The Gold Coast in Australia - Surf's up, dude!

We decided to move north on the first of January, not too late so we'd avoid traffic. But we didn't avoid traffic. At least the first hour when we left Sydney.

Our first night was couchsurfing in Port Macquarie. It's a great place near the beach, with a big garden and a swimming pool and an Austrian family who was couch surfing there too :)

Our host, Chris, was great: He prepared dinner for us, we had great Australian wine to drink, and we had a wonderful evening chatting and hearing stories from each other. Chris has traveled all around the world for almost his entire life and we heard about great places to be for our next big trip. Whenever it will be. :-) He's never been in our region and after meeting us, he might just come around one day :)

We didn't have time to stay very long, but we were going back there on our way back down to Sydney before we leave for Hong Kong. Chris gave us some excellent advice on where to go on the Gold Coast - and what to avoid.

We left Chris at 10:30 the next day to drive to Burleigh Heads, a small town on the border of Queensland. It's supposed to be a 5 hours drive.

It took us the double that!

The holiday traffic was insane! We were driving 15 kph on the highway, and Rony was doing all the driving, because Talia can not drive a manual car.

We finally arrived at our host's home, but Rony was exhausted and soer and went almost directly to bed. Talia stayed with our host and the other couch surfers who were there and played a game called B***S***. And of course she won and everybody else got drunk :) Mwahahahaha. It's a shame she didn't play for money...

The next day we were supposed to go surfing, but Rony was still tired and the place we stayed in was so awesome that we decided to stay "home" and just talk to people, have a late breakfast with everyone and watch "Max", the local music channel.

Our host, Hinu, was married to a French guy and lived in France for a while. She has beautiful kids who just hung out with us and were happy to have people at their place.

We finally decided to go to the beach with the other couch surfers, Sarah the German and Sheldon the Canadian. We had a real good connection with them and we decided to go together to the surf lesson the next day in Surfer's Paradise (that's what it's actually called).

We tried to book a lesson for the 4 of us, but the lesson was too late for us (we had to go back to Chris's house) and we ended up taking the early lesson and decided we would meet them on the beach.

The lesson was great: We were something like 15 people, all teenagers but us and one other guy, and huge waves like they haven't seen in the area for a long time. They said those were the biggest waves they've had all year, and that anyone who learned to surf that day should be applauded (you can applaud now. We'll wait.)

We learned a lot in the 2 hours we had. Rony could stand on the board for 3 seconds and Talia could almost stand. We both caught great waves as we body surfed, though (meaning we were lying on our bellies on the board). That was loads of fun, too. We were exhausted at the end of the lesson, but we had a lot of fun and will try it again at home. After all, we live near the beach! Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures of us surfing (we were both busy), but Sarah, our German couchsurfing friend, arrived while Talia was bodysurfing and took a few pics, which she'll hopefully send us when she's back home at the end of the month. In the meanwhile, here's the one we have (post surfing):

The last night on the Gold Coast was at Chris's house again where, again, Chris had prepared a great dinner. This time there were 2 Argentinians couch surfing there, and the Austrian family we met the first night.

We stayed up really late again and Chris appears to be a very warm and sensitive guy who embraces life and always see the best in each person.

In honor of the end of the summer portion of our trip, we would like to share with you the places that you should not get sunburned:

1) Your knees
2) The back of your knees
3) Your feet
4) Your butt

These, of course, are just wild guesses, not that we know this from experience or anything.

We finally left everybody the next morning (this morning, actually) and went back to Sydney, where we are spending our last night before our next stop: Hong Kong!

The way up to Adelaide - from the Great Ocean road through Port Fairy and Mt. Gambier

So we promised to update about the last days of 2010 and here is what happened: We stayed 2 days in Port Fairy after a long road trip on the Great Ocean Road. We wanted to see the Grampians and talked about it with our host in Port Ferry, Laura. She was surprised about our choice, saying it's a bit far for a day trip and suggested that we see the parks around her place that were close by, with no entry fee and always open. And we could see the same things as in the Grampians.

So we went on a hike in Tower Hill first, which is an ancient volcano crater that was overturned by nature to a park with lots of animals and tracks of all difficulty levels. When we arrived there, we saw koalas on the trees, as we did the previous day on the Great Ocean Road. It was great again, although it did not carry the same emotional reaction as the first time.

Tower Hill

Kangaroo staring at us

We went on one of the tracks there and after a half hour walk we saw kangaroos in the wild! Completely free, with no one around us. They weren't afraid of us and looked at us for a few seconds. In fact, one had a staring contest with Rony! Then they went on with their business as usual. Apparently they were used to cameras cause they kind of posed for us. That was the highlight of our hike. When we got back to the park entrance, we saw two emus walking in the picnic area. They were very friendly, especially with people with food. We don't understand why... :-)

Emus at the picnic area

Anyway, we were quite exhausted so we took a break and went to sleep in the afternoon... in the car. Our host was at work and we couldn't wait till she came back, so we just went to the town pier and took a nap.

