Australia Recap

A sad but bittersweet post, the Australia sector of this journey has come to an end.  4 months ago I was on a plane headed down under all by myself, no set travel plan, and nothing more than 4 nights booked in a hostel.  That plane trip from the states was very exciting yet scary at the same time.  Leaving all my family and friends behind and heading to a place that truly was foreign to me, all on my own.  Today I have four great months of memories and friendships that will last a lifetime. Crikey what a trip!  It isn't till I step back a bit and think about what I've accomplished till I really feel how awesome and unbelievable this trip was. Yes, I had a bit of aid in the groundwork with the trip as far as getting my visa and such, but it was me in the end that really made everything happen.  I secured my first job in another country, something not many Americans, especially my age, can say that they've done. I went solo, maybe the best call of this entire journey.  Yes, in some places having a friend from back home to share some great memories would have been cool, but honestly, travelling the world is all about meeting new people and learning about yourself.  Thanks to the heaps of international travelers and a very well laid out backpacking network in Australia, meeting new people was not difficult if you just made a simple effort.  Travelling solo forces you to be outgoing. This trip would not have been the same without the heaps of great people I've met along the way. Meeting new people and hearing their stories is just as mesmorizing as some of the most beautiful Australian destination. I have made contacts from all over the world and will eventually see them all again, whether showing them around the great state of California or in their respective countries. My friends from England, Sweden, Germany, Italy, and Holland have all invited me to their countries and offered accomodation.  I will undoubtedly take them up on their offers when I do eventually make it back over to Europe.

Maybe the best part of this trip is that I absolutely have no regrets.  I would not do anything different on the trip.  My time in Sydney, my travel itinerary, etc. For the time I had in Australia and the funds available, I did everything I wanted to do and that is the important part.

Working in Australia was quite the experience.  Although it was in the travel and transportation industry and (hopefully) quite the deviation from a future career path, my job at Gate Gourmet was a memorable one.  It really shows that I can excel at anything I put effort into.  Well even if I didn't "excel" like the fast moving Koreans, I still never got fired and I think thats a plus in anyones work career.  Learning the ins and out of airline catering was fascinating and is something I will always remember on any flight I board.  And yes, I will still eat the airline food, regardless of packing thousands of trays, tray after tray and seeing how it all comes together.

Things Learned

Well travelling around with international people you see and learn things about the world. I learned some aussie words, but definitely picked up on some common/slang German, Swedish and English(UK) words.

Also, and I got a feel for this in Europe almost 3 years ago, Americans don't have the greatest reputation among outsiders.  I think this may all be due to bad media and terrible stereotypes that sometimes can lead to be true. Europeans are fascinated about Obama, that had to be the most common question I recieved, "what do you think of Obama." Did get a bit annoyed after awhile with that question.  But yes, I think American movies, TV shows and just our modern culture can sometimes lead to false accusation of American lifestyle.  Another common topic was gangs. Whenever LA was brought up, the topics of gangs and Compton always came along. I always told people you can't talk anything if you have never actually visited a place.

As far as things learned about myself, well heaps.  This has been a great individual experience.  I've never been one for horoscopes or star signs but it is right on.  I've seen on this trip, that my Aquarius personality is right on.  Aquarians are usually pretty independant and adventurous.  I wouldn't really have classified myself as adventurous before this trip, but now I would. Maybe it is due to the fact that this is the first time I truly have been on my own, and I think that is where my adventurous self comes out.  I constantly find myself always trying to explore new places and never wanting to miss out on an opportunity and will make the extra effort to make it happen.  This trip has improved my lifestyle.  I can't even remember the last time I slept past 10 oclock in the morning. (actually yes I can, when I was working). Let me rephrase that a bit. WHEN I AM TRAVELLING, I wake up early so I can make the most of my time, no matter how tired I am or how big of a night I had the night before.  I can't afford to piss days away when there is so much do to. I think travelling has made me healthier.  Let me first make clear that I am in no means in shape.  BUT, I would say I am far more active than usual while travelling. I have walked hundreds of miles of the past 4 months and I feel pretty good.  I am thankful that I never got sick at all during this part of the trip, especially in my one month travelling the coast and Melbourne. I think being sick while backpacking would be the worst possible thing that can happen.  So I must have treated my body pretty well never to feel under the weather, with the exception of a hangover here or there.  My eating habits over the past 4 months have been suprisingly pretty good. Thinking back on it, I probably ate better on this trip than I did any year in college (except for freshman year in the dorms).  I found myself eating almost 1-2 pieces of fruit everyday and eating breakfast, lunch, dinner almost every day of the weak. Yea, being on a pretty strict budget I couldn't afford 5 star meals every night with every ingredient possible, but I made the most of it. I also discovered I am taking less of the things I don't like out of my food and eating them.  Mostly vegetables.  Things I never used to eat I have started eating, and I dont really know why.  They include mushrooms, capsicums, cucumbers, and tomatoes.  Out of these 4, tomatoes have made way into my taste buds the most.  At times I still don't like eating them but sometimes they can be quite tasty and can really improve a certain meal, sandwhich, or salad.

