Joe and Carolyn
Joe and Carolyn Joined: May 26th 2006
Logged in: April 5th 2009
Logged in: April 5th 2009
Travel Blog Posts
Swan Bells
Magical Start June 12th: We met Meghan and Rob and went for a faboulous pizza dinner at Spaghi's. We were still very incredulous of our dolphin encounter, the rest of the evening proved to keep us enthralled with the magic of this place. Getting to know Perth June 13th: We hung out in the morning with Meghan, Rob having gone to work. I had not previously known either of them, and it had been some time since Carolyn had seen either of them, having gone their separate ways after high-school. I kind of felt like I knew Meghan a little already, having read countless SMS messages from her over the past 9 months. They are both the nicest people, and we got on great straightaway! Meghan went off to work, and Carolyn and I moseyed ... read more
RECOVERED
Wildlife Park and Horseback Riding! Our roomate, Diana, invited us to go horse back riding with her and a workmate, John, which we decided to do. I had never been before, while Carolyn had been a few time when she was younger. We also invited Julien as he loves all animals, and he jumped at the chance to get out of Melbourne for a day. Sunday May20: We got up early to make the trip down to Ace-Hi ranch near Rosebud. While we were waiting for our riding time, we enjoyed the wildlife park that is also kept at the ranch. There were heaps of kangaroos, a dingo, emu, deer, and cockatoo birds. We were each given a bag of bread with which to feed them, and even the deer would take it right from ... read more
Joe and his frisbee
Easter weekend We have been in Melbourne so long now, and are so familiar with the city that we feel as though we are becoming melbournites (if such a term exists). Life has been very good over the last few weeks and I will attempt to recount some of the adventures we have been up too!! Probably a mistake to leave it as long as we have.... Sunday Apr 8th: We went down to the St. Kilda beach with Julien to enjoy the beginning of this beautiful day! As it turned out, this was one of the last truely summery days here in Melbourne. We had a few drinks on the beach while playing frisbee, and waited for Ryan and his two uni mates to find their way down to St Kilda. We met up ... read more
Joe getting ready for St. Paddy's
St Paddy's Day! We lived in Brunswick West for only one week. St Paddy's day started pretty early at PJ O'Brians where we met the 5 Irish we were living with. We got there about 4pm but had to queue in line for about 45mins. We were fed curry fries while we waited in line, and I have to say - they were delicious! Many Guiness pints were consumed and everyone had a good time with all the hats and green that decorated the entire bar. Job Hunt After a little recovery the next day we started looking for a job. Carolyn managed to get two interviews lined up straight away for early in the week with telemarketing jobs. I called a few trades type jobs, as I wanted to work with my hands and ... read more
Joe taking control of the barbie
We’ve mixed this entry up a bit with each of us writing a bit…I hope it doesn’t get confusing! Leaving Alice March 5th : (Caro) Our final day in Alice was a good one! Andy and the house mates decided to throw a BBQ, and for once almost all of the house occupants were there in the house together! We had lamb chops, snags, potatoes, salads, and ate a lot more than we should have! We had some good chats and alcohol was consumed by some. A big thanks to Andy, Nat, and the rest of the house for a week of good times! March 6th : Back on the road. We got up before the sun, and surprisingly the air was a cooler temperature! We started the 700km to Coober Pedy…. more straight roads with ... read more
Simon looking good
Joe is off picking up new bike tires (spelt tyres here) for us - I got 2 flats last night and Joe got one…more on that later. Anyway, I’ve been left with the task of updating the blog. Not sure if I’ll be as detailed as Joe is, and I’m for sure going to let him fill in the stuff about our continuing saga of van repairs (yes…there have been more in the past week). I hope you enjoy our update, and don’t forget to comment or email us! Mt. Isa continued Feb 19: Joe was supposed to work in a café clearing tables, but when he went not only had the owner been expecting me (I guess in a mining town, the guys are all working in the mine?) but the restaurant wasn’t too busy, ... read more
Lake Eachum
Back to Cairns Jan 30th - Wow! Cairns is hot! Stepping off the plane was a bit of a shock to the system, going from a cool and windy Wellington morning, to an extremely hot and humid Cairns! This was going to take some getting used to. We had called the mechanic from the airport as he had agreed to pick us up in Betsy - so we could get on our way straight away. On our way back to the garage, Daryl broke it too us that Betsy was having a bit of a surging problem still, and that he hadn’t been able to figure out why. Oh-oh! Not what we had been hoping for as it didn’t mesh with our vision of sailing into the outback, free from any mechanical problems for the rest ... read more
Wellington Cable Car
Leaving Wellington Jan 10th: We were picked up by our rental car company and proceeded down to their office to fill out all the paper work. The car was costing us $39/day + fuel, with unlimited km’s which seemed like a decent deal to us, considering the bus tickets were in the same ballpark, and we would have so much more freedom with our little green Hyundai Accent! Cara and Scott were kind enough to let us borrow their tent and air mattress, as well as a friend’s cooler, so we were perfectly set up! After getting a little lost in Wellington with all the one way streets (ridiculous!), we were off on Hwy 2, towards Napier! It was quite rainy for most of the drive but as we neared Napier, the sun came out in ... read more
Joe on the swingbridge at Buller Gorge
Hello again, we tried to post this the other day, but the travelblog site was having a bit of trouble. After the long first NZ entry Joe was a bit tuckered out from typing for so long, so it will be me, Carolyn writing the second part of our South Island, New Zealand adventures. We figure from Jan 2 to Jan 7 we drove about 2500km. (Good on ya’ Scott!) And saw a lot of amazing things from the sea, to crystal clear rivers, to snow-capped mountains and glaciers. I hope we haven’t bored you too much with our marathon journals, and once again: Happy reading! On the road again Jan. 2: We sent out from Kaiteriteri around 9am as we had a lot of ground to cover in the next 2 days. We drove for ... read more
Driving into Arthurs Pass
**We know we’ve been quite out of touch the past 2 or 3 weeks. We have driven so much and seen so many amazing sites, we didn’t really have much time to sit at a café and write! Now that we’ve arrived in Wellington, we have the chance to use some free internet at Cara & Scott’s place. We’ve decided to split this into 2 entries because it got so long, so this first one goes until New Years. Happy reading… Arriving in Christchurch, NZ Dec 19th - We said our goodbyes to Betsy and took a taxi from the Mac’s garage to the Cairns Airport. As it turned out, it was a really good thing that we showed up a little early. Unbeknownst to us, New Zealand requires a return ticket to enter the country, ... read more
