Douglas Moved!

To the beach! Too bad he doesn't know how to swim

My lease at Jack's Place was up July 14th, so I've been busy getting things ready to stay with Maz during my last few weeks in Sydney. I've been very busy recently preparing to move, going to the Blue Mountains again, spending time with friends who are also travelers and preparing to head back home/to their next destination, and just enjoying myself. 

I apologize in advance for not posting very often, life has a tendency to get away from me, and I often forget to bring Douglas with me places. However, in a few weeks, I'll be making the trek to Melbourne. I plan on working as a temp there for six weeks and then starting my travels before coming back to Sydney a few days before my flight. I'm about to be a very busy person! 

Work has been winding down nicely. They're getting ready to bring in a new temp for me to train as a replacement, but my boss keeps telling me I'm irreplaceable and I'm just going to have to stay! 

To be honest, when I first came to Sydney, I enjoyed the sites, but in general I felt very alone and unhappy. But it's since grown on me. To have met all the wonderful people I have met, like Maz, Wendy, Katy, Lydia, Michael, Heiko, Robert, et al has been such a wonderful experience. I'll definitely have to come back to Australia, but bring Stanton with me. 

Here's Douglas, proudly sitting with all my things!

You never realize how much crap you own until you have to try (and fail) to shove your whole life into a suitcase. I'm going to have to thin down my items even more as I prepare for Melbourne and my other travels because I can only have 20kg (just shy of 50lbs) in my suitcase! You'd think that would be plenty of space, but I was sorely mistaken. Thank goodness for Maz who offered to hold on to some of the things I don't need to take with me to Melbourne. 

Maz lives in Bondi just a few blocks to the beach. Her apartment is stunning, well lit, and roomy. This Sunday (July 16) I spent the morning walking up and down the beach with Maz, enjoying all the puppies. I probably pet close to 30 dogs during my walk! Whoa! I didn't take any pictures but every one of them was a good dog - very happy for pats. 

Saturday I spent the day with Katy, Michael, Robert, and Richard going up to Morisett again to pet more kangaroos and then down to Palm Beach to climb up to the Barrenjoey Lighthouse. Here are some pictures from the day: 

Joey kangaroo that loved bananas and would reach on his tippy toes for a treat. Very sweet, loved neck scratches

Katy, Robert, Carrot Loving Kangaroo, and Michael: getting ready to drop the hottest mix tape in Sydney (just kidding, they do look pretty bad ass though)

Richard with a mommy kangaroo and her baby in the pouch! 

Myself with a particularly friendly male kangaroo. He liked chin scratches and bananas as well

Palm beach shortly before sunset

Beautiful view of Palm Beach right before the sunset. These friends were enjoying a chat when I snapped a candid photo of them - sadly I don't know who they were, but I thought the photo turned out really well.

Douglas and I on the peninsula with the lighthouse in the background. It was a short hike from the bottom of the peninsula to the top, but well worth it! 

Douglas with the Barrenjoey Head Lighthouse

Douglas posing with the beach on the peninsula

One of my favorite photos of Palm Beach, right after Sunset. 10 out of 10, would recommend

The number of blogs I'll be posting is going to increase soon because of my travels. Thanks for bearing with me as I haven't been up to too much in Sydney as of late. Thanks for reading! 

Douglas gets a routine

His routine consists of hanging out in my room all day

while I go to work during the week, and find things to do on the weekends. 

Sometimes I'm successful, and sometimes I don't find much to do. I haven't written a blog post simply because I don't have much to post about. Occasionally I'll go to the beach with friends, go shopping, play volleyball, have a cookout, go to dance clubs, go to jazz bars, etc. 

The reason I haven't post much is because I haven't taken a ton of pictures. Most of the time, the experience doesn't merit a photo, or I simply don't feel like taking one because I'm enjoying myself otherwise. I have a few pictures I can share though:

We had a pool competition after work! It was quite fun

Douglas likes Bronte Beach

This seagull was eyeballing my TimTams, too bad seagull, these Australian delicacies are mine

Douglas laments the fact that he lacks the arms and height to play volleyball

This is the building I work in, it's been lit up for the past two weeks for Vivid Sydney, a big light and idea festival that's two weeks long in Sydney

One of the Vivid sculptures. I didn't realize this at the time, but when you clap, the flower changes color!

Another vivid installation

Douglas and I rode the ferry to Manly Beach because they have volleyball nets there and everyone wanted to play beach volleyball!

