Melbourne to Sydney Day 2

oday I got up really early again. We all got up at 6am but in reality it was only 5am because we had to put the clocks back the night before to accomodate for it getting darker earlier. We left the hostel and on the drive spotted all kinds of wildlife - kangaroos, wallabies, emus, cows and even a rooster on the road! I got some really nice pictures of the snowy mountains (I promise to put them up in the future).
We passed by an area called Suggan Buggan where there was this really really old and tiny school.
Finally we reached out hostel in Lake Jindabyne. It was actually a motel/hotel and was by far the cleanest coziest place I have been to so far. We had out own fridge, tv and kettle in the room. There were 4 bunk beds and 1 double bed and we were only 6 people in the room so it was a nice. After lunch, we drove to Charlotes pass where lies Mt. Kozciviszko, Australia's tallest mountain at 228km! We ended up climbing up halfway to a lake known as Blue Lake. It was FREEZING and most of us, including me, had changed into shorts because it was so hot when we had lunch. The hike was 5km to the lake but a lot of fun because Luke, our TRES COOL guide, kept finding all sorts of bugs and anumals to look at. I saw a skink, alpine grasshopper and a millipede. I missed it but he also found a wolf spider.
After the hike, we went back to the motel/hotel where we played drinking games all night. The group I'm with is made up of really great people. I wasn't the only canadian this time. There was this guy from Calgary named Kyle who happened to go to high school with Stephanie, the girl I lived with for 3 months in Sydney. Small world eh? The othets were from England, Wales, Sweden and there was a guy from California.

Melbourne to Sydney Day 1

Today I got up at 5:30am and hoped onto the Adventure Tours bus. First we got to St. Kilda where I had to pay 60$ for the 2 nights accomadation, breakfast and park fees. 1 hour later we had breakfast in the tiny town of Yarragon. About 2 and half hours later we reached Barnsdale where we had lunch and finally after that reached Karoonda Park where we were going to stay the night. As part of the extra activities we could do, some did this thing called a flying fox, where you strap yourself to a cable and glide accross a tiny lake in the forest. I chose to do Rock climbing instead. Inside the hostel we were in was a gym type room with a ping pong table, volley ball net and a climbing wall. For 12$ I ended having a proper home cooked meal. It was SO good! I had some appetizers, soup, chicken and then chocolate cake for dessert.

Melbourne Day 66

[NOTE: I am currently on the move and it is difficult to update this weblog at the same rate I am doing things, and believe me I'm doing A LOT of things as of late. Therefore I have started writing my entires in a real journal and will recopy them onto this blog. I want to try and label the comments on the same days I actually wrote them down in the journal. Therefore, some post will appear all at once with several past dates. I hope this won't confuse anyone. Right now it is in fact March 30th and I am in Sydney but this post is about my last day in Melbourne on March 24th. Enjoy!]

Last night I went to Dallas with this canadian guy I met at the hostel named Graham. He was from Vancouver. Dallas is the all you can drink/kareoke bar I went to almost every thursday while in Melbourne. It was a lot of fun and it sadened me to leave it behind. Today I went and bought 2 CDs for to listen to on the upcoming trip - Queens of the Stonage's Lullibies to Paralyze and The Mars Volta's Fances the Mute. Both really good disks! I later met up with Nick a british guy I met through IEP and went to watch a comedy show I had tickets for. It was called Best of the Edinburgh Fest. the headliner weas actually from Calgary and asked if any other Canadians were present. I was the only one. Since I announced my attendance whenever he made a Canadian joke he'd always say "my Montreal friend knows what I'm talking about!". The whole show itself was a lot of fun.

