Wednesday, September 5, 2012

All you soul searchin' people, come on!

Time's flyin!

Since we last wrote here we have gone north from Wollongong to Brisbane and explored in between. Before we left we went on a walk on the beach with Carolyn, Jen and their cute dog Lulu. Carolyn and Jen will be in Cairns at the same time we will be there which is pretty awesome since we all want to see the Daintree Rainforest. We are going to hire a car and drive up there for a day trip of exploring.

September 2nd was fathers day in Australia so we got to meet more of the Akhursts as they were over for tea and snacks. September 3rd Hedley drove us to the station to head north to Sydney and then onto a big train for a 12 hour ride to Casino where we took a coach to Byron Bay. I actually didn't really realize we would be on the train for 12 hours until we had started moving already but they're more comfortable than airplanes! Lots of leg room, good views and if nobody sits in front of you the seats swivel around as a foot rest. Within a couple hours I saw my first wild Kangaroos hopping across a hill in the distance. I was super excited and pretty much spent the next 10 hours either sleeping or staring out the window scanning for Roos. We ended up seeing tons more especially as the sun was setting but couldn't manage to get photos or video.

We made it to Byron in the evening and got 2 beers (Stone & Wood) and walked to the Arts Factory Lodge where we had the coolest bungalow thing to stay in! It's down this wooden path in the middle of a bunch of trees. Nothing posh or top stars but funky and definitely one we will remember. We woke up to TONS of random bird noises and managed to record them on the iPad. Seriously it sounds like we are sleeping in the middle of a rainforest or something!

The next day we explored a bit more and since we had spent $10 at the hostel so far they gave us buy one get one free dinner vouchers. We went to use them only to find out the catch was the dinner you had to buy was like $25+. So we walked into town and got 2 large Dominoes pizzas instead and ate it all! Their large was about the size of a small in the US though and it was thin crust so it really wasn't THAT bad :)

Spent all of yesterday at the beach in Byron even though it was very windy. I think that has been my favorite activity since we left Wollongong. I guess I'm supposed to be a beach bum! We used some free wifi in the morning at Travel Bug and ate more pizza later on (just one this time). I got this sweet turtle mood ring in a little town called Nimbin that is just a tad too big that I managed to lose while shaking out our blanket in the park. Of course it had changed to a yellow/green color so it was impossible to see. We spent a pretty good chunk of time scanning the grass on our hands and knees and I had pretty much given up on it since it was starting to get dark and we were looking by flashlight at that point. Jeff kept looking for a while and right as I was telling him to stop and that we should just leave he found it! It was pretty exciting :) What a total badass of a boyfriend, right?

The bus didn't pick us up until 8:00pm to go to Brisbane and it was a pretty uncomfortable ride I have to say. We made it to Brisbane around 10:30pm and got a taxi to our hostel and went right to bed. We have the morning to explore before we hop on a 30 hour train to Cairns!

Music that I've been loving during our traveling:
-Tallest Man on Earth
-Band of Horses
-Ben Howard
-Death Cab for Cutie
-The Head and the Heart
-Nick Drake
-Angus and Julia Stone
-Of Monsters and Men
-Delta Spirit

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