Melbourne

The last leg of the Great Ocean Road is really twisty and for some reason I was feeling a bit nauseous, which is weird because I never get motion sickness. Anyway, Marga gave me some of her motion sickness pills and I don't know what happened to me but as soon as we pulled into Melbourne I started feeling SO strange, like really drowsy and then I felt my heart beat quicken, so I started getting freaked out. Then we got to the bus drop off and I started to feel even more strange and when they asked me if I was okay, I couldn't speak and started to feel really emotional. I jumped off the bus and just started crying, but almost a half-crying, half-laughing thing. It was so weird. So bottom line: don't take any pills from Holland! Haha, j/k. But seriously, I'm still wondering what the hell that was.

Great Ocean Road

Adelaide was brilliant. Great weather...it's almost unfair how lovely it was, considering how crap it had been previously. Did some cool things like visit the art gallery (lots of Rodin sculptures), got a $1 veggie burger at the Uni (one of my favorite parts of the day), and met an American couple from NY at the Wine Institute (sampled some good wines as well). The next day was the huge market in town and I bought sooooo much fruit and veg for $5! The hostel we stayed at was really nice as well and called Shakespeare's! Each room was named after a character from a WS play...ours was the Lorenzo Room after the dude from Merchant of Venice. The manager was really friendly as well, if not a teensy bit creepy since he kept talking about how he needs a young woman to travel with. But he was very attentive (perhaps because we were young female travellers) and the hostel was so cozy. It was sad to leave, even after just 3 nights, but the place we stayed the next night was AMAZING! It's this gorgeous old mansion with huge wood paneled rooms with Oriental rugs and beautiful light fixtures. The bext backpacker hostel I've ever seen.

So far the Great Ocean Road is good. Not spectacular, but fun since there are about five of us youngsters on the bus and we're having a good time chatting and hanging out. Tomorrow we visit the famous 12 Apostles and London Bridge. The weather's been good, sunny and clear, so hopefully it will stay that way until Melbourne, but probably not considering my luck with weather.

The Red Center

Oh wow, I don't really know how to describe such a thing as the trip from which I just returned. Truly amazing, I suppose, but that doesn't even come close. I can't believe some of the things my eyes have seen. Kings Canyon, Uluru, Kata Tjuta...these are merely places but they are so much more.

I survived camping in the Outback. In fact, it was downright comfy! The facilities at the campsites are five-star quality. I have never woken up so early in several consecutive days before in my life. Nor have I ever experienced such a memorable sunrise.

Anyway, there are very few words, so I'll just shut up.

Nudity on the Reef!

I had an amazing, mind-blowingly awesome snorkel on the reef yesterday. Saw lots of beautiful fish and coral and some Loggerhead turtles which I even got to touch! Simply unbelievable. It's amazing how much perspective changes when you're in nature. I even got to try a five minute scuba demo for free and it was cool. I always thought I'd be freaked out doing a dive and while I didn't actually go on a dive, I did spend five whole minutes underwater without coming up. It was surprisingly easy but I don't know if I could handle a half hour dive deep underwater. My horrible ear pressure issues might make it difficult.

Anyway, after the snorkelling was over and we were heading back to the marina, they allowed some people to do what they call boom-netting where you sit in a rope net tied to the back of the boat while it pulls you along. Sounds fun, right? Not so. At first it's going along slowly and it's pretty amusing. Then they start to go a bit faster and this is where the nudity part comes in. I almost lost my bikini! My straps were slipping off my shoulders and I was definitely exposed. But wait, there's more. I felt my bottoms start to slide off and by now the boat was going pretty fast. Water was cascading towards me and it was really hard to hold on to the rope. Not to mention I could hardly breathe and swallowed at least a liter of water. So my bottoms kept slipping further off until they were literally hanging onto my toes. I gripped them so tight which is not easy considering I was thrown off the net. Finally the boat slowed down. Relief? Not so much. Now I had to find a way to put my bottoms on while still holding onto the net and maintaining my modesty all while people on the top deck looked down at me snapping pictures! Unbelievable. Finally I managed to pull them on but they were backwards. So one of the crew gave me a towel to wrap around me and I went up to the deck to change. I asked some girl to hold up the towel while I turned my bikini around, but she didn't really do a good job at that so everybody saw my bare ass once again. Yay for me. Ugh! How humiliating. I spent the rest of the boat ride avoiding eye contact and counting doen the minutes until it was over. Up until then it was a fabulous trip.

