Some of you know that i'm a bit of a Europhile when it comes to traveling. if i'm not visiting my family in south america, all my recent trips have been to one european country or three (including the work related trips i was able to wrangle). There's something I love about the history and culture and architecture that I love that draws me in a way that other continents couldn't.

So when we were planning this trip I was really invested in the european and south american portions, and the rest of it was just bonus. Erin would go on and on about how excited she was about going to Australia, and I could only think of my short time in New Zealand and hope that we could spend some time exploring the south island, which i hadn't gotten to do (rugby=work).

But I have been blown away by how awesome Australia is. The longer I spend here, the more I love it. As I'm so behind on my post writing, and I don't know how you, dear readers, enjoy the bible length posts we sometimes write, I will try to synopsize our trip since my last post:

Bali (not part of Australia, but it's been a while):
Bali was nice. Here we are again in a country where if you eat with the locals, your full meal including bottled water will cost $2, but a (delicious) cocktail at a tourist spot will cost you $12. We thought the food would be unique and amazing, but it was fair to pretty good. The beach was nice, but we actually spent the majority of our time in the middle of the island in a city made famous by Julia Roberts. We don't do yoga, so we didn't partake in that, but we did drive a 50cc scooter about 250 km around the islands looking at temples, rice patties, monkey sanctuaries (those are some rascally buggers) and small towns. I like traffic in these lesser developed countries - do your best to nose your way into traffic without getting hit,  lanes are a suggestion, and who says a family of four can't fit on a small scooter with their groceries. But we were still in recovery mode, so when our "home-stay" with a local artist ended up not being a cultural experience but just a delightfully cheap hotel, we didn't complain. vacation complete.

Sydney:
Sydney was kind of what I expected from Australia. We saw a couple sites, but spent much of our time preoccupied with finding a car. We hung out in Newtown, which was supposed to be the cool spot, but I was a little disappointed with the options of eating and going out. Not to mention the price of everything.  But it was fun to meet Erin's extended family, walk around the harbor (have some delicious seafood) and to go to a museum dedicated to the prison colony origin of the country.

Blue Mountains:
When we procured a car our first stop was the Blue Mountains. It's a mountain range that has a kind of natural blue smog about it because of the sap in the trees or the oil in the ground or something - we got conflicting stories. It was pretty, but the best part was meeting up with a friend of Erin's from her CS days. It's nice to hang out with someone new, and Susie (or Pink, as Erin would flip flop her name when telling stories about her), was a great companion for a bit. I thank her for making me watch Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. I may not have laughed at all, but it was a cultural cornerstone, especially as we inch closer to Alice Springs. There were some really great hikes, which we shared with our defacto dutch friend, Dennis, who liked hiking but didn't have a car.

Route to Melbourne:
Outside of Canberra we bid farewell to Pink, who graciously donated her copy of a biography on William Buckley, an Englishman who was sent to Australia as a prisoner but escaped and lived with the aboriginals for 32 years back in 1832 (Thank you! it's been an awesome read so far). We started toward the coast, but then changed course and went through the Snowy Mountains. No, I have never seen or read the book, but the area was pretty, and there was a tiny bit of snow on the tops of the mountains (namesake safe). It was luckily my day to drive because we went through 70km of very windy roads which were fun for me, but nauseating for Erin. It took us a bit longer to reach Melbourne than we thought so we camped one night on the edge of a lake that was filled in over a town. Bummer for the town, but it was oddly cool to see trees everywhere in a lake.

Melbourne:
All the information we had on the town was a tiny slip of paper Erin had cut out of her long abandoned lonely planet guide that said to check out Brunswick street for bohemian cafes and bars. That sounded right up our alley and it was. The Fitzroy was like a white Mission district (since there are sadly no Mexican here - can a sister get a quesadilla please?!), so i guess maybe it's a present day Brooklyn. I bought a few new shirts (10 points if you can spot them in our new pics), and we searched for a place to stay that night. Failing that, we had a drink, ate some pintxos, and watched a woman play pj harvey, indigo girls and radiohead covers. And watched an apparently epic rainstorm approaching. Then we found a spot in a deserted aussie football stadium parking lot and called it a night. I have to say, we only spent 2 days here, opposed to 4 days in sydney, but Melbourne wins. i could live here.

