Driving On The Left Side Of The Road

For the rest of my time in Australia I'm going to avoid motorized vehicles. They're like the oil to my water, and it's just not working out. They say third times the charm, but in this case my charm might be deadly. So I'm just calling it quits.

The story starts with Fraser Island. The biggest sand island in the world, Fraser is just a 20 minute ferry ride from the tiny little town of Rainbow Beach. When I arrived in Rainbow Beach I was gearing myself up for a fun three days of four-wheel driving in the sand, amazing beaches and lakes, and some fun goon times on a campsite. And while I did get that, I also learned that driving on the left side of the car, whilst on a sandy track, is no piece of cake! I decided to have a go at driving the 4wd Toyota Land Cruiser, thinking that if I attempted to drive on the narrow inland track, where a track was basically already embedded into the sand, it would be much easier than driving on the beach. Boy was I wrong! About 20 minutes into my drive, while already struggling to stay on the track, I ran smack into a tree! Luckily, I was going very slowly and nobody was hurt, however I did manage to crack the radiator and put the car out of commission. While it was pretty embarrassing at first, afterwards I was the talk of the camp, and I still managed to have an amazing time. But the crash really should have been my first sign that I just shouldn't drive in Australia.

Fast-forward four days and I am in the teeny tiny town of 1770. Aside from the beach and a couple shops, this town has nothing to do aside from the famous Scooteroo tour on motorbikes. Forgetting my struggles in Fraser Island, I of course signed up for Scooteroo. At the start of the tour we were dressed up in leather jackets, tattoos (fake of course!) and given our own motorbikes to ride. I struggled a bit on the practice track, but figured I would get the hang of it once I got on the road. And again I was proved wrong. I kept hugging the left side of the road (which I blame on being used to driving on the right!), couldn't keep myself centered and thus was very wobbly, and was incapable of mastering the sharp turns. After about an hour in, the tour guides could easily see I was struggling and offered to let me ride on the back of one of their bikes. I was more than happy to jump on the bike as a "koala" and let someone else worry about the driving. And once I did I had so much more fun, and got to go even faster than one of those motorbikes would go!

So as an end result from both of these trips I have decided it's just not in the cards for me to operate motorized vehicles in Australia. I have struggled one time to many, which I am taking as a sign, and I am not doing Americans any favors as an ambassador for our impeccable driving skills! In reality, I think I am much better suited on the back of a bike and so I'm just going to stick with that from now on!

My Kinda Paradise

I fell in love with Surfers Paradise. Madly, deeply, in love. I seriously think Surfers Paradise is the long lost love of my life. So much so, that I had to force a temporary separation between myself and Surfers. I didn't want to, and it broke my heart, but in the name of love sometimes you have to do things you just don't want to do. 

I really only ever planned to spend four nights in Surfers Paradise. I figured I would spend a few days at the beach perfecting my Australian tan, have a few crazy nights out in the iconic nightlife Surfers is known for and then be on my way, hungover and tan. Obviously I hadn't been struck by the love bug when I made this plan.

The first best thing I did in Surfers Paradise was check in to the hostel Surf n Sun. After two amazing days as a guest at Surf n Sun I literally stumbled upon a job opportunity at the hostel. Stumbled upon meaning one of the managers offered me the job around 1:00am whilst we were in a nightclub. The next morning I shrugged the conversation off, thinking there was no way it could be legit, until I was woken up by that very same manager coming into my room and telling me to get dressed for work. And so work began.

In exchange for free accommodation, I was vacuuming the guest rooms each morning, six days a week. Living for free, becoming a part of the staff, enjoying heaps of discounts at the hostel and being able to extend my stay in Surfers? Not a bad deal at all! I started work at 9:30 each morning and by 11:30 the day was all mine. I spent my days worshipping the sun (first by the hostel pool and then down to the beach once the sun was blocked by the tall buildings surrounding Surf n Sun), exploring the town, going out for girly cocktail dates, bonding with my new Surf n Sun family and of course having some amazing nights out with the hostel. Surf n Sun became my home away from home and the people I worked with became my temporary Australian family. To say it in as little words as possible, I was having the time of my life.

But, as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. My biggest concern about staying in Surfers Paradise too long was, unfortunately, money. While I was saving money by not paying rent, I was still spending money that was not being replenished. Surfers Paradise was only my second stop along the East Coast and I feared I would spend all my money in Surfers before making it any further. On that same note, when I decided to come back to Australia my biggest priority (and regret for not doing so last time) was to travel. As I have said before, I left Australia feeling unsatisfied with my trip and once I was home I could not shake the feeling of how badly I wanted to see the East Coast of Australia. So when I came back, my first and main goal was to travel. And while I was loving every single minute in Surfers Paradise, I was also getting itchy feet to travel again. Staying in Surfers any longer would mean settling down, finding a job that paid actual money and taking on some responsibility. And I just wasn't quite ready to do that. I still wanted to be a carefree backpacker.