Now we were ready for the evening event: Bird watching at sunset. And not just any bird, moody birds that travel all the way from Alaska to Australia to reproduce. So we went out there to watch them, as a dozen of other people did, but saw only a couple hundreds ("only.") There are supposed to be thousands. But it was special anyway.

The next day, we went to Mt Eccles, which, like Tower Hill, is an ancient volcano turned nature park with lots of hikes. We saw much less animals there, but the scenery was great. We then started towards Mt. Gambier, with a stop at the Princess Margaret Anne caves, which were totally awesome (according to Talia).

Princess Margaret Ann Caves

Our next stop was Mount Gambier, on the way to Adelaide. Mount Gambier is the second biggest town in South Australia (which is the name of the state, not physically the southernmost towns) and a good stop on the way to Adelaide if you come from the Great Ocean Road. And also that's where the Blue Lake is.

Blue Lake

We arrived in Adelaide on Christmas Eve, just in time to buy a few things for the weekend. And good thing we did! Because in Adelaide, everything is closed for 4 days at Christmastime: Christmas day, Boxing Day (which is supposed to be a sales day everywhere else and is the day after Christmas Day), Declaration day of South Australia, and Boxing day NT (New Technology or North Territory?). PLUS get this: In Australia, if a holiday falls on a weekend, you are reimbursed with extra vacation day! So everything was closed on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, AND Tuesday. You should have seen the streets - they were so dead, we though a disaster film could easily be filmed there!

Nothing is open beside Chinese restaurants and a few parks that are open anyway, like the botanic gardens, which were gorgeous. What we found most funny is that, even though many stores had Boxing Day sales advertisements in their windows, they were actually closed, and only opened 2 days later! The cinema were open and although the tickets are expensive, there are a few restaurants around the theatres that offer a cinema ticket at $8 AUD if you buy a meal. That price is much more in our range than $18, the regular price. So we went to see "The King's Speech" which was a great movie. And a real historical event...again. Talia really loves those movies ;-)

We stayed at the hotel for 4 days because of that and also because we had to limit our expenses and couldn't afford a trip to Kangaroo Island (cheapest tour was 350 dollars) or Uluru (500 dollars.) But we could afford to buy some gear for the cold winter in China and Japan: A sleeping bag for Talia andd thermal clothes for both of us.

It was time to go to Sydney and enjoy a New Year's Eve there :)
 
Pics from Adelaide:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=595490&id=906005363&l=daa4911657

Pics from the Great Ocean Road:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=588459&id=906005363&l=3dcccbe1fb

Happy New Year from Sydney! Well, it WAS in Sydney :-)

Hi all!

We're sorry we haven't updated in over a week, but we haven't really had Internet access. We will write about everything we did after the Great Ocean Road, but first we'd like to update you about now.

We were in Sydney for New Year's Eve, and we had a marvelous spot on The Rocks in Sydney, which is the perfect place to see the fireworks both on the Sydney Bridge and the Opera House.

As we previously mentioned, we were able to change our flight back to Sydney to the day before, so we had to find a hotel, which was no small feat considering we booked our New Year's Eve hotel back in JUNE and only found one an hour out of the city.

We ended up finding a really nice hotel (4 stars) also about an hour outside of Sydney for a pretty good price (what we were paying in Melbourne for a hostel) and arrived pretty easily by train, after a Tiger Airways flight that - OMIGOSH - arrived on time and - OMIGOSH - was uneventful. Our hotel for the next day was actually pretty close to this one, but first we had to go into town to pick up our car and buy some food for the next few days.

We took a nap when we got to our next hotel (also really nice and a 4 star hotel that was fairly cheap cause it was far) so that we'd have enough energy for the evening. We took the train into the city, which is about an hour, around 6 to make sure we have enough time to find a good place for the fireworks.

One tip if you take the train to the city on New Year Eve: Buy a one way ticket to the city, cause the trains are free after midnight till the end of service. Well, they aren't technically free, but there were so many thousands of people that they just open all the gates to have the traffic go through. The truth is, it was the same when we arrived, so we could have actually gone without a ticket, but whatever.

The Sydney train system was working all night long with extra trains just to make sure that people didn't drive drunk and to minimize traffic, so we were lucky that even though we were technically far, we had a very easy time getting into town.

We got off at the Circular Quay (pronounced key) station and just walked with the crowd to The Rocks. At one point we stopped to ask a cop what the best place to watch from would be, and he told us to run into the place next to him - which proved to be the best spot. Even though there were a zillion people there (the news said 1.5 million people all around the harbor), we found a great spot that gave us a great view of both the Sydney Bridge and the Opera.

