Well it’s time to say goodbye. I’ve had a great month here and wish it didn’t have to end already, although it was nice that time didn’t pass too quickly. I made some great new friends and enjoyed my time very much meeting up with some old friends. I’ll be back soon.

Thanks for being interested in my travels. This was fun.

Lots of love,

Shaayna )

December 4, 2009

Sunny with a nice breeze. Not too hot )

Well I’ve been in Queensland now since Sunday afternoon. When I arrived I was wearing jeans and it was scorching hot! Quite humid too. My friend picked me up from the airport, then we went straight for lunch because I was starving…and it was lunchtime:o)

I’ve had a nice time here so far. My friend works at a conservation park, and that is where I am staying. It’s so nice and peaceful here. I just love it. They hadn’t had rain for quite a while but I brought them some. Heehee! They got about ½ an inch December 2. Apparently that is a pretty good amount. There was a bit of a sprinkle yesterday too, not worth measuring though. There have been quite a few fires nearby, so the rain was very much welcomed. I woke up one morning and could smell the smoke, I got a little worried. I thought to myself, “should I pack up my things in case we have to make a run for it?” I would DIE if I lost all my pictures. That would upset me the most. But it’s all good now that the rain came. There are still fires burning, but they’ve been slowed down a bit because of it.

They are two girls from the UK working here, doing Bowerbird research. I went out with them for a day to a nearby town Didn’t really do too much, but bought some more ingredients for another lasagna. I made one for dinner for everybody on Tuesday. It was very much enjoyed )

It was my friend’s birthday on Monday, so there were a few people invited for a small party. We had a delicious bbq. And I tried a new kind if cheese that was bbq’d too. I believe it’s called Hamouli.

On Wednesday, I went out to help with “sand sweeping”. They have a patch of sand every 1km that gets smoothed out, and then the next day they go check the patches for animal prints. They are looking for dog, cat, macropods (kanagroo, wallaby), birds, rabbits, lizards, mice and other things like cows). They are looking to see what is in the park and that the feral animals’ (dog and cat) population is going down, that the macropods are going up and that the rest are manageable. This gets done at least 5 times a year. It’s kind of interesting.

My friend got a flat tire yesterday on his ute (truck) coming back from a job. So this morning he had to take the quad bike to go fix it. I had to go with him after to drive the quad back. He thought I drove like an old lady, but hey, I don’t drive those every day!! I was being EXTRA careful!!!

I’ve been seeing a nice amount of wildlife while I’ve been here. Kangaroos come to the field outside the front of the house every evening. I saw an adult emu and a baby one yesterday. I was just sitting on the porch reading when I caught it from the corner of my eye. I’m still waiting for some kangaroos to start boxing so that I can capture it on video. And waiting to see a bunch of Rainbow Lorikeets…my favourite birds. I LOVE hearing all the birds every morning! It’s so beautiful. I can hear Kookaburras too but they are far away ( .

Oh yeah, another thing that’s a bit disappointing is the stars! I wanted to take a picture of the beautiful night sky here when it’s full of stars. But of course there was a full moon on Wednesday, which means it was too bright to see the stars ( INCREDIBLY DISAPPOINTING!!!! I guess I’ll just have to schedule another trip! ;o) Sounds like a good plan to me.

Wet and very windy!! Miserable weather.

Well I just spent a week at Lynne’s  place in a small town, population 650, called Pinnaroo, and have had a great time visiting.  Her family lives on a farm where they grow barley and wheat. Lynne and Elise picked me up in Adelaide on monday…I was an hour and a half  late arriving (totally not my fault!).  We then drove to Pinnaroo, which is 3 hours east of Adelaide. We arrived at about 11:30pm so went straight to bed. I was beat, I’d had a long but wonderful day. I found out that night that their toilet is outside, just like the old days. The next morning I woke at 6:30am and then went into the library with Lynne (she’s a librarian). She had to work so I spent my day catching up on my blogs and uploading photos. I made lasagna for tea (supper) that night and it went over quite well )  The next day, I spent part of the morning at the house, then went on the Header (the machine that cuts the wheat and barley) with Gary, Lynne’s husband. I got some great photos. I then went into town again and spent some time with Lynne at the library and checked out some books that I may be interested in. Books set in Australia of course )  For tea that night we had a bbq and Lynne’s extended family came to join us to meet me. I feel so special..Heehee! We had bbq’s lamb, rissoles (beef patties), sausages and plenty of salads. We also had PLENTY of desserts! Nobody was going hungry, that’s for sure!!! )