Since then we've been along the great ocean road, kangaroo island and we're in the middle of traveling around the Barossa and Clare wine valleys. A self proclaimed city girl, I again had reserved my enthusiasm for other parts of the trip, but by now I am ready to buy myself a pair of Blundstones, a piece of land, and live on the land. But more on that later.
 - SB

I consider myself something of a lover of road trips, so when I read that the Great Ocean Road was one of the world's best road trips I was pretty excited.  The GOR is a winding road similar to the Hwy 1 on the California Coast, tracing a path from Melbourne to Adelaide on the southern most coast of Australia.  The guidebooks tout that it weaves past unparalleled natural beauty, friendly wildlife and delicious seafood.  I cannot imagine a better combination.  I love natural beauty (how can you not), friendly wildlife means potentially cuddly koala bears, and delicious seafood….can't complain about that either.  Yay for the Great Ocean Road!

Months before, when planning how we were going to do this drive from my comfortable couch in California, it was a little tricky to figure out the little details - like when we would be leaving and how far we would want to drive each day.  The first day we unfortunately got started a bit late, got stuck in traffic, stopped for lunch, and generally dawdled, which meant not starting the drive until after 5pm.  This meant that we were rushing by some of the famous lookout points trying to get to our pre-chosen place of rest for the evening.  Passing up all of those spots was upsetting, since I had been looking forward to them for months.  I tried to not get too upset about it, thinking, "oh, I'm sure that waterfall isn't that beautiful.  Hmmm….bet you couldn't see all that much from that lookout point anyway…"  But by the time we reached the campsite I was nearly in tears thinking of all that we'd missed.  

After making dinner at our campsite that night, Steph and I discussed.  We decided that it might be worth it to turn around and start over.  Steph pointed out that when people had asked me what I was looking forward to seeing most in Australia, I would often list the Great Ocean Road before the Great Barrier Reef, Sydney, and The Red Center.  So we decided that even though we would be backtracking (which we both hate), we would turn around.  It was similar to making it all the way to Big Sur from San Francisco, and deciding to turn around, drive back to the city and start over.  

Totally worth it.  We saw waterfalls, stopped and had delicious (and really expensive) fish an chips.  We stopped at all the lookouts, I took about a hundred photos, we saw our first koalas (more on that later), and we were able to get to the Twelve Apostles for sunset.  Perfect.  The Twelve Apostles are probably the most famous sight on the Great Ocean Road.  They are a series of rock chimneys that stick out of the ocean near the coast.  They were formed by the ocean crashing into the shore over millions of years, breaking away large sections of rock, ultimately leaving these 'Twelve Apostles' behind to fend for themselves against the rough ocean waters.  They're doing okay so far.  Every thirty years or so, large sections collapse or crumble, and new ones are created.  One plaque that we read explained about how in 1990 a couple had crossed a land bridge to one of the apostles, and after getting there, the bridge unexpectedly collapsed leaving the two stranded on top of the apostle for several hours.  Yikes.  We were able to see these both at sunset and at midday, and I have to say, they are pretty awe-inspiring at any time of day.  When driving by the rock formations, there are lookout points along the road about every 300 meters or so, and I stopped at every single one.  By the fifth or sixth one, Steph would just stay in the car, unless I would drag her out claiming to have seen penguins or something else spectacular.  We did not see penguins. 

We spent a total of two nights on the GOR, camping in the same place both nights.  It was a campsite at the tip of Cape Otway (about halfway between the beginning and end), and the campsite brochure had made the promise that campers would be 'sleeping under koalas'.  I tried not to get my hopes up too much about that, as it seemed like one of those promises that is easily made and then when the koalas aren't there the friendly campsite manager claims that you showed up in the wrong season, or that you're not looking hard enough.  So as we pulled into the campground and peered into the trees hoping to catch our first glimpse of a koala, I was secretly skeptical.  Tree after tree was koala-free.  I began to feel a little disheartened.  Then we saw him.  Sleeping directly above the road on the most impossibly skinny branch was my first koala.  We screeched to a stop in the middle of the road (as much screeching as you can do when driving 5 mph), both of us squealing and greeting the little guy in the voice that I generally reserve for my two cats.  If my sister would have been with us she would have been in full-tilt eye roll in the back seat.  After that first sighting we saw one koala after another, mostly sleeping, sometimes eating, and once we even saw a small fight break out.  Luckily they just tussled for a minute, stared each other down, then retreated to opposite trees.  We went on a couple of walks through the campground and ran into more koalas than I can count - including one mother protectively cradling her baby.  I think they actually designed teddy bears directly after koalas.  They are THAT cute.  The only time that they are potentially not cute is when they are making their very distinctive mating/territorial calls at 4am.  It sounds like a cross between a dog barking and a bullfrog croaking, and is VERY loud in a campground when  all the koalas are trying to claim their territory in the middle of the night.

