Adventure is Worthwhile

Gallery: Cambodia

danivant — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:54:00 GMT

Gallery: Ko Tao, Thailand

danivant — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 05:13:00 GMT

Gallery: Ko Phangan, Thailand

danivant — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 05:01:00 GMT

Gallery: Bangkok, Thailand

danivant — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 04:42:00 GMT

Gallery: Whitsunday Islands, Australia

danivant — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 04:38:00 GMT

Gallery: Airlie Beach, Australia

danivant — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 04:35:00 GMT

Gallery: Australia Zoo

danivant — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 04:18:00 GMT

Gallery: Nimbin, Australia

danivant — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 04:12:00 GMT

Gallery: Byron Bay, Australia

danivant — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 04:09:00 GMT

Gallery: Surfers Paradise, Australia

danivant — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 03:50:00 GMT

Gallery: Port Macquarie, Australia

danivant — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 03:22:00 GMT

Port Macquarie

danivant — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 10:06:00 GMT

The first real Aussie lad we met was on the bus ride from Sydney to Port Macquarie. He pointed to kangaroos outside our bus window and gave us the whole low down on the differences between kangaroos and wallabys. Wallabys are smaller by the way. The rest of the trip was spent intently staring out the windows screaming when we caught a glimpse of Australia's famous creatures.

Port Macquarie was a small town with not too much going on but it felt good to get out of the city. The hostel we stayed at was called Ozzie Pozzie backpackers. It was small but very charming. This time we had a room all to ourselves. The hostel owner Phil took us under his wing. He was the sweetest old man always making sure we were comfortable and had enough to eat.

The weather was cold and dreary it was hard to believe we were in Australia. With the beach out of the picture we were really running out of options for daytime activities. We went for a lot of walks and did some window shopping. Not exactly exciting. Night time was pretty dead too. We picked up some UDL at the local liquerland and tried our best to find some action. The bars were closed so we walked the streets aimlessly until we ended up at Dominoes Pizza. We sat on the curb and assured each other the weekend would be better.

Things in Port Macquarie eventually did pick up. The weather got better and we spent it on the beach roasting ourselves to a painful shade of red. We met two guys Mic and Rob who first chased after Morgan and Meah with their car which scared the hell out of Morgan and Meah but they found it quite hilarious and offered to take us all sightseeing Port Macquarie as an apology. We went to the lighthouse which had an amazing view of the town, 4x4ing to Mic's favourite spot in the world a cliff at the end of a road where we threw rocks and listened to them crash through the trees and thud as they hit the ground, they took us to see "Bogans" which were dirty old men that drink beer and fish all day, and then finally the best part they took us to an expensive restaurant and bought us lunch. I think they felt bad for us hungry backpackers. It was an awesome day and we couldn't thank them enough.

We also crossed a lot of Aussie animals off the list such as:
-Gigantic spider
-Fruit bat
-Dolphin!!
-Kangaroo
-Koala Bear

Gallery: Sydney

danivant — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 03:17:00 GMT

Arriving in Australia- Sydney

danivant — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 03:07:00 GMT

We were six girls straight out of highschool about to embark on a trip that we would never forget. For some of us it was our first time on a plane and for all of us it would be the longest stretch away from our families and our boring hometown. Excited was an understatement to what we were feeling.

I have always wanted to travel and couldn't bear the thought of trudging off to university straight away. So I rounded up a couple of friends and pitched my plan. Soon our group of a couple grew to a group of six. Everyone warned us that six was too many and we knew that too but continued on together anyhow. Our crew consisted of:
Meah:Always puts others before herself a very charming girl
Morgan:Very outgoing,and girly. Loves to be the center of attention
Paige: An adventurous scatterbrain not afraid of anything
Miranda:Some would call her intimidating until you get to know her. She's a loyal friend and doensn't put up with shit.
Sam:A very honest person who sometimes likes to keep to herself
and myself (Dani) I guess you could call me the team motivator. I liked to plan where to head next and get everyone excited about it.

Leaving Canada it was minus 20 and snow covered the ground. A three hour flight later we landed in L.A and ran outside of the airport hugging the palm trees near the road estatic to wear t-shirts outdoors. After an eleven hour flight to Tokyo, 8 hours to Singapore, and 7 hours to Sydney we had finally arrived. It felt like a dream and we were all a bit delarious after two days of travelling and not much sleep. We got a taxi from the airport and arrived at our first hostel "Wake Up". It was nicer than we expected it was like a hotel but with bunkbeds in the rooms. We ran all the way up to our room so thrilled to be there. We had a ten person dorm and a very goodlooking, very shirtless, englishman greeted us as the six of us bursted into the room. He was the first person we met on the trip. We took that as a good omen.

Our first few days in Sydney went by so quickly. We had so much fun. We look back at it now and laugh at how naive we were to everything. Growing up in a city of 30 000 did not leave us very city savy and we had trouble trying to figure out how to get around in a city of 4 million. If possible we always avoided the bus and walked everywhere. We made it to Darling Harbour which was a nice place to hang out and sightsee. Then we went to the aquarium. We weren't overly impressed by it but it was alright. We hung out a Bondi Beach for a day and got tackled by a few waves. It was a beautiful but crowded beach -great for people watching. Later that night we decided to fork out $40 dollars and join the Route 69 Party Bus. We were a bit wary about it at first but ended up having a blast. We had fun with the other twenty or so other people on the bus bar hopping in our pink t-shirts around Sydney.

Our days in Sydney were up so we decided to go with a Greyhound Kilometre pass to get around Australia. It costed us $500 for enough Kilometres to get us from Sydney to Cairns or wherever else the road would lead us. Our next destination being a stop in Port Macquarie.