Australia Adventures: 9. My Night In The Australian Bush...

Ever wondered what the Aussie Bush is like at night? On the Yurt Farm besides the Village, Mike had built four more Yurts spread across his land for more private stays for people or for the more adventurous types. I was one of the those people and having visited some of the other yurts with my fellow Wwoofers, I wanted to experience being out in the bush overnight on my own with my new found skills, wanting to shake off my push-button city girl background and fend for my self. So I packed my bag, threw in a tin of spaghetti and armed with 'Boots' headed into the bush with the snakes and Kangeroos to find a yurt for the night.....

The good news is....I survived it! and I cannot tell you how beautiful it is to walk back through the bush at sunrise listening to the laughing Kookaburras and watching the flight of wild grey Kangeroos for the first time.
I stayed at the farm for 2 months and more WWOOFers came along, Leisbeth and Nele from Belgium, Dan from Canada, Struen from Scotland and Heather and Sean from Ireland, so I was meeting different people from around the world and working and living with them. It’s a very unique experience, especially when we were the first WWOOFers to find the surf boards and clean them off to surf the farm dams! Its been a blast and I’m gonna do more WWOOFIN’ working my way around Australia. I’ve had so many good times and adventures so far It’s the best way, you get to meet actual Australians and be part of their lives which I feel is a much more of an adventure.

I began painting a horse mural as a gift to the family for their kindness but the avocado harvest is starting so I plan to return one day to finish it. It feels good to be here ready to work, the weather is getting bad in NSW so I bought a plane ticket with my last set of funds and ran away to the north for the winter! ha (seems to be the only country where you can actually escape from the winter so you can have an endless summer - very sweet)

I leave the Yurtfarm for now, remembering the wisdom of Mike as he told me Five Golden things that most people may need to find their lives fulfilled.

1. To be in Love with someone
2. To have someone Love you back
3. To have something to play
4. Have a passion
5. Have a job you like

But onto the next chapter of the adventure……..and I hope its a job I like which will finally get me some money in my pocket…one eventually gets tired of Nutella Sandwiches and Apples haha!

Laters

With Lonely Planet Travel Guide Australia 

Australia Adventures: 7. Major Wet Weekend, The Olympic Stadium and Meeting Godzilla!

I wanting to spend too much time in Sydney, my buddy Tahlz from summer camp put me up in her place in the suburbs of Sydney and offered to accompany me in visiting some highlights of the city even though it was atrocious weather. We got lost driving up to sample the buttery Northern Beaches still in the stormy rain (I seem to have ruined Sydney's summer) to show me ‘Summer Bay’ home of the Aussie Sitcom rival to Neighbours ‘Home and Away’ (I actually preferred Home and Away as a school girl) it wasn't exactly 'Summer Bay' that day anyway. You find some funky things on beaches though - I love them, when there's nobody there.

Not so Summer Bay

Returning to the city, Tahlz knew I was a sports fan and kindly whisked me over to the Olympic Park which staged the 2000 Summer Olympic Games when I was a wee 18 year old school girl. It was pretty magical to look out onto the Stadium where I had been glued to watching all the Athletic events ten years previously. The tour also included a peek inside the dressing room where the 2004 Rugby World Cup final was played so I took a seat in Jonny Wilkinson's cubicle....he didn't mind

Mmmmm they do spoil you in the Rocks....

'The Rocks' is a popular, quaint and charming little area of Sydney which is like the trendy place to hang out. Tahlz took me to a really popular pancake restaurant in The Rocks, something like 'Pancakes on The Rocks' or something like that. But boy, the pancakes were divine....I never will have another one again.
Now what else can you do on a rainy day in Sydney? well there's the Wildlife World and the Aquarium and guess what there was a 2 for 1 deal so we could go to both, how lucky to come on such a day. So off we trotted to spy some more Aussie animal friends which I think would have left Tahlz yawning at my eagerness to the Southern Hemisphere species spying the Red Kangaroo, a baby Koala (which I didn't get to hold booo) and the biggest crocodile I have ever seen in my life GODZILLA woah! seriously Australia's not for the faint hearted folk and in fact has the most venomous snake, spider, bird being the exotic turkey looking 'Cassowary', fish, octopus and something else.

Godzilla!!

Funky Aboriginal Kangaroos

Now the Sydney Aquarium, that's a treat walking through underwater glass tunnels amongst the daily life of Oz's rich and diverse marine life. Wow! quite a kaleidoscope of colours, oozing tropicano - its magical. I faced the introduction of the 'Dugong' on my 'I Spy Animals of the World' book - a real gem of Australia. They are adorable, nicknamed the 'Sea Cow' and 'Mermaids' (I couldn't really see their likeness to 'Ariel' the Disney mermaid though) and look very much like walruses....see for yourself

Speaking of Disney, it was very evident where Disney had got their inspiration for the cast of 'Finding Nemo' (that film did wonders for sea life) coming across the stars themselves in
the exhibit.....my favourites the Blue Tang very cool fish complete with a spike in the tail

                                                  Is that Nemo and Dory?