We arrived at 20:15 (the area was locked around 20:30), found a good place, plopped ourselves down, and read for the next 3.5 hours. There were some crazy drunk Italians who were making tons of noise for a while, but then they moved closer to the water after the first fireworks which started at 21:00, and then it was pretty nice.

We heard a lot of languages during those 4 hours in the Rocks (not just Italian) and we even had the chance to ask a Chinese family there how to say long, warm coat in Chinese so Talia can buy one there :) And at midnight we even shook hands with a Pakistani family. It was cool to see everybody happy there and celebrating.

The walk back from The Rocks to the train station was much longer than what we expected: Millions of people on the streets of Sydney, all going to the same direction. The streets were closed for cars and there were a few policemen watching over us.

Once we got to the station, Town Hall, we saw so many people trying to get in the station that we decided to wait at a coffee shop around the corner and until it got a bit better. So we ended up going back to the hotel at 3:00.

The next day we were ready for our drive to the north coast. Us and a few millions of Ozzies with us.
But that's another story.

All we've been hearing on the radio lately has been countdowns of 2010 - and the decade - so in their honor, here's our list of awards in honor of the 2010 portion of our trip:

Most annoying song: Bruno Mars - Grenade. Why? Cause the lyrics are stupid - check it out for yourself.
First runner up: Black Eyed Peas - Time of my Life. Why? Cause the remake is sacreligious.
Coolest animal: Tasmanian Devil. Why? Hello - it's the DEVIL
Nicest people: Melbourne. Why? We have no idea.
Most beautiful country: New Caledonia. Why? Have you seen the pics? Looks like Photoshop.
Funniest print ad: "Happy Husband Sale: Prices you won't have to lie about!"
Funniest TV ad:



















Best individual experience:Volunteering at the WFFT.org
Dumbest TV concept: Writing "rerun" on I Love Lucy and other old shows
Most annoying TV ad: We can't remember cause we kept muting it
Best beer: Chang in Thailand. Why? Cause it's cheap and yummy :-)
Dumbest landmark: Great Ocean Road Memorial Bridge. Why? Cause there's nothing there!

We are currently spending our last few days on the Gold Coast and Byron Bay area (which is where all the surfing happens) and on Thursday we head off to Hong Kong, so we aren't sure how much we'll be able to update after that, but we promise to update about the missing days when we can.

So far the people we met on the Gold Cost are awesome. Our hosts as well as the other couchsurfers we met.

Pics from Adelaide and New Year's Eve in Sydney:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=595490&id=906005363&l=daa4911657

The Great Ocean Road, Australia - Gorgeous beaches, funky towns

After Melbourne, we left on our next adventure up the Great Ocean Road (GOR from now on), one of Australia's (touristic) iconic sites. It is absolutely gorgeous, which is nature's way of making up for the fact that the drive is insanely long.

Our first stop was in Torquay, where there was nothing to see that really interested us, other than Bell's Beach, so we took the detour and saw the beautiful beach. Unfortunately, we did not see where the turnoff was, so we only saw it, but that's OK, we had plenty more to see and the rest was actually a lot nicer.
Torquay is apparently not officially on the GOR, but since we weren't sure, we decided to check anyway.

We drive through the various surf towns, such as Surf World Museum (not making this up) in the surf town of Anglesea, which is exactly what you would imagine a surf town would look like - loads of surfing stores and nothing much else, at least not on the main road.

This was the basic view most of the way, though we can't remember where this was

Just before leaving the hostel, we made friends with an American girl who lives in Sydney, and she had a really great booklet about the GOR that had excellent recommendations of what to do in each place along the way. It was really instrumental in helping us decide where to stop and where to drive through.

Our first real stop, therefore, was actually Aireys Inlet. While we had no intention of stopping there, largely due to the fact that we don't stop in cities whose names we can't pronounce, we saw one of the known GOR stops along the way, so we went to see it: The Split Point Lighthouse. While we still have no idea why it's called that, it was a nice lighthouse with a gorgeous view. Here, again, we were faced with Australians who decided that since it's late December (think late June on our sides of the world), they should wear shorts and a tank top, even though it's 20 (tops) and windy.

We then went to the TOTALLY awesome (NOT) Memorial Arch, specifically because in the booklet we have, it is listed as "should not be missed." We still have NO idea why this is a landmark, but it made us think that Israel really has it all wrong and should work better on its tourism. Just about every rock there can be turned into a "tourist attraction" where people can sell ice cream for $5 and a coke for $3.50.

The amazing, incredible, can't-be-missed Memorial Arch

Our next stop was Apollo Bay. We were actually supposed to spend our first night in Apollo Bay, but changed our plans the night before when we saw that our last day would have an entirely-too-long drive that would get us into Adelaide way too late - and this is on Christmas Eve.

Apollo Bay was cute, but since it was still cold in that area (about 20 degrees Celsius or even less), all of the beach towns, that are probably awesome during the summer, were a bit ghost-town-ish.

