Driving Around the World - The Good, the Bad...

We think we have this driving thing all down pat. We can drive, drink a Starbucks, eat a scone, send a text message and veer across three lanes of traffic to make our exit all at the same time with no problem. Then we went on this trip and things started to get all crazy on the roads. It started right away in New Zealand where the steering wheel is on the wrong damn side of the car and you drive on the opposite side of the road. Ok, we can do this, just take it slow. My biggest problem was getting used to the position your body occupies in the road. At home, you're somewhere in the left side of the lane as you make your way down the road. That does not translate well when you're sitting in the right hand side of the car, as I would tend to drift to the left to adjust my body position and consequently start hitting the “wake up jackass – you're running off the road” warning bumps. That and repeatedly hitting the windshield wiper lever instead of the turn signal seemed to be the biggest challenges. Six weeks later though, we were doing just fine.

Ernie P. Dodger

Australia brought no new major challenges. Just toll roads that you don't really know are toll roads unless you happen to spot one of the miniature signs as you are searching wide-eyed for your exit, rolling through Melbourne at 100 kph. Their toll roads are extra fancy there. Registrations for cars are put in the front corner of the dash, so as you whiz under the overpass that is loaded with cameras and sensors, they take a photo, id your vehicle and bill your account. Fortunately you can go online and pay the tolls fairly quickly and easily. But make sure you do it within the three days you're allotted or you start racking up fines. Sweet.

The Red Rocket

Bali was the same in that you're on the wrong side of the car and road. Different in the fact that there is nothing fancy, sophisticated or “ahead of the game” having to do with driving. Lanes, red lights, speed limits, seat belts, seats and all other rules seem to not really apply. The two lane road, once you get to a red light, turns into six lanes as people ready themselves for the drag race start. Of course, the one day that we rent a car I pull to the side of the road so that Courtney can run into a store across the street and a motorcycle cop blips his siren at me to get moving. Why they gotta pick on the foreigner? In addition to the apparent lack of any traffic procedure there are now also hordes of motorcycles. Or more appropriately what we would refer to as scooters. They're everywhere, they run through any space they can fit through, they beep their horns at everything, and they're used as U-Hauls and minivans when needed. The amount of people and cargo you can fit on a scooter will boggle your mind.

No name, sorry buddy.

While we were in Malaysia we were on islands where no cars where allowed or in forests with no roads, so not much to report from there. The bus drivers do like to treat the highways as their own personal Daytona though. And when might has right, most people get the hell out of the way.

To be continued...

Australia - The Oys and the Noys

PROS:

1)The Great Barrier Reef. Not much more needs to be said. We saw countless sea turtles, lagoon rays, funny furry looking pineapple sea cucumbers, fish of every color and size including lots of Nemos (but the most impressive was a HUGE bright green and turquoise Mary Rass, which of course we didn't get a picture of), beautiful coral forests of every imaginable color and texture, and even a few barracuda and sharks. The scuba diving experience we had was something we'll never forget. We're just hoping we didn't blow our wad by starting with the best first!
2)Beautiful beaches all along the east coast. Soft, white sand and crystal clear water. Unfortunately we weren't able to swim in the ocean until much further south, due to the box jellyfish that migrate through that time of year (their sting can be fatal). But the saltwater lagoons found in many towns' squares serve as a terrific replacement.
3)The wildlife was so different and impressive.....kangaroos, wallabies, penguins, emus, koalas, kookaburras, large monitor lizards, and the constant background music of every kind and color of bird imaginable.

