Aussie, aussie, aussie!

I'm sure you'll all be relieved to know that my holidays didn't end in Mexico. When I got to Australia I arrived in Cairns for my friend Lisa's wedding, also the next week was my birthday so I figured it'd just be silly to go back to work on my birthday so I stayed two weeks :)

Cairns is a beautiful place to be in the winter, 25-30 degrees with blue skies, sandy beaches and greenery everywhere... you just gotta watch out for the crocodiles. I'm quite lucky as a couple of my besties from high school live up there so I can mooch free accommodation from them when the Melbourne winters get cold and dreary.

The morning after I flew in was Lisa's hens day, we woke early for a bbq breakfast and early morning kayak at Palm Cove, but the weather was crappy so we missed out on the kayak :( The rest of the day was fun and relaxing, we went to one of the resorts, had a picnic on the beach and I had a sneaky jet-lagged nap in a hammock while the others did yoga.

The great thing about the wedding was I got to catch up with the whole gang as Krichelle, Anna, Casey, Fay, Hayden and I spent the next few days with Lisa and Andy helping prepare for the wedding which was at Lisa and Andy's home in Speewah. Speewah is up in the hills behind Cairns where they have a split level block surrounded by rainforest, the perfect place for a wedding.

The rest of my time in Cairns I spent at Krichelle's place in Kewarra Beach, the beach is walking distance from her house where we go for BBQ's and to the beach bar, but no swimming... the crocodiles remember ... and stingers when the water is warm.

You can walk along the beach from Kewarra up to Palm Cove where you can find excellent restaurants for breakfast. And we did a day trip up to Kuranda to the markets and visited the butterfly house.

There are lots of things to do in Cairns but I was being super lazy. In the past we've done an overnight hike in the rainforest, visited the Daintree national park, Green Island, Port Douglas, the Atherton tablelands, gone swimming up in the rivers, gone white water rafting, been diving on the Great Barrier Reef and I've watched Lisa bungee jumping because there's no way in hell I'm doing it.

When I finally got home to Melbourne I wasn't there long before work send me off to Sydney.

Sydney is another excellent place to get out of the cold. I spent a lot of winter weekends getting some
sunshine as I ran along the coast from Bondi to Coogee, it's a great walk, in the summer the crowds are ridiculous but in winter it's great.

I was lucky to be staying close to the botanic gardens so in the morning I would run there, down through picturesque gardens and manicured lawns to the water overlooking the harbour and the bridge and opera house.

I have a few friends in Sydney who have been kind enough to entertain me - thanks Erica & Sean, Lucy and Nat, and I had my friend Julie come hang out for a weekend where we went to the Japanese gardens, Vaucluse house for high tea and got a ferry over to Watson's Bay to test out the cocktails.

Through work I also had Wednesday night travellers dinners so got to explore the restaurants and one night went to the Sydney Seafood School - I felt like I was on MasterChef.

Way out west

Yeah I know a few of you are a bit confused over where and what the hell I'm up to.

Last year I got a new job and in the interviews there was a lot of 'so can you travel?', 'it could be for long periods' and 'it could be at quite short notice' and of course I was like 'no problems'.

They weren't exaggerating, one Saturday afternoon I got a message telling me to be in Sydney Monday and since starting I've spent 3 months in Sydney and 8 months in Perth.

Being back in Perth after more than ten years has been pretty cool. It's still the same small, slow paced city although the food and bars have definitely improved with some great places to eat like Apple Daily or for some solid pub grub The Grovenor was a two minute walk from my apartment.

At work the Perth office is small so you get to know everyone pretty well and it's fun hanging out, listening to music, writing some code and seeing how long before Sara eats all the Tim Tams or Jasmine says something hilarious that needs to be added to #shitjasminesays

On weekends I caught the train to Mandurah (an hour south of Perth) to hang out with my cuzzies and their kidlets and spent Sundays out in Thornlie playing gaelic footy or ferrying across the river to South Perth to hang out in the park playing volleyball.

The time difference, heat and bright early mornings meant I was wide awake for morning runs. My morning route was along the river with the city on one side and the wide quiet river on the other with only a few other people running or rowing.