I kept Douglas company while everyone played. The sand at Manly stuck to my feet more than any sand has before. I ended up having to scrub my feet to get it off.

The beach side of Manly. There was a festival called the Taste of Manly, it was quite busy

My dear friend Katy, she loves Douglas! She's one of my favorite housemates because we always eat dinner together and talk about the good things that happened during our day

I got my earlobes double pierced over the weekend! They're still sore, but I think they're healing well. Pro-tip: don't try and curl your hair afterwards, you'll catch the earring and then want to keel over in pain

It's the Harbour Bridge! In the distance you can see my work building from afar (it's on the right between the harbor bridge and the building closest to me)

Katy, Heiko, Michael, and Claudia looking bad ass walking into Luna Park, it's like a carnival/fair ground! I bought a corny dog (here called a pluto dog???) and was disappointed. The hot dog was red!!!! I think I'll stick to State Fair of Texas corny dogs

The opera house from the other side of the harbor

Underneath the Harbour Bridge

My weekends are my favorite time in Sydney. The week days have a tendency to run together, becoming monotonous and making me homesick. The weekends I'm so busy having fun I don't have time to be homesick. I think one of the reasons I haven't written in awhile is I just don't have the energy when I'm finished with my day to want to write all the time. It will get better once I start my travels because I'll be doing more and will have more to write about. 

Thanks for reading!

Douglas Meets a Kangaroo

This is not a drill, Douglas actually met a real life kangaroo

You can't quite see the fear in Douglas's eyes.

Multiple kangaroo's actually. Above is just one of the many kangaroos I met while wandering Morisset Park with my friends Katharina (she goes by Katy), Andres, and Katrine. Morisset Park is about a 2 hour train ride north of Sydney. Once arriving to Morisset Station, you can pay a shuttle driver $3/person to shuttle you to the park. When you're ready, just call him, and he'll come pick you up and take you back to the train for another $3! I decided that was the best business idea ever, and they must be making bank. They only have two shuttle vans (each van seats about 10) and it's not even a ten minute drive to Morisset Park from the station. Anyways, that's just my business degree talking.

Morisset Park is an interesting area because it's a hospital ground surrounded by nature preserve.
Upon arrival the driver gave us a few tips and ground rules. Mostly: Don't feed the kangaroos people food (fruit and veg only). Don't go near the male kangaroos, they're aggressive. Lastly, no walking to the hospital ground for shops/bathrooms - you won't find either there. The kangaroos hide out in the shade during the day, so our best bet would be to walk around the fields in the wooded area.

See the laughing kookaburra bird on the branch. He was laughing at our inability to find the kangaroos

Unbeknownst to my friends, the direction we set off was the opposite direction of the kangaroos. We wandered around the forest to the north (I think it was north) side of the road and quietly sang "kangaroooos where are yoouuuuu?" to no avail, not realizing that all the kangaroos were laughing it up on the other side of the forest. 

Finally, we decided to check the wooded area on the other side of the road to see if the kangaroos were relaxing there. There were kangaroos EVERYWHERE! It was kangaroo heaven. Fun fact: Kangaroos love bananas. If you come to them with a carrot, they'll nibble at the carrot out of courtesy, but if you have a banana, all bets are off, bananas beat carrots everytime. (I have to sing Gwen Stefani every time I spell bananas).

I believe that's a male kangaroo. The males are much larger than the females and their arms are super buff. Don't go near the male kangaroos.

"Mmm yes, please hand feed me more bananas"

Douglas was terrified and not so sure how the kangaroo was going to react. The kangaroo was checking to see if Douglas was bananas

Sweet relief for Douglas. Indifference for the kangaroo, Douglas is not bananas. 

Katharina was taking photos of me while the kangaroo was munching on the banana (I didn't have the hindsight to bring bananas, only carrots).

"Yes your companion may rest lightly on my back, but not for the price of a carrot. More bananas please"

The kangaroo realized Katharina was the one with the bananas "Yes. Bananas. Here I come."

Katy the Kangaroo Whisperer

Douglas trying to steal my thunder

"I have no interest in you and your lack of bananas"

Eventually, we ran out bananas to feed the kangaroos and they quickly lost interest in us. Definitely worth getting all the pets and ear scratches though. Bananas are a small price to pay for meeting kangaroos.

We wandered back to the field where there was a nice set of trees and a fallen log for all of us to sit and enjoy a picnic. We made a few bird friends who were interested in our picnic as well.

