Aussie aussie aussie oi oi oi!

Australia was a whirlwind of a time and our month there flew by before our eyes.

Melbourne
Our adventures in Australia began in Melbourne with the wonderful addition of miss Halle Schlather (and our wolfpack... it grew by one. And we were the three best friends that anyone could have!)We spent a few days exploring this cute city, which ended up being our favorite city in Australia. Melbourne is to Australia as Barcelona is to Spain-- wonderfully alive with culture without having a big city feel to it. We walked along the river banks and the town center, tried our luck at the casino, bought some sweet souvenirs at the Queen Victoria Market, tasted a variety of local cuisine from a great food court at the casino, drank cheap Australian box wine (GOOON!) and visited the cute town of St. Kilda. The highlight of Melbourne being the mini road trip we took along the Great Ocean road. We rented a car and spent the day driving along the coastline in awe of the scenery constantly being reminded by roadsigns that "In Australia, drive on the LEFT". It was definately weird to be shotgunning on the left, as Halle got used to driving on the wrong side of the road (LEFT SIDE STRONG SIDE) and somehow we managed to survive. Our Great Ocean Road journey ended at the 12 Apostles, which were quite a site to see as the sun set and then we returned on the eerie dark roads of the Australia countryside.

Sydney
We left Melbourne to fly to Sydney. During our flight we were convinced that we were sitting next to one of the Baldwin brothers, or so we thought until we google/wiki-ed them and determined that it was just a very close look-a-like. We spent about a week in Sydney seeing most of what there is to see in Syndey--a taxi boat ride around the habors, a tour of the botanical gardens, walking from Coogee beach to Bondi beach, the Opera House, Circular Quay, and Darling Harbour.

 

We got to meet Halle's friend Alli who is living in Sydney and had a great time hanging out with her.
 
Halle and Alba also took a tour of the Blue Mountains, which were pretty but nothing too exciting.



We also got to experience the Australian version of Mardi Gras, which was tons of fun.

Then there was the epic disaster known as the OzExperience-- though Halle and Alba had verbally confirmed our departure date, the people at Oz booked us on a day earlier. So after getting up early in the morning and waiting for the OzBus, we were rudely told that it was our fault for missing the bus that we were booked for the previous day and that the next available bus left days later. So in order to stay on track with our plans we ditched the OzBus (forgoing our accommodation and surf lesson at SpotX) and took a Greyhound to Byron Bay later that day that experience significant delays due to engine issues (yes it was a great day). Honestly, we were ready to leave Sydney, which felt a lot like an American city without the American style customer service.

Byron Bay
It was nice to arrive in the cute beach town known as Byron Bay.

We spent a few days relaxing on the beach and enjoyed doing nothing for a while. We spent part of a day visiting the sad hippie town of  Nimbin. We discovered this amazing mexican place known as OzyMex which we frequented a few times because of the delicious fish tacos, nachos, and chilli sauces. We spent most of our nights sitting on the beach staring at the stars trying to find various constellations. Halle and Alba went on a pub crawl and ended up winning free kayaking from their victorious win during Knights-Gentlemen-Vikings game, which was awesome! They got to see tons of dolphins, but sadly Alba got attacked by a jellyfish tentacle.

Sadly at this point our wolfpack went back down to two, as Halle headed back to the states.