I had a great day out with Lynne and her husband Gary on friday. We went to the Riverland and just did a lot of touring around.  We stopped at a park near the Murray River where they had a Tree of Knowledge. I hugged it and am now very smart  …I’ve never hugged a tree before. We then went for coffee and a lamington, my treat.  Then we did some more driving around, stopped at a few more places…then got caught in a heavy rainstorm. That was kind of cool though. I got pictures of the rain just streaming down the windshield. We even went through a small duststorm, AND I saw a rainbow. On our way home Gary decided to go down a back way and we ended up driving through a whole lot of large puddles and wondered if we’d get stuck. We didn’t. Gary is sarcastic funny and we laughed a lot. It was a lot of fun.
Today we headed to Adelaide (staying with Lynne’s parents) and then I head to Rockhampton, Queensland tomorrow for a week. I’m looking forward to that too.

Warm and sunny. High of 26C today.

Had a nice time in Melbourne. I wasn’t by myself, which was nice. I had traveeled down from Canberra with about 8 people and once we got to Melbourne 6 of us still kept together. We spent the following day checking out Melbourne together and even had lunch. There were 2 Americans (Ernie & Chad) and a girl from Scotland, Jenny. After touring Melbourne for the day, we had a short rest and then met up to go out for tea (supper ). Most of us said goodbye at the end of the day since everyone was going a different way the next day. My new friend, Ernie, was going on the next trip with me though, so that was nice. It was a fun day, rather warm too. I think it got up to 36C. The next day, I booked a trip to Ballarat/Sovereign Hill. Sovereign Hill is in Ballarat and it’s a like a live museum. A re-enactment of the gold mining times in the 1850′s. The people there were even dressed like in the old days.  It was a neat place to see. I’ve always wanted to go to a place like that, so I’m happy I fnally did it ) 

We left Melbourne the next day at 7am and headed for the Great Ocean Road. It was rainy and windy but still beautiful. We stopped at a camping park where we could see wild Koalas. We saw probably about 5 koalas and one was even a joey (baby) with its mother.  I got some great close-up pictures. We then saw a whole lot of colourful birds and even fed them some seeds. At one point I had one on my hand and then another decided to land on my head. Heehee!! It was AWESOME!!!! I LOVED IT!

After the campground we headed for a rainforest walk. It was only a half hour walk, and wasn’t actually a scheduled stop on our trip, but since we had bad weather the day before, our driver decided we could check it out. It was well worth it.  We then went on our much anticipated tree-top walk in another rainforest. I loved that. We were almost at the very top of the trees and had an amazing view of down below.  It rained a bit while we were in there but it actually kind of added a bit of something to the walk…it is a RAINforest after all!

We stayed overnight in a VERY small town called Princetown. Our group of 15 actually doubled the population! This place was seriously out in the middle of nowhere!!! We had a nice homemade meal of sausages, mashed potatoes, mixed veggies and some quite delicious chicken patties. We chitchatted until about 10:30pm and then it was time for bed. A not too early start in the morning and we were off to continue along the Great Ocean Road to see the 12 Apostles. It was quite a bit more windy and rainy today. The 12 Apostels were still very impressive in that weather. And I still got some great pictures. I saw another Echidna here too and it seemed rather comfortable with the people. I tried taking a video of it when I had a really good view, but found after that it didn’t work (  I did get some footage after, but it wasn’t as good as the other one would have been. Oh well.

We headed to the Grampians and did a little hike at Pinnacle Mountain when we arrived. I saw some more of those gorgeous birds as we waited patiently for the others to finish the hike and got some more AWESOME pictures. ) I LOVE MY CAMERA!!!! We stayed overnight in the Grampians in cabins that the tour company owns. They were quite nice, and I had a room all to myself which was nice. I had a great sleep, and am quite thankful that I grabbed a second blanket because it was quite chilly! We got up to leave for 8am the next morning and drive to our next hiking destination, Hollow Mountain. That was such a great hike, especially since my legs have now gotten used to all the hiking.  There was no walking track, we actually had to climb large boulders and things like that. Thank goodness for grippy shoes!  The view once we got to the top was so beautiful!!! We sat up there for a bit and had some munchies while enjoying the view. The way down was slightly trickier. When you go down you realize how steep the climb actually was. I ALMOST twisted my ankle going down. That would have been SO bad! I made it down without any more problems )