So, against my own will, I booked myself a bus out of Surfers to continue on with my journey. I didn't want to leave Surfers Paradise,  and I already miss it terribly, but it is just what I had to do. My job at Surf n Sun will be waiting for me when I finish my East Coast trip, and at that point in time I can move into the hostel, find a proper job and embrace everything there is to love about Surfers Paradise. But for now my love affair is on a temporary hold while I discover more hidden gems in Australia.

But, oh Surfers, how I can't wait to come back to you and fall in love all over again! <3

A No Shoe Wearing, Marijuana Smoking, Guitar Jamming Kinda Town

If you time warped Santa Cruz, CA back to its original form during the 60s and 70s, you would be in a replica of Byron Bay. A tiny little beach town almost 500 miles north of Sydney, Byron Bay is like no place I have ever been.

Really, it's the people that make this place what it is. A head full of dreadlocks, feet the color of the ground they walk on, and pants that look like they came from Aladdin's wardrobe, Byron Bay attracts hippies from all over the world. When I first got to Byron, I felt very out of place. Blow drying my hair in the communal bathroom, it felt as if every girl was staring at me like I was an alien from the 21st century. And what can I say, while I have no judgements towards people who choose the hippie lifestyle, it's  just not my cup of tea.

I stayed at The Arts Factory Hostel - a magnet for hard-core hippies promoting hostel camping. For non-hippies types such as myself there were standard dorm rooms to sleep in, but for those who want to become one with nature during their stay in Byron they can sleep in the Big Teepee (which is exactly what it sounds like) or pitch a tent and camp out on the hostel grounds. Aside from the varied sleeping arrangements the hostel is home to fearless roosters wandering the grounds who will steal your food the minute you are not looking as well as large dinosaur-looking Iguanas who like to stare you down while you eat your brekkie.

While the hippie lifestyle isn't really for me, being immersed in it was quite an experience that I am glad I had. In line with the culture of Byron Bay, the hostel hosted a "camper-wide" talent show one night during my stay. From accoustic singing with the guitar to a puppet show with dolls to the sound of the didgeridoo, any and all talent was welcome. While enjoying the show I met a group of people also staying at the hostel and we all bonded over listening to the music and drinking goon.

After the show was over my new friends and I decided to carry on. And as we sat around a table, drinking our goon, getting to know each other and jamming to the guitar, more people began to join us. From a German boy on the ground playing his drum in tune to the guitar, to the French man joining in on the ukulele to the ever growing group of hippies dancing around us, we all came together to enjoy the music and the company. And as I sat around watching this scene unfold around me, I thought "I'm here. I've finally made it back to Australia and I am sooo happy to be here."

One of the things I missed most about traveling was the people you meet. Not only do you have the chance to meet people from all over the world, but people who are traveling are so open and friendly to everyone they may cross paths with. Cliques don't exist, backstabbing and drama is a foreign concept and pre-conceived judgements are thrown out the window. Because no matter who I may meet along this trip, we all have one thing in common: the love for travel.

As all good things must come to an end, I decided 3 nights was plenty of time for me in Byron Bay. I have currently made it to Surfers Paradise, which is the beginning of the Gold Coast in Queensland. Time to put the shoes back on, leave nature outside and see what Surfer's Paradise has to offer!

Traveling Blues

So I've arrived in Sydney. Getting here on the 15 hour flight was, again, not as bad as Anxious Abby pre-determined it would be. Shocking, I know.

When I planned my return to Sydney I decided I would stay at a different hostel than the one I spent so much time at last time around. I really wanted a fresh start, and thought a less familiar hostel would serve that purpose. In hundsight, maybe this was not the best idea ever as the hostel I found is quite a dud. Not very social or friendly and I haven't met anyone via the hostel. As hostels are the best way to meet people in Australia, it's quite unfortunate that this hostel didn't really give me what I needed.

I tried very hard not to let the lack of a good hostel situation set a negative tone for my trip. After all, Sydney was only ever supposed to be a place for me to kick the jet lag. But the hardest part about coming back to Sydney was how familiar it was. Being here doesn't really make me feel like I've started my adventure. I spent almost three months here last time, and I saw everything, if not more, of what I wanted to see in Sydney. There's nothing new and exciting about this city for me.

It has definitely been difficult to start my trip on such a lonely note. I am still a tad bit jet lagged and I think the exhaustion is definitely a key factor in my emotions getting the best of me. I wanted this trip to be a learning tool for me. An adventure that would not only be memorable, but that would teach me to be independent and self-reliant. Unfortunately, learning those lessons definitely comes with a few lonely days and nights.

