Western Australia: Part 2 (Monkey Mia, Coral Bay, Exmouth, Lancelin, Perth: Apr 6-14)

My time in Australia is officially over (until I’m invited to a wedding or something!). The last part of my trip went quite well, and the highlight was definitely Monkey Mia, so I’ll begin with that! I started the drive to Monkey Mia, which would take nearly four hours. There weren’t very many places to stop at, and my phone didn’t have service for most of the trip. However, once I got closer to Monkey Mia, I was able to stop at Shell Beach. The water at the beach has an extremely high salinity (similar to the Dead Sea), so one of the only animals that has evolved to live in the area are cockles. The entire beach is COVERED with cockle shells! It was pretty cool to see and I would have loved to jump in the water to see if I could float any better, but I wanted to get to Monkey Mia. I continued on the drive and stopped at Eagle Bluff Lookout, which was a short boardwalk along the coast with extremely nice views! I stopped in Denham (the only town in the area) and picked up a gluten-free pizza to heat up for dinner. Then, I got to Monkey Mia, checked into my dorm, and realised that I was the only person in an 8-bedroom dorm that night! I went straight to the beach, where I saw my first emu up close. My fight or flight response kicked in and I had no idea what to do, but luckily it just continued on its way. The guide at Monkey Mia said that they’re like big seagulls and that they can get quite aggressive. I stayed at the beach until sunset (which happens at an early 6:20pm), and then I made my pizza and spent the evening chatting with a family from Perth.

The dolphin encounter was at 7:45 the next morning, so I got up nice and early to be one of the first people there. The resort has permits to feed only two of the dolphins (who are 25 and 30 years old), and they’re allowed to feed them up to three times each day. Each feeding, the dolphins get three fish (300g total), so that they’re given 1kg each day (which is 10% of what they would normally eat, so they still have to rely on hunting their food). It was so amazing to see the dolphins coming closer and closer, and I couldn’t believe how close they came to shore! It was a really special day! I stayed for the second and third feedings, and there seemed to be fewer and fewer people each time, which was great. I spent the rest of the day on the beach and walking along the jetty (where there were two sea turtles if you waited patiently enough). The dolphins would come to the beach throughout the day, just to check things out. I went back to my dorm to see that there were other people who had moved in. I met Dave, an Irish guy who lives in Perth, so he and I went down for Happy Hour. It was Good Friday that day and Western Australia has a weird rule that on Good Friday, you’re not allowed to order a drink unless it comes with food. So we were forced to have an early dinner and then see how many other drinks we could order without food afterwards. The next day, I was leaving, which I was extremely sad about! The dolphin guides had said that they were looking for a volunteer to help the following week and I seriously considered cancelling my plans so I could fulfill my 10-year-old dreams of being a dolphin trainer. Dave and I grabbed some coffee and then headed to the dolphin encounter so he could watch it for the first time and I could watch it for the last time. This time, there were SO many people there – I couldn’t believe it! After the first encounter, I started my drive to Coral Bay, which was going to be a 6-hour drive.

Again, there wasn’t really anywhere to stop on the way to Coral Bay, other than a grocery store where I stocked up on more food. I got to Coral Bay around 4pm and checked into my 2-bedroom dorm. Luckily, I got it to myself for both nights. The girl I met in Kalbarri had told me that her roommate in Coral Bay was sitting in the room and a baby brown snake came under the door, went around the room, and then left. Apparently, the babies are the scariest because they don’t know how strong their venom is and therefore can be quite dangerous. A lot of the people at the hotel had placed towels in front of their doors to stop any snakes from going into their room. I headed down to the beach to check out the sunset, then came back to have dinner and enjoy a chill evening. I wasn’t really sure what to do in Coral Bay, as it seems like most things require booking an extremely expensive tour (Manta Ray tour – $250, whale shark tour – $500!). The cheapest tour was an hour on a glass-bottomed boat for $100, but I didn’t want to be spending my money since I still have two and a half months of travelling to do. During the last coral spawning season, a cyclone went through so the coral all died (it should get better again in a few years). Therefore, renting snorkelling equipment seemed kind of pointless as well. Coral Bay was quite underwhelming, somewhat disappointing, and extremely busy. Mind you, after hanging out on a beach where dolphins swim by every once in awhile, I don’t know if any other beach will compare haha. If I were to do everything all over again, I would have spent 3 nights in Monkey Mia and only 1 night in Coral Bay. Or maybe even stop my trip in Monkey Mia. I had read about the Shark Nursery, which is an area along the coast where mama sharks bring their baby sharks during high tide so that they’re protected from the open waters. However, the season ended in March but I was hoping that I would be lucky. Unfortunately, I wasn’t but I still got to enjoy a beach completely to myself. At about 12:30, I headed back to the hostel to have a quick lunch, then headed towards Paradise Beach. Google led me in the worst possible way to get there and I found myself scrambling through bushes and up and down steep hills, while being scared that I’d run into a snake (I didn’t, but I saw two kangaroos!). I walked along Paradise Beach and then walked back towards Coral Bay to enjoy a couple hours of beach time. The rest of the evening was the usual chill evening – come back, have dinner, shower, relax.