CONS:
1)The people. I debated commenting on this for fear of sounding too judgemental (I realize it's unfair to categorize an entire country based on a handful of idiots) but too many f'ed up things happened to leave it out. Our blog is meant to document the good AND the bad, right? With the exception of a wonderful older couple from Brisbane who sent us off with countless great tips for Thailand, the Aussie locals were such a contrast from the Kiwis! It ranged from small things like rude holiday park owners who treated us as a nuisance rather than an income opportunity, to people shoving their hands in our faces and yelling to scare us when we rode by on our bikes in Byron Bay (we had a few very near crashes due to this lovely behavior), to getting pebbles thrown at us from a third story window as we innocently walked down a city street in Brisbane in the middle of the day. New sport – tag the tourist? Not that we look any different from an Aussie local. Other travelers we met described them as aggressive and combative and we agreed that in general they seem to be an angry lot. We'd witness at least 2 or 3 fights a night while in Melbourne but the highlights were definitely these two instances: the night we met up with our friends from scuba school at a popular bar/restaurant in Cairns for our 'certification celebration.' We ordered dinner, Jer and I getting a large pizza so we'd have lunch leftovers for the 12 hour train trip south the next day. They were happy to wrap up our leftovers in foil as we continued to order drinks, dance, and hang out with our buddies for the last time. All of a sudden I see Jer being physically and forcibly escorted from the bar, surrounded by 3 large bouncers! Panicked and completely oblivious as to what could have happened to spur this (he was definitely tipsy, but you all know Jer is a happy and harmless drunk), I catch up with the stampede near the top of the stairs and plead with one bouncer to tell me what's going on, what did he do, why is he getting thrown out??? Instead of giving me any sort of explanation, the bouncer grabs my arm and shoves me down the long flight of stairs, through a huge crowd of people, and literally THROWS me out, down a few more steps and into another crowd of people. I had two huge black welts on my leg for over a month. I've never seen Jer so ready to tear someone apart as when he saw the guy shove me with so much force! All the while, the bouncers won't say one word as to why we're being treated like criminals. We finally got an explanation from the head of security - it turns out that once the restaurant switches to a bar license for the night, food is no longer served (or, apparently, allowed). So we were physically thrown out for having leftover pizza, that we bought THERE, that they were HAPPY to wrap up for us, and no one could even take one moment to explain this to us so we could have simply thrown the leftovers out! Wow. Can you say OVERREACTION????? The second and craziest instance of all happened as we strolled Brisbane's Botanical Gardens one evening. We saw some unidentified possum/rodent/ferret looking creature moseying along between the trees and stopped to take a picture of it. We hadn't taken 3 more steps before this crazy and obviously intoxicated white trash lady comes tearing out of the bushes, gets right IN OUR FACES and starts SCREAMING and cussing at us that we are so rude and disrespectful, we need to “step off,” who do we think we are, etc etc. Thoroughly and utterly confused as to what crime we committed to send this woman into a such a rage, I think that maybe she was doing something scandalous in the background and thought we were trying to capture her on film?? We desperately try to explain ourselves, that we were just taking a picture of the possum thing, didn't mean to offend, etc, when her WT man comes racing up and continues the same behavior. They are now both in our faces, reeking of alcohol and screaming and gesturing wildly, threatening us to get the hell out of there and “how dare we”, yada yada, though still not making much sense at all....I half expected the dude to pull a gun on us. Seriously. We hightailed it down the path, apologizing and hoping we'd just make it out of there in one piece.. We were both silent for a bit, trying to process the whole thing, and later it was hard not to laugh at the sheer craziness of what had just happened. Even putting all the pieces together, we are still utterly clueless as to what we did to offend them so greatly. There were a handful of other annoying experiences with rude and offensive locals that I won't even mention, as well as stories from other travelers about Aussies being the most racist people on the planet, spitting in the face of one traveler's Jamaican friend who was just walking down the street minding her own business. In the end we felt that we'd given Australia a little too much time, and would've liked it if our plane ticket had been booked for a few weeks earlier. Ah well. Though in Bali we still couldn't escape and kept running into more Aussies, since it's a close paradise location for them to travel to. Each one we came across were equally obnoxious but it seemed even worse since they were treating the sweet Balinese people with such disrespect. Jer openly admits that he now cringes when we hear an Aussie accent and he's come to despise Claire on Lost (thanks Nate, for buying all those seasons through our Itunes! We had benders while we were down and out with Bali Belly and bad colds). I think it's partly because she's so whiny, but mainly because he can't stand the sound of her! Sooo, not to discourage any of you from traveling to Australia, but consider yourself forewarned!
2)Blah food. Fried everything, (mainly fish and chips) and boring toasted ham and cheese sandwiches are about all you'll find on most menus. To be fair, NZ wasn't any better. Though Indian has proven to be good wherever we've gone. We ate mostly ethnic food all through OZ!
3)Lots of trash and rubbish on the streets, beaches, etc. No ones seems to have a problem littering and they definitely don't take care of the beautiful landscape like the Kiwis. We were also disappointed to find that for such a Westernized nation, they don't promote recycling or sustainable tendencies at all. Shame, shame!