After a short break for lunch and browsing our way through a bookstore (we love bookstores), we continued our drive up to Cape Otway Lightstation, which was supposed to be awesome. We don't know how awesome it is, because it was 5:30 at this point and they were closed (grrrr - lots of these place close around 5 or 5:30), but it wasn't all a loss because along the way we saw a bunch of people looking up in the trees and taking pictures of... koalas!! We hadn't seen any yet, so this was totally exciting.

A mom and baby koala. They are SOOOO cute!!

We got out of the car and started taking a bazillion pics, they are so freakin' adorable, and even some video. We were probably there for half an hour. There were koalas on a few different trees, one had a baby koala, and another had a sleeping koala who was so perfect. And when the sleeping koala woke up, we found out it was actually a mom with her baby!! This alone made the entire trip worth it!

At this point, though we had wanted to make a few more stops along the way, we decided to haul a$$ to the Port Campbell area so that we would have a chance to see The 12 Apostles, the most famous attraction along the GOR. Before you think that we haven't seen much, the drive itself up the road is about 10 hours long, so we often had 1 or 2 hours of driving between stops.

We arrived at the 12 Apostles when the sun had already begun to set. Luckily for us, in Australia summer, it's still light outside at 9, so we could really take advantage of our days to see as much as possible.

I think we won the lottery - it was gorgeous at that time, probably much more than it would have been during the day. The sunset was just giving it a gorgeous color, much more than we can probably see in the pics. The 12 Apostles were, as everything else, created by the water eroding rocks, etc. There weren't actually 12 apostles, but as we learned by reading the signs there, more are being created all the time. Later that evening, the girl we were couchsurfing with told us that one of the apostles fell and now there are 8 instead of 9.

The 12 Apostles

This was going to be our last stop being arriving in Port Fairy (our host was only getting home at 10 that night, which was perfect for us since it gave us much more time for stops along the way), but right after the Apostles, we saw a couple more of the places that were recommended, the first being Lord Arch Gorge, which was gorgeous, and the London Bridge (the other one) which, apparently, is no longer called that since part of it collapsed in 1990 (bringing a whole new meaning to the song "London Bridge is falling down") and is now called the London Arch. Still being sunset, the view was, once again, gorgeous.

Rony saving the wildlife so it doesn't get run over

We decided that this was it, we weren't stopping anymore along the way since we had to be in Port Fairy by 10, but we made a short stop in Port Campbell when we took a wrong turn and saw how gorgeous the town is.

We arrived in Port Fairy a bit after 10, where we were met by a really sweet host (about our age) with a gorgeous house, and a tiny dog that loved Rony and bit Talia's ankles.

This post is very long already, so we will write about the next few days soon. For now, here are some pics from the GOR, and the days after, as well:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=588459&id=906005363&l=3dcccbe1fb

Melbourne, Australia - freezing in the summer, but friendly as can be

We finally arrived in Melbourne, and made it just in time to give the car back to the rental company.
Just in time because Oprah was in town and welcomed us with a big traffic jam that almost prevented us from returning the car on time. Good thing Rony always tries to be a few hours early on everything, it makes Talia on time...

Maybe because Oprah was in town, a demonstration for WikilLeaks was there, too. Judging by the first 2 hours in Melbourne, it seemed like a lot was going on in this city...

The place we were supposed to couch surf in was a bit far from downtown, in a little suburb called Box Hill. It took us a while to get there, but we definitely didn't expect what we saw: The owners were very nice and warm, but the place was just a mess and dirty. Apparently they had a lot of guests that weekend, and they had only their garage for us to sleep in. And we had to share our "room" with some rabbits. Strange.

But the hardest part was the sleeping room condition: It was cold and very windy. And the garage was not exactly isolated. Far from it. Rony was freezing and had to sleep dressed up in his sleeping bag. Talia was a bit better and just slept dressed up. Anyway, we couldn't stay (or even go to the toilet) in a place like this, and we decided that no matter what, we had to find another place. Fortunately, Talia has a friend in Melbourne and when she heard of what happened to us, came to our rescue right away. Yey for Twitter! We heart @FayG29 !

She opened her house to us and even if it was such a short notice, welcomed us as we were her family.
She prepared us lunch, and after we calmed down and finally took a shower, we went to visit the city. We weren't disappointed. Melbourne is a very living city, with a great architecture, and while it's a big city, it is not overwhelming as big cities can be.

Federation Square

So we started where everybody starts in Melbourne: Federation Square. That's like an entry point to downtown Melbourne. There is nothing special to do there except plan our visit of the city (great tourist information center there) and apparently a great, free art gallery, but we didn't know it then.

In front of the square stands Flanders Street Station, which is like the central station of Melbourne, although there is a Melbourne central station elsewhere. A bit confusing maybe. Well, let's say it's the main entry point of the city.