All in all, the Great Ocean Road is worth the hype.  It's hard to go wrong when surrounded by so much beauty.  After the GOR, we made our way towards Kangaroo Island - another place that I had read about during my research period, but unfortunately knew much less about.  And it seemed like it was going to be expensive to get over there.  So the last 100 kilometers of the Great Ocean Road, we spent plowing through informational pamphlets deciding on whether it was worth the time and expense of getting over to this little island off the coast of Southern Australia.  I'll let you know all about that in my next post.

-EC     

Ongoing writing about this trip has been a little challenging.  Between the lack of time, lack of space (writing on the computer in the passenger seat of a car is recipe for motion-sickness), lack of internet, and at times, lack of anything interesting to say.  You'd think that with seeing so many amazing places, that I would always be full of interesting things to write about, but unfortunately, due to one factor or another, some posts are better than others.  Some places that we go strike me more than others, and the ones that don't, I write about more as a form of communication with my loved ones than anything else.  It's a great way to feel like I'm talking to my mom or my sister or my roommates. It's comforting when I'm feeling a bit homesick, and I either don't have internet or it's a totally inappropriate time to call back home, like 2am.  Or in my mom's case, 10pm.  Take Bali, for example.  Bali was great, beautiful and a virtual tropical paradise.  But it was also dirty and touristy and over-crowded, and I have to say, I wasn't particularly sad to be leaving.  But then there are places like Prague or right now, Australia.  And when I have a lot to say about somewhere, I can go on and on - as any of you who have been reading this blog consistently have seen.  

With Australia I feel like I could wax on and on about one natural wonder after another.  It's just my type of place.  With each new bend in the road I feel inclined to stop the car (to Steph's dismay, at times) to check out something new and beautiful.  It's a truly awe-inspiring country.  We flew into Sydney on November 1st, which was exactly the halfway point of the trip (!).  I had a few things I wanted to get done in Sydney - seeing the opera house, the harbor bridge, hitting a museum or two, having dinner with some cousins and buying a car.  Yes, that's right.  Purchasing a vehicle.  In doing research about the country, I read many blogs about the best and cheapest ways to do things down here, and buying a car was on the top of most peoples' lists.  Pick up a crappy car that runs well enough to get you a few thousand kilometers, then sell it back when you're done.  Easy peasy.  We were thinking we would spend about $1000, then sell it back for about $600 - paying a third of what we could rent a car for.  It's amazing to me now, a week later, how easy I thought that would be.  

We started by going to a used car lot that specialized in backpacker rentals.  He didn't have a car for less than $5,000.  We went home and went online.  We found many cars for about $1000, though often the advertisement would read something like, "1997 Toyota Camry, LOOKS GREAT, needs engine".  We also found many cars that seemed to be in great shape, but the registration had run out.  No big deal, we thought, we'll just go get it registered and we'll be on our way.  So we looked into registration.  Australia has made it as non-user friendly as possible, with each car needing some combination of a pink slip, a blue slip and a green slip, depending on the age, make, model, location, and current legality of the car.  And even if we managed to get all that figured out, the entire thing looked to be close to $800 to complete.  Sigh.  After wasting nearly an entire day of sitting around the house doing research, we opted for a rental.  So now we have Sally (my name choice, Steph is still deciding if she likes it), a brand new Hundai Elantra.  I was sad for a day, renting a fancy new car is not nearly as adventurous, but it sure is easier.  

Other than that, Sydney was quite a success.  We got everything done that we needed to, including having the best fancy meal of the trip with my three cousins, Danielle, MIchelle and Josh.  It was one of those epic, 6-course, 'so many good things that you aren't sure what to eat next' sort of meals.  It was also a great opportunity to catch up with some family that I haven't really talked to in nearly 20 years.  We also paid a visit to the Sydney Fish Market, where I saw fish that I have never seen before, and had the best sashimi of my life.  I'm still thinking about how good that was.  The opera house and the bridge were great, but after seeing so many amazing thousand-year-old buildings in Europe, it's a little hard for anything modern to compete. 