Though we only experienced a small portion of Australia, and would like to check out the outback and west coast, it will probably be a long time before we head back here. There are so many other places to tackle before giving OZ another shot!

Getting Out of OZ - Just kind of sums up this place...

I would like to know who makes up the entry/exit requirements for different countries, who decides if they're actually going to be enforced and why there never seems to be a straight answer available about what we are going to encounter at each new location. From PDX to New Zealand and into Australia, the most “hassle” we had was from the American Airlines ticket agent in Portland asking us if we had a return ticket from NZ. Obviously our answer was “No”, to which she replied that we may find that troublesome. The basic theory being that the countries want to be sure that once you get in, you're able to get out. No overstaying your welcome. Almost all countries have some rule like this on the books, but of course there are ways to get around this requirement – flash a credit card or bank statement showing “available funds” to purchase a ticket, sweet talking or greasing palms. All of these we have now seen work.

The part that really bugs us is when the rules seem to be applied completely at random, by people they have no bearing on. When we flew from OZ to Bali we ran into one such ticket agent at the Pacific Blue counter.

Ticket Nazi. “May I please see your proof of onward travel?”
Adorable World Travelers “We're actually doing a trip around the world and don't have any future tickets booked quite yet. We're only planning on staying in Bali for two or three weeks though.”
“I'm sorry, you need an onward ticket.”
“We don't have one.”
“You'll need to get one.”
“You suck.” (I wish.)

So we had to go spend the next hour at one of the travel agents that were located in the airport. (ie: super cheap...) We had to lock how long we wanted to spend in Bali and then make the call that we were going to then go to Singapore. Not exactly a decision, or a purchase, we were really wanting to make on the spot. But ok, we did it. Future tickets in hand we run screaming back to the Pacific Blue check in counter as we're now on the verge of missing our flight to Bali. Proof of onward passage provided, getting checked in was a breeze. What's even more confusing is that nobody at the Australian customs/immigration or Bali customs/immigration gave a rats ass about our onward travel. “Hope you had a good stay in OZ. Hope you have a nice stay in Bali.” Aren't they the ones who are supposed to be worried about how long we're staying?!?!

At least now that we're on mainland Asia we can claim overland passage from country to country and won't have to worry about having future tickets in hand for the next few months. I guess this is just one of those fun little parts of traveling that will make our adventure more exciting.

By the way, getting in and out of Bali and Singapore was a complete breeze. See, no interesting story there (ie: no jack ass counter agents to mess around with).

Merry New Year!!! (Recap)

So from the looks of it, we found one of THE places to be for New Years. Byron Bay, Australia, which is about 2 hours south of Brisbane on the east coast, proved to be somewhat of what I would envision as a miniature Las Vegas – just make it a small, surfer haven of only a few thousand during the off-season, minus casinos, add camp grounds. Come December you add in the “schoolies” (those who have just graduated from high school), the families on holiday and everyone else who has descended onto Byron for their holiday celebrations. Shake it up with a whole lot of booze, fun in the sun and holiday cheer and you have the makings of one of the most entertaining and potentially debaucherous New Years Eves on record.

We limped into town (Courtney literally, me because I was carrying both of our backpacks) and found a lovely little tent site next to the stagnant pond inhabited by the local monitor lizards, giant molting beetles and squawking bird life.

Tip number one – if you plan to go to Byron Bay over Christmas/New Years, start saving. One nights fare - for a tent site - was $75 AUD – two to three times what we were typically paying for a night in a campground. A CAMPGROUND!! Ridiculous. And this bargain priced accommodation was really the only place even available – partly because it was over 2km out of town. Fortunately a relatively inexpensive bike rental and a nice paved pathway made for a much easier commute into town.