From there, downtown is built like a grid and it's quite easy to navigate. So we decided to just walk around and stop wherever we'd like. After a few minutes walk, we arrived in front of the Regent Theatre where apparently the AFI (Australian Film Institute) award ceremony was taking place. And movie fans as us thought, "Well, that's so nice to prepare such an event for us!" So we saw a few famous Australian movie stars, or at least we guess since we didn't know them. Later we saw on the news that William Defoe was there too but we missed him.

After Oprah the day before and the Wikileaks demonstration, it looked like Melbourne is much more than what we expected. Melbourne is a great city to walk around in. So much to architecture to see there, many churches and even if it looks like an unordered mix of old and new buildings, it actually looks very harmonic. The Christmas decorations were a nice addition to the surrounding beauty.

We walked through Bourke Street Mall where there was a puppet display of the Nutcracker on the department store windows. Like in Printemps in Paris. Rony kept saying that this city reminded him a lot of Paris and he could definitely live in this city.

Now it's a good time for a little pause and tell about Melbourne people: I don't know if we were just lucky, but the people here are soooo nice! A few examples:

1. We opened a little map of the city to see where to head to, not because we were lost, and a second later someone came to us and asked us if we needed directions. Free of charge! Genuine kindness
2. We were on our tram to get to the city and the bus driver suddenly stopped the tram, went out and helped a couple to carry their baby stroller in, and even gave them tips about which doors are the best to come through.
3. We were in St Kilda's Esplanade and we saw a tram stop near us. The driver opened the doors and asked a couple who was just sitting in the station where they were heading. So the couple answered and he just said "I'm going there too, just get in." The couple didn't wave the driver, he just stopped.
4. Each time we asked for directions or information, the people there were so helpful and nice. It's hard to explain every situation, but we had a guy who just saw we asked for direction from the bus driver and suggested we see the bus route on his IPad and find the street we needed. And the driver, even if he didn't know the street we needed, paid attention to where he was going and stopped near the street we were looking for, even if there was no bus stop there.

So that also was part of the city charms.

End of pause.

As we were walking around town, we kept seeing signs for the musical Mary Poppins, which is apparently the big thing going on in Melbourne now. Well, that and the Bon Jovi concert from the night before, which had the entire city in Bon Jovi shirts, caps, and backpacks, singing Bon Jovi songs non-stop.

Eventually we came across the Queen's Theatre, where Mary Poppins is showing, and Rony suggested we go in and see if there are any tickets for shows while we're in town.  And wouldn't you know it? We got tickets for $30 each! We'll be going next Sunday when we get back from Tasmania. :-)

In the evening, after a long walk all around downtown, through Chinatown, and a small dinner, we headed back to Fay's home, happy and tired.









We will post pics on the next post. :-)

Australia, here we come (again)

After a great time in New Caledonia, where we saw so much in so little time, we couldn't slow down, and after a short flight back to Sydney, we picked up our rental car from the airport and started to drive toward Canberra.

Now just a short pause to explain that rental was not our original plan. We planed our trip in Australia around car relocations, the principal of which is to send back the car to its original port. For very cheap, like 5 dollars a day. Well, during Australian holidays it doesn't work much: Most of the relocations are actually rented back due to the high demand. So it appears that most of our trip in Australia will be through car rental. It's a bit heavy on our budget, but we have no choice. Buses are more expensive than car rental, and much less convenient.

As you know, Australians drive on the left side of the road. So that was our new experience of the day and we're used to it now. We ordered a manual car since it's cheaper in Australia but Talia is not used to it much and she was still in the learning process (see previous post). So Rony was suppose to drive till Talia would get used to manual shift.

We arrived at the car and after Rony entered the car, said, "Talia, what kind of car did you order? Manual or automatic?"
"Manual, of course. It's cheaper"
"Well we got automatic."

First good news of the day! Talia will be able to drive after all. But she wasn't psychologically ready for it yet, so Rony took the first shift to Canberra.

Driving on the left side is not that hard after all. First because we had to do it in Thailand on our motorbikes. And also, Australia's road signs are very clear: "Wrong way! Go back!" signs are displayed in the right side of every intersection on the highway, and "keep left" signs are displayed each time you wonder where you should drive. Plus signs to the cities on the highway so you won't get lost. It was a big change from New Caledonia where you can drive for hours and see no signs.

Anyway, we got to meet our first couch surfing host, Frank, in Canberra. It was quite an excitement, because we didn't know what to expect and we didn't really know how to behave.

Frank is a very nice guy, very friendly and helpful. First he met us at the information center of Canberra, because it was an easy place to find, and we followed him all the way to his home. He also drew us a map with the directions to his home so if we lost him on the road we could always find it.
After that he prepared dinner for us: a barbecue of the finest Australian meat: Lamb, chicken, and kangaroo meat! It was our first time and it tasted good. The taste is different of any meat we have eaten so far.