After Sydney we headed to the Blue Mountains, an area about an hour outside of the city where the city-dwellers come to see nature.  We met up with a good friend of mine from my couchsurfing days, and spent two days hiking, talking and admiring the blue hue to the mountains that apparently comes from the evaporation of the sap in the trees.  I don't know any more than that - you'll have to look it up if you're interested.  Then we headed south through the Snowy Mountains (and I tried to recount the movie, 'The Man from Snowy River' to Steph, but since i haven't seen it since I was about 7, I had a hard time), stopping at small towns and lookouts along the way.  Australia has an amazing system of roadside rest areas that make road trips exponentially easier and cheaper than they are in the US.  Not only are there free and clean restrooms nearly every 75 kilometers, there are also roadside picnic areas complete with gas BBQs that are free to use.  So anytime you are feeling hungry, instead of stopping for fast food or eating a cold sandwich, you can cook a little meal, rinse of the dishes in the handy faucet provided, then head on your way.  Delightful.  And if that weren't enough, many of these picnic areas have a small amount of space for people to camp for the night.  Camping in these places is "not allowed", but if you keep it to one night, no one seems to bother you.


Through the Snowy Mountains we took a roundabout scenic route to Melbourne.  Melbourne was another town that we both thought we would like to live in - lots of cute cafes, bars and Bohemian culture.  The one downside for us, was that we didn't plan well enough to organize a couch, and when we went to a hostel, we found out the price for one night was a minimum of $60 - for a 12-bed dorm.  Which is well above our budget.  So we sent off a few emergency last minute couch requests, but in the end, found ourselves without a place to sleep for the night at 11pm.  No big deal, I thought.  Sally will take care of us.  So we drove to a secluded spot, backed into the spot, wrapped ourselves in sleeping bags, put the chairs back as far as they would go, and tried to get a little sleep.  Not the best sleep I've ever had in my life.  Not only did it happen to be a horrible thunderstorm outside, but I was also worried about security or police knocking on the window, and by day-break, I had probably slept total of three hours. Steph faired a little better, since she can sleep soundly on an airport tarmac with 747's roaring overhead.  Luckily, in the emergency requests we sent, we were able to secure a place to stay for the next night, so I was able to catch up.  

After Melbourne we headed out to the Great Ocean Road, which is something I had been looking forward to since we started planning the trip.  I wasn't the slightest bit disappointed.  But I think I'll have to wait until the next post to write about that, seeing as how this one has already gotten longer than I thought it would.  But rest assured, I'm looking forward to writing about it.  Koalas, kangaroos, a beautiful coastline and an epic road trip.  Hard not to be excited.

Until next time.

-EC

We probably couldn't have chosen a more drastic change of scenery.  We took a long taxi drive to the airport in Amman through a desert filled with brown boxy buildings.  It was so dry we could hardly sweat even though it was over 90 degrees.  Then we landed in Bali.  A part of Indonesia that is basically a jungle island, with lush green trees peaking out from everywhere you can see.  The buildings are incredibly ornate and anything but boxy.  The second we stepped off the plane we were both dripping with sweat.  Dry brown boxy to lush green ornate.  It felt a little bit like Dorothy stepping out of her Kansas house into munchkin land.  

When we were choosing our route around the world, we decided to add Bali onto the trip at the last minute.  We had pretty well decided to cut it when we looked at the flight path from Amman to Sydney and realized that we would fly directly over Indonesia.  It seemed silly not to stop.  And I figured we would need a few days of rest in a tropical paradise to get over the jet lag.  

The tricky thing about going to Bali was that I didn't do any research before we went.  I did research on almost everywhere except for Bali, actually.  In fact, I did so little, that up until two days before we got on our plane headed to our tropical paradise I (embarrassingly) still thought that Bali was a city.  It's not, it's an Island with a ton of different cities.  Obviously I haven't read 'Eat, Pray, Love'.  Though, in the end, I think it was better to be a little under-researched.  It helped us (me) to relax and feel content just laying on a beach staring at the ocean sipping fresh watermelon juice.  It's amazing (and sad) I feel guilty doing that sometimes, right?  I believe I have an extreme case of 'FOMS'* that makes it hard for me to relax sometimes.   

