Ahh Sydney…where to start…

I arrived at my first hostel in Sydney – at the Rocks. The Rocks is essentially the Portland Old Port of Sydney. The rooftop had an amazing view of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. I spent the next couple days exploring the area and taking in the beer and food festivals going on! I also managed to catch the ferry out to Manly and explore North Head National Park and hike around to Manly Beach. The trail was not well marked, and sometimes not marked at all so it was a fair amount of backtracking and guessing – but I made it! I passed Shelly Beach – which was essentially a party beach. Everyone was using the BBQs and the beach was packed!

I spent Monday – Friday at Bondi Beach – at the Bondi Beach House hostel. This was surf central. I signed up for 3 surf lessons – I recommend spacing them out with a few days in between. The first two days were amazing. I was already on the shorter board making turns and taking on green waves. By day 3 I couldn’t move my arms. I had to call it quits a little before the lesson ended because it really wasn’t safe for me to be out. I was physically exhausted and because of that and the extreme surf, I had already taken a surfboard to the head, inhaled about 3 gallons of water and fell so hard on the sand bar I’m pretty sure I had an instant bruise on my ass.

My hostels in Sydney and Bondi were 4 people and 6 people. For the most part it was good. I’ve met some really interesting people from different places. Everyone asks about the current political climate, as they are extremely concerned about what will happen and what he worldwide implications will be if a certain individual lacking political experience becomes president of the US. That has been a hotter topic than the death of the Great Barrier Reef.

Just made it to New Zealand and am thankfully staying at and AirBnB in Queenstown for the next couple weeks. Chris, a friend from Portland and was actually able to join for a couple weeks so I’ll have some company exploring the South Island of New Zealand!

I was told I needed to incorporate some Aussie slang into this post.. So there are a couple terms included below!

I left Melbourne and made my way to Perth (Western Australia) to visit my friend Roland and his girlfriend Lauren. Roland spent a year at UMaine in the same MBA program I was in back in 2010. They picked me up at the airport and we almost immediately headed out to Swan Valley to the wineries. Lamont’s was by far our favorite because Scott was running the show. As he mixed himself a Bloody Mary, he introduced himself as a bitter old man – and to check the trip advisor reviews if we didn’t believe him. He was hilarious! Sarcasm at its finest.

The next day we explored Fremantle – or as the locals call it, Freo. We did a tour of the Fremantle Prison which was interesting – it closed in 1991 and had pretty brutal facilities up until then. If women weren’t working, they were essentially left outside in a cage in the blistering hot sun with no shade. They also didn’t have any hot water for bathing. It was almost as if it was from the early 1900s instead of 1991!

We went out for dinner/drinks to a super cool brewery called Little Creatures right on the water where I tried kangaroo! I also learned that because there is no ozone layer over Australia, sun burns are common. They had massive containers of sunscreen hanging from the trees on the patio.

The following day, after strolling through Kings Park, we headed a little south to Serpentine National Park. We spent the afternoon doing a 13km hike up to the second falls. We wrapped up the day visiting the Serpentine Dam and watching the sunset from a viewing point. It’s wildflower season here so the wild flowers and sheer number of South African water lilies was incredible!

Yesterday we took a drive a few hours north to go the the Pinnacles Desert National Park and a remote beach. The Pinnacles are these rock formations that were formed around 500,000 years ago. There were so many it looked like a little city! It was also the day the flies hatched.. Which made it almost unbearable. I felt like a livestock animal that couldn’t get away from them.

Nearby we stopped for a squiz (a quick look) at Lake Thetis (more like a pond) to see the stromatolites. Stromatolites are similar to one of the earliest living organisms in the world that provided oxygen. A little further north in Western Australia, the Pilbara is home to stromatolite fossils that are 3.4 billion years old.

After the Pinnacles we took the Jeep to Wedge Island. You need a 4×4 to get out there – because it’s essentially off-road, sand dune and beach driving. It was stunning and tropical. The water was crystal clear. We were one of only a handful of trucks on a 3 mile stretch. It amazed me how perfect the beach was in every way and to have virtually no one there. The water was warm enough and the sun was hot, so we enjoyed some relaxation and wine for a while before heading back. Unlike the beaches in Europe, no budgie smugglers (banana hammocks) were seen!

I just arrived in Sydney and will be here for about a week before heading to New Zealand!

After pretty much fully recovering from jet lag, I met up with a guy who took me to St. Kilda’s beach to check out the little penguins. They make their homes right off the boardwalk there. It was amazing…cute little guys just walking around the boardwalk or hopping around the rocks. You couldn’t use flash because it would blind them, but you can see we were able to get pretty close!