Fraser Island - Cool Dingo Cruise

Ok, its been some time since we have updated this.. and Brad hasn't had the time to come and and write anymore about our trip that happened at end of Jan.. so I'm going to try and re-cap before time really passed us by here.

After returning from our amazing trip from being on the ocean and snorkelling and diving in the great barrier reef.. we arrive back at Airlie Beach just in time to celebrate Straya Day!!!

Jan 26th 2012 Straya Day

We arrive back at our hostel at Nomads where they were holding all our belongings while we were out on our cruise.  We are feeling pretty rough this afternoon, so while all the Ozzies are already a good start on drinking and partying, we decide to relax and float in the lagoon until we go for our cheap dinner at Down Under Bar (compliments of the Power Play cruise)  $10 for any main (pub) meal & a pint / gl of wine.. so like :
-barramundi & chips
-200g rump steak
-calamari salad
-chicken w/ mushroom sauce & potato
-kangaroo burger
etc..

We stayed here a little while with the rest of the Power Play group.. but we moved in quickly as the bar was almost completely DRY - and only 2 beer taps out of like 12 were available.. cider & a shitty low percentage draught..  we took advantage of $4 vodka & cranberries..until they also ran out of cranberry.. so that ended quickly and we moved onto another large bar down the road called Magnums.  This place was crazy and very large!  Must have been like 5 bars in 1... outside bar with picnic tables.. volleyball area...inside bar..and bar at stage.. and apparently there is an upstairs also..which we didn't even venture too... so many ppl inside this bar..just crammed!!!

After having been drinking for  couple hours .. Brad and I know that we have a long journey waiting for us soon... and we are not looking forward to it.  11pm rolls around and we head back to Nomads hostel to grab all our belongings..and walk across town down to the bus station...where we will be getting on a grey hound bus for a 13hr bus ride...

Jan 27th

The bus ride wasn't that bad as we thought.. ya, not the most comfortable mind you sleeping on a bus.. but we saved money on spending it in a hostel for the night and travelled at the same time... the bus had AC which made it nice and we stopped a few times along the way for breaks etc.. I didn't wake up for the first break.. so making having a few brews really worked out perfectly and didn't make the journey feel so long.

We arrive at Hervey Bay and the bus drops us off at the bus station and we wait for our hostel to come and get us.  About 30 minutes go by and of course its been pouring rain for the past 13 hours... we are tired.. hungover.. and we just want to get back to our hostel.  An hour goes by.. and the van that was suppose to come get us.. every time it pulled up, everyone else jumped in so quickly, as theres only like 8 spaces or so.. that we never make the cut.  So, at this point I'm getting a little annoyed.. we have been sitting on a bus for 13 hrs and now we are waiting 2 hours to get picked up- for a 10 min ride.. so I call the hostel and ask them if someone can come pick us up because the other van (its the hostel located right across the road from us) is always packed and they don't have room for us.
Anyways, finally they came and got us and we arrived back at our cute quaint hostel called "woodshed"
Really nice venue... log cabin kinda style... lots of palm trees.. kinda seemed outta place..but really nice, family run, ridiculously clean... very nice! They have like a barn log house where the kitchen is, and inside theres tons of nic-nacs all over the place..beer mugs, beer signs, couches, t.v. old pictures and farming tools.. it was really nice and comfy.

me chillin in the hammock

inside at kitchen/lounge

hostel/cabin rooms

So, its been raining the whole time we have been here..which makes it hard to do anything..especially when you don't have an umbrella and town is about a 10 min walk away... so after waiting all day for the rain to stop ..come around 8pm we knew it just was not going to let up.. so we did what we had to as we needed some grub!
I put on some shorts and my rain jacket, Brad puts on his bathing suit, and we run barefoot all the way to town to find something to eat and one of the street lined with restys.

Drenched at this point.. we decide on this place called 'yummy noodles'.  Reasonable price, so we get 3 dishes and share them.  They were delicious!  Pad Thai, Beef Chilli & noodle, & Hot Pot which was a variety of meats in like a honey teriyaki sauce.

Jan 28 Fraser Island - Cool Dingo Tours

We wake up to a shuttle bus outside our hostel to pick us up to head towards the ferry at the marina.
For those of you who are not familiar, Fraser Island is an island which is made up completely of sand created over 800,000 yrs!  Population on the island is about 360 people.  On the island is 120 km of lush rainforest, beautiful beaches, rich freshwater pools & 200m high sand dunes.