The campground was fairly massive, with different “blocks” spread out over who knows how many acres. Or is it hectares here? Still not straight on that metric conversion. Each block consisted of a single-wide come bathroom facility, scarce areas of shade and throngs of drunken, party-going hipsters. It was funny to see the contrast in styles of camping from home to here.. Camping for us is usually a grungy affair – quick rinse in the creek in the morning if needed, camp fire circling and PBR swilling. Now there was no shortage of cheap beer consumption, but the pre-party primping was taken to a new level. If you will, picture a sorority bathroom (don't let your imagination run too wild with this thought) - heaps of girls filling every available electrical outlet with hair dryers, curlers, straighteners and the like, primping, make-upping, dolling up and doing whatever it is girls do before a big night out on the town. To see this taking place in the bathrooms, kitchens and laundry rooms of the campground was comical. Then a short while later seeing the newly glossed beauties heading out of their tents in high heels, miniskirts, bedazzled tops and glittery lotion brought it to a new level. Pretty sure that's never going to be a sight we see on any of our future trips to our favorite off-the-beaten-path camp sites back home.

So after our own trip to the local liquor store, necessary imbibing and successfully getting a couple of German teens completely trashed while playing Drunk Driver (Don't worry moms and dads, it's a card game.), we made our way into town to check out the scene. Down the bike path we go, efforting not to be tagged with a BUI, eventually we make our way to the main beach where the lights seem to be shining brightest. We weren't about to shell out the $80 to $100 that most of the bars were charging as a cover (per person!), so opted for the beach which was just as exciting. They really had gone all out – ghetto carnival rides, massive crowds of people stretching down the beach as far as the eye could see, lots of loud music, people being carted off by the cops and thank you Lord – a corn dog stand. The ringing in of the New Year itself was a bit anticlimactic, as there were no less then 15 separate countdowns going on at different intervals. No ball dropping, no Dick Clark and no fireworks to officially mark the arrival of Baby New Year. Oh well. We hung out on the beach and took in the scene, made our best efforts to avoid the drunken a-holes and called it a night without too much pomp and circumstance.

One of the additional pleasures was seeing the chaotic aftermath of the nights events. While making our way back through town, one really couldn't pass a street corner without seeing a group of decked out girls, sitting on the curb, crying about God knows what. Obviously something didn't go quite right with their BFF or Johnny Surfer Rockstar dude. Sad way to end the night. Say, aren't those the same girls who we saw primping at the campground earlier tonight? Come the next day, with the unfortunate lack of Bowl games to stare at in glassy eyed, hungover lethargy, we relaxed around the camp site and toured around town a bit. It was late into the day when we started seeing many of the previous evenings girls stumbling out of their tents, making their way in hurried fashion to the toilets. Sounds of hurling ensued. Say, weren't those the same girls who we saw crying on the street corner last night?

I think I see a pattern.

Byron also offered some great waves for me to attempt to look cool. Here was one try.

It also had a ton of really cool graffiti all over town. It seemed like every utility box, alley wall and open vertical surface had some cool mural on it.

Habla Espanol?

Here is a bonafide statement of fact, and although extreme, I think I can say it with confidence. Please correct me if I'm wrong, of course... Here it is:

“One can not get respectable Mexican food outside of South/Central America and the US.”

There it is, I've said it. I base this on three trials over the past several months through New Zealand and Australia, and while repeatedly optimistic, I have yet to be proven wrong. And I'll go even further with my statement in that it's not just the food. Attempts at décor, names of dishes, explanations of a truly
“authentic” experience, and most disastrously margaritas!! I can safely bet that pretty much everyone reading this gets the craving, probably fairly frequently as I do, for a big plate of chips and salsa, a giant log 'o burrito, a big plate of tacos or a nice chimichanga. Hell, I can guarantee anyone that has ever had a hangover has made a speed-limit-breaking Run for The Border. But alas, while there have not been, and will probably not be, a Meximelt or Double Decker taco on our lunch, dinner, or hell, breakfast menus for quite some time, we figured we must try and make do with what we have. So, the attempts to fill the cravings were made.