Highlights of the trip

Here will be a quick rundown of some of my favorite things/nights/travel spots on the Trip

- Spending time relaxing at my favorite Sydney destinations, Manly Beach, Coogee Beach, Darling Harbour, Sydney Harbour, The Botanical Gardens

- Losing my debit card in the first weeks of being in Sydney and finding it without any harm done
- Newtown Festival the second week in Sydney
- Working at Gate Gourmet
- Pearl Jam and Ben Harper Concert at Sydney Football Stadium
- Living at Home Backpackers in Sydney and meeting new people outside on the deck every night, the best night was Wednesday, Free Wine and Cheese Night
- That 1 night I got kicked out of Scruffy Murphy's bar for my "swaying" dance moves
- Times out at the Sydney bars with my favorite friends
- New Years Eve overlooking Sydney's Harbour and a multimillion dollar firework show

- Taking the long Greyhound bus rides and listening to some epic playlists on my Ipod, favorites were The Grateful Dead, Bob Marley, and Creedence Clearwater Revival.
- Byron Bay
- Meeting up with my German girlfriends in Brisbane and cooking and eating that great dinner at the hostel
- Noosa National Park Bush Walk
- Day trip to Croc Hunter's Australia Zoo
- Fraser Island 4 wheel trip beach camping trip.

- When I urinated on a guys leg after he got stung by a blue bottle jellyfish
- Australian Day and partying and dancing in the rain on Magnetic Island
- The Magnetic Island bush walk in the pouring rain
- The Great Barrier Reef snorkel trip
- The hot wings and Blue Sky brewery in Cairns
- Kuranda adventure bushwalk and Barron Falls

- Great Ocean Road trip out of Melbourne
- Returning to Sydney, seeing all my friends for one last time

2 downsides of the trip

Well these are the two, and I think if these are the worst of it, it shows I didn't have to bad of a time.

-Night and morning in Surfers paradise after that one unknown strawberry shot before the pub crawl that put me down for the count and made my life and bus ride a living hell.

- This next one has been bottled up by me for the past 2 months.  I hate to think about it, but it happened.  I was involved in a large backpacker scam with 6 other of my roomates while I was staying at my apartment in Surry Hills, Sydney. None of us received our $300 dollar security bond back.  We all got played by our shady and shitty landlord.  This is something that I saw coming, I never signed a contract or anything. Like most of the time, I am partially to blame.  But anyhow what happened to me and my roomates is a very common thing in Sydney. These shady apartment renters taking advantage of backpackers.  I was given constant excuses that the owner was out of the country and couldn't get my money back till he came back.  My other roomates were told to give them their bank details and it would be transfered to them. Well those promises were never followed thru. We all got shafted.  Moving On, this was obviously right before I was taking off for my east coast trip, always having money on my mind.  $300 backpacking goes a long way but I did my best to not think about it.  I couldnt let something ruin my time.  Yes it sucks now, it sucked then, and it was worth about 1 and a half weeks accomodation, but I tell myself this.  Come a couple months I will hopefully have a job, that $300 dollars will be about 1 - 3 days work...no need to ruin a trip over 3 days work, just not worth it. Yes, extremely unfortunate it happened and yes I tried to put up a bit of a fight but got nowhere and eventually it wasn't worth my time, stress or effort.

