Blogs from Portland Bay, Victoria, Australia, Oceania

9/11 is Dean and Tammy’s 31st wedding anniversary. To celebrate, the three of us hit McDonald’s for brunch and a little diner for dinner. We flew from Alice Springs to Adelaide in the state of South Australia this afternoon. South Australia is quite lush with rolling pastures dotted with cows and sheep. We think the cows here are a bit luckier than those at the ranchlands in the Red Centre who have to work at staying alive in barren conditions (and avoiding crazy Americans driving through their rangelands). From Adelaide we drove southeast and ended up in a small town called Keith. We are staying at Keith Motor Inn, a very small quaint motel along the highway. It is kind of cute. We have noticed that both large and small cities shut down early in the ... read more

ARRIVAL I’m sure you’re thinking to yourself, “Finally, the part about Australia. Who gives a fuck what you did in LA?” To that, my dear reader, I say, “My bad, here’s the Australia part.” After arriving at the Melbourne International Airport, we did the whole going-through-customs thing, wait-for-fucking-ever-because-your-bag-is-most-likely-going-to-the-very-last-bag-to-come-out thing, and went out to find our project leader and group. They were all right by the entrance of the airport. We met Marcus Cook, our project leader, and the 5 girls in our group: Adele, Becky, Morag, and Naomi, all from Great Britain, and Jenny, from Scotland. We walked a few hundred meters (I have to go by meters now, because we’re in Australia) from the airport, and met John, who was to drive us in this small bus from Melbourne (which is pronounced Mel-Bin, not how ... read more