On Monday morning, I headed to Exmouth, which was only a 1.5-hour drive. Since I had to check out by 9:30 at my last place, I got to my hostel quite early. They said I’d have to wait until 1pm, so I just went into town, had lunch, and checked out some of the shops. I went to check into my room, and there was a French girl and German girl in my dorm with me (both left the next morning). I decided to drive to Turquoise Bay, which was a 45 minute drive, but it was completely worth it! I’m really glad that I decided to go on Monday because I tried to go again the day after, and the parking lot was completely full. After spending a couple hours on the beach, I headed back to my hostel, had a shower, and then the German girl and I went to a nearby food truck for dinner. The next morning, I got up early and headed back to the Cape Range National Park. I started by going to the Mandu Mandu Gorge hike (about an hour away). I didn’t love this hike to be honest. The first half of it was on a big pool of rocks, and I’m not a fan of walking on uneven rocks. I then ended up getting lost halfway through because the sign’s arrow wasn’t going the right way. After coming back and realising where I had to go, I wasn’t in the best mood and then found out that I had to go straight up and then straight down cliffs. I think at one point, I said out loud, “I’m over this.” After finishing the hike, I drove another 20 minutes to go to the Yardie Creek hike. This one was a shorter one that still required some going up and down cliffs (but only one was really bad). The view was a lot better too! I also saw two snakes on this hike (not sure what kind though). I decided that I’d stop at Turquoise Bay on the way back, but that was when the parking lot was full, so I kept driving back towards town. I stopped at the lighthouse, which was another nice view, and then went back to the hostel. At this point, I was exhausted! My new dorm mates came, which seemed to be a dad with 4 teenage boys (three grade 12’s and one grade 9 – the grade 9 ended up sleeping elsewhere), so as a newly retired secondary teacher, I was a tad horrified to see that. And they seemed quite surprised to see me too, as the dad said he booked online and requested 4 beds, not realising that they’d be in a dorm. I decided to go to the grocery store to get dinner, and then work on my blog. I tried to go to bed early that night as the next day would be my big driving day. I had to do 11.5 hours of driving, and I realised that it was the exact same amount of daylight that there would be. I was kind of concerned about having to drive in the dark so I tried to look for accommodation that would be closer so that I could shorten the drive. However, the prices of accommodation had skyrocketed so I was stuck having to drive to Lancelin.

I woke up before sunrise so that I could leave right at sunrise (6.30am). The sun started setting just after 6pm and that was when I really started stressing out, keeping my eyes peeled for kangaroos. I eventually caught up to a trailer so I just stayed behind it, even though it was going 30km below the speed limit. I got to my hostel at about 6:40pm and I was starving! I checked into my room and asked one of the girls where I could get food and they said that the grocery store would close in ten minutes. So I hopped back in my car, got to the grocery store with five minutes to spare, and sped around the store looking for something to eat. Gluten free options were VERY limited, so I felt bad making the cashiers wait. However, I eventually found a heat-up meal that I could eat. I went back to the hostel, ate, and then relaxed in bed. The next morning, I got up early again, left the hostel just before 8, got to my hostel in Perth just after 10am so I could drop off my stuff, and then I made it to the car rental place just in time for my drop off at 11am! I took the bus back to Perth and spent the afternoon getting my stuff organized – did laundry, showered, packed, and went to the currency exchange. Dave (who I met in Monkey Mia) was coming back to Perth that day as well, so we met up for dinner and drinks, and were randomly joined by two others. It was a good last night in Australia! My flight was at 9am the next day, so I had to get up at 5:30 so that I could get to the airport on time. I was stressed about making 7kg, as Air Asia is supposedly really strict. I spent so much time stuffing my pockets – I had two travel belts, where I stuffed a lot of my electronics, I had a scarf with a secret pocket, I had a small fanny pack-type bag, and I stuffed my pants and my jacket. And I don’t think they could tell at all! Totally joking.. I wasn’t fooling anyone. So I was surprised when I got to the gate and they didn’t even weigh my bag. Then had to spend another ten minutes on the plane unstuffing everything. But I’ll probably have to do it all over again when I transfer in Kuala Lumpur to get to the Philippines. That’s all for now! Love always

