Melbourne, Victoria, Australia (2)

After traveling fairly steadily for the last 2 months of my life, I seem to be finally settling down (for now) and as a result, I don't have nearly as many stories, pictures or videos to share with you. I have started to economize wherever possible and with that it has curtailed almost all excursions that may cost money, and any meals eaten outside of the hostel. This has resulted in me just being able to be observant about my surroundings rather than the amazing sights that I have been seeing.

With that, I present to you, weird things I've seen/noticed/experienced in Australia. If you've ever been to Australia you may not think this is weird at all. Given that it's been so long since I've had any sort of normal, I think it's pretty special that I'm even try to point out the unusual, but here goes.

1 How you going? - This is the typical greeting that an Australian will give to you. Not 'how are you doing' but ' how you going?' The first time I heard this from anyone, I had to have the guy repeat himself twice before I figured out what was going on. To this day, it still sounds peculiar. I had a Canadian person say this to me and I actually thought he was Australian for a while.

2. Salads - I went to Subway the other day to see if the subs were any good. I had tried it in Thailand and it was less than average, so I didn't have high hopes, but it turned out to be one of the best subs I've ever had. This was not the most noteworthy part of the encounter though. When I was ordering my sub, I had picked out my meat, bread, cheese and then we arrived at the vegetables. "What kind of salads?" What? Salads? I want vegetables. Oh, ok. They call those salads.

3. They drive on the left side of the road - When Kari and I had rented a car, it was fun to see how many times she tried to get in the passenger seat (or me in the drivers seat) and how often she would turn on the windshield wipers rather than hit the signal light. This, along with looking the wrong way while crossing the street has turned out to be much more difficult/hilarious than actually driving on the wrong side of the road. I swear I'm going to be looking for a car the wrong direction as I get drilled by someones hood.

4. Sultanas - This isn't all that weird, but has a story behind it. I was at a cricket match (my first ever) and I had been talking with the ushers the entire match. Somewhere in the middle, David (the usher) comes down and starts to tell me about this wonderful snack that I should get and keep with me. He describes it as dehydrated fruit. If you saw my post from my flight to Sydney, you know about my addiction to dehydrated fruit. Needless to say I'm intrigued. David takes out a box that says sultanas. At this point, I have no idea what to expect. I start asking questions as to what a sultana is. After David tried to explain it to me, without me comprehending, he decided to just let me try them for myself. He opens up the box and poured a few into my hand. Raisans. They were raisans. I'm dumb. Since then, I've been to the grocery store several times and seen them everywhere. They even have Sultana Bran (Raisan Bran).

5. Rice Bubbles - In a similar train of thought, Rice Krispies are called Rice Bubbles.

6. Road terms - While traveling with Kari we noticed several items that requiring mention.
- Twinning a highway - Duplication
- Rumble strips on the side of the road - Audible lines
- Making a U-turn? - Turn Back
- Stuck in rush hour? Nope - Peak hour
- There is no passing lane - Overtaking lane

7. Rubish - That's what they call garbage over here. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that this is a British thing that has transfered over.

8. Temperature - It's nice to see that the termperature actually fluctuates here. After my time in Thailand where the temperature was nearly always the same everyday, it's been good to see that some days are 35 while the next day may be 25. It even rains here (I had a combined total of 5 minutes of rain in Thailand).

9. Relating to Peak Hour - I saw a gas station that had it's petrol (yeah, that's what it's called) price at 1.17 in the morning, then they bumped it up to 1.34 for 'peak hour' before returning to 1.17 that evening. No longer will I think that gas stations in Canada are ruthless.

That's all I can think of for now. I'm sure I will find more as I go along.

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

I have completed my journey to Tasmania and have returned to the beautiful city of Melbourne for the foreseeable future. I decided to try to stay in a new neighborhood called St. Kilda. It appears to be a party neighborhood that is within a few blocks of the beach, so I can finally start regaining my tan. I've only been here a few hours, but I'm not completely sold on being so far from downtown. I may move back north next week. Although that is all dependent on how the job hunt goes. I have one interview lined up to work at the Australian Grand Prix and I am also looking at all the local golf courses. Depending on where I find a job, my location may change.

Anyways, Hobart was great to see, and an even better place to relax for a few days before my life becomes encumbered by job searching, jobs, mobile phones, etc. Here are a few of my favorite photos from my three days. Enjoy



And because I finally uploaded some videos, here are a few to show you what it was like on Fraser Island.

Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

My undefined travel plans have now come to fruition and have also been given a definition. I have arrived safely in Hobart (which sucessfully checks another state off my list) and I am planning on staying 2 more nights (3 in total) before returning to Melbourne.

So far Hobart has been alright, but definitely a significant change of pace from the lifestyle that I was experiencing in Melbourne. Hobart is much more of a small city as is evidenced by the fact that I couldn't find a place to buy a pop at 7:30 at night while walking downtown. The scenery is good and the history is better. I find the more I look around the more I find in this city.

The best part so far is the temperature. I went for a run yesterday in the middle of the afternoon (for the first time this trip) and it wasn't a million degrees. I could run for long distances without needing water like I had before. I found when I finished that I was barely even sweating. I quite enjoyed the run, and enjoyed even more that I didn't have to wake up at 6am to run in decent temperatures.

My time in Hobart ends (for now) on Wednesday morning when I make my return to Melbourne. When I return to Melbourne, I will be officially on the prowl for employment. I've already got a few prospects, so hopefully it won't take too long to get settled.

As for pictures, I have only just recently (today) begun taking pictures, so, as of now there remains to be any photographic proof of my trip to Tassie.

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia (3)

After having been in Melbourne for a few days, I have had ample opportunity to see the city and even find many locations with free wifi. Thankfully because of those reasons, I am able to bring you my latest batch of photos. Once again, these are the cream of the crop so hopefully you enjoy them.

Fraser Island


Melbourne

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia (2)

For anyone that actually enjoyed the feature last month where I provided all my Facebook status updates, it has been over a month since I began my journey. So here are my status updates from month 2. Enjoy.

January 19-February 18

Gibby Davis got to visit his happy place this morning. He went to Princess Lagoon.
January 19 at 12:21am

Gibby Davis has seen a lot of gorgeous women with complete schmucks. You know what that gives him? Hope.
January 19 at 12:40am

Gibby Davis is currently juggling how to charge his iPod, computer, camera 1, camera 2, camera 3 and run the fan off of 1 plug-in. Should've brought a power bar.
January 20 at 10:11pm

Gibby Davis thinks it's ludicris that you can use wireless internet on your computer while in the washroom, but yet, you still need to manually flush the toilet (pour water down the tubes). Thailand.
January 20 at 10:31pm

Gibby Davis had a wave go over camera 1 (D300) and it was fine, then I take camera 3 (underwater) underwater and it dies. Sweet, sweet, irony. Camera 3 is currently on life support. The next few days will be crucial.
January 21 at 8:37pm

Gibby Davis thinks Camera 3 (underwater) is officially dead. RIP Oylmpus
January 23 at 1:42am

Gibby Davis is making a concerted effort on becoming less caucasian (in skin tone only).
January 23 at 1:43am

Gibby Davis is taking out a restraining order against the sun. I'll suffer its abuse no longer.
January 24 at 4:01am

Gibby Davis has gotten rid of his golfers tan....and the ability to lay down without pain. Sunburnt.
January 24 at 7:16pm

Gibby Davis is leaving Lipe on a speed boat tomorrow. Sweeeet.
January 25 at 1:24am

Gibby Davis still has gotten over the fact that when he goes to any website, it comes up in Thai, and he has to try to figure out how to switch the language to English.
January 26 at 7:44pm

Gibby Davis is on a stopover is Koh Lanta.
January 28 at 10:10pm

Gibby Davis is giving Thailand a D for internet access. Not impressed.
January 30 at 3:13am

Gibby Davis is on the funny sounding name tour. Phi Phi, Phuket, Bangkok.
January 30 at 7:33pm

Gibby Davis does not like Patong.
February 1 at 12:14am

Gibby Davis thinks that if you are going to sell things on the street in Phuket, you better be good at dealing with rejection. Especially from me.
February 1 at 7:06am

Gibby Davis learned a new lesson about driving in Thailand. Drivers should always be on the left side of the street, unless you are driving the wrong way down a one-way street, in which case you should be on the right side of the street.
February 1 at 8:58pm

Gibby Davis has seen a lot of things on Patong that he cannot unsee. The rule should be that if you have several 'natural skin folds' that block the sun then maybe you shouldn't be topless because you're still going to get tan lines.
February 1 at 11:26pm

Gibby Davis is finished typing from his beach-side perch for the evening. BKK tomorrow.
February 2 at 9:49am

