After a typical "Chinese Drive" to the Beijing Airport -- the ever impressive yet frightening road gamble -- we made it. We were on our way to Chongqing, the mountain city, where no one speaks english. This has turned out to be both a struggle and a blessing. A struggle as our Taxi driver had no idea where our hostel was, despite giving him the directions in pinyin as well as with characters. We made drawings with one another to help with the communication but after angry Chinese became an even more abrasive language we realized that he may have [View Full Entry]

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Hey guys, The air is smoggy, thus my snot is black and you can always hear someone horking in the background, but I'm so glad to be here, exploring this foreign place. So I brushed my teeth on the Great Wall the other day. Prior to arriving at the Jin Sha Ling section of the Great Wall, approx. 3 hours drive outside of Beijing, we stopped at both a copper pottery factory that used to serve only as the makers of pottery for the Emperor as well as a Jade factory. At both, we got a special tour of the factory [View Full Entry]

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Hey guys, After a much needed nap once reaching our hotel in Beijing, I woke up to the sounds of foreign tongues on the other side of the door and incessant honking outside. China is the closest I've been to being a true foreigner, aside from being in the Dominican Republic. Every sign is in a languange that I can't even begin to understand, the people look at Conor and I like we are these rare and tall, light-haired aliens - and they have no qualms about staring. The streets are busy with pedestrians, cyclists and cars who, getting dangerously close [View Full Entry]

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Hey guys, After our awesome time in the center of Australia we boarded the Ghan -- a train named after the Afghans and their camels who were one of the first to forge their way from Adelaide to Darwin, to take us across country to Adelaide in South Australia. Going an average speed of only 85km/hr, Conor and I thought the train would pick up speed at some point but it never did. After some nice scenery, a night spent in a reclined chair and twenty-two hours later, we arrived in Adelaide. We spent our day in Adelaide running errands and [View Full Entry]

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Hey guys, We finally reached the middle of Australia only to be met with hot, dry weather and approximately 1 billion flies. It feels so good to be travelling again. Alice Springs has a population of about 23,000 people but I think most of them spend their time inside because it's so hot. It's the driest place in Australia in terms of lakes and rivers etc. (as there are none), but is actually the only place in the country with no water restrictions. The rivers in Alice Springs have all dried up but about a metre underneath there teems water! So [View Full Entry]

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Hey guys, After spending a couple of days in Airlie Beach trying to keep ourselves occupied with books and the lagoon it was finally time to begin our tour on 'Camira' the worlds fastest Catamaran. This 26m vessel took us from Airlie through the North and South Molle Islands, around Whitsunday Island, past Hamilton Island and back. We stopped for a quick snorkel at the Reef but after Fiji this wasn't impressive at all. I think due to the rainny weather we've been having the visibility was very poor, my mask kept filling with water and I didn't see anything special [View Full Entry]

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Hey guys, Well, the time has come to spend all the VERY hard earned cash we've saved on the Gold Coast - we're on the road again. We picked up our campervan earlier than we had anticipated due to a massive falling out with our crazy landlord, who was actually unfathomably crazy. A long story, but it ends with us picking up our van early and thus living in it whilst working...I guess i should make a correction -- Conor picked the van up early as I had to work that day. He had a few complications with the company and [View Full Entry]

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Hey guys, I apologize for such a delayed entry but Conor and I have started working on the Gold Coast of Australia which leaves us with little to update. I will however, bring all of you through our travels since my last entry: Since leaving our relaxation that was Byron Bay we arrived in Surfers Paradise, staying at a hostel in Southport for three nights. This time was enough for us to find a place to stay not far from Surfers, called Miami. It was our original plan to go to Brisbane to find work (for some reason we can't remember) [View Full Entry]

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Hey guys, Finally, warmth. Finally time in the Australian Sun. It was difficult to leave New Zealand, knowing that there is so much more for us to see but I was ready for a change and ready to explore somewhere different. We landed in Sydney only to be surprised that all big cities are, in fact, not the same. Sydney is wonderful. It's full of green and open spaces, lots for the eye to follow and explore. Our first day in Sydney was only the remainder of the evening after our flight so there wasn't much light left to see the [View Full Entry]

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Hey guys, I want to apologize for my lack of diligence toward the travel blog these last few days but there hasn't been much opportunity or events. Finished in Kaikoura we were on our way to less nauseating locations and off to say goodbye to Good Ole Betsy -- After driving over 5,000km we had gotten to know her really well, she was a part of us, we were a team. But it was time to step outside the van and realize again, the feeling of sleeping, eating and living outside of its confines. With one last goodbye to Betsy, we [View Full Entry]

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