Up To Date

Currently we are in Lennox Head, New South Wales just south of Byron’s Bay. we have been surfing our way up the coast. Most of it started in Sydney where we stayed in a Pad with a friend 5 minute’s walk from Bondi Beach. But more on that later......
First place of mention that we stopped was Canberra the Australian capital city. We were told that it was a boring place, so we planned to avoid it, when on our way north Linds realizes that our travel agent hasn’t confirmed her “new” departure date, so we had to go the Canberra office of Singapore Airlines to change her ticket. So we left the coast to go to Canberra. We get there to find out that there is NO Canberra office..... great..... now what. So we happened to go to the info place and get a VERY helpful bloke who then got ahold of the right people at Singapore Airlines and we got Linds’ ticket changed. So now it’s time to see the Capitol city of Australia! First went to the Parliament building, which was okay. No big deal, had this stupid modern “art” painting displayed everywhere. And had lots of Marble. Next was the war memorial, and that alone made the extra 3 hours of driving worth it. I think it has changed my life a little bit. It was so interesting and moving to see what the soldiers did for “queen and country...” It was such a large display that an hour and a half wasn’t enough. I would recommend driving the extra 3 hours to see that if you are ever driving the east coast of australia!
Next place that was worth mentioning was Sydney. At first Jordo and I thought we would just blast through Sydney in two days; see the opera house and hillsong. On our way into the city I text messaged (yes I can text message, although I think it’s lame, but it’s cheaper than calling....) Sebastian, our friend from Mexico that we met in Melbourne. And he invited us to stay with him for however long we wanted. Oh yeah and he lives just walking distance from bondi beach, how cool is that? So we met up with him and I am looking to see where the house is...... it in the back of a beauty salon. Cool. It was this dingy 5 bedroom flat where they never turn the light off in the kitchen because the cockroaches would turn the floor black. At the time of our arrival there was around 10-13 regular roomies in the house, but half were gone but the amount of visitors made it 15 people one night. So it was fun. It was a learning experience for Jordo and I who have both grown up very sheltered, as everyone was smoking joints or bongs every night, on top of drinking excessively. One guy was even growing and then selling Mary Jane from the house.... wow. But they were a very friendly and loving group. It amazes me to see such worldly people loving strangers like only christians could wish they could. I’ve come to the conclusion that Christians can be such pharisees. But anyway, at the time of having 15 dwellers, the house contained 3 Canadians, 1 Aussie (who considered himself a Brit), 5 germans, 2 Irish, 3 Italians and a Mexican. Team international! We had a lot of fun surfing, seeing the city and Opera house with Ana, one of the Germans and chillin with Owen and of course seeing our good buddy Sebastian!!
As for the Opera house, it was FANTASTIC! We met John outside and he took through the back door and security to show us around. the whole time we were him there was another tour going on (it costs about 140 a person) and they were limited in their access but we weren’t! We stood in the ceiling over looking a ballet rehearsal, stood on the stage of the theatre, stood among music stand and percussion instruments of the symphony, were in the roof were they operate the lights, and saw EVERYTHING of the opera house and it didn’t cost anything. It was really amazing.
Hillsong on the other hand was all-together unimpressive. It felt cold and impersonal, even secular. Everything that church means to me, it wasn’t. I’m not going to knock their ministry, because it is big and I am sure it got that way by God, but it’s not my style.
After Sydney we just kept moving north, and there were so many nice places, but no stories of any entertaining value for you guys. A nice place was Seal rocks. We went there because we were told there was free camping there. LIES. So Jordo asked someone in one of the cabins on the oceanfront if they knew where it was and they just invited us to sleep there. It was perfect. There wasn’t any surf so we went snorkeling instead and speared some fish for dinner. While we were snorkeling we saw a sea turtle real close, a huge eel, a stingray which I tried to spear but Jordo thought that we weren’t allowed, and so many colorful fish. It’s amazing how many fish are in the sea!! So yeah, all you single people, when someone says “don’t worry, there are plenty of fish in the sea...” ect there really are HEAPS of fish in the sea. But they are all on the east coast apparently..... So hopefully that gives you some comfort....... it didn’t give me any
Now we are in Lennox head, as I said at the beginning (reduntant I know!), but we are only here because we had some chips that needed to be fixed on our surfboards, so we are staying the night.