Frank's barbeque with kangaroo meat and other stuff

We were quite exhausted from our day (we woke up at 5:00 to catch our flight to Sydney) but we couldn't go to sleep because Frank was so interesting to talk to. He told us stories about Canberra, Australian history, and we talked about IT too, since he's in the field and we are as well. At some point we were too exhausted to continue and had to sleep.

We discovered that one day in Canberra was certainly not enough: There is so much to see in this town that you need at least 3 days. And one more day to go the the Natural Parks around. But we had only one day so we decided to start early and see as much as we could.

We started with Capital Hill and the buildings around: The Old Parliament, New Parliament, the gardens. We passed by the High Court of Justice building, National Gallery and National Library. The weather was rainy and cloudy, so we didn't want to spend much time outside and decided to focus on the big things.

The next big thing was the War Memorial Museum. One of the best museums we ever saw. We had only 2 and a half hours to visit it, but we could spend the day there without a problem. So interesting and full of details and interactive features. There was a light and sound show made by Peter Jackson on the WWII section, the presentation of each event was so realistic and made us feel as we were living it. The rest of the exposition was just as interesting: Real planes and submarines from the different wars, historic footage, short movies explaining each turning point of each war, amazing displays of battle fields. As Talia said, "Every history lesson should be like this museum and it would be much more popular among teenagers. Not to mention I would know some history!"

Memorial War Maquette

Memorial war airplane

But time was running short and we had to head to our next destination, Albury. Why Albury? Because it's a good place to stop between Sydney and Melbourne. After a 4-hour drive by Talia, who felt confident to drive on the left side, we made it to this small town. Albury is a very pastoral and lively town.

At first we didn't hear anything from our host all day, which was a bit scary, but she finally met us in town and we drove to her place. Shannen invited us in her house where she lives with her boyfriend Tim and another roommate. After a small dinner, we discussed about our plans for our trip and she gave us a few tips on what to see on the road to Melbourne.

Tim, her boyfriend, told us that he has visited Japan twice, and twice in the winter, which is exactly the time we will be there. So we had a lot of questions to ask him, especially about what is possible to see in the winter. And apparently you can see a lot! And his trip was a lot like the one we plan to do so it was great to meet someone who has done it and is interested in the same things. Plus they have the most amazing vegetable garden!

So again, we went to sleep very late, but we were lucky to have met such interesting people in 2 days and hoped it would stay that way. We were 2 for 2.

Shannon and Tim

We started our way to the final stop before Melbourne: Ballarat. In the previous 2 days, it had rained a lot in Australia and the previous week some parts of New South Wales were overflowed. So it was hard to drive with all this rain and sometimes heavy rains. So heavy that sometimes we couldn't see the road ahead.

The Ballarat area is where the gold mining rush occurred around 1850. So a lot of towns around this area look like a western movie, and Bendigo, one of our stops on the way to Ballarat, was no exception. We had the feeling were in some American town and Talia had a feeling she was back in Texas.

So once we got to Ballarat, 2 hours late because we missed the turn and got almost to Melbourne, we finally met our next host: Mark and Adrienn. A nice and young couple who lived in Melbourne before moving to Ballarat. Once again, it was hard to say good night to them too. They were so nice and so welcoming. They have a great Christmas tree in the bedroom we stayed in and stockings hanging on the fire place so we really felt the Christmas spirit around us :)

Chrismas tree in our room!

They had a cat which just gave birth to 3 kittens and it's probably the smallest kittens we ever saw: They were so small they looked like rats. But so cute!

So cute!

There are a few things to see in Ballarat, usually related to the gold mining. So we decided to see Sovereign Hill, a theme park on the gold rush period of Ballarat. The park is reviving the 1850s period of the gold rush and actually has interesting attractions and activities for children and adults as well. Australia has a good way to make history interesting and alive. You can really learn and have fun!

Sovereign Hill

We learned how to separate gold from mercury, we saw the discovery of the second biggest gold rock by going down into the mine itself and live the moment with the miners themselves. We saw the condition of the Chinese workers and learned how to prepare sweet candies. It's hard to explain everything but it was just amazing.

We also visited the Gold Museum, which is much smaller, but has some nice displays too.
Now we were ready to get to Melbourne and see the big city.

Pics from the Canberra, Albury and Ballarat: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=581142&id=906005363&l=c2492beb84

Blue Mountains, Australia - The Australian "Grand Canyon"

For our second full day in Sydney, we booked a trip to Blue Mountains, which is about an hour outside of Sydney. We were picked up at (yawn) 7 am, so we had to get up (yawn yawn) at 6:30 am. As a bonus, that was the day we were checking out, too, cause that night we flew to New Caledonia, so we got to pack as well.

Even though we decided not to go out at night (after Rony's DJ course), we ended up going to sleep very late. Like 2 am late. As in, 4.5 hours before we had to get up - late. We were pretty exhausted when we got up, but we kinda napped a bit on the way.