 These particular birds were interested in Andres' Pringles

Another Kookaburra graced us with its presence 

All in all, even with the two hour train ride to and from Morisset Park, it was worth it. The kangaroos were amazing, sociable, and pet-able. The forest was stunning. If I wasn't in the midst of getting over yet another sinus infection, I would have really enjoyed hiking through the nature preserve (and maybe getting to meet even more kangaroos). I'll leave you with the amazing photo Katrine took of a kangaroo munching on a banana and myself.

Photo Credit: Katrine W.

Douglas Climbs a Mountain!

My favorite photo of Douglas on the hike

Douglas gets all the credit....

Really, I climbed the mountain. Douglas just hung out in the backpack. 

And it wasn't technically climbing. We hiked. But I'm getting ahead of myself. 

Two weeks ago, Douglas, myself, and about 15 other people took a train from Central Station in Sydney to Katoomba Station, roughly a 2 hour train ride (approximately 50 miles from my apartment). The group consist of friends I had made from my new apartment building and some of their friends from around New South Wales. 

Katoomba is a small town in the state of New South Wales, Australia. The population size is around 8000 people and is largely a tourist town because of the....

Blue Mountains

In the distance, you can see the Three Sisters. Not pictured: A lot of Blue.

The main tourist attractions include the mountains (specifically the mountain formation The Three Sisters), Scenic World, and wonderful views. We arrived to Katoomba around 10 AM with no solid plan, ideas of what direction to go, and what sites we wanted to see. So we decided to see ALL of them. 

First site of mountains

 We hiked away from town and followed the signs that said "Scenic World" and "Three Sisters". We went to the Three Sisters first.

The Three Sisters: Meehni, Wimlah, and Gunnedoo.

"The commonly told legend of the Three Sisters is that three sisters, Meehni, Wimlah and Gunnedoo, lived in the Jamison Valley as members of the Katoomba tribe. They fell in love with three men from the neighbouring Nepean tribe, but marriage was forbidden by tribal law. The brothers were not happy to accept this law and so decided to use force to capture the three sisters. A major tribal battle ensued, and the sisters were turned to stone by an elder to protect them, but he was killed in the fighting and no one else could turn them back." [Source: Wikipedia]

Douglas admiring from afar 

 While Douglas and I were taking pictures of the Three Sisters, the cutest little old Asian women (I think she was Chinese based on the language she was speaking, but I've been wrong before) asked to take a selfie with me. I thought it was adorable, but only wish I had gotten a selfie with her as well - she was just too dang cute!

He wanted a touristy photo to show how unimpressed he was with the mountains.

After viewing the three sisters, everyone decided they wanted to hike down the mountain, into the valley, and then back up to Scenic World. The only problem was no one knew we had decided this. Nor would they until we actually arrived on the other side of the valley (on top of a different mountain) at Scenic World.

Tourist photo of me on the hike

Douglas Shoulder Surfing

Base of Katoomba Falls

 This is around where the group realizes they don't know where Scenic World is, and start randomly hiking trails. However, most people were going at different paces and the groups kind of split up into three smaller groups of 4 or 5 people each. My group was Lydia, Katy, Heiko, Lukas, and Florian. Sadly, for them, I am the least fit of the group and tend to slow everyone down, but they were total troopers! However, it took us quite a long time to hike back up the other side of the mountain to Scenic World. But we did it!

Not Pictured: The trail we just hiked on that cliffside.

Waterfall in the rainforest

Gravity, novel stuff.

This was a drippy waterfall. 

The other side of the Katoomba Falls. Basically we hiked all over that area

This was at the top of the mountain right as we got to Scenic World

 Scenic World has three attractions, a Scenic Skyway cable car ride (see through floors, go across the valley all that),  a Scenic Railway (a train ride down into the valley, steepest train in the world at a 52° grade, and a coal mine site in the valley. Our group decided to take the Scenic Skyway back to the other side of the valley so we could easily walk back to Katoomba (and not have to hike back down the mountain and back up the other side).

You can see the Three Sisters in the distance! We hiked so far!

"Its.... a rock!" - Spongebob

That is one big cool temperate rain forest (I learned that reading a plaque about the Blue Mountains on the hike)

 Finally, we made it back towards town, but not before meeting Rosie. The sweetest dog who loved being pet by hikers.

Rosie Pets

I loved the Blue Mountains! I would definitely like to go back, a little better prepared, and hike some more. The views were stunning, it was much cooler than in the city, and there's still so much we didn't get to explore. 

Shout out to my mini-group that stuck with my slow-ass self when hiking. You da real MVPs.