The Long Way Home

Nearly five months ago I boarded an east bound flight to London with the plan of flying eastwards till I made it home again. Amazingly the trip has gone really well and after so many amazing countries it was coming to an end. 

I flew from Carins to Brisbane where I could get a direct flight to Vancouver. And stopped to see another cousin. We had met in Adelaide, she had come to see me when I was there (or, you know, her mom and brother) and offered to host me during a layover. She showed me the Gold Coast, and since it was a dreary day we went to a Scandinavian spa for 90 minutes of glorious hot soaks, dinner in town and then games back at her place! Just a great way to leave Australia. 

Next was one looong flight up Vancouver with a stop in Victoria to visit my dad. It was just a lazy visit of sipping fine wines and being fed good food and sharing way too many photos!!

Next was two little hoppers to a town with one of the worst airports in the winter- luckily I made it in with no issues to finally see some of my favourite people ever! I was met at the airport by my adorable little nephew (and brother in law who did the driving) and spent a few days with my sister and a little niece who is growing up faster than legally should be allowed!!

We had a couple days of parks and Mario and cuddles and giggles (and one grown up sisters dinner) before it was time to head east one last time.  The weather looked to be closing in, with some heavy snow around the airport. But to my delight (and one little guys disappointment) the sky’s cleared and I made it to Vancouver in time for my connection. 

So, now I’m sitting in my seat a little emotional. Is it because it’s over? Or because I’ll see my grandma and my kitty soon? (Not to mention dear friends, more family, and my pillow!)

Who knows- but I can tell you one thing. I can’t wait to get back to work just because I need to start saving up for my next adventure!!

Great Barrier Reef

The goal of Australia was to meet some family and to scuba dive. The first was certainly accomplished and now for the second!!

I flew to Cairns and then drove up to Port Douglas for diving. It’s a beautiful little tourist town. They have miles of gorgeous beaches- except you can’t swim. Too many crocs. And a beautiful rainforest- which means it’s humid as all hell and rained constantly. 

Luckily- rain when it’s hot is a lot nicer than cold rain. And when you are under water you care even less!! I went out the first day with Quicksilver. They have large boats that take a mix of divers and snorkelers out to the reef. I did three dives with a medium sized group. The visibility wasn’t that great, so we didn’t see much of the big stuff. But the coral was spectacular. I have never seen so many variable colours. There were lots of little fish and schools of big silver ones. 

My second day was with Calypso, same idea with snorkelers as well. But I lucked out to be the only certified diver on the trip. So it was me, the dive master, and an employee out on his day off. A small group just makes everything better!! We could do drift dives and not worry about coming back to the boat. A tender would be sent to pick us up when we surfaced!!

Over all, I saw so much coral and sea life. We spotted a couple sharks, some sting rays and a manta ray! Oh and a pod of dolphins were spotted from the deck. It was an amazing couple days, great diving. And my knock off go pro from Singapore held up!!

After the last dive I was chatting with some other guests and they invited me to join them for a drink at the brewery on the dock. Hemingway’s makes some good beer!! I mostly just relaxed around Port Douglas after dives, and in my wanders I even found a coffee shop with an iced Thai tea!!!

One night I stopped at a pub for dinner and it turned out to be trivia night. Being full of useless general knowledge I was happy to play. Team Lonesome Dove managed an epic last place finish- but as the only team of one I was quite pleased with out I did!! (I bombed the music section and identifying celebs by school pic.)

It was a wonderful end to a wonderful trip. But I was ready to go home- of course the final leg back wasn’t direct. I can’t ever do anything the simple way!!!

Sydney

It was a short hop flight from Melbourne to Sydney where I stayed with an uncle who lives close to Bondi. It was great meeting more family. 

My first day I explored downtown Sydney a bit myself as they had some work in the morning. I enjoyed seeing the harbour and the bridge as well as walking the parks along the shore. 

In the evening was a great treat, they took me to the Sydney Opera House to see La Boheme. It was an amazing experience and a beautiful venue to see a show. The woman playing Mimi just had an incredible voice- it didn’t matter I couldn’t understand her. She was singing music. 

We took the ferry into Sydney for the show, so it was really cool to see the city and the lights from the water when we headed home after. 