Here are some of the sadder moments in Australasian attempts at Mexican cuisine.

From the back of the menu at a restaurant in Cowes, very SE corner of Australia - “How to Speak MEXICAN”:
Taco – TaR-co
Quesadilla = Kay-saR-deeya
Nachos = NaR-choes
Fajita = FaR-hee-tuh

Also from the Cowes establishment:
- Just because it's in a margarita shaped glass doesn't mean it's a margarita. Try it with a little Tequila next time... And fill the SOB to the top!!!

From the palate of another restaurant in Cairns... At least we hit it on the right night and it was Taco Tuesday:
Marinara does not equal salsa. Neither does ketchup. How hard is it?!?! Tomatoes, onions, cilantro, lime juice, salt, chiles... Anyone over here ever heard of the internet? Epicurious, foodtv.com, etc...

We're not asking for much. Really. I mean, there has to be at least one person out there with enough seed money to fire up a T-Bell franchise somewhere in these vast islands! Hell, there's more frickin' KFCs than you can shake a stick at. (Although maybe the “C” stands for cangaroo...) So it's not like Pepsi doesn't have their foot in the door over on this side of the pond. I'm just putting it out there people. I wouldn't even mind working the drive-through...

Other random Australian culinary oddities:
We have yet to see one giant can, bottle, tap, t-shirt or advertisement for Fosters. Apparently, Fosters is only American for Australian beer. They don't drink the crap here. Victoria Bitter (aka VB) is really Australian for beer. Too bad it tastes like piss.
If I were to see an “Outback Steakhouse” over here, serving authentic Australian food, on the menu would be fish 'n chips, Indian cuisine, meat pies, toasted sandwiches and kangaroo burgers. Now go get yourself a Bloomin' Onion and keep living the Aussi dream!

Why we love AC

Our vision, as flawed as it turned out to be, of this trip is that we'll make like '60s surfers and just follow the summer around the globe. We'll, I think we jumped the gun just a bit because the majority of NZ was just hitting its springtime awakening. Not quite the hot, sunny days we had hoped for. Our first week and a half in Australia offered more of same, if not a few degrees warmer. It's getting better... Now try this – hop a plane from Melbourne to Cairns, going roughly from the extreme southern end of the island to the extreme northern, tropical end. Eureka! We found the the heat! Typically a treasure like this is marked with an “X”. Here it's marked with a continuously sweaty back and a constant need to hydrate. Because guess what, we found the humidity too. 90+ degrees (which is reached somewhere around 9:00 am) with similar humidity. No relief in the shade and ya, it's the start of the wet season, so it rains too.

So we came upon our first real challenge from the heat as we “settled” in for our first night in Cairns. Let's see... how does one, or two in this case, comfortably snuggle in to bed when bed consists of a two man tent filled with two 75 litre backpacks, a whole mess of other shit that's being carried by other various methods, in the 90 degree heat, in the 90 percent humidity, with the rain fly on and closed up to avoid those sudden downpours, with the doors all zipped up to protect against the swarms of bugs that love to munch on Courtney at every chance, when you can't stop sweating and your sleeping pad is sticky and wet? (Can you say run on sentence?) I can answer that – you don't. Talk about a crappy way to spend the night. Hence the title of this post.

First order of business that next morning was to head into the office and grab ourselves a nice little cabin with air con. Come one baby... fan on high.... temp down... temp down... temp down... ah yes, that sweet blast of cool air first hits you and it's like you're walking into the mall on that hot summer's day – thinking that that billowing AC is meant especially for me. Now comes the next challenge, can Jeremy keep it at 58 degrees so that he's nice and comfortable or does Courtney not have enough cold weather clothing to stay warm enough while under the blankets? It's a battle that we'll happily wage rather than endure another night in our nylon sweat box from Hell. I love me some AC!

Merry Christmas!!!

From 008 - Whitsunday Islands flickr

Holiday greetings from Whitehaven Beach in the Whitsunday Islands. Gorgeous!!