After the hike up Hollow Mountain, it was time to head to Adelaide. We stopped at a few lookouts along the way. One really cool one was Pink Lake. The lake is actually pink!  Next stop was at a small park where they are breeding white kangaroos. They looked albino but they aren’t. We arrived in Adelaide at 7:30pm…an hour and a half behind schedule!!! My poor friend Lynne was waiting and waiting for me. She told me she was actually just calling to find out where we were when we finally showed up. It’s that a coincidence! ) So now, I am at Lynne’s house, visiting with her family and will meet some extended family at a BBQ tomorrow night. Tonight, we make lasagna!! Mmmmm!!

Just arrived in Melbourne. It’s rather overwhelming. So many people, especially after being out in the national parks and small towns for the past couple of days. I wasn’t looking forward to being in a city again at all. Oh well, I do have to check out Melbourne anyway. Especially the food )

I had a great past two days. First we went to Thredbo (resort) to see the Snowy Mountains. We arrived at the Thredbo resort at about 4:30pm. I went for a walk up a trail before we had to meet for supper. It was called Merrit Nature Trail. It was quite nice. I only went part way but if I had gone all the way, I would have made it to the chair lifts. I got some amazing pictures of the scenery and even found some beautiful birds. One of the birds was even a King Parrot (or so I was told).We did a hike the next morning and boy do I wish I had done heaps more hiking at home first!!! We first took a chairlift to a certain point, then started the hike. The start of the hike was quite steep and my leg muscles were screaming at me to stop…but I did it. We hiked up to the second lookout. It took about 2 hours. The views were AMAZING!!! There was even still some snow on the ground. The snow was kind of reddish though because of the sandstorms that they had here recently, but still looked pretty. It wasn’t too bad going up since it makes you warm, but coming down was quite cool. The chair lift was fun but scary at the same time, especially when it kind of tilts forward. I wouldn’t even turn around to take pictures…Heehee! We then went for a tasty lunch in the town of Jindabyne and then headed for a town called Lakes Entrance. We made many stops along the way at some lookouts. I really enjoyed that day since we were in the park area and mountains for a long time. I was sitting in the front seat of the bus and spotted an Echidna (like a porcupine) and a Wallaby (from the kangaroo family, but smaller). We stopped for the day in a town called Lakes Entrance and had dinner there (fish and chips with salad). After dinner we went to watch the sunset over the beach. It was windy and cold!!!!…but I got some great pictures. The next morning, we got up early and left at 6:30am to head to Wilson’s Promontory (a national park). We did another hike there which took about an hour, and it ended at a beach called Squeaky Beach. It’s called this because the sand squeaks when you walk on it. It was so beautiful and as we were walking up I found lots of wildflowers. I got some pictures of them but then my camera battery died ( I was so sad because of course, the next flower I see is so pretty and different. I had forgotten to recharge the battery the night before. Sigh! We had lunch on the beach (I had a tasty sandwich and a lamington…sponge cake dipped in chocolate and coated with coconut…YUM!) . Some of my group went for a dip in the ocean. The water was very cold, so I just walked along in it. It was very beautiful.

6:35pm Saturday November 14

I left Sydney for Canberra today at 7:30am. I am now travelling with a company called Oz Experience/Adventure Tours. I’ve been with this company before but the bus I am on this time is much smaller…just the way I like it ) The drive, including stops, took about 7 hours. It was a nice drive. I should have sat at the front of the bus though because I really enjoy being able to take in all the beautiful scenery out the front window and all that is around. Much easier to take pictures too. We were driving along the Great Dividing Range which runs from, I think southern New South Wales all the way through part of Queensland. (Ausseis, please correct me if I’m wrong ) It was so very pretty. I just love the trees out here, I just can’t get enough of them. Oh! We went to a lookout called Mount Ainsley (spelled right?) and there was a Crimson Rosella(red & blue bird)! It was beautiful!!! Unfortunately it flew away before I could get a picture:o( This lookout out looked out to the city of Canberra. Canberra is smaller than I thought it would be. The city looked a bit hazy, I guess they need some rain.

After the lookout, we drove around looking at all the embassies. I saw Canada’s!…although not very well ) The USA’s embassy is ridiculously big and also even has the most security. Some of the countries embassies are very fancy and some are quite boring looking. Germany has the most boring one. After the embassies, we went on a tour of the parliament building. That was pretty interesting. The entry hall is VERY fancy with loads of marble from around the world.

