Wine Country

Holy Topedo! I’ve seemingly gotten a TAD behind on my blog updates eh? Alright, catching you up to speed, long story short:

In Springwood, Brisbane, circumstances arose where I would have had to have left the place I was staying early January. So, with that in mind, after Christmas I decided to go to Sydney for New Years, staying with Suze the booze and Aaron <3. New years eve, in short, was bloody amazing. We had a big group in Waverley right down by the harbour, front row seats to the Sydney harbour Bridge and the fireworks. We had to go at 11am to save a spot, so we partied it up until midnight waiting for the fireworks. It was absolutely amazing, and I’m so glad I was there for New Years. There’s no better place to be!

As the New Year started, I stayed with Elaine and her friend Di on the other side of the Bridge (past Manly) in Sydney. That experience was absolutely amazing. They both know these awesome hikes and walks, and just corners of Sydney in general, that a typical tourist would never know about. I got some amazing pictures, looking over views that show you a whole new side of the city. Every day was absolutely breathtaking. After about a week, Elaine was driving up to Coffs Harbour, north of Sydney on the coast, so I had to figure something out. Long strenuous story later, I decided on Fruit Picking in the Hunter Valley.

So, now that’s caught you up to speed. I arrived in Cessnock yesterday arvo, and should be staying here at the YHA hostel for a few months. It’s pretty small, and since almost everyone will be here for a long period of time, we all get on really well. My bunkmates from Toronto, but otherwise, people are mostly Scandinavian or Japanese. The hostel itself is nice, but only the lounge/kitchen has air con. So, it’s 32 degrees outside with no wind, and is quite literally refreshing in comparison to my room. Our dinky little fan doesn’t have much effect, other than blowing hot air into your face (it’s kind of like having a blow-dryer cool you down. So that’s no fun, but I feel like everything’s working out, and I should be getting some income soon enough (which, in itself, makes up for anything less than fortunate about this experience)

I promise I’ll get better with my updates (although, I don’t know how many there will be, as I’m in wine country). Now that I’m staying still for a while, I’m not as overwhelmed with life, and I’m getting a chance to relax. That is, until the picking begins...

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas! Or maybe not...

Fact of the day: Did you know that the daddy long-legged spider has one of the most potent poisons, but isn't deadly because it can't open its mouth big enough to puncture human skin? So, it can't do any harm trying to bite someone, but if you swallow one, expect to die.

So, I've since moved from Redcliffe to Springwood to live with Peter and his family for a bit, and I've been here for just over a week now. I don't have much to report, but I figured it was about time for an update.

Peter was in shock when he came to pick me up, as if he somehow expected me to still be the little 5-year old girl he remembered. He repeated "Lozza's all grown up!" about 8 times in the 5 minute drive home. He now has two sons: jono, who's 2, and benny, who's "actually 5 and a half! Which is actually older than 4!" They're absolutely adorable, but I'm definitely learning first-hand now what Peter must have gone through when he visit Canadia. Kids are a handful! On the bright side, I'm getting really good at playing "The Pirate King," and was even dubbed the Pirate Queen the other day. Score!

I've spent the last week kind of settling in, so I haven't been up to too much. We went hiking in a rainforest a few days past, and I walked around the Koala sanctuary that's about 4km away from here, but nothing else too exciting. I have a pretty sweet setup here, with my own room, bathroom, and phone (with my own number!) in the basement, so that's been great. I'm looking (but not too hard) for jobs in the area, but mostly, I've just been walking around a lot exploring the suburb. I've become accustomed to the ants and spiders, as they're regular visitors to my room, but Nigel the gecko scared me to pieces when I found his crawling aross my wall. So, I've definitely still got some adjusting to do!

I don't have anything terribly exciting for the remainder of my time in Brisbane, just a lot of relaxing, hopefully working, and hiking around the area. Hopefully I'll be saving up a decent amount of Moola for Sydney in february! WOO!

Anyway, that's all for now. Happy Holidays to everyone! I guess I'll be missing out on a white Christmas this year, but there's nothing like spending the day on the beach! Lots of love from Ozzy!

Chrismas Lights and Mystery Meat

Okay team, just a quick little blurb today, nothing incredibly riveting, but I felt I needed to share.

So, last night, we went to the street of Christmas lights. Apparently everybody knows about this block, where all the houses go "all out" with their christmas decorations, and thousands of people and tour busses etc. come to see it. However, this year, there were only about a handful of houses that did anything. It was really pretty, but definitely no "grinch house." I'm sure it looked a lot more impressive when every single house was glowing with the holiday colors, but I got the impression it was only a tad more awesome than any other street in Coquitlam. Your challenge, follower of Lauren's blog?: Get me a picture of the Grinch house, so I can brag about Canada's Christmas spirit!

