Sydney

I did it. I started my next new excited leg of my Australian journey. I left the Gold Coast last night and arrived smack dab in the hustle of Sydney.

"What have I been doing all this time on the Gold Coast and why'd it take so long to get to Sydney?"
It took me 6 months of being in this country to leave the northeast region. Theoretically I have spent more time than necessarily to see the sights I've seen. But I digress I have made the most of the past 6 months and wouldn't change a single minute of it. Charmaine helped me see the best parts of southeastern coast of Queensland. She was a truly wonderful host with a big heart.

"What did I learn since being back on the Goldy???"
Meat pies are addicting, even some that come frozen in a box. I have been making sangas (sandwiches) all wrong my whole life, avocado and a bakery roll is the key. Roulette and Blackjack can be your best friend one night, and then ruin your night the next. Indians (from India, not our Indians) know what there doing when they made curry, but only the spicy kind. Sushi places have trains that go in circles around the tables, and on these trains are plates of sushi, you pick up a plate and eat (you pay by the color of plate the food is on). Australia's 8 states average 8.3 percent of their land mass to be classified as National Parks, and that industry makes over 5 billion dollars annually, so you can only image the facilities/condition of these beautiful places I've been seeing.



Before leaving for Sydney, Charmaine and I took one last camping trip that took us 4 days via 600km and 5 hours southwest of the Gold Coast. It was a great camping trip. We explored the long, winding, apply named Waterfall Way. The route took us through many small farm towns with homie people and unmatched views.

We saw roughly around 8 waterfalls, climbed a giant rock mountain, saw two huge gorges, and made friends with local possums. To the most exciting part first...the possums. We made a cake one night and obviously couldn't eat the whole thing, so after tossing it out in the woods, we later discovered a friendly possum had made his way down from the trees to eat the rest. He looked lonely, so we got in closer for a look. The closer we got, the more relaxed he seamed to get. He never once glared, hissed or snarled at us. He was friendly to the point where we were petting this wild possum and hand feeding him the rest of the cake. I know that a possum may not be on the top of some peoples lists for "Animals to pet in life" but seeing as he was wild and obviously loved my handmade chocolate cake, I liked the little fella.

The water falls were not your average stream trickling over some rocks, these waterfall has height and power. Unfortunately we were not able to get up close and personal to many seeing as they were in remote places, but they all were still very cool.

We also hiked up, what only can be described as a 'rock mountain.' Simply its a large mountain that's completely rock, not just a pile of smaller rocks, but these thing was one solid mass. It was unbelievable. At the top there were some giant boulders doing amazing balancing acts on each other. The whole surrounding area was actually very rock infested and created a very Celtic feeling.

Another great part of the trip was seeing two MASSIVE gorges. If I had a guess at what the Grand Canyon roughly looked like, I'd say this was it. The lookouts we were on literately hung over the sides of the wall, where we were able to get the true feeling of just how deep these suckers were. In one of the gorges was two waterfalls that looked miniscule from the distance we were seeing them, but in fact were in the top 3 of tallest waterfalls in Australia (over 200 metres)

Should be posting pictures from the trip over the next day or two, so check on my pictures page to see them.

http://picasaweb.google.com/joshhorton12

Going to Sydney meant for me to book my first domestic flight here. I found the flights to be extremely cheap, Allegiant Air cheap. Ended on landing a $39 flight from the Gold Coast to Sydney. When traveling to Vanuatu, we went through the standard security and identification check that seamed a little lax in my opinion, but I figured it was just the whole third world country thing. When arriving at the Gold Coast airport, I had the missing feeling of 'hurry-up' since we arrived only an hour before take off. The whole airport seemed to be a bit placid.

As we walked up to the security check, the first thing I noticed was the visual difference between American security checks and Australians. There were no large borders, signs, guard rails, or guide paths that kept people out of the terminal. There was only a hand full of "officers" that kept order. Most were older women that simply just watched you walk through the metal detector and assisted you in loading and unloading the bag screen. There was ID check at this point, there was no ticket check, there was no liquids check, there was no taking-off-the-shoes and hat check. I know that because we did every one of those things including taking 2 bottles of water, not taking off our shoes and hat, and Charmaine even walked through behind me without having a ticket nor showing any indication of boarding a plane. Yet as I was walking towards the gate, I was stopped for a 'random' bomb check were the friendly technician with "the sorry, but its my job to do this" look simply swiped my bag and clothes with a strip of paper and ran it through a machine.

We arrived, parked, checked-in, went through security and were sitting waiting to board all within 20 minutes MAX! Nothing at all like the States.

So here I am, sitting in my hostel named Asylum, looking for a job, back to eating peanut butter and baked beans. Hoping to embrace the cool weather this city has to offer and enjoy the remaining 7 weeks until my scheduled flight home...'scheduled' flight home. Nothings ever final.


Joshua

http://picasaweb.google.com/joshhorton12
My pictures