Our guide told us about previous Prime Ministers and told some interesting stories (there were painting of them all along a wall). There is a great hall there too and the floor is made with all kinds of Australian woods. Looks gorgeous! We also went into two speaking rooms. The way they decorate them is neat. One is different shades of green to represent eucalyptus and a room with different shades of red to represent eucalyptus in the fall. Pretty neat. At the end of the tour we went up to the rooftop and our guide took pictures of each of us “holding” the pole of the Australian Flag. We had to stand in a certain spot and position our hand to look like we are holding the pole. It looks quite neat.

Monday, Nov. 16, 6:30pm

Sunny, but not as hot as yesterday. Maybe about 28C.

I had an AWESOME day yesterday. Marilyn and Rob (the Aussie couple I met at the B & B) picked me up and we spent the day together. They took me all over. First we went to the Canberra Botanical Gardens. I quite like this one. It may not be as big as Sydney’s (maybe it is…I don’t know), but it’s very nice. I walked through it with Rob only because Marilyn has a bad knee at the moment ( I like this garden because there is an area called “Rainforest Gully”and there are bridges, so you can go down into the forest and up into it. There is also a Rock Garden that I liked very much, it even had a nice waterfall type feature. We saw a couple of Water Dragon lizards, a Crimson Rosella (beautiful blue and red bird) and a yellow-breasted bird…we don’t know what kind it was. The gardens smelled sooo good! From all the eucalyptus and wattle and whatever else that smells so nice. I just breathed it all in deep into my lungs. Beautiful! )

They have a Wollemia Pine there too! That is a species that was just recently rediscovered and thought to be extinct. It was found, I think, in the Blue Mountains. After the gardens, we went to Telstra Tower (like all those tall revolving restaurants). There is a viewing deck so we walked all the way around and I got some more great pictures of Canberra. We then went in to the cafe and had some coffee…Marilyn and I had a Latte and Rob had a Cappucino. It was quite delicious. We then went off to the National Museum of Australia. There was some pretty neat stuff in there. They even had a display for Rolf Harris!!! There was a nice old Holden car, Marilyn used to have one like it. I liked the Aboriginal display very much. I always enjoy learning about their culture, it’s quite fascinating.

We had lunch at the museum and then tried to go to Blundell’s Gottage, but unfortunately it was closed. I read that it’s only open on saturdays…bummer! So they took me to the War Memorial Museum. I went and looked around in there by myself. I was there for 2 ½ hours but you could seriously spend a whole entire day in there!! I’m really glad I went to see that. Apparently it’s the top attraction in Canberra, and I can see why. They have a section for every war that Australia has been involved in. There is a letter that a nurse wrote, and she was describing what things were like in the hospitals and how she had to distance herself emotionally or else it would destroy her. It was very touching and keft a lump in my throat. It was sad.

Rob picked me up at 5pm and we then had dinner at their house. Roast chook, 2 salads, sweet potatoes and delicious fresh grainy bread with avocado. Oh and I can’t forget, a nice glass of Australian white wine. That was the perfect end to a perfect day )

THANKS MARILYN AND ROB!!!

Today something really cool happened. I was waiting for my bus and saw one arrive. So I went to talk to the driver to see which way he was going. Well surprise, surprise it was a driver that I had from 2003 on my trip from Alice Springs to Adelaide!!! He was surprised that I remembered his name, but I’m pretty good with names. He didn’t recognize me at all at first but then as he thought about it, he vaguely remembers. I forgive him since he does see A LOT of people. Heehee! Anyway, he’s heading back this way and asked if I wanted to meet up in Melbourne. I said sure, so we are going to meet up for tea (Aussie for supper) on friday. How cool is that?!?!

Sorry!