I am trying very hard to confront my emotions head on and not let them determine my trip or my attitude. My emotions got the best of me last time and that definitely jaded my trip. I am constantly reminding myself that these feelings will not last forever, that I am capable of doing this, that I want to be here and most importantly to take the pressure off myself when things don't fall into place immediately. Because you know what? Getting through times like these is what's going to really make this trip a learning experience for me. And while I may fight with my emotions, in the end I am going to win this battle. This was my chance to hit the do-over button, which means not slipping back into the same patterns I succumbed to the first time around. Because as I saw, letting negative emotions take over was neither healthy nor productive. I am stronger then the hard times and I know I am capable of getting through them.

Today is my last day in Sydney, and tonight I hop on a 12-hour overnight Greyhound bus to Byron Bay. Can't believe four days ago I was on a 15-hour plane ride and here I am, barely un-jet lagged, and hopping on a miserable bus ride. I think I am in for quite a fun night!

Take Two

When I first planned my trip to Australia, I never would have predicted this outcome. I initially went to Sydney with a very strict plan that I would find an apartment, I would find a job, and I would find Australian friends. However, once I arrived in Sydney I realized that maybe this plan wasn't so practical after all: "oh my god everyone is a backpacker and nobody has the same plan as me. What am I going to do?!" So I re-evaluated and came to the conclusion that maybe Sydney just wasn't the right city for me, and that maybe in order to make this plan work I needed to be in Melbourne (a city that is, after all, considered the San Francisco of Australia, so how could I not like this city?) After only two weeks in Melbourne, without ever really giving the city a fair chance, I switched plans once again and found a job opportunity in Perth where I could finally put my plan into action. But once I arrived in Perth I began to wonder why I even wanted to be a Barista in the first place—being a Barista meant 5am mornings, grouchy customers in need of their daily caffeine fix and I hated being a Barista at Peet's, so why would I ever want to do it again?? In the end I decided that "living" in Australia was just not feasible, and I decided to come home.

In hindsight I think my decision to come home was a little rash and a lot based on emotions and feeling so out of control that I didn't know what to do with myself. But even so, I still think it was the right thing to do at the time. I needed to clear my head and figure out what I wanted without all the pressure I was putting on myself to make things work. My dad kept telling me, "You can't fit a square peg into a round hole," and that is exactly what I was trying to do. But my biggest mistake was that instead of trying to find a "round peg", instead of being flexible, I remained adamant about sticking to my "square peg" plan and would not budge on that idea. When I could not make that plan work, I didn't want to be in Australia anymore. But I needed to come home in order to realize that this was the problem all along.

So here I am, four months after my return from Australia and preparing to return to the Land Down Under. Definitely didn't see that one coming! But once the novelties of being home (family, friends, my dog, my bed) became just an every day routine, I was able to gain some perspective. And there was a nagging voice in my head, that I just could not ignore:

"Why didn't I travel?" 

"Why didn't I join the people I met on their backpacking adventures from the beginning and give up the idea of finding a job until I was flat broke and absolutely needed to work?"

 "Why wasn't I flexible?" 

At first, I answered those questions thinking:

"Yes, I could have just traveled. I probably would have met even more people that way. And once I got used to being a solo backpacker, I would have embraced the backpacker life"

"I could have done it!"

 "Coulda woulda shoulda," I kept telling myself, "at least I'll know this for the next time I go to Australia."

 The longer I kept having this conversation with myself, the more I started to wonder why I should wait until next time. Why not just go back, with this new-found perspective, and finish what I started? I couldn't come up with one reason why I shouldn't, so I simply decided I would.

And so starts the second half of my journey. I'm going back to Australia as a full-fledged backpacker this time. I'm going to live in hostels, travel up the East Coast via Greyhound buses, pop over to New Zealand and Fiji and maybe get a job if I start to run low on funds. There is no plan this time. Instead I plan to be totally flexible and just let things play out the way they do. And if things don't go my way, then I'll consider other ways. There's no better time to travel then now, and no better way to avoid regret then to come full circle and finish my journey.

So ready, set, go! Australia, are you ready for me a second time?!

Yes I Know, I Have Horrible Blogging Skills

    Well this is quite the overdue blog post. Things have been quite a whirlwind since I left Sydney, both good and bad, and every time I sat down to write a post I didn't even know where to begin. 