We had the best group on this tour, we all got along real well, all made each other laugh. But the best part of the tour was our tour guide, Rod. He was hilarious. The guy is kinda like an Australian hippy type guy who didin't look much more excited than us to be up that late, but he is a really great guide. He grew up in the Blue Mountains so he knew the area real well. He called us "Gangsters" the entire time, which caused funny looks from other random tourists, and played Australian rap and hip hop the whole way.

This is Rod the tour guide

After driving around Sydney to pick up the others (of course we were the second), we started out towards the Blue Mountains. It's up in the hills, past the Olympic Stadium, which is much farther out of Sydney than you'd think, especially considering it was called the Sydney Olympics.

But I digress.

We made a stop for some coffee and a potty break, which Rod was very fond us and gave us many of. Let's stop for a moment of appreciation.

Before we got off the minibus he told us which places had bad coffee and which were good, and where to get more water, etc. The guy was really looking out for us.

But he was right. After a fairly short hike (down), we got to an incredible view point. Words and pictures cannot describe how gorgeous it is. If you're ever in the area, it's totally worth going out there. And shop around for the tour, cause some companies take $100, ours took $55, and honestly, we could have probably done it on our own for cheaper, but it was a lot of fun with the group and our guide.

First view of the Blue Mountains - pictures don't do it justice

The Blue Mountains are actually not mountains. As it turns out, the valleys were created in the same manner that the Grand Canyon was created, with water washing away parts of the stone, though it's filled with trees. We climbed up and down all kinds of parts, and I thought I was going to die twice. But before I was a loser twice, I was a winner once. :-)

The guide would kinda tell us to go and when to turn, as in "Go straight, when you hit a fork, go right, then just go straight till you get to the waterfall." In this particular instant, Rony and I were in the front of the line, and somehow I became the leader. I have no idea how it happened, it is sooo not part of my personality.

But I was a great leader, no one fell, no one died, and we reached our destination successfully. I call that a win.

This is my "everyone is following me" picture :-)

There isn't really all that much to tell because we just went from one gorgeous view to another gorgeous view, often through rainforest-type areas. Instead of eating lunch at the restaurant they usually eat at, Rod had our lunches packed and we had what he called an "adventure lunch" where we sorta climbed down a bit and sat on a beautiful spot and had lunch there.

This is where we had lunch. Gorgeous, ay?

Well, everyone else ate while a bee fell in love with me. I can't help being who I am. Don't hate me because I'm sweet.

Towards the end of the tour, we stopped at a liquor shop and everyone bought a beer/alcohol. Here again, Rod appeared to know a lot. He said, "Come on, try an Australian beer. They're all good except VB." So we took his advice and each of us bought his preferred beer. I don't remember seeing any Australian beer going out of the shop beside Big Helga (which is made in German style.) Then we went to have a "party" on this gorgeous cliff. The following exchange killed me, if only because of the level of dense you must be to ask this:

Tour member girl: Rod, why aren't you drinking? You don't like beer?
Tour guide Rod: Driving drunk is kinda frowned upon in Australia.

Group shot at the last point (where we had our party)

We got back to the hostel with about an hour to spare before we were picked up to go to the airport. Rony showered and I went on the relocation websites to see if any cars were available for relocation, and we found and booked our first one!

An explanation about car relocation: People, especially in big countries like Australia, will rent a car in one place and drop it off in another. For example, they will pick up a car in Melbourne and drop it off in Sydney. The rental companies need someone to bring them back to the original location, so instead of hiring drivers or putting the cars on trucks or trains, they offer them at really low prices for people to bring them back.

We are hoping to get all of our cars this way, but since the relocation agencies only publish the list of cars 3 weeks in advance, there weren't any cars available for our dates yet. But yesterday there was!

So we will be relocating a 2 berth camper van (with a double bed, fridge, and stove) from Sydney to Melbourne over the 4 days that we chose, for a grand total of - are you ready? - $5 a day. Plus the company gives us the camper van with a full tank of gas and - get this - reimburses us for up to $150 in gas!!! How crazy is that??

There are several relocation sites, and I visit each of them every day, and yesterday as Rony was showering, suddenly one became available, so I called and we got it! It's very exciting (the cheapest car you can rent is like $45, so that's saving us $40 a day plus most of the gas, if not all of it), but we weren't really able to enjoy the excitement because we had to catch a flight and our ride was a bit late.

It got us to the airport on time, though, and we had the grossest flight ever. The staff was really nice and the plane itself was very comfortable, but there was tons of turbulence, and even my stomach was turning, and I have no problems with airplanes.

Today we walked a bit around the main city here in New Caledonia and bought clothes for the fairy-themed wedding party we will be attending on Saturday (our host got married), and bought a bunch of groceries. Rony and I prepared dinner, and we've just been chilling with everyone here. Tomorrow we start to plan our real trip here and we will update you with what we're up to and photos when we can.

