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Published: November 4th 2015
We have landed! Though our first steps in Australia were a nightmare in Sydney (did I mention don't ever, ever, ever fly Jetsar?) getting the rental car was a breeze. We made our way, with paper map in hand, to our apartment in Brisbane. By the way, they drive on the other side of the road. That was an adventure in the dark after an entire day+ of traveling. By this time it was 8pm on Halloween and pitch black. There were a few people in costumes, but it's not a big thing here.
We found our apt on airbnb, but there are a few big buildings that are full of temporary apts around here. Ours has a great view, air conditioning, 2 bed/2 bath, all the basic tools in the kitchen, free parking, and free wifi. Not bad! Great location too. Even has laundry in the apt and a heated lap pool and gym downstairs!
After dropping our stuff we walked across the street for great Chinese food and a bottle of wine. And shortly after that we were passed out in bed by 9 haha. So that was Halloween.
The next day we were up at
Orange yolks!
OMG fabulous cafe near us (Jak and Hill) that has amazing breakfast. This was a perfectly poached egg (which is hard to do) on thick sourdough toast. Love the orange yolks!5am. It was dark here at 6pm and light before 5am. Plenty of time to get groceries at the Woolworth up the street, hit the pharmacy for cold meds, and the bottle shop (wine/beer) for staples.
In the grocery store they had sim cards! Perfect. Instead of the international plan with Verizon which is pretty limited and almost no data for $40/month (500MB), I snagged a Vodafone sim card for $10 with unlimited local calls and texts and 1.5GB data!!! Holy cow, you can't get that anywhere! It was supposed to be $30 but on sale for $10. Perfect 😊 Even better news was that my phone was unlocked, which I had no idea of until I took the risk and stuck the sim card in. So happy I have a samsung 😊 Until that point we had no navigation (thank goodness we had that paper map) and no portable internet to ask all the questions we came up with! Well, problem solved and now I have a crazy weird local number.
The grocery store was fun- lots of new weird things to sort through (coffee whitener??) Next I got some cold meds but found out much to
Poodles!
Jacinta - Jim's wife. And their AWESOME 2 standard poodles! my disappointment you can't get sudafed here! In response to the meth heads they just got rid of sudafed. But you can buy codeine over the counter. I got the other med like sudafed (phenylephrine, which sucks). But the cold isn't that bad so hopefully it'll work it's way out soon!
For lunch on Sun we met Jim at an Indian restaurant nearby where his whole family was meeting for lunch. Great food and neat to finally meet him in person! He's a local dermatologist and we had been communicating since last Jan/Feb to coordinate this rotation. We also found out that this Tues is basically a national holiday because of the Melbourne Cup (think Kentucky derby, complete with hats). Jim had already planned a trip to the beach with his friend, so that was our first place of duty!
On Sun night he and his wife took us to a party for the local record store's anniversary. It's owned by their friend and there were a ton of their friends there. Great venue! Outdoor bar setting with an indoor stage and music area where they had local bands performing. We had a couple of Australian beers and
grilled haloumi - awesome cheese to grill and seemingly very common here. But again, we faded early. We took an uber home for $6 (Australian dollars, which is like $4.20 USD) with the hottest uber driver I've ever seen haha. No, really.
The next morning we were up early and off to the coast with an excellent tour guide! A quick few hours and we made it to the coast in New South Wales (like a territory/state). First we stopped in Byron Bay which is the Eastern most point in Australia. Cute but touristy beach town (Australian tourists) but a seriously gorgeous beach! Beautiful day too. Jim and his friend went surfing, so Rachel and I enjoyed the beach and pretty cold Pacific from the other side of the ocean! I was worried about box jellyfish, but they're farther north. Gorgeous day though! We wandered around a little and saw some different beaches there before heading to Yamba, our destination.
First we stopped for a quick bite and a coffee at a little town on the way. We drove the whole way down the local equivalent of highway 1 down the coast of California (or 17 in NC).
Beach
Byron Bay and Yamba are a little farther south actually than the Gold Coast, but beautiful! Look how empty on such a gorgeous day. Probably because there is SOOOO much beach! Since it was Mon not many places were open because they work the weekend and take Mon and Tues off (for the tourists). We grabbed meat pies and coffees. Here you ask for a flat white, which is basically a latte. Yum! So far everyone makes great coffee and everyone seems to drink it often- like tea in England. The meat pie was fabulous! Think mini shepards pie in a tiny pie plate and tiny crust (I chose cottage pie so it had some meat gravy inside and mashed potatoes with veggies on top). Perfect lunch. We ate at some picnic tables on the river, with an ibis coming up like a pigeon to try to eat scraps. Interesting. And very menacing looking beaks! We were told they fly from Egypt and are something like pests here. Much cooler looking than pigeons.