Melbourne Day 66

So it finally paid off. Since I'm leaving saturday from the beautiful city of Melbourne I decided to squeeze in just one more street art painting (pictures to come in the near future I promise). This time I went all out and did a comic book super hero called Deadpool. It was so complicated because it was so detailed. After 3 hours I hardly got far so I called it quicks and returned the next day. Tuesday was a much better day I finished the other 2/3 of the picture within 4 hours. I also got to meet a lot of nice people. I would always mark that I'm from Canada near my money box so a few people who come and ask where in Canada I"m from and then tell me what part they are form and we'd chat about our travels and how we enjoy Melbourne, etc. In fact I met a lovely couple in their 50s from calgary who were originally from Montreal but moved away during the first referndum scare back in the 70s. The woman was from Cote St. Luc so of course she was Jewish and the couple insited on not only taking my picture but taking down my parents e-mail address and mailing them a photo and a short message on how they are travelling around australia and met this nice boy from Canada i.e. me. They insisted my parents are worried about me and thsi way they would know I"m still alive. It was the weirdest thing and I can't wait to hear my moms reaction when she gets this e-mail from strangers with my photo in it.
WhenI finally finished the picture, I packed my stuff up and ended up earning $9.20! That was the most ever! So being a tuesday I treated myself to a 5$ movie (Be Cool - it was an amusing movie btu I never saw Get Shorty so I didn't get a lot fo the inside jokes) and then headed to a bar (Birdie O'Reileys) that has kareoke and 4$ Guiness pints on tuesdays. I even got to hang out with some Melbournians! I finally meet some actual people from Melbourne but I'm just about to leave! I may meet up with them one more time. All in all it was a great night.

Melbourne Day 61

First off, I'd just like to apologize to everyone who received this invitation for some website called Hi5. All it is is basically a "friends network". You join the website and then get your friends to join and now I have a record of how many friends I have and through them I can meet other people. I recieved one of these e-mails and by accident pushed the wrong button and ended up sending aninvitation to everyone on myu hotmail address book. I have over 300 people on that address book so all of you who recieved this junk e-mail, I apologize.

In other news, I have been quite busy these last few days working out my next leg of my trip.
Here is a map of Australia!
What I have done so far is start in Sydney and live there for 3 months then I flew to Adelaide where I spent 1 night followed by a 3 day drive to Melbourne where I have been living for 2 months.
My plans are to leave Melbourne on March 28th and do a three day trip to Sydney where I will spend 1 night in a hostel. The following day I will make my way up to the Blue Mountains which are 2 hours away from the city. I'm staying there 1 night and then returning back to the hostel the next day. The following mornign I'm back on the bus for a 3 day trip to Byron Bay whcih I plan on staying there for 5 days. Once i'm done soaking up the sun it's off to Surfurs Paradise in the Gold Coast which is in Queensland. I havn't booked any hostels after Byron Bay but I'm planning on going to Brisbane. Working at Peter Pan, the travel agent, as a flyer guy paid off! I just exchanged the 205$ I earned for 20.5 hours of work for a 3 day canoe trip in this place called Noosa. It looks amazing! I also got 2 nights free in a hostel in Noosa and 1 night in Brisbane with the money I earned. I have a lot planned for after noosa but it's so far away I'll worry about it when I get there, besides I'l be really busy with what I'm already going to do that I won't even have time to think about it!
Here are a couple of maps to help you get a better idea of my trip:
New South Wales
Queensland

Melbourne Day 56

I'm extremely tired and hungry right now but I have to right this down so I won't forget it happened!
I got home at 3:30am last night from partying with my work friends and at about 7am I got woken up to "FIRE! FIRE!" *Bang on the door*. I was so out of it but we all got outside and then the firetrucks showed up. it ended up just being a small garbage fire but there wasn't even an alarm that informed everyone of the potential danger, only a smoke alarm in one room went off. Before we even knew it was ony a small fire, while standing outside, the owner opens her window and looks out at us all confused and we're all yelling at her to get out quick! After about 20 minutes we were all allowed to go back inside to which I slept another 5 hours. Lets hope in the next 2 weeks i"m still here this is the worse it gets.

Melbourne Day 54

no much has happened in the past week. The wether was cold at first but this weekend has really gotten beautiful. It's now around 30 degress celsius! Perfect timing shince this weekend is the Moomba (Water) Festival. It basically a lot of activities, live shows and a full carnival with rides and what not along the Yarra River. The Yarra River basically runs right along the outskirts of the major city center. I went by there on Friday, when they were first setting it up but there weren't that many people there because it was early. Monday, however is not only my day off work but it's also Labour Day. Thankfully I do have the day off since restaurants usually don't close on such holidays and mine definitely is still open. Also my friend Tyler who I met in Sydney and hung out with in Melbourne (who;s from Ontario) is coming back today into Melbourne so hopefuly he'll stick around a couple of days and we can hit up the fest together.

