Australia

Saturday, December 13, 2008

The End

I woke up super early and super nervous about catching my flights. I settled everything with Whitley, checked out and waited patiently for my Shuttle bus to pick me up. It never came. I think the office ladies thought I was crazy when I burst in crying that the bus forgot me. Apparently when I made the arrangement the day before the man forgot to write it down -figures. Anyway, they got me on the next bus and I made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare. All of my luggage was exactly the right amount weight-wise, so I was carrying around 2 seventy pound bags before I got checked in plus my carry-ons. The flight out of Melbourne was delayed but I was just so happy to get on that plane, have a free beer and relax for the first time all morning. I was having a hard time sleeping so I watched 3 movies and TV between naps and meals. Of course by the time I reached LA I had missed all my connecting flights so I was stuck. Fortunately, I got bumped onto an earlier flight to Chicago - but then I got stuck there. I didn't get into to Philly until 10:30, 3 hours later than expected - it could have been worse. My mom was sick so only was Phil was there to greet me but I was overjoyed at the sight of a familiar face. And so my adventure ends.

Thank you so much to everyone following my experiences - I hope it inspires you to see the world if life gives you the chance. I hope one day to get back to Australia and visit all of my new friends and favorite places. For right now I need to focus on graduating and joining the real world. Cheers and have a happy holidays!!!

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Day 138 - The Last Day

I started my day with more packing and then decided to pop over to the Melbounre Zoo so that I would feel more pressured to stay up late - hence making me tired for the 14 hour flight I will be taking on Tuesday. The zoo wasn't bad, but it was over flowing with school kids and they were loud and pushy. I think I may just be zoo-ed out at the moment, I've just seen so many while I was here. I came back to Whitley for a late lunch and then headed out for a couple of last minute errands to Brunnie and Lygon Street. The rest of my evening was spent packing and freaking out about flights. (They changed one in the USA without notifying me - jerks!)

Day 137 - One last market trip

In the morning, Rosie and I headed to the Vic Markets for one final attempt at picking up last minute gifts. We also returned our hired gear and enjoyed a milkshake! Yum! I saw her off to the train station - so sad. I dedicated the rest of the day to packing. It was a long and painful process. I was so sure I was going to be overweight - I fail at throwing things out/leaving them behind.

Day 136 - Return to Melbourne

We woke up early once more - to rain and being wet and cold. We packed up the car and our suitcases quickly while eating brekkie. We made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare. The lady at the check in made us put on all of our wet clothes so our carryons would be within the weight limit as if the weight hadn't just been redistributed to our bodies. Grr. Anyway the flight took off on time and we were back in Melbourne by 11:20am (it's only an hour flight). Rosie's boyfriend picked us up and we helped Victoria gather her belongs and then bid her farewell (she's off to New Zealand for a few weeks). I set about unpacking and drying out gear and getting wash done while Rosie helped get her boyfriend all packed up. After Scott left we went and got some pizza making supplies and proceded to create some yummy dinner before calling it an early night.

Day 135- TAS - Wine Glass Bay

I woke up early one last time in an attempt to see the sun rise. Unfortunately I miscalculated the rising point again - but it was still pretty. The others got up early too (we needed to make it back to the car before the chocolate all melted) . We started the day with a swim in the freezing waters of wine glass bay. It was beautiful but COLD! After that we hiked back out of the bay - the stairs up were wicked and it took us a long time to get out. Eventually we made it back to the car and discovered the chocolate was still solid. We stopped for morning tea and I ran up to the visitor's center while Victoria and Rosie wrote some postcards. We decided to stop at the light house on the way out - it was pretty cold and windy though. We made a good decision getting out of the park early since it turned so ugly. We started our drive to Launceston (the wrong way unfortunately) - needless to say we figured it out after a little while and then restarted our journey in the right direction. We stopped for a car-lunch break and to look at a roadkill Devil :0( We got to Launceston pretty early and after some frustrating traffic patterns in the city center managed to find the visitor's center and get some camping info and directions to Cataract Gorge. We hiked the Gorge into the evening and once again just barely beat the rain. It was terrible weather during the night and I go soaked sleeping next to our broken flap.

