Blue Mountains, NSW, AU
Sydney is…
Well…
…Anti-climatic.
It’s Intuitive (and the Aussie fascination with Ned Kelly…)
On the road, Victoria, AU
The Australian East Coast Adventure continues!!
So we’re supposed to be bonding and stuff right? That’s what we’ve been told us married people do whilst travelling together: we talk and whatnot…or get divorced. True fact – travel either glues couples together or tears them apart. Cabo San Lucas is well known as the sailing divorce capital of the West Coast.
Being as we are both more “in it for the long haul” types bonding is pretty much the order of the day. One could begin to wonder though – after so much time together do we ever run out of things to talk about?
Continue reading “It’s Intuitive (and the Aussie fascination with Ned Kelly…)”
Taming the Beast
Melbourne, Vic, AU
Leaving Melbourne we found ourselves with the same situation we faced in Auckland. How the heck do we get around? Additionally, Australia is a vast and for the most part barren place devoid of human habitation…much less hotels. Those hotels and hostels that are around charge exactly what you’d think they would when they are the only bed for the next 200 or so miles.
We found that, like New Zealand, long term travelers in Australia tend to purchase cheap cars or camper vans to get around and have a place to sleep at night. Wanting to have the genuine Australian backpacker adventure and having just come off a very positive used car experience in New Zealand, we decided this was for us.
Our Kiwi car never got a name. It just never seemed like it needed one. However, the second we saw the 1988 Mitsubishi Triton that would become our own wheels down under we both looked at each other and knew this “ute” (Aussie for “pickup truck”) had a name,
Say hello to ‘The Beast’
Continue reading “Taming the Beast”
Related posts:
So, have you seen a kangaroo?
Melbourne, Vic, AU
Yes, yes we’ve seen a kangaroo…
As Americans, Australia is fascinating in a completely different way than any other country in the world. Because of all the other countries out there, Australia is the one where we can look at what they have done and say, “but for a few key choices, that could have been us.”
Our mainland is similar size, we have the same parent-nation and defacto common base language. Most of both of our neighbours are from a different culture (US is beside Latin / Spanish influence while Australia is right next to Asia.) Australians came, in large part, from prisoners while the US got started, at least in the eyes of England, as basically a bunch of armed insurrectionists. After declaring independence, we’ve both maintained close ties with the motherland, we both had to resolve conflict with a native population, we both face similar issues on fronts of economics and immigration…we could go on. Our two countries had a lot in common starting out and face many similar challenges to this day.
Like slurpee brain freezes
Which is why it’s so fascinating how we have both developed along slightly different paths.
Wow, Kentucky cricket…who knew!?
Unlike the other countries we’ve been to, the fascinating thing is not how massively different life here is from what we’re used to.
With Oz, the interesting things are in the details of living.
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.
Quirky Melbourne
Melbourne, VIC, AU
Then one day about a month into it, we woke up and realized that cleaning up horse poop at 3:45am 6 days a week sucks. In our defense, we were kinda tired that month so it took a while.
Now that were done “playing with horses” we actually had the time to start exploring this town. Melbourne is one of Australia’s largest cities. It didn’t occur to us what that would mean to two people who spent the previous year wondering around island countries with national populations smaller than most European villages.
Mostly European Cowgirls
Melbourne, VIC, AU
Unbeknownst to us, this job put us smack into the middle of the backpacker working trail and as a result, our workmates were not who we expected. In what we anticipated to be a primarily Australian work group we found ourselves surrounded by 2 Kiwis, 3 Germans, a Sweede, 2 French, a Scott, 2 Americans (us) and a paltry 5 Australians. The foreigners outnumbered the locals by more than 2:1. Also the overwhelming majority of employees were female or as Greg put it to his unmarried brother Chris,
“Dude, wanna meet a bunch of young European Cowgirls?”
“Then come to Australia.”
Continue reading “Mostly European Cowgirls”
Related posts:
Chicks Dig Scars
Melbourne, VIC, AU
…just usually not so much on themselves.
While Greg spent the majority of his time feeding and mucking Tiffany got to “train” the horses.
At this point we should point out that Tiffany has a tendency to…smack things (Aside from Greg, that is). We’re not saying that Greg has ever been approached by a pastor at church but he has had to field a few worried glances from time to time from fellow parishioners. It came with the territory when he decided to marry a woman who gets her kicks zip lining over tropical rainforests and sailing through gale-force winds. As Tiffany puts it, “I don’t bruise easy. I just hit things hard.”
Now we’ve already gone over how these horses are half-ton hyperactive 2 year-olds that are fed nothing but sugar all day, every day, right? You put them together with Tiffany on a daily basis and well…
It keeps it interesting
Working with race horses sounded cool…
Melbourne, AU
Working at a racing stable sounded cool.
Really, it did.
First off, horse racing is a big deal and a major piece of Australian culture. Heck the entire state of Victoria has a national holiday for their version of the Kentucky Derby: The Melbourne Cup.
The rest of the country is also glued to their TV sets to watch “The Cup” every year. There are fashion contests at most major races and everyone is expected to dress in nice clothes at the minimum but two piece suits or cocktail dresses are more the norm.
So it’s a piece of Australian life that really isn’t part of American life. (We bet you can’t name the date of the Kentucky Derby off the top of your head or who won it last year. Aussies can for the Melbourne Cup.)
Also, horses! Tiffany loves horses and she’s done volunteer work with them in the past. Greg’s a rider and likes horses well enough so why not? We may never do this again so let’s go work with horses…
Continue reading “Working with race horses sounded cool…”
Related posts:
Our Original Plan
Enroute Melbourne, AU
So ends our time with Dan and our adventures in the land of the Kiwi. But New Zealand isn’t the kind of country that goes out on a sad note or at least without some final amusing antidotes. A fact they made sure we realized as got ready to board a plane and fly to our next destination.
“Wait, what!? A plane!? You guys use those!?”