Merry Christmas everyone!!! We're here in Hervey Bay, Australia, getting ready to wrap up our first Christmas on the road. We began this Christmas at around 6:30 am when the unfortunate positioning of our tent yesterday afternoon woke us up with a glimmer of sunshine / sweat-box style tent. Love the tropics... ;) (Remember that we're a day ahead of everyone, so while most of you are dreaming away, waiting for Santa to bring the goodies, we're getting ready to put this one in the books.) I don't think either of us has woken up that early on Christmas day since we were 8 years old!

Well without the requisite sausage souffle or monkey bread to fill our bellies in the early morn', we created a new Christmas tradition - peanut butter, honey and banana sandwiches for breakfast! Mmmmmmm... I think we'll be able to fit it on the menu in future years. A few hours on the beach, a nice bike ride and some wonderful skype chats with the family made for a great day. But still, we're both weirded out by the whole Christmas-on-a-beach thing, and we're really bummed to be missing all of the snowy fun that everyone is having at home!

Tomorrow's going to be a continuation of another Christmas tradition only on a grand scale - time to go to the movies! But we're going all out this year - it's marathon time! Hopefully we'll be able to get show times to sync up and hit 3 or 4 shows. Oh the popcorn and Milk Duds will flow freely!!! It will be glorious!

Just a little slice of our traditional holidays that'll keep us going since we're missing you all like crazy right now! At home, through the missed flights, battling the weather and all of the other SNAFU's that always show up around the holidays, we wish everyone the best!!

WTF?!?!

Found on a street corner in Melbourne, somewhere I believe in the middle of the financial district, of course...



Anyone got a guess?

I need a BLOG fix, Part IV

In Cairns we were busy busy busy, going to scuba school to get certified in a 5 day program which consisted of 2 days in the pool, and 3 days on a boat, doing dives along the Great Barrier Reef. It was exhausting: we'd spend 8 hours a day between the classroom and the pool, then have homework at night which took several hours to complete, before reporting back to school at 7am the next morning. Then at sea it was wake up calls of 5:30am for the 6am dive, slam down some breakfast between the first dive and the 8am dive, then briefings and additional lessons between the 11am and 4pm dives. It nearly felt like we were back at work!! (I'd love to know how many of you are openly cursing me at this very moment). Diving the reef was one of the most amazing experiences we've ever had, and we can't wait to dive other locations now that we're experts! More on scuba in subsequent blog posts....



From there we trained it down the coast to Airlie Beach, where we promptly jumped aboard another sea vessel – an 80ft sailboat this time. We cruised the Whitsunday Islands for another 2 days, stopping along the way to snorkel and sun ourselves on pure white silica sand that never manages to get hot. There we swam with rays and endless schools of fish in only knee deep water. On our last night I managed to pull a usual klutzo maneuver and slip on the boat deck, sending my knee off in a frighteningly unnatural direction. So we've been thankful for the few extra days we are 'stuck' in Airlie Beach before we catch the train to continue down the coast. I saw a doctor today and it's merely an “overextension of the co-lateral ligament” which in English means it's nothing too serious and I should be good to go in about 10 days. The trick between now and then is figuring out how to carry both backpacks..... What a strapping young lad I am lucky to be traveling with!

The next stop is Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world as well as the only place where rainforest grows in sand (to plagiarize Lonely Planet), where we'll celebrate Christmas and spend a few nights on a 4WD sand safari tour (yes, we've really been breaking the budget with all the wild fun Australia offers). After that, we continue down to Surfer's Paradise and Byron Bay, where we plan to take surfing lessons, relax on the beach, and party it up for New Year's, as we hear it's a great place to be to ring in the New Year. Then we head north to Brisbane where we fly out to Bali on January 7th. Look at that – we're AHEAD of ourselves now!!!

I need a BLOG fix, Part III

From there we were really hoping to hike the Great Ocean Road which is a 104km, 8 day stretch that runs along the southern coast of Australia, passing some amazing natural sights along the way. The 12 Apostles, London Bridge, and Loch Ard Gorge to name a few of the the awe-inspiring limestone rock formations carved out by the pristine ocean water. The parks dept. wouldn't bend on the 2 week advance reservation policy, however, and we didn't care to hang around Melbourne that long to make it happen. So we survived a 12 hour bus tour to see the sights instead!