Western Australia: Part 1 (Perth, Fremantle, Rottnest Island, Geraldton, Kalbarri: April 1-6)

Where do I begin? It’s been quite a long time since I’ve sat down to write a blog, but that’s not to say that I haven’t been trying. I’ve set reminders on my phone, told myself that I’d write a post the following weekend, which turned into the next weekend, and so on. For some reason, I haven’t been able to find the motivation to write. Which is weird because blogging has always been a stress relief for me. I think a part of me is wondering where should I start – should I catch everyone up on the last two years? Should I talk about my teaching experiences and why I’ve decided to quit? Should I write about some of my past trips, such as Hawaii or New Zealand? Maybe those posts will come eventually but for now, I’m going to write about my current trip. And forgive me, cause I might be a bit rusty.

As many people know, I’ve decided to leave Australia (I’ll probably have to do a post about that too). However, Western Australia has ALWAYS been on my list and I knew that I 100% wanted to go there before leaving. And that’s where I am now! My flight was at 9:15 on Saturday morning, so I didn’t have to leave for the airport until 7:45. Unfortunately, my mind was racing the night before and I didn’t get much sleep (probably due to me worrying about the weight of my bags). However, I sped through security and got on my 4-hour flight (so weird that my flight to New Zealand was shorter). I arrived in Perth at 10:40am and then had to figure out the transportation system. Once I finally figured out how to find the bus, I got on for the long journey into the city. I spent the day walking around, exploring all of the streets and arcades, and walking down to the water. A couple of my friends (Alexa and Asbrand) were coming back to Perth after exploring the southern coast of WA (I would eventually be heading north), so we met up for dinner at a Mexican restaurant close to my hostel. It was so nice to see them and get a chance to catch up!

On Sunday, I went to Rottnest Island. First, I got the train to Fremantle – a smaller town south of Perth. They were having a Sunday market so I quickly checked it out before I had to catch my ferry at 9:30. The main reason anyone goes to Rottnest Island is to see the quokkas, and they quickly made the $80 ferry ride worth it. Quokkas are nocturnal so they typically sleep during the day. However, since there’s so many people (and food), a lot of them will wake up from a slumber just to see what’s going on. BUT when one quokka finally wakes up, a whole crowd of people will rush up to it in order to get a selfie. I loved seeing the quokkas, and I probably spent more time hanging out with them than I should have. The day was pretty chill, and I spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach before catching the ferry back to Fremantle at 4:30. I went back to the market to finish checking it out, and then headed back to Perth for the night.

On Monday, I was starting my drive up the coast! I picked up my rental car at 11am (even though I still had PTSD from the last rental, which I’ll ALSO have to write about sometime). I made a few stops along the way, and the first one was Yanchep National Park, where I walked along the koala boardwalk. It was like an “I Spy” game, searching for koalas along the boardwalk. There were supposed to be 9 koalas hidden inside, but I think I was only able to find 4. I continued on my way to Lancelin Sand Dunes, where many people were renting snowboards to go down the sand hills. I decided against it because 1) I was short for time, and 2) I didn’t want to be spending days digging sand out of all of my cracks and crevices. I don’t even snowboard on snow – I wasn’t going to have my first faceplant in the sand! I continued the drive to Nambung National Park, where I went on the Pinnacles desert drive. It’s a short 4km drive through the desert, and the sight of the Pinnacles is spectacular! It was really cool to see all of the random structures in the middle of nowhere, and I even got to see a couple of kangaroos! I had forgotten that the sun sets just after 6pm here, and I realised that I wouldn’t be making it to my hostel in Geraldton while it was still daylight. I was extremely paranoid about driving in the dark after seeing so many dead kangaroos on the side of the road (seriously, there are tons!). However, I made it to my hostel safely!

I only spent one night in Geraldton since it was really just a stopover to Kalbarri. That morning, I went for a walk around town just to see what it was like. It definitely felt like a retirement coastal town, but it was cute! I then made my way towards Kalbarri. I stopped at the Pink Lake, which was really neat to see. I’m not sure what actually causes it to turn pink, but I didn’t feel like walking through it. I made quite a few stops on the way to Kalbarri. Kalbarri has a national park and half of it is coastal, while the other half is within a gorge. I made most of the coastal stops on the way to the town since it was on the way. The views were amazing, and it was so cool to see the lines along the limestone rocks. I stopped at the Natural Bridge, Island Rock, and the top of Pot Alley. Since I was only wearing flip flops, I decided to save all of the hiking stuff for the following day. I stopped at the tourist centre and was told to head to the gorge as early as possible, and to bring 3-4L of water. A lot of people have died in the gorge because of dehydration since it typically feels 10 degrees warmer in the gorge than it does in town. I was also told that the river had flooded the day I got there and that they hadn’t had rain for weeks before that. Because of this, the hike that I had wanted to do was shortened (I could only go up to the 3km marker and come back). When I went to the grocery store to get food, I was shocked to see how high the prices were (and not so shocked to see little to no gluten-free options). I realised that this would likely be the same for the rest of my trip, since there would no longer be any of the main grocery stores that are found in the cities and bigger towns.