Other than that, I tried street painting again. I went to a completely different area this time and I loved it! The pavement was not as smooth so I was able to get really dark and thick colours out of my drawing. I went to an area usually dominated by this amazing artist. He/she had about 10 murals on along the sidewalk and they look like they would take hours to draw. Then I come along and I drew Bartman! It looked really awesome though. I took tons of pics of it and will put them online as soon as I get the chance. Hopefully sometime next week I'll get a chance to go back to the same spot and do another drawing.

Melbourne Day 47

I finally decided I had enough of Melbourne. Dont get me wrong, I love the city and have been having a great time out here but I still have so much more of Australia I want to see and time is flying by! Come March 26th, i'm be on a bus heading up the east coast.

Aside from that, today my hair has finally gotten long enough fo rme to start gelling it again.

And as promised - PHOTOS!:

Street Art - As I have mentioned before, I have a permit which allows me to draw on the street and make a little bit of cash. I havn't done it since my hat with money got stolen the last time but here are photos of the first two pictures I did (click on the highlighted words):
BUD - For my first drawing I tried a graffiti logo of the word BUD. For my first try, I quite like it. I earned 40 cents with it.
Charlie Brown and Snoopy - For my second picture I figured I'd draw something people would recognize. The colors are a bit off since I didn't have any black at the time. A lot of people enjoyed it and took pictures of it but I only earned 50 cents. It was a step up though!

Meet the Neighbours - These are pics from a special night I went to at a bar called The Elephant and the Wheel Barrow. Melbourne is home to a very famous prime time soap called Neighbours. The show revovles around the lives of people that live on a street called Ramsey St. The show is filmed in a studio in Melbourne but any scenes involving the outside of houses is actually shot on a REAL street in Melbourne (who's real name is not Ramsey). The show isn't that popular in Australia but is geared more for british people. Thatnight at the bar was a chance to meet 3 actors from the show. I went with my friends James and Fiona (the ones wearing the Neighbours T-shirts) who are die hard fans and having seen the show 3 times, I thought the night was ok, but they were going crazy! The whole bar was filled with brits so I felt kind of out of place. But now I have pictures with actors that no one knows! For the record I met the characters known as Tody, Izzie and Dr. Karl.

Royal Botanical Gardens - It's seems that every city has a Royal Botanical Gardens. The Melbourne one is quite beautiful and right in the middle is a huge Shrine of Remembrance for soldiers lost in past wars.

St Kilda Beach - Here are photos from the St Kilda Area in Melbourne. It's basically the beach area in Melbourne. Lots of bars and night life. I went there at night and got to see a penguin! The last pic is of a star fish someone caught on their fishing line.

St Kilda Festival - On Feburary 13th, all the major streets of St Kilda shut down and were filled with people for a huge festival. It was a lot of fun. The pic of people making out infront of a stage was the attempt to break the world record of most people kissing at once for 30 seconds. Malaysia held the current record of 12000 and according to officials Melbourne was just short a few thousand people. The other 2 pics of the stage are of a famous melbourne musician, Xavier Rudd. He plays all his insturments himself at once and his music is very similar to Jack Johnson.

Night with Carolin from Germany - Carolin was this nice German I met at the hostel we hung out a bit. These are pics from a night we went to a few bars for some live entertainment along Brunswick Street. First we listened to an irish folk jazz band and then we went to another bar and listened to a latino hip hop ensemble. They were really cool and the night was a lot of fun. Carolin has since returned to Germany btu we've been in contact since she has left her camera in my hostel room and I'm trying ot send it back to her. I lost her address, so the process is slow. Hopefully I won't lose her friendship either, hehe.

Phew! That took a long time to set up! I hope you enjoy all the pics. I'm bound to have tons more in the future!

Melbourne Day 44

As I promised - more photos!
I didn't have enough time to upload all of my latest pics but here are pics from Australia Day - Jan 26th!
Enjoy and I promise to put the rest up later this week.