Then I'd turn away from the river and run up to Queens Park, a small very green park with lots of well maintained flower-beds, a man-made lake arched by small wooden bridges and totally surrounded by trees and shrubs blocking out the city, a hidden gem right next to the WACA.

I'd run a couple laps, sharing the park with an old hobo on a bench watching the sun rise over the trees, an asian women under a big old oak doing tai chi and a muslim man on his way to work who would stop to watch the ducks, swans and other birds paddling about on the water.

On the weekends I'd do long runs in the other direction ending up in Kings Park, a large park with lots of native vegetation, a fantastic view over the city and a horrifically steep hill to get up there!

While in Perth I had some visitors with Andrea and Robina here for the Aus day long weekend and Mum came over for a weekend too.

Mum and I caught the train to Cottesloe and Fremantle and did one of the Fremantle prison tours, I've done them before but think they're great. The prison has a really interesting history with it's beginnings as a convict prison, then being turned into a federal prison before being closed in the 1990's.

We met Shayne and Kevin (my aunt and uncle) for lunch at Little Creatures, a brewery with some great beer and an excellent lunch menu, before they took us down to Mandurah for a Millariffic night of wine and laughs.

With Andrea and Robina we had a few days so got out of Perth with a road trip down south to Busselton. We spent some time on the beach, walked the jetty and visited the underwater conservatory.

The conservatory is at the end of the jetty, you walk down into it and look out the large windows into the water like a big reverse aquarium!  You can see lots of different fish swimming between the jetty pylons which are covered in a rainbow of corals and weeds like a bizarre other-worldly forest.

We did a day driving around Margaret River visiting the caves, wineries and a chocolate factory,
but one day definitely wasn't enough!

We also went to Rottnest Island only for me to be totally shocked to discover that my two friends don't know how to ride a bike!  They seemed to think this was an ordinary thing to say and couldn't understand why I was dumbfounded, but after a small discussion revolving around me asking them several times if they were having me on, they gave the bikes a try.

They soon got the hang of it so we had a slow ride around checking out a couple of beaches, doing some snorkelling and petting some quokkas.

Quokkas are friendly little furballs of the marsupial kind and endemic to Rottnest Island

Quokkas are well known for being total posers when they see a tourist with a camera

Now my Perth time is over, but news on that in my next post!

Super Fun Adventure Time!

'Dunno why you wanna go to all those strange places overseas, there's heaps to see right here.'

I hear it all the time. And they're right, Australia is an amazing place, but there's no reason you can't do both.

So I thought maybe I'd blog some of my Aussie trips so people at home can see the great local places they should visit and overseas peeps can see what they are missing out on!

This little road trip began with my friend Robina saying she was going up to Coffs Harbour and me immediately inviting myself along.

'Oh yay!' said Robina. 'We can go to Canberra for milkshakes!'

I frowned, maybe I had been a bit quick on the buzzer, a 10 hour drive for a milkshake wasn't really my idea of a road trip.  But, Robina, Andrea and I set off after work on a Thursday and after an overnight pit-stop in Albury with the fantastic Jane who had a yummy dinner waiting for us, we arrived in Canberra and went straight to Patissez to order our Freakshakes.

And yes they were worth the drive!  We each ordered a different one so we could try as many as possible and mine came out a huge, caramelly, gooey mess garnished with a whole slice of pecan pie!

None of us could finish so we rubbed our food babies, took one last look at the gluttonus, chocolate, nutella and caramel monstrosities then climbed back in the car and headed towards the Blue Mountains with Andrea on the back seat in a food coma on top of a super-sized box of Malteasers.

One thing I love about road tripping in Australia is all the excellent places names, reading the road signs and rolling the words around on my tongue trying to get a feel for how they're said.

Try saying these out loud. Tallarook, Baddaginnie, Barnawartha, Woomargama, Woy Woy, Murrimbateman, Bungendore, Ourimbah, Tuggerah, Kangy Angy, Bulahdelah, Berremanga, Wong Wauk and Gundagai (which always makes me sing the song)

As this road trip was a super fun adventure road trip we ticked off our first adventure with canyoning in the Blue Mountains which was so much fun!

