It seems that New Zealand has a way of inspiring me to write. It’s not that I don’t have anything to write about in Australia, or that I don’t like Australia (that’s absolutely not the case — I love it here and was very excited to get my permanent residency in June). There was just something about my weekend in Windy Welly that gave me the urge to really get back into blogging again.

I couldn’t help but have a huge smile on my face as my plane touched down in Wellington, more than 3.5 years after my three month adventure in 2008. I knew that I was only there for a long weekend, but it was a long weekend of watching rugby in what is arguably the rugby capital of the world. Sounds pretty good to me!

Immigration certainly didn’t do anything to wipe the smile away. I know immigration is usually not synonymous with “happiness,” but it was for me when I made a happy discovery. After the immigration agent laughingly tried to convince me to cheer for the All Blacks over the Wallabies (unlikely), she stamped my passport with an unfamiliar stamp — one that did not match the three previous visitor’s stamps that New Zealand had issued me with. As I wandered towards the airport exit, I peered closer and found that I had been given a resident’s visa with the description “holder may stay indefinitely.” I had no idea that Australian residents are accepted as New Zealand residents — I thought you had to get citizenship first! I know it won’t affect me in the short term, as I am firmly entrenched in Brisbane at the moment, but I just loved that I was issued permanent residency without even trying after all the effort it had taken to get in Australia!

World Cup fever was in evidence as soon as I got into the shuttle that would take me to my hotel. Flags hung all over the van, representing all 20 countries participating in the Cup. American and Aussie accents abounded in the van, and when we arrived at the Cambridge Hotel (my ‘old faithful’ hostel that I’ve stayed in many times in Wellington), all of their balconies were draped with flags as well. Just down the road a huge sign covered the side of a hotel, imploring the Kiwis to party like it was 1987 (the last time they won the World Cup).

Before going to NZ, I was in a bit of a quandary. Did I cheer for the US even though I knew nothing about the team, or cheer for the Wallabies because I’d followed Super Rugby and the Tri-Nations before the World Cup? I was considering a compromise where I wore red, white & blue with a Wallabies jersey, but in the end I decided to go all out American. After all, as Bobbi (who is currently working in Wellington) said, how often do I really get to cheer for the homeland anymore anyway? So, with this decided, I settled on white pants and the only piece of US-flag emblazoned clothing I own, a US Davis Cup shirt, and headed into Wellington.

And what a sight the people of Wellington were! There were clearly a lot of Aussies that had jumped across the Tasman for the match…and even some Americans that lived in Australia, by the look of a couple that had cut Wallabies & Eagles jerseys in half and sewn them together. Some had faces painted green and gold; others were swathed in giant American flags. Despite the rivalry, everyone was having a great time. I didn’t feel any of the resentment towards Americans that I have grown used to seeing whenever people are being obnoxiously American (ie, what everyone in Wellington was doing that day, at least visually). People wished each other luck at the game and had a laugh at jokes that were at their country’s expense. Cars emblazoned with American flags on their bonnet honked the entire way around the road and people chased them chanting “U-S-A! U-S-A!”

The best way to describe it all was festive. Honestly, the last time I felt an atmosphere like this was on Orchard Rd just before Christmas. Everyone was celebrating and putting aside their differences for just a day, and it was great. But I had a bit of a problem — for once, I just wasn’t American enough! Surprisingly, there was more American clothing in Wellington than I could find in 2 weeks in Texas — for some reason, they didn’t seem to be interested in the rugby — but I really didn’t want to spend $150 on a jersey from one of the many sports stores hawking official gear. Then I stumbled across my biggest find in Wellington, a little store in a side alley off of Cuba St called “Verboom.” Not only were they advertising free “I <3 Wellington” badges for any Rugby World Cup visitors, but they made custom shirts as well. The one advertised was specially made for anti-Aussie supporters (ie, all Kiwis) and had “Ireland 15, Australia 6” emblazoned across it.

It turned out that I had stumbled across exactly what I was looking for. The shop owner greeted me and asked me about the rugby, and as soon as he heard my accent, he started excitedly telling me about the shirts his friends and he had come up with for the game that night. Apparently all of them were going all-out American for the game and had come up with some slogans for their group. As soon as he showed me the sheet of designs, I practically begged him to let me buy one off him. Of course, owning a shop based almost entirely around selling custom shirts, he was very happy to. So this was how, an hour later, I came to be wearing this shirt:

Lose by less than 30? Yes we can!

It was exactly what I wanted–an out-of-the-ordinary way to show my support–and it was well worth every penny, especially for the people it led me to meet. But that is a tale in itself, and best saved for another post. In the meantime, suffice it to say that I can’t imagine a more welcoming environment for a major sporting event, or in general really. I’ve always loved the friendliness of the Kiwi people, and both they and all of the visitors took it to a new level for the Cup games in Wellington.

Well, since the captain of this flight from Hamilton Island to Brisbane has very unkindly decided to turn inland and stop flying over coral and beautiful sandy islands, I’ve decided it’s time to write a blog post. That, and the fact that I’ve been doing an awful lot of travel recently but this poor blog has been left to sit lonely in cyberspace.

It’s been a very busy winter for me (and the rest of my family, although they are more likely to call it summer!). It started off with a wonderful surprise from James when he informed me that the food we were going to get in Brisbane’s Chinatown wasn’t nearly as good as the Chinese we’d be eating in a few weeks time. Where was that? I enquired, to which he replied that he’d bought us tickets for a weekend away in Sydney! A few weeks later, I had a flying trip over to Puerto Rico for my good friend Cristina’s wedding (and a few days of travel with Cristina’s fun PT friends to a bioluminescent bay and the rainforest, among other things), followed by a stopover in San Francisco to visit the Palo Alto Ephoxians. Those both deserve blog posts to themselves, but suffice it to say that I had a great time, especially getting to see good friends at the wedding. I love Australia, but it’s times like these that make me feel how far away from America it really is!