From Melbourne we caught a flight up to Cairns, (pronounced Cans, just like the town in France) at some ungodly morning hour. Departing the plane, we could hardly breathe! The air was so thick with heat and moisture and it was only 9am! We finally found ourselves immersed in the sunshine and heat we'd been craving....but careful what you wish for! The climate along the east coast is so tropical, that we could only survive one night in the tent before breaking down for air-conditioned rooms everywhere else. Though I've acclimated pretty well, it's been 2 weeks now and poor Jer still hasn't stopped sweating!


To be continued in tomorrow's edition, again, for the last time...

I need a BLOG fix, Part II

The best part was the time we spent on Phillip Island and the amazing array of wildlife we encountered there....kangaroos, wallabies, emus, kookaburras, Tasmanian devils, and adorable koalas, just to name a few. We were able to feed and interact with most of the animals, including the brand new – still hairless brand new - baby wallabies that would peek out from momma's pouch. We also experienced the “Penguin Parade” one night, where we witnessed nearly 2000 blue penguins retreating from the ocean to return to their nests for the evening. Truly a spectacular sight! We were so ready to steal two little furry babies who were panicked that their mom wasn't coming back. They would molest each and every penguin that passed them up the hill in the hopes that it was mom bringing dinner home. Just as our hearts were breaking, momma penguin showed up and the babies nearly attacked her. Their reunion was pretty hilarious to witness.




Our last stop was Melbourne (pronounced Mel-bin) where Tammy and Rob surprised us with a Christmas/thank you gift of a night at the Marriott hotel! Wait, maybe THAT was the best part! Wow, what a treat. I still dream of that plush bed and all the pillows....traveling definitely gives you a whole new appreciation for the finer things in life! It was such fun to have friends to play with for a while, though we were nearly glad to see Tammy and Rob go because our livers needed a break!


To be continued in tomorrow's edition, again...

I need a BLOG fix, Part I

Dear buddsabroad,

Ok, November 22 was a long time ago – I’m sure you’ve had a few more adventures that you could share. Even the board game review proved to be interesting reading. I want to read about Roo’s & Wallaby’s – all the big spiders you’ve managed to avoid – stinging jellyfish – snakes that can outrun a man – You know all the good OZ stuff! Your loyal fans deserve better –
Grumpy in Reno!

Dear Grumpy in Reno:

Please accept our sincerest apologies. You are right – it has been nearly a month since our last entry and our readers do deserve more. Our neglect has not been intentional, however; please know that. It's just that we've been filling our days with non-stop, action-packed excitement and haven't had a moment to document it for our fans. Let me attempt to appease you now:

We've thus far tried to blog in chronological order, though our readers would never have any clue as to our actual whereabouts were we to attempt this at this time, since we are so far behind. So I'll do a sum-up to bring everyone up to speed and hope for the best in terms of getting older adventures documented at a later date.

We left the wonders of New Zealand behind at the end of November, to fly into Sydney just in time to meet up with Tammy and Rob (Courtney's friend from high school and her man, who we hadn't previously met. He was cool and very go-with-the-flow, which made for a great traveling companion as well as getting a thumbs up) who we planned to celebrate Thanksgiving with and travel around with for about a week and a half.


We had a fantastic time together! We hired the Red Rocket to travel in style down the coast after spending a few days in Sydney. Some of the highlights: a very authentic Thanksgiving dinner of Italian food, a hilarious comedy show at the Sydney Opera House (two twin guys who called themselves The Umbilical Brothers – check them out if they come to a venue near you!), traveling down the gorgeous coastline from one sleepy coastal town to the next (sleepy meaning “ENTIRE town shuts down at 6pm and your only meal option is very sketchy Chinese food”), seeing and petting kangaroos in the wild at Pebbly Beach, making a killer American meal of chili dogs and macaroni and cheese for dinner, and meeting the son of the mother dog who played the main canine role in Babe (seriously – his owner was very excited about this).

To be continued in tomorrow's edition...