The Land Down Under

So, I've been in Australia for a few weeks now and figured it was time for an update!



Spider the size of a grapefruit...

After a bit of a rough start (missing home and feeling a bit down) I figured out a way to come home a month earlier, and sorted out a rough plan for Australia and started feeling better. So I started heading up the east coast.

I spent my birthday in a town called Port Macquarie which didn't really have much to it other than a koala hospital, which is why I wanted to stop there in the first place. I met a group of five 18 year old girls from Edmonton on the bus and they came out with me in the evening, but there wasn't much happening. But I was happy because I wasn't alone and made some new friends. I did go see the koala hospital in the afternoon too, and that was really neat.


Koala getting some treatment

Jenny, Sarah, Sara, Renee and Claire from Edmonton

After that I headed up to Byron Bay and Surfer's Paradise which are two of the big places to see on the East Coast. I'm not one for sitting on a beach all day though, so they didn't really hold my attention for long. Both places were having crappy weather and bad waves when I was there so I didn't get a chance to surf which bummed me out a little bit but there wasn't anything I could do about it. They were both very beautiful places though.


Surfer's Paradise

Next stop was Brisbane where I had a great time even though I was only there for one night. I had most of a day there and so I went walking around the city and saw the town hall and huge clock tower that you could go up inside. I spent a while in the Queen street pedestrian mall and bought a few things, and then I went walking over a bridge to a different part of town and saw a massive ad for Phatom of the Opera on the side of a building. It was a performing arts center and so I stopped in to see if the show was currently playing, and they happened to have a few tickets left for that night! I had never seen it before and hesitated over the price of the ticket for the very last row of the second balcony, but decided to do it anyway. It was amazing! The music was so good live that the theme gave me the shivers, and the sets and actors were spectacular. I'm really glad I went.

From there it was up to Noosa which I was going to use as a stopoff point to go to Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo. Long story short I wasn't able to get out there since it turned out to be an hour and a half away, and very expensive. I was kind of sad about that, but I've been to a lot of zoos anyway. The main reason I wanted to go was to hold a koala, but I found another place further north where you could do that so I ended up just saving myself a lot of money by not going. So the next day I headed north again to a place called Hervey Bay, which is the jumping off point to get to Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world.

I did a day trip tour to Fraser Island and had a great time. It was so neat to be underneath tropical rainforests that grew out of nothing but sand! And some of the lakes were just breathtaking. We visited Lake Mackenzie which is a huge lake that is formed by rainwater only. What stops the water from leaking out through the sand is a layer of old decomposed plant matter that makes a kind of rock like substance that lines the bottom of the lake. It was so fantastically blue and I wish I could have stayed there all day. The sand was 98% silica and was the best facial scrub I've ever had! Silky smooth skin!


Lake Mackenzie

We visited the Maheno shipwreck which washed ashore there before WW1 and is now mostly buried by sand and almost completely rusted away, but still very cool. The island is also home of the purest bred dingos in Australia, but there are only about 150 - 200 on the island and we didn't manage to spot one that day. I did find a Honey Coloured Skink and some pretty funny looking trees though....





Let me just say I was not the first or only one to notice these trees ok?

From Hervey Bay there isn't really much to see on the way north for a while, so I took an 18 hour overnight bus trip up to Townsville. I bypassed Airlie Beach and the Whitsunday Islands (pretty much a mandatory excursion for backpackers) because I had no desire to sit on a sailing boat and just party for three days. And why snorkel there when I'm going to dive the Great Barrier Reef? Plus I didn't really have time, and the area is getting completely battered with rain and flooding lately, so most likely it would be a miserable three days inside a cramped boat... So yeah, not too upset that I missed that experience.

I'm in Townsville right now and I'm stayin with a friend of my brother. His name is Ryan too, and him and his wife Carla are great. It's nice to be able to stay more than one night somewhere, and have a chance to stretch out and relax a bit, which doesn't always happen in the hostel environment. After I got in on the bus yesterday they picked me up and we went to the beach for a swim, and then had a quiet night at their place and one of their friends came over for dinner. I lovely home cooked meal! I haven't had steak in months so that was quite a treat.

Today we went out to the Billabong Wildlife Sanctuary which was the other place I had found that lets you hold a koala. I got to do it and was very happy! So there is one of my Australia goals accomplished, and I got some great pictures. I also held a 3 year old saltwater crocodile (it's mouth was banded shut for us!) and a python too. Wasn't too amped about the python, but it was actually pretty cool. They had kangaroos that just hopped around the park and took food from your hands, and a massive saltwater croc that had to have been 4 or 5 meters long that they coaxed out of the water at feeding time.