Melbourne Day 43

Alright so In the past week I've actually done more sightseeing. I went back to the Center of the Moving Image, this time with this German guy I met named Greg, and saw more shirt animation films. Some are really great. Afterwards I ended up at the Kylie Minogue exhibit at the Art Center. It is filled with Kylie clothes, awards, records and videos. She is ONE TINY PERSON. She is the size of Gary Coleman. Following that I went to this Art Gallery that had an exhibit called Grotesque and had images from artists in the 1500's about their interpertation on stuff like Satan and mystical creatures, etc. It was quite good. Not bad for a full day of activities and all of them were free!

Today marked the first day of the Grand Prix. Being the 10th anniversary of it being in Melbourne, the city made today a free event and I went down to the race track which is built around a lake in a place called Albert Park with a bunch of friends from the hostel. We just hung out all day on the side lying on teh grasss and watching the cars go by. Just before I left because it was so sunny today and I felt I was int eh sun for too long, there was a race between a normal BMW, a Super V8 car (Nascar racing) and an F1 racer. They gave the BMW a 15 second headstart over the Super V8 and 27 seconds later of the super car left, the f1 caught up to follow. It was crazy, The second car caught up withthe BMW and then the F1 racer was right behind. In the end, the F1 car passed the V* and just barely won by like a fraction of a second!

Still plenty of more to come in Melbourne for the month of March. There is a comedy festival as well as a food and wine fest and other stuff. I'm planning on staying until April so hopefully I'll be able to check everything out.

Melbourne Day 39

Well I've been pretty busy the last few days. My boss at my job nformed me that the old dishwasher guy came back so now i have to share shifts with him and I'm only down for 3 maybe for shifts this week so I tried doing stuff to keep busy. Tuesay I went to the Melbourne Museuma nd saw an AMAZING exhibit on insects. They had boxs of household spiders on display and let me tell you they aren't tin like the ones back home. I really enjoyed th eexihibit because rather than just show pictures of movies of how, say, a colonie of ants behave, they had an ACTUAL colonie behind glass. It was really something. Then Tuesday night I got a call from my friend Matt V. who I worked with in Sydney at Jordans. He was in town so we got together to catch up on things. It was fun talking to him and learn about all the cool things he's been doing on his trip. I also me this American girl in my room named Laura and we ended up checking out this place called the Australian Centre of the Moving Image (I thin kthats the name) and it had a sction with movie screen where we watched a bunch of animation shorts made by people who go to an Australian Animation school or some sort. The movies were really fun to watch. Afterwards we made our way upstairs to this art exhibition. One floor was Aboriginal Art and the other was historical Australian art form the 19th century but then we got tired and left.
Today I started a new job as a... wait for it... FLYER HANDOUT GUY! I basically have to stand in fron t of this internet/travel agent place accross the street from my hostel and say "15 free minutes of internet with this voucher! 2$ per hour but if you book one of our wonderful trips you become a gold member and get 1$/hour internet!". I'm so tired form talking so much tonight I'm not going to talk at all! (I know that for me it's hard to believe but its the truth!) I'm not really getting paid cash but I'll make 10$/hour and get to redeem it for one of their trips which can be used up to 6 months so I"m bound to find somethign I want to do and save a couple of hundred bucks. Or if I opt out for money I'll get 8$/hour after tax which isn't great but I won't get any moeny until I finish my time here in April so at least it's going to be saved up a little no matter which option I choose.

Expect tons of pictures of things soon!

Melbourne Day 36

Wow! I've been here over a month.
Yesturday was the Bris (circumcision) of my little nephew Charles! The whole family was together in Toronto for it. I wish I could have been there but I'll get a chance to see my nephew when I return to Canada.