Gibby Davis saw 90% of Bangkok today. Doing the other 10% tomorrow.
February 5 at 5:07am

Gibby Davis forgot how warm it was outside until he went inside and felt his shirt. Then he went and bought a new shirt. Waiting to see if 11 hours outside is enough for heatstroke.
February 5 at 5:20am

Gibby Davis is at the weekend market.
February 5 at 9:41pm

Gibby Davis leaves for Oz in less than a day. I've been through way more than I thought I was capable of or ever expected to go through, but it's finally happening. I'm thrilled to have made it this far and can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring.
February 6 at 9:33am

Gibby Davis has discovered that in Thailand you don't hail taxis, taxis hail you.....repeatedly.
February 6 at 9:34am

Gibby Davis is going running at 6am (local time) to beat the heat. It's currently +27C and 86% humidiity.
February 6 at 3:56pm

Gibby Davis has been allowed entry into Australia. Sydney is awesome.
February 7 at 3:34pm

Gibby Davis is wandering down to Sydney Harbor.
February 7 at 3:54pm

Gibby Davis is wandering around Surfers Paradise trying to find a cheap body board.
February 9 at 9:07pm

Gibby Davis has 25km of uninterrupted beach to run, new shoes, and a beatiful sunrise to watch. Could be a long morning.
February 10 at 12:53pm

Gibby Davis had kind of a long day. 13km run, 10km+ walk, 200km in a car. Loved the Gold Coast hinterland.
February 11 at 7:14am

Gibby Davis needs to stop losing weight or he'll need a new black belt. Down to the smallest notch.
February 11 at 7:15am

Gibby Davis has completed his self-guided tour of Brisbane. Conclusion: meh.
February 12 at 1:17am

Gibby Davis has survived a leech bite and cliff jumping.
February 12 at 5:00am

Gibby Davis had a busy day. Failed at surfing, mildly successful at body-boarding and totally successful at petting a kangaroo.
February 13 at 1:09am

Gibby Davis has fallen for Noosa.
February 14 at 3:26am

Gibby Davis is wishing you a Happy Singles Day. Celebrating for the first time in 6 years.
February 15 at 3:36am

Gibby Davis ran his first timed half marathon. 2:12:30. Fish and chips the night before is a bad idea.
February 16 at 6:16pm

Gibby Davis has officially changed his outlined plans in Australia. Bidding farewell to the Sunshine Coast and heading south to Melbourne/Hobart.
February 16 at 6:26pm

Gibby Davis thinks walking to his hostel in Melbourne is the dumbest thing he done so far.
February 17 at 4:02pm

Gibby Davis hasn't been this excited for a picture day since he was in Sydney. Melbourne is getting it's picture taken tomorrow.
February 17 at 6:44pm

Gibby Davis likes visiting great beaches but he loves experiencing great cities.
February 17 at 6:45pm

Gibby Davis is really enjoying the temperature. I can finally be outside without sweating.
February 17 at 6:47pm

Gibby Davis says yay for hugs.
February 17 at 10:30pm

Gibby Davis is officially on his own in a strange new world. Flying solo.
February 18 at 8:30am

Gibby Davis has a ticket to his first ever cricket match.
February 18 at 3:30pm

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

My journey through Australia took an unexpected turn this week as I made a signficant deviation from my original plans for my time in the country. After spending a little over a week on the beaches of the east coast, I decided that I have seen enough of the beach (and 30+ degree weather) and was ready to get back to a city and eventually to somewhere a little bit cooler. Given that it's the dead of summer, my options for a cooler destination were severely limited. After deciding against traveling to New Zealand (for now) I settled on traveling to Hobart. Your probably wondering why then this post is titled Melbourne. Well, in order to reduce cost of flights I had to spend 4 nights in Melbourne. Let's call it a happy little accident because I couldn't be mire thrilled to be spending 4 days here.

After arriving to Melbourne from the Sunshine Coast, I made my way to my hostel (with a substantial walk) and began exploring downtown and Southbank in an effort to locate dinner with Kari. In this brief period I could tell that I was going to enjoy myself in this city and after today, that has proven true. Melbourne is like Sydney in that it is a mixture of amazing historical buildings mixed in with some new, cutting edge towers and complexes. But where Sydney is clean, tidy and near-perfect, Melbourne has an edge to it. There is some dirt behind the ears, mud between the toes, etc. I find this the most appealing part of the city. There are so many places that have endured through time and maintained a bit of the roughness of life in the 19th century and it comes across in how Melbourne feels.

