Feb 2006

Here are my newest photos. There are a whole shwack of them... 70 or so.
I JPG'd the shit out of them... so they might not be the best quality... but there are lots, Enjoy!
PHOTOS!

hey.
just picked up a celphone.
my number is (as you would dial it): 011 61 0406 74 3939
you can call that number to talk to me... free for me, but costs you money. can text me at that number too.
and I fixed the link in the last post, for the ballina flat. I think.
ok. gtg.
more later.

Back in Sydney.
The Ballina trip went very quickly. The whole thing had a very dreamy quality to it. Partly because is was so pleasent to just kick back and relax in good company, not have to carry my pack town jumping every day and partly because we didn't sleep much...
I don't really know how to write about our stay there though. This online journal is mostly focused on happenings, events... this leg of the journey was more focused on enjoying eachothers company, relaxing, eating food... a very wonderful experiance, but mostly meaningful to us who were there... so I'm going to be vauge and secretive about it.
I don't know if I put this up before or not, but here is the link for the apartment we rented: Click Here
The beach was beautiful. The weather was really nice. Had a great time with Chrysi and Laura... Trivia night at the pub... Nathan and Betraya, "you're freakin me out"... our journey to bizzaro-quasi-surreal town, Nimbin (Australia's equivelent of Nelson, B.C.) great food.. multi course lentil salad and soup, brownies are better than chocolate cake... good laughs about budgie smugglers... our posimistic outlook on life only started to fade as Sydney drew nearer...
all around good times...
stayed at a hostel last night.. gonna try to get ahold of a friend here to stay tonight. thinking of heading to the Blue mountains here. figure that out here before the weekend is over.
ok. time to go. calls to make. meet a friend for lunch. I'll write again in a while...

Been a really fun last while here...
flew from Tasmania the day after my last entry. had a nice leisurely morning packing my gear. got a ride two towns over with the lady who ran the eco-hostel. made a couple calls on a payphone to peoples back home (managed to lose my watch - to add to the list of lost items... now also including 1250mb of SD media, which I lost weeks ago, my soap and towel stuff sack - realistically, not that bad... with the exception of my two memory cards) annnnyhow..
got a ride to the airport right off... left early, just in case, and got there with 5 or 6 hours to spare... good time to hang out, get some sun... cook up the rest of my food before leaving a gas cylinder with a note in the parking lot (can't bring them on the plane) which, in all likely hood probably attracted the bomb squad... (you laugh now..)
Chrysi picked me up from the airport - spent the night ripping around the city... got one of those famous (franks?) pies and hung out on the waterfront.... later ending up under the harbour bridge rambling the night way while gazng apon the sydney operahouse hown below.... very surreal for me.. having just spent the last fortnight in the boonies and then suddenly dropped into the biggest city in the country.
Missed all possible accomidations. ended up sleeping in the car for a couple hour down by the water and were up with the sun for a beautiful morning.... which later turned out to be the longest day ever...went on and on... had highlights tohough.. nice art gallery run through with Chrysi (she's an art theory girl) I don't even remmber what else happended that day... lazing in the park... food was eten... people met... beers consumed. got a hostel in the city that night and eplored around downtown Sydney at night with a Kiwi (new zealander) guy. what a place! layers of urban jumgle... multi layered subway system... freeways, peds ways, a monorail... lights, boads and bridges. bloody beautiful.... as crazy and hot as sydney can be during the day... it is a wondeful place at night...
Spent the next day scoping out the sights.. being a tourist... sydney opera house, botanical gardens, all of that... we all spent the night at Lauras place and hit the road in the morning.... 10 hour drive to Ballina. relatively eventless drive (except for the giant bananna) and yeah. we're here...
Renting a flat here for a week with Chrysi and Laura. beautiful beach view.... a 1 minute walk down to the beach itself... Chrysi's a really great cook and is spoiling me with wonderful food... and it's tropcal enough to grow bannanas here. what more can you ask for, really?
unfortunately my time is up here... I'll have to write again with more detail in a few days. and photos!
until then...

Bloody amazing last copuple days...
have to do this quick - as I am in a little shop in eagle hawk neck. I've been shopping here at least a couple times a day to fuel my bicycling habit and have befriended the owners... so they are letting me burn a CD and write after the place has closed... it
s dark, so excuse the typos.
Yesterday I cycled 20km to port aurthur and back, 40km total. Got picked up by a guy from the hostel down in port aurthur... ripped around and saw some more sights around there, then cycled back from the port....
Cycled another 16km today... then hiked 10 km, including to the summit of the Tasman Coastal trail, 2478 feet up. The views from some of the lookouts on the side trails were better than anything I have ever seen with my own eyes... bloody amazing. I tried to take photos... but better than taking photos would be to take you - and drag you up there with me.... you really do have to see it for yourself.
I've definetly got an runners high or something going on. I feel like a jock... all full of energy and excitable!
HA!
Something really intense happend at the summit too! as you get up there, the ecosystem changes completely... the big trees become small spiny black trees and stange flowers... the mosses change.... the rocks change.... then it opens right up and WOW... thats all I can say....
but yeah. the intese thing is I SAW ANOTHER TIGER SNAKE TODAY!!! but this one wasn't on the higghway being run over by a finlander... this one was just behind me on the path... I was wakling down just after the summit... blissed out from the views... then heard a slithering sound... (all of those years catching snakes as a kid is worth something...) the sound was from behind me... I turned around and no more than 3 feet behind me there is this great big tiger snake! he wasn't quuite as huge as the one on the road... but was still a little over a meter long.... and mind you, a tiger snake bite will kill you within hours....(on this track, I didn't see anyone, alllll day, so there wouldn't be any help even if I yelled) so what do I do? follow the thing into the bushes! hahah... carefully of course. I did get a photo of him..., bvut just his tail. I stopped bacause A) he turned around and B) I swear I could hear another one near by. so yeah... I just got out ogf there... walked down the mountain and watched the ground. mannnn did that ever get me going though... my pulse spiked,.... aderenaline zinging through by veins... just thinking that I was unknowingly within striking distance of this deadly animal as I walked by....he would have watched me go by... looking right at my bare ankles (I was in flipflops, hiking - I know) then slithered out....
(one of the ladies here at the store just handed me the calender of the day page with a quote she figured suited me: "Each place along the way is somewhere you had to be to be there" and its got a dog checking out a map... todays page - I love tasmanian people... they're so nice)
hahah... I spent last night seeking out crayfish, crabs and fish down in the bay on some rocks... had lots of fun... amazing what kind of stuff scurries away when you turn on the lights.
going down to another cool place tonight... reccomended by a local lady for stange shit to ssee aty night in the water... should be cool. then I can eat the left over potato wedges the ladies here sold me for a dollar.... like 5 pound of them... just like SEV back home! hahah
been great here. I have really enjoyed my time on ther Tasman penninsula... Love wehat I've seen and have already planned out about 5 days or so of hikes to do next time I'm here.
I fly to Sydney tomarrow.
the bus system out of Eaglehawk neck is really poor. amimed at school kids. would get me to the airport by 9am... tooo bad I don't have to be there until 8pm...
So I'm gonna hitch it... see more country and meet more people that way anyway... just kind of hard to predict when I'm gonna get there.
everything'll work out.
a little drifting - then, next stop, Sydney, N.S.W.