Goodbye Australia

I love sunrises

Brrrr

Another invader - I literally slapped him on the bum when he stuck his nose in our food bag - he didn't even flinch!!

Purty

Hooded Plover

Wine Glass Bay in the morning

Whoa windy!

Launceston

Cataract Gorge

The first basin (complete with swimming pool and terrifying chairlift)

Day 134 - TAS - Mt. Field and Hobart

Our plan to sleep in a little was ruined by the camp manager banging on our tent door at 7am. We hadn't been able to register the night before because there were no envelopes left. Grr. Anyway I told him that and he gave us one. We decided to wake up and get showers and move on our way. After brekkie and getting cleaned up we headed for the visitor's center. We hiked a 2 hourish loop to some waterfalls before getting back in the car. The forest was really impressive but it was raining and we were pretty wet by the end of it all. We decided to visit the Cadbury factory instead of actually going into the city of Hobart. Needless to say I bought way too much chocolate - but it was soo cheap. We made one last quick stop for supplies and then headed onward up the East coast to Wine Glass Bay. The weather was overcast but no longer raining so the drive didn't take as long. We passed some Opium fields and some wild turkeys, that was the point when Victoria and I realized it was Thanksgiving - oops. At least we saw turkeys. We reached the Wine Glass Bay parking lot about quarter after 7 and started preparing for our hike ( we planned to hike in to the beach campsite and spend the night). Some over-friendly wallabies invaded our stuff which made the packing go a lot slower and of course we tried to scare them away but it didn't work. Soon we were hiking our way up the hill to get into the bay. We managed to only walk the last 1/2 hour in the dark and it was on the beach so it wasn't too bad. There was another couple in the campground as well. The mozzies (Mosquitoes) were awful but they went away has the night cooled off. We made dinner by my torch light and a possum and her baby nearly climbed into my lap!

Tree huggers

Waterfall

Wet

A giant Yabbie (crawdad)- That is not a small log people

Gobble Gobble

opium

Driving on the wrong side!!!

Artistic via Victoria

Over-friendly wallaby (she's not actually touching it)

I asked him to shake and he did

"sit"

True backpackers

Wine Glass Bay at dusk

Monday, December 1, 2008

Day 133 - TAS - Cradle Mountain

We woke super early to get a good start on the mountain. The weather was supposed to be fine in the morning with some clouds building in the afternoon. It was pretty overcast when we left for the park but we decided to head out anyway. It was a cold start to a long day. The first leg of our journey took us up to Crater Lake and Marion's Lookout. We couldn't see much though because we were literally in the clouds. It was like a mist white-out, you literally couldn't see more than a couple of meters. We came along some other hikers and that made us feel a lot better about the situation, knowing someone else was coming along behind us in case we got lost or walked off the mountain or anything - haha. We took a snack break in the kitchen hut (a wooden shack/shelter built for emergencies) just before the peak climb and decided to go for the top even if visibility was poor. It was a tough climb, way harder than I expected. The pictures do no justice of how steep and big the boulders were that we needed to scramble over to get to the top. When we finally reached the top, it was completely white - we were completely surrounded by cloud, pretty freaky. Eventually we gave up that it might clear and started our descent. Of course when we were about a quarter of the way down the clouds broke and we could see. Figures. Anyway we were still high enough to get the effect so I really don't feel like we missed out too badly. We holed up behind some boulders at the bottom of the climb for lunch and spent nearly an hour hiding from the wind. We decided to loop down and take a "rough and steep" path down to Dove Lake and hike out along the board walk. It was extremely pretty and the day had turned into a beautiful one - but it took forever! When it was all said and done we had spent 8 hours on the mountain. We stopped at the visitor's center on the way out and then started our drive to Mt. Field National Park. It was a long drive, 5 hours or so. We stopped and made dinner at Lake St. Clair National Park and were nearly attacked by blood thirsty wallabies. Okay, maybe not blood thirsty but they were certainly bold. The remaining 2 hours of the drive were in darkness, so I had to take it super slow to avoid killing anything, but I got to see a ton of cool critters in the headlights. No devils though. We finally reached the campsite at 12:15 am or so. We rushed to quickly set up the tent in the dark and then all passed out. What a day!!