A variety of Fraser Island plant and animal life is fierce, including sharks & dingo's (wild dogs)
On our bus ride to the marina, we come across our Canadian friend that we met at Airlie beach, Alanna, from Winnipeg, so its nice to see a familiar face and we share the tour with her.

The ferry to get to the island took about 45 minutes.. this ferry did not move at any astronomical speed.. slow and steady.. we arrive at the island and are greeted by Bryan, our tour guide.  A local Melbourne elderly man, doing what he truly loves.  He introduced himself, and leads us over to our ride..the giant bus!!!  The wheels on this thing were probably almost as tall as me, and the bus looks like this huge boat of a thing..

Our group was suppose to be about 30 ppl, but since it was raining like crazy the past day and weather wasn't so good, I guess a lot of people cancelled and we were only like 13.  So, we all hop on the bus and this 'thing' was wild.  Driving on loose sand, up and down 45 degree steep hills and narrow pathways..it was hilarious.  Bryan, trying to control this beast is sitting in his seat at the front and literally bouncing up and down in his seat.. i have no idea how he manages to drive stick with this thing.. so its a bumpy ride to our first destination.

First Stop- Pine Valley

We walk through a bushed rainforest area where we come to a small lake called Basin Lake.  The lake is actually located on top of a dune and was a small pretty basin of water.  The water here wasn't clear, so it reminded me of the lakes you see back home.  Due to the area being a touristy, at the moment no one is allowed to go swimming in it anymore, due to sunscreen and oils on tourist swimming in the lake, that rubbed off into the water and and ended up killing fish.

Afterwards, we walked to 'central station' which is like a rainforest boardwalk.   Really awesome!  Keeping our eyes peered for snakes or dingo's along the way.. as you walked through the rainforest, the foliage got more and more deep and the cooler it also got in temperature.  Huge trees here along the way... a nice bush walk through a fresh wet rainforest.  Heat bugs were pretty loud here..and the mozzies also.. but I wasn't too worried considering the island is home to about 200 wild dingo's, 5 of the top venomous snakes, and tonnes of 'oh how I am terrified' of you spiders.

Eucalyptus Trees 

Massive Trunks

Along our rainforest walk, we come across a natural spring water river running through called Wanggoolba Creek.  We spot a catfish from the bridge and an eel also.  The water was so clear here that you could see right down to the golden sand that lays below it.

Wanggoolba Creek

The creek meandering through the rainforest

As we head to the end of our rainforest walk, we walk by the famous Satinay trees which are thousands of years old.  Their trunks are massive - pretty amazing to see (yessss i love trees) We get to the end of our walk and have lunch in a small little opening which picnic tables and open space.  Bryan laid out a ridiculous amount of food..remember it was suppose to be for 30 people... so it was a feast of kaiser buns, meats, pickles, cheese, & salads.. needless to say we all stuffed ourselves not only because we were hungry from trekking through the forest, but because they cannot keep any of the food, any leftovers all get chucked :(

Brad & Satinay Tree

Second stop- Lake Mckenzie

This location is one of Fraser Island's most photographed places, and I can see why.
When we first arrived, it was still a bit overcast and cloudy..so I was worried that my pictures wouldn't turn out as good, because this place was absolute paradise. Blue and green water, white soft powder sand.. wow.

The sand is actually also rich in minerals and can be used as an exfoliant on your skin, Lore has it that the sand lends the lakes anti-ageing properties... it also really cleans your jewellery .. as I cleaned all my silver rings, buried them into the sand and they came out beaming with sparkles!

Brad enjoying the water

After our first dip into the water, most of the other crew headed back up the the designated picnic area..with picnic tables, surrounded by a wooden fence to keep out dingos!  We swam for a bit longer..Brad, Alanna  (the other Winnipeg Canadian) and me..until we joined the others and a bunch of kookaburras for some tea and cookies.  Then Bryan told us we had another 30 minutes left before we were leaving this area, so the three of us decided to go and chill down by the water and enjoy the view, Brad went swimming again..and apparently while we were down at the beach, a dingo came by the picnic area.. so we missed seeing it.. gah!

One of my fav's of Mckenzie Lake

Checking us out at picnic area

After leaving McKenzie Lake, we headed to our accommodation back at Kingfisher Resort.  All of us stayed in 1 large wooden lodge which consisted of 5 bedrooms (2 double bunks in each room), one large shared kitchen and lounge area, outside patio attached to the lodge & men & woman's bathroom/shower.

