Aussi, aussi, aussi! Oy, oy, oy!

My last day in Australia is almost over. The end of my trip has been fantastic.

Yesterday I went mountain biking in another rainforest. Not only are cars on the wrong side of the road here, but the brakes on bikes are backwards as well! Before we really got going they made me practice stopping so I wouldn’t accidently hit the front brake and go soaring over the handlebars. I managed to stay on my bike, but was assured by the presence of two med students who were biking with me. On our way to the rainforest we stopped at this crystal healing place for tea. Byron Bay, where I’ve been spending my last few days, is a hippie haven. So there are lots of aura picture places, crystal healers, and tarot readings. It’s actually a very cute town because it is not commercialized (think the exact opposite of Seaside on the Jersey Shore and that’s Byron Bay), but there are some real spacey people here. I think I have signed about 20 petitions in two days. The lady in charge on the crystal tea place was wearing a wizards cloak. She looked like Madame Trawley from Harry Potter. She made me walk through a labrinyth for my spirit. Riiight. After just walking around and eating for the past few weeks, biking up the hills was quite hard. But the views from the summits were worth all the effort and speeding down hill over little logs was a total thrill. I rode the brake the first time, but then we just went flying. It was grand.

Today I went sea kayaking, where we saw a bunch of dolphins surfing the waves. It was wild because we got to surf our kayaks in the waves with the dolphins. The rest of the day was spent lounging on the beach, watching all the surfers. The currents are really strong, so I decided to stay out of the water and avoid my Costa Rica buggie boarding experience that ended up with me being towed back to shore.

I’ve also visited a lot of Paul Hogan landmarks (Crocodile Dundee). I saw his house yesterday and ate at his restaurant today. No sign of him, unfortunately. I was hoping he would have a big machete-style knife on him. But alas, no such luck.

Now I just need to pack my bags and make my way up to Brisbane for my flight. I don’t get there until early morning, so I’m just going to hang at the airport until my 7:00 am flight. Fun fun. See you all soon!

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Friday, August 26th, 2005 at 4:30 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.