So I said goodbye to my travel companion, J, this morning, which was pretty sad because we had a really good time together. He's flying back to Sydney and then home to New Orleans while I headed off to Alice Springs and my Uluru tour. So now I'm in Alice Springs and it's cold! Go figure that today is the second day of rain they've had all year and it's the day I arrive. Ugh, I am not enjoying my bad luck with weather. I've barely seen the sun in a week. And this is the desert...it's supposed to be hot and dry, right? Anyway, tomorrow I leave for my 3 night camping trek in the red center. I really hope my tour is good and the people are cool. Wish me luck in the Outback amongst the snakes and mozzies.

What's it called?

There must be a name for the feeling you get after being on a boat for a long time and then once you get off, you feel like you're still on the boat. It also sometimes happens after you ride an elevator all day and then once you get onto solid ground, you feel like you're still going up and down. Well, if there's no name for it, it should be called something like Holy Shit because I'm experiencing it at this very moment and it is not pleasant.

Just got off the boat (and when I say just got off, I mean got off almost three hours ago!) from a 2 night/2 day sailing trip in the Whitsundays. Really cool experience, if not really grimy and cold because the sun refused to come out most of the trip. I feel somewhat cheated out of some amazing scenery because most of the islands were masked by fog and clouds, but it was still awesome. Especially snorkelling in the reef. I finally got over my apprehension...remember when I was really little, Dad, and you tried to get me to snorkel in some lake and I didn't know how to breathe right and got freaked out and never tried it again after that. Well, I did it! I finally got the mask back on and saw some really cool fish and coral. Too bad the underwater camera I had wasn't working, but there's still the Great Barrier Reef trip to take some pictures.

Oh boy, I'd better go now or I might get seasick...haha j/k, I couldn't be THAT unlucky this week.

An Island Called Fraser

So I think I'm having separation anxiety from Fraser. Even though I hated sleeping on that damn island as well as breaking my 15 year no-vomit record (yes I survived 4 years of college without spewing once), I also had an amazing time. There's something about getting sand in every crevice of your being that bonds you to a place. I will never look at sand the same way. I think once I get home I'll try setting up a tent on Lido and sleeping the night. On second thought, maybe not.

By the way, "Kings" is evil, especially when you pull the fourth King!

Maybe the dingo ate your baby

Yes I did indeed see heaps of dingoes on Fraser Island where they habitate. They are quite unusual looking dogs but actually pretty cute. Sort of a cross between a greyhound and a deer. However I was seriously paranoid they were going to come in my tent and eat me while I was sleeping. Actually, one did come up to our tent (I wasn't in it at the time) and the two British girls we were sharing with were inside with the door unzipped and they just yelled "Dingo!" really loud and it went away. Apparently they are conditioned to associate the word with danger and are scared away by it.

In other wildlife news: I saw my first kangaroo! Actually there were two of them and we saw them in a field as we were driving off the ferry from Fraser. Granted they were a bit far away and I only caught a glimpse, but still it was exciting. I know I'll see heaps of them while I travel around the country so I'm not disappointed.

Byron Bay

It is so time for an update. This time around I'm going to try to avoid doing a detailed day-by-day account of my trip around Oz like I did for NZ because I realize that it probably wasn't too interesting to most people. It's not really too fun to write either. Those who would like something of the sort can wait until my pics come out and I will be more than happy to explain what and where everything is. Instead, I'll try to update with some random and hopefully interesting facts about the trip.

To start, I'm in Byron Bay (not an interesting fact, but a necessary starting point). I did indeed see some humpback whales today on my walk up to the Cape Byron lighthouse. These guys migrate up north past the Cape in the winter. There were two of them swimming together and every now and then they'd pop up and blow some water through their blowholes. Too awesome!

Tomorrow I cross state lines to Queensland and stop in the capital, Brisbane. Brisvegas here I come!