30, HOME FREE AND UNEMPLOYED

[4whtundra]

After I rested up after the whole Nigeria deal I wanted to head to Montana to visit my brother. I had not been out there to see his new house and new puppy yet, plus his 28th birthday was in the middle of November so it seemed like a great time to catch up. I flew out on November 6th for three weeks. If you've been following along my posts you will remember Brown Rice. I got a call from him just before leaving and he says "dude we're going to Baja, you gotta come". I had considered this trip a year ago but thought I could never get my camper down there and it probably wouldn't work out. As luck would have it his girlfriend bailed on him and there was an open spot for me! Sorry, back to Montana! I spent the three weeks catching up with my brother, I rented a forest service cabin called "Morgan-Case Homestead" for his birthday, we hiked there and attempted panning for gold. That was more like fools gold minus the gold. It was a great chance to spend some time there with him and his animals.







Towards the end of the Montana trip it began to get bitter cold, -15 F when I was out in the garage changing a transmission and clutch for my fathers 79 Suburban. I was ready for some warm. A quick flight to Burbank and a train ride to Ventura and BR and I were acquainted again. After a grocery trip and a good night sleep we were on our way to Baja! We ended up going with two other good friends of ours with their families. We spent most of the week at Gonzaga Bay on the sea of Cortez side of Baja. It was a nice chill trip, we kayaked with Whale Sharks, drank some good Tequila, got to see Coco at Coco's corner and did some 4X4ing. It was a nice chill trip to Mexico without any problemos.





After Mexico I stayed in California for a few days and caught up with friends, then I flew back to Montana and spent another week with my brother and finishing up the transmission job I had started. I missed out on my return flight home to NY (because of Mexico) so the decision was made to drive my brother's truck back to NY. My Dad and him had a project planned for it when he came home for Christmas. It was a snowy ride but I did get a chance to stop quick at Mount Rushmore.

 

[Wainiha]

The pic of you two standing in front of the barn you look like solid cowboys. Panning for gold you look like dorks:sombrero:. Only playing....


I lived in Bozeman for 6 months. I love Montana. Hyalite and Beartrap have good stories and memories.

 

[4whtundra]

Heading to Oceania

In the midst of my Pacific North West trip I had an idea to travel to Australia. These ideas never really seem real as they seem to much of a pipe dream to most people. After my trip I realized how much I had grown from the experience and how much people had said "do it now while you can". I kept that phrase in my head while between trips, working in Nigeria, etc. The decision hit me one day and I had a flight to Australia just after the New Year. I managed to get myself a work/holiday visa, although I am the oldest you can be in order to get the visa it still allows me to travel and work in Australia for up to 12 months. The best part is I can come and go internationally outside of the country as I please. With that being said I will most likely try to fit a Thailand and/or Indonesia trip in along with this one, we will see though.

January 7th

I flew out just in the nick of time from JFK, NY got something like 5 feet of snow in upstate that day. I flew to Dubai but missed my connection there so I got stuck there for a day and a half. I took the time to take a tour of the city, it's pretty impressive but not anywhere I would want to spend more than a couple days (kinda like Vegas in my opinion).







Initially I was suppose to fly directly from Dubai into Perth but since my scheduled flight got all screwed up I had to fly to Singapore first and then into Perth. Finally 4 days later I arrived, I thought the flight to Brazil was bad! Next time I will fly the other way through LA and down to Eastern Australia for sure. The plan was to travel the Southern Coast of Oz from Perth but now that I am here I am super antsy about getting East to head to New Zealand as soon as I can. We will see how it plays out.

 

[4whtundra]

Perth, Denmark and Albany

Initially I was planning to do the OZ trip with my girlfriend, whom is/was a big planner for these types of things. I myself am not a huge planner, may this be a good thing or bad, I usually have a loose plan B and I work on plan A as the day comes. We ended up not working out and now in the midst of things I think it was for the best, plus you know what they say "you don't bring sand to the beach". People always ask me "what's your plan?" and I tell them "I don't have one" and from the beginning of this thread I really haven't had one. I think it's the best way to travel and leaves the door open for endless opportunities.

Upon arriving in Perth I had no idea where I was staying. I had the first night's hotel planned but that got screwed up with my flights so I landed in Perth with no where to stay. After getting some cash at the airport I got on a "connect" bus and asked the driver to drop me where "there were hotels" in the midst of the city center. After a 20 minute bus ride I found myself trekking the hot city streets with my "NY wear" jeans and a t-shirt. Finally I just picked any hotel and stayed at Comfort Inn for the next couple nights. Immediately I started figuring out my first trip, without a vehicle or any real means of getting myself out of the city I turned to the internet. Australia like other countries have "gumtree" which is basically another "craigslist". There you will find rideshares, campers, apartments, etc. Within the first couple days I met up with my first ride share just north of Perth in a little beach town called Scarborough. After a day of planning myself, a Swiss girl, a German girl and an Indian guy headed south in a tan station wagon for a week of camping and adventure.

