Walking the end of the Line

Our mission to travel as much of Australia as possible (while simultaneously living there) has been a major success. We covered as much of the vast country as we could before departing to our next leg of the journey (which is beginning to bring us closer to home). NEW ZEALAND. We have less than three weeks in this majestic country with only a campervan, rain boots and a few good maps.

Currently - we are over half way through this journey. We have finished our tour around the South Island and have just arrived in the North Island (after crossing an extremely overpriced ferry). We delayed a couple days before venturing across after news that one of the volcanoes in the North had started to burp hot ash and rocks into the air. SCARY. It seems to be settling but we are now avoiding that area of the island. It’s unfortunate because Mike had wanted to do a volcano walk! Ha ha. The South Island was absolutely spectacular. I won’t even try and put into words the pure beauty that stretches out in every direction. The first few days were extremely rainy and we quickly tired of the deep fog which limited our sights to just the roadway. But after that the weather and views have been spectacular. One of the highlights of our entire worldly trip was partaking in a glacier heli-hike on the Franz Josef Glacier on the west coast; a truly remarkable experience. We were airlifted to a safe spot on the glacier and then hiked with our guide through massive ice pinnacles - which at some points towered over our heads. Milford Sound was quite a treat with scenery that takes your breath away. And then there was beautiful Queenstown; a remarkable city with mountains in the backdrop. From here Mike went on the shotover Canyon Swing has an early birthday gift. Talk about adrenaline rush. We cannot possibly list all the amazing places New Zealand has provided for us!

Before we left Australia we spent 6 days in Bali, Indonesia. That was a real treat and luxury. Although an extremely affordable country we broke the bank by indulging in a few luxuries – like a Balinese massage! What a unfruitful country with such rich culture and religious influence! We were there with two of good girlfriends, Elaine and Rachel. It was to be our goodbye week with them as we were parting ways: They are staying on in Australia as we head home. After Bali, Mike and I flew into Darwin and headed out on a “7 day Red Rocket adventure” which toured us through Kakadu National Park, down to Alice Springs and out to Uluru Rock. What a blast. Early mornings, extreme weather, swags, beautiful sights and awesome people sum up this tour!

That is the update for now! This may be the last blog... as we will be heading from New Zealand to Fiji and then Hawaii before going home, thus concluding our amazing adventure! Cheers and great thanks to all the amazing people who have been an amazing part to this journey! It truly has, in every sense of the saying been "A Trip of a Lifetime"

Home away from home

HERE IT IS – A BLOG POST!! It has been ages since we have posted but it doesn’t feel like we are traveling anymore... manly has become more of a second home. We live on the third floor of an apartment building between the beach and the wharf where the ferries come in. So whether we turn left or right when leaving our building we get to see the beautiful, beautiful ocean! Right now we live with the owner of the flat, Linda who rents out the 2 bedrooms of her home – one to us and one to our friend Elaine. There is a schnauzer dog, Max and a bird, called Birdie (who would have thought?). Definitely prime living quarters.  It is a daily occurrence to go for a walk or run along the beach and grab a tea at one of the cafes.

Since January Mike has been working for a quadriplegic man. The hours are short but the pay is awesome with some cool perks. Sam is still waitstaff at a restaurant right on the beach in Dee Why and has recently started taking on a Supervisor position. Both jobs pay enough to cover the bills and some wonderful nights out! 

The nightlife in Manly is pretty awesome because there are the key bars with a laid back feel and whenever we feel like heading home its only a 5 minute walk before we are in bed!! And there is a convenient late night bakery on the way with the best chocolate croissants one could ask for (he he he. ) Cheers to guilty pleasure!

And yessssssss we have tried surfing. We each have our own board. Mike is the only one to succeed. He has gotten quite good and is quite ambitious. He tries to surf everyday for a few hours. You all need to see the smile on that boy’s face when he has a good day on the surf. Sam is s***, aka struggling. Playing in the waves is a blast but the whole standing up is quite challenging. Also the idea of sharks being in the water has her resorting to staying in the extremely shallow waters. There is a shark alarm that goes off when the lifeguards manage to spot one and everyone clears the water. But obviously they don’t spot them all because Mike was in the water the other day and he saw a shark IN THE WAVE that he was catching. Thank God he rode the wave in and didn’t go back in. Heebiiiieee Jeeebiess.

