The Last Chapter

Well everyone, this is it. This will be my last blog to you all for awhile, until I can afford to do some more travelling around this great world of ours. I have seen and done some crazy, awesome things, but it is now time for me to return home and back to a "normal" lifestyle of careers and stuff. 14 months is how long it has been since stepping foot on American soil, and that is a long time for me, considering before that I had never been overseas, let alone been on a plane, that I can remember! And now, I can say that I have even jumped out of more than one perfectly fine instrument of the air, amongst other adventures!! And to all of this, I thank Chris and Annie Markuson! I might not have done most of the things I did if they hadn't invited me to get out of my hometown, and country, and go live and play somewhere else for a year or so. Thanks Chris and Annie!!

Now then, the last I informed everyone, I was in Melbourne. Melbourne was a great city, on the river, but another big city in Australia. While there, we spent some good time at a great hostel, Bev & Micks. The day that we arrived there, they had a dinner event where anyone could sign up to be a celebrity chef and cook for the entire hostel on a $50 budget, provided by the hostel. So, being a chef myself, me, Chris, and Annie decided to take up the offer, possibly because it meant free drinks for the quiz night, that night. And on $50, we cooked a fabulous meal of chicken, bacon, and mushroom fettucine for 50 people, that everyone seemed to think was the best free meal they had there!!

The next step in our journey was to fly on up to Brisbane. Annie knew a friend living there from a previous summer camp, so we were all able to live for free with David Power, for the next 3ish weeks! All of us being low on money, we did not do much, but spend as much time as we could on the beach, which is a rough lifestyle! It's not easy spending hour, after hour, on the sand, and in the ocean, working on the sun tan, reading a book, listening to music, and just spending some quality time doing some people watching! Brisbane is in the middle of two popular Australian coasts, the Gold Coast, and the Sunshine Coast. We first went down to the Gold Coast, to the city of Surfers Paradise. It was a really awesome beach, my favorite, that seemed to go on for miles(or kilometers) in either direction. And it did live up to it's name, with some good looking surf! We then went up to the Sunshine Coast, and spent some time at a few beaches, that again were lovely. While at the Sunshine Coast, we went to one of the most well-known zoos in the world, the Australian Zoo. This is the zoo that Steve Irwin opened and spent much of his time, off the camera. And, for those of you who don't know what is going on in the world, he has recently died, doing what he loved and spending time with animals, in the end being stabbed through the heart from a stingray. At the zoo, they had 2 memorial stations where people have written letters, left stuffed animals, t-shirts, and pictures for the Irwin family, and it was quite sobering to see the thousands of people who looked up to his family for what they had done to the animal kingdom! While there, we were able to pet some animals, like a tasmanian devil, kangaroo, and watch a crocodile feeding show. These things were massive, about 15 feet long! It was really neat seeing them chomp down on whole chickens and see how fast they are in real life, and hearing about them and how they act!

The next awesome experience in my life took place in the city of Cairns (pronounced like cans). Chris had already previously experienced this, so just Annie and I flew up. This is where we decided to learn how to, and get scuba certified. Also, this is the home city of the largest living organism in the world, the Great Barrier Reef! To get certified, you have to first take some classes, which consisted of 4 days, with 12 of us in the class. Two days of about 3 hours in a classroom, learning all the diving theories and rules so that you don't die/get hurt under the water, or even after you get out of the water. We then spent 3-4 hours each of the two days in a pool where we did our skill tests and got to wear and learned about all of the gear. The next two days where the most exciting, where we spent them out on and in the ocean. It took about 1 1/2 hours to get out to the reef by boat. Once out on the reef, we spent about 30-40 minutes, 25-30 under the water, during each of the dives, two dives per day. During each of the dives again, we would do all of the skills and exercises we learned in the pool, under the water, but also spend some time swimming around looking at everything. Under the water, it was amazing. It is so awesome seeing all of the fish, in all colors, swimming around you, mostly ignoring you and seeing all of the different types of coral. We also went to a "Reef Teach" seminar, that told us about all of the different families of fish and types of coral, so it was very entertaining to know what fish/coral where what! After three of the four underwater dives, we were then officially PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) certified, which is a world renowned certification for life! Our last dive we then spent mostly just swimming around looking at everything and taking pictures/movies under the water.

