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I' flying home today, In San Francisco right now. I'm sad to leave Australia so soon. I could spend an entire year there. I'll be home tonight if anyone wants to go out. Give me a call :)

The day I left was so sad. I had to do a lot of traveling to get home. I got on the bus from Arlie at 6am, so I could catch a ferry to Hamilton Island at 7am. Then, I flew from Hamilton Island to Sydney, transferred to San Fransisco, transferred to Seattle, then caught a bus from Seattle to my home. The whole process took about 32 hours.

I slept for most of the 13 hour flight from Sydney, and when I got to San Fransisco all I could think about was how I wished I was still in Australia. I've got all sorts of little trinkets to remember little stops along the way, and my name is still tanned on my foot from the first day on the Whitsunday sail trip. I really must have been lacking some judgement to get on that plane and come home.

I hope all of the friends I made on the trip will keep in touch and keep me posted on their travels.

I've already started planning for my next adventure. I might go to Australia again but really I'm not sure where I'll go to this time. I know one thing though, I'll certainly go for much longer.

Whitsundays

After Fraser Island, Todd, Farrell (the Canadians), Jasper (guy from Holland) and I all piled into the van again to continue on to Arlie Beach. Jasper only rode as far as Bundaberg.

We arrived in Arlie late Friday night and checking into a room at the Hostel was hell. I finally got settled in and went to bed around 2am. The next day I checked into a better room at the hostel and spent the next couple days just bumming around town.

The Whitsundays sail trip left on Monday morning. There were 26 passengers and 5 crew on the boat. The cook wrote every ones name on their foot so we could all get acquainted. We spent 3 days sailing around the Whitsunday Islands, snorkeling and scuba diving.

We set anchor at Whitehaven beach, one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, and took an introductory scuba course from the on board instructor there. That night everybody got drunk off goon (cheap box wine) and a few of the crew and passengers went ashore to do fire dancing. I tried it for the first time, and even thought I probably looked like a complete idiot, it was a lot of fun. It was really easy to go to sleep that night.

The next day we set sail again and headed on to another Island where there was a lot of reef action. I got tons of pictures here. We did another scuba dive, and spent most of the day snorkeling. That afternoon we went to a smaller Island and stayed for the sunset. There was a sand bar that stretched out quite a way, and there were stingrays swimming about in the warm shallow water. We all got drunk and slept on the boat again. A lot of the passengers were up till 2 or 3am, and I think I was probably one of the first awake the next day.

We spent the last day on the same Island and did more snorkeling. As the tide was going out, we all walked out on the sand bar. I touched a sea turtle that was close to the shore of the sand bar. We had lunch, and then motored over to another small Island where we went for one last dive. It was really active here, with several different types of coral and fish. There was no wind that day so we had to motor all the way back to Arlie.

When we got to Arlie, I was exhausted but also excited to go out with everyone that night. I got showered and made my final travel plans, then met up with everyone for drinks. The night was never ending. Around midnight a lot of the people who went out were off to catch a bus on to their next destination. I ran into a bunch of the people I had met on the Fraser Island trip. I told them I was leaving the next day and they told me I shouldn't go to sleep. I stayed up all night dancing, until 5:30 when I decided it would be a good idea to get my stuff and catch my bus. I really didn't want to go.

Fraser Island

Fraser Island was Awesome! I went on a self drive with 10 other people, and we drove all over the island. The whole Island is made out of sand, with beautiful lakes all over. I've had so much fun but my Internet time is short today so I'll have to update more later.

Another 15 minutes on the Internet...

The people I went on the trip with were all really cool, and from all over the world. We spent a lot of the trip driving on the beach, where we saw whales, a dingo, and a really huge eagle. There were all sorts of birds and lizards all over the Island, but I didn't get pictures of many of them because they are all so fast.

Camping was fun, I stayed in the tent with the Canadians one night, and this extremely tall guy from Holland the next night. The tents were pretty small so everyone had to share their space with people they had never met before (and the team was mostly guys). The wind on the beach made it hard to sleep but with enough wine there weren't to many complaints in the morning.

On our second day there we went to Indian head, which was a huge rock face where you could see most of the Island and a whole lot of ocean. It was supposed to be a cool place to watch whales and sharks from but they were all pretty far off in the distance. We walked from there to a place called Champagne pools, named for the way the waves crashed over the rocks and cause bubbly action in the water. It was a really hot spot and everyone that was on drives with different teams met up there. I got to see people that I had met in Byron there.

The last day there we drove out to a lake that is slowly disappearing into a sand dune. It was so pretty, the beach stretched on for about a mile up the dune. We only looked at this one for a minute before continuing on to Lake Mackenzie; the purest water in all of Australia. The sand was perfectly white. Even though it was cold that day everyone went swimming. We were only able to spend a couple hours there before heading back to the Barge.

I could have spent an entire week exploring the Island, and all of it's little lakes.

Byron Bay

I got into Sydney on Thursday the 4th and spent the whole day exploring the city. It seems like a pretty small place, but it's full of huge parks. There's a botanical garden that I spent a couple hours in. Then I found a shopping district downtown and got lost for a few hours. There are lots of fountains and statues everywhere too. The outskirts and suburbs remind me of New Orleans. The culture here is completely different though, everybody seems much more relaxed. It's pretty hot out most of the time too, and people here say it's not really all that hot yet.

After spending a couple days wandering around Sydney I went to Manly on a ferry. It was a pretty nice ride as the sun was setting. I partied with the locals that night, and spent most of the next day on the beach. At about 3 in the afternoon, a huge black cloud blew in and lightning and thunder were soon to follow. Within about 15 minutes everyone was off the beach and walking around under the awnings and hiding from the rain. I got the next ferry back to Sydney and spent the rest of the day inside at my friends house. One more night in Sydney and I was off to Byron Bay.

Byron is beautiful. I haven't gone up to the light house yet because my feet are pretty tired from all the walking I did in San Fran and Sydney, but I'll probably do that today.

The hostel is a lot of fun. There are people from all over the world. People are always ready to go on an adventure somewhere. I went out to a swamp the other day, but it was getting dark so I didn't get really spectacular pictures. I also walked down the beach one day and climbed all over the rocks to look at the little pools full of life. There were tons of snails and crabs. I got a few neat seashells to bring home. The crabs look a little different here. I haven't seen any whales yet but I've heard you can see them jump from the lighthouse.

Sunday I leave for Fraser Island, for a two night three day adventure. After that I'll be heading to Arlie and catching a sailboat out to Whitsundays for the day. I'm also planning a trip to Blue Pearl Bay for snorkeling. Then I'll only have a few days left before I've got to catch my flight back.

San Fransisco

I didn't look very closely at my flight plans before purchasing the ticket and now I'm spending 7 hours wandering San Fransisco. I forgot my sunglasses, and managed to find some cute new ones for $5 at Fishermans warf. I also had lunch, a deli wrap but it lied about having creamcheese in it on the wraper. Now it's time to walk back to bart. I think its about 2 miles. I should be nice and tired for my flight tonight.