Blogs from Oceania - page 7810

Hello! We've had a busy week job-hunting, so there's not a whole lot to report. Last weekend we went up the Skytower (the tallest tower in the Southern Hemisphere apparently) because it was a gorgeous day and we got some lovely photos. It was good to get an idea of the geography of the city from high up. We moved in to our flat and have settled in well. Yesterday we took a bus tour of the city, and we've worked out where some of the good pubs are! I've added photos to some of the other diary entries (Tahiti and the last NZ entry) so be sure to go back and look. from Jo x (and Graeme) ... read more

Evening All. Got to Cairns at 04:30 in the morning on the 25th. Got picked up by my mums friend, spent a couple of days with his family just getting over the jetlag. Went up to an place called cooktown which is a bit further up the coast from Cairns. Some fantastic deserted beaches up there which are amazingly quiet (as per the pictures). Then on Monday I moved into a hostel on the water front at cairns and have basically been arranging travelling down the East coast, getting pissed with random people and sunbathing. Ive hooked up with two Canadian girls and an english girl, and we are going to travel down the east coast together in a rental car and camp. The route will take in the following areas : Cape Tribulation - Basically ... read more

We are now safely in Brisbane and can't believe that we will be heading out to Thailand in a few days. We visited city hall with a couple of interesting exhibits: one of Queensland landscaping and development, and a funny one with political cartoons from an Australian political cartoonist (not surprisingly, the US was skewered a few times). We also visited the science museum where we learned more about the aboriginal people, saw lots of dinosaur fossils, and cool Australian animal facts. (Did you know that turtles don't start laying their eggs until their mid thirties and forties?!) Shortly, we will be heading to an art gallery and spend some time walking around. oh yah...We spent some time in the Botanical Gardens to just enjoy the sun and read a little (Matt just started a book ... read more

Bill Bryson says in Down Under that "the great virtue about driving through emptiness is that when you come to anything - anything at all - that might be called a diversion you get disproportionately excited." In my opinion, truer words have never been written. Jesse and I and our new English friend Paul (our third English friend named Paul actually) embarked on a four day drive through the Outback from Alice Springs to Adelaide today. Anytime we saw ANYTHING, including a passing car, a bird, a tree, and especially any and all roadsigns, we almost crapped ourselves with excitement. Some highlights include a cow crossing the road, a pile of tires and a series of roadsigns stating "Caution Cattle" to which someone had helpfully added creative verbs. The first was "Caution Cattle Jumping" then "Caution ... read more

I considered today to be my real birthday since it's the 25th at home. We were up at 4:30am in order to watch the sun rise behind Uluru (Ayers Rock). It was stunning!! After that we did a long hike around Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) which was much easier than the King's Canyon walk but equally impressive. We also drove around Uluru and looked at some Aboriginal rock paintings and heard some Aboriginal stories and learned a bit about what the rock means to them and how they used it. (There are still aboriginals living near the rock but they no longer go there because of all the tourists.) In the cultural centre there is a book of letters from people all around the world who have taken rocks from Uluru and then mailed them back ... read more