Today, you would all be SO impressed with me. I went to a "Bush Tucker(food)" with Phip, becoming suddenly (and oddly) courageous for somebody who only recently started eating red meat again. I agreed to go, simply to say that I did it, but I was pleasantly surprised. I ate barbecued kangaroo, crocodile, possum and emu. The verdict? Not too shabby. The kangaroo shish kabab was a tad chewy, but could have been much worse, considering what I was expecting! The possum and emu tasted like grain-fed beef, and the crocodile, like chicken. Who knew?

Today was one HUGE step for me. I think I'm growing up! *tear*

Life Plans

Okay, so Australia officially kicks New Zealands butt! It's always so warm here, and I'm actually tanning!! Can you believe it!? My legs are on their way to being a normal skin tone, as opposed to their usual luminescence. This is all very exciting. I spent the day on the waterfront yesterday, carrying around my camera in true tourist form, and walked down the beach barefoot for about 6km listening to Jack Johnson and Jason Mraz. Best day ever? I think so.

So I was thinking about what I want in the next year or two, and I've devised a few potential plans. Granted, everything depends on whether or not I figure out what I want from life career-wise and location-wise, so obviously these are very tentative. But for now, my mind is completely focused on traveling.

Plan numero uno: Hang out in Brisbane, with a job, for a couple months, then head down to Sydney and meet up with my friends, and work there for a couple months. Fly back to New Zealand in July, spend another month traveling around (probably the north island, although I'd like to see Queenstown!), then fly back to Canada mid-august.

My flights are currently arranged to suit this plan, but that can always change!

Plan numero dos: Work in Brisbane until February and get a place in the city, the drive down to Sydney in February with Elaine (if she comes back up to Brisbane for a bit! Otherwise, I'll take a bus down!). Work for 6 months in Sydney (as my visa won't let me work for longer than that), then make my way back up to Brisbane. Stay with the family friends again for a while, and really explore Australia, after having made a few bucks! See the outbacks, maybe get up to Alice Springs (I'm thinking possibly a bus tour?). In december, fly out to Ireland and meet Jessica there for New Years. Spend a few months in Europe, hit up Sweden!!! then eventually fly home in May to face reality.

Obviously, this plan is far more favourable

Plan numero tres: Do the Brisbane-Sydney thing, make some money and fly home in time for Christmas.

Adventurewise, this plan doesn't excite me very much.

I'm sure I'll have changed my mind completely by next week, but it's a start!

Ozzy

Frig, I realize I still have ways to go in regards to informing you all about the second half of my roadtrip, but I honestly can't be bothered to write about it lately. It's kind of old news in my mind, so it doesn't excite me to tell you all about it. I figured I would just skip over it for the time being, and one day when I'm feeling particularly motivated (hopefully soon! -but i've been saying that for months, eh?-) I'll finish the rest of my riviting update. For now though, I figured a quick blurb about Australia would be suffice.

So, Australia. Completely forgot about, and therefore did NOT anticipate, the humidity. When I left Christchurch Saturday morning, it was icky and raining and overall unpleasant, which I took as a sign that I needed to leave A.S.A.P! That being said, I dressed for the weather. So, I arrived in Brisbane Saturday afternoon wearing calf high suede boots, a high waisted skirt, a vneck and a leather jacket. It was a tad uncomfortable as I realized it was a bit humid, but nothing unbearable. And then, I stepped outside. Australia climate:1, Lauren:0. Can't complain about it though, as it's definitely one up from the rain in Christchurch, or more importantly, the winter in Vancouver.

Phip, Torin and Sam picked me up from the airport. I had built myself up to expect some sort of embarassing display in order to recognize them, but they just held up a sign. Nonetheless, it made me feel important. (I asked Phip about it after dinner that night, and he mentioned that they were originally going to belt out Oh Canada!. To be honest, I'm a tad choked they didn't!) The family is absolutely amazing, and so I'm in Redcliffe safe and sound. They even set up an air conditioner in my room (i've seemingly taken over the computer room. Did I mention that there are currently SEVEN computers in here right now, not including my own. And three of the monitors are connected and work simultaneously. Crazy technology right there!)

As it turns out, mum and dad were right. They ARE crazy. It only took Phip one Bailey's and milk to realize what a brilliant and hilarious idea it would be to wake dad up at 2am and let them know i'm safe, "because they would want to know right away!" (Sorry again guys!)