And so I now will leave Australia and come back home to see everyone that I have missed, or not missed, for the past 14 months. I will first be flying to San Francisco to visit a friend though and spend some time touristing around there for a week before I fly home home. And for anyone who wants to see me and/or give me gifts, I will be arriving in Minnesota on the 28th of October, so feel free to stop on by or contact me at home! Also, if anyone has a cheap car they want to get rid of, or a job that needs filling, I might be the man for that, as I will have nothing to my name and a need for both! Thanks again to everyone who has kept up with me since being away and provided any support for me.

One Year Later

One year since being back in Minnesota has past and has brought me to the great country of Australia. Upon the first day of arrival, we were a little tired from the flights, but as we are awesome at quiz night, (as long as it isn't about Australia/New Zealand sports) we entered into the quiz. We were near the top and the 3 of us were tied with a group of ten, until the love song round came along lastly, which threw us back in the run. But, on the nice side, we did win shots for having the best team-name of "Jesus Hates the Yankees" (the team, not Americans)! The next day, we walked around the beautiful city of Sydney to see sights like the Botanical Gardens, with the huge bats hanging in the trees, and a walk along Sydney Harbor where we saw the famous Opera House and Sydney bridge. We also walked through the historical (expensive) part called The Rocks, where we had lunch and Annie was attacked by a gull and had part of her baguette stolen! While in Sydney, we were also lucky enough to have a kangaroo BBQ, which wasn't too bad and was kind of a lean meat, like buffalo. And, of course, we went to some beaches, taking a faery to Manley Beach for a day and then Bundi, the most popular/best beach in the area for another day.

After enjoying Sydney, we took a 24-hour train across the state to the city of Adelaide. While there, we played around with a friend that we knew from New Zealand, and went to Glenelg, which is like another beach subarb. She also was kind enough to let us stay at her house for a night and invite us to some social events. In the middle of our Adelaide stay, we took a 3 day tour of Kangaroo Island, which was very naturful! First off, to get to the island, we were in a not very big, 9 person fishing boat that took us out into the extreme waters with waves that were probably about 5-6 feet tall, making me feel a little sick after an hour of it! The only other thing we did that night was to go out on a night-walk through the snake-infested grasses (if it were warm) to look for koalas, which we did see a few, along with a baby koala. The next day we had a very full day which took us to look at The Remarkable Rocks, which are very interesting and you just have to look at my pictures to explain. We then went on to look at some more land formations, along with kangaroos, which I got to pet a wild kangaroo with her joey; Cape Barren Geese, which are apparantly the rarest; wallabies, and more koalas! We then went out to some huge sand dunes where we went down them on sled-like things: sandboarding. That night, I decided to sleep outside along with 2 other tour guides, which was a neat experience, and at one point I felt something jump on me and then leave again, probably just an opossum I was told. The next day we left our farm to look at more koalas, a not-so-amusing cave tour, and Seal Bay, home to 600 seals, before heading back to Adelaide. The next day we rented a car for a few days and went to tour some wineries in the Barossa Valley, which is more well-known for it's Shiraz, my possible favorite. To take up the day we visited first Two Hands, which was some of the best wines I've ever had! We also went to Penfolds, Peter Leihmans, St. Hallett, and Turky Flat to finish the day.

After leaving Adelaide, we headed for one of the most beautiful drives in the world, called The Great Ocean Road. First though, we drove through some nice, scenic, coastal cities before getting to Mt. Gambier, where we spent a night in jail. Of course, (maybe) we did it by choice and it was actually a jail that was turned into a hostel in 1995. It looked like it could still be changed right back into a jail, with some of the rooms still being individual cells that you could stay in. Everything still had bars on it and the jail was complete with it's own pet alpacas! After another day of driving and playing in a giant, awesome park, we got to the Great Ocean Road! It turned out to actually finally be a nice, sunny day, although windy, but wasn't freezing cold. We started out the drive with the Bay of Islands, which was a beautiful bay full of pillar-like islands. More along the way was The Grotto, a large archway that had a pool in it mostly protected by the ocean. Next along the drive was the London Bridge, which had one of its arches fall in 1990 and is now just one large archway. We then came to another area that was full of cool looking islands, arches, caves, and a blowhole cave. Then came the most popular part of the drive, the Twelve Apostles. I don't really understand how they get 12 out of the pillars that we could see, but I could find maybe 8, plus 1 that has apparently fallen not too long ago. There also wasn't much to explain how they name came about, but it was an awesome area and mostly the end of the main part of the road, before we came to a few waterfalls.

And so, now I find myself in Melbourne, which is looking to be an awesome city!