In early July, my “little” brother arrived just in time for crunch time for our WebRadar 2.0 release. In amongst all the Pizza Capers-filled late nights at work, I managed to meet him on arrival in Sydney and take him for a weekend trip up to Cairns. Despite the fact that when I asked Philip to summarise the Sydney trip, he said, “Opera House, Opera House, and more Opera House, with a bit of Harbour Bridge thrown in on the side,” I still think he had a great time! It was a good way to start off his first trip Down Under as well. We had an absolute blast together in Cairns, spending one day snorkeling/relaxing on the beach on Fitzroy Island and one day on an Ocean Spirit cruise out to Michaelmas Cay. And what a surprise I got when I ran into a friend on the Esplanade in Cairns, only to find out that her and her father were on the exact same cruise as us the next day! I think all four of us left that cruise very happy, although I felt very bad that Jen didn’t get to see the green turtle that Philip and I swum with for 10 minutes (this was definitely the highlight of our snorkeling trips and will get a post of its own as well!).

A week later, my parents arrived from Singapore, and my time off began. With my dad only in Australia for a week, we couldn’t venture too far, but we still made the most of our time! We spent a day on the Sunshine Coast with James’ parents before driving up to Hervey Bay for a whale watch. The crew warned us countless times that it was still early days in the whale watching season so we shouldn’t be too disappointed if we didn’t see anything, but we lucked out and got to see 4 or 5 whales. Unfortunately none of them were very playful, but the dolphins made up for that by swimming in front of the boat for quite some time.

The next day, we hopped on a ferry to Kingfisher Bay. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t so flash so we just spent most of the day relaxing before having what my mom described as “one of the best meals she could remember” at the Seabelle Restaurant. The next two days had varying weather—going between dark and stormy and perfect—but we made the best of them and had a wonderful time. We spent a day bumping around Fraser on a 4wd bus and even managed to squeeze in a 15-minute plane trip that took off from 75 Mile Beach (oh, and how fun it was trying to convince my mother to get on that tiny plane!). The next day we relaxed and did activities around the resort, including a canoe ride up a creek surrounded in mangroves and chasing herds of crabs around the beach at sunset. We punctuated the trip north with a seafood platter at Noosa Surf Club and an afternoon drive down the coastal road on the Sunshine Coast. Back in Brisbane, we managed to take in the Ron Mueck exhibition (see some of his amazingly lifelike sculptures here). I don’t know if my mother was more impressed by the sculptures or the fact that I got my dad into an art gallery! In the afternoon we did what all Aussie visitors have to do and cuddled koalas & fed kangaroos at Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. All in all, it was a thoroughly memorable trip and a great introduction to Australia for my parents!

Unfortunately my dad had to leave after 1 week, but since I still had a bit of time off and my mom & brother were still here, we got on a plane soon after his and headed north again, this time to the Whitsundays. I was particularly excited about this because it was just as new an experience for me as it was for the rest of my family, and boy was it worth that excitement! We had such a great time on Daydream Island that I’m surprised we didn’t have to be pried away screaming when our ferry arrived to take us to the airport! Despite the fact that we were on a relatively small island, we were never wanting for activities, especially since you could simply swim from the beach to coral reefs—and snorkeling on those could keep me entertained for hours, or at least til I start getting a bit cold! There were quite a few highlights of the trip, but two come to mind immediately. The first was that we got my mom snorkeling! She’d never tried before and doesn’t really like putting her head under the water, but she eventually got in and was very excitedly pointing out the coral and fish all around her, so I’m pretty sure she had a good time. The second highlight was our sailing trip on the Camira catamaran, which took us through the Hook Passage and to Whitehaven Beach. We spent the day snorkeling, swimming/lounging at the beach, enjoying wonderful bbq’ed reef fish, and generally just taking in the astonishing scenery and trying not to get blown off the boat!

It’s been a few days (or a week and a half) since the I wrote the majority of this post, and things are a lot quieter here now. Mom & Philbert left last Sunday, and the house suddenly became very quiet. This weekend was the first in a long time that I haven’t been traveling. It was definitely nice to have some time to kick back and relax, but I wouldn’t trade all the fun and good family times we’ve had for anything.

Yes, yes, I know it’s been a little while since I’ve blogged. A lot has happened in the past 8 months or so, and I’d love to catch up on all of it, but I honestly don’t know if I can. In the meantime, this post will just have to be enough proof that I am actually alive, I’ve just been very neglectful of this site!

So last weekend, I went to a “Sunsets & Star Trails” workshop out near Boonah (for those of you not familiar with Brisbane geography, that’s about an hour’s drive into the country from my house). It was the second workshop I did with Bluedog Photography, and I can’t recommend them enough. It was a great night, full of good conversations, lots of stargazing, and plenty of learning about proper photography techniques that I can hopefully apply in the future.

The afternoon started out at the Royal Hotel in Roadvale, a small town of about 600 people that I can’t say I’d heard of before reading the description of the workshop. It’s a beautiful little country town, built on rolling hills with larger mountains looming in the distance, with one main street with a country store and the aforementioned Royal Hotel. After a bit of a meet-and-greet, we headed out to the private property of Suellen, who so graciously let us invade her home all night.