The next day, I left the hostel at 7:30 to head to the National Park. My first stop was Nature’s Window, which is likely one of the highest Instagram photos that people seek out. When I arrived, there was only a small family there at the time. Little did I know that when I’d return after doing my hike, there’d be a lineup of people waiting to take a picture. I did the Loop Trail up to the 3km mark, and then did the 3km back. During the first 200 metres, I was seriously considering going back to my car. The trail included climbing up and down rocks, with a steep drop on either side of you, and I figured that it probably wasn’t the best idea to continue on my own. However, I saw another hiker and they said that the trail would flatten out, so I’m glad that I continued. The views were so nice, and it was amazing being able to see all of the colours of the rocks. After finishing the Loop Trail, I went to the Kalbarri Skywalk. The Skywalk had two grated projections that went out over the gorge. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it! After enjoying the view for a bit, I drove further south and stopped at a picnic table for a quick lunch. Then I did the shorter Z Bend Canyon Trail, which ended with another spectacular view! By that time, it was 12:30pm and the heat was at its peak. My body couldn’t take it anymore! I headed back to the coast to check out Pot Alley one more time, but this time I actually went down to the beach part. After spending some time there, I went back to the hostel to take it easy for the rest of the day. I hung out by the pool, chatted with one of the people staying in my dorm, and had dinner.

On Thursday, I was heading to Monkey Mia – the whole reason for my trip! I stayed in Kalbarri for the first part of the morning, since they do pelican feedings everyday at 8:45am. A man had started the tradition years ago and whenever he didn’t show up, there’d be a traffic jam that day because the pelicans would go to his door to figure out where he was! Now the feedings are done by volunteers, both of whom were 70+. Unfortunately, someone had their dog off-leash and the dog went chasing after the pelicans, so they wouldn’t come back up to the feeding area. Everyone then had to go down to the water to feed them, but I missed out on the commentary and information that the other volunteer was sharing on the hill. It was pretty neat to see pelicans so close, as we can usually only admire them from a distance in Saskatoon. I then started the trip to Monkey Mia, which I’ll save for the next post. If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading! Love always

Byron Bay, Surfers Paradise, and Brisbane: Jump in the Pool

My holidays are already over, and I only have 9 weeks left in Australia until my next big trip!! 😦 After I got back from Tasmania, I only had the evening to unpack everything (all of my winter clothes) and repack for Byron Bay (all of my summer clothes). I have now realized that trying to fit 7kg of stuff for ten days is pretty much impossible, so I might have to rethink my options when I do my 4-month Asia trip… On Tuesday morning, I had to walk to St. Kilda so that I could take the bus to the airport. I arrived in Brisbane at about 12:30pm and then I was planning to take a bus straight to Byron Bay. However, when I went to all of the service desks, they had either said that their last bus had already left at noon, or the next bus wouldn’t be until 5pm. One of the ladies told me that if I went to the main station in Brisbane, I might be able to get a bus from there. Therefore, I bought a ticket to central Brisbane. I was to arrive at the Brisbane station just after 2pm and I saw that the last Greyhound bus would be leaving at 2:30pm. Luckily, I ended up making it on time, and the bus ended up even being about a half hour late. I then had a 4-hour bus journey ahead of me, which actually went by quite quickly. Since the bus was late, I got into Byron Bay at about 7pm. Byron Bay has a completely different vibe, where everyone just has a carefree attitude. There’s no style in Byron – everyone wears whatever they want and you’ll often see people just wandering the sidewalks or shops in bare feet. I ended up being put in an all-girls’ dorm, but for some reason I was put with all of the girls who worked there so most of them had been there for 1-3 months. They were all getting ready to go out that night and since I had been travelling for basically the last 12 hours, I decided to have a quieter night in. The hostel was awesome in that it gave free dinners, so I met some British guys and hung out with them for the evening. That night though, one of the girls ended up bringing a guy back, so I had to listen to them for about two hours. I wasn’t too impressed and was thinking I should ask to change rooms, but I decided to give it one more night to see how things went. The next day was supposed to have on and off rain, so I decided to walk along the beaches and check out the lighthouse. I was taking a walk along the trail and I saw a path leading down to the beach. For some reason, I decided to take this path, even though there had been numerous other paths along my walk. When I got to the beach, I realized that there was a wedding going on, with tons of people watching. I didn’t think much of it and went to go sit down but then when I looked over, I noticed that there were quite a few cameras and videos there just for an average wedding. I then looked over and saw two normal-looking guys standing to the side with cameras, trying to get some shots of the wedding and then saw two security guards run over and try to jump in front of their pictures. I wondered, “What if this is a wedding for Married at First Sight (which is a HUGE deal in Australia – everyone gets into it)…” I decided to get closer to watch, and casually snap a photo while the securities guards were distracted by the paparazzi. I noticed that when they said you may now kiss the bride, the bride went in for a hug first. I couldn’t contain my excitement and messaged my friends who kept up with the show. I’ll definitely be ready to watch next season! Anyway, I continued my walk towards the lighthouse and spent a couple of hours sitting next to the beach. Once I saw the rainclouds start heading over, I decided to walk to the lighthouse, look at the most eastern point of Australia (the lighthouse in Tasmania was the most southern point of Australia, so now I only need to do north and west!), and head back to the hostel. It started to rain just as I headed back to the hostel and I made it back just in time, before it started pouring. That evening, I took advantage of the free dinner at the hostel and then watched the ping pong tournament with the British guys that I had met the evening before.