We head to the famous ' Dingo Bar' and only option for food (other than the convenient store located about a 10 min drive) They have a buffet style, and each day is different.  It was pizza, pasta, veg and salads today..and happy hour from 9-10pm -$10 jugs... we get back on the 'jug' train, along with a few shots of tequila, and 'playing in the snow' - we deff needed to have those..which kinda reminded me of polar bear shots.  Bryan even bought us 2 jugs for the table..lucky for us Canadians and 2 German's, no one else drank beer but us! wooo!  The night only got more random from there on... having a good time with friends and locals playing pool.  Brad got himself playing pool with a bunch of older local men who live on the island, and we met another Canadian who works on the island, who then invited the 3 of us Canadians back to his cottage, where he then put on a rope fire show.. its was really cool and crazy lol

DAY 2
7am came around a lot quicker than we all anticipated.. still feeling the effects of the night before..we head back to the 'Dingo Bar' for some continental brekky, and head back out for the day on our cruise.

Today we will spend the day driving up and down the 75 mile highway, which is right along the coast, while making pit stops along the way.

First Stop - Indian Head

We head north east to the island where we then make a quick hike up a dune which arrives at a lookout looking back over the 75 mile highway.. looking out into the ocean and large sand dunes at our backs.

The view is quite spectacular from up here and you can see the sand 75 mile highway as far as possible.. and looking below the cliff we spotted some manta rays below..apparently, Indian Head is the best vantage point on the island to spot sharks, manta's, dolphins and during migration season, whales.

sand dunes behind us

75 mile highway along the beachfront

watching the rays below 

Second Stop - Champagne Jacuzzi Pools

I wasn't really sure what to expect from this place.. it all sounded so awesome.  Bryan set up another nice lunch for us with fajita's and then off we went to the pools!  This is the only safe spot on the island for saltwater swimming.  The whole concept is this; shallow pools of water which are surrounded by cliff faces (& sharp rocks).  The waves come slamming over the large rock formations in the water and by doing so, this creates the water to trickle down the rock and create a jacuzzi type flow of small bubbles and foam.  The sun finally decided to show its face at this point which was great and we could have stayed there chillin in the jacuzzi all day.

view from beach

View from top

Third Stop - The Pinnacles

This is a section of coloured sand cliffs/dunes that stick out from the landscape along the 75 mile highway.
We only stopped here for about 5 minutes to check out the land formation and snap a few pictures.

Fourth Stop - Maheno Shipwreck

Built in Scotland in 1904 and was the world's first ever triple screw steamer.  Apparently, this ship was also used as a hospital in WWI, and then purchased by a Sydney shipping company, planning on using it between Sydney & New Zealand shipments.

Afterwards due to a shortage in funds, it was then sold to a Japanese shipping company for scrap metal.  In the midst of trying to bring the Maheno back to Osaka Japan, it was hit by an unseasonal cyclone in 1935 off the coast of Fraser.  Then it was abandoned and now lies on the 75 mile highway.

More than half the ship today is buried under the landscape..and eroding quickly due to the salt water.

Canadians- peekaboo

Fifth Stop - Eli Creek

This is a fresh water creek that is the largest freshwater stream on the east coast of Fraser Island.  Apparently, over 4 million litres of water flow from the streams mouth out onto the beach into the ocean every hour!

There is a small knee deep water path that you can walk through and brings you downstream back to the 75 mile highway beach.

Before entering the water here, I didn't notice a creeeeeeepy spider lingering right beside my head.. I was having difficulties trying to cross back again... geeeeww!! At this location we also came across a whole bunch of baby blue frogs, which were about the size of a dime.. and also apparently very poisonous - so I'm glad we didn't pick them up!  I guess the oil in there skin is poisonous.. and once it touches your mucus membranes, it can paralyze you or something scary along those lines.  We asked Bryan about them, and he said if dingo's were to eat them, they would die a painful and long death.. so enough said.

almost died..(eerie jeebie happening....NOW)

Walking through Eli Creek.. felt like a jungle

Afterwards we headed back to the Dingo Bar again for dinner which was roast beef (have not had good beef like that in a while), BBQ foods, curry & rice, salads.. it was really good tonight.  After dinner, we were heading back on the shuttle bus to take us back to the ferry... we were quite burnt out at this point from spending the whole day outside and in the sun.. the trip was amazing, and I have no complaints..other than I didn't see a dingo.

