Beautiful Byron

After the Rainbow I met up again with my travel partners, spent some time with Rebecca and her family, went to a drumming festival, and checked out the surrounding area a bit.
After a while I felt that it was time

Every little cell in my body is happy.... Every little cell in my body is well!

 So, chances are, if you read my last post, you might be wondering what a Rainbow Gathering is. Well, may your cuiosity now be satiated!

R.I.P. Stella!

Bench at Brokenhill

My four friends, Jesse, Orion, Erika, Anna, and myself decided to take a little road trip up to the Rainbow Gathering near Maleny, QLD. Our journey took us up through a bit of the Outback, and the town of Brokenhill, where many desolate horror movies are filmed.

The Best of the Barossa

Barossa Valley wine region

Once Anna and I begrudginly left Confest, we headed back to Adelaide, spent a few days there then moved a bit up North to spend a week and a half in the Barossa Valley with a few of the beautiful new friends we made at Confest. 

Our days were spent

Confest

Just before leaving Kangaroo Island, Anna and I, through the mystical, magical flow of the universe, heard about a festival called Confest from someone we contacted on Couchsurfing. Confest is an alternative living gathering, standing for Conference/Festival, and it is entirely volunteer run. The days are filled with workshops teaching about and exploring anything under (or even around!)the sun. I participated in as many workshops as I could, including

Adventures on Kangaroo Island

In one of my first posts I briefly mentioned meeting a man on my flight from L.A. To Fiji who offered to let me stay at his home on Kangaroo Island if I was ever in the area.

Guessssss what!

They call it the Great Ocean Road for a reason...

The Great Ocean Road, unbeknownst to me at the time, was the beginning of a whole new adventure that would completely change the way I traveled. Anna, a friend I had made during my time in Tasmania picked me up in

Om Ah Hum

Up at sunrise

After Phillip Island I made my way over to the town of Monbulk, which is in the Dandenong Mountain Ranges. For the next eleven days I worked for food, accommodation and teachings at Kadampa Meditation Center, which is a Buddhist temple. Some of the work I did included

Fun on Philip Island!

From Tasmania I flew back to Melbourne, where I spent five days enjoying the company of, and having picnics with two of the friends I made last time I was there. I visited a couple gardens, the Australian Center for Moving Image and stumbled upon a really neat alley way in China town that was covered in awesome graffiti. The Formula 1 Race was coming to Melbourne, and due to high prices and lack of accommodation availibility, I needed to leave the city. My destination?

Wall of 1000 Vaginas

The rest of my time in Tasmania was spent mainly in Hobart. I went to the MONA Gallery (Museum of Old and New Art). While I was excited to see this controversial gallery, I didn't think it quite lived up to the hype. There were some pieces, ideas and installations that I quite enjoyed but I found a lot of it to be quite disturbing (statues of men with their genitalia torn off, anyone?). I also got to visit the

Tasmanian Times Pt. III

View from above Wineglass Bay

After a relaxing day at the beach, we spent the night in a small town on the East coast called Bicheno, where the next morning, (our final day on the tour) I went for a walk down to the beach to witness my first blowhole which was very neat! We headed over to

Tasmanian Times Pt.II

Taking a well deserved break atop Marion's Lookout

  Day three on our Tasmania Tour consisted of a gruelling hike up Marion's Lookout to get a spectacular view of Cradle Mountain and it's surrounding valley. Cradle Valley is the start of the Overland Track, which takes around

Tasmanian times Pt. I

Montezuma

After my relatively short stay in Melbourne I hopped over the pond to Tasmania. My first week in Tassie was a frosty one, especially when one is as prepared for the cold as I was, with my one pair of pants and light sweater. Who knew you would need warm clothes in Australia??

It's pronounced Mel'bn, not Mel-born!

Ah, Melbourne! Upon landing at Tullamarine Airport, I instantly felt better here than I ever did in Sydney. I've heard people say to me that the architecture is much more interesting, but never put much thought into it until I was cruising through the city on a shuttle bus towards my new hostel. With spirals, spears, wavy things and even a building designed as an optical illusion,

Could there be love beneath these wings?

