Our Goodbyes to Sydney and Oz (Australia)

We got into Sydney easily, and made it over to our friends’, Amy and Damon’s, place in the evening.  Amy and Damon have been fantastic to me, while I lived in Sydney, and offered to house us for the night.  We unloaded all of our junk, and the four of us headed out to a great dinner before heading to bed. 

The next day, I had to go meet with my lawyer, while Jared hung around Amy and Damon’s.  After that annoying to-do was done, I met up back with Jared and we went to meet a friend of his from Texas that I had befriended while living in Sydney.  That evening, we were staying with our friend Sheena, as she was house sitting a mansion in a fancy neighborhood, so she let us take advantage!  We packed up our stuff from Amy and Damon’s and met up with Sheena.  We spent the next few days there, meeting old friends from my stay in Sydney, and getting ourselves together for our next leg.  The days went by leisurely, before we went to Sheena’s home for one night.  I left the next morning, and Jared stayed a few more days before going on his own journey.  I headed for my friend’s wedding in Spain, and tacked on a few weeks in Paris and Italy, while Jared set out for a cruise through Tahiti and Easter Island, after which we would meet back up again in the Cook Islands.

OO-LOO-ROO (Australia)

The trip to Uluru, was not nice and easy.  In the evening, we flew to Sydney, where we had to spend the night until the next morning.  As you know, we’ve had our fair share of crappy nights of sleep and a few overnight airport stays, but this one was the worst.  The whole airport actually closes, so they confine everyone in this teenie area with limited seating.  Each chair has a metal armrest separating it from the next, so no lying down.  There were a lot of people sleeping on the ground, which was probably the smarter decision, but the prize went to the girl who actually curled up into a ball and slept on her suitcase, which was on a luggage trolley.  At 4am, I couldn’t sleep anymore, and just played around on the internet (thank God there was at least internet), until about 7am when we made our way back to our terminal.  The flight itself was fine, and we got in a little bit of shut eye.  We made it into Uluru mid-afternoon.
We had only scheduled about 24 hours in Uluru, so we had to book it.  Uluru, or Ayers Rock as the white conquerors dubbed it, is…well, jeez it sounds lame like this…a big rock.  Yes, it’s really just one huge rock in the middle of nowhere.  But, it’s pretty neat, I swear.  The dirty in that area of Australia is red, so the rock itself is red.  It, and a rock formation close to it called Kata Tjuta, are the only land formations for maybe a couple hundred miles.  It’s a very significant Aboriginal landmark, and the area is still inhabited by Aboriginal tribes.  There isn’t much to do in that area, and a very…very small town has formed to handle the tourists in a sustainable way, as the area was being degraded.  When we landed, we went to the center of town and the Information Site to figure out our options.  We got our maps and headed out to Uluru.  We drove the entire circumference of the rock, did a short trek to one of the gorges, and got to learn a little about the Aboriginal tribes in the area.  The walk was nice, but pretty hot and INFESTED with flies!!  Worse, I think, than any place to which we’ve been.  One of the most popular activities there is to watch the colors of Uluru change to a vibrant red as the sun both rises and sets.  As we were approaching sundown, we hightailed it to sunset lookout point and set up shop. Small world, all the fancy camera guys from the 12 Apostles were there too!  To be honest, I’ve seen some photos of Uluru at sunset, and it is awe inspiring, so as we were watching I kept expecting that National Geographic photo opt, but it kinda never happened.  I just sort of kept expecting it to get brighter and brighter and more and more vibrant, and then after a certain point it started becoming less and less of both, which was when I realized that was the whole shebang.  Anyway, we did get in our shots, and then headed back to the town area for dinner.  As the town was teeny, and there wasn’t much threat of anything, we decided to just park and sleep. 
The next morning, we woke up at the *bleep* crack of dawn to watch the sunrise.  I think we forgot to adjust our clocks correctly though, because we woke up way before everyone else, and actually ended up taking a little catnap there.  We finally woke up as the tour-bus-tourists started piling in and found our spot along with everyone else.  I was prepared this time for a slightly less spectacular view than Google portrayed, but again, it was a very pretty sight none-the-less.  After the sun was fully up in the sky, and the colors of the rock settled, we made our way back to the car, ate breakfast and headed over to Kata Tjuta.  We were able to get in a nice hour hike and lunch before having to pack up shop and head back to the airport.  Our last stop, Sydney!