Garry, one of the tutors, gave us a quick tutorial on what we were going to need to look for before sending us off into the wild of the large yard. Essentially, we needed to find a good spot with some nice framing that faced roughly south, and we needed to have it fully set up before dark. I had a good wander throughout the entire yard. Luckily my knee has gotten significantly better than it was in April (when I had arthroscopic surgery for to clean up some cartilage that had torn off the back of my kneecap) so I could actually kneel down and try to find somewhat different angles on the same photograph. I managed to get a few late afternoon/verging on sunset photos this way. I was especially happy with the swingset photo that’s in this shot.

I finally found a corner of the yard near the old dunny that I was happy with. There were quite a few possible angles to go with, but I chose a thistle, which would later come back to bite me when I realized I wasn’t actually facing south and needed to readjust my shot. This was the first of a few things to go slightly awry during the evening, but it was all a learning experience, right? In the dark, I managed to get my tripod out of the gnarled bushes I had gotten it entangled in and moved it to frame the shot with a stark, winter-time frangipani tree. After following all of Garry’s instructions, I decided to go for my first star trails shot (star trails, for those that don’t know, are the streaks in the sky you can capture when you take long-exposure night shots. See further down in this post for an example). This involved using my remote release so I didn’t introduce camera shake to the shot. Unfortunately, the remote didn’t have the other very important feature I needed for this exercise–a lock. That meant that if I wanted to get a 45-minute long exposure shot, I would have to hold down a button for 45 minutes. “Oh well,” I thought. “I’m here, I might as well give it a shot because that’s all I’m going to get with this equipment.”

After 10 minutes, my thumb started falling asleep and suddenly twitched, letting go of the shutter and finishing the exposure. Needless to say, I wasn’t amused! I talked to both Garry and Nick; between the three of us, we managed to devise a contraption to hold the remote button down without me being there. It sounds pretty simple–scotch tape a piece of gravel down on the remote, and then tape the remote to the tripod. However, we had a bit of trouble getting it rigged because the remote had to be aimed at the camera at all times–start taping and accidentally move its line of sight and the shutter would close. It look us about 20 minutes to get it set up the first time, but finally we were able to sneak away from the camera without hearing the shutter click.

From then on, I felt a lot more social! I was able to go over to the main group (since my camera was well away from everyone else’s) and chat with everyone else. We were all amazed at the number of stars we were seeing, especially given the cloud cover around sunset. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky to obscure the twinkling of the stars or the slight haziness that marked out the band of the Milky Way sprawling across the sky.

By the end of the night, each of us had 2-3 shots of star trails. I know, you’re thinking, “What? She went out for 7 hours and got 2 photos?” Each photo takes 45 minutes to shoot and another 45 minutes to process for noise reduction, so it’s a very time-consuming and patience-testing endeavour! I was happy that I got any star trails at all after the hassle I had to go through with my remote, although now I have to do a bit of investigation to figure out why they came out the way they did. Even though the camera seemed to process the picture to reduce the noise, both of my shots are still nearly obscured by the huge amount of noise in them. And since I took the photos at f5.6 and ISO 200 with noise reduction, there really shouldn’t be noise like this in the shot. Everyone else had the same settings as me and their shots came out much better than this, so I’m hoping that there’s not a problem with my camera! If anyone that’s reading this is a Pentax expert, please comment and let me know

Anyway, all in all, it was a great night and well worth the money and the trip out there. I now feel a lot more confident with my night shooting and am really hoping to get away from the city to try it again soon.

Yes, it’s been ages since I’ve updated, and I apologise. A lot of things have happened in the last month that I probably should have written about, but never got around to because I was always too exhausted to write by the time I thought about updating my partly-written draft.

First and foremost, I am now settled in Brisbane. I arrived here on September 11 (not the most auspicious of starts), and surprisingly, my huge number of bags (+1 boxed bicycle) arrived with me! The flight itself was great, since we had a very strong tailwind that shortened our flight time by an hour and I was sitting in business class, courtesy of my Qantas frequent flier miles, so I actually slept the majority of the way. It didn’t hurt that my flight took off late, at 1.05am, so I was rather exhausted by the time I stepped on the plane anyway.

I didn’t do a whole lot when I first arrived in Brisbane, besides unpacking and trying to find room for my stuff that seemed to expand so much while I was in Perth. I spent a weekend on the Sunshine Coast (where the picture above is from) with James’ family while he was away on a wakeboarding trip. We alternated between lying on the beach and going home to watch 2 seasons of Sex & the City, so it was definitely a nice & relaxing weekend. Most of my time other than that was spent doing a lot of nothing. I considered going to Straddy (an island near Brisbane) for a day or two, but the fact that it was school holidays and Point Lookout would therefore be swarming with children kind of put me off that, so I pretty much just stuck around the house being useless.

Luckily, I wasn’t useless for too long, since my interviews at a Ephox, a software company based in Brisbane, went really well. I was happy even to get a first interview with them, since a) every other job I’d found that even remotely fit me was only taking applications from permanent residents & citizens and b) it was the job that seemed like it would fit me the best. It really seemed like it would fit me a lot better than my previous job, and I knew as soon as I met the team that I would get along with them well. They fortunately decided the same about me and we launched into the visa process, which means that I was gearing myself up to still be jobless come December. However, the Australian government pulled through and really surprised all of us that were involved in the application process. I applied for my work visa on a Monday afternoon, and when I woke up on Wednesday morning my visa approval was sitting in my inbox. What a change from the 3 months my other visa took to get approved! I can’t say I’m complaining though, since earlier this year I wanted to spend as much time in NZ as possible, while this time around I wanted to start my job ASAP.

