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Published: August 18th 2010
Australia, July 26th - August 6th , 2010 After spending exactly 3 months traveling South East Asia, we were finally going to the long awaited destination of Australia. I say long awaited because Australia is the most similar place to home that we have been to since leaving Europe in September of last year. Its a place where rooms are clean, they have toilets (that even flush) and you don’t have to carry toilet paper with you 24 hours a day. Buses run on time, they take as long as you are told they would, and you don’t have to haggle for everything that you buy. So, as much as we did like Asia, it was nice to be in a place that felt more like home.
We arrived on the 5th continent of our trip after a 6 hour flight that although relatively short, was one of the worst on this trip. We flew at night and could not even get 5 minutes of sleep because the seats did not really recline, so by the time we arrived we were both zombies. Fortunately, we were met at the Sydney airport by one of my relatives, who
kindly welcomed us to her home even though we had not seen each other in 11 years. For the first time since Kenya, we had a kitchen where we could cook food. We had our first warm shower in months and bed sheets that actually smelled nice. Pure luxury by our standards.
In the 4 days we were in Sydney we did the pure tourist agenda. Two days exploring the downtown, Manly and Bondi beach and one day going to the zoo to pet some Koala’s and feed the kangaroos. Unfortunately, this was all done in weather we had not seen since Europe as well. It was cold and it rained on us everyday... little did we know that this would continue the whole time we were here.
From Sydney we caught the bus to the Australian capitol of Canberra. This was the fanciest bus we had seen since Turkey as well. Leather reclining seats, toilet, AC and seat belts!!! And it even left right on time. In Canberra we stayed with friend of my parents who again we hadn’t seen since our last trip here in 1998, but again were welcomed like family. We spent only two days
there as there is really not all that much to do besides see the Parliament and War Memorial. We spent most of our time relaxing with our hosts and enjoying gin and tonics that we hadn’t had for a long time... way too long.
Since public transport in Australia is not the cheapest, we decided on renting a car to take us all the way down the coast to Melbourne. In good weather this might have been a bit more enjoyable, but since it rained on us nearly the entire time, it was a tiring few days in which we covered nearly 1600 kilometres. The highlight of this was definitely seeing the Port Campbell National Park, about 250 km west of Melbourne. The Great Ocean Road that leads to the park is some of the most spectacular coastline we have yet seen. It culminates with a stretch of coast called the 12 Apostles, which has some pretty amazing rock formations that have been carved out by the waves. The one good thing about the bad weather was that the surf on that particular day was exceptionally rough, with waves as high as 10 meters smashing into some of the
rocks. Definitely made for some amazing scenery.
After our coast line tour we ended up in Melbourne, with one day to spare before our flight. We spent that rainy day exploring the downtown which is quite nice. Massive modern skyscrapers that are randomly interrupted by an old church or an aged Victorian building... kind of reminded us of Montreal.
And so our brief tour of Australia ended the next day, with a short flight to Sydney to catch our New Zealand connection. We would have loved to stay longer but Australia is not exactly backpacking territory, things are more expensive here and you are paying in dollars, which makes it nearly impossible to stay on budget. If there is a next time we come here, it will definitely be in the summer (which is our winter). Next stop is Christchurch, New Zealand.
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