Here's a few other pictures to gander on :)

Cave located at Champagne Pools

cool bug I saw on the beach at Champagne Pools

Us above champagne pools with 75 mile HWY in back & Indian Head

a monkey in the jungle at Eli Creek

locals at Hervey Bay fishing..and this is what they caught instead

Random Thoughts Feb 7th

1. Mozzie's = Mosquitoes.
They are smaller here in size... but leave a bigger bite

2. Mailboxes here look like small bird houses.  A small little box with a bird house like roof... with just a slit in the top so no junk mail can be shoved into it... kinda brilliant... some other mailboxes will have an additional circular hole below for fliers... but generally, they are very small and appear as bird houses

3. Outside of the train or on buses... instead of saying 'watch your step' or 'mind the gap' they have signs posted that say "beware of the step" - like its some sort of evil thing that we should be aware of creeping up on us.. kinda makes me laugh every time I see it.. just funny Oz wording..

4. There are Blue, Red & Yellow & Fremantle (The beachfront) CAT buses that run around the city, that are FREE!!! They come frequently too... every couple of minutes and travel around the surrounding CBD (city business district) = very cool!  We will be taking this free service to the grocery store more than likely..

5. Whole wheat/wholegrain breads and pasta's exist... but are not popular like back home... you don't get offered the choice in restaurants... and things like hot dog buns, hamburg buns etc .. I have yet to see wholewheat ones.. just white bread..

6. A train ticket for 1 zone = 2.60$ - you have almost 2 hours to ride the train with that ticket..and it can also be used on the buses as a transfer ... pretty sweet!

7. You can take the Ferry from East Perth to the CBD for $1.70 - ferry takes 7 minutes

Airlie Beach & Witsunday's

Okay, I know its been a while since we have wrote ... so I'm going to try my best to remember 'everything'

We left our home and friends behind in Surfers early on Sunday morning to head out on our trip to Witsundays & Fraser Island.

We arrived at Airlie Beach around mid morning, and we booked a hostel @ Nomads, but we couldn't check in until 1pm..so we went on a mission to buy towels and have a bite for lunch.

Airlie kinda reminded me a little of Byron, in the sense that its only really like one main street strip... with a few side streets mainly catering to beach surf shops & resty's along the waterfront.  Due to many stingers (jelly fish) in the water here, it is not advised to swim at the beach unless you wear a stinger suit.... so instead, they have created a man-made 'lagoon' here... pretty sweet...although sometimes when your really hot, due to the amount of people swimming and the shallow waters, the water can be quite warm and not that refreshing..but it beats getting stung by jellies - so it was a great place to lounge around all day

We booked our Witsunday Cruise with a company called "power play".  Its was a 2 night 3 day catamaran cruise around the Witsunday Islands.  There are 74 island in total, and we ended up stopping at 4 locations.

Day 1 - hop on boat @ 11:30am
There are 16 others that came along the cruise with us.  We all took are shoes off and put them in a bag..no shoes on the boat! The skipper and crew go over a few 'rules' and then we are off to our first destination at Mantaray Bay.  Along our way out into the ocean, we spot a few dolphins following the boat...pretty sweet...15 mins into our ride and we are already spotting dolphins...sick!

First Stop - Raven's Cove, Beach 
We make it to our first snorkelling spot...
We are gear up in our stinger suits.. get our 'flippers' on, goggles and jump in the green blue waters.
Compared to Julian rocks snorkelling, that we did in Byron..this place was a million times better..(well of course, it should be) its the freaking GREAT BARRIER REEF!!
I will not make you jealous and go on and on about how awesome this was... but it was.
The colours of the reef here were the brightest coolest shit ever!  SO many different colours, yellows, purples, green, blue... so much to see!!!  Brad and I held hands and every time we saw something cool we would squeeze each others hand and point out the amazing fish we would see.  The water here was shallow...and the fish were smaller... after we got out of the water and back on the boat we spotted turtles swimming along the shore and coming up for air..
Afterwards, Brad took out the surf board to try some surf paddling

 Our first Snorkel area

Day 2 - Whithaven Beach - where Fools Gold was filmed
We get off the boat and trek through a rainforest to get to the beach 'lookout'
It was pretty humid going through the rainforest... and the bugs were pretty bad.

whithaven beach

other side of beach view

spotted some sting rays

The Beach! Just as we started to walk to the beach the sun peered out from the clouds..and it was hot!  There are also jellies here so we were suppose to wear our suits if we went out farther than our thighs... we saw sting rays, smaller fish and a couple baby lemon sharks!!! 

