Blog

Well it’s been raining pretty much non-stop in Cairns, so we haven’t done too much the last few days! Hanging around the hostel with our new friends has been nice though. Tomorrow we’ll get up early to go scuba diving, then we go on an all day tour through the forest, then the next day we leave for Bali!

Here are some of the awesome people we’ve been spending time with lately..

Frenchie <3 We first met her in Sydney and then found her when we got to Cairns, she is the cutest frenchie ever!

Craig…he works at the hostel and is a sweetie, we love him! also a great dancer.

Nathan also works at the hostel, is from Ireland and is hilarious. He’s gonna visit us in Atl!

Family dinner!

Thomas and Frenchie.

Nathan trying to show me how to roll a cigarette. and eating an icee.

Frenchie, Nicole, and Philipp.

Some live music from Sweden!

Singing in Cairns from christy parry on Vimeo.

Gonna miss everyone..

In Brisbane! We fly to Cairns tonight and will spend our last week there :( We’ve had a great time, I don’t want Australia to be over!!

Went out in Sydney with Dukki, Ronnie, and Joseph once more, love them so much!!

Stranded for a bit at a random train station.

Found some good local music in Newcastle.

Got picked up by Damian, Moey, and Paul near Newcastle and stayed with their friend Mick and Becks for the night. We went swimming, grilled out, and drank Guinness with the family, amazing time! Oh, and rode dune buggies and dirt bikes around the farm.

Mick and Paddy

Cassie was so sweet, she picked us up and drove us right to our hostel (the Arts Factory Lodge, amazing place) in Byron Bay.

Yoga.

Dancing in Sydney from christy parry on Vimeo.

We have been to the Taronga Zoo, the Jenolan Caves, and did some hiking around the Blue Mountains in the last few days. I am tired so I won’t write much tonight, but here are some photos.

Today I got some leeches on me, had half a can of spaghetti for dinner, and did not see a duck-billed platypus. All in all, it was a pretty good day. We can’t decide the best way to get from Sydney to Cairns at the moment…money and time are the main factors (go figure), hoping to get that sorted out soon. Tomorrow we’ll catch the train back to Sydney and crash at our friend Dukki’s house again before heading north. Now I’m going to read in my bunk bed.

Well we’ve been in Sydney for the past few days and it’s beautiful here! The weather has been amazing for the most part, sunny and warm. We’ve hit the Darling Harbor area, the Sydney Opera house, and Bronte, Bondi, and Manly Beach. We stayed with our friend Dukki (who we met in New Zealand) the first night in the Korean district, and have been at a hotel/pub called Lord Wolseley since then. I’m writing this at 8:45pm, it’s 6:45am back home. Nicole and I are looking through a Lonely Planet over a couple of pints, trying to decide what to do after Sydney. It’s looking like we’ll head to Byron Bay for a couple nights, not sure if we’ll take a bus, train, or other yet. I’ve never taken advantage of public transportation so much in my life. Also, I’ve never eaten so much spaghetti, done so much walking, been around so few Americans (we’ve probably met two since leaving the US), or had so many bug bites in such a small amount of time. It’s funny to meet so many people that have no idea where “Atlanta” is. It’s really crazy to have new experiences every day, and every day is packed and feels longer than it really is. But it’s great. We see beautiful places, meet new people, get lost, worry about doing laundry and finding internet, budget poorly, ask locals for advice constantly, walk walk walk, eat cheaply, put on sunscreen, get accustomed to new bathrooms, miss friends and family, sleep in bunk beds, and laugh at our good/bad luck on a regular basis. Mojave 3 just came on at the bar, which is completely insane and amazing to me…literally just made my day/blew my mind. We’re both suffering from an inadequate amount of music in our lives (though we had a great time dancing with some locals last night to all kinds of fun pop music). And now Pink Floyd is playing, which makes me miss my little brother.