The first night we stayed in Peaceful Bay Caravan Park off of the 1 just west of Denmark, we met up with an Aussie who took us fishing in the morning. After fishing we geared up and back tracked a little to Walpole-Nornalup National Park where we hiked the tree-top walk and ancient forest. The plan was (most women always have a plan) to head directly to Denmark but we were persuaded to take a detour and check out the Elephant rocks and Green pools near William Bay NP. I am glad we did as the beach and water were amazing, we stayed a good couple hours and got a good share of swimming and sunshine. That night we stayed in Albany at a caravan park called Emu Park.

 

[4whtundra]

Esperance part I, Cape Le Grand National Park

The whole idea of this trip was to get to Esperance, that's where the girls really wanted to go as it's one of the beach capitals of Australia. We would stay there for three nights and then make the long 8-9 hour journey back to Perth. It was a good 4 hour haul from Albany but we made it in decent time and setup shop in another caravan park called Seaside Caravan park in Esperance. Now being just a backpacker I am very, very envious of all the others at these parks as I really miss my setup from back home. Now I am rolling with a $12 tent and a $15 sleeping bag from K-mart, a far cry from my Tundra/Four Wheel Camper setup (which is for sale in the expo members area). I am super impressed with the vehicles and camper options here I can hardly stand it. We went to town for some dinner and got back early to get some rest for the following days. Friday morning we headed out for Cape Le Grand National Park, a stubborn German and faulty GPS gave us a nice half day of driving around and almost running out of gas, by early afternoon we were there (was only 60 Km away should have been 45 mins). We first stopped at The Gap and Natural Bridge, both were powerful sights of nature.



The day was a bit windy but a hike sounded pretty convincing. Just down the road was Frenchman Peak, we all decided to hike to the top. The mountain was like one big Volcanic rock, that's what it had seemed like anyway. I thought of it as hiking on mars or something similar although maybe that's just how it is here. Although the girls were a little weary of the amount of wind we all made it to the top. There was an awesome see-through cave and a great lookout from the top.





I took my time on the way down and took some photos of the local Munji flowers and Chittick shrubs.



Before heading back to camp I wanted to stop for a quick swim, we ran into a good sized lizard and a bunch of Kangaroos on the beach. I snapped a cool pic of one after I scared the crap out of him.

 

[Stitebunny]

Your life is awesome.

 

[conifers4]

Did you scare the crap out of it or did it scare the crap out of you?
Continued great read, thanks

 

[4whtundra]

Did you scare the crap out of it or did it scare the crap out of you?
Continued great read, thanks

That's exactly what happened, he was just eating and then started to wiggle and jumped probably 4 feet in the air. I sort of fell backwards but was able to snap a good pic of him.

 

[piratexpress1369a]

great read keep the posts coming ..have a great time down under

 

[4whtundra]

Esperance part II, The Great Ocean Road

From what I know there are more than one of these great ocean roads in Australia. Although it's hard to beat near perfect clear mild water, not a person in sight and a parking spot right next to the stairs, some might argue that a great ocean road would be something like what you see driving through Big Sur. Non-the-less the beaches here in Western Australia are some of the best I've ever been to. Imagine having 10 or so epic beaches all within a 2 minute drive of each other, each one having a different characteristic as the previous. We spent half of a day reconnoitering each beach and then picked the two we liked best and spent the rest of the day at each.







We came to agreement on two different beaches Twilight and Observatory. Twilight had an awesome rock to swim out to and barely had any people on it, it was perfect for me to do some swimming. Later in the day there was wind and Observatory had a bunch of kite surfers and wind surfers. The following day we packed up and made the long trip home. It was a great trip to get my feet wet. It's difficult to start out on in a new country on your own, people will always make things better or worse for you. It's crazy how one person will change the way you feel about a place, good or bad. As much as I had a good time with my new friends it was good for me to be on my own again, it's not easy to travel and even harder to travel with people you barely know. Now that my confidence was on the up I headed out for the next horizon.