We are still coming to terms with the fact we only have a month left in our manly home before our last waves of travel before we are HOMEEEEEE!!! We are super excited to finally be reunited with family and friends, yet there is an ache at the thought of leaving as well.

We have an AMAZING travel plan for our way home. We are super super excited for all that is planned. Starting July we will be hitting: Bali, North and Central Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Hawaii and then HOME!!

LOVE YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU ALL!

A Long Way From Home, Mate!

HEY GUYS

We know, we know - it has been way to long since our last blog post. Life has been pretty sweet the last few months. But access to internet has been extremely lacking.

I think we left off with ending our trip in Perth. SO after bumming it on Will's floor in the centre of Sydney we rented an apartment in Manly for three weeks during the Christmas holidays. An entire house to ourselves with a gorgeous dog named Bobby! From here we both searched for and landed a job in the area. Christmas was nice but definitely not the same without snow. It is cool to say that we were swimming on Christmas though!

In January we moved out to a sweeeeeetttt house in Dee Why, where Sam works at a beach front restaurant. Our house was a 5 minute walk to work, groceries and the amazing beach and surf. We have taken up surfing, Mike being the only successful one out of the two of us. But it is a challenging blast. The waves are extremely powerful but so invigorating. Nothing like having your sinuses pressure blasted with salt water haha. We lived with four other boys, 2 from Sweden and 2 from Czech Republic and they were awesome to hang out with. We have meet some pretty sweet people here in Dee Why.

Living in Dee Why is like a dream. On a lunch break you can go swim in the ocean and catch some rays. The weather is usually sunny and hot, however some of January had an unusual amount of rainfall. We didn't want to move out of our house but with Sam's parents coming down for a 3 week holiday in February it didn't make sense to keep paying rent while we were off on a roadie. So bye bye beach house

Sam's parents came down February 9th and stayed for three weeks. We rented an amazing campervan and drove up from Sydney as far as Airlie Beach and the WhitSundays, before flying to Melbourne for a few days of city living. The trip was DYNAMITE. The weather was pristine with sun almost everyday. Beautiful beaches during the day (including body boarding across the waves and playing volleyball in the shallows), playing cards and hanging out at night. Fraser Island was a fun day adventure as was sailing and snorkelling the Great Barrier Reef. Oh and Fishing. (we ate the fish we caught thanks to the cooking skills of Mike and Dad and the camp BBQ).The Great Barrier Reef is stunning and it was pretty amazing to be swimming with the fishes, including NEMO fishes! We hit up a few National Parks along the way, some of them including dense subtropical rainforests with the most majestic and enchanted trees we have ever seen. The roads to get there are more intense and adrenaline pumping than many roller coaster rides. The downside was being sucked by the leeches who managed to weasel their way into our shoes and through our pants.

On our adventure we saw Koalas, Kangaroos and Wallabees. Amazing birds. Dad and I had a parrot throwing fruit at us and all of us got to see a baby joey climb out of his mothers pouch. Adorable! No crocodiles though. The markets in Melbourne were massive, similar to Paddy's Market in Sydney.

Sitting here now it is impossible to remember all the amazing things we did but the memories are fond and this trip is proving to be the time of our lives. Just arriving back from our trip and sending Sam's parents off has left us slightly down. It was really nice to have a taste of home. We are currently homeless and on the hunt for a new place. We both still have our previous jobs but are unsure of the hours we will now be receiving. So cross your fingers and pray that everything from now on will be just as amazing as it has been the past few months!!!

Lots of love and missing everyone terribly.

Sand, Sun and Sunscreen

Good-day Mate

Hey everyone! As most of you already know we are now in the Land Down Under - Australia!! And this country does not disappoint. We arrived in Perth and spent the first week in the city centre at the YHA hostel getting everything sorted. Jet-leg kicked us big time here. We met up with Trisha (a girl we met in the Greek Islands) and she showed us a good time touring us around the city. We are extremely grateful! She even helped Sam get a much needed hair appointment. Knowing we had limited time in Western Australia before our flight to Sydney, New South Wales - we decided to do a campervan trip up the coast for 10 days.