    Last I left off I was ready to depart for a tour of Kangaroo Island and The Great Ocean Road, so I suppose I will begin there. After spending a day in Adelaide (which was all I really needed there) I was picked up at the crack of dawn to make the long drive and ferry ride over to Kangaroo Island. Over the course of two days our tour guide drove us through basically the entire southern coast of the island. Yes, I saw lots of kangaroos (as well as ate some for lunch one day, which was surprisingly fairly good), as well as koalas, echidnas , lizards and wallabies--but I didn't eat those! I also took a crack at sand boarding and kayaking. The tour group itself was a disappointment, mostly comprised of older Germans who refused to speak English (as I have learned seems to be the unfortunate trend in Australia among the abundance of German travelers), as well as a group of 4 Irish siblings who decided off the bat that they wanted nothing to do with my friend and I. Fortunately I did the tour with a friend I had met in Sydney, and we had a fabulous time together goofing off, enjoying ourselves, and not really being bothered by the other lame tour-goers :) 

     Following the two days on Kangaroo Island, my friend Stacey and I were again picked up at the crack of dawn to make the trip along the Great Ocean Road from Adelaide to Melbourne. Luckily this tour group was filled with many more young travelers, and Stacey and I immediately fell into a group of really amazing people. Ironically enough the 4 Irish siblings were on this tour as well. Their first priority was to inform everyone on the tour group what awful people Stacey and I were (mind you they didn't speak one word to us on Kangaroo Island). But as these things tend to go, people were generally turned off by their harsh cattiness and didn't think twice about befriending Stacey and I. The Great Ocean Road mainly consisted of a lot of driving, a lot of stopping to look at rocks in water, one absolutely amazing hike up the Grampians and a lot of late nights bonding over copious amounts of wine & beer. But minus the little sleep I got, and the 630am wake up calls I painfully struggled through, I had an amazing time. 

    After driving the entirety of the Great Ocean Road I arrived in Melbourne. I was immediately excited for a fresh start in a new city, and a lot of my friends from the Great Ocean Road stuck around in Melbourne for about a week so I got to continue having some fabulous times with them. Unfortunately though, the first hostel I stayed at in the center of the city was awful. The people were so unfriendly, the bathrooms were horribly dirty and it was in a pretty awkward location in relation to the center of the city. Luckily I tried to spend as little time as possible in the hostel, but the negative vibe from the hostel really began to wear me down. It's hard to explain how a hostel could have such a huge impact on your trip to a city, but as a solo traveler hostels are the main source I have for meeting people, especially without a job. And as I began to spend more time staying in the hostel I just got more and more lonely as I tried to figure out what I wanted to do with my time in Australia. Nothing seemed to be falling into place as I wanted it to anymore, and I just started to feel really lost. 

     A few days into my time in Melbourne, I got an email from my program office about hospitality job openings in Perth. I had never even considered going to Perth, but the opportunity seemed like something I should explore so I sent off my resume. I was instantly asked to set up a Skype interview and from there I was offered the job on the spot. The job is a 3-6 month position as a barista at the Rydges Hotel that pays really well and will give me consistent hours. I think the lack of stability combined with the constant confusion of what I really want to do here has started to drag me down, so I am hoping this job will give me some stability and a sense of purpose each day.

      I decided to spend another week in Melbourne before I left for Perth, but at a different hostel a little bit outside of the city in Melbourne's beach town of St Kilda. While the hostel was better then the previous one, I still didn't love it. Part of that may have entirely been me. I think once I decided to go to Perth I just kind of gave up on trying in Melbourne. Which in hindsight I think means I probably spent a little too long in the city. I think another component is my utter exhaustion with living in hostels. I have been staying in them for two months now, living out of a suitcase, and I am honestly sick of it. I just want my own space and my own home and a much more stable life with some stable friends. 

     So here I am, in Perth, crossing my fingers that a new city with a new job will help me get out of this funk I've slipped into. I never came to Australia to be a backpacker jumping from one place to the next on my own, and I am still not sure that that's even what I want to do. But in Perth I won't necessarily be a backpacker anymore and I can try out the living and working thing, which was always my plan from the beginning. I am trying to go there with an open mind and just let whatever comes to me come. But I also know Perth won't necessarily be the answer to the hard times I've been having. And maybe nowhere in Australia will be. But all I can do is give this opportunity a chance, and see what comes from it, and go from there. So stay tuned. At the very least I expect Perth to clear my head a little and give me more a sense of what I want from this trip and from this stage of my life. And I guess I'll just have to wait and see what comes next.

    And of course, a few pictures to add to all the million words I just threw at you :)

For Those of You Not on Facebook...

Just thought I would post a few more photos of what I have been up to in Sydney. They are all on Facebook, but for those who aren't friends with me on facebook (or don't use facebook) I thought you might enjoy a few visual pieces of entertainment with me and some amazing Aussie animals :D

Not much else to report as of now. Today is my last day in Sydney, and then I am off to start my next adventure tomorrow. I am definitely excited for a change of scenery, a new place to explore and new people to meet! Once I get all settled into Melbourne, and after my trip along the Great Ocean Road, I will update a post with pictures and details about my latest adventure!