Great Ocean Road and Melbourne (Australia)

So, I’m going to apologize right off the bat on this one.  Clearly, if you keep up with my or Jared’s social media, you will know we are no longer in Australia (well Jared is currently Facebook MIA island hopping while I’m playing with friends in Europe), but I made a cheat sheet of things we did on the Great Ocean Road, saved it to my laptop, and now cannot find (or my computer can’t find) that document, so details may be a bit sketchy.

We flew into Melbourne, late morning, and went to pick up our rental car.  This first stop was the grocery store to stock up on food and grab some much needed lunch; we were both starting to get a bit hangry (definition: hungry and angry combo; when you’re so hungry you start to get angry).  Melbourne was not our first destination, but rather driving the Great Ocean Road was, one of the most scenic drives…ever I guess, I dunno, we just get lists online of things to do.  I had elected a leisurely pace for the Great Ocean Road, which is really a rather short drive, but as I was the only driver, I didn’t want to miss all the good stuff, because I had my eyes on the road; so, I wanted to be able to stop and gawk to my heart’s content.  After getting out of the Melbourne area for about an hour or two, we stopped at the town of Geelong (the “gee” pronounced like “George” not “Gorge”, we didn’t know), which was the official start to the Great Ocean Road.  We went to the Information Site in town, and got advice on all the places to stop and gawk along the way.  The consultant at the desk was so nice, and also kept recommending that we stop in different towns to “check out their Information Site.”  So yea, we probably weren’t going to do that, one is enough thank you, but then she even gave us a recyclable bag with trip goodies and maps!  Jackpot, free stuff!  We had thought to spend our first night in town, so we attempted to drive around and find free parking, which we couldn’t, so we found the local mall parking lot, and decided to take a look to kill some time, at which time, we geniusly picked up a bottle of wine and some dark chocolate Tim Tams.  We walked around the mall a bit, staring into windows with things we couldn’t buy, and after a whopping 20 minutes, decided this was not the place for us to hangout.  In fact, when we were leaving, we both looked at our watches and were quite surprised we had only spent 20 minutes there; we were banking on about an hour.  We decided instead to just proceed on our way to the next town of Torquay for the evening.  We made it in a bit before the sun went down, found the library for wifi the next day, and prepped and ate our dinners; we didn’t have a whole lot to do to kill time, so we cracked open the bottle of wine and the Tim Tams and settled in for a movie.  Yea, that was a pretty luxurious night!  The next morning, we were ever-so-rudely awoken, by a bunch of mothers with their children being dropped off for morning childcare…whoops, probably not the best parking lot in which to sleep.  We made ourselves look somewhat presentable (aka as unhomeless as possible), and headed inside.  There was a surf museum that Jared had wanted to checkout, which ended up actually being ridiculously expensive, so he did not in fact go in.  We used the library’s internet for a while, before we set off on our drive.  The day was absolutely perfect, and the drive was beautifully scenic.  I was glad I decided for us to take our sweet time with the drive, because I probably pulled over ever 5 miles at all of the lookouts.  Until…we heard the weather forecast for the next day, which was rain rain rain.  That next day, we were supposed to hit up the main attraction of the Great Ocean Road, the 12 Apostles.  So, we both decided on screwing the leisure sightseeing driving, and booking it all the way through to the 12 Apostles.  The drive was still very beautiful; I just didn’t get to stop for quite as much of it.  We made it to the 12 Apostles a bit before sunset, which was perfect timing!  The best time to be there is sunset, so we were able to squeeze in amongst all the serious photogs with their massive cameras and gadgets, and find ourselves an open spot at just the right time.  We had about 30 minutes before sundown, and about 15 minutes before the dark clouds completely covered the sun, which stunk.  But we got some good shots in none the less, and were able to see the 12 Apostles in great lighting, with a bit of mist over the water as the sun went down; it was really quite eerie and transcendent, making for a beautiful scene.  By the way, you might describe the 12 Apostles as a set of 12 tall mini islands; the coastline along that area is a shear dropping cliffs, almost at a 90 degree angle from the beach and water below.  The Apostles are masses of land and rock that have stood erect and tall as the coastline has receded inland.  Also, little factoid, as of only a few years ago, there are actually only 11 Apostles, one fell, but the name stayed.  Anyway, just as people were giving up hope on seeing a great sunset over the water, a small slit of cloud parted, and opened up a vibrant, magenta ray of sunset over the rocks, which in turn made everyone freak out, grab their cameras and run to a better vantage point.  We did get a few shots off, before packing it up and calling it a good day.  As the dark sky took over, everyone piled into their cars and made their way to the closest town down the road, along with us.  We found a campsite, which was retardedly expensive, but we decided to splurge….I actually have no idea why at this point, I’m sure there was a reason we didn’t just opt out like usual.  I will say though, the camp ground did have really nice facilities and internet!  We both took indulgently long hot showers before again…sleeping in the car :/.