Today was a crazy day. I woke up to discover my shampoo and conditioner was gone. Either I left it in the shower or someone took it but either way I need to buy new bottles of both. Afterwards I decided since I had no work today to try the street painting again. The last tiemI did it I made 50 cents. This time I went all out and bout cheap washable black paint and did this huge graffiti picture of the word 'Melbourne'. A lot of people came by to comment on it while I was doing it and at first my hat was empty but then it filled up with change. I might have had about 3-4$! However, afer about spending 3 hours on the street, when I didn't notice, someone swipped my baseball cap with the money in it! The money is nothing, I don't care abour 3$ but I loved that hat! I had it for about 5 years and it had 2 kool pins I got - one from the billy talen concert I was at and on from when I saw Interpol. Things got better shorlty after though when this guy from Malaysia commented on my drawing and was talking to me about graffiti art. He showed me his portfollio he just 'happened' to have on him and it was amazing! Him and his 'crew' can do some really awesome grafitti stuff. He had picturesd of walls and other things he's designed like cd covers and t-shirts. He gave me his e-mail and said we should go for a beer sometime so maybe i"ll folow up the offer. Then I went back to finishing the picture. It came out REALLY AWESOME and even though my hat got stolen I'm happy with the result and got some really good photos of it which I'll post onteh website soon.
The only other thing to add to this crazy day was on the way home someone handed me a flyer and it happened to be for Jews For Jesus. I havn't met any Jews and now i"m seing Jews for Jesus! I thought that was really HILARIOUS!
Well I"m tired and starving so I"m off to make a giant meal of chicken stir fry of (if my food hasn't been stolen! haha)

Melbourne Day 26

Good news and bad news. Good news: I am now employed! I'm currently a professional dishwasher at an italian restaurant called Di Palma and a cafe called Royal Domain Cafe. I worked 55 - 60 hours this week and because of it comes the bad news: I'm sick (BOO!). So I got this weekend off work and am resting up in the hostel. I stocked up on cold remedy supplies - Kleenex, cough drops, cold medicine, orange juice, chicken soup, etc. and I slept a bit better last night so I'm feeling better but still need lots of rest. I'm not too sure what I'll do this weekend if anything but maybe anice walk will do me justice. It's not too hot right now (pants and sweater weather) so some fresh air might be great.

In other news, I present to you all CHARLES SIMON BUDMAN (YAY!):

Melbourne Day 20

We break from the regular scheduled program to bring you this important news update:

I"M AN UNCLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last night my sister in law gave birth to CHARLES SIMON BUDMAN, the newest addition to the Budman clan weighing in at a whopping 8 pounds 9 ounces.

MAZOL TOV CONNIE AND MARK!

Melbourne Day 19

Wow time is flying! I'm in Australia almost 4 months!

Looking back now I realized I forgot to include pictures of one of the most talked about thing on the great ocean road: The Twelve Apostles. And THIS is what they look like. The picture is tough to really see them properly but they are fantastic. There aren't really 12 of them, there are only about 8 or 9 and 1 collapsed a few years ago, but basically it's just these tall skinnet rock formations in the water close to the shorline.

I don't have the time or energy to put up more pictures right now on the computer but I still have a lot of great stuff to show. You'll just have to wait until I get back to see the rest on this part of the trip (if I show everything now there won't be anything to talk about when I get back home, haha). I promise I'll have more pictures of OTHER things though in the near future.

So basically I made it to Melbourne and have been up to a lot fo stuff since I got here. I spent 1 week in a hostel called Hotel Bakpak and promised myself I wouldn't do any work and just have fun. And fun was had by all. I went to a tennis match in the Australian Open. I randomly bought a ticket and ended up seeing Federer (world #1) play against some guy Suzuki. I also discovered this bar called Dallas. For 8$ you can get free refills of you glass for 2 1 hour peeiods (9-10pm and 11pm-12am) AND there is free kareoke! I've been there three weeks in a row now and sang about 8 songs. They know me now by face and I'm becoming friendly with the bouncer (always good to have big strong friends). Also, on January 26th was Austrlia day. I went to watch the fireworks display they had and bot was it something!
For the past 2 weeks I've been looking for a job. After not hearing anything from anyone and almost giving up, I ended up getting 3 job offers at once. Right now I'm a dishwasher at a tiny italian restaurant called Di Palmas. It's nice and laid back there and the people I'm working with are all a lot of fun. I've only worked there for 2 shifts so far and already feel accepted in the group. I opened my big mouth when my boss told me to not work too hard and chance tiring out too fast and mentioned that I was a 'machine'. For the rest of the shift he just kept calling me 'his machine' and if someone was distracting me he'd say 'Don't break my machine!' haha! On monday I'm trrying out a day job as a kitchenhand in a tiny cafe and if I can handle them both I'll work at both places and make a few extra bucks. Speaking of that, I thought I figured a way to make a few extra dollars but was terribly wrong. I endedup applying for a free busking permit. I am now legally allowed to draw on the sidewalk on 2 streets in the city. I saw a guy doing it and asked him how he got to do it and where he got his supplies. For TWO dollars I bougth a giant bucket of street chalk and spent 2 hours drawing this graffiti type thing on the street. I figured I'd make a few bucks... I made 40 cents! It was cloudy though so maybe on a sunnier day I'll be able to make a few extra dollars.

