Breakfast in Tokyo, Lunch in Cape Town & Dinner in Medellín

I’m in Melbourne now, loving pretty much everything about the place so far.  I’m based in Prahran, which is South of the city but there’s plenty going on here.  There’s a great market, restaurants of any kind and shops selling anything you can think of. The neighboring suburb of St Kilda is a centre of nightlife and live music.  Everywhere I’ve been in the city so far I’ve liked, and the weather the last 3 days has been to die for.  I keep seeing posters up for concerts that I now want to go to and the reputation Melbourne has for being a city of sport are well earned as far as I can tell.  The Australian Open tennis grand slam tournament starts here in a couple weeks and before that there’ s a international cricket game.  I want tickets to both.  Then there’s the F1 Grand Prix in March, a 10 minute walk from where I’m staying.

So far a great start to my stay here, and I’m looking forward to being here for the next few months.

Today is my last day in Sydney, I’m flying to Melbourne tomorrow morning after one week here.  Great week, great New Years celebration.  If my current plan works out tomorrows flight will be the last time I travel to a new city for a while, hopefully I’ll find a job in Melbourne for a few months.  My travel has slowed down immensely since I got to Australia. (3 towns – 2 1/2 weeks).  Quite a change from New Zealand and even more so from Asia before that.  So this basically marks the end of the first half of the backpacking part of my trip, 4 1/2 months in.  A few months working, then there will be around 5-6 months backpacking 3 more continents (plus hopefully both coasts of Oz) after working.

I’m looking forward to settling in to a new city, going to shows, some of the plethora  of sporting events in Melbourne and it’ll be nice not to have to stuff everything into my backpack every few days.  Still, in another way I’m already looking forward to backpacking around the remaining places on my trip.  Travel is addictive!  I’ll probably be updating the blog less during my stay in Melbourne, less stuff to blog about.  So don’t think I fell off the planet or anything.

I hope everyone back home had a great New Years!  2008 was a fantastic year for me, particularly the 2nd half of it.  Hopefully 2009 will be even better, and there’s every chance it will be.

Happy New Year From Sydney!  Waited for 10 hours in the hot sun yesterday holding a good spot for viewing the fireworks on the harbour front.

It was totally worth it.  Best fireworks I’ve ever seen by a long way!

Apparently there were 1.5 million people around the harbour viewing the show, almost all of the streets downtown were closed and turned into a sea of people.  The after party went on all over the city, I went to The Rocks, then to Kings Cross hitting the sack around 5:30 and the area was still full of people then!  Citywide all night party!  I have some videos that will be uploaded at some point.

Fantastic night, great way to end a fantastic year. I hope 2009 is even better, Happy New Year to all!

I’ve been in Sydney for a couple days now, staying in Kings Cross in a hotel above an Irish pub which I haven’t been able to go to yet due to it being over flowing with people every night.  The whole city is packed with people, I’m guessing a large portion of them are here for New Years (either that or this city has the most happening Monday nights I’ve ever seen).  Kings Cross is an interesting mix of takeaway restaurants, strip clubs, trendy bars, clubs, sleazy hostels and some really nice restaurants and hotels.  I read things before I got here about it being a place to avoid being in Sydney, can’t see why to be honest.  I’ve walked all over it in the past 2 days and haven’t felt unsafe once.  All that being said, most of the drinking establishments in the area aren’t really my kind of place.  For that I like The Rocks.  The first settlement in sydney, right on the harbour.  It’s full of old buildings, pubs, restaurants and shops with a great atmosphere.

I’ve taken a couple ferries across Sydney harbour to the North shore, walked back across the harbour bridge one time.  The view of the Opera house from there is fantastic.  My favourite view of the harbour so far was from the North shore, not far from the harbour bridge.  You can see the Opera house, the city and the bridge.

As far as the New Year celebrations go, there’s banners up everywhere saying “NYE 2008” etc.  They close almost all the roads in downtown Sydney on New Years Eve as the masses pour in.  This is gonna be one hell of a party, can’t wait for it!

Now I’m off to Bondi beach for the day!

The time I spent in Newcastle was largely due to Christmas and the lack of being able to travel on it.  So Christmas eve, we went out to the Blackbutt wildlife reserve which has Koalas, Kangaroos and other native wildlife.

After Christmas day on the beach, Boxing day followed suit, with the weather being perfect again.  This time we explored some different beaches.  Many to choose from in Newcastle!

