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Published: September 23rd 2008
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What a whirlwind week and a half it's been. This might be a long blog, so prepare yourself. I guess I'll start at the beginning. Sydney was.... eh. We were there 4 days and three nights which was about twice as much time as you need to see the important things. Our hostel was conveniently located near Darling Harbour which is home to many expensive cafes, an expensive movie theater ($27! We didn't go...), expensive aquarium, etc. We walked across the Harbour Bridge, went to the opera house, and walked from Bondi Beach to Bronte Beach. The water is at least as cold as it is in San Francisco, except it's gorgeous colors. When it comes down to it, neither of us were sold on Sydney. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that it feels exactly like San Francisco, except they talk with an accent and drive on the wrong side of the road.
From Sydney we took an overnight Greyhound bus to Melbourne. Sleeping on buses isn't so bad, right? Wrong. The seats on the bus reclined approximately one inch. The only saving grace is that we each had two seats to ourselves.
Sydney
Victoria Building (or something like that) And sleeping pills. Melbourne turned out to be quite nice. We stayed in St. Kilda which is the hip neighborhood (Seattle-ites think Ballard or Fremont but on the beach). Our hostel was amazing. We splurged and spent and extra $10 a night to be in the "Sanctuary." This meant we had down comforters and pillows, no smelly boys, only 2 other roommates, and free champagne in the bar everynight. Needless to say, we didn't see as much of Melbourne as we probably could have as we were hung over just about every day. Our first day there we did ride bikes from St. Kilda to Brighton Beach. I think that's about all we did. Oops. We met some Kiwis our first night there and they proceeded to have a living room riot in their flat. For those of you who know about the first living room riot.... this one was slightly more intense. Think framed paintings being thrown from the 3rd floor window. We ended up hanging out with those boys the other two nights we were there as well and had a great time with them. They LOVE jager bombs in Australia. Love 'em.
From Melbourne we flew
Sydney
Opera house... to Adelaide. We stayed with Stephanie's family. Greek family. Think My Big Fat Greek Wedding and you'll understand a little bit what our 36 hours in Adelaide were like. Not a lot to say about Adelaide as it's a very small town. The water is as cold and dirty as it is in San Francisco. Her relatives lived in a large Australian house from about 100 years ago. The real deal. Pretty sweet.
So I've just lost about 2 pages worth of blogging because I didn't realize I'd lost my internet connection, so forgive me if I'm not as enthusiastic this time around. From Adelaide we decided (for reasons still slightly unclear to me) to take the Indian Pacific train to Perth. Now Australia is a really big country. REALLY big. 41 hours on a train big. And that's only like 2/3 of the way across. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Cheaper than flying, two less nights of accomodation to pay for. Some good scenery. Even though I had been told, I didn't take into account that much of one day would be spend crossing the Nullarbor Plains. For those of you not so good at
Sydney
Opera house and city skyline dissection words: Null = No, Arbor = Tree. Apt description if ever there were one. We got on the train Sunday evening in Adelaide. Slept (Steph and I lucked out again and each got 2 seats to ourselves). Woke up thinking we were in the Nullarbor and people had lied to me. There were trees, albeit small ones and some rolling hills. Not the vast, flat, barren former ocean floor I had been told to expect. I was wrong. After stopping in Cook (basically a ghost town and now only used for refueling the Indian Pacific train and freight trains) we entered into the real Nullarbor. They weren't lying. While traveling on the longest straight stretch of railway in the world (400 km) the scenery really doesn't change. At all. We did, however, see our first wildlife: 3 wild camels and a handful or two of 'roos. In addition to those we saw some vultures and a few wedgetail hawks (the symbol of the Indian Pacific Railway as well as a bird with a 6 ft wingspan).
Once again I was lucky enough to have the seat in front of the only kid on the train. He started crying
Sydney
The Rocks - old part of Sydney. and wouldn't shut up (no matter how many times his grandmother told him to) so I decided for the sanity of everyone on the train I would play "spot the kangaroo" with him. This led me to babysitting for him for the better part of the afternoon. He's lucky he was cute. He's also lucky he lived in Kalgoorlie and I didn't have to babysit him overnight.
Last night we stopped in Kalgoorlie. Weird place. It's the leading producer of gold and was the last big gold rush city to be founded. Or something like that. We had three hours to kill so I went into town with an Irish guy and an Italian guy. We decided to have a real Australian pub meal. What better place than the largest outback city in Oz? Once we entered the pub it was determined that the "thing" here is to have all the girls that work in pubs wear lingerie. Needless to say it was the first meal I've eaten while staring at 5 nearly naked girls. That and for a while I was the only female in the bar besides the barmaids. And there was a 9 year old drinking
Sydney
Harbour Bridge a pint. Seriously. There was NO WAY he was 18 or even within 5 years of it. The Irish guy was impressed as apparently that won't fly even in Ireland. Anyway, everyone in the pub was a gold miner (as that's the only industry in the city) and they were there to drink. Seriously. We left by about 9:45 but I could tell it gets REAL rowdy in there later at night and on weekends.
Steph was miserable nearly the whole trip. She woke up on Sunday with a sore throat and on Monday with what looked like strep. It's not like we could just get off the train in some town for then night and let her sleep. It's the train or the middle of nowhere. This morning we woke up in the Avon Valley outside of Perth which looks just like the rolling green hills of a Northern CA spring if you replace the oaks with gum trees. Beautiful. We got into Perth this morning and took a taxi with the Irish and Italian guys. We were staying in hostels within blocks of each other and when the taxi dropped us off, we thought it was a
Sydney
Opera house joke. It looked like a residential neighborhood though Lonely Planet had described it as a "bohemian backpacker's mecca." Turns out that a few blocks down there are some cafes and such, but Perth is TINY. Seriously. I left Steph and ran all over Northbridge looking for a private room instead of the dorm beds we had booked so that Stephanie could sleep and get better. All of the backpackers here are completely booked. It's crazy. Anyway, got us the last private room in town and got settled in before taking Steph to the doctor. My diagnosis of strep was confirmed. A doctor's visit in Oz = AUD$63. Prescriptions AUD=$27. Our copay in the US is $75. Nuts.
Anyway, Steph is safely tucked into bed. I have babied her like she's never been babied before. We have put a deposit on a camper for 10 days to explore the coast but we might try to get out of it if Steph's not feeling better by tomorrow and just rent a car for day trips instead. Not sure we can get our $500 deposit back, but if she pretends she's dying and the doctor confirms that diagnosis, maybe we can work
Melbourne
Our hostel had "Ladies Night." Free champagne for the ladies or anyone dressed like one. something out. Remains to be seen. Rest assured however, as she is not going to die. Not on my watch anyway. Maybe I should go check on her....
Ok, I'm going to try to add pictures. If you see them I was successful, if you don't, I wasn't. Simple as that. Don't feel bad, but I don't miss you guys yet. I'm sure I will, it's just going to take a little longer. Hope all is well! XOXO
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Lisa
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So jealous!
Except for the sick part (get better Steph!) this all sounds sooo awesome. I really hope you guys do the camper thing and take lots of pictures and post them. :) Be safe and have fun. Such the explorers!