I better get going, I need to get things done before work.

Melbourne Day 11

Since my last post I started getting settled in the city. I have moved hostels. I went from a large expensive one to a much smaller, quiter and cheaper hostel. Plus, I convinced the friends I made at the old place to come with me and on top of that, my british friends that I made in Sydney are also staying there until the end of this week. Also, I met these four canadian girls from Saskatoon who are also staying in the same room as my british friends.

Besides the move, I've spent all this past week looking for a job. I'll admit it hasn't been easy but finally today I got two interviews lined up for monday and tuesday. The jobs are to be a sandwich hand and a kitchen hand. Nothing exotic but it's something and both are not too far from the hostel. Also, January 26th was Australia day! I ended going to a busking competition and saw some real funny street performers and some talented magicians and jugglers. At night I saw a great fireworks display and took a free boat ride on the Yarra River.

Now back to the details of my trip!
By the end of the second day of the trip we made it to the beginning on of the great ocean road. It sure was great, with all these crazy rock formations and beautiful views of the ocean. Our first stop was at the Bay of Islands. It had this huge rock cliff face and all around were these 'island' formations. Next, we ended up at the Bay of Martyrs. We walked along the beach and found all kinds of things washed up on the beach. The waves were really cool and we just had a lot of fun goofing around. We even found a blow fish on the beach. At first it looked dead but then we noticed it was still breathing. Firie tried pushing it back in to the water but on the way back to the bus we saw it again on the sand but this time upside down. R.I.P fishy! After the Bay of Martyrs we went to check out London Bridge. The story behond the name is that up until 1990, it was just a long path with two archways underneath it but in 1990, the one closer more inland collapsed, leaving it as it looks today, hence the name London Bridge (London Bridge is falling down...). When it happened, everyone ran off before they were stuck on the rock except a couple that looked happy in love. Well, apperently, the news helicopters came and filmed them stuck on the rock and turns out that the man was having an affair and his wife saw him and his girlfriend on national television! Our next stop was the Archway followed by the Loch Ard Gorge. It was named so after a boat in 1878 crashed, killing 54 people. There were two survivors, a young woman and the first mate of the ship, who ended up at the Gorge. It's a wonder how they got out, the place is HUGE! There were helpful signs stating that you can balace on waves and that there are portals in the water!

I still got more to talk about but I'll stop here since I'm getting sleepy. I promise really soon more pictures!

Melbourne Day 5

That's right! I'm currently in Melbourne. WARNING: I have a LOT to say about what I've done in the past couple of weeks so this is going to be a LONG one. There are also lots and lots of PICTURES!!! Please note, I have to keep deleting old ones to put up newer ones so in the future, the links may not lead you to anywhere. Here goes:

I had my last shift at Jordon's on January 14th at 9am. It was a nice last shift. Not too busy and I got to enjoy myself one last time. After work, I went to the apartment to finish packing and then made my way to Cohi Bar to meet up with everyone from work for one last time. So many people came up to say goodbye, it was really something. Even George, one of my managers, made an effort to come and buy me a drink even though he still had work to do in the restaurant. He even gave me this super duper reference letter to help me find a job elsewhere in Australia!

The next morning, after having about 4 hours of sleep, I got up at 6:30am and made my way to the airport. After a 2 hour flight I landed in Adelaide. Adelaide is west of Sydney in the state of South Australia. I was only staying in Adelaide for one day so I just walked around for a bit. I ended up at the Adelaide Zoo. I quite liked it and got to see a lot of Australian animals as well as other anumals from around the world. You can see the pictures by clicking HERE!
After the zoo, I went to the hostel I was staying in called My Place. It was a nice little place and every guest was German except me.