The last day was exploring the beaches! We started early with a morning swim at the famous Bondi Beach and had breakfast watching all the people go by. Then we drove north up the coast. 

We stopped at Long Reef Beach for another swim, and then stopped at an amazing little pie shop for lunch that is a local favourite. And they were delicious! After lunch we headed back home, where we finished the day with pizza and chatting. 

It was a short stay in Sydney, but I really loved it there! I’ll have to come back. 

The Great Ocean Road

 It was time for something different- driving! I haven’t driven a car in five months! So I was excited to pick up my rental and head out for the Great Ocean Road. 

My first day was supposed to be boring, it’s actually about 600km from Adelaide to the start of the drive. So day one is just eating up the distance. But I loved it. Chilling in the car, blasting down country roads with my music up and singing alone. Yeah, I had missed this. 

Day one certainly wasn’t terribly interesting. Although I crossed the Murray River and saw how flooded it was, trees half submerged in the river valley.  I stopped at a nice town called Keith for lunch before google started leading off down random country roads. The farm land was beautiful and I was usually the only car on the road so it was perfect. 

I stopped the first night in Port Fairy, the worlds most livable town. And it really was picturesque. My hostel was an old heritage building, my morning tea at the Farmers Wife Cafe was actual loose leaf brewed up before going in the to go cup. Perfect. 

My first stretch of the Great Ocean Road wasn’t as busy, being further out from the major towns. It was a winding road along the cliff tops of southern Australia with plenty of stops at grand vistas to see where the waves at carved the limestone cliffs into incredible scenery. There were a few shipwrecks along the coast as well, with their stories told at the look outs. 

I had lunch and a swim in Port Campbell. And wow, the water was icy!! Pretty much straight from Antarctica. It was refreshing for a quick dip but I was amazed at all the people staying in the water. 

The final big stop of the day was at the famous 12 Apostles. Although only about 6 of the towering pillars remain.  I decided to spend the night at Apollo Bay. It was pretty booked up but I found a nice little motel to stay at and had a good dinner in town. 

I started the day by driving back to Cape Otway lighthouse, which was nice but I wouldn’t recommend. It was a fair way off the main road, and a historic park site. So $20 to get in, which some people will certainly enjoy but I just wanted a quick peek before moving on.  

Cape Otway also has a small stretch of rainforest that was wonderful, I saw a kangaroo beside the road as I was driving and bright red birds flitting about the canopies. 

The rest of the day was mostly winding coastal roads, with a few small towns at popular surfing beaches. I had one small scare when some rocks tumbled down the cliff as I drove by. But the cliffs all have netting so while I heard the crash and saw them shaking nothing hit my car. Though my biggest worry was damage to the rental!!

I stopped at one of the towns for lunch, which was crazy with people at the beach. Though the waves weren’t really crazy while I was there, there were still lots of swimmers and some surfers.  

The views along the drive were amazing and I had a lovely trip the rest of the way to Melbourne to close out the Great Ocean Road. 

The Land Down Under

 It’s hard to believe it- but I’ve arrived at my final country of this journey. It also means I have been to every continent. (Except Antarctica. It’s on the list though)

I started my time in Australia in Adelaide where I have some cousins. I was absolutely thrilled to meet them, not the least of all was the littlest who at 4 months was happy to give snuggles. 

I did stay in a hostel in the Adelaide CBD (downtown) which was a nice spot. Except not much was open in the evenings when I was walking around! Not that I spent much time there. After being picked up at the airport my cousin took me to the coast to see the beach and have dinner by the pier. It was just gorgeous, with clear calm water. There were lots of people swimming and fishing, and I even saw a woman pulling up nets with a blue crab in it. 

The next day I was picked up for brunch with my cousin and his family, though it was decided it was too hot a day for the Little to join us on our excursion.  We started out by going to Chalk Hill Winery. Another cousin met us there and we tasted some superb wines as well as had a gin and ‘sonic’ from the distillery Never Never on the property. 

Next was a drive up to the mouth of the Murray river, which is in flood to once of a life time levels. What was normally a narrow channel was a very large flow of water, pushing lots of river sand into the ocean. 

We continued to drive along the coast stopping to look at some stunning look out spots along the way, before going to another beach town for dinner. Along the way we went to a drive on beach. Which was wild to me. This huge long wide beach was packed with cars, most had set up tents and awnings. It was basically a beach tailgate.  

