Carly Goes Down Under

I only have about 5 min to post this note, I'm at Brisbane Airport on my way to newzeland then to vancouver then to victoria. I get home around 5 on Jan 26. This flight is going to be messy after my last flight to Brisbane my ears have blocked up from being sick. Saw a doc yesterday he has deemed it whooping cough, or a possible lung infection. This 24 hour flight is not going to help it either, he reccomened not flying but with my brithday being on jan 29 i just wanted to get home. I will be posting some good photos when i get home once I've got this medical thing sorted out. Can't wait to see you all. Much love Carly

We are off today on our 2 night sail cruise through the whitsundays which is just off the tip of the great barrier reef. The weather is hot today and a little windy, which will make for great sailing. The photos of this sail trip are going to be amazing I can not wait. Incase you haven't noticed by my writing, my spirits are lifted. Only have 4 days left now and I am so unbelieveably happy to be where i am right now. Can't wait to see everyone.

Hey Everyone, finally was able to post a photo of me surfing in byron bay. It has taken for ever to post this one so thats all you get. More to come i promise.
Did a 4x4 adventure. It was very sandy and very dirty. I have never been so disgusting in my life. The weather was 35 all day right from first thing in the morning and had 81% humidity. We camped with dingos and snakes. As Im sure you could probably guess I wasn't a fan. They told us.. if you see a dingo don't run. The first thing I did when i saw the dingo, was RUN! haha instinct.
We are still at rainbow beach headed to Airile Beach where we are going on a 2 day 2 night sailboat cruise. Hopefully the weather holds out for us again. 6 days until I'm home, looking forward to getting back to my "simple life." I need a manicure. haha Anyways thats it for now, time to catch a 12 hr bus up the coast. I wish i had more "cookies."
Love Carly

Not sure if anyone is still reading the blog. It came to a crashing hault with the absence of my lap top. Im not going to be able to post anymore photos until I'm home unfortunately. Done lots since the last post. Was in sydney, saw the opera house and the beautiful bridge. Had my first surf lesson in byron bay. Stayed at the art factory which was an amazing hostel. Day toured to Nibin. Ate too many "special Cookies." Had a lay over in Brisbane, got escorted to a pub in the back of a cop car while the cop shop watched our bags so we could drink! haha Now we are on rainbow beach going to fraser island ona 4x4 treck and camp over for 2 nights. After that we are going on a 3 day sail through the witsundays and then back home to Victoria. Can not wait to be back. Will post pictures soon. Oh and I haven't been affected by the flood. Although it seems very scary we haven't seen anything yet. Much Love Carly

So this might be my last blog. There was an incident when i flew to sydney and I no longer have my ipod or computer and is going to make things very difficult. This trip has not been what I thought. Ive booked my flight home and will be back in Canada at the end of the month.

       It seems like it has been ages since I have been connected to the internet. It is a very hard thing to find here in the city. We stayed at our second hostel called the "The travelers Motel." It was definitely not as luxurious as the first one but had a personal washroom shared between only the 5 of us. This seemed like a perk until the toilet broke at 1am when Kels and I came home from our BBQ. We had to go to the front desk and the guy temporarily patched the problem with a piece of string. The noise the toilet made woke our whole room up and made us a few enemies. Thank god we checked out that morning.
Yesterday we had breakfast down on Chapel St. I ordered a BLT... you won't even believe it, they forgot the "T". These aussies are very lazy people im finding. They dont have the same work ethic as us Canadians. Speaking of food it seems to be hit and miss here. Ive probably had an equal amount of good and bad food. Tonight I had my first steak since being here. I ordered a steak sandwich... the funny thing was, it was an actual sandwich. Very delicious though. I must admit the coffee is very good here, and very confusing. You wouldn't think coffee would be much different from the latte, machiatto terms. Here they have Short Black, Long Black and no vanilla/caramel flavoured coffees. Espresso is how they do it here. No drip coffee.

Besides the food the weather has been hot. We went to the beach again today but only lasted about an hour, the heat was just unbearable. Ive started wearing sunscreen, so my burns are starting to not hurt as much. It looks like it might be a little rainy this week. Im not sure if anyone has been watching the news but there has been alot of flooding up the coast so Im not sure how far we will make it up.

Yesterday Megan, Chris, and I went walking around all of downtown Melbourne. We walked down by the river and made our way to the Eureka Sky Deck. It is an extremely tall building that allows you to have a 360 view of all of Melbourne, 88 floors tall. The view was amazing. See for yourself.
Tomorrow we are going to the Sunday Market im really hoping to get some new things. Its time for me to find my girly side again, it has been very plane Jane since ive been here. Then we fly out to Sydney on Monday and begin to see the rest of this HOT beautiful country.


I am so excited to see our friends Jason and Vanessa and there is no doubt in my mind we will leave that city satisfied and likely extremely hung over. Anyways its 2am here time to call it a night, I have a big day of shopping tomorrow. The rest of my plans are starting to come together nicely, sky diving will be booked soon and hopefully surf lessons in Byron bay. Can hardly wait. xo Carly

Last night Kels and I stayed at our first hostel, right in the heart of downtown. It was a 6 level hostel with swipe cards to get onto each level. The best part was the roof top patio. It sat lower then all the surrounding buildings, but the sun hit it perfectly. I spent the first hour there lounging on a sun chair listening to the guys next to me play guitar. It was so lovely. They included a complementary breakfast which included cereal and toast. The spread for the toast was a giant costco size container of veg-e-mite. Sick. I just put butter on my toast which honestly doesnt taste like the butter back home. I saw people walking around with coffee but was also disappointed to find it was instant coffee. WORST COFFEE OF MY LIFE. Don't worry though i was quick to find a latte' at our next stop. We went to the Queen Victoria Market today. Along with hand crafted goods they sold weird things like pool balls, jeans, and ties. I imagined it to be a little like the sunday market in invermere where they sold hand crafted goods.  I did not leave empty handed though. I ended up buying a fedora today. I notice alot of the cute aussie girls wearing them on the beach so i bought one to try and fit in. After the market we decided to go to the zoo. It was actually an animal sanctuary which was really neat. It was a very live looking habitat where could walk right through the pathways where animals crossed your paths. I was so excited to hold a Koala Bear today but we missed the time slot and were offered to pet a EMU instead. Gross, no thanks.

