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