Thats it, and I always try to look at the bright side of life. Im alive, I am travelling the world, I am healthy and am right where I want to be.  Just another learning experience in my life and a warning to other backpackers, be aware.

Final Thoughts

Despite the above, everything on this trip was flawless.  Some of the most memorable 4 months of my life and proud of myself I made it happen. I always wondered what Australia would be like and it always interested me.  Well I conquered it, well not all of it, but a good chunk. Pretty big country.  I like the fact that I have travelled more around Australia than I have travelled the in the States.  The world is where its at, there is so much to see and learn from it. New cultures, new places, new food, who wouldn't want to experience it? I see this trip as a 5th year in college, because to be honest, I think you can learn just as much in the outside world than in a classroom or textbook, if not more.

It's been a great one Australia, hope to see you again someday mate.

Fraser Island

Rainbow Beach - departure point to Fraser Island

The bus got into Rainbow Beach at 1230 where I checked into the hostel, Dingos Backpackers Adventure Resort, yet another great accomodation stop along the coast.  At 130 I had a briefing for the camping safari that was coming the next day.  During this orientation we were told all about safety and things to know while exploring the largest sand island in the world in our 4 wheel drive jeeps. We were put into our groups. There were 6 groups in total, of around 10 people a group. In mine, 1 couple from Holland, 1 couple from Sweden, 1 girl from Taiwan, 4 girls from Germany.  With the heaps of single girls in the jeep you may be thinking o joe what a lucky guy...well the girls were not too much of lookers, unfortunately for me.  There were pros and cons of my group. More on this later.  After we acquainted ourselves we went thru our alcohol order form where we decided how much alcohol we wanted to bring on the trip.  Turned out being the right amount. 60 beers and 3 bags of goon.

After about a 2 hour orientation, I met at the hostel reception to catch a free shuttle to the nearby local attraction Carlo Sandblow.

Not ever hearing of a sandblow I didnt really know what to expect, when I finally reached it after a short hike, I was truly amazed.  Yes it was basically heaps of sand but the whole concept behind it amazed me.  This sandblow over hundreds of year has basically covered everything in its path, including hundreds of trees and forest floors.  It was interesting to see the "end" of it and see the trees beneath it, waiting to be smothered in the sandblows path over the next several years.

Epic Sky here at the Sandblow

Day 1

The start of the Fraser Island 4 wheel drive adventure began bright and early at 730. The hostel served us a complimentary pancake breakfast, great way to start the day.  We were all in our groups when we headed out back to go see our vehicles.  We then went thru another lengthy briefing.  This time mostly about the jeeps and driving safely in the sand.  This took about an hr or 2. Note: I was originally planning to drive, but forgot to consider it would be a manual vehicle, not knowing stick shift, driving the vehicle was now out of the picture, it was a bit of a bummer. From there we inspected our vehicles, obtained all our food for the next three days and loaded up the top of the jeep with all our gear.

My Group

Finally around 10 in the morning we were on our way to the ferry to head onto the island. The ferry took around 10 minutes.  Everyone was stoked to begin the trip.

A bit worried about getting carsick sitting in a jam packed jeep with 9 other people on unknown sand roads, I surprisingly never got sick on the entire trip. Having never driven on sand before I didn't know what to expect, it was pretty good. It reminded me alot of the Indiana Jones ride at disneyland. A lot of ups and downs, swaying left and right.  There was a lot to know when driving, for example knowing when to be in 4wd or 2wd, avoiding the bumps, getting out of the soft sand, and being careful when there were streams leading into the ocean.

Enjoyin the ride with driver Yori from Holland

After making our way up the beach, we made it to the inland road that led us to the highlight spot of the 3 days, Lake Mackenzie. Wow what a beautiful lake, the most beautiful lake I have ever seen in my entire life, probably second to Lake Louise in Banff.  The whitest sand beach I have seen and the most blue and cleanest lake I have seen.