And start ASAP I did. Less than a month after I arrived in Brisbane, I had my first day of work. I’ve now been there for a week and a half and have already helped to answer a couple support cases, which is more than I did in the whole 5 months I spent at my last job! I actually feel useful and that I am learning, even though I know that I have a loooooong way to go before I understand most of what is going on. It’s just great to feel like I’m making some sort of difference and that I am actually part of the team, as opposed to the outsider that just looks on while everyone else works.

As for my back, it is finally to the point that I only just feel it towards the end of a day at work. I know that it’s not healed–or at least, I got that impression when I was unloading the car on Sunday night, stretched across the back seat trying to reach a pillow, and my back popped and suddenly I couldn’t move. There was definitely pain, but it subsided after a day or two. I’m doing most normal activities now–although I haven’t been game enough to get on a wakeboard yet, especially since my physio has strongly advised against it–and have been pretty good at doing the exercises my physio recommended to strengthen my back muscles. I just love being able to get through a full day at work (with 1.5km hilly walks to & from the train station) without being in absolute agony!

The mention of wakeboarding (and the photos) might have seemed a little random to some of you, since it’s generally not an everyday activity for most people. James is a member of the UQ Waterski/Wakeboarding Club, so pretty much every weekend since I’ve been here, I’ve been out on a boat watching him wakeboard.  I enjoy going out, since it means I get out of the house and spend part of a day out on the river (even if it is brown) but I’d love to be able to get out on a board and make a total fool of myself, since I feel a bit left out sometimes. Luckily, last weekend James & I went on a camping trip to Moogerah, southwest of Brisbane, with people from the wakeboarding club, but minimal wakeboarding was actually done. As one person there described it, it was a perfect buck’s party weekend, with boats, tubes, chainsaws, bows & arrows, remote controlled cars/plane, bonfires, flaming jack’o'lanterns, and lots of alcohol, just to name a few. Even though it drizzled a lot and people were doubting whether I’d be able to get out of my tent at all during the weekend because of it, we had a great time and it was nice to have a mini-vacation after a tiring week of trying to readjust to a work routine.

This weekend, we’re going back up the coast to see James’ grandparents, who are up from coastal New South Wales. I know, it’s a really rough life

I’m happy to say that my back has steadily improved since my last post, and I am now at the point where I don’t constantly feel it, although if I do much of anything it still steadily starts tightening up. Still, I’ll take what I can get and be happy that I can function in a nearly normal capacity now (if you count being a professional bum as being normal). It came at a great time too, since the Olympics are over so I have no excuse to sit and watch random sports all day every day (and a belated congrats to Michael Phelps, who I really enjoyed watching win those 8 gold medals, especially the 100m butterfly, and Rafa, who cruised to his gold medal)…although I’ve still found excuses to get up at 4am to watch tennis (Rafa vs. Andy Murray was a good match and well worth the early wake up call, even if the guy I wanted to win didn’t…but as Poppa said, I have to be true to my “British nationality” and cheer for Andy, which I will be doing when I get up at 5am tomorrow to watch the final against Fed).

Anyway, back to my point…my physio has always been a strong advocate of keeping my back moving rather than sitting as an amoebic lump on the couch. This started with a strict list of stretches that I had to do every hour to get my full range of movement back as well as to stretch out the muscles that were so tight in my back. A few weeks ago, he decided that I was ready to push even further than this and actually begin really exercising. Part of his goal was to try to push me as hard as possible to see if I broke before I went to Brisbane, since it’d be better to happen now than to think I’m better and then possibly get a job and fall apart once I got there. The good news is that he didn’t manage to break me, and the even better news for my own sanity is that I was able to get out of the house in a different manner than just walking the same streets up and down, day after day.

There’s three significant things I’ve managed to do in the last few weeks that I consider to be real landmarks. The first is that I ran 2kms twice in the span of three days and didn’t collapse afterwards on either occasion. The physio said the real challenge with running would be getting out of bed the next morning, but I managed that, albeit with a significant amount of stiffness in my neck, traps, and in the middle of my back, but no severe pain. It was really exhilarating as well, which was understandable since my physio said that I would probably feel high after the first few times exercising since I hadn’t done it in so long.

The second significant event was competing in the 4km City-to-Surf a couple weeks ago. Normally, I probably would have entered the 12km race, which actually goes from the city (St. Georges Terrace) to the surf, just because I am competitive and would like to see how far I could push myself, but I knew that would be a very dumb idea in my current state. I was iffy on whether I should even enter until the Wednesday before the race (which happened on Sunday, August 31), when my physio told me it would be a great idea, provided I came in the next day for treatment so he could make sure I was okay.

The race itself was absolutely insane, with 36,825 entrants throughout the half-marathon, 12km walk/run, 4km walk/run, and 11km wheelchair divisions. One of those entrants was Cathy Freeman, the Olympic golden girl of 2000, who said at the end of the race that it was the longest she’d ever run and she had to really push herself to finish under 68 minutes (her division). She said she felt she couldn’t stop running because of what people would think! Anyway, it seemed like about half of the entrants were in the 4km division, which started in Perry Lakes. A few friends from work and I got there about 15 minutes before the race and were joined by our Scottish friend just as the runners were taking off. She was planning on running while the rest were going to walk, so I said I would join her for as far as I could, since as I’ve said before, I really wanted to push myself.