Go to a nice small church tomorrow, cause that’s our style!

End Of March to the beginning of April....

Once again I am late by ALOT to get this blog updated and what not but here we go to play catch up.....
Tasmania.
It’s a wonderful place. It’s like home, beautiful, rugged and COLD! Everyone had to buy a set of thermal underwear and double up on the sleeping bags. I never thought that I would need all my winter gear from home, but it sure would’ve been nice!!
Basically I was in tasmania for 2 weeks. Jordo had left earlier and so I would meet him. He took the ferry which is 11 hours and cost 101 dollars. I was told that a flight would cost only 36..... so naturally I figured that the flight is a better option, considering it was also 10 hours shorter of a trip. Whoever said 36 was wrong! So the booking of my flight ended up being 95 and would leave on Sunday. Fair enough, at least It’s not 11 hours and was still 6 bucks cheaper right? Wrong. This is how it went down...... I figured because I was so far from the airport that I would just start walking saturday night and get there for the sunday morning flight, no problem. But the German girls I was camping with wanted me to fix their van on Saturday and said that they would drive me on sunday morning.... Okay not too bad of a deal, only saved me 30-40 Kms of walking! So I did that and on sunday morning we left at around 6 for my 8:30 flight. About 20 minutes down the road and the van dies. I have no idea what is wrong and have no tools with me. So I grab my pack and start running back to the nearest train station about 1 km away. I get there and buy the “all day-full fare” which cost me 10 bucks, and then I realize there are no trains and check the schedule to find there aren’t any coming soon enough! So I called the public transport hotline and ask them what to do. He told me to get to downtown Melbourne (the CBD as they call it) in 20 minutes to catch the sky bus to the airport. But there is no way to get to the CBD on time by any public transport. So I took a Cab. That only cost 34 bucks!! Then I got on the sky bus just as it was leaving and that cost another 15 dollars!!! But I made it to the airport on time only to find out there was a time change and I am an hour early! Good to know!
So all in up it cost me 160 bucks but it was a lot of fun..... and stress, but kinda fun still.
On to tassie, well it was awesome because we were able to campfires, and that alone made it worth the trip. We tried flyfishing but were never in the right spots. Jordo caught one brown trout the whole time (It was his first on a Fly, so props to him!) and I caught nothing. Our two fishing licenses cost us each 47, so that was one expensive fish!! And we ended up giving it away.... oh well.
We had to pick up Linds from the airport so the first few days we just hung around Hobart, and then when Linds got here we did Wineglass bay which was pretty fantastic! Met some Canadians (they had the same tent as mine from MEC so that how I figured they were Canadians.... It was awesome!) Picked up a German Hitchhiker named Fabian and he camped with us for a couple of nights. Then went up to Launceston and went to church. Went to the Cradle Mountain National park for two nights. The first day we hiked into the Lake Rodway Cabin and then second day hiked around Cradle Mountain itself and Jordan and I summitted it. It was the most challenging climb I have ever done, and when we got to the top it was sooooo foggy that we could only see about 20 yards or so. We went back to the Rodway Cabin that night and hiked out the next day. It was really great out there but cold and wet the whole time except on our hike out. Of Course!
One amazing thing about staying in the cabin at Lake Rodway was that we met John, a guy who works at the Opera House in Sydney. But more about that on my next blog!!
Came back to Melbourne for a few days. Tried to make it to the Bells Beach surf Competition to see the renowned Kelly Slater. But the waves weren’t big enough for the pros so Jordo and I bought some surf boards and hit the waves ourselves. It is fun, plain ol’ good ol’ fashioned fun!! Then we made it back to Melbourne to meet the Ratten’s for supper and the Aussie classics “The Dish” and “The Castle” both very “Aussie” movies. Then went to church for Easter and then back to the Ratten’s and had a wonderful time with their wonderful family! They fed us numerous times and entertained us as well!! I highly recommend a visit to Dingley if ever in Melbourne, because the Rattens make it well worth it!
Now it is up the EAST COAST!!