I arrive in Sydney for the second time on Wednesday morning. It was sad to leave the Hobday family, but I intend to keep in touch, so you’ll never know when I’ll see them again. I’m meeting Lea in Sydney and we’re going to go the Blue Mountains a few days later. I have this image in my mind of what these few days will look like - I’ll relax because I’ve seen most of the sights and we’ll leave Saturday morning for the Blue Mountains. I figure I’ll be sitting around quietly by myself while Lea tourists. That’s not what [View Full Entry]

---

---

I’ve been talking about WWOOFing for weeks. I was starting to get discouraged - every host family I called near Toowoomba and Noosa either didn’t have enough work or already had a full roster of wwoofers. Finally, while in Brisbane for the second time, I made a list of interesting looking hosts near the Newcastle area. Lucky for me, the first family I called said that I could come the following Tuesday, which was about a week later. This was fantastic! I had a week to visit Byron Bay and Nimbin and then could start making my way south towards Newcastle. [View Full Entry]

---

---

As far as I’m concerned probably nothing will compare to Noosa at this point. I had such a good time that it’ll be impossible to duplicate. But I pull myself together the next morning, fixed my foot (which I somehow managed to slaughter the night before), have breakfast with Phillip and meet Nathan just before check-out and we walk down together to the bus stop. Once again the YHA in Brisbane is fully booked out, so I booked the Banana Benders since I at least knew where it was. You would not believe it if you saw it with your own [View Full Entry]

---

---

I spent a long, quiet night at the motel in Toowoomba. It was nice though, having a room all to myself and being able to wash some clothes in the sink (I was very quickly running out of clean underwear). The bus for Brisbane left before 7am, so I had to check out early the next morning. I met Lea in Brisbane where we boarded a bus together to go to Rainbow Beach. Now I’m just following Lea around for a couple of days. She’s going all the way up to Townsville and Cairns, but I just don’t have the time [View Full Entry]

---

---

The moment I see my hostel at the top of a hill, I’m already in love with this town. I arrived mid afternoon and checked into the Halse Lodge, which is a former Queensland farm house, similar to those from the southern United States. The first thing I do when I check in is sign up for a surf lesson with Merrick’s Noosa Learn-to-Surf. For $45 I get a two-hour surf lesson and two free hours with a kayak. I had only booked two nights, so I was going to make the most of it. Noosa is divided into several sections, [View Full Entry]

---

---

My last day in Brisbane it rained. It’s starting to look like a pattern. So that meant I didn’t get to go to either the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary or the Mt. Coot-tha Reserve. Instead I spent the day at the library, doing internet related things, and then went back to the hostel where I spend several hours talking to other backpackers on the veranda, including a guy from South Korea who says that he’ll meet me in February and show me around. I checked out fairly early Saturday morning. Not early enough to be on time, however, but early none-the-less. [View Full Entry]

---

---

By some miraculous twist of fate, I was assigned two seats to myself for the overnight bus from Sydney to Brisbane (roughly 16 hours north of Sydney). That made the long night a little easier. I realized also that I had been lucky because speaking to an English guy while waiting for the bus he told me that he had also missed the morning bus but they made him buy a whole new ticket. I only had to pay $4 for a change fee. Plus I managed to stay awake for the ocean view through Newcastle, and I’m told not much [View Full Entry]

---

---

Jetlag is a nightmare. Once I got to my room the first day, I immediately fell asleep and stayed that way for a good five hours. I didn’t wake up until a new girl came in to drop her stuff. Good thing she did though, because it meant that I finally dragged myself out from under the covers and took a shower (desperately needed). I took a little stroll on the streets around the hostel, mostly in search of food. When I couldn’t find a full-out grocery store, I settled for buying Mr. Noodles from the 7/11. Three hours after getting [View Full Entry]

---

---

I have just arrived in Sydney. Literally, I arrived two hours ago. I'm tired, I smell, and I'm hungry. Basically, this is just a test. This doesn't count as an interesting entry. [View Full Entry]

---

---