Running was really quite difficult, since by the time we passed the starting mats that triggered the timers on our shoes, a lot of the walkers had started as well and were pretty much blocking the entire path with their strollers, linked arms, etc. We ended up running on the grass half the time to get around them. By the time we reached the 1km mark, Ibby had run quite far ahead, which was okay with me because I didn’t want to end up in one of the first aid tents along the way! I managed to run probably about 3 of the 4kms, with many short walking breaks while I avoided various obstacles. It really would have been nice to have a runners’ lane and a walkers’ lane, but it’s probably best that I had to slow down a little, since I was definitely feeling my back by the end of it (but thankfully not enough to make use of those first aid tents!). I still managed to come in roughly 2,400th place out of 9,297 people, according to the <a href=”http://citytosurf.activ.asn.au/2/3226/3179/2008_results.pm”>official results website</a>, which wasn’t too bad at all! Plus, after the race we all got free leg massages and sausages courtesy of Prime Health Care, who my team was associated with.

The third big accomplishment was going to Rottnest Island last week. Rotto is a jewel of an island about a 30 minute ferry ride from Fremantle that Perth denizens love to head over to during the summer. I hadn’t been there yet because I was told it was best during the summer, when the water’s just warm enough to go snorkeling in (there’s tons of reefs lying just off the coast). Unfortunately, I never made it to summer in Perth, so I decided that I might as well go in the beginning of spring instead just so I could see the place.

I nearly didn’t make it over there, since I made it to the ferry terminal well past the 9.30am departure date, but fortunately the ferry was running a bit late. We got over there at about 11, so I had 5 hours to traverse the island and do as I pleased before the last ferry left at 4pm. My first stop was picking up some sunscreen and food in the shops at Thomson Bay. I was surprised to see that they weren’t as excessively overpriced as I thought they might be; Subway was only about $1 more expensive per sandwich than on the mainland. Unfortunately, Subway had an insane line, so I went to the Rottnest Bakery instead, which proved to be even more costly time-wise. They promised me that my squid and chips would be done in 8 minutes, and then 20 minutes later brought me my money back and said they were sorry, they’d burned my chips, so they were going to give me the food for free for waiting so long. I was extremely frustrated at the time, since I felt like valuable minutes were ticking away, but it ended up working out for the best, since I got a free (and very good, but very greasy) meal as well as getting to see some of the local wildlife while I waited. Two peacocks were facing off over a peahen, so there were lots of flared feathers for me and my fellow tourists to get excited about, and even more exciting, a quokka appeared on the deck of the bakery to investigate the smell of food. Quokkas are tiny marsupials that only live on Rotto; they look kind of like a cross between a skinny wombat and a kangaroo (since they both walk slowly until spooked and then hop away). This quokka, like pretty much all of the animals on the island that I saw, was completely unafraid of people and walked straight up to my bike helmet and attemped to get in, thinking that it smelled like food rather than the bag right next to it. It was adorable and attracted quite a crowd!

I finally made it away from Thomson Bay and took my rented bike north towards Bathurst Lighthouse, which stands at the northeastern point of the island. It was under this lighthouse on Pinky Beach that I enjoyed my lunch while lying out on the white sand. What a tough life, huh? It was at this point that I really began to regret not planning better and spending a night at one of the hostels on the island because I knew that 5 hours would just not be enough to do the island properly.

From there, I climbed up to the lighthouse to get a bit of a bird’s eye view of the northern coast before hitting the road again. I traversed a good half of the northern coast, passing turquoise waters and white sand everywhere, as well as the occasional settlement (at Geordie Bay), wind turbine, quokka (two of them were browsing on the side of the road, one of which walked up and started pawing my tire when I stopped), and brown lizard (which I nearly ran over before it zipped out of the way surprisingly quickly). There are very few vehicles on Rottnest, which made cycling a joy. The only downside of cycling was the hunching I inevitably had to do to hang on to the handlebars, which compounded with the backpack on my back didn’t do my back a world of good. I ended up stopping and relaxing at Little Armstrong Bay, a secluded beach with only 5 or 6 other people on it. Just off the sand started coral reefs, which a little boy was snorkeling over. I was jealous, wishing that I could get in the water as well without the chill causing problems in my back. Oh well…just another reason to come back to WA to visit!

The ride back to Thomson Bay took me past most of the big lakes on the island, which were nice, but not nearly as stunning as they look from aerial views. I peddled the 3+kms pretty quickly and ended up having about half an hour to spare, which I enjoyed having a cold drink in the shade (but still with a great view of the beach and the Australian mainland) at the very-under-construction Quokka Arms Hotel. Overall, it was a great day and a great way to do my rehabilitation exercise without just sitting in a gym!

The other big news I have is that I’m heading to Brisbane on Thursday morning. That made last weekend very sad, since it was full of goodbyes–a wonderful goodbye dinner & drinks at the Olive Tree on Friday followed by a goodbye BBQ hosted by my flatmate (and very good cook) on Saturday. I enjoyed them, but it made me realize just how much I am going to miss the friends that have been there for me in the last five months. As I said above, yet another reason to come back and visit! I am excited about going to Queensland though, because I’ll get to see James and I won’t have to do any more packing for a while! Plus, if I get lucky, I’ll find a job there and settle down somewhat permanently, which sounds great to me after what’s amounted to 8 months of being a nomad (even though I was living pretty normally here, it was just rather fleeting).

 A week and a half ago, I flew over to the east coast for another weekend away. Even though I do like Perth, it was great to get away for a little while, especially since I got Monday off…so I didn’t feel quite so much like I was getting off a plane just to get back on another one!

