The Cancun of Australia

Kuta, Bali, Indonesia

Sailing out of Australia would have been a great idea except for two things:

1) We had arranged to meet Tiffany’s sister in Bali on a specific date.

2) Our work holiday visa in Australia was expiring fast.

As we’ve said before, a key element to being good crew is being able to be flexible.  Since we had to be somewhere at a specific time…oh and that our visas were set to expire in about 12 hours, flexibility was not something we had in abundance.

So a quick flight later and we found ourselves in what we’ve heard called the

 “Cancun of Australia”

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Outback pub life

Karumba, QLD, Australia

518 people

About 466 miles from “Cans

Sometimes, oh and without warning of course, the whole town just separates from the mainland and becomes an island for a few months…so you want to watch out for that.

and the largest gator (sorry…CROC…because it matters while it’s eating you…) ever caught in the history of the planet?  Yeah, right down the road.

Krys croc28ft, 4in long.  This is a to-scale model!

Welcome to Karumba

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New South Wales Grog files

NSW flag

New South Wales, AU

Sydney, the Blue Mountains, Bondi beach and an Opera house – New South Wales is pretty much what all of us think of when we hear the word “Australia.”

Between driving the coast, bumming around Sydney and working in the ski resorts, we spent a good amount of time here and got to taste our way around.  We even got a chance to check out their most famous wine region: The Hunter Valley.

New South Wales was also the first time we found a grog that 2 sailors would choose to pour out instead of drink.  So, from our highest rating to inventing a new low there was quite a spread for New South Wales:

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It’s pronounced ‘Cans’

Cairns, Queensland, Australia

Because when you pronounce the “R” in “Cairns” the locals genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about.

Seriously people, it’s a word.  In our common language.  You can look it up.

Who uses a silent “R”!?!?!

Cairns fishThey have this giant outside pool right next to the ocean that anyone can use and the fish sculptures are a symbol of the city.

Oh, and just in case you’re asking. “Guys? Why do they have a giant public pool right next to the ocean?  Can’t people just swim in the ocean?”

Why yes, yes they could.  Right up to the moment where the giant crocodiles that are all over the place ate them.

Which would of course lead you to then ask “Guys, didn’t you just go diving in that water?”

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Vegemite and firearms

Jindabyne, NSW, AU

Being as Australia isn’t exactly known for its alpine ski industry pretty much no one outside the natives typically makes it to the slopes here.

The upside of this is that working at a ski resort in Australia enabled us to meet one of our main goals for our time down under: we spent 3 months working and living with actual Australians.  As opposed to our previous job where we spent the majority of our time around European cowgirls; here for three months we were immersed in a, granted atypical but nonetheless genuine, Aussie cultural experience.

This, inevitability, led to the conversation on Vegemite.

Because Vegemite in Australia is a lot like guns in America.

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A Museum of Video Games!

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Between exploring amazing churches

Our adventures with street performers

Avoiding the katana-umbrella mafia

Tasting the all important local sushi and waffles:

And F-1 racing.  Did we mention the F-1 racing?

(Seriously, lots goes on here

We almost forgot to mention our favourite part of Melbourne…

Video games

And Melbourne, well as you can see with like most anything else you can think of, video games they got.

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Only one thing smells like bacon and that’s BACON!!!

Helensville, NZ

In case you hadn’t noticed yet, we LOVE Bacon!!

We know, you probably never would have guessed that we were vegetarians for 4 years because we talk about bacon so much.  But bacon is just one of those things that you must make an exception for (ok, and sushi…and BACON SUSHI Crispy, salty, greasy yumminess  – that’s what it’s all about!  All Americans understand what bacon is, even though we tend to have some differences in our personal preferences.  Most people like the straight up, traditional bacon – thinly sliced strips of smoked pig with a roughly 50/50 ratio of fat to meat.  Some people like it extra crispy, some like it almost raw.  Now, there are some variations on this theme – apple wood smoked, thick sliced, turkey bacon, vegetarian bacon – you name it, we’ve got It.  Or so we thought.

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Auckland – The City of Awesome Food

Auckland, New Zealand

So ends the Great Kiwi Road Trip.  Now after all that driving, Who’s hungry!?

As we’ve already mentioned, there is a ton of amazing food in this country.  European food, Asian food, and of course all types of seafood.  One of the local specialties is the New Zealand Green Lipped Mussels.  We found a place downtown called Squid Row where we could get a kilo of these awesome things for NZD$21.  If you see them, you should try some.  They’re great!

Also, remember the Sky Tower?  Well if you want to have the highest tea in the southern hemisphere (because, remember, we judge things that way apparently) they put on a pretty good spread.

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Burritos are not square…

Wellington, NZ

interislander ferry new zealand 1The Great Kiwi Roadtrip continues!!

The Interislander Ferry is located in Wellington, the national capital of New Zealand which is situated on the southernmost tip of the North Island.  No, we hadn’t ever heard of it either.  Mostly because, aside from being conveniently located in the geographic center of the country to make it as accessible as possible to all citizens (see, again, Kiwis are just nice people, even to each other) and being the seat of the national government, Auckland trumps Wellington as the international city of New Zealand.  Simply put, there’s no rude nickname for Wellington-ers, like there is for the JAFAs up north.

It’s in the interest of education and making you look important that we use the slur, bro.  Don’t get mad.

Remember when we discussed how sailors spend their 90 days in French PolynesiaIf you wanted to spend a month each on 3 of the islands or spread out to more remote places to spend a week here and a week there?  Though we joked about it at the time, we never flat out asked the question, “What if a week in French Polynesia is all you got?”

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City of om-nom!

San Antonio, TX

When you’re lucky enough to be exposed to a new culture with one of your good friends as a card carrying member, you get to breeze by all the touristy stuff and get a back stage pass to what real people do for a good time.

And what you do in San Antonio, is you eat

And eat…

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