The next morning, we were happy to have booked it all the way through the Great Ocean Road.  We woke up when it was still dark out to see what the 12 Apostles looked like at sunrise, but as the sun rose and the light stayed gloomy and rainy, I decided to opt out of actually getting out of the car, and left the exploring to Jared, and the nappy to me.  After, we went back to the camp ground, and I tried, unsuccessfully, to get a few more hours of sleep in until joining Jared in the kitchen; we made an awesome hot breakfast and played on the camp ground’s internet till check out.  Over the course of the day, we stopped at a few other lookouts, as that entire area is full of neat limestone rock formations and caverns.  We also got up to Cheese World!  Yes, it’s what you’re thinking, tons of free cheese!  Uh, thank god I’m not lactose intolerant (knock on wood).  We gorged ourselves with cheese, before again, piling back in the car and heading back toward Melbourne.  I gotta tell you though, by this point I was going a bit car-stir-crazy and kind of lashing out, but Jared was able to tame the anti-car beast growing inside of me, and we made lots of pit stops along the way back.  By the end of the day, we arrived back in Torquay and decided to walk around the small town center a bit; our flaw was that we walked into an intriguing spud restaurant that smelled SO good!  Not a smart idea when you live on tuna and pasta.   We spent the night again in the library parking lot, just not in such an obviously homeless location for the wellbeing of the moms the next morning. 

As we were a bit ahead of schedule, the next morning we were able to spend a couple hours playing around on the internet (which is when I wrote the Great Ocean Road cliff notes that I have since lost).  That afternoon, we made it back into Melbourne and dropped the car off, before heading to our hostel in the city.  By the times we got to the hostel, it was well after dark.  We settled in and made it to the grocery store to make dinner and call it an early night.

Next morning, up early for free pancake breakfast!!  We used and abused that free pancake breakfast for a touch over an hour before calling it quits, fat and happy.  We headed to the library to do some research on Melbourne activities.  Jared had already been so he was planning on opting out of big touristy things.  That afternoon, I went on a free walking tour of the city, getting to see the different areas of the city, the government buildings, the awesome graffiti art, and learning all about the gold rush in the late 1800’s.  Did you know at one point, Melbourne was the richest city?  Neither did I.  Even as recently as about 15 years ago, someone found a gold nugget worth $150,000!!!  So that’s something I can consider for an alternate income, gold digger extraordinaire!  The walking tour ended a touch before sundown, and I meandered back to the hostel for dinner.