On Thursday, it rained pretty much the entire day so I decided to check out all of the shops. Everything was so expensive there! I definitely wouldn’t be able to afford any clothes, which was probably a good thing since my bag was already overweight. The rain stopped in the evening, so I walked to the beach and listened to one of the buskers for a couple of hours while the sun was setting. It was so relaxing! I went back to the hostel because I wanted to sign up for kayaking with dolphins on Friday, but I found out that it was completely booked up. I was seriously contemplating leaving Byron early because I had felt like I had seen everything I needed to see and I didn’t know what else I could do the next day. Lucky for me (and as I had mentioned in my previous post), two American girls showed up that night after dinner. We instantly clicked, and they asked if I’d like to join them on a hiking trip the next day.

On Friday, I got up and met with Amelia and Meghan for breakfast at the cafe next-door. We then got everything ready for our hike to Minyon Falls, and started the drive over. It’s great hiking in Australia because you have to totally be one with nature, as there’s rarely any phone service anywhere. Which can also be a bad thing if anything happens and you have no way to contact anyone. We were told that it would be an easy 2-hour roundtrip walk, so we had the rest of the day planned with other activities. However, we just kept walking and walking, wondering why it had been well over an hour and we still hadn’t reached the falls. We then reached a fork in the road with a really crappy map that didn’t tell us anything, so we struggled figuring out where to go next. We could either go up some stairs which seemed to lead away from the falls, or climb over a bunch of huge, dangerous rocks, which seemed to lead towards the sound of water. None of us were wearing proper hiking shoes since I didn’t really expect to be doing any hiking on this trip (unlike in Tasmania), so I was sliding around on slippery rocks in my Converse sneakers. I was legitimately concerned that someone would take a wrong step, fall off the rocks and break a leg, and then we’d be trapped at the bottom of the falls with no way to call for help. Luckily, that didn’t end up happening. We finally made it to the falls, which actually only ended up being somewhat of a trickle. We decided to stay and sit for about 45 minutes to an hour and while we were sitting there, we finally heard (and saw) other humans!! It was a family of six with three kids for sure under the age of 12. When we asked how long it took them to do the hike, the dad responded, “Oh about an hour” as non-chalantly as possible, while we decided not to share that it took us over two hours. The dad was even wearing flip flops! Like they were just a superfamily. Anyway, we decided to make our way back but we weren’t too keen on going back the way we came, since it had taken too long. The only other way seemed to lead in a completely different direction from where we started but luckily, we saw a couple more humans who knew the trail and they said that if we took the other path, it would just lead us to another parking lot and then we could walk back to our car from there. The path that we left on was supposed to take half the time of the path that we came on, so we definitely were ready to take the short way! We got to the top much quicker than expected and saw that there was a full map there, where we realized that we took the longest route possible to get to the falls (a 5-hour circuit, which we did in 4 hours – 1 of those hours was us just sitting by the waterfall so we did quite well). The path that we had just finished was the only path we SHOULD have taken to get to the falls and back, which would have taken us a total of 2 hours. We walked back to the car and by the time we got there, the superfamily had also made it back at the same time, even though they had taken the path that should have taken double the time! The girls had wanted to go to the Crystal Castle so we drove there but when we arrived, we’d only have about 45 minutes until it closed. The lady suggested that we go to this small, nearby town called Mullumbimby, which seemed to be quite hippie-like and had a neat feel to it. Unfortunately with small towns, most restaurants were closed during the afternoon but we were able to find one cafe, where we fuelled up on coffee and had a few snacks. We headed back to Byron once it got dark, had dinner, chatted for awhile, and then I went to bed.