Pics from Blue Mountains:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=573098&id=906005363&l=978e2dc451

 

P.S. In the last post, we were unable to upload pics because the hostel's Flash was from the stone age, so here are those links:

Last day in Bangkok:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=573068&id=906005363&l=564ad07944

Sydney, Australia

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=573076&id=906005363&l=ce56c3e0a1

Our Asian journey begins!

We're at the airport! You've gotta love free wi-fi at Israeli airport Ben Gurion. :-)

We wanted to let you know about our schedule for the trip. Tonight we are departing for Thailand. Here's our schedule:

Nov 2-21 - Thailand. We are spending the first week at a wildlife rescue place, volunteering. I (Talia) will be with the elephants (I'll finally be short and thin!) and Rony is hoping to be with the bears again like he was last time.

Nov 22-24 - Sydney, Australia

Nov 24-Dec 7 - New Caledonia, an incredible island close to Fiji, the one where Rony's friend lives

Dec 7-Jan 6 - Australia! And New Year's Eve in Sydney, of course :-)

Jan 6-10 - Hong Kong

Jan 10-15 - Beijing, China

Jan 15-18 - Shanghai, China

Jan 19-Feb 19 - Japan!!!

We need to go board the plane, so we can't write much. We aren't sure if we'll be updating this week since the Wildlife place doesn't have Internet. I shall let you know how I survived 1 week without Internet.

On my new blog HowISurvivedAWeekWithoutInternet.com.

Not really.

They're calling our names. We'll talk to y'all later :-)

Preparing for the big trip to Asia

So this is our first post. From this here blog, we will update you about what we're doing and where we are.

Side note to thieves: We have friends staying at our apartment and we've taken out all of our valuables anyway, so nothing to see here, moving right along.

Back to the trip.

Rony and I will be leaving on Monday, November 1, 2010 for an almost-4-month long trip. We start in Thailand for 3 weeks, then 2 weeks in New Caledonia (a magical island by Fiji), a month in Australia,  a few days in Hong Kong, then Beijing and Shanghai, and finally an entire month in Japan.

It all started out with a trip to New Caledonia that Rony had been tentatively planning, to see a friend of his who lives there. The following is an exact replica of the conversation we had back in March (more or less):

Rony: Would you like to take a long trip? Like 2 or 3 months long?
Me: Yes
Rony: Really?

So we started out looking for a flight to New Caledonia. Of course, nobody in Israel has ever heard of New Caledonia. So we figured we need to take a flight to Australia and then go to New Caledonia, since New Caledonia is near Australia. We found this awesome deal to Sydney with Royal Jordanian, with a stop by Bangkok on the way to Sydney and a stop in Hong Kong on the way back.

And come on, we're not going to stop there just to visit the airports. We want to see those places, too! So now it started becoming a long trip, and we knew we'd need to leave our jobs to be able to take it. Or at least ask for a leave without pay for 2.5 months. Thankfully, both of us had jobs that wanted us back after the trip.

So then we thought, Hong Kong is so close to mainland China, won't we see it? Plus we both have a friend there who we used to work with. And it's all so close to Rony's dream destination Japan, why not add it, too?

So now it's a 4-month trip to 5 countries (6 if we count Hong Kong as a separate country from China), tropical weather as well as freezing winter, and so many different cultures. A once in a lifetime journey. And so much to prepare!

Mainly, deciding what to bring is a big issue, especially since it will be lodged on our backs for most of the trip. Over the past 2 weeks, we have been furiously preparing everything we (think we) will need for the trip. Here is what we are taking: A week or so of summer clothes, 3 pairs of pants, a toothbrush, soap (just enough for the first few days), my hair cream, thermal shirt and pants for me, and one warm jacket or sweater for the snowy winter...until we buy a heavy coat in China or Hong Kong. We really don't want to schlep a winter coat through summery Thailand and Australia.

Oh! And our passports and tickets of course!

Today we packed our bags, just to test what can fit in and that we don't pack too much.

And then we unpacked them - we're only leaving in 2 days!

But we did need to make room in the closets for our friends' stuff, and make sure our bags didn't weigh too much. I was positive I would fall backwards once that bag was on my back! (I didn't, or we would have taken a picture).

We are the epitome of nerves and excitement with respect to our upcoming trip. We assume that once we land in Bangkok, we will lose the nerve part and just have the excitement left. I am personally hoping not to talk Rony's ear off the whole way there :-)

To be precise, he's probably the one hoping I don't talk his ear off...

Fortunately, he knew me for years before we started dating, it's not like he can get mad about something he knew about before. I mean, hey - you can't get angry that the sky is blue! It can't help it!

The day we fly, we will post our basic itinerary, in case any of you decide to join us during the trip (looks like we have company for 1 week in Japan already!) and let you know what kind of money-saving opportunities we've decided to take advantage of, which lead to our ability to extend our vacation by an entire month.

Talk to y'all soon!