The next day was the Grand Final for the Australian Rules League (ARL) between the Sydney Swans and…crud, a team from right outside of Melbourne.  I may get in trouble for this, because Aussies are very passionate about what they call “rugby” and what they don’t, but for all intent and purpose for Americans, it’s Rugby.  People had flown in from all over Australia, but the hub of ARL is really in Melbourne, so the city was alive with everyone decked out in team gear.  We went to Federation Square to watch, which is sort of the center of town with art exhibits and, randomly, a huge jumbrotron TV screen.  Jared and I decided to join in on the fun by picked opposite teams to root for; I of course made the wiser decision, and my team kicked Jared’s team’s butt!  After the festivities, we headed back to the hostel, and joined some of our fellow hostelers for dinner and hostel drinking, which means Goons.  Let me explain; a rite of passage for backpackers in Australia is to get drunk on Goons, which is a super cheap boxed wine, about $10-15 for 4 liters.  We’ve all done it, we’ve all regretted it the next day.  BUT, seeing as how Jared wasn’t really a backpackers in Australia for long enough, he did not know this, and thought that when he bought this boxed wine, he was actually buying wine and not something made 80% from “wine stuff” (we’ve heard rumors that it’s onions, but they are still unconfirmed).  Anyway, we all got a chuckle when Jared whipped out the Goons, not knowing any better, and we all partook in drinking it.  That night, I actually decided to spend one night seeing the nightlife of Melbourne, so I went out until all hours of the night with some people from the hostel.

The next morning was a bit rough, by morning, I mean afternoon, because that’s when I got up.  Jared and I took it slow that day, and went to the library to play on the internet for ages.  We were still in the process of planning out the next legs of our journey, so there is always planning to be done.  Early evening, we went back to the hostel, and enjoyed a good dinner and a movie before calling it a night.  Sorry, this day was especially boring to write, so I’m assuming it was boring to read.

The next morning, we were heading to our last tourist destination, Uluru.  We woke up and had an early workout with someone from the hostel.  Came back and quickly packed up our stuff.  We weren’t actually leaving until that evening, so we were able to toodle around the hostel, watching movies and cooking up the last bit of our food, before we had to leave.

Adelaide, a Special Reunion, and More! (Australia)

We arrived into Adelaide the evening after leaving Perth and Margaret River.  This part of the trip was pretty special, because Clint lives there…remember Clint?  He is a friend of Jared’s from the Marines, and actually travelled with us initially when we drove from Texas.  He separated from us in Guatemala, and had always planned on attending school in Australia this year.  Jared and Clint are BFFs (not my word), so Jared was like a little school girl…in his own way, basically meaning when I asked how excited he was about seeing Clint, he shrugged and said “yea, pretty excited”.  Whatever Jared!  I could tell he was brimming with excitement below the surface.

We arrived on a Saturday night, pretty late and didn’t actually get to Clint’s place until around 11pm.  We immediately took over his living room with our massive amount of stuff and after a few minutes of quick catch up, hopped in the shower!!  Oh Lord, it had been days since a shower; I didn’t mention grabbing showers in Margaret River…because we didn’t take any :/  Anyway, we finally got a good shower in and were able to catch up with Clint.  He is studying his second year (I believe) at University of Southern Australia.  He liked his life in Australia, but said it’s been a bit difficult to break into normal living here.  School has been going alright, a job has been very difficult to find, he volunteers at a mental health facility for Aboriginals, and is really into Yoga!  So that’s basically the Clint run down.  We did nothing but chat that evening, which was nice.

The next morning, Jared and I threw some much needed laundry in, while Clint went to yoga.  We then, take a guess…headed to the grocery store.  Clint was shocked at our cheapness, noting that there was a close grocery store that was a little more expensive than our standard Coles, but Coles was about a 30 minute walk one way; we went with the Coles walk.  We hung around being lazy and getting some menial to-do’s done, and spending some quality time with Clint.  As the evening came, Jared and Clint decided to have some man-time playing Basketball, or more accurately HORSE.  I stayed back doing Blog homework for you all, and also just because I wanted the two of them to get some one-on-one time as boys.  Clint took us out to a bar that night in town, and we spent a few hours throwing back beers and hanging before calling it a night.