Anyways, Australia is fun so far. We miss our friends that we made in New Zealand/Fiji, but I’m sure we’ll make some new traveling buddies soon enough. Looking forward to meeting up with my family and friends in Ireland (if we survive India) at the beginning of June!! I’ll post this tomorrow morning from the library, then we may go to the zoo to pet some koalas.

Walking along the harbor

Dukki

Opera House

Bronte Beach

Bronte Beach

Bondi Beach

The crowded ferry to Manly Beach

Four whole nights in Kaikoura! It’s the most time we’ve spent anywhere so far. Caught some fish, crayfish, and even a few carpet sharks, rented bikes, beached, relaxed. Pretty nice end to New Zealand, tomorrow we fly from Christchurch to Sydney!!

Me and a happy seal!

I like to think that he is gargling or singing.

Crayfish dinner.

Carpet shark!

Bryan caught a barracuda.

He was alive and upset..

Albatross.

Bye bye New Zealand, see you later!

We are in Kaikoura now! Going fishing for crayfish and sharks tomorrow! We stayed in a little town called Fairlie last night (Mt Cook was too foggy to see so we bypassed it)…met some really fun people at the Fairlie Hotel! Danced on the pool table with some rugby players.

Spending a lot of time in the car recently.

Barry took good very good care of us and kept the rugby players at bay!

Iguana wrestling. Wow.

Definitely stay here if you are ever even remotely in the area, these are great folks!

Our stay in Fairlie from christy parry on Vimeo.

Well we are in Queenstown at our hostel. Kayaked Milford Sound this morning! It was beautiful there. Hiked a glacier at Franz Josef the other day, I figured it may be the only time I get to do something like that. Only 6 more days in New Zealand! Going to Mt. Cook tomorrow for some free hikes. We’ve covered a good bit of ground in New Zealand for sure.

Photos!

Well it’s been a busy week…started out in Auckland and am now on the south island in a town called Greymouth. We’ve been on the go pretty much non-stop. Here are a few of the highlights:

-Watched people break-dance then watched the movie Labyrinth on a giant silo at a park in Auckland

-Went hitchhiking for the first time (though it took about an hour to get picked up)

-Made new friends and we’re traveling the south island in their car

-Played in the thermal pools

-Hiked the Tongariro Crossing (20km), which is where they filmed part of Lord of the Rings (it was amazing and exhausting)

-Hiked and camped at Abel Tasman

-Stayed at my friend’s farm and had a blast

-Ferried to the south island

-Hostel hopped

Photos:

We’re having a great time so far! I love meeting new interesting people every day, it’s definitely one of the best things about this trip. I’m feeling much stronger thanks to all the walking/hiking around we’ve done. It’s hard to keep in touch with everyone back home because we’re away from internet most of the time and almost always doing something, but I love and miss you all! Time to get ready for bed, heading to Franz Josef to do some glacier hiking tomorrow….xoxo!

I suppose now that I’m in New Zealand I need to wrap up the Fiji posts. Here’s what I have to say about it: it was rad. Really beautiful as you might expect, and the people are the nicest I’ve ever come across in my travels to date. Everyone smiles and says “bula!” when they walk or even drive by. People were genuinely interested in talking and knowing about our impression of Fiji and were concerned with our well-being. There are still tons of villages with no electricity. Everyone was extremely laid back. Everything is green and you could drop a seed anywhere and have your crops growing out of control the next day. If you’ve ever had the slightest urge to visit, you should do it (and don’t stay in the stupid ritzy resorts). Actually, you should probably quit whatever you’re doing right now and start traveling ;)

We stayed with Bobo at his farm for a couple of days on the island of Ovalau, it was beautiful there! We took a few buses and a ferry to get there with no idea how we’d get to the farm once we got there, but alas Bobo was waiting outside the ferry when we got off. He grows pretty much everything on his land that you could possibly need, from avocados to shampoo to bananas.

Bobo carrying our stuff, including Philip the sock monkey

Fresh bananas

Our cabin

Bobo

shampoo

Bobo going down the rock slide

I can’t remember what this is…but it looks cool

lunch

Good times!