Not forgetting the forboding presence of the sinister Sharks, smirking at us with that jagged smile of theirs and the flashy jellyfish (which are actually really dangerous here), not forgetting the cool as a cucumber curious sea turtle checking us out. I cannot wait to get out into the Great Barrier Reef...

  

Sea life...all out to serve eachother, nice shady spot fishies???

My money is now zapped and gotta get out the city, so see you next time from where the footsteps will be going...

With Lonely Planet Travel Guide Australia 

Australia Adventures: 4. Philip Island and First Encounters of the Aussie Animal kind...

For all those who know me well, know of my love for animals and I took a day out of Melbourne in search of some funky Aussie Animals on Phillip Island down the South Coast and East of Melbourne. This was a really cool trip to take out of the city for me to see the real country of Australia. We first stopped off at a Wildlife Sanctuary where I took the opportunity to hold a carpet python snake which tends to just hang on to you - he was a cool dude, snakes aren't slimy, they are really dry and scaly so that was a first time for me - especially holding a snake in Australia of all places. In the wildlife park, l went to see lots of iconic animals of Australia whistling at Dingoes and chirping at Emu's and Kookaburra birds who sound like they're laughing.

In the park, we were allowed to walk in the outback area of 'Wallaby Walk' where you can just walk around with the Wallabies (they're like mini Kangeroos!) but they are sooooo cute and especially like you if you have some food around. What was really cool for me was when I came face to face with a KANGEROO - after the initial 'wow' factor and being slightly intimidated but it's HUGE size, I shook my bag of food and Mr. Roo came bouncing happily over to me - he was a cool dude - I love the Kangeroos. They have big long feet and long claws for all that bouncing around. I hope I can be around them more and learn about them, I find them fascinating.

Hello Mr Roo....my first encounter with Skippy

There's an Island next door called Churchill Island where I visited a farm to watch some good ole Aussie country Sheep Shearing and then bizzarely enough - the farmer Ken started to recite some poetry he had written for us! ahhhhh......after wiping the tears away from his moving poetry,

we headed to the special Koala Conservation Centre where you can see the Koala's up in the tree tops of the 'Gum Trees' the native trees here in Australa. I can't begin to tell you how CUTE Koala's look in real life, pictures just don't do justice! all of them were sleeping so it is quite rare to see one awake because they sleep 20 hours a day because of their low energy diet of eucalyptus leaves. They also have massive bums for them to sit comfortably in trees...ahhh...i'm determined to hold one.

Now what Australia is famous for - the beach! and with over 1,000 beaches fringing the shores of the continet, the first beach in Australia I visited was Cape Woolami, it hosts the Rip Curl Pro Surf Competition and shame it wasn't on when I turned up - would have been nice to see Kelly Slater in action. Plus there are sharks out there, kind of weird looking out onto a ocean knowing there are sharks patroling the deep waters. The sand is beautiful though with all those Surf Watch lifeguards in their iconic red and yellow outfits - so Aussie.

From the brochure to entice you in....

The main appeal of heading down to Phillip Island for the night was to see one of the most unique acts of nature in Australia - 'The Penguin Parade'. Every night, little penguins about 30cms high, swim back to shore and emerge waddling up the beach to their burrows. After penguins are about a year old, they take to the sea alone to learn how to hunt swimming 15 - 20 kms a day (good fact ay) they come back a year later for new feathers. The experience was so cool as people gather on the beach with popcorn like they are watching a movie! but seriously when I saw them, my heart melted coz I've never seen anything sooooooooooooooo sweet in my life, with little penguins emerging from the sea and waddling towards you. You can't take photos because the flashes blind them and they'll be disorientated and really confused wandering around awwwwwww. The amount of how many will come is not always known. but the night I was there......800, no kidding!!!!! we had to check under the tour car incase any were hiding out there, as some of them waddle up to their burrows in the car park awwww!!!!!That's been my favourite day so far, besides going to the tennis of course......I've met alot of people already, but at the moment they are just coming in and out of my life, a travellers life is all about losing and gaining I guess. The hostel I'm in is cool, right on Flinders Street near the Yarra River and Batman Avenue (not named after the superhero!) it was only a matter of time before I inevitable lost my room key so I had to run down 4 flights of stairs and sing a song to them at reception to get another one! ha! already experiencing the Aussie sense of humour.

Tomorrow, unfortunately there's no more room at the inn here in Melbourne for the tennis finals (Murray's in the final!!!!!) so armed with my boomerangs, I'm jumping on a train heading 3 hours north of Melbourne to a town on the Murray River (funny that) called Albury on route to the hub of Australia.....Sydney home of the 2000 Olympic Games.......... but Federer v. Tsonga tonight, it's gonna be a beauty!

See ya later!

With Lonely Planet Travel Guide Australia