While I was of course very excited about being able to see James after about 6 weeks apart, the other main reason for flying across was because Chelsea and Chris–the only other girl in my year of comp sci and her boyfriend–were on the east coast as well. They were traveling up and down the coast scuba diving and surfing for a 3-week graduation trip, and I couldn’t pass up getting a chance to see them. Since they weren’t making it as far up the coast as Brisbane, James and I drove down the coast to meet them in Byron Bay (which was much better than Brisbane anyway!).

 My flight landed quite late on Friday night/Saturday morning. We were delayed by about two hours in Perth because of mechanical problems which meant I didn’t land until 1.30am; therefore, we didn’t make it down to Byron until lunchtime. We checked in to our room at the Belongil Beachouse–and the guy at the checkin desk even moved us to a room with a balcony for no extra cost! I really liked the beachhouse. Even though it was a hostel, it was nice and clean. I thought it was really just a cute place in a great location and Chelsea agreed. Can’t really ask for more than that!

We ended up having yum cha (or dim sum) in Byron Bay before getting ice cream from a local ice cream shop called Baskin Robbins Again, what could be better than strolling down the beach eating ice cream with friends? Sure, it could have been warmer, but we can’t have it all.

 One of the highlights of the weekend happened after we finished our ice cream and loaded back into James’ car. We climbed to the tip of Cape Byron and found a parking space next to (how stereotypical) a caravan with a hairy hippie man hanging out of it. As soon as we got out, we saw white lines appearing everywhere in the ocean–and not from the surf, since it was dead calm. The lines were actually from whales that were breaching all over the place. We could see at least ten whales all around us just having…dare I say it?…a whale of a time. James was thrilled because he’d never seen a whale breach before, and the rest of us were just generally thrilled because you don’t often get the chance to see that many whales just hanging out and having a good time. The only downside was that my good camera–with 18x zoom that would actually be able to capture the whales in action–was left sitting on the bed in the hostel!

 We managed to eventually tear ourselves away from the whales and moved up to the lighthouse, and the thing we were much more fascinated with–the geodetic marker. Besides the fact that we had no idea what it was trying to geodetically mark, we were clueless as to why it had clearly been moved four feet (hence the confused picture of Chelsea and me!). It turns out that geodetic surveys are done periodically (which I really should have known, having dealt with them a bit at my job) and markers have to be moved to match the new survey. We just thought it was funny that they had clearly went to a lot of effort marking sure the pavement circled a certain spot that had then been covered over in concrete.

Since Cape Byron is actually the easternmost point on the Australian mainland, we had to make sure we walked to the very end of it. James and I visited the lighthouse three years ago and made it downhill past the lighthouse just far enough to see the sign stating that we were at the “most easterly point of the Australian mainland,” but then we couldn’t be bothered walking down all of the stairs to sea level and the rocky outcrop that is actually the easternmost point. This time, we couldn’t let Chelsea and Chris miss out on what could clearly be the highlight of their trip, so we walked ever downhill until we were as far east as the barriers would let us go. If we had set foot off the path, we would have just contributed to the erosion of the peninsula, possibly causing it to drop off and no longer be the easternmost point. Ahh!

 We watched the sun set over the mountains behind Byron Bay before suffering from what Chelsea best described as “stair-induced cardiac arrest.” On the way back to Belongil, we made an urgent stop so the guys could get a carton of beer for the night. I managed to completely fall over myself without having anything to drink at all just outside the grocery store. It must have looked hilarious to James and Chris, who were sitting in the car. One minute, I was walking towards them, the next there was a big “thunk” and I was nowhere to be seen! I just happened to not see the gutter and ended up landing in it on the side of my ankle and completely ate it. Fortunately I didn’t hurt myself like I normally do in these situations!

The rest of the night was great fun but doesn’t need to be explained in too much detail here. Suffice it to say that Chelsea and I had a box of Reisling wine that she needed to get rid of before she left Australia! We had an awesome night and it was sad that Chelsea and Chris had to head back to Sydney the next day to catch their flight back home. It was just great to see people from home after being away for quite a while.

This got lost in the kerfuffle of my rough move to Perth…but I actually won third prize in the Solas Awards’ Young Traveler category for my story Why I Beat a Girl With a PVC Pipe. Not too bad, considering I entered it quickly without any time to edit it! As a reward, I get a certificate, free copy of a Traveler’s Tale (the company sponsoring the awards) book, and the chance that they will publish my story in an upcoming collection.

While we’re on the subject of writing, I’ve noticed that I haven’t mentioned IgoUgo in a while. This is probably because I took an extended break from writing because of the end of uni/Christmas break/my trip to New Zealand. Anyway, I’m back to writing and have started trying to make a dent on the 20+ journals I have piled up from NZ, plus 2 or 3 from Perth. The two I’ve written so far are Christchurch: The Gateway to the South Island and
New Zealand Essentials (which is still missing a few entries).

Also, while I was in New Zealand, I was chosen to be in the IgoUgo Hall of Fame. I was really excited about receiving this honor, since only the top contributors to the site are chosen.

IgoUgo also writes its own travel blog (and I made the list of their “Go-To Blogs”…yay!). In their weekly site update on Friday, they noted that my journal Stonehenge: Wiltshire’s Most Famous Pile of Rocks is now one of IgoUgo’s top 10 most-read journals.

I finally have internet at home! It got connected on Wednesday…so I can do things like upload pictures and update my blog without having to trek into town and pay to use the internet cafe! Hopefully in the next few days I’ll have quite a few entries as I catch up on events from the last month.

