Melbourne Mayhem

So I've been here in Melbourne for about a week now, trying not to get lost in the mayhem.  I must say, this is one hip city.  It makes you want to consume consume consume after a few months of minimal living from a bag.  For the time being I've got to resist those urges (and those to go out every night) and find myself a job so I can cope with the ridiculously expensive cost of living here in Melbourne.  It stings especially bad after travelling SE Asia for two months where an hour long massage that costs $10 is considered a rip off and you'd be hard pressed to spend $5 on dinner.  Ho hum, such is life in the fast lane.

In any respect, before I get really serious about finding a job I'm trying to explore the far reaches of this fine city and decide on where I'd want to take up root.  We've explored the city center, St. Kilda (where our hostel is) and the trendy trendy Brunswick St of Fitzroy.  Today we're planning on heading off to a neighborhood called Brunswick for beers and a cheap tapas with a friendly country boy named Hunter from Oklahoma who we've befriended at our hostel.  There's a strange sense of comfort in spending time with fellow North Americans (folks from the states and Canada alike).  There is common cultural dialect and sense of humor that is easy to love.  That's not to say I don't dig all the other nationalities I run into here, but people from the good 'ole USA aren't exactly common in Australia.  We're still a bit of a novelty here because it would seem that not many people back home have heard about this amazing working holiday visa that Australia offers.  Just a tip to all those looking for their next move and feel the itch of the travel bug, it's an incredibly easy visa to obtain.  I think mine came through in 3 days, no questions asked.

Well, on to the photos.

I'm in Australia?!?!?

There are tons of government commissioned street art lining the alleys of Melbourne

Cody, a friendly Canadian that we met at our hostel, explored downtown with us

This is just perfect

Katy didn't have a coat so she had to borrow one from the Canadian.  Look at that Canada pride.

The best piece of playground equipment EVER!

ha...ha

Fat and friendly cat

Down Undah: The Aussie Adventure Begins

I arrived in Darwin on Friday, June 3rd to be greeted by my extremely friendly and generous couch surfing host, Frank.

Just in case you're not up do date on your Australian geography :-)

Darwin is a beautiful place and as it is the dry season/winter here the weather is absolutely perfect.  It's like Florida in January...dry, sunny, clear skies, and always flip flop weather.  Frank showed us some of that famed Aussie hospitality and took me and the other two girls who are surfing at this place out on his fishing boat.  We cruised around the harbor, took a dip in the chilly seas with a chilly beer, checked out the croc traps (which are GIGANTIC and terrifying ), did a bit of wakeboarding, and watched the sunset  just off the shore of Mendel Beach.

Controlled burns viewed from Darwin Harbor

Breaking out the polo eggbeater skills to sip beers in the salty waters of the Northern Australia...Thanks Gaffey and Damon 

Anne and Bernadette, my German couch surfing mates 

Frank went for a quick ride as the sun fell low in the sky

Me and Captain Frank, heading to the Mendel Beach Markets for dinner

Anne taking a dip at sunset

Now it's off to Melbourne to look for work and settle in for a few weeks/months.

Bye Bye Bali

After a fabulous 30 day stay, I am catching my plane and heading to the land down under, but not without tying up all the loose ends with one final Bali blog post.

We spent 6 fabulously relaxing nights on Gili Trawangan, the biggest of a small island chain of the coast of the island of Lombok.  In Gili T there are no cars or motorbikes, only bicycles and horse drawn carriages.  It took us about 45 minutes to ride our bikes around the entire island (and it probably wouldn't have taken so long if we didn't have to walk our bikes half the time on the back half of the island because the road became loose sand that was impossible to ride on).  Most of our days on Gili T were spend sunbathing witha good book, eating and snorkeling.  It was a good life.

After Gili T it was back to Kuta for a few nights of craziness and swagin', off to Uluwatu for a night to see the sights and now we're back in Kuta, waiting to fly out this evening.  Life is hard sometimes.

Heading to Gili T

you can't eat a meal on Gili T without being harassed by cats

we're party animals

Marcelle lounging in the Cat's Cradle

Sunset Beach

the view from my lunch table

Gili T is all about magic mushroom, guys coming up to you on the beaches with bags full of them and trying to hawk you shroomy shakes

Lunch during our glass bottom boat/snorkeling day

A little Bintang with dinner

Katy, overlooking Uluwatu beach and the surf mania below

Watching the surfers with a nice cold one

The view from Uluwatu Temple

We had to wear sarongs in the temple.  Beware of knees.

Uluwatu Temple proper

Just sweeping up the bougainvillea petals

And back to Kuta for two nights before flying out for a little partying at Sky Garden

I don't even know what this is, but it's too good not to add it in.

Trail blazin' to Toya Bungkah to climb Mount Batur

Where to start, where to start?  I’ve been bad about keeping things current, so first a little update.  Tomorrow, June 2^nd I fly from Bali after a wonderful 30 days to Darwin, Australia.  Katy will meet me there a day later, and we’re going to couch surf for about a week, at which point we’re going to fly to Melbourne and start looking for work.  We both recently acquired our work-holiday visas for a year in Australia.  Who knows if we’ll stay the whole time, but we have the option should we want decide to stay.  The visa is meant to allow you to find work to supplement your travelling in Australia, so you’re not allowed to hold a job with one employer for more than six months.  But before we worry about that, Katy and I are focusing on finding jobs in general.  Please be kind Melbourne, I’d love to find a nice little job as a barista or something similar in a café to get my feet wet in the café business. 

Now for the backdated blogging, I last updated my interwebz audience (which most likely consists of no more than my immediate family and Katy’s Mom, hi Mom!) up to our visit to Ubud.  When we left Ubud, we caught a van to Toya Bungkah, where we planned to trek up Mount Batur and catch the sun rising over the the ridges of Mount Agung and look down on the whole island of Bali.  On the way there our driver convinced us to stop off at this tiny orchard, which specialized in growing coffee beans amongst a few other crops.  We sampled 8 different types of Bali coffees and teas, and if you know how much I love my coffee, you know I thoroughly enjoyed.  They had this weird specialty coffee that sells for insane prices anywhere else in the world that is made out of a coffee bean that has been digested by a weasel and then retrieved from its poop.  Some acid in its stomach does something to the bean during the process of digestion and turns their shit to pure gold.  I spend $50,000 rupiah (about $5 or $6 USD, which is unheard of) to try this weasel poop coffee.  It was good, but just different, not great by any means in my mind.  My suggestion, don't spend the $50-$100 on a bag of weasel poop coffee beans.  

They also had this giant fruit bat that you could feed coffee beans

My weasel poop coffee, Marcelle looks less than envious

After that little detour, we drove through the winding mountain roads, down to the beautiful lakeside bungalows of Toya Bungkah where we ate gado-gado and organized our trek up Mount Batur for the following morning. 

The view from the van

Kids at Toya Bungkah

Sunrise at the summit of Mount Batur

Breakfast was a steamed eggs and a steamed banana sandwich

wild monkeys on the ridge

"skiing" down the black sand ridge

our guide

silly photos, a great idea by our guide