Down Under

Originally we budgeted for two weeks in Australia knowing it's an expensive country. We were reminded of this all through our travels, but we truly had no idea and got smacked in the face the first time we bought beer. A 6-pack cost nearly $20, the same would be a fraction that price in the states. We flew into Melbourne and easily caught a bus to the train station, where 1 1/2 relaxing hours later we were in the quaint country town of Yarragon and with my Uncle Dennis. We've been telling Uncle Dennis for years that we'd be showing up one day, strangely he was always busy that day, week, year. This time he knew we were coming and when we nailed down the exact dates my e-mailed questions to him as to how long we were welcomed went unanswered. He knew that we knew where he lived and are savvy world travelers and could find our way there, so he relented and picked us up at the train station and gave us a couple of nights to prove our value as house guests. We are clean, we cook, we provide lively, intelligent conversation, Jason watches football and other sports with him and we don't smell that bad, usually.

We must have passed the test because we stayed the longest of any of his previous guests, including his mother and sister. Oh shit, I wasn't supposed to tell anybody. Please forget this once you've read it. If you are related to me, we stayed the allowed three days and were abruptly kicked to the curb. Yarragon is a small rural community surrounded by beautiful countryside and various other landscapes within an hours drive from forests, beaches, and one of the tallest peaks in all of Australia. Ask any Australian where Yarragon is and they will look at you with confusion, shake their heads and say, "never heard of it", therefore it's an undiscovered piece of stunning, unmolested country. We happily toured the area in all directions (within two hours of Yarragon) and listened to Uncle Dennis reminisce of his 40 plus years in Australia.

In the early 1970's Australia was suffering from a teacher shortage. They searched the English speaking world for teachers willing to move to either a city or a rural community for eighteen months. My uncle signed up, got his plane ticket, went to the country and fell in love with it and the rest is history. As kids we'd see him at Christmas every so often and he'd bring us Australian treasures and tell us of the strange and wild creatures in his back yard. Australia fascinated me, but mostly terrified me. It sounded poisonous, wild, backwards, flat and hot. I really had no desire to ever go there, except of course to see Uncle Dennis, but he was busy that day. I'm hearing his voice as I write this, "don't tell them it's beautiful...tell them only about the plague of flies that disturb your outdoor activities, tell them about the heat, the fires, the poisonous critters, the near two dozen different python species that call Australia home." I just did all that and despite these truths we could still call Australia home.

Please don't tell my Uncle, it's going to be a surprise! One of my favorite things to do here was sit on his deck and just look out. Over 22 species of birds live here and visit all day long, it's an incredibly special place. We were provided with the ultimate honor and met some of his friends. They all have the same witty sense of humor. Take note, if you're on the sensitive side, you'll need to toughen up before immigrating to Oz.

Two nights in Melbourne and we were hooked. We don't pretend to be city folk. Sometimes I put on a dress, some strappy shoes, clean underwear, deodorant and have a hot date in San Francisco, but I'm a mountain girl. I prefer fresh air, trees and a night sky lit by stars rather than street lights, sidewalks and 24-hour dining.

Melbourne has a small town feel with funky shops, excellent and affordable restaurants interspersed with numerous green spaces. It's laid back, slow pace is enticing, and they have a glorious library co-mingled with a museum.

Our first night found us in an upgraded, two-bedroom apartment, right next door to Aldi. Aldi is similar to one of my favorite stores back home, Grocery Outlet and we found affordable European beer and Belgian chocolate! We shared this with our friend, also from yoga school, Mel and had a delicious French meal together. Our second night found us in a room directly above the largest, loudest night club in Melbourne and quite possibly the world. Clubs don't close in Australia, they just kinda fizzle out about daybreak. If we had packed any club worthy attire we would have fared much better being in the club rather than trying to sleep.

