And So It Begins...

1/6/10
Sitting on a train on my way to the Franz Josef Glacier. Had a rough go of it so far. Anxious everyday, pit in my belly, that feels a lot like my stomach eating my spine, weather just as sad and nervous as me, and everything more expensive than it needs to be. I know Australia has to be better than what I experienced, and I’m excited to go back and find it. Not to sound like I hated it, on the contrary, I had a really good time, just a difficult one. We made a wrong turn at every chance we had, spent more money than we should have, and the weather made it so we didn’t really want to go out and do much. Who would have thought it would rain everyday for a week during the Aussie summer… Not this guy! So, enough of the complaining, let’s talk about what I have done so far. Arriving in Sydney, after a ten and a half hour flight from LA, a four hour layover in Fiji, and a five hour flight to Australia, we decided that we would rent a car and drive to Melbourne instead of flying.










Guess we should have looked at the map a little closer to realize that Melbourne is over 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) from Sydney. Naturally we decided to not go to Melbourne and stop at the next town that seemed worthwhile. Hello Wollongong! Once in Wollongong we walked around to find a place to eat, which surprisingly was hard to do. Finally we decided upon Hogbreath Café. Here we were introduced to what we thought was Australian food. Sixty dollar check for ten or so pieces of calamari, a shitty salad with a few fried potatoes and mushrooms on it, a halfway decent steak sandwich, and two beers. Trev’s tasted better than mine, of course. Insult to injury, the server, Katie, says shortly after meeting us, “…what are you doing in Wollongong then?” To which we replied, what should we do, and she so politely said there was absolutely nothing to do. Pull out the book and start planning now. Decided to stay there and make the best of it. Making the best of it ended up meaning us walking around for an hour to find a hotel, buying groceries to make some sandwiches so we didn’t have to eat another expensive tasteless meal, and to get some beers to take back to the room, or so we thought. Beer in Australia is more expensive than gas. Forty to fifty dollars a case depending if you want shitty three percent beer or shitty five percent beer. Option three, go to the bottle shop and get a 750ml bottle of vodka for thirty five dollars and five dollar club soda, make cocktails in the room and play cards. We chose option three. Trev beat me as usual and got to sleep in the big bed as I knocked out in what I guess is considered a twin. Didn’t matter. We were so tired I slept like a baby and woke up refreshed. Back on the wrong side of the road again, we were off to Newcastle, a town that got our hopes up and offered great beaches, fun bars and pubs, and was an up and coming city in Australia. After almost getting in a head on car accident as Trevor pulled out into oncoming traffic, we managed to make our way through one of the most beautiful scenic roads I have ever seen. Twisting and turning through forest, cliffs, sandy beaches, and national parks, we passed through Sydney for the second time and continued onto our promised land, Newcastle. After four hours of driving, we arrived. Welcome to Newcastle, the armpit of Australia. Pulling up to our hotel the town looked more deserted than Wollongong and much more seedy. Checked in and walked to our room which reminded me of a cruise ship,minus the free food, drinks, and women. We dropped our bags and headed for a walk around town. The wonderful woman at the information center pointed us in the right direction and off we were to have a beer in the harbor. Beers at The Brewery were quite delicious. With many people out and about and a lady slamming her face into the front door as she tripped over her feet and fell to the floor, we thought, this town would be okay. So it was off to the store to get more sandwich stuff, some noodle soups, and more vodka and club soda. This time we found a deal though, two bottles for 70! Yay! Back to the room for a shower, a cocktail, and head out to town. It was back to the harbor for another beer and to see where to go on a Tuesday night. To The Del it was. Upon entering we ran into these two guys that we had met at The Brewery and sat to have a drink with them. Of course, not only were they locals, but they also happened to be the biggest drug dealers in all of Newcastle, the armpit of Australia. Suddenly I felt like I was sitting in the newest episode of locked up abroad waiting for these guys to ask me to smuggle some drugs somewhere. Luckily they didn’t and we ended up having a great time and continued on to The Kent, as The Del was closing. There, with our new friends, we were introduced to many locals. I was talking to one local girl, not realizing her boyfriend was ready to kick my ass, she so subtly asked, “You’ve been in Australia for two days, what the fuck are you doing in Newcastle?!” See a pattern here? Now would be a good time mention that they don’t serve shots or make “double” drinks in Newcastle because there were too many stabbings, fights, and car accidents. You’ll soon find out why I make note of this here. The loophole is that you can order spirits “on the rocks”, and as long as nobody sees you “skull it” you can shoot it. After having a drink or two on the rocks the bar came to a close and we began our walk home, from the bar that we had shared a cab to, and weren’t exactly sure how to get home from. As I began to tell Trev we should go one way and he thought we should go the other I found out firsthand why they don’t serve shots in this town. Luckily for me it was Trev’s shoe that I caught across my face and not a knife or broken bottle. I took a taxi back to the cruise ship and trev wandered the town till he made it back two hours later. We made up in the morning and went for a walk to the beach with cloudy skies and wind. Back to the room for a nap, some food and to head out to Fanny’s, the biggest club in Newcastle. Trev was tired and went back early, I stayed and tried to make friends and also find out that I am 100 percent resistible in Australia. Back to the ship and into bed, for the drive back to Sydney in the morning. Pouring rain and extremely tired, we made it to Sydney, returned the rental car, and checked into our hotel in North Ryde. Time to get ready and head to the city for the big New Year’s Eve celebration. We called Skye, one of our local contacts in Sydney to see what we should do for the night and she said, “…get the fuck outta North Ryde if you wanna have fun!” Down to the harbor it was to experience the turn of the decade with over a million others. Amazing, is only one of the words that cannot describe how awesome of an experience that was.



