I'm back, by popular demand...

Sorry I've been quite slack with updating on here, but with the time constraints I have with laying on the beach and eating delicious home cooked meals, I can't seem to find ANY time.

Yet on I go, back on the Gold Coast as I left you all last. Ahhh, the Gold coast life again, it's been extremely cruzie (relaxing) so far. Its great to be back and see my old stomping ground again. Yet I'm seeing it from a different perspective. I'm actually visiting all the things that I never got around to seeing...plus some.

I've made day trips to famous Byron Bay, seen waterfalls and mountain ranges, and amazing cliffs at the waters edge. Seen a bunch of great views that I was unfortunately unable to take photos of, but all have definitely rated in my top best views I've seen. Views from Byron, Lennox Head, and a couple different camping locations have all be crossed off my 'To Do' list.

Byron Bay, the most easterly point of mainland Australia, has a surrounding area with winding, hilly roads leads up to a terrific old lighthouse. The lighthouse is on a point that over looks the beach down below. The sunset from here was amazing. It's really astonishing just how much I DIDN'T do while I was here 5 months ago. It seems that I missed a lot of the good stuff...good thing I came back.

Visited my first Australian Zoo a couple weeks back, the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. It was a smaller zoo, but still had a good line up of Aussie animals. Saw my first Koala, Wallaby, Wombat, Tasmanian Devil, and even got to pet a Kangaroo...which was obviously one of my main adjectives when coming over here.

The roos were large animals, with a slight zoo stench. There must have been close to a hundred in this large walk thru pin. The roos were everywhere, some were sun bathing, some were laying completely sprawled out on their backs, others were just straight chillin', staring right at us. Even saw a mama roo layin on her side with a little joey taking a siesta in her pouch. That was a cool sight.

Koalas are very lazy animals. They remind me of a sloth, only better looking. The big fuzzy, cuddly animals were in planted tree tops snacking away at the surrounding foliage. I was told that this was quite a sight to see so much movement out of Koalas, seeing how their big bludgers (lazy).

Been trying out more local and foreign cuisine since I've been back. Trying to cook new foods, old foods with new recipes, and simply just throwing some things together to see how it turns out. For starters I can say that I've successfully made a handful of cheesecakes. I didn't think I even liked cheesecakes until I learned to make one. With a little help from the master chef Charmaine, I concocted some delicious ones.

The food here is much like that of the states, only with a few staples that can't go unnoticed. The typical Aussie meal is something called a meat pie. That's right, it's exactly as it sounds, a pie filled with meat. When I first got here and heard about this meat pie deal, I didn't find it too appealing. As most Americans, I've always thought of pies as sweet dessert items, but not here. The most common of these pies are small, enough for just one person, and usually filled with steak and gravy. Yet they do come with all different stuffing's including chicken, curry, mushrooms, veggies, etc. etc. Don't get this famous meal confused with a sort of quiche, it looks and feels exactly like an apple pie, just with meat. I tried my first one not too long ago, and since then I've been craving meat pies. That is something I'm definitely bringing back to the states!


I've got some catching up to do on here, so I'll try to follow up some more stories over the next few weeks. Stay tuned.


For the sake of my sanity and wallet, I'm no longer going to try to upload pictures onto the blog, it takes me hours to simply load a handful of pictures. So I've uploaded almost every picture I have onto a web album, so that way everyone can see all of my photos. I'll post that URL when its ready! So be on the look out for that.