After the long drive, it was time to enjoy the water.  The girl (Emma) from Taiwan, had an underwater camera. It was pretty cool. We had some good fun with it.

Me and Kristian & Camella from Sweden

Nike represent

Our lake time was cut a bit short because it is impossible to drive the beach on hight tide so we had to leave early in order to successfully make it to our campsite on the beach for the night.

We made it tour our Maheno camp suceesfully, and the nightime fun commenced.  All 6 jeeps were camped here so we made it one big party.  We made a semicircle with our cars and set up our tents in the circle, greating a great atmosphere.  From there it was time for dinner.  Emma turned out to be an unbelievable cook, I reckon the best on the entire island. Every other group was jealous of our groups food on each night. The first night was a delicious chicken stir fry. So good.

Dingoes, a sort of dog/wolf are the aniamls of the island. They roam it during the day and night.  They can bite so it is best to keep your distance. There were heaps around our campsite and was always a bit timid while going to take a piss out in nature after a few vbs.  The dingoes on Fraser Island our the purest breed of Dingo in the world.  Here is a picture I snapped on the last day.

The night was one big party.  My group, especially the 4 german girls were a bunch of limpers, they went to bed early, around 10 oclock. Being with the other 5 groups I was thankful because my group was not too much of a party.  Everyone got together and played some drinking games and had a good time.  After a good amount of VBs with Yori and Kristian from my group we decided to go on a beach walk adventure in the night.  Let me first of start by saying that the stars on this night were the best I have seen in my entire life. I guess I would attribute it being on an almost deserted island, but I have never seen so many stars in the sky. It is to bad no picture would have captured what I saw.  It made the night that more enjoyable.

So this beach walk consisted on a lengthy walk to the nearby Maheno shipwreck, a place that we would visit the next morning.  After a few beers, being under the lit up star sky and on constant lookout for wild dingos, it really was a great adventure.  The beach was pitch black and we were headed to an abandoned shopwreck, about a mile or so down the beach.  Along the walk we came across tons of sandcrabs, some close jellyfish encounters and 1 frog.  I was really caught off guard seeing a large frog/toad on the beach. We had some fun with it.

When we finally approached the shipwreck it was pretty trippy, especially being so dark and having the waves crashing up against it.  It was a fun time with my new two friends.

We then headed back to camp after hiding from the park ranger for a bit. From there I met a french gril and a swiss girl where we stargazed and shared drinks and stories.  After that I headed to my tent, who I shared with 2 Germans, 1 a bit large who cramped my tent space.  By that time of the night tho I managed to get to bed fairly easily.

Day 2

Day 2 on the largest sand island in the world started bright and early around 6am.  The sun was hot on the tent and we had to depart early to escape high tide.  I woke up surprisingly feeling refreshed and started the day with a quick saltwater rinse.  No showers, toilets or anything, this was a pure campout.

Our first stop was the Maheno shipwreck, which I already experienced the night before. It definitely was not as cool in the day time, but was still worth a couple of pictures.

From there we had about an hour drive up the beach to the north part of the island, a place called Indian Head. Here was the pristine lookout point for the island, where it is common to see all types of marinelife in the ocean from the view above.

Well about 10 minutes in we spotted our first sea turtle.  After that a pair of stingrays, and from there a small shark.  Good stuff.

From there we walked further north, since our jeeps were not allowed to go this far north on the island, to the Champagne pools, saltwater tide pools on the ocean front.

As Yori, his girlfriend Iris and I were approaching the pathway to the Champagne pools, a lad came running towards us screaming in pain. He had just been stung by a jelly fish. I recognized him from one of our 6 groups.  This guy(Brendan) was in immense pain and we just sat there clueless of what to do. No cell phone reception, no transport, no lifeguard on the entire island.  He had gotten stung on the ankle. He told us his leg had started to tingle all over and he was starting to feel sick in his stomach.  Some jellyfish here are capable of killing you, if not atleast putting you in the hospital for a couple of days.  This guy started fearing the worse.  The proper ingerdients to relieve a sting is vinegar and ice water, and we definitely did not have any of this.  After seeking some advice from an older couple there was one possible remedy, urine.  With this guys friends not in sight yet, I stepped up to the plate and offered my fresh warm piss.  This guy was in so much pain he was willing to try anything. As I sit and write here before you today, yes, I ended up urininating on this guys leg!  Thankfully there was a nearby bathroom.  The whole situation was a bit awkard naturally, I first thought I would have trouble doing it, but I think seeing this guys pain it was more of me really wanting to help him out, I had no trouble going.

