This is just so I can keep track of how painfully far behind I am and how much I have yet to tell you! These places have been the bits of my trip that have recovered me from the lonesome depression that Byron Bay brought on. Thus, I'm especially excited to share it all when I have a chance.
+Mooloolaba
+Hervey Bay
+Fraser Island
+Airlie Beach
+Whitsundays
In due time, young babes.
It's so hard to keep up with this when the only time I ever get free wifi in Australia is on the goddamn greyhound. But, basically, life is pretty good. I'm in Airlie Beach right now, and I have a two day/two night sailing trip to the Whitsundays and Whitehaven Beach tomorrow where I get to snorkel and stuff! Then Monday I head to Magnetic island for two nights (koala sanctuary and some other stuff. Probably more beaches. Surprise.), then to Cairns for about five days. In Cairns I'm gonna go to a butterfly sanctuary (!!!!!), a bat sanctuary, the Daintree Rainforest, and hopefully out to do more snorkeling. Then on the 15th I fly back south to Brisbane to hang out with Morgan who I met in Mooloolaba, and maybe hang out in Mooloolaba a few days again before then flying down to Melbourne on the 19th. There I'm seeing my friend Emma that I met on Fraser Island last week (don't worry, I'll fill you in all about that and and my last week here at Airlie Beach soon enough) and possibly Paul who I met on my flight to Australia! I'm gonna hang there and explore a bit, and also take the ferry over to Tasmania for a few days. This time is a pretty pivotal point, cause it is when I decide if I'm sticking to my plan of heading over to NZ for the next three months, or getting a job in Melbourne and traveling more of Australia first.
So torn about it. I bought a year visa which I can never get again (for $550!), and if I keep my current plan I will have only done Australia three months, which is a normal travel visa.
But, I honestly am starting to believe that Australia is not what I was looking for, and NZ will be. I don't think I realized that Australia's tourism is 90% beaches. And after about the first 3, they're just fucking beaches to me. I don't appreciate them anymore now that I've seen 15+ different ones. I'm a mountain girl, and I wanna see canyons and cliffs and glaciers and all that good jazz. I think I was so blinded by my childhood obsession with Oz to realize it was nothing like what I really wanted for this trip. And, I honestly believe New Zealand will be. Don't get me wrong, it's been gorgeous every step of the way. Just not quite....right. So, I may just pack up at the end of May and head over to NZ on my own or with this Irish girl I met, rent a car, and see as much as possible. I love the organized tours cause you can meet loads of people, but they're such a fucking rip off monetarily. If I do the Kiwi Experience trip I think I would regret it, and I really just wanna rough it and go off the beaten track. I hate how much I've missed in Australia by being bound to trips-- for example, earlier this week my friend Nicole and I hung out with a girl who lives here in Airlie (she's Welsh, however) who drove us 20 minutes out of town to an amazing waterfall which we spent the whole day swimming in. With tours you don't get to see that shit. Without a car you don't get to see shit.
So, that's the basic thought process and plan at the moment.
Also, if I do the NZ plan at the beginning of June, I will, in fact, be home by mid August. Otherwise it'll just be a few months later. Either way, I'll be home in 2014, tan and blonde as fuck. As well as mildly malnourished.
Photos soon.
Of the trip of course, not my malnourishment.
Bye.
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