We spent about 3 hrs here, lounging in the shallow water, playing frizbee, lying on the beach and spotting marine life. About 5 minutes before we were scheduled to leave the beach, the tide came in pretty quick and the beach was almost completely under water.  This sand was soooo soft, it was like walking on powder... very fine ..another paradise beach for sure! Apparently Whithaven Beach is the rated the most beautiful beach in the world...either way, it was breath taking!  

Hook Island

Our second stop for the day to get out in the water and do some more snorkelling and scuba diving! 

There were only 3 of us Canadians out of all 16 ppl who actually wanted to dive... we gear up!

Weight belts.. flippers, goggles, scuba vest & tank... at this point.. its pretty heavy and hard to stand up.

The one crew member, Allen, a 20yr old American who has spent a total off 1 month underwater in 'dives' was our instructor.  So, the 4 of us hop into the 'dingy' boat and head out to a shallow part of the ocean near the reef to practice and get ready to start scuba'in! 

Kinda freaked out at this point, due to how heavy I was feeling, we all lean back and fall off the boat backwards and start to fall to the bottom of the ocean.  At this point, once I got to the bottom..Allen was checking everyone to make sure we all were okay etc... i was not.

My mask started to fill up with water continuously and I started to freak out, and started swallowing salt water because I panicked.. I couldn't see... I felt heavy.. and I wanted to go back up to the surface at this point to catch my breath! 

I tried on Allen's mask and went back down to try it again... but at this point, I'm more nervous now, as that was not a nice feeling... felt like I was pegged down by something, and I was drowning... attempt # 2.. same thing... I try looking up to the surface, pushing the section of my mask in-between my eyes, while exhaling through my nose to let the water out.. but as soon as I brought my head back down to eye level.. it began to fill back up again... so I didn't feel comfortable with this .. I guess the masks were just to large for my narrow face lol... anyways, I was pretty disappointed not being able to scuba... but I didn't want to waste anymore of the other guys time to scuba...cos you can only go down for so long with the amount the air in the tanks..so I said I would think about trying it again maybe at the next stop.

Instead I went on my own and just snorkelled around where we were.... and I'm glad in some way that it worked out that way...cos again, there was some pretty amazing marine life happening on this part of the reef also.  The colours weren't as bright i found..but the marine life was larger... huge giant fish... large bright purple fish w/ blue lips... nemo's...angle fish... and tonnes of zebra fish just surrounded me and I floated around and stalked a few fish... pretty cool.. I felt like I was part of the school..and they just swim right up to you, I coulda touched them... such a cool feeling!  At this point, I took our under water camera and went to town on lotssssss of things.. so i HOPE TO GAWD they worked.. I assume we will get them developed somewhere close down the line... fingers crossed! 

Brad went scuba diving twice and on the second time..it was just him and Allen, which is pretty awesome, cos it was like having his own personal diving instructor.  This last dive, he said was amazing!  They went down 11m ..swimming through caves .. came across sweet fish ... but ill let him go into detail on all of that and his experience...

Brad getting ready to launch off boat

Big ass giant fish... at bottom of picture.. brad to the left in scuba gear.. for scale lol

During the evening on the boat, after dinner, it was nice, they had a blue light that they would shine into the water... this attracted all sorts of marine life.... first the small fish.... then the squid.... then DOLPHINS!! 

It was wicked!  The dolphins would just swim around the boat...sometimes peering up from the deep blue... they stayed for about an hour or so, and apparently after most of us had gone to bed, they had returned again... 

Overall, we were suppose to have horrible weather the whole time...rain, storm, rain .. but when your on the water, weather changes very quick and most of the rain is land based..so it sprinkled a bit over night and stormed the first night while we were sleeping..but otherwise, it was beautiful the whole time and even though we wore 30+ sunscreen... we still got a little burnt... aka.. now a tan! 