Tonight Ryan and Carla are having a barbeque with some of their friends and we might go out for some drinks after. In the next few days I'm heading up to Cairns where I've booked a dive trip to the Great Barrier Reef, and then it's out to the sizzling outback for a 5 day tour. Wish me luck that I don't roast out there!

Thanks for the great comments on my last blog entry. Just remember to put your name at the end if you use the anonymous option or I don't know who you are!

Miss you all!

Bali Hai!

Ok.

So apparently Indonesia was doing everything it could to prevent me from updating my blog. I'd get on the internet and then the place would close, or the power would go out. Or there would be no internet. Anywhere. Or I'd forget my camera cord and not be able to put up any pictures. So, I'm back in Australia now, and what did I do? Forget to bring my camera with me. So hopefully mom or dad can go run and get it for me when they get back.

Aaaaanyway, we've had some crazy adventures in Indonesia. We should have taken the hint from the Amazing Race we had just to get there, but either way we all had a lot of fun.

We started out in Kuta, the big tourist town and beach area. Mom and dad forked out the dough to spoil Ryan and I with a 5 star hotel room for, *gasp* $45 a night. Breaking the bank huh? Indonesia rocks that way. But it was a welcome home for me after 4 months of hostels. We did some shopping, surfing, laying on the beach, and some sightseeing there, and did a day trip out to the very south of the island to Ulu Watu temple. It was supposed to be fabulous at sunset, so we went, and had our next adventure there. We were warned going in that the monkeys were thieving little jerks that would steal anything they could get their hands on, including glasses, hair ties, earrings, necklaces etc. So remove them all. We even had someone try to get us to pay them to 'protect us' from them by carrying a big stick they would hit the monkeys with. We politely declined that...

Anyway, when we were all watching guard over Ryan and his snazzy camera while he took pictures, mom put her glasses back on for a split second to see to take a picture. And before she knew it a monkey was running off into the bushes with them. I thought they were gone forever, but some local boys managed to chase it down and get them back for her. I figure they make a living off of doing that because people like mom are willing to give them a couple dollar reward to get their precious items back. Anyway they were a little bent but no worse for wear. Ryan almost got his camera lens scratched too, but what do you expect when you stick the camera right in a monkey's face? Anyway, I liked the monkeys even though they were little jerks, and the sunset WAS beautiful.





Our next stop in Bali was a town called Ubud, where we managed to get mom on a river raft. Once she stopped screaming over every little dip in the river I think she ended up having a good time! Ryan and I would have liked a little bit more action to the ride, but we gotta ease mom into those type of things. Can't throw her onto a class five rapid right away! We also went to a traditional Fire Dance and Ryan almost got hit with a flying chunk of burning coconut husk.



And another monkey story. Mom was understandably hesitant to go to the Monkey Forest in Ubud, but we convinced her that these monkeys are more interested in bananas than glasses or jewelery. We managed to get her in, but she was not having any bananas. Long story short, a monkey sat on my shoulder to eat a banana, and decided to thank me after he finished by peeing on me. Lovely.


Right before it peed on me



Also in Ubud we did a sunrise volcano hike where we had to get up at 2am and then drive out to the bottom of a volcano and hike up it before the sun rose. It was interesting climbing in the dark with flashlights, but the sunrise from the top was amazing, with two other volcanos in front of it. I think I took about 60 pictures of that alone. That was the first time I was actually cold in Indonesia. But as soon as the sun came up the heat was back! We were all pretty tired after that morning so we had a chill day and an early night.





Our next stop was a teensy town on the north east coast called Amed. We stopped there because Ryan and I wanted to do some diving, and there is a cool shipwreck just off the coast there. It was a WW2 cargo ship that was sunk by a Japanese torpedo during the war, and beached near Amed. But then a volcano nearby erupted in 1968 and the vibrations slid the ship down under the water. So Ryan and I did two dives there for only $50, and had a great time. Saw some really cool fish like clownfish, barracuda, firefish and parrotfish. I got stung by a jellyfish on my lip and hand though - that hurt! Mom and dad did some snorkelling and saw some neat fish too so they were happy. We all got massages on the beach for $6 for an hour, and I got a lovely $5 pedicure. I love cheap stuff!

Our next stop was further along the north coast to a town called Lovina. Not much to do there specifically, but mom had a beach to enjoy, and Ryan, dad and I rented motorbikes to go off and explore some mountains and lakes nearby. (I doubled on Ryan's. There is NO way I was going to attempt driving down here. It's insane. Or rather, organized chaos. Everybody passes everybody all the time, there's no need for the street lines because no one pays attention to them, and a horn is used just to let people know you're there. At first it looks insane and crazy, but then you realise it works. Lol.)