I'm given strong consideration to Melbourne being the city in which I settle down and find a job. There is still plenty more that needs o happen before I get to making that important decision, but the thoughts are now flowing through my brain.

In mixed-feeling news, I am now entirely on my own on this journey. Kari has taken off on a tour of her own before traveling back home. Unfortunately that means I leave yet another friend behind for several months, but on the bright side, I'm now all by myself, left to do whatever I want. Hopefully I don't go crazy.

Picture taking is still in progress so it'll be a little while before upload any more.

Noosa, Queensland, Australia

I have arrived in my newest destination after a one-nighter in Mooloo. Today has, once again, been hectic. I woke up nice and early to go running. After a 15km run an a 3km run I went back to the hostel to pack up before we started our drive.

On the way up the coast, Kari requested that we stop off at the pineapple farm for some good times and fresh fruit. The highlight of this stop for me was the 120 lbs guy sharing a banana split with his ~500 lbs girlfriend. He didn't get half.


After that we completed the journey up to Noosa. We were too early to check in so we went for a spectacular hike through Noosa National Park (Coast Trail). It was a beautiful trail with emerald water crashing onto the rocks and beaches on one side, with a mixture of woodlands and desert plants on the other side. After wandering down the coast for 3km we reached the most beautiful beach I've ever seen. Now, I had been warned about this beach, but I didn't remember till I got there. The reason I had previous knowledge of this beach was because I was warned in advance about all the naked 50+ year old men and women. It took a few minutes to understand what was going on, and when I figured it out, I was even more confused. Here's a list of things I don't get:
-How is it possible that I found something more scarring that what I saw in Patong?
-Why would two guys go swimming together....on a nude beach....I guess it's Valentine's
-The guys who would wear a shirt, hat, sunglasses, but no pants or anything below the waist. Just Mr. Happy dangling out from under the shirt.
-There were women there as well, but the men were shaved and the women weren't. Weird.
-Sunburns in bad places.


Anyways, that's all for today.

Mooloolaba, Queensland, Australia

Not a lot new to report other than I've landed in a town with a great handle.

Today was spent traveling from Brisbane, to Mooloolaba. On the way we took a run at the Australia Zoo which is a massive complex run by the family of the Crocodile Hunter. And it's safe to say that they are not finished cashing in on his name (despite the fact that his neglegence caused his own death, this info from the previously referenced Most Interesting Man in the World). Steve Irwin's image is on everything, especially merchandise. The highway on which the zoo is located is even named in his honor. Anyways, the zoo was well put together and they even had a stadium for the crocodile presentation.

Following the stop at the zoo we made our way to Mooloolaba where our hostel has so far provided free surf board & body board rentals, and free wifi. As I've got a fellow nerd with me, we've been quite enarmoured with the unlimited internet.

I've even got a few photos from the zoo to share with you. Enjoy

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

The east coast journey continues as I now find myself in Brisbane. After leaving Byron Bay we headed up to Surfer's Paradise where there were miles of beaches and thousands of tourists. I was completely stunned to see that Surfer's Paradise was as developed as it was. There were numerous towers including a 80 story building all located right on the ocean. I managed to get in some good beach time while also getting in a extremely long run along the coastline.

Kari and I also got away from the beach for one day and drove up to the mountains west of Gold Coast City. We took an amazing hike past, through, over, and under many many waterfalls. The hike would've been a total success if my foot would'n't have been randomly bleeding (later discovered to be a leech bite). Afther that we drove around to a few other national parks with great view points, natural bridges, etc. Our last stop was down an extremely twisted road and was supposed to include a natural water slide. We were disappointed to discover it did not exist, but were lucky to see that there was a nice cliff to jump off of into the river. Ignoring the warning signs claiming instant paralyzation, we went for it anyways, and it was awesome.

After concluding our time on the Gold Coast, we dropped off Candace at the airport and took to seeing as much of Brisbane as we could within a day (with an option for another day if there was lots to see). We were surprised to find that we had seen everything we wanted to by 4pm on the first day. As aa result, the journey up the coast continues again today.

I have finally caught up on my pictures and have picked a select few from my first days in Australia that I think you will really enjoy.

Sydney


Byron Bay


Surfer's Paradise



Brisbane