport....huge fish, and Matt even saw a blue ringed octopus (one of the most venomous creatures in the world!). 

After a carbon offset flight (for all of you ready to wave your finger at us flying) we arrived in this great town just in time for Earth hour! We are staying at a place called Arts Factory which is this tropical Eco paradise with bush turkeys and water dragons coexisting with campers and backpackers. They had a homemade recycled lantern craft session and turned all the lights out for the hour lighting with property with candles.  Tons of people chatting, and jamming on drums and acoustic guitars...it was pretty amazing.  Matt and I topped the night off with a delicious bottle of wine we had picked up during our wine tasting impromptu tour in Hunter Valley.  I thought of our years of Earth hour at PDHS and hoped that you were able to have an event this year despite the politics.  Today we are heading to the beach for the morning, and may spend the afternoon around the pool....sorry Canada.  

Aussie slang

Heard this on the radio and thought I would share it..sometimes it is like interpreting a different language!

Travelling on the cheap in a rich world

Another town, another library...meaning more free internet!  We are currently in a gorgeous library in downtown Melbourne.  It has been a "tough" week so far...arrived at got picked up at the airport by the wonderful Eamon (a friend of Matts from Whistler) always an otherwise expensive venture as airports are generally out of town.  He was also gracious enough to let us stay with him and show us a great Aussie week including time at his parents beach house that had Koala's in the Eucalyptus tree outside of his door, travel along the "Great Ocean Road" which was in fact pretty great, view of the stunning eroded coastal limestone structures called the "12 Apostles" where we also got to see our first kangaroos while driving home in the dark (great for us, less great for Eamon who was driving and swerving around them).  Tomorrow we are going to an Aussie Rules footie game and out on the town which should be crazy because there is also a Nascar GrandPrix event.  Staying with Eamon has allowed us enough budget to eat delicious food and even afford some drinks and luxuries like ice cream, alternatively we would be resorting to the accustomed peanut butter sandwiches, toast, and pasta that we were consuming a lot of in NZ.  Travelling in first world countries is a major shock to my system.  Most of my travel previously has been in countries where accomodation is less than $20 a night and food can be bought for dollars on the street.  As a result in NZ we had to often get creative....especially since most of the things we really wanted to see had a very expensive (out of budget) tour attached to it.  For example in Rotorua - a geographers DREAM land with the ground bubbling and spewing steam all over the place from underground volcanic hot spots - the cheapest tour was $80 each....instead we parked in distant lots and waited to catch a glimpse at the massive Geyser (spewing steam), and then walked for a long time around town to see other features.  We might not have seen the same mud pool or the biggest hot spring that pictures showed, but instead we found random spots in obscure places - like in peoples backyards! We also dug mud out of a pond that was so hot it could burn you. We found a cheap hotel that didnt look the best but had free hot pools fed by their own underground spring and saved from paying extra to go to the spa. We found free Maori villages where people still went to pray and meet instead of paying for tours.  Many days I think not being able to afford to have the attractions presented to us on a silver platter with the "take your picture now" guide gives us an opportunity to see more, learn more and have a better appreciation for the actual places we are visiting rather than just the attractions.  NZ was a place that often made you feel small, surrounded by mountains, glaciers, and the Ocean.  National Parks are free and offer incredible views of incredible places and also really cool geology (I have annoyed Matt a little with my new found obsession with rocks, patterns in rocks, wanting to know where the rocks came from and how have the rocks changed....etc.).  Being cheap has "forced" us into basic picnics on the side of road at rest stops overlooking gorges, raging rivers, and green rolling hills.  I also got to knock a major must off my bucket list and saw two different types of penguins (Fjordland Penguin, and the Little Blue Penguin) on two different seas in one day.  Although our budget is blown for NZ, the experience and images in our head are worth every penny.

A long and winding road....

Certainly a theme song for travel across New Zealand.  As we come to the end of our tourist scurry we reflect on where we have gone and what we have seen.  Roads in many areas of this country require NASCAR training to even fathom reaching the speed limit around hair pin turns that use mirrors to show you if oncoming traffic is going to push you off the road.  Of course driving on the left added a couple other gasps, turning into oncoming traffic lanes or irritating local drivers with Improper yields....kiwis are incredibly friendly but don't piss them off when driving - we encountered many with very little patience as indicated by blaring horns.  We have travelled more than 3500 km in the last 3.5 weeks and have seen incredible things.  Some of the natural highlights were the biggest tree I have ever seen called the square kauri (threatened species due to invasive pests), miles and miles of pristine coast line that never failed to take my breath away every time the road came out of the forest and connected with it- this was especially appreciated hiking the "Great" Abel Tasman trail where we alternated hiking with swimming on white sandy beaches.  Continuing on the south seeing alpine glaciers on top of incredible granite mountains, and then seeing fjord land penguins while cruising through the fjords of the Tasman Sea....oh and then there were the geysers and natural hot springs escaping the ground in Rotorua...wow. Getting kicked out of library so TBC