The next morning I took a surfing lesson.  Been wanting to do this all week but because of the holiday this was the first lesson time available.  It was brilliant, loads of fun, by the end of the 1 1/2 lesson I was getting the hang of it and managed to successfully stand up a few times.  More surfing to come while I’m in Oz.  I was totally shattered afterwards, the cumulative effects of 2 days of swimming and the surfing when I haven’t done much of anything in the water for a long time but it was still awesome and I’ll be doing it again as soon as possible.

Now I’m in Sydney, will be here discovering it for a week including the New Years extravaganza.  When we arrived yesterday evening it was very warm and humid, very quickly changed by a cooling thunderstorm that rolled in.  Today is sunny and beautiful.  This Decembers weather is by far the best I’ve ever had!  I like the contrast of deciding how few clothes to wear instead of how many.

Christmas in Australia.  Specifically Newcastle, NSW. Quite different than Christmas has ever been for me.

25 and sunny was the weather, could not have been better and one of Newcastle’s beaches was the destination.  No vendors around, just the option of laying on the beach, or getting in the ocean.
First we built an sand igloo on the beach.  Anyone reading this from Iowa may (or may not) appreciate the humour.

We ate lunch on the beach while the ocean destroyed the igloo, then it was on to swimming.

Happy Christmas from down under!  I hope everyone has a great Christmas and New Years!

4th day in the blue mountains, we decided to do another hike, a little farther a field this time outside of Katoomba near the neighboring town of Blackheath.  Called the Grand Canyon hike and it lived up to it’s name.

Down through rain-forest and waterfalls to begin with into a narrow, deep canyon, walking on a ledge about halfway up the canyon.  Then descending into the bottom of the canyon, along the stream.  This stream gets much larger after rainfall.

After hiking in the base of the canyon for a while the trail veers off and goes up to the top of the canyon wall and then opens out with views of a huge canyon.  Different than the one by Katoomba but equally impressive.

The rest of the hike was mostly straight forward along the top of the cliff with numerous overlooks, quite a few kinds of butterflies and some lizards, ending with a 750 meter dash attempting catch the last bus of the day back to Katoomba. This attempt was successful with not a second to spare.

I’m very impressed with the Blue Mountains, I don’t think I’ve ever done this much hiking in one place before.  Usually I end up only being somewhere a couple days and doing 1 hike.  Here I’ve done 3 hikes, in consecutive days all of which were different, interesting with stunning views.  Very good.

I’m also starting to get ideas about the rest of my stay in Australia, where I want to work, where I want to go etc.  The more I hear/read/see the more places I want to go here.  Right now about as far as my plan goes is Newcastle for Christmas, Sydney for New Years and then down to Melbourne to look for a job, maybe for a month or 2, maybe longer.  I really want to get to Perth and the West coast, Tasmania as well as the obvious destinations on the East coast.  Maybe I’ll even get up top here too….  I can’t believe there’s only 11 days left in 2008, what a year it’s been!

My flight over the Tasman was straightforward and uneventful, (and wow was the havana club rum cheap in duty free) weather upon arrival in Sydney was perfect, 25 and sunny. After checking in and dumping bags at the hostel we went out, walked around for a while and had dinner and a beer at a local brewery. First impressions of Sydney, very good.

The next morning we got a train out of Sydney into the not too distant blue mountains and the town of Katoomba. The weather was the same as the previous day, summer has truly started for me now, thank you Australia. The blue mountains get their name from the blueish haze you can see on the horizon here. I haven’t seen a large mountain yet, it’s actually a canyon, a really cool one at that.

Just being in Katoomba for over 24 hours,was enough to wow me, hiking along the edge of the canyon. Standing on the top of the cliff with a sheer dropoff of several hundred meters and looking out into a vast ocean of trees stretching throughout the entire area. The rocks are really strange and cool looking, the trees are different from anything I’ve ever seen before and I saw two greatly coloured wild birds and one lizard on the 1km hike.

2nd full day here we hiked down into the canyon, through part of it and then back out farther along. Great views of waterfalls along the way with a few rainbows caused by the mist at them!

The small town (18k) of Katoomba is even pretty cool. Loads of hip cafes, restaurants and even a belgian waffle shop on the main street! So far: 4 days in Australia, 4 days of summer sunshine and no rain. I like it here.