Day 167

I don't have much time to post. I am currently in the Perth International Airport waiting for the flight to Bali. We didn't find much work down South and our visa's are running out so we are going to Indonesia. We had a great time in Margaret River and met some awesome people that I will have to tell you about some other time. Well, I am off to another country.

Day 158

I have been really, really busy since my last post. Sorry for the delay. After the Newstead Live music festival, my family and I went to a winery in Miamia to work. It was a pretty hard job, but It wasn’t all bad. We made a little money and got to drive tractors and see what farm life was like. We stayed for close to a week before getting a transfer car to Adelaide and one from there to Perth. We made a lot of great stops along the way. We got to see Bells Beach and more. I have taken quite a few pictures and will post them when I have better wifi (I only have it for a few minutes). We also made a nice stop in Ceduna and went to the Wombat and Fauna Rescue Homestead. It is run solely on donations and houses an array of rare animals. I also have some pictures from there.

On the way to Perth we had to drive through the Nullabar. It is a pretty outbacky road with very little along it, other than kangaroos, emus, and road trains. It also includes the longest piece of straight road in Australia, which we got to drive along (about 149 km). We also met some really friendly people from all over the world on our journey. Our best stop, in my opinion, was to the Cape le Grand National Park. Out of all the wonderful beaches here, it was voted Australia’s best beach last year. We went to Thistle Cove, which was slightly out of the way, and thought we were in heaven. The sand was the whitest we had ever seen and the water the clearest. There were almost no people there and just enough waves for bodysurfing. We have even more photos from there. We are turning in the transfer car to Perth tomorrow and are looking for jobs along the way. If we can find work for a while, we could some money for the rest of the trip, so our fingers are crossed. I will upload recent pictures as soon as I have better internet. Until then…

Day 142

Wow. A lot has happened since my last post. We didn't have wi-fi until now, so I will try to catch up in this one. We left Airlie Beach and went to 1770. We camped there for a night and met some awesome Aussies and learned a lot about Indonesia. We went to Rainbow Beach after that and camped out for two days. You can actually go in the ocean from there south, so we spent a lot of time in the ocean. It then started pouring too hard to camp, so we packed everything up and continued south. We saw Surfer's Paradise and a lot of famous beaches as we traveled. We stopped when we got to Byron Bay. That place is perfect. We stayed in a hotel and rented a couple of surfboards. The water was super warm, clear, and tropical. The surf was about head high and just reeling. It just came off of a point in consistent lines, so there was no shortage of waves even with it being crowded. We surfed all day for two days and then headed to Brisbane. We picked up another 6 berth camper van in to transfer to Melbourne there. We saw a lot of sights, including the CSIRO Parkes Observatory. During the drive, there was the craziest, lightning storm/sunset that I have ever seen. There was blue and purple lightning in every direction with stormy clouds and the blue/pink/orange sky of a sunset. It was amazing. We dropped off the camper soon after and landed in Newstead. We are staying at the Newstead Live music festival and have been having a lot of fun. We have met a ton of nice people and will be here for a couple more days. Afterwards, I think we are going to fly to Indonesia.

P.S.
A local cricket team had batting practice and lent me some gear and let me try it out. It was a lot different than baseball but a lot of fun. We have it on video, but I can't post it on here. Hopefully I'll get it up somehow in the near future.

Day 123

Wow. The Great Barrier Reef was amazing. It was like a movie! The water was so clear and there were so many fish, we couldn't believe it. We took a two hour boat ride from Airlie Beach to a pontoon at Knuckle Reef. There was nothing in any direction except for clear blue water. There were underwater viewing tanks and snorkel gear, so we spent a ton of time observing the wildlife. The coral was spectacular. We didn't take very many pictures or videos because we were busy experiencing it on our own. There were people scuba diving about 10 or 15 feet down with a HUGE Maori Wrasse fish and my dad and I dove down to them with only snorkels. One person had an underwater camera and took pictures of us holding it. It was one of the best days any of us have had on the trip. We are waiting on them to be sent to us, but I will post them as soon as I get them. The day before we went out to the reef, we took a boat to Daydream Island and spent the days at the resort there. It was pretty fun, but the Great Barrier Reef was incomparable. We are staying in Airlie Beach for the night and I'm not sure what lies ahead., hopefully something as fun as this.

Day 120

We are leaving Mackay. The day was spent getting ready to leave, and we are driving out in our rental car and heading to Airlie Beach tonight. It is about a 2 and a half hour drive. In the next few days, we're going to go to the Great Barrier Reef, courtesy of my grandma, as a Christmas present. I am really excited to see all of the ocean life. We might check out some nearby islands as well. If I don't post for a while, it's due to lack of wi-fi.

Day 111

Well, Merry Christmas everyone. We had a really quiet Christmas but it was a lot of fun. Definitely theIt was a nice and relaxed day. The day after, the NBA opening day games were on tv here. Miles and I were set on watching all of the games, so we made sure we had time for it. The gym is closed this week, so we don't have very much to do. There is a huge rainstorm with thunder and lightning here. We're hoping that it doesn't turn into a cyclone. Carey and my mom got a really bad infection on their bums. It looks like a big, black hole. We thought that they were weird spider bites, but the doctor told them it was an infection and gave them antibiotics. It looks like they are going to fine in a couple of days which is a relief. There still aren't too many things to write about, so I think I'll take a break from posting again until there is more excitement.

Day 104

There hasn't been much to post about, so I have been skipping them for a while. Sorry about that. Well...We have officially been away from home for over 100 days. Miles and I have continued playing basketball at the local gym almost every day. We are also getting ready for a small Christmas. We have decided on going to a music festival down south when we're done housesitting here. I think we will be volunteering to get in free and my dad might play some. It sounds like a lot of fun. My parents and Carey have become members of a local country club with cricket games and have spent a little time there. I'm sorry there aren't many exciting things to post about. If anything does happen, I will definitely blog about it.