I have always heard rumors of this, and felt a bit like Bear Grylls from Man vs Wild.  To this day I am not sure if this helped, I have read in some articles that urine does nothing to relieve the pain. Plus I dont think the night before with beer and goon in my urine tract helped out to much.

This guy continued to stay real sick, felt sick to his stomach, and could hardly stand.  We were able to get some ointment from a family and some ice water.  Soon there was a large crowd gathered around us and finally his friends had found him. When the piss story was announce, I was viewed as a man of courage, some sort of hero.  The guy that got stung said it really didnt feel any better after the piss, he just got a warm foot out of the awkward situation.  We eventually were able to get him a ride back to his vehicle near Indian Head.

After the ordeal was over, and seeing this guys pain it was safe to say I was not going to chance it swimming in the Champagne pools. The stinger he described was a blue bottle jellyfish, said to make you sick for around 2-3 days.  After checking out the pools I headed back to Indian Head, where I saw the sting victim and he seemed to be doing better, he decided to not go to a doctor.

The entire day I kept on reminiscing on what had just occcured, I just pissed on someone else...it was all pretty funny and great at the same time. I think the recipient would have a different outlook. Anyway, it was definitely the talk of the groups.

After a quick lunch we all hopped back in our jeeps and headed for Eli Creek.  Here was just a creek a bit inland, were we were able to rinse off/a sort of shower.  It felt great.

Yori, Kristian and I

From there we headed into Happy Valley, a small town with 1 shop, a campground and 1 hostel.  There we stocked up on ice to refill our coolers that were filled with food and beer supply.  We then headed for our night 2 campsite at Gambala.

The Group

Dinner was once again top notch cooked by Chef Emma. Tonight, Steak, an unbelievable potato salad, and a vegetable salad.  Pretty great for camping food!

Had another great night, yet another limper performance my my group but was able to take advantage of our excess beer supply.  The stars were out in full force again and played drinking games with heaps of people deep into the morning. It was also great to rekindle the piss story and enjoy a nice cold one with the guy I pissed on hours earlier in the day, (yea he was feeling much better that night, almost 100%)

I ended the night being practically rolled on by the big German in my tent, pretty uncomfortable, i gave her a big elbow and that was settled.

Day 3

The last and final day on our trip.  Just a quick trip away from our campsite was Lake Wabby.  We headed out of our campsite at around 7am.

Lake Wabby was real nice but came no where close in comparison to beautiful Lake Mackenzie.  The one plus of Wabby were the catfish.  There were heaps of them.  Also they enjoyed nibbling your dead skin on your body if you stood still enough. I guess this is an expensive spa treatment in some places, and we had it for free...felt great.

Enjoyin Wabby and Catfish

The Men of the Group

After a 4 or 5 straight hours in the lake it was time to head off to catch our 3 oclock ferry back to the mainland.  We took one final group photo before we took off

Recap

It was a great 3 days. We were blessed we great weather, hot however all three days.  I became great friends with some people in my group, especially the Swedish and Dutch couple.  Thankful our behicle passed inspection and we were not charged any excess damage fees.  This reminded me alot of Davis Houseboats but does not come close.  Camping on the beach was great and enjoyed the stars.  Dingos are pretty cool animals, harmless as far as I am concerned, had some close encounters but they scurried away.

Fraser wuill proabably be the hightlight of the east coast trip.  Being the largest sand island you can immagine there was sand everywhere.   it was great to get back and take a fresh shower.

The night we got back, my new Swedish and Dutch friends finished off our excess beers over at Carlo Sandblow.  Will miss them but plan to see them again in the future.

OUT