Anyway, just about a month ago, I flew across the country to Brisbane for James’ mother’s birthday, his sister’s 18th birthday, and Mother’s Day. I planned this trip pretty much as soon as I arrived in Perth because I wanted to be there with his family on a special weekend; I thought it would be good just to see friendly faces after a month in Perth, even though it meant having to see James as well. However, about a week before I boarded the Qantas plane heading east, prospects for the weekend started looking much better when James apologized and asked if we could get back together. Again, I’m not going into full detail, but essentially, I said yes and it certainly made the weekend much less awkward!

We didn’t spend a lot of time in Brisbane itself. I landed at about midnight (since I took off right after work at 5.30), so we spent the night there and then drove up to the Sunshine Coast early the next morning. Much of the day was devoted to either being lazy (napping) or getting ready for the barbeque that night. The only interesting events were 1) Kate (James’ sister) and I went to the beach with David (their brother) but didn’t swim (I’d forgotten my swimsuit). It was a beautiful day and great for just sitting, talking, and watching the waves…and 2) we took Kate to the bottle shop so she could legally buy alcohol for the first time..and she didn’t even get IDed! I didn’t get IDed on my 21st either, so I understood her anger

Kate’s BBQ was good fun, as was going out afterwards. I’d never actually been to any clubs on the Sunshine Coast, and I quickly realized why when we were charged $5 at the Wharf Tavern just to get into the bar downstairs…and then another $8 to get upstairs. We didn’t even go downstairs (except to get into the upstairs club) so it seemed a bit of a rip-off for them to charge us for both! Upstairs, it was pretty much a normal club–lots of dancing and hit music–except for the alcohol prices, which seemed more excessive than normal. James and I got a Bundy Draught each–just pre-mixed Bundy and Coke–and they didn’t give us any change out of the $20 I gave them! We knew that the government had just massively increased taxes on pre-mixed drinks (claiming they want to curb binge-drinking) but it was a bit much. We still paid for drinks, since we were there, but it hurt!

Of course, it was just my luck to be on the dance floor when a guy danced up to us and asked “So, where all y’all from?” I knew that he had to be from at least somewhere near Texas because he knew the proper plural for “y’all,” so I wasn’t surprised at all that when I told him I was from Texas, he said, “Oh wow! Me too! I’m from San Antonio!” Turns out that he also worked in oil & gas. I thought this coincidence was really funny at the time, but after having been in Perth for longer, I find that it’s not a coincidence at all. It seems like this town is absolutely swarming with Texans or people that have lived in Houston, since pretty much every company here has a big base there.

We stayed at the club until about 1.30, when Kate’s friend Hazel decided her feet had had enough and was ready to go home. James and I jumped at the chance to go with her and left David to watch Kate and make sure she made it home okay…needless to say, he was very happy with us and looked like a zombie the next morning (although this turned out to be because he was coming down with a bad cold rather than being from a hangover). He missed going to coffee in Mooloolaba for Mother’s Day, where all of the rest of the ”kids” just stared like zombies trying to stay awake!

Overall, I really enjoyed my weekend there and it was great to see faces that I know so well. I’m settling in well to Perth but I still don’t have any people here that I’ve known as long as those on the East Coast. I’ll be heading back over there in a couple weeks, although I won’t be seeing James’ family. Instead, James is picking me up and driving us down to Byron Bay–in New South Wales and about a 2-hour drive south of Brisbane–so I can see Chelsea, one of my best friends from Rice and the only other girl comp sci in our year, who is currently on a month-long graduation trip to Australia. I’m looking forward to it, especially since I’ll get a long weekend so I won’t feel quite so much like I’m hopping off a plane only to get back on another one.

Even though it took me a long time to feel up to updating this blog again, I continued to upload photos, since it’s generally a pretty mindless activity. I’ve finally made it through my entire backlog of New Zealand pictures, meaning that after this post, there will be no more of the scenic beauty of NZ for me to pass on to you (although I could give you my friend James’ Facebook to look at, since he’s taken well over 22,000 photos in his time in NZ!). However, I hope to keep discovering Perth and the surrounding areas in the coming months, so you’ll get entirely too many Australian photos instead.

I know you guys might have been hoping for a conclusion to my previous post. It is in the works, but I thought I’d get these photos up while I was at the internet cafe.

Without further ado, here’s the list of what’s been added/updated (denoted by a ***):

New Zealand
***Queenstown: more from Deer Park Heights & the Remarkables.
***The Milford Track: from days 3 & 4 of the track (with plenty from going over Mackinnon Pass).
Milford Sound from Land: from around Milford Sound township.
Milford Overnight Cruise: from my overnight on the Milford Wanderer in the beautiful fiord of Milford.
The Kepler Track: from my overnight trek onto the Kepler Track, up to Mt. Luxmore & Luxmore Hut and back.
Kayaking Doubtful Sound: from my 5 hours on remote Doubtful Sound and the long (but stunning) trip to/from the sound.
Warbirds over Wanaka: from the biennial warbirds airshow held at Wanaka airfield.
The West Coast Road: from my day-long bus trip between Wanaka and Franz Josef Glacier.
***Franz Ice Climbing & Quad Biking: plenty more shots of me looking stupid trying to climb ice walls and from the Waiho river valley where I went quad biking the next day.
Drive Across Arthur’s Pass: from my day-long bus trip between Franz Josef Glacier and Christchurch.