Here's a few other scenery pictures for you guys.. 

sunset one night with clouds

another view of 1st snorkel spot

after the storm rainbow back at Airlie Beach

coming around the bend of one the the island's

Random Thoughts Jan 13

1. Tattoo's are in fashion here, along with plastic surgery

2. Cantaloupe is called rockmelon, peppers are capsicums, ketchup is tomato sauce

3. a 'cheap' case of beer is $40 - MGD, Toohey's Extra Dy, XXXX Gold

4. Max's House Music channel is awesome

5. I am the only girl in the bar who isn't wearing high heels....I also don't own any YET..

6. An Ozzie burger is topped with a beet..and its actually not bad at all

7. Australia Day is Jan 26th.... we are looking forward to this... and will be spending it either at Airlie Beach or Hervey Bay..apparently, free festivals, lots of BBQ foods, entertainment & fireworks will follow

The Surfer's Family and my new potential job

I got offered a job in Surfers Paradise at a cafe called Max Brenner. Its a gourmet chocolate cafe that creates all kinds of amazing dishes all made of chocolate. My wonderful friend used to work here and knew the manager and put in a good word which is probably why I got the job in the first place.

http://www.maxbrenner.com.au/

Its a pretty interesting place. The whole damn place smells like rich chocolate and absolutely everything they sell is covered in the stuff, which in turn ends up all over me. Who would have thought I would be working at a place like this considering I don't even like chocolate but for the next couple weeks before we leave I guess I can handle it.

Things have been going really well for us over here recently. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous. It has been 30 degrees without a cloud in the sky the past week or so. Jody works in the evening and I haven't been getting very many hours so we have been waking up every morning and sitting on the beach all day with big smiles on our face. I have been spending a large majority of my time playing in the waves. They have been so big lately that all you can do is dive under them or you will get thrown on your head but man is it fun. Jody comes out with me occasionally but she has yet to find a bathing suit that will allow her to do so. Every wave that comes ends up giving everyone a quick show, which is great for me but she doesn't really like it ha ha. But we both have a nice bronze tan and I am an expert body surfer, although I have swallowed an unhealthy amount of salt water to get so good.

We have met a lot of people that are all waiters and waitresses so they all enjoy doing the same thing we do. Work in the evening and spend the day on the beach. Its been a great time because we know exactly which area of the beach we will be and by 230 or 3 we all go to a surf club right on the beach and have some beers and lunch. We call it the "plan"......ha ha ha very original eh? A large majority of them are Italian so their knowledge of english varies. Some are very good, some not so much but they are all extremely nice people who are there to learn english so Jody and I are now english teachers. So every day we find ourselves at XXXX club (usually about 10 of us) drinking jugs upon jugs of beer, laughing, chatting and eating after a really tough day of swimming and relaxing on the beach. We joke that its the Surfers family because everyone gets along so well and we see each other every day at the same places sharing beers and laughs. Life is tough for us now. We are members of this club so we get cheaper drinks and food and sometimes free drinks as well...love it!!!!  We just showed one of our friends off to go farming so that was a little sad but it was a great occasion for all 16 or so of us to share some afternoon beers. We laugh because we come to australia and not one of our circle of friends is australian. There are a lot of Italians, a couple kiwi's, french, brazilians and us canadians.

Now for the great news!!! Our plan was to do some last bit of traveling before we leave the gold coast region before going down south to pick fruit. This is until I got a call for an interview. All the time we have been here I have been checking jobs down in Melbourne and Sydney and applying in hopes I can land something. 2 days ago I decided after a billion declines that I would try Perth as well since I have heard so many good things about that area. Sure enough yesterday I got a call asking me to do an interview for a sample preparer. I thought about it and realized that Perth is so far away and the timing didn't seem to work out in my favour and would seriously interfere with our picking idea. Then I realized that we came here for experience in our field so I should try and call them and ask a million questions to see if it could work out. Sure enough a whole lot of things seemed to align perfectly and there is a really good chance I could land this job and it would be AWESOME for both myself and Jody. I would be making really good money, work only 4 days on and 4 days off (gives plenty of time for touring around and seeing the gorgeous area), a very good chance Jody could find work there, they know that I can only work there for 6 months and are very happy with that, after a little bit of time preparing samples I would find myself in the lab doing exactly what I wanted to be doing, and its a short distance from the main city of Perth 100 meters from a subway station. So what Im trying to say is that Babcias prayers seem to have worked and have given me this great opportunity. I still have to interview but the one I was talking to told me that I am over qualified and it shouldn't be a problem as long as Im not a complete idiot...... My other issue was they are looking for someone to start soon but with our sailing trip to the great barrier reef I was afraid it would get in the way of me flying down for this interview but sure enough, (Babcias prayer I think), the manager person had to leave on a last minute conference and won't be back until the day we finish our trip. So now Jods and I get to talk about it and do a lot of research and with a little bit of flirting and good luck this will work out.