The next morning I jumped on the tour I had payed for and started to make my way to Melbourne. It was a three day tour from Adelaide to Melbourne. I had originally booked with a company called Oz Experience, where youhop on a giant coach bus and travel with tons of other people. Well, it turns out there is not a big demands for a trip between Adelaide and Melbourne, so Oz Experience sold that leg of the journey to a smaller company called Adveture Tours Australia. We were on a smaller bus instead and the groups was only 13 people. The small group made it a lot of fun, actually. I was the only North American let alone Canadian. The others were from Switzerland, Belgium, England, Denmark, Germany and Holland. Two girls from Switzerland and one from Belgium happen to be french speaking so I spoke french with the for 3 days! I'm a little rusty but it was a lot of fun trying to practice my french.

In three days, I saw and did so much, it was just too much fun. I have a lot of photos to show so I'm going to change the format I normally have set up to see photos. For those of you who do not know, just click on the highlighted, underlined words and the photos will pop up (mom and dad I'm looking at you here).

The drivers nick name was Firie. He used to be a fireman and took a break from it to do these tours. Our first stop was a short one at Bordertown. Basically, it was a town halfway between Adelaide and the South Australi/Victoria border. We got off the bus to see a small jail cell that got converted into a bathroom stall. Also, the orginal police station was still around and it was so small that a large bakery was biult around it.

Afterwards, we stopped briefly at the Bordertown Wildlife Park and saw WHITE Kangaroos! Apperently in 1980 a guy found a white kangaroo in the wild. Kangaroos are normally not white so he took the kangaroo and sent it to his sister in Bordertown who owned an animal reserve. In 1984, they successfully breeded another white Kangaroo and now they have a whole park filled with them!

Next was a quick stop at Pink Lake. The water is pink because the lake is filled with the Alga plant that produced Keratine which leaves a film of pink on the surface of the lake. Really cool!


After a bit of a drive we finally came into view of The Grampians, a chain of jagged mountains. We then climbed up one of the mountains known as Hollow Mountain. The climb was well worth it because the views from the top were phenominal. Click HERE!

After a quick encounter of almost hitting a Kangaroo!!......sign.... we ended up at McKenzie Falls. This was followed by a trip to Reids Lookout where we got to see Wahtook Lake and then a short walk to a rock formation known as The Balconies. I also got to see a wallabie (small kangaroo) in the wild! The night ended by staying over in a tiny hostel in Hals Gap.

The second started early with another walk through mountains. We went through the Mt Williams Range where I got to see The Grand Canyon, Silent Street and at the top of the mountain, the Pinnacle. Click HERE! to see the view from the Pinnacle.

I still have a lot I want to say but it's a beatiful day outside and this is taking a lot longer then I had expected. I'll give all of you a while to sink all of this in and in my next post I'll write and show pictures about all the really awesome things I saw on the GREAT OCEAN ROAD!

Sydney Day 98

Only 4 more days in Sydney! Saturday morning I'll be on a plane to Adelaide. I already confirmed everything and I'm all set. Tonight is my second to last shift at work and I officially finish on friday. For my last week, it's been pretty relaxing. I only had to work Monday, Wednesday and Friday of this week and on Friday I have a mornign shift so I don't need ot work until midnight of anything.

Last night I went over for dinner at my relatives for one last time before I leave Sydney. They truley are great people and even though I called themon monday, they didn't think twice on inviting me out for dinner the very next day, no questions asked! I will miss them but I will be back in Sydney at least 2 more times before I go back home to Canada.