I still got pretty close to the koala, they are my absolute favorite aussie animal. The Weather was so hot today we were inspired to get a hostel right by the beach on St. Kilda Street. We have a room that we share with 3 other people for the next two nights, but have a private washroom and shower which is nice. Tomorrow will be our first real beach day, apparently they don't sell SPF smaller than 30, im not very impressed. I should have brought my SPF8 tanning oil. I imagine I will be posting pictures of my sick burn tomorrow. Anyways thats all for now, I think Kelsey and I have decided to head to Sydney on Sunday to see our friends Jason and Vanessa for a bit. There is also talk of going to bali... i think im looking for more of a culture shock. Thanks for the comments!! I have some awesome photos ive been trying to post so just hang in there this whole roughing it thing sucks and the photos wont load. haha Much Love, Carly

We all woke up early this morning for a spontaneous trip to the Great Ocean Road and the 12 Apostles. (Apostles are rock formations from the erosion of limestone headlands. They are one of the most photographed natural features in Australia.)

It took us near 7 hours to get to the apostles and 2 hours to get home. How you ask? Jamie took a short cut! We were stuck in bumper to bumper traffic so she punched into her "tomtom" a fast route so we could dodge all the traffic. We ended up on a gravel, one lane sketchy road. The turns were sharp and we honked around most corners so we wouldn't crash into on coming traffic. Initially, there was not a soul on this road, only this sketchy house that we were sure was the beginning to a horror movie. This short cut became know as "rape road." After  Kelsey and Alana nearly soiled themselves we eventually found the great ocean road again and stopped to ask for directions. We were sure we were 15 min away. The lady at the gift shop very casually explained we were ONLY an hour and 45 min away. We finally made it to our destination, took nearly 100 photos in ten minutes and headed back to Melbourne. As the car was on empty we coasted into a closed gas station, that only provided diesel gas 24hrs. After prepaying 45$ for diesel in our regular non-diesel vehicle we all considered what the consequences would be to just fill it up. We didnt! Drove 3 min further to an open station and continued back on our way. The sights were incredible and completely worth the 12hr day of sitting in a car.

Oh and did i mention I saw my first Kangaroo. It was a Joey actually. They were wild just hanging out on the side of a golf course. Dont get too close apparently they sucker punch you. (I did not find this out the hard way dont worry).



It is now midnight and time to call it a night, tomorrow me and Kelsey stay at our first hostel and are getting a tour of a the famous sports museum. Ill try and take some good photos for Mom and Tony. Please feel free to post some comments, that way i know people are actually reading this. :)

LONGEST FLIGHT OF MY LIFE! It started with a quick flight over to Vancouver with 5 hours bombing around the airport until we hopped on the sketchest flight in the world. There was about 50+ rows the plane was just massive and the staff were so unfriendly. The first meal arrived. Mystery chicken, with mystery meat around it, rice, and broccoli stems that were hard, no tops. Dont forget about the deviled egg that was browning with this green seaweed looking leaf beside it. yuck!! I passed. Then they brought us around a snack, (which i thought was a rice ccrispy square, it wasnt.) it ws an egg salad sandwich, which i imagine they used the same brown eggs that ppl didnt eat off their first meal plate.. The shocking part was the guy beside me looked like he was in first class.He Had 2 vacant seats beside him, and napped across all three seats and just loved each meal, we almost offered him ours! During the whole flight little Indian children were running up and down the isles, bumping your chairs ass soon as you would finally fall asleep. After the 12hrs was up we had to throw elbows to get let off the plane, the passengers as well as the staff didnt have any manors.
Our lay over in China was quick, only 30 min and we were starving. We had a hard time translating what we wanted. But it ended up being a vegetable sandwich (cucumber,tomato, bread) and fries. To drink something that looked like Gatorade!
                           
We ran to our plane dreading this 12 hr flight of replicated chaos. I popped 2 adavan (Thanks G) and i was out for the whole flight. Woke up for one last shitty meal and then we landed in hot Melbourne Australia. its +40 here and so hot i can hardly breath. I LOVE IT THOUGH. I just wish my family, boy, and friends from back home were here to experience this with me. Pictures will be up soon, your going to be sick when u see the prison food they served us. Taz would have even passed on it.
Love you and miss you all.. I'll keep you posted on my next adventure. as for right now Its new years eve, we are going to a BBQ and maybe some fire works. LOVE LOVE LOVE   Carly

Kelsey arrived today, finally!!! 2 more sleeps then.. GAME ON!!

This Journey began as just an idea discussed amongst two new friends. Kelsey and I instantly clicked and it was evident amongst all our friends and coworkers that our personalities meshed perfectly. Over our inseparable summer days we tossed around the idea of how we both have always wanted to go to Australia. Summer ended and we both moved back to our hometowns and continued to search for flights and after many long nights of skyping and internet surfing, we found the perfect flight. What could be more perfect then a layover in China. So now here we are, seperated for months, only to be reunited 2 days before our long journey to the land down under.