Anyway, now that I've been here for a day, I'm starting to get a sense of where I might want to be in Australia. This area is gorgeous, but I'm definitely going to be getting myself closer to the city at some point. I've been applying online to jobs closer to the city, and I've already got a response. Apparently I'm a "top candidate" and have an interview next week for a new Greek Restaurant, as a server. I really hope to hear back from the Pizza Place (some italian restaurant i believe) I applied to though. "At least 3 months of pizza-making is required," so I'm thinking I set the bar. And I figure it would be the least to learn (at least the easiest!) of any job I could get!

Ooh, also, one last thing. Kathy shot me an e-mail today asking me if I'd like to stay in a resort with them up the sunshine coast for a few days, as Katelyn has to leave and come back at one point. Obviously I took her up on the offer, check out where I get to stay for free! http://www.osprey.com.au/. My buddy just told me I was "the best freeloader ever" and to teach him my ways. I guess I'm just lucky. Hope all is well in Canadia (as my flatmate chris always called it!). No offence, but I don't miss the rain or cold one bit! Love Australia, and love travelling to pieces!

Welcome to the South Island

Day four got off to a bad start. We woke up to wind and rain at 6am, aching and uncomfortable after sleeping in the car. Let me just say, it wasn't particularly the best set up. Our car, a small hatchback, was barely comfortable enough with all our luggage when we're sitting upright and driving. Sleeping was a whole new experience. Tom, the biggest, got the passenger seat, David got the Drivers seat, and I (not shock) was dubbed backseat bitch yet again. Which would have been fine, if the guys hadn't put down there seats all the way! The car wasn't big enough for me to stretch my legs all the way, but there wasn't room to curl up either. And, they bitched all morning about my snoring. Needless to say, nobody was very pleased that morning.

We headed into Wellington, but everything looks much less impressive with such horrible weather. Even the locals were going on about how they haven't had such bad rainstorms at this time of year in ages. So, we went to buy our ferry tickets, then went for a quick coffee.
I should mention that nobody had cell phones, so the situation that proceeded was not particularly ideal: We parked the car in one of apparently three of the exact same car parks, then ended up seperating for about an hour. Me and David both got back to the car alright, but somehow Tom managed to get lost looking around in the other two car parks. Long story short, we almost missed the ferry. And yet, we didn't learn our lesson for the next time we got lost... But that's another story.

The rest of the days events weren't very exciting: got on ferry, drove to Nelson, parked the car and went to a bar. However, waiting in line in the car at the ferry was definitely the highlight! We had been waiting for ages, and for what I assume was out of boredom, Tom started honking the horn. And people started honking back. So, of course, he started honking a tune, to see if people would finish the "song." No joke, in about 5 minutes we had almost a quarter of the cars honking the same tune simultaneously. I was actually crying I was laughing so hard.

So, for such a bad start, the day definitely got better as time passed. It was a sign of good things to come on The South Island!

A Final Day Up North

DAY 3 (a day of driving)

Woke up and GOT TO SHOWER! WEYYOO! As I’m not a morning person, the outlook for the day seemed dismal, but WOW a warm shower changed everything around! I feel bad for the guys (who want to hardcore official “trampers”) because, since they refuse to shower, will not understand this feeling whatsoever! Instead, they demand we find a natural creek in which to cleanse, and so we embark on a mission to find hot springs.

Unfortunately, the creek we found lost some of its mystique, because we didn’t stumble upon it like the other places. Instead, we asked for directions, which lead us first to a volcanic reserve, where we had breakfast at an overpriced cafe. Satisfied with the meal, we headed to the creek, which we were told warmed up to 40 degrees! Although it was a bit muddy, it did not disappoint! The heat was a nice change from the cold night, and it was so amazing that nature can actually create a naturally steaming creek. It was like a hot tub!

Eventually, we drove down to Taupo for Lunch. At this point, we decided we were going to do an epic drive through the (absolutely gorgeous, snowy) mountains to Napier, but when we got to Napier and established that the night life was nonexistant, we decided to night drive all the way down to Wellington. For anyone wanting to look on a map, this day we drove from 2 hours north of Taupo, to Wellington. We covered about half of the North Island, and it was epic. However, it was rainy, cloudy, and predicted to stay that way for the next couple days, so we didn't miss out on much. However, even with the crappy weather, none of us took the beautiful scenery for granted, even for a second.

Even desite the amazing places we had seen on the North Island though, we were all rather impatient to get down to the south Island... It was supposed to be better weather down there as well!