The next morning, Jared and I were heading to Flinder’s Ranges, a mountain range about five hours north of Adelaide with some good hiking.  I think I initially booked our rental car to leave at the crack of dawn, but we decided not to stress too much on our departure time, so I didn’t actually pick up the car until about four hours after I was expected, which didn’t get us into Flinder’s until dark.  I had originally planned to be in the mountains for two full days and two half days (including the arrival date), but Jared wanted to spend a bit more time in Adelaide with Clint, so we adjusted a few things.  When we arrived at our camp site in the national park, we set up shop and tried to prep some dinner.  Unfortunately, we had started our dinner prep work pretty late.  I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned yet, but we discovered a way to “cook” pasta without a microwave or stovetop; basically, if you just leave pasta soaking in water, it will eventually soak up the water and become soft.  It’s always a bit soggier than cooking pasta, and I can’t figure out how to make it “al dente”, but it serves well enough for us.  The main difference is that soaking pasta can take several hours, and we had forgotten to prep the pasta until we arrived at the camp.  No problem; we played our Scopa and waited around in the camp picnic area until we were totally overrun, not once but twice by a huge tour group and then a group of school girls.  Ug, lord, I forgot to mention the school groups!  There were two really big groups of high school girls on holiday, and as you would expect they were as loud as school girls can be when let out in the wild…literally.  It was a few hours before things settled down and by that time, I was basically too annoyed and tired and cold to care about eating, so I nestled up in my sleeping bag and tried to reach my crappy sleep state.
The next morning, we decided on a hike up to the tallest peak in the range.  Clearly, this range was not the highest; the ascent only took us a touch over two hours, but the walk itself was really nice through Australian bush.  Toward the end, the climb became much more arduous, which we enjoyed.  The top was nicely deserted, and quite chilly.  We had a bit of a snack while taking in the views and snapping photos, before we packed up our food and headed back down.  We decided to take a longer route going back to the campground, which led us through the “pound”.  The area was called Wilpena Pound, and basically was a mountain range connecting in a circular shape, making the center similar to a bowl, but I have no idea why it’s called a pound.  Anyway, we walked through this bowl, getting to see emus and wallabies and wildflowers.  By the end, we were both pretty tired after about a seven hour walk.  We made it back to the campsite with a bit of light left.  Jared wanted to try to get a head start on making it back to Adelaide, so he could have a bit more time with Clint, and I wanted to take a quick shower, as I knew we’d be sleeping in the car again that night.  Unfortunately, the stinking school group had made a huge line to use the showers, so I ended up having to forego cleaning up.  We had a bit of a snack before piling back into the car and starting the drive.  We watched as the sun went down over the mountains, and made one of the prettier sunsets we’ve seen.  I really hate driving through the outback around dusk and at night, due to the one kangaroo near-miss we had, so not long after it was dark, we pulled into a one road town, and parked it for the night.  We had our dinner and watched a quick movie before trying to get another restless night’s sleep.
The next morning, crack of dawn, we woke up and started making the last leg to Adelaide.  About an hour outside of the city, we made a small detour into the Barossa valley, known for its vineyards, and stopped for a wine tasting.  The region was known for its Shiraz, which was very unlike Shiraz that we are used to in the US, and much more robust, deep, and flavorful, which was nice to try.  The highlight was a $235 bottle we got to try.  At the end, we headed back into the city of Adelaide and Clint’s place.  We arrived around noon, and exploded all over Clint’s living room again.  After settling in, I set out to return the rental car, and run some legal errand (yes, I am taking legal routes to try to get the money back that my former boss owes me; unlikely to be effective in terms of actually getting any money back, but hopefully enough to stuff her up for a while).   The whole endeavor took a few hours, and I made it back to Clint’s house just as the boys were heading out for some basketball (HORSE); I stuck around the apartment doing some blog homework and getting in some solo girl time.  That evening, we cooked up our dinners; Jared and I did a bit of homework for the next leg of the trip, Kangaroo Island, and watched a movie before enjoying a good night’s sleep in a bed again!