On Saturday, I was planning to leave for the Gold Coast that morning but Meghan and Amelia were planning to drive to Brisbane later that day, so they suggested that we all hang out again and then they could drive me to the Gold Coast. We packed up all of our stuff and then found out that there was a market in Byron that only comes four times a year! We spent the morning and a good part of the afternoon looking at the hundreds of stalls, and eating tons of food. We then went to the cafe next to the hostel so that I could have a much-needed poutine before we went to the Crystal Castle. Literally as soon as we got to the parking lot, it started to rain. The park supplied umbrellas so we started walking around all of the different areas. The park was big into zen and energy, and all that jazz, so it was interesting to see. We saw that there was a rainforest walk so we started our walk through it, which is when we got caught in the middle of a huge thunderstorm! The rain started going sideways and we got absolutely soaked, plus the pathways got so wet that there was mud everywhere. When we finally got out, we noticed that they had actually closed the gate to the rainforest walk due to bad weather, so we shouldn’t have even been down there! We ran to the cafe, as it was the only shelter, and then it started to hail – I couldn’t believe it! We spent about the next hour to hour and a half waiting for the rain to stop so once it finally did, we were able to explore the last of the park before starting our drive towards Brisbane. We got to Surfers Paradise later that evening and I instantly knew it was going to be a dangerous place. Why?? Cause every store had huge SALE signs in the windows! Never would I ever see sales in Melbourne unless it was on winter clothes that no one wanted. The feel of Surfers Paradise reminded me of any other American coastal city, where there was a beach all the way along the city but it was surrounded by tall skyscrapers, shops and restaurants everywhere. I had heard bad things about Surfers Paradise before I arrived so my expectations were low (whereas with Byron, they were high), but I actually think that Surfers Paradise ended up being my favourite part.

On Sunday morning, I met one of the girls in my dorm room (Lena) from Germany and she was meeting up with another German girl (Alex) to explore the city. I decided to join them, so we walked around and explored the shops, went out for lunch, and then Alex left that day. Lena was in Surfers Paradise for an internship so she was looking at different apartments throughout the day. Therefore, that gave me the chance to check out some of the shops on my own. I decided to just treat it as a shopping trip, since I don’t really have many summer clothes (because I’ve always been going from winter to winter to winter) and this would be the cheapest place that I could find new clothes. I ended up having to pay the airline for a checked bag, and I also had to BUY a bag to take on the plane (don’t worry, it was only a $10 backpack), but it was totally worth it! Lena and I went out for dinner that evening, where I was able to get a steak and salad for 10 bucks! They had the rugby final on that night, so we stayed and watched along with everyone else in the pub, and tried to figure out the rules.

On Monday, I had my mind made that I wanted to do a whale-watching tour. Since whale-watching season was only from May-October, I figured that I probably wouldn’t get the chance to see them again since when I finally DO tour Australia, it’ll likely be from January to April. I did some more shopping in the morning, and then my tour started at 2pm. At the beginning of the tour, they tried selling motion-sickness tablets for $3 and they strongly recommended them since we’d be going into really rough waters that day. I didn’t really think anything of it since I’ve never been sick-sick on a boat, and I had only gotten that sick feeling twice in my life. Therefore, I didn’t bother buying any of the pills. We started the tour by going on a nice, smooth cruise down the river, where we got to see Jackie Chan’s summer house. Then we hit the ocean and boy, they definitely weren’t lying when they said the waters would be rough. I got bruises on my arm from getting thrown back and forth on the boat! Finally, we got through the worst of it but it was still a bumpy ride. They had a rule that if you were standing, you HAD to have one hand holding onto something at all times. Eventually, they spotted a mother whale and her calf, so we followed them for the rest of our trip. They’d come in and out, making sure they kept their distance and at the end of the tour, the calf started doing all types of jumps as the sun was setting – it was so majestic! I definitely started feeling sick towards the end of the tour though and there was a moment when I just wanted to get off of the boat and get back to land. It was a good three and a half hours though! Lena and I met up for dinner at the same place that night and then walked around Surfers Paradise.