In the car on the way we saw a wallaby on the side of the road! Like passing a deer contemplating crossing. Apparently they get hit a lot here 😞 Wallabys are smaller than kangaroos and made for the forest as opposed to the open fields of kangaroos, which are bigger, but look very similar. They also
More beaches
Just gorgeous! Several pics to give a feel for how many gorgeous beaches there are. have signs on the road that look like kangaroos instead of deer haha.
Yamba is a little beach town that's known for great surfing. Jim owns a house there but it was rented, so we stayed in his brother's house, which had a fabulous view of the beach, and didn't have anyone staying in it that week. They have a law here that no one is allowed to build right on the beach, so all the beaches are beautiful and uncluttered with houses. Great idea! Also helps avoid issues when the shore changes slightly, which it will always do.
We dropped our stuff at the house and Rachel and I walked to the local pub after a shower while Jim and John went for a last surf before the sun went down. From there we went to dinner at an amazing little Thai place in town. Tiny town, tiny restaurant! They have a thing here where you can bring your own alcohol into restaurants, so we brought our own local beer! Food was fabulous! Another early night (well, 930) and early morning.
The next morning we started out with some weetbix (like shredded wheat but in a
bar shape), milk, and bananas. Actually amazing. Since it was still pretty early we all went out for a little tour of Yamba beaches. Gorgeous! I can't believe how untouched all the beaches are with not very many people. It was a little overcast but a balmy 70-80 (pretty much for the entire month of November. Everyone keeps saying we really timed it perfectly!)
We also ran across a giant spider- like a wolf spider, but big enough to see the hair haha. Way worse was our introduction to the incredibly annoying flies. They don't bite, but holy cow they swarm. Rachel had a white shirt on and it was polka dotted black after our walk to that beach. But it sounds like this is nothing- much worse in the summer! (which is Dec-Feb here) There's a hilarious section about the flies in Bill Bryson's book In a Sunburned Country, which is a hilarious read, and great prep for this trip. Jim is like a skinny Bill Bryson, and together he and John are like Bill and his friend in the book haha. Very entertaining and great senses of humor!
Jim had arranged for us a private surfing
lesson with a very famous and awesome surfer- he won some big championship in 1995. I wasn't initially too excited because the one other time I've gone was rough and I felt like I could've died in the waves. This was a very different experience! He went over the basics on land then gave us some tips and sheparded us through some perfect baby waves. I think the surf was absolutely perfect for it! I got up a few times and now I want to go again 😊
After that we went back to the house to shower and pack up. I had made bread that morning, so we had some bread with coffee, and Rachel and I got to try vegemite, which was quite an experience. Vegemite is an Australian condiment like butter, but very salty and slightly fermented-tasting. It's made from the leftovers after brewing beer (yuck). They say it's an acquired taste, and I agree. In a very thin layer on buttered toast it's tolerable, but I can't imagine I'd ever choose to eat it. Tastes like something they could one day say is made from people.
After packing up we headed to a local
Patrick!
Holding a live starfish. :) Of course I'm afraid to touch anything here, but these guys were cute and harmless. In a little rockpool on one of the beaches we explored. There were TONS of them!! Turkish restaurant for lunch. I learned that prawns are shrimp, not crawfish as I had guessed. We met the owner who is friends with Jim (because who isn't. Seriously he is very well connected haha). She has a couple gorgeous cookbooks and has become somewhat well-known locally. And the food was amazing. In the background were the squawks of cockatoos, which live in the wild here! We saw a bunch of white ones sitting on telephone poles. Gorgeous and very cool, but horrible sounds haha.
On the drive home we stopped at a pub just in time to catch the very popular Melbourne Cup. History was made: it was the first time a woman won! She was around 100:1, which would've been a nice little payout if we had bet (seemed like most pubs you could log your bet like buying a lottery ticket) And she had a hilarious interview after where she told everyone who said a woman couldn't do it to "get stuffed", which I'm sure loosely translates as go f* yourself. The female streaker running behind the morning newscaster broadcasting about it was pretty funny too.
Another early night, homemade guac and wine for dinner,
Starfish!!
I am stupid excited about starfish haha and ready for our first day of work. 😊 By the way, Australian food is like American food- a lot of other styles of food, especially Asian.
So we can check surfing in Australia off our Australian bucket list, and eating vegemite (which should be on no one's bucket list). Now to hold a koala and swim the reef...
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Paula
non-member comment
Hey Nic, SOOOOOO jealous of your trip! Looks like you're having fun. I have tried vegemite and agree, NO ONE needs to try or want to try it. Enjoy the Aussies and their accents. If you can, bring a few home for us single ladies, hahaha...Looking forward to hearing the rest.