Yes, sexy outfits included when you go canyoning. Let the adventure begin!

We started by following a bush trail, as we got further in the dry bush disappeared, the temperature dropped a little and we found ourselves on a small sandy outcrop next to a calm little stream which ran back between two moss and fern-covered cliffs barely four metres apart.

We entered the canyon, stepping over rocks, climbing over boulders and sloshing through the shallow water.  Robina and Andrea said it was great as they had never done anything like this before, but for me it reminded me of when we used to go down to the river as a kids or out to the Channels, the Quarry or the Blue Pools. So +1 for country kids over city kids there.

The canyon continued to get deeper, the river wider and looking up you could only see the green light of the ferny overgrowth over 20 metres above us. Soon the way was blocked by large boulders which we climbed and jumped off into icy pools, each jump higher, harder and more slippery than the last.

Finally we reached the end of the canyon, a waterfall with the water cascading out at our feet forty metres down into a wide pool and while I knew there was going to be waterfalls and abseiling I just hadn't figured out they would be together!

Big brave Andrea was the first to tackle the abseil and we watched as she inched back over the edge, the rope taut and her feet moving ever so carefully over the slippery rocks.  Suddenly she slipped, dropped a metre and span upside down before dropping out of sight onto a ledge beneath us.

'Audrey! Audrey! Step back, you'll be fine!' said the guide.

'Her name's Andrea,' said Robina.

'Oops, no wonder she's not doing what she's told,' he said.

'Um, maybe you should go get her,' said Robina.

'Nah, she's right. She can do it,' he said before calling again, this time with her name right.

After a minute Andrea appear from under the rock and continued down the cliff no problems.

Next up was me, I backed myself over the edge, lowered myself onto the ledge Andrea had been stuck on and continued down, suddenly the trickle of water coming down over the waterfall turned into a deluge that hit me full force and I slipped smashing my knees on the wall.

'Fuck,' I thought, stuck on my knees, coughing and trying to get my face out of the water,  'How am I going to get back on my feet.'

The rocks around me were covered in a super slick black moss, finally I got back to my feet and abseiled the rest of the way down.

We spent the night in cute little airbnb place called Kookaburra Cottage in Woodford, which is aptly named as the back verandah looks over the bush and in the morning you can hear all the birds.

The next day we waved goodbye to Andrea and Robina and I drove through to Coffs Harbour which is 7 hours so a decent enough drive.

We stayed with Jarrod in Sawtell, a suburb of Coffs and his apartment is a convenient 2 minute walk from a very lovely beach.  I used this beach for early morning walks, going up to the cliff at the end where you could spot whales and we spent an excellent evening in our formalwear playing croquet in the sand.

I feel like formalwear improves any occasion and beach croquet is no exception.  Sand also improves croquet.  The ability to build little roads or channels for your ball to follow or screw up someone else's little road really adds some competition to the game.

From Coffs (see how I call it Coffs now because I've been there and I'm doin' it like the locals) we went to Byron Bay.

In Byron we did some tasty breakfasting at the Bay Leaf and continued our adventuresomeness with sky diving and kayaking.

I love skydiving, if we had been able to do it again straight away I would have been keen as mustard.

There's that one moment when you're sitting on the edge, the noise of the engine and the wind drown out anyone else, your feet are hanging out the door being blown sideways and suddenly you think, 'WTF am I doing?' but it's too late, you're free-falling, the wind blows right through you and you can barely hear yourself yelling.  Then the cord is pulled and you're jerked from the free-fall and suddenly floating, calm and quiet but your heart is still going nuts as you try to take in the spectacular views around you.

Balmy balmy Beechworth

I'd heard Beechworth was pretty, but it really is.  The town itself reminds me a little of Maffra, but a bit bigger and with more older buildings.  Our camp site was just out of town.  It was a nice spot, in the bush and there were even koalas in the trees around us.  God those things make a racket.  At night they sound like crazy bush pigs.

The koala hanging out near our camp.