I cannot be happier right now!! I was excited about picking fruit but I can't turn away this opportunity. Plus I heard Perth is an amazing place.

I will keep you all updated (whoever actually reads this) on how this whole thing goes and maybe in 2 weeks we will be on the other side of the country.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!!!

Merry Christmas Everyone!! 
Hope everyone had a wonderful snowy holiday with family & friends!! 




Christmas for us was different... we woke up around 730 am and started to make a feast of a breakfast so we would have a good base for drinking all day!  We hit the beach around 10:30am, however, due to some bad weather we had a few days prior, there was no swimming aloud in the ocean, as the waves were about 10ft high and there was a really rough undertow.  We got right to it, and popped some champagne and had bubbles & O.J on the beach together in our santa hats!

Afterwards we made our way back to our hotel pool area, had a nice cold one & got our food to meet up with some friends for a lunch barbie at another hotel about 2 blocks away.  Most of the other people that we were partying with there were Italian, and a few Asian's joined in also.  It was pretty fun, we just sat around the barbecue area sharing lots of different meats & drinks!  We got the invite from a buddy that works at Nicolini's with me, so it was nice to be able to share it with others, and keep our minds off all the family and friends we were missing back home.

Afterwards, we came back to our apartment, enjoyed the nice sunset, and attempted to make our own Christmas dinner...although it was nothing like being back home with the Gorski seafood dinner, or my grandparents delicious turkey & meatballs!

I think it really started to hit us afterwards, on how much we were missing home at this point...Christmas just wasn't the same here...and we sat down and watched 'Christmas Vacation' and I would be lying if I said- we wished we were home at that point.

After Christmas Day, I have been working 7 days a week..so its been kinda shitty... but I only have less than a month to go...so ill shad up.

Now, moving along to the Gorski seafood dinner, Dec 28th.  Brads family gets together every year in London for an amazing night filled with great company, wicked amounts of seafood, shots of vodka, polish singing & an all around grand ole' time!...Brad's cousin Mark & his brother Nick kept sending us pictures of what they were eating, updating us, and pretty much making us the two most jealous people in the world!! (Nice job guys!)  Originally, our plan was to hit up the Co-op at the Spit and buy some fresh seafood right off the boats, but again, due to bad weather around Christmas, the boats were not actually going out because it was too dangerous, so we bought the next best thing fresh from the deli in the supermarket.

I had to work, so Brad made an amazing seafood dinner for when I got off work!
He made a sweet and hot salsa type mixture with tomatoes, onions and peppers...and then sautéed shrimp in it...man it was good...along with garlic butter shrimp, a fresh marinated piece of salmon & of course, one of our FAV'S- BACON WRAPPED SCALLOPS!  Clearly, it was not the same as being back in London with the Gorski and Gleba family..but we had to make due with what we had...and don't worry guys, after dinner we did shots of vodka too- in honour of you guys!

New Years Eve! 

I worked until about...10:30 or so, but luckily Brad didn't have to wait for me..and our friend that we got together with for Christmas day, his girlfriend was also here to visit, so Brad and Frederica came to the restaurant and since its BYO - they brought 2 bottles of wine and drank them there while they waited for the bartender and myself to finish. ...

We made it home shortly after 11 had some appetizer snacks, pounded a few Canadian Clubs & Canada Dry (yeaaa thats right...we found some here..so we knew we had to splurge for NYE) and then had to bolt out to the beach to catch the fireworks in time..

The fireworks started a bit right before we got there in time..so we dashed through the people and streets (it was like Canada Day in Ottawa) The fireworks were pretty good. We didn't have the best of view..especially not for myself as I am so damn short lol..but it was beautiful, colourful and right over the ocean! 

Needless to say, the night was a success, ended with a dirty ole kabob- and we both woke up in our clothes, t.v blasting on the music channel and I was wearing a santa hat!  So, I think that sums up the night! 

The morning mind you, was not as fun...but we got through it.

So on that note, Happy New Year Everyone! We are looking forward to the year to come- best wishes to you all in 2012!