So the three of us went off up the mountains to a temple and did a bit of hiking, and got completely soaked on the scooters on the way back down when it started raining. But it was a nice change from the boiling heat!



After Lovina we went to a really small town near the west coast called Pemuteran, where there was a cool turtle hatchery and sanctuary. I wanted to spend the $8 to sponsor a baby turtle and release it into the ocean, but none of the babies were old enough yet. Darn! But they were very very cute. And Boomer is an adult that came back every time they released him, so he just lives there permanently now. Ryan and I were going to do more diving there, but it was quite expensive so we decided not to.



Our next journey was to take the ferry over to the island of Java, and get off Bali and away from the really touristy places. We headed straight to a place called Cemoro Lawang, which was on the top of another volcano. Only it started raining buckets on the way there, and mom almost had a few heart attacks climbing the skinny, windy mountain road that looked more like a river. We got to the top and it was kind of like something out of a horror movie. We got there right before dark, it was fogged in so we couldn't see the view, we were the only people in the hotel, and the cable was out in the middle of a huge storm.... Luckily we were fine, just a tad bit cold in the hotel room.

The next morning we got up for sunrise and got a nice surprise. It was a lovely day out and the view was spectacular of the volcanos. We had breakfast and then went down into the crater of the larger volcano and walked across the crater floor to get to the other smaller volcanos inside. We climbed up to the top of Mt. Bromo which is the active vent, and it was all steaming from inside and pretty cool. Ryan, dad and I walked around the rim to the back of the crater, but mom stayed where there was a railing she could hold onto. She had a great time there and met some locals while she waited for us. After we got back, in the afternoon it started pouring again so we had a quiet night and arranged to leave in the morning.




The next day we drove to a town called Jember because our travel book said we could do coffee plantation tours from there. But when we got there we found out that the town is pretty much of the travellers circuit, so hardly anyone spoke English and arranging a tour was almost impossible. So we went for a walk, and turned out to be a huge attraction. I guess people there don't see many white people at all, so everyone we passed was honking horns, waving, saying hello, and coming up to meet us. It was a neat experience, but a little creepy for me. I like blending in, not sticking out! I had a tough time sleeping that night as well, since it was a Muslim city, so all night there were people singing through huge microphones and speakers all over the city. Even at three in the morning. It must be hard to live in that town and get any sleep if you're not a muslim!

The next day was a crazy day. We took a taxi to the train station, took a train to the ferry, took a ferry back to Bali, and took a bus to our next stop. What a travel day! The train ride was lots of fun though because Ryan, dad and I took turns sitting/standing at the car doors and looking out. You're not allowed to do that back home! In some places the train would go over a huge bridge and you could literally walk off the train and over the edge without a problem. I found it a little scary so I made sure I held on tight!


The next few days were kind of uneventful in some small towns on the beach. One night though we experienced the worst storm Bali has had in 7 years. There was lightening hitting the ocean, pelting rain, leaking roofs, power going on and off, and Ryan almost got hit by a clothes rack and a falling ceiling tile. He's a lucky one! The next day when we left we saw so many flattened rice fields from the storm - so sad because that is all ruined crop. We also went to a really famous/important temple to the balinese people called Tanah Lot, which is built out on a rock out in the ocean. It was very neat, but tourists aren't allowed to go out there.



After that, it was pretty much back to Kuta. It's such a different world when you get away from the touristy areas. I really don't like being hassled constantly as you walk down the street. People trying to give you rides, advertising massages, pedicures, trying to sell you watches and sunglasses and get you to come into their shop. I didn't like coming back to that unfortunately.

In Kuta again we had a few days before we left, and through a fun coincidence the Irish guys I had met the first few weeks of my trip were in Kuta at the same time. So we arranged to meet up and we had a great time. My brother and I learned a very valuable lesson: never question the Irish's ability to drink... Somehow it turned into an Irish vs Canada thing, and my brother and I spent the next day recovering... But it was a really fun night and it was so great to see them again. They had met up with a few of their friends from home, and so there was a big group of us. My family really enjoyed meeting them too, cause you all know how much my parents love Ireland!


My brother Ryan, Ray and Conor from Ireland, me. All doing the Taiwanese classic picture pose Ryan taught us.

Ryan again and Kevin from Ireland

Here you can already see the effects of the 620ml, $2 beers on Ryan... haha

And after a last day to relax, Ryan headed back to Taiwan, and now mom, dad and I are back in Sydney. They leave back for home again tomorrow, and now I have my 5 weeks here in Australia.

Whew! what an update! I hope you all enjoy it, sorry I wasn't able to make a few smaller ones while I was in Indonesia, but like I said it just wasn't working.

Few more pictures:

Rice terraces



Missing you all lots,
Julie