On Tuesday, I spent the morning sitting by the beach and enjoying the sunshine before catching my 1:30pm Greyhound to Brisbane. I think I arrived in Brisbane right before 3pm and then I had to get to my hostel. For some reason, I chose a hostel way outside of the city centre, so I actually had to take a boat down the river to get to it. That was one of the coolest things about Brisbane is they offer a free ferry transport service which stops at about ten different places along the river. I think I finally arrived at my hostel at about 4:30, so I unpacked everything and then decided to go and explore. I was staying in an area called Kangaroo Cliffs, which were cliffs beside the river, where people can rock-climb whenever they choose. I walked along the river to Southbank, which is where there’s a man-made pool beside the river, and is basically Brisbane’s only “beach.” I then walked downtown, checked out the shops, and had dinner before doing the 55-minute walk back to the hostel. The next day, I did a lot of the same thing – just walked around the botanical gardens, checked out Southbank, did some shopping, and just sat in the park and people-watched. It was such a nice day, so it was good to just relax! I went to bed super-early that night since I’d have to get up at 5 the next morning to get to the airport. However, the girls in my dorm had different plans for me, as they continuously kept making noise. One girl decided to shower and blow-dry her hair at 11:30! So I didn’t end up actually falling asleep until after midnight and was exhausted the next day.

On Thursday, I got up and caught an uber to the airport. I arrived in Melbourne at 10am and then had to take the Skybus to the city in order to get back home. I got back home at about 12:30pm. Then, I just spent most of the day trying to catch up on the past two weeks of laundry. This past week has actually been pretty productive and busy, even though I didn’t work the entire week. But I’ll save that for the next post! Hope everyone is well. Love always

Jump in the Pool – Friendly Fires

Tasmania: Take a Walk

I’m already finished my trip to Tasmania, and it was so awesome! So how did it all come about? Well, my flatmate (Beena) had to go to Hobart for work on Monday and she wanted to make a long weekend out of it. A couple of weeks ago, she messaged me on Sunday afternoon and asked if I’d be interested in joining her. Originally, I wasn’t planning on going to Tasmania until the summer since it tends to be a bit colder than the rest of Australia, but once I looked at flight prices and saw that it would only be $160 round trip, I figured why not go twice?! I decided to give myself Thursday and Friday off, and we booked our flights that night. We got an Uber to the airport at 6:15 Thursday morning and arrived at the airport with plenty of time to go through security and have breakfast. A few things that shocked me upon flying within Australia is first, they didn’t ask for identification or boarding passes to go through security and therefore, anyone could go through whether they were getting on a flight or not. The second thing is you can bring an unlimited amount of liquids of any size. I brought through my water bottle and two bags of toiletries and didn’t get stopped at all. Lastly, they didn’t even check identification to get on the plane – they just scanned the boarding passes. I could have given my ticket to a friend and they wouldn’t have known! Everything was a lot more relaxed than what I’m used to.

Our flight was only an hour and fifteen minutes, so we arrived in Hobart just before 10am. We picked up our car rental and started our drive towards Freycinet Park. We made a couple of stops along the way to get some snacks and see some views. Then we made it to Coles Bay (the nearest town) at around 2pm. We stopped at the only restaurant we could find, ordered a pizza to go, and ate next to the water. Then we were ready to go hiking!

In order to see the famous Wineglass Bay, they said it would take an hour and a half round trip. It was only 16 degrees outside, but both of us were so hot walking up to the lookout! We were both dying once we made it to the top, but we only took 22 minutes – half the time! From that point onwards, Beena started joking about whether a specified hiking time would be for normal people, or “Janelle-walking-time.” I guess I tend to speed-hike just as much as I speed-walk… After we went back down, there were two wallabies waiting for us in the parking lot, and one of them even had a baby in its pouch! We then went to a few other short hikes, and then finished our day at Honeymoon Point, where we sat for an hour and waited for the sunset. After that, we did another 2.5 hours of driving to Saint Helens. I knew that the lodge that we’d be staying in would have a cat, but I stupidly only brought Benadryl so by the time we got to Saint Helens, I was nearly passed out. I made myself stay up until 9 and then I was good to go to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

On Friday, we stopped at a cute, little bakery in Saint Helens to have breakfast before starting another activity-filled day. We started by checking out Bay of Fires, which is 50km of pristine beaches. There wasn’t a soul to be seen and it was absolutely beautiful! Unfortunately, it was still too cold to have a beach day so we wondered if the beaches were just as quiet during the summer. After exploring for a couple of hours, we left Saint Helens at 10 and started the 4-hour drive to Cradle Mountain. We arrived there at 2pm, had lunch, and then waited for the shuttle to take us to the mountain. What we didn’t realise was that the last shuttle left the mountain at 5pm, so it only gave us two hours to hike. We decided not to do the lake circuit because they said it would take between 2-3 hours (even though we had full confidence in our speed-hiking abilities). Instead, we walked down to the lake and then did a 1.5-hour hike to Ronny Creek, which was another shuttle bus stop. The weather at Cradle Mountain tried to be on our side – apparently the fog had (for the most part) cleared up right when we arrived, but towards the last half hour of our hike, it started raining. The coolest thing about the hike was the amount of wombats that we were able to see!