Friday November 13, 2009 7:35am

Weather: Cloudy, possible shower in the morning, 23C max

I went to bed at 7:00pm last night and read for a bit, I couldn’t keep my eyes open and fell asleep around 8pm. I woke up this morning at 4:15am, but it was just waaaaay to early to get up, so I dozed off again for a bit. I was wide awake at 5:30 so I decided to just get up and start get ready for the day. It’s a good idea anyway since everyone else is up later. I made myself a nice bowl of oatmeal with apples and honey for breakfast and a cup of green/mint tea…with honey also of course )

I went for a loooooonnnng walk today. Left the hostel at about 8:45am and didn’t get back until about 5pm…and I only sat down once to have lunch! My legs were screaming at me by the end of the day. I haven’t walked like that in a very long time. I actually didn’t think I was going to make it back to the hostel in one piece. Heehee! I went to Darling Harbour, they have shops and restaurants, IMAX theatre, aquarium and a new Wildlife centre. They used to have an Aboriginal Centre there that I really liked, but it seems to be gone ( Either that or they are renovating because all I saw was a big wall. I went to the wildlife centre, it was pretty awesome. It cost $31 to get in, and was SO worth it! I saw animals and insects that I’ve only seen on tv or in pictures. Speaking of pictures, I LOVE this new camera that we bought! I am getting some AWESOME pictures! (They will be up on facebook very soon…maybe even today). There was a butterfly exhibit at the wildlife centre. They were so pretty! There was also this cute wombat that was sleeping on his back like my cats sometimes do. It was cute. After the wildlife centre, I walked to the Sydney Botanical Gardens. I just love that place. It wasn’t completely sunny out, but it was good enough. It was a bit windy at times though. The Rose garden is back, which is nice. Last time I was here, it was gone because of a fungus problem or something. They seem to have spruced up the succulent garden too. It was really pretty. Some of the cacti were even flowering, which I hadn’t seen before.

I was looking for some rainbow lorikeets (colourful bird, for those who don’t know), but there didn’t seem to be too many around. There were still loads of bats though! I got some close ups of them.

I decided to head back to the hostel after seeing the succulent garden. My legs were tired and the battery in my camera had died anyway. I took 300 pictures today! Good thing the camera is digital!!

Tomorrow, I head to Canberra (Marilyn, I will call you when I get there:o) and will meet for coffee with my new friends. I’m looking forward to this part of the trip since it’s all new to me. I think I’m going to go camera crazy!! Heehee!

Well, that’s all for now. Hopefully I’ll have another update soon.

So I’m at my hostel now. I gave JF a call to let him know I had arrived safely (again, sorry I took so long to call, JF. Just couldn’t be helped ) I then went for a bit of a walk, checked out the Paddy’s Market and also went to get some groceries so I can eat something tonight. I think I’ll just relax for the rest of today since I’m pretty tired from all that travelling, and tomorrow I’m get to get up nice and early and spend the day outside doing some sightseeing. Hopefully it doesn’t rain, or at least not too much.  Saturday I start my trip south to Canberra and then through Victoria. I can’t wait! I’ll be taking pictures tomorrow so hopefully I’ll have a chance to put some on Facebook (JF and anyone else who doesn’t have FB, I’ll send you a link).

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!!

Until next time…

Well, I’ll be taking off soon. JF dropped me off at the bus station and we’ll be leaving soon to go to Halifax  Airport. I am feeling a mixture of nervousness and excitement. I think nervousness is because I haven’t travelled on my own for a long while. I’l definitely miss everyone at home and the cuddling and purring of the kitties, and Roo’s howling ) I also hope Roo feels better soon, poor boy hurt his leg (  JF, please give them all an extra hug from me.

10:00am Amherst, Nova Scotia

Had to transfer buses in Amherst. Noticed the price of gas, 107.9!!! Holy moly!!! The weather has been nice so far. It’s 13C here in Amherst, sunny but partly cloudy and a slight breeze. The breeze is warm though. Thankfully because I’m only wearing a spring jacket!!

2:10pm Halifax Airport

Had a nice chat with JF, Alannah and MOm (all seperate though). I did a video chat with JF, it was fun. He brought Oscar and Lacey for me to see, and Roo just kept walking in and out of the room as usual. Still some sun outside but also still quite cloudy.

Mom and Dad are meeting me at the Vancouver Airport…I have a 4 1/2 hour stopover. It’ll be nice to see them again. It’s been a long time.

10:30pm Vancouver Airport

I think I’m getting too old to sit in a plane for so long. Heehee! I’m feeling rather stiff.  It’s waaaay past my bedtime too, so I’m pretty tired. I’m finding it hard to sleep on the plane.

Saw Mom and Dad. It was a nice visit. They stayed for about an hour and a half.Mom had lots of fun playing with my new camera. Heehee! Nice to have some company too on such a long stopover. I am now waiting to board the plane bound for Sydney, Australia. 35 minutes to go )