Melbourne

We spent one glorious night and a full day with a new friend from yoga school, Ally. She generously invited us into her family home in Ballarat and spoiled us as house guests. Ballarat is an old gold mining town and it felt a lot like where I grew up, except a larger town with a fantastic museum. We enjoyed walking around the lake and botanic gardens and just being with such friendly, generous and thoughtful people, Ally and her lovely mum.

The Australian Open, aka The Tennis, was in town, due to start the day before we flew to Sydney. We had a late flight and bought tickets for the day of our flight, which also turned out to be the hottest day in Melbourne. We aren't sure why they call tennis, The Tennis, but it's just how it is, and it still makes us giggle. This was good fun and we saw some upsets. One of our favorite matches was between a tall, white American kid against the number 11 ranked (seen below), we caught the last two sets, of a five hour match. It was spectacular, sweaty, intense and humorous as we could hear the American making comments about his play. He ended up losing, barely, but put on a great show, with commentary and reminded us of our good friend Aaron.

The Tennis

Sydney operates at a much faster pace than Melbourne, with more tourists. We headed out the first day to see all the stuff you're supposed to see but then as the sweat ejected from our pores we headed to the beach, Bondi Beach. It's remarkable, a glorious, large white sandy beach right in the heart of a huge city. The water is refreshing and best of all, there's no garbage in the water or lining the beach.

Bondi Beach

Next to the beach is the famous saltwater pool called Bondi Baths. For $6.50 Australian dollars you can spend the day here, except on Thursdays when they clean it. These sea side pools, we are informed later by our Aussie friend Celia, are found in most all seaside towns and are built and maintained by the town. We went to several and were impressed every time, all taking on a different shape and size.

Bondi Baths

The next day was bordering on cold and we took advantage of the cooler temps to do as much tourist stuff as possible. Sydney's public transportation system is well run and with one card you can access busses, metro and ferries and once you've spent $15 worth of travel for the day, the remaining travel is free.

The best way to see the Opera House is from the water, so we took the metro and hoped on the next ferry to leave port. It went to the zoo, we stayed on the ferry and caught a ride right back. There's a lot to do in this part of the city, so we went to a museum, walked through an old town, walked halfway across the Sydney Harbor Bridge, walked around the Opera house, inquired as to prices for a show, opera, movie, all were well out of our budget.

One Central Park

Our favorite part of Sydney was Bondi Beach, it just has a hip, welcoming vibe. Sheryls favorite building is this one, One Cental Park. Google it and prepare to be awed. It's so creative, outside the box and gorgeous. Champagne tastes on a Coors budget.

We really came to NSW to be with our friends Greg and Ceals. We don't like imposing and are actually quite anxious about causing too much disruption and comfort to you in your home and space, so we try to come in and get out before you don't like us anymore. Greg and Ceals had invited us to extend our stay, even before we got there, asking us to join them on their Australia Day, 4 day vacation, south, to their friend's house. After one night with them we agreed, we'd still be friends after nearly two weeks together.

They decided that we absolutely must take one of their cars, camp one night at one of the two free camping spots near Pigeon House, then get up early to beat the heat to hike Pigeon House and they'd meet up with us at Dalmeny for a beautiful night of beach front camping.

At the top of Pigeon House hike

It was luxurious to turn off our planning, researching brains and just say yes and do as we were told. We couldn't have possibly made a better itinerary.

Taking suggestions for band names...

Greg and Ceals live in a beautiful mountain meets ocean town just over three hours by train from Sydney called Gerringong. Once out of the city the train hugs the lush rolling hills along the coast, charging in and out of tunnels. I hesitate to tell you how beautiful is, so as to keep it unspoiled. But seriously, if you find yourself in Australia, this should be on your to-do list, as long as you don't mind plague like proportions of flies and gale force winds. Their house is a converted dairy farm that just oozes charm.

From the yard you are surrounded by rolling, green hills with ocean views. They are the ultimate hosts and we never felt like we were imposing, always had something to talk about and they inspired Sheryl to try surfing again.