Last night after dinner, I went to my new temporary home and found a few cockroahces underneath my bundle of clothes so out of reaction, I vleaned off my bed and made sure there were none there and then went through ALL my clothes. Once I saw they were bug free, I packed everything back into my bag and then I moved aroundthe tingsin the room to find the hidden cockroches. I killed about 5 of them and 1 got away. I then took tape and paper towels and sealed any holes I found and this big grate in the wall. I even sealed the bottom of the door so none can come in from the hallway. Afterwards I was on my bed and saw the one I missed crawling on my sleeping bag! I made so much noise banging on the floor to kill them and moving th ebed that I woke up the person sleeping underneath me... oops! I did a double check before sleeping and the coast was clear. I put a trap under the bed and today I noticed some dead cockroches so it seems to be working since I think they hide under the bed. I've decided I"m going to skip the kitchen form now on and just eat out because yesturday when I bought some spray and used it in the kitchen, instead of killing the few I saw crawling on the sink, I ended up freaking them out and then tons of them started coming out from the walls and cracks and were just EVERYWHERE! Well at least I know what to avoid for when I'm looking for a place in the future. It's just terrible that the people who live there just don't care anymore and are not doing anythign about it. Thankfully I'm only there for 3 more days.

Sydney Day 96

Yesturday my lease at my apartment was up and I moved into my friends place. He lives on the adjacent street from my old place so the walk was short. As soon as I walked in, before I could even take off my bag, one of the guys hands me a beer and says "welcome!". After having the tour of the place, I learnt quite quickly that it's a typical student joint, similar to any place I've seen in the McGill Ghetto. Beer bottles on the floor, pizza boxes in the kitchen, novelty posters like "Crew Only Beyound This Point" located on the bathroom door, and of course, stolen street signs. The kitchen is pretty dirty but the room I'm staying in is extremely clean, big, and even has a patio. Last night I slept on teh couch but tonight i'll get the bed since, Mark, the guy who invited me to stay is going ot be in Tazmania for the rest of the week. Hey, at least I have a bed and I/m not paying alot of money for it. It's still only 5 minutes form work and thats what's great about it.

It's quite sad what has happened with the Tsunami and all that but it's great to hear that Australia is really helping out. Red Cross alone donated 64 million $'s and there must be over 100 million from all of Australian combined. Even though it wasn't my decision, I even donated some money to the Tsunami victims. As I mentioned ebfore, I had a great time on New Years eve, well, it turns out a lot of alcohol went missing form the bar at work that night and the genral manager decided to bust everyone who had a drink. I never knew the rule for staff drinks was 1 beer and having had 3 beers, I got in tourble for it, so as punishemnt, the general manager donated my tips, which must have been at LEAST 100$ to some charity. It sucks but things happen and at least in turn it's for a good cause. I hope everything works out in all those countries int eh coming months.

Finally, since my last post, I went to Many beacha nd tried surfing again. This time I was horrible. I didn't have my goggles because it was all last minute. The water seemed a bit more rough and instead of surfing I felt liek I just got beaten up by the surfboard.I had so many bruises and cuts. On top of that some girl in a bikini laughed at me for falling off my board. Don't worry though, it's not going to stop me from trying it again in the future.

As promised, more pics:

Christmas and New Years Eve

Pauls Final Night at Jordans

Sydney Day 89

Happy New Years Everyone!

Since my last post, I've basically been working and getting myself organized for whats to come. Oh yeah, and also having fun!

On New years eve I had to work. I ended up working until 2am but it was a lot of fun and I also got to see the Darling Harbour fireworks quite up close. Since all the customers got up to watch them, the managers didn't mind if we took a 10 minute break to watch as well. After work I ended up at a bar and two house parties. The last party, George, the most awesome manager I've ever had for a boss in a restaurant, even showed up even though he had to work at 12pm on New Years Day. By 6am I called it quits. New Years day itself, all I did was sleep in until 3pm, chatted with family back home on the phone and went to work at 5pm.

Thats basically all that I did for celebration. Aside from that, I booked a place in Melbourne to stay for the first week when I arrive. Also, I fixed my apartment problem and someone from work offered me a spare room in his apartment for the last week I'm in Sydney. It's comepletely bare but I know someoner else from work who will lend me an air matress so thats not too bad. it's better than paying 170$ to stay in a hostel and heeps better than the 240$ I'd have to pay if I stayed in my place that final week.

Speaking about my place, I'm glad that I'm getting out when I am because it's just getting too crazy in there. Currently we have THREE lorean girls in the living room bringing our total to 9 people in one place! One of them has to sleep on the floor!

Anyways, may everyone have a great year ahead of them. I'm going to put up more pictures very soon and even a movie of the fireworks I took with my camera.