 

[4whtundra]

Fremantle and Rottnest Island

I had a loose plan B in my head of where I was headed after the camping trip. The trip home was long and it was super sunny outside and pretty brutal hot (not complaining) so Abi my new friend from India offered his house to me for the night. It was nice to have internet and to be in a bachelor pad with just guys, they made a traditional Indian curry dish for my stay and we hung out in AC and flip-flops the whole night. In the am I gathered my stuff and took the bus into the city, then decided I would head towards Fremantle south of Perth. I took the train from the city center, I'm really starting to figure out this public transport deal. *Side note* - google maps is the ********! I can type in where I want to go and gps through my phone tells me which bus/train to take to where, I thought it was just for cars! I got off in Freo and made my way dowtown to find a place to stay, it was hot! The first place I came up empty, all booked up. While wandering around out of nowhere a guy rolls up on his bike and says "hey mate, you look lost. Can I help you find something?" Wow, I thought, I don't think I've ever had someone just cruise up and ask me that in the most sincere way. His name was Robbie and he took the initiative to call all the hostels in town until he found one for me, then proceeded to show me where it was, nice guy! I scheduled 2 nights at the Freo Backpackers Inn, it was some sort of old building, seemed ok but nothing too fancy. I bunked up with 3 other guys, Hann from Germany, Simon from NSW and Geo from Italy. The vibe around wasn't that great, the first night there was some guy that got kicked out and came back and started mouthing off to some of the other guests. The second day there was baby Momma drama and some other hoot yelling at the top of her lungs, plus no AC and just a weird atmosphere. I ended up hitting it off with my roommate Hann who loves good beer, 4X4 trucks and traveling, so that made the stay not too bad. After getting caught up and doing laundry I headed off again towards Rottnest Island. I took the morning ferry, landed and rented a bike and snorkeling equipment. The island runs off of a generator and wind power, plus there are no cars, only bikes. It was refreshing to be in a place like this. After a nap I took off and rode my bike to a good snorkeling spot, there are tons around the island and each place seems like another close to empty beach. The next few days where more of the same, relaxing, riding my bike, snorkeling and visiting with the Quokkas. There's close to 18,000 of these little buggers that live there, they're kind of like a cross between a kangaroo, rat and rabbit. I rode around the whole Island and took time out to do a nice lighthouse tour. It seemed like a great place to bring a family with little kids or just to cruise out for a day trip or two.







Back in Fremantle I knew I wanted to visit the Maritime Museum at the end of the pier. Right off of the ferry I could walk half a minute and check it out. The timing was perfect as they were holding a tour of an old submarine that was there. The museum was awesome as well as the sub, if you ever have a chance to check one of them out your respect will grow for the men that run them and the engineering that goes into one.

 

[lysol]

Enjoyed the read man! Don't stop blogging!!

 

[Wainiha]

You called the Quokkas "little buggers". You sound like an Aussie already.

 

[4whtundra]

Australia Day

Australia Day is the official national day of Australia. Celebrated annually on January 26, it marks the anniversary of the 1788 arrival of the First Fleet of British Ships at Sydney Cove, New South Wales, and raising of the Flag of Great Britain at that site by Governor Arthur Phillip. In contemporary Australia, celebrations reflect the diverse society and landscape of the nation, and are marked by community and family events, reflections on Australian history, official community awards, and citizenship ceremonies welcoming new immigrants into the Australian community (taken from Wiki) It's also a day of heavy drinking, BBQ's and fireworks, that's the part that I saw. I started out early and headed to Langley Park in Perth, I walked the grass for a good 4 hours checking out all the festivities. I avoided the craziness route and kept to the more civil family stuff. I was very impressed with the amount of activities, food venues and overall feel of the place for this holiday. I watched horse barrel racing and borocross in an arena they setup on the grass, they also had a freestyle motocross show, air show and full stage playing aboriginal music among other things. After a good while I walked into the city center and had a couple beers and then headed back to catch the fireworks, there was tons of people and again an awesome vibe.









I headed home after the fireworks and skipped the night time activities. The next day I took a long walk out of the city and checked out Kings Park and the Botanical Gardens.



At this point I am finally caught up with my posts, I spent the last couple days in a hostel in Perth city center catching up with posts, making reservations and getting ready for tomorrow. Before I go into the unknown and become internet-less for a while I will give you a quick insight into where I am heading next. Tomorrow morning (1/29/14) I'm taking a flight from Perth to Adelaide where I will rent a campervan and tour Adelaide and Kangaroo Island for a good 8 days or so then February 7th I have a flight elsewhere but I will leave it at that for now. Until then thanks for the encouragement and thanks for following my posts, Expo has been a great extended family and I appreciate all the support! :victory:

 

[piratexpress1369a]

have a great time and be safe