We hope to one day live in the same country as these two, and their awesome dog, Baxter.

After our beach front camping and finger licking good fish and chip dinner, we took our time driving down the coast to Tathra. Here are some of the stops we made along the way...

Beautiful, right? We stopped in a small town, called Tilba Tilba and headed straight to the Tilba dairy, splurging on fresh, full fat milk and housemade cheeses. I may be allergic to all things dairy, but every glorious Tilba ounce was worth it's price in gas.

After several glorious, lazy, beautiful hours driving down the coast we pulled in to Frozen Jewels, and settled in for a phenomenal three nights. With a laid back, live life to it's fullest, try anything once...or twice, smile always, give thanks, build it with our own hands attitude we quickly felt at home and among new friends with Fro, Jewels and V.

Not only did we make quick friends, we received even quicker nicknames. Australians conjugate everything. If it's long they'll make it short, it it's short, they'll make it long. (If you want to learn Australian, check out a Youtube video called: How to speak Australian: Abbreviate Everything.) This includes your name. I quickly became Chez, and if I one day prove to be a ripper, Chezza. And Jason, remained Jayce, his new name that began in Yarragon. Fro and Jewels are remarkably generous and kind, have a love story like no other and built, literally the two of them, built a beautiful, functional, nearly off the grid home together all on a pond with a exhilarating rope swing. After watching others hurl themselves into the rust colored water, not getting attacked by crocodile, we decided to take the plunge.

Vinny, Jewels' step-dad, is a jack of all trades, sea fishing being one of them. Greg has always wanted to go fishing with Vinny and graciously offered up our dutiful presence and witty company if he'd take us out. Sandwiches packed, sunscreen applied and coffee drank we headed out to sea, quickly finding a spot, dropped our hooks and then we waited. Four fishing spots, three vomits, eight fish, zero sandwiches and one hour later we were headed back to shore albeit white knuckled, four deep at the front of the boat watching the waves hurl themselves at our minuscule boat, laughing at two of our pale, greenish faces. Lucky for us we made the boat minimum but went home empty handed. Final score: Vinny 3, Jayce 3, Greg 1, Chez 1. The next morning, Jewel's parents stopped by to see what we were up to, everyone was out mountain biking so it was just Jayce and I at the house, when we were alone she asked me how the fishing went, I told her how helpful I'd been, chumming the water and she said she refuses to go out on the boat with Vinny..."he's crazy!" The stories continued throughout the weekend and it became glaringly obvious why the boat collects spiderwebs as yard art.

One afternoon we walked out to watch Fro, Jewels, Greg and Ceals surf, and V and I floated the lazy river. Good fun was had by all, including Jayce getting his ass handed to him while trying to surf with the big boys and girls.

We floated several times and when we got too cold we'd lay in the small land locked puddles and pretend they were hot tubs.

Simply put, these people are bad asses. They are outstanding athletes, world travelers, ski bums, live every day to its fullest, happy, grateful people. Fro, Jewels, Alex and Lawani, further melted our hearts with their stories of life in Tahoe, at Squaw in particular. We felt at home hearing them reminisce about the good old days, which often involved BT, remember, the one with trees growing out of it? We enjoyed a delicious meal around a fierce, quick to burn bon fire with Alex and Lawani and waited for the neighbors to call the police, as it was a no burn day. Our weekend in Tathra was a homecoming of sorts and we can't wait for the reunion.

We didn't think Australia would be one of our favorite countries. I'm not sure it would be if we didn't have such generous and fun family and friends. We looked into work visas there. We checked the classifieds and dreamt of building a duplex, one side for Greg, Ceals and Baxter and the other for us. Although it may be home to many of the worlds poisonous, vicious creatures, have extremely overpriced beer, and a language unto it's own we could absolutely call Australia home for a few years. In the words of Greg "Live it, Love it!'