I'm home! When I chat with my friends and fam re: what I missed while I was gone... it seems like I didn't miss much at all. When I think back over what the past 3.5 mo have entailed for me and everything I've seen, it's really amazing. My trip FAR exceeded my expectations in every possible way - I honestly had the best time ever!! Now it's back to reality........ Back to where I left off...... The Contiki group dynamic changed considerably after the South island trip was over as quite a few ppl on the tour were only doing [View Full Entry]

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Today is the last day of my 15 day contiki tour which covered both the north and the south islands of this stunning country. I've been so busy having fun that I haven't written in this online journal since oz which feels like forever ago. Nz has been unreal, have met so many great ppl and have had the best time on this tour led by ali our tour mgr and danny the bus driver. I am absolutely exhausted - this tour has been go go go with super early mornings and late nite partying each night, but hey that's contiki [View Full Entry]

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As I write this entry, as you can see, I'm no longer in the land down under (although NZ is even more down under than AUS but nevermind that). I'm going to do a little recap of my time in Melbourne. When I arrived in Melbourne on Nov 14th, I checked into a hostel in the city and stayed there my first 3 nights. The hostel was big and quite nice but more than anything you just felt like a number there. I met a couple nice girls in my room but on one that I'd go out of my way [View Full Entry]

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I arrived in Hobart - the capital of Tasmania - on Friday Nov 9 early afternoon. I spent the afternoon getting a feel for this small capital city. I walked all around through the Salamanca Market area (nice strip of craft/gift shops and restos), the Battery area (the oldest district in Hobart), passed by the harbour, visited the Tasmania National Museum / Art Gallery wherein I had a guided tour (for free!), browsed the shopping streets, and so on. I did about all there was to do in Hobart that I reasonable person would actually be interested in doing lol. My [View Full Entry]

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My final week in Sydney wasn't what I expected it to be but it was memorable nonetheless. The weather didn't cooperate for the majority of the rain and sadly the weather forecasters were pretty accurate - saw a lot of rain. Monday G and I went to our hair appointment as planned but long story short, there was no 2 for $80 deal and since we were there and looking forward to our new looks we said oh well and just forked out double what we were expecting to pay. I love my new colour!!! :) Unfortunately it will be pretty [View Full Entry]

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I'm writing this journal entry from my friend Lisa's house located in the suburb of Sydney called Clovelly. This is my first nite NOT in Robin's place since I arrived in Sydney 1 week ago - last Sunday...I ended up staying at Robin's for 1 full week - it was so great! To be honest, I didn't do too much earlier in the week and mainly just lazed around the house enjoying all the space and the peace and quiet. I did manage to go to the movies twice, out for dinner, to a shopping center at Bondi Junction, to the [View Full Entry]

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I ended up having a great evening in Surfers Paradise as I had anticipated. Jenny B and I met up at the Wednesday night markets... there were many neat things that I would have liked to purchase but most items were either breakable, too large, or simply put, impossible to lug around and bring home in one piece. Jenny and I went out for Sushi - my first time having sushi during my trip which seems odd since I go out for sushi fairly regularly back home. To be honest, I hardly ever go out to eat, I almost always cook [View Full Entry]

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It's a beautiful day in Surfer's Paradise today and the sun is shining and there are ppl everywhere. This is going to be a quick one b/c I want to get back out there and enjoy it! Fraser island was grand! The group situation turned out just fine in the end... the Korean guys (there were 3 of them) didn't speak much english but they were very kind and helpful, i.e. did the dishes all the time, set up and put down the tents, all that great stuff!! Our group had 8 - 4 girls and 4 guys. We all got [View Full Entry]

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I absolutely loved the town of 1770! I had planned to stay 2 nights and ended up staying 4! The hostel, COOL BANANAS, was so great - it was clean, cozy, and the ppl there (staff and fellow travelers) were so fantastic. There were so many great activities at my disposal in addition to beautiful beaches and lots of time for R&R. There were lots of walking trails close by the hostel... I did one to a beautiful lookout, it was spectacular. Along that same path through the woods one day I came across a huge lizard... he was hissing at [View Full Entry]

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I spent the better part of my last afternoon on Magnetic Island at the Koala Sanctuary as I had heard that this was a great opportunity to get to hold a koala (for a fairly pretty penny of course) and to get my photo taken with a cuddly koala among other native Australian animals - python, birds, lizards, baby croc, etc. If you actually want to see koalas in the wild while in Australia, your best bet is to hike along one of the many hiking paths on Magnetic Island - I however did not see any but I didn't do [View Full Entry]

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