Australia

Hey Everybody,

So first off, apologies all around for the serious lack of updating from this end ... to bring you quickly up to speed (although Im sure most everybody already is) Jenna decided that instead of continuing on to Australia she felt it best for hersef to return home to Canada. Jarret completely understood where Jenna stood with this decision so the parted ways in Kuala Lumpur Airport.

That being said Jarret is in Australia (!!!), having an awesome time, and from now on is going to type in the first person. I flew into Melbourne (a city of roughly 3.5 million people) and took a couple days to look around and get to know the place. It was very interesting and had lots to see considering that it is VERY sports and arts orientated. Also, it has quite a large harbor so there was plenty of boats and intriguing dock-lands to look at.

After a couple days it was time to move on so I booked a three day bus tour that took me to Adelaide via the Great Ocean Road and the Grampians National Park. It was a blast. We went hiking everyday and stopped at all of the big touristy places. We (and now I'm saying we because I travelled with a bus load of people) stayed at hostels in little towns along the way that I think were set up specifically to house groups like us and got to know each other pretty well. I met a guy from Belgium named Jasper Deseyene and we sorta hung out for most of the trip.

We arrived in Adelaide after three days (like I said earlier) and even though the bus crew didn't have to hang out anymore we all decided to go out to dinner together anyways ... it was a lot of fun. Also of the bus trip I met a girl named Marta from Germay and a girl named Veera from Finland. They were really cool so the four of us (this includes Japer now too) decided to hang out over the next couple days and we mostly just went to the beech although we also wandered around and saw some of the sights - to be completely honest there was not much to see in Adelaide but the town was still a lot of fun.

After a couple days everyone sorta went there own way: Jasper headed off to Tasmania, Veera went to Brisbane, Marta headed up to Alice Springs, and I went back to this small town on the coast that our bus blew through on the tour called Lorne. Lorne, like I said, was a really nice small town on the ocean with not much to see but there were some nice hikes so I strapped on my runners, packed a lunch, and headed in land. There were plenty of water falls and rock canyons to check out and after hiking for about 6 hours for two days I was exhausted.

I headed back up to Melbourne with every intention jumping on a bus in the very near future and start my trip up the cost to Syndey and Cairns but somehow I managed to keep in touch with Jasper while he was in Tasmania and he managed to convince me that renting a camper-van and driving it up to Sydney ourselves would be a tonne of fun so Jasper, myself, and this dude named Ben Parker (from Main) that we met in the Melbourne hostel jumped in a van that we rented for two weeks and hit the road.

We have been stopping at a bunch of small towns along the coast and slowly making our way up to Sydney. There is plenty to see and do everywhere so we having gone hiking, swimming, bird watching, and numerous other activities that strike us as opportune at the moment (which includes going out to the bar periodically and mingling with some of the more colourful locals haha). Presently we are in the Capital City of Canberra (Australia's Capital City, no kidding) and are looking forward to checking out some of the more political and historical sights that this town has to offer.

We plan to head up to the Blue Mountains (just east of Sydney) and then into Sydney before we are required to drop the van off at the end of our rental period. From there I have a general idea of what I would like to do but I don't think I will say just yet because, apparently, anything can happen!!

Apologies again for the lack of Blog and Ill try and get a few pics up for people to look at.

Cheers,

Jarret

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