But the water was calm and warm so we walked out a bit in it before settling at a coast side diner to eat. 

The next day was much the same, except this time we drove north looking for wineries and vistas. There are some wonderful wineries around Adelaide, lots of Mediterranean varietals.  Lots of aged port as well, one place had a 100 year old one available to taste- if you were willing to pay $90. 

The last day in Adelaide started with the Adelaide Oval Roof Climb. When they extended the seating at the stadium they added an awning, which you can climb on. You are well rigged into a climbing harness as they take you up and around to the best seats in the house- one row dangles over the top of the pitch. I barely had the nerve to pose for a leaning back picture over the field, but it was just a good time. 

Another brunch was followed by more sightseeing sound Adelaide and driving up Mt Barker. We visited the little town my cousins grew up in and finished the day with dinner in town and some last snuggles with the littlest cousin. 

Made it to Paradise

 For our last night in Thailand a few from the group went to the Ao Nang night market for dinner. It was a collection of food stalls so I was a bit conservative and just had chicken fried rice. 

I also made a stop at one of the numerous tattoo shops and had a bamboo stick and poke tattoo done. It was a pretty cool experience. And I’m very impressed how little it hurt and how quickly it’s healing compared to machine tattoos. 

In the morning the group flew back to Bangkok where we said our good byes at the airport. I had to take a shuttle to the other airport and wait way too long for my flight to Bali.  Along with that it was after midnight when I landed, and a long drive to my hotel in Ubud. So I was tired. 

But it was all worth it. My room is gorgeous, with a deep full bathtub.  My resort is fairly new, but designed to fit into the area with weathered grey stone, lots of statuary and niches with statues to the Hindu gods. Water is a big theme as well, with fountains and water running along the paths. 

Some of the fancier suites were built using old wooden houses, and have their own private pools. Two actually over look the river valley.  The main pool is also well placed with a view into the valley where you can watch white water rafters go by. 

I arrived pretty late the first night, so woke up on New Year’s Eve. I lounged but the pool all day before having a fancy dinner with Balinese music and dancing before ringing in the new year overlooking the valley. 

The next couple days followed suit with more lounging and eating. I had dinner one night with a lovely Dutch family who were visiting the hotel too. They told me they have a tradition of inviting single travellers to dinner to chat and get to know more people. It thought it was a great thing to do!

I took a break from relaxing one day to go scuba diving on the coast. I might not have gone if I’d realized how long the drive actually would be- narrow roads, lots of traffic and just slow going!!

But the diving was really good with Dive Concepts in Amed. I got lucky to be on my own with the dive master. We did three shore dives, the visibility wasn’t amazing, but there was so much bright coral you didn’t have to look very far. We saw tons of fish and a sting ray. We also dove the wreck of the USAT Liberty from WWII. It originally was stranded on the shore after being damage. But a volcano a few decades later pushed it out to sea a bit. 

I also spent one day in Ubud exploring. It was the GXXXXX day so all the locals had put up bamboo poles to house special offerings. There were also people playing music with dancing animal mask/puppets. 

I also went to the Sacred Monkey Forest. It’s a well cared for sanctuary with over 1,000 monkeys roaming around. They aren’t tame, but are used to humans so we just have to be careful around them. I got some fun “monkey selfie” pictures that the staff help pose for a small fee- and a couple shots of some monkeys curious about my camera bag. Though I bolted when the second monkey got a bit angry. Not sure if he was mad at me or at some one coming close to me, but I wasn’t going to wait to find out!!

That was my last day in Ubud. I did lounge around the pool before catching my shuttle back towards the airport. It was raining but that doesn’t matter if you’re swimming!!  I spent my last night in a hotel by the airport for an early flight the next day. So I walked along the beach and had dinner at a nice little hotel. 

I ended up buy a bottle of wine with my dinner and taking it back to my hotel. The classy place didn’t have glasses in the room, so I sipped my wine from a mug!! Just a little different from the last place!!

But change is good- and it’s time for one more big one. I’m off to Australia, where I’ll get to meet some more cousins, and I’ll be setting foot on my final continent. (Yes, I’m excluding Antarctica.  It’s way out of my budget right now!)