Bushweek Festival

Far North Queensland, how gloriously beautiful! I difinitely reckon I could live here. Lovely weather (in the winter at least!), beautiful beaches and some of the oldest rainforests in the world. Being a total tree person, I was definitely

I'm going North

Watch out for them Cassowaries!

 Once in Surfers Paradise I met up with the ride to Cairns I found online, a guy named Tijmen, and we headed back to Maleny. While there,

Thumbs Up and Out!

I ended up staying only a week with my new friend Adam and his family, a lot less time than I had originally inteded to spend in the area. One night I checked out the website for a festival called Bushweek that I had heard about from my Rainbow familiy... good music, community, workshops, nature, creativity, friends....shit! What am I doing here?? I decided that I needed to go to this festival, eager to get back the feelings I had at Confest. The issue? I was in Byron, and the festival was North of Cairns, a good 2,200 kms away, and it started in 8 days! Hmm, how can I pull this off? I managed to arrange a ride from Surfers Paradise to Cairns... but how to get to Surfers Paradise? The answer?.................

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.