Australia
Queensland Sunsets: sunset shots from a few different days in Queensland.
Queensland Flowers: currently only shots of some pink hibiscus in James’ mother’s garden, but I’m hoping to add more when I go back sometime.
Queensland Animals: shots of kookaburras and blue-tongued lizards.
My Australian Family: some of my favorite shots from some photos James’ family and I took while I was up the Sunshine Coast.
Apartments in Perth: pictures from my (very fancy) temporary accommodation. None of my current apartment, and those will probably only be available to “friends” on Flickr once I do add them.
Kings Park: the beautiful Kings Park, which was just up the hill from my temporary accommodation. Also, shots of the ANZAC Day dawn service held at the war memorial there.
Scarborough Beach: my first glimpse of the Indian Ocean!
General Perth: where I’ll chuck all my pictures that don’t fit into other sets from Perth. Right now, it’s just fireworks pictures from a display I was lucky enough to see a couple weeks ago.
John Forrest National Park: the “Australian” pictures everyone is waiting to see. These are from a fun BBQ I went to yesterday up in the hills near Perth. Plenty of red dirt, gum trees, kookaburras, and kangaroos!

So I know it’s been a really long time since I’ve updated the blog. I know it seems a bit odd that I could do so well at updating while running myself ragged in New Zealand and then not get anything posted for the month that I’ve been in Australia. It’s been a long, rough month though, and lots of things combined to completely strip me of any will to write. Now that I don’t have an internet connection at home (and won’t until the 13th) it’s made it even more difficult to update, but I’m here, and I’m writing, and I’m getting back on track.

So, over a month ago, I stepped off the Air New Zealand flight onto Australian soil, where I plan to stay at least semi-permanently (my visa is valid for 4 years). I was thrilled to see James at the airport, since it had been quite a while and a lot had happened since I saw him off at Intercontinental in January. We went up to his parents’ on the Sunshine Coast for the weekend, and I was thrilled to see them as well. I feel like I am part of the family after knowing them for nearly three years, and it was great to get a little taste of home after traveling from hostel to hostel for ten weeks in New Zealand. Because of the Mooloolaba triathlon, we ended up going to Maroochydore for our Sunday morning coffee instead; even so, it felt normal and good to be in a routine again (even if it was someone else’s!). James and I went down to the beach at Mooloolaba later on that evening and got to see a beautiful sunset. I was experiencing quite a few emotions then; staring out across the ocean, I was missing New Zealand and the carefree life I led there, since I knew I was going to have to settle down now that I was starting work, but I was so happy just to be back in the country I love with the man I love.

The week in Brisbane was relatively calm. James made a few comments about me wanting to go out and rush around seeing things, but I really didn’t need to; besides the fact that I’ve managed to rush around and see the majority of sites within public transport distance of James’ place, I was tired and just wanted a week of relaxation. I went out and did a few things, like buying a new suitcase so I could get all the junk I sent to James over to Perth and getting my visa label stuck in my passport. The most interesting thing I did was going out with Michelle twice. The first time we met up, we went back to UQ, where I have so many happy memories of studying abroad. We had an afternoon of pizza, cosmopolitans, kookaburras, and talking, and it was great. A few days later, we tried to go eat yum cha at our usual hangout (okay, we’d only been there once, but it felt like our usual hangout at least!) only to find that it was closed…but not to worry, Michelle had a backup plan and we still got to stuff ourselves silly on dim sims and pork buns!

However, on Saturday, everything started crashing down around me. This is my personal blog, I know, but I’m not going to go into a lot of personal details, especially since I refuse to air grievances on such a public forum. Let’s just say that James broke up with me–a week after I arrived in the country that I moved to for him–and it absolutely broke my heart. I felt betrayed and more lonely than I’ve ever been in my life. Needless to say, this isn’t what I needed at all to start my new life in Australia, and it’s made the ensuing weeks incredibly difficult. I’ve been lucky to have amazing support–from my family, my awesome friends, and from James’ family, who have still made me feel like I belong in it despite James’ actions–or else I really don’t know how I’d still be here, since it’s hard not to question why I’m in a place that is nearly 10,000 miles from my family when I moved here for the one person that I trusted in enough to pick up and move across the world for…when he doesn’t want to be with me anyway.

The days following the breakup were rough, but James’ family was amazing and took great care of me. I got to see his mother and father (along with Michelle, who took me in, fed me dinner, and watched So You Think You Can Dance?  with me) on Sunday and his mother again on Monday. On Tuesday, his mother, father, and sister all came to the airport to see me off, so quite a few tears ensued. Stepping onto that plane is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, especially since more than a couple people told me that they wanted me to go to Perth but I could always get back on the plane to the US if I really wanted to. I got on the plane after giving everyone multiple hugs, bawling like I always seem to do when I get on planes in Australia. Within a few hours, my problems had been put in perspective. The man next to me was really friendly and talked to me for quite a while, trying to convince me that everything was going to be okay while giving me lots of advice on how to handle the situation; a few times, he said things that set me off and I ended up in tears once again. Then, I walked to the back of the plane only to see him talking to the flight attendants and visibly upset. He had apparently just been diagnosed with cancer yet he had sat there trying to help me solve my little problems for the first three hours of the flight. He was a really nice guy with a big cloud hanging over his head…so I spent the next few hours telling him how my father had beaten cancer and how he could beat it too. I won’t use your real name, but if you’re out there, I hope you’re fighting and you’ve had some great news. You’ll live to see your children for some time yet!

Well, my lunch break is over and I need to get back to my training. Since I don’t have internet at my new apartment, I might not get the rest of this story posted this weekend (although I’ll probably go to an internet cafe when I go shopping in the city tomorrow). If not, I’ll get it written this weekend and then post it on Monday morning. I am slowly settling in, and I do like the city of Perth, which I’ll elaborate on (and hopefully provide pictures of) soon.