We caught the shuttle back to the parking lot and we were originally planning to drive two hours to Launceston (the other major city) but we decided we might as well do the 4-hour drive back to Hobart since we’d have to wake up the next morning to finish it from Launceston anyway. We arrived in Hobart just after 9pm and were exhausted once again, so we just went straight to bed without having dinner for a second night in a row.

On Saturday morning, we went to Salamanca Market, which happens every Saturday and has about 300 stalls. I got a smoked salmon omelette on a roll for breakfast, which was so good! Tasmania is apparently known for its food, and Hobart definitely did not disappoint! We spent about an hour and a half exploring the market, then drove to the ferry terminal to go to Bruny Island. Fun fact: Bruny Island is the same size as the island of Singapore, but instead of having 5-6 million people, it has a population of about 600. We got to the ferry terminal with ten minutes to spare, got on the ferry, and took the 20-minute trip to the island. We then drove a half hour to the Fluted Cape trail, which is a 2.5-hour hike. Unfortunately for us, it was quite misty and foggy on the island, and it started to pour for nearly our entire walk up the cliff. When we finally got to the top, our view was a white fog into nothingness. Luckily, the fog slowly started to clear as we made it back down, so we were able to see some views (and a couple of wallabies!) on our way down. We were completely soaked and freezing once we got back to the car so we drove to a cheese restaurant and split a cheese and bread platter. We then drove an hour to the very southern part of the island (the southernmost part of Australia) to see the view from the lighthouse. It was FREEZING up there, and the wind nearly blew me off of the cliff! Our plan was to stay until sunset, but we only lasted about 5-10 minutes before we decided we’d rather spend our time next to the car heater. We drove another hour back to the ferry terminal and had to wait about 40 minutes to catch the final ferry back to Hobart. By the time we got back to Hobart, it was about 8pm so we went to a restaurant called Urban Greek and had a delicious late dinner. I had forgotten how good real Greek food was, and it really made me want to go back so I could eat my way through it! I do think Greece was one of my favourite countries to eat in, as everything was so delicious!

On Sunday morning, we arrived at MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) right when it opened at 10am. We had breakfast at a cafe there and split a frittata and a beef & ale pie, which were both so good. And then we decided to also split a slice of carrot cake because I had been talking about carrot cake nonstop the entire weekend, so why not have it for breakfast? We then spent about three hours going through the museum. It’s quite modern and abstract art, and it deals a lot more with other senses rather than just eyesight. I didn’t really understand any of the art, but it was still interesting. It reminded me a lot of the Pompidou Museum in Paris, as the types of art were similar. After the museum, we decided to check out central Hobart, so we walked along the cold harbour and then found a restaurant called Mures, where we had a late lunch (and I had an amazing seafood chowder!). Afterwards, we spent an hour checking out the shops until they closed at 4pm, and then we went to the cinema to watch Crazy, Rich Asians. The last time I’ve been in a cinema was about three years ago when I got a free ticket to watch a movie in London. This is cause I’m too cheap to spend 15-20 dollars to go to a movie. However, since Sunday was a rainy day in Hobart, there wasn’t much else to do. And the movie was cute – Beena and I both cried (I think we have similar tastes in movies). After the movie, we went back to the hostel to rest for an hour and a half cause we had a dinner reservation at a place called Templo for 8:30. The restaurant offered a tasting menu for $65 per person, but we decided to each just get the gnocchetti/anchovy/lemon sauce dish, and then share the swede dish (which here, a swede is a rutabaga). Both dishes were absolutely delicious! We were so full after only eating half our meals, but we couldn’t stop eating them. I was shocked as to how good all of the flavours meshed together!

On Monday, we got up and packed all of our stuff. Beena’s work meetings started at 10am and my bus to the airport left at 10:45, so we parted ways and I stopped at a restaurant called Waffle On. There, I had a bacon and banana cinnamon waffle, which was so amazing (again, the food in Hobart is spectacular, so no surprise!)! I then walked to the bus stop, took the half hour bus ride to the airport, got screened for a random drug test, went through security, and still had an hour until boarding. Then, I found out that my flight would be delayed by 45 minutes, which is when I decided it would be useful to write this blog post. So here we are! Officially on the flight as I’m finishing this up, and then I’ll have tonight to unpack and repack my stuff to fly to Brisbane tomorrow morning (I’ll be going from 10 degree to 22 degree weather). Hope everyone’s doing well! Love always

Take a Walk – Passion Pit