Back to the hotel around three, and in bed by four. Literally spent the entire next day in bed, went to the gym around seven pm, back in bed by nine, Tylenol pm by ten thirty, and asleep by eleven. Awake and refreshed we headed to Bondi to meet up with Skye. Getting to her house she immediately showed her Aussie hospitality, offered us water, showed us our room, and took us out for some food. Did all of this of course after asking us what the fuck we were did in Wollongong, Newcastle, and North Ryde. She then asked if we loved Aussie food, which I thought was sarcasm, but turned out to be a genuine question. So, off to Greens Café for a delicious fresh, healthy lunch, of Chicken and Quinoa. Next, to the pub for a few hours, then up to the club for one last drink before heading home. As we entered the club I said to Trev, the bouncer looks really familiar, so Trev asked where he was from, to which he replied, Hermosa Beach. Upon further inspection I realized that he was the bouncer that kicked me out of Union Cattle Company one fateful night some time almost two years ago. Waking up in the morning and off for a walk down to the beach in pouring rain, decided on breakfast instead. Following breaky was a touristy drive around Bondi, followed by a walk around the city, and then off to the airport and heading to New Zealand. Or so we thought… Upon checking in at 6:30 for a 7:05 flight that we thought was at 9:05, the agent told us that she needed to see our return flights from New Zealand to board. Of course neither one of us had this info with us, so after running to the internet café to print it on the slowest computers on earth, we missed our flight. The Angel that worked at the Airline office helped us out and got us on a flight to New Zealand the next day at 4, but now we had a layover in Brisbane. I must stop to make note here that when I say angel, this woman was truly nothing short of an angel. Absolutely beautiful, so nice, down to earth, sexy accent, and went out of her way to take care of us. I think Trev and I fell in love with her twelve times just listening to her talk. Anyway, back on track we got a hotel, slept, and took our new flight to New Zealand. To continue with our luck so far, our flight to Brisbane was delayed and had to run through the international airport to board as the plane was about to leave. Made it, but barely! Arriving in Christchurch at 1:00am, we cleared customs and took a taxi to our cabin that was booked the night before. I sat in the taxi and counted as the meter ran up. Not exaggerating here, it literally cost twenty cents every three seconds that we were in the cab. Twenty dollars for a five minute fare! We got into our cabin, which only had one full size bed with no sheets. We poured a cocktail, played some cards, then crawled into our sleeping bags, and off to sleep. In the morning we decided to stay in the main town closer to the train station. Off to the Excelsior Backpackers Hostel. An over 100 year old building that was awesome. We got a private room, dropped the bags and were off to see the town. As we came into the town square there was a band playing, and people all around just lounging, eating, and playing human size chess. Only in New Zealand for a few hours, and already loving it. We went to the visitor center booked our train to Greymouth, bus to Franz Josef, hostel for two nights, and then bus to Wanaka. We did a 5km walk around the town that ended at an awesome brewery, The Dux de Lux. Which also had the best beer price we had found, $22 for a pitcher. After a pitcher, we got more groceries and headed back to the hostel. It was weird walking back from the store at 9:30pm and the sun still hadn’t set. We grabbed our cards, went to the rooftop common area, and sat down to relax. We didn’t get but three plays into our game of rummie, before we were being offered Green Lip Mussels, bigger than I have ever seen, fresh out of the water and hot off the grill! Delicious.











We made friends with some other backpackers and spent the next four and a half hours talking in different languages, sharing stories, and all to the soundtrack of the Spanish guy playing the guitar. This was exactly what I needed. Brings me to now. Cruising the west coast of New Zealand in a bus after the four hour winding mountain train, excitied to reach our next destination… Franz Josef Glacier. This should be fun.