 Like a lot of things in Australia, flying domestically is a much more laid back experience. To fly domestically within the States, at least as a Canadian citizen, is quite a stressful process. I always felt like a bit of a terrorist (I swear I'm innocent!) with all the strict rules and regulations. It's a much bigger hassle and security often seems quite impatient, impersonal and grumpy. In Australia you can bring your groceries on the plane with you (a very good thing when you're backpacking) don't have to put all your liquids in baggies and you can keep your shoes on when going through the metal detector! It's also much cheaper to fly around Australia than it is in Canada, with the lowest flight from Sydney to Melbourne costing in total around $50 AUD. The draw back with these cheap flights though, is that they charge you for everything beyond the basics, such as checked luggage, in-flight bevvies and paying for it all with anything aside from a few select methods will cost you a little extra coin.






Also, a cyber high-five to anyone who can tell me what song the title of this post is from!

You can call me Crispy...

 

After I left Katoomba with just five days until my flight to Melbourne was to depart, I decided to head to a little beach town called Newcastle, about a three and a half hour train ride from Sydney. I didn't book anything in advance when I left for Newcastle, just grabbed my bags and hopped on the train.

Exploring Jenlolan

While still in the Blue Mountains, Lance and I went to the Jenolan caves, which is about a 2 hour bus ride from Katoomba. The winding road leading down into the caves is quite interesting, and I'm not just talking about the view! It hugs the mountain with the outer edge usually ending in a sheer drop down the cliff.

Let's go hiking!

This past week I have been spending my time in gorgeous Katoomba, a town in the Blue Mountains, which is about a 2 and a half hour train ride West from Sydney. The way people usually visit the Blue Mountains is by taking a day trip. While it is a quick and easy way to say "I've been there" I can't imagine spending only a few hours and being satisfied. The view is

Crossing over and my time in Sydney

As I am leaving Sydney in the morning I figured it would be a good time to update you all on what I've done and experienced so far. The flights were mediocre to bad. My flight leaving Edmonton was delayed and so when we landed in San Francisco I had a whopping

Interesting....

When I would talk to people about my trip I’d often describe the upcoming experience as ‘interesting’ and the person I was talking to would usually react in kind of a negative way, perhaps thinking I wasn’t excited about it, or thinking that it wasn’t a good thing. Unfortunately, I think the word ‘interesting’ often falls into the category of ‘odd’ and  ‘weird’, all of which seem to generally be spoken in a negative context, to which I disagree.  I see them as good things, a break from the norm, which I find to be quite refreshing in today’s society. When I used the term ‘interesting’ as the descriptor, I feel it to be the most accurate way to describe my upcoming experience, because not all of it will be good, and not all of it will be bad, but all of it will surely be ‘interesting’.

Welcome

Travel has been an ache of mine that's been around for many, many years and that only seems to be getting stronger. And I don't mean just a quick trip to Cancun, I mean a full on immersion into the travel community. I'm talkin' long term backpacking! Diving into a new experience, learning how to handle whatever comes my way and, as corny as it sounds, finding myself. Meeting loads of new people, experiencing crazy new things I haven't even imagined yet, and lets not forget spending all that time in the glorious vitamin D rich sunshine while I would otherwise be struggling through another rough Alberta winter. I'm not going to post secondary, I don't have a career and I don't have a serious boyfriend, I have no commitments right now so why wouldn't I take this golden opportunity to see the world?

So what's the plan? Well on January 30 2011 I will fly into LAX, spend a few lovely hours at the airport there, then head over to Sydney, Australia with a quick little 3 hour layover in Fiji. After I get into Sydney... well actually, I have no plans. I'll just be booking my first few nights of accommodation and that's basically all that's going to be prearranged from home. I don't even know which direction I will head when I leave Sydney!

People keep asking me how long I'm going for, and the answer? Undetermined. I have a working holiday visa so hopefully my bank account won't determine the length of my stay. It all basically depends on how much I enjoy the lifestyle, I suppose. While sitting comfortably at home it's easy for me to be enamoured with the idea of having nothing but the few possessions on my back and the road at my feet, I'm sure it's another thing to actually live it.

If you're interested in seeing how my journey unfolds, I'll be posting photos, thoughts, news and stories during my time abroad. I would love to hear your comments, ideas or even stories of your own!