Our first two days in Bali were spent in Sanur, a somewhat quiet beach town on the Southern Coast of the island.  When we bought our RTW plane tickets as one big package our travel company threw in three nights of fancy hotels as a thank you - and we chose to spend two of those nights in Sanur.  This meant we had a hotel with a private beach, a pool, bocce court, two-course breakfast and a heavenly shower.  Honestly, it was hard to leave.  All those luxury amenities were nice, but it was the shower that got me.  I have gotten so used to camping showers or showers in peoples homes that I had forgotten how luxurious a fancy shower can feel.  I think I took three in two days.  I wish I could tell more stories about Sanur, but really, we went on a couple of walks around the town, went out to dinner twice, and other than that, we stayed pretty close to home.

After Sanur we decided to head up to Ubud, which is supposed to be the 'arts and crafts' capital of Bali.  And, as we found out after we arrived, where she 'prays' in the book.  Ubud seems to be the center of tourism in Bali (unless you count Kuta, which is mostly an Australian surfing town that we avoided), and not only are there hundreds of shops bursting with Balianese art, the food scene is supposedly the best on the island(!), and if that wasn't enough, there is a monkey forest filled with hundreds of mostly friendly tame monkeys that you can play with for about two dollars.  

The monkey forest was the first stop on our itinerary.  I miss cuddling with my cats in San Francisco so much I take almost any opportunity to interact with cute potentially cuddly animals.  I went into the monkey forest with high hopes.  Unfortunately, the monkeys are a little more scheming and a little less cuddly - their social graces were not their strongest suit.  As we walked around we ooh'd and ahh'd about the little baby monkeys (not actually as cute as you would think) and then winced as adults would get into fights over the babies, which usually involved one adult grabbing one baby ear and one grabbing the other and both pulling - all while the baby shrieked in pain.  Not so cuddly.  The monkeys are trained to know that visitors with cameras often bring food, so the moment you sit down anywhere they come to inspect.  But if you don't have anything for them, they lose interest quickly.  Unless of course, you have a water bottle.  Who knows why these interest them so much, but they can't keep their little monkey hands off of them - which is why there is a huge sign at the entrance of the park asking for people NOT to bring in their water bottles.  

I think you can see where this is going.  Steph had a water bottle, and decided that since it wasn't plastic, then it was no big deal and the monkeys wouldn't be interested.  Wrong.  A couple tried to sneak it out of her backpack, but we thwarted their plans.  Steph was quick to shoo them away, which seemed to work - until they tried a different tactic.  They waited until we were sitting down, then they double teamed her.  One came up from one side, pretending to be cuddly, and as soon as she was distracted (and I was distracted by taking a picture of said cuddly monkey), another came from the other side and grabbed the bottle and ran.  Sneaky little things.  She tried to get it back, but he stared her down and showed her his teeth.  She approached, but he reared back and threatened to attack.  Then he taunted her by pulling off the duct tape that she keeps wrapped around the water bottle for emergency use.  Finally we had to get assistance from a park attendant, who, after a very exaggerated eye roll threw a few bananas at the monkey who grudgingly traded the bottle for food.  Like I said, these guys are smart.

Apart from the monkey forest we rented a scooter and buzzed around the island a bit.  Steph has a motorcycle that she misses dearly in SF, so was excited to be on two wheels again.  Though, I have to say, being on the back of a 125cc scooter for six hours is not exactly comfortable.  We rode through the rice patties and villages, attempting to get a sense for what life on Bali is actually like.  Not an easy thing to do in one or two days, but I can say, Bali is an absolutely beautiful place, and deserves more than the total of six days we spent there.  The food is also good, and we went pretty far out of our way at times to get the 'best' or this or the 'best' of that.  We tried loads of fried rice dishes with vegetables and egg.  We tried roasted pig with spicy salsa and rice.  Noodles.  Fruit juices.  Fried duck.  I made a 24-hour ahead reservation at one restaurant that specialized in 12-hour smoked duck for two.  The food was good, but not mind-blowingly delicious like Thailand was when I was there several years ago.  Can't have everything I suppose.  

We've now been in Australia for a week, and we're in Melbourne now, getting ready to head out onto the Great Ocean Road, rated one of the best road-trips in the world.  We've been doing quite a lot of camping, and so far Australia is pretty amazing.  Even more beautiful than I ever could have hoped for.  Can't wait to tell you about it.

-EC

*  'Fear Of Missing Something'