That next morning, plans were a bit up in the air.  We wanted to go to Kangaroo Island, the third largest island off of Australia, known for its nature excursions.  Our main problem was getting there; basically it was exceedingly expensive, $300, for roundtrip to only spend one full day there.  We went back and forth a bit before deciding to just bite the bullet and go.  We booked last minute bus to ferry tickets and a car rental.  Luckily, the bus didn’t head out until late afternoon, so we were in perfect timing.  We again packed up everything, and hopped on the bus out to the central bus station.  Our drive to the coast was quite scenic and reminded us both of driving through New Zealand; to be honest, if we were to do it again, we probably would have tried to spend a bit of time in the hill country south of Adelaide.  The passage over to the island was easy, and got us in just after nightfall.  I had checked in advance and booked a camp ground in Cape Jervis that was walking distance from the ferry terminal, so we set up shop, and were able to use some of the camp ground facilities to make a hot dinner, before calling it a night. 
The next morning, we woke up early to pick up the rental car.  Budget did us dirty on this one, only allowing 100km per day of travel (the whole island was 300km one way, so we were prepared to get royally screwed on that) and provided absolutely zero insurance after 6pm due to the high occurrence (according to the rental car guy 50% chance) of wildlife accidents, and even if I returned the car a whole 12 hours early, they charged on a 24 hour basis, so it wouldn’t be any cheaper.  So, yea…ug.  After packing up camp, we set off into the island, stopping at a bunch of lookouts along the way.  I think Jared was a bit disappointed with the lookouts, as they just showed views of the beach, of which he claimed we had enough photos.  We went to a sea lion sanctuary and a koala sanctuary, where we saw a teenie joey (that’s what they call baby koalas) latched on to its mother’s back as she ran away from us into the trees, and a kangaroo with her…baby kangaroo (can’t remember if there’s a special cute name) in the pouch, as well as Little Sahara, which people often sandboard in, but we didn’t because we had already accomplished some epic sandboarding in Latin America.  We made it all the way to the other side of the island that day, to Flinders Chase National Park, just before the sun went down.  There were 2 camp grounds close to the entrance of the park, one was significantly more expensive, but had better facilities, i.e. plumbing, water, and a grill, so in true Cheap Kathleen and Jared fashion, we snuck into the more expensive camp ground, used their facilities to make dinner and then set off to our cheaper camp ground, which was exceedingly bare.  We didn’t even set up the tent that night, as we have found that the car is much warmer overnight, though we tend to sleep worse, so it’s kind of a crud-shoot. 
The next morning, we set out early again.  We made warm breakfast at the nicer camp ground, and drove deeper into the Flinders Chase National Park.  The big attractions within the park, besides the wildlife are the Remarkable Rocks and Admirals Arch, which we were able to see and walk around through.  Lunch time was right around the corner, so we made it to a Liguarian honey farm and got to have a bit of a self-guided tour, actually learning some pretty nifty factoids, along with eating homemade honey ice cream.  At the end of the day, we made it back to Cape Jervis to spend the night.  We were pretty cheap that night, and instead of actually staying inside of the camp grounds from the first night on the island, we parked outside of it, and just used the kitchen equipment, opting to sleep in the car again that night.  I gotta say, as you can probably deduce yourselves, we do this whole traveling/backpacker thing as cheaply as possible, and have both (well Jared already was [or so he claims ;)], it was really just me who had to adjust) become chipper morning people on very little sleep.  It would be easy for us to be at each other’s necks everyday with the crappy sleep we get each night, but we’ve learned to overcome that…if you want a good night sleep, go ahead and pay for it yourself! 
That next morning, we returned the car, and got back on the ferry and bus headed to Adelaide and back to Clint’s place where we ate and watched a (pretty bad, The Master?) movie.  Overall, Flinder’s Ranges was nice, and we could have probably spent an extra day hiking; Kangaroo Island was not our favorite, and was a bit less nature intensive than we had hoped; staying with Clint and getting to catch up was nice, and I think a really awesome moment for Jared.  That next morning was a travel day to Melbourne, so we woke up pretty early and had to make our way to the airport.