Our camp was nice and with the fantastic weather it was really not fun packing up to go home.  But we had a good time.  Checked out the festival, a bit of the town and had a bit of a paddle round in some waterfalls.  But I think the consensus was that we definately have to plan another trip up here; maybe bring some bikes for the rail trails and check out more of the national parks.

Bbq-ing in our idyllic surrounds

 The Beechworth Celtic festival was a bit of fun.  There were markets, stages for music and dancing and a classically country, underwhelming street parade.  But it was good, at the end of the parade half of the pipe band hung around in the street and kept playing for the small crowd who gathered round them.  And it just happened that when they finished up we realised we were standing right next to a nice old pub.  So we went in for a beverage or two then stayed to watch the bands they had on.  It was a pretty good night, the bands were good and we walked outside after to discover the one taxi in Beechworth was free and waiting for us.

The Celtic festival street parade.

A bag pipe or two is a prerequesite for any street parade.

So my original motivation for the drive to Beechworth was to deliver a postcard that I got from the pirate's postbox in Post Office Bay in the Galapagos.  I had been carrying this postcard for siz months, intent on hand delivering this postcard as the author of the card, someone called Carly, wanted.

I also decided to add my own postcard for delivery so that if there was no-one home, they would know where the postcard came from once I'd left it in the letter box.  My postcard was from Macchu Picchu and told the story of all the places that Carly's card had travelled between leaving the Galapagos in May and arriving in Beechworth in November.

So Julie and I pulled up outside the address on the postcard and after a little confusion about the name of the street, we actually figured out we were outside the right address.  We rang the door bell and heard a voice call 'yep?' through the screen door, coming from the lounge chair a few metres away.  I spoke through the screen door asking if Mick or Bev were about.  'Yep' was the reply.  I continued speaking through the screen door, telling the Mick who was still watching the telly what I was there for. 'oh yeah?' came the reply of disinterest. 

Old Mick didn't look like getting out of his lounge chair anytime soon, so I invited myself in.  Opened the screen door, went in and gave him the card.  He was sitting in his chair with a little fluffy dog.  He had a bit of a look and gave me another 'oh yeah,' and 'yeah, we'll tell Carly when she rings.'  Mick asked what we were doing in Beechworth.  I said we thought we'd come up for the Celtic festival. 'well, you better hurry - you'll miss the parade.' he said.  So we left Mick and the little white fluffy thing that may have been the infamous 'Monster' on Carly's postcard and went off to see the parade.

So the whole postcard delivery was not as exciting as I'd hoped.  I think maybe if Bev had been there it would have been different.  I would have liked to know what Carly & Mark were doing in the Galapagos; whether they loved it as much as me and whether they'd delivered any postcards they'd found in the postbox.  But I guess it must have been a bit odd for Mick to have a couple of randoms turning up on his doorstep and talking about postcards from the other side of the world.

The postcards I had to deliver

The content of the postcards.

I heart Melbourne

I've been back in Melbourne nearly two months already!  And glad to say there's no post-holiday blues.  I've been busy catching up with everyone, getting back into work and the weekends have been jam packed. 

I got to see a whole two footy matches for the year as my beloved Saints got done by Sydney in the first week of finals which was a little disappointing.  But this year the weather held out for Derby Day.  We packed our picnic goodies and sneaky beverages to get in early and get our usual spot by the 300m marker.  As per usual I lost all my betting money, but the biggest rort of the day was $48 for a bottle of yellow.  Yes, no typo $48! 

The Sunday after Derby day there were Zombies in the city which was pretty cool.  I couldn't believed there were thousands of them.  And the effort some of them had gone to was amazing.  There were waves and waves of the undead, covered in blood and gore.  There were kiddie zombies, pirate zombies, zombies getting married, dancing, screaming and beer swilling zombies.  One really cool one was the monkey-wings zombie.

Being back in Melbourne in the Spring is great.  I've been running along the beach most mornings before work is good and although I only had 4 weeks once I got back to prepare I ran the half at the Melbourne Marathon and was pretty happy with my time.

Coming up is a trip to Tassie with the footy girls and a camping trip to Beechworth where I'm going to deliver the postcard I picked up in the Galapagos.  I hope the people who get the postcard think it's cool that it's hand delivered and don't just think I'm a freak.