We tried to secure a nice campervan that was on sale, but sure enough it was all booked out. Our budget then only allowed - the Hippie Van. Extremely skeptical of "her" with the purple flowers and butterflies, we learned to love "her". We named her Flow and she took us effortlessly up the coast - in style. Realizing on the road she didn't have airbags made us slightly nervous - but luckily nothing happened. The coastal towns were BEAUTIFUL. With teal and turquoise water, bright sun, white sand and coastal cliffs there was enough to keep our eyes excited. We went to the following towns: Cervantes (Nambung National Park), Kalbarri, Denham, Swan Valley and Margaret River.

We also saw our first KANGAROO. After Sam yelled out into the bush before climbing into Flow that the kangaroos needed to come out of hiding - one did!! It jumped out in front of the unmoving van and posed for the camera for at least 15 seconds. He then hopped across the road to the adjoining crossroad and stopped again looking at us inquisitively. Unfortunately all other kangaroos (and there were many) we laid eyes on had fallen victim to vehicle traffic. Poor critters. At another point in our trip we saw a lizard on the road who had been hit - we went back to try and save him but his neck had been broken. That was a massive downer on our day. RIP little lizard.

We also were lucky enough to see WILD DOLPHINS at Monkey Mia (not far from Denham - our last coastal town stop). The dolphins have been coming in for the few free fish from the locals for decades. When we were there, some of the dolphins had just had new babies - one only a week old! Adorable. We were also each selected from the crowd of spectators to feed a fish to a dolphin. It was really an awesome experience. We loved it so much that we went back the second morning to see the whole interaction again.

Our animal interactions did not end here! We saw sharks and sea turtles in their natural habitat swimming in the bay from a cliff top boardwalk. We visited a Ocean Park where an experienced Marine Biologist showed us much of the local marine life and pointed out some of the most venomous and poisonous fish. He even fed Lemon and Sand Sharks. They are incredibly graceful gliding through the water. AND at our last campsite during dinner we were visited by the river ducks. After Mike feeding them a couple pieces of bread we soon had more than 8 ducks and atleast 6 bright green parrots (parakeets). We even had them eating out of our hands!! So exciting! They stuck around, sitting on Flow and chirping away at us. We packed our bags in the morning with them around, with the ducks even drinking out of our pot of water. It was really fun! We spent our days seeing the free sites, frequenting the beaches and watching the surfers and sailers. Stove top dinners and sunscreen were a major part of our days. Isn't it RIDICULOUS that Australia - with NO ozone doesn't sell sunscreen above SPF 30. We have been wearing this everyday and reapplying and still have some intense tans in the working.
We are now done our wonderful roadtrip and spending the day at the airport waiting for our flight to Sydney - where we will spend our holidays.

We may be broke but we are two of the happiest and most grateful people in the world.
Who also miss everyone back home and wishing they were here to enjoy this amazing journey with us.
Love you all
xoxox

Sand, Sun and Sunscreen

Molweni

Hey everybody!!

Our last days in South Africa are upon us. Yet again the time has flown by, but we have not wasted any time. Last weekend we went on a two day wildlife safari and had a blast. The first day we travelled quite a distance in our little bus to see an ostrich farm (we even got to sit on an ostrich!) and later played with 3 young elephants. You could ride the ostrich if you dared but we weren't feeling suicidal that day. The elephants were about 9 years old and really well trained. We were able to pet and feed them cut up fruit and vegetables. They also hugged us with their trunks (which are incredibly scratchy and rough), and play tug of war. One of them was trained to throw and kick the ball. They threw it using their trunk. It was really an awesome experience! In the evening we tasted ostrich meat cooked on the barbeque. It was delicious.
The second day was our favourite because we started the day with a tour of the Cango WildLife Ranch checking out the African animals. We saw all kinds of animals including: snakes, meerkats, lions, tiger, leopards, cheetahs, crocodiles, vultures, bats, leemars, hogs etc. etc. It was really fascinating. The peak of our day came when we had the opportunity to go IN the cage with the "baby" tigers (the were 8 months and quite large for babies) and full grown cheetahs. The cheetahs were just massive house cats who purr really loud. It was phenomenal and we wanted to stay all day. The money we paid went towards the conservation work for the wild cat population. The excitement did not end there!
After this we travelled to a game park and were escorted in a rugged jeep through their park to see the Big 5 in their natural habitat. We saw antelope, buffalo, rhinos (and their baby!), birds, giraffes, zebras, lions and elephants roaming the fields. The giraffes were spectacular because they walked right across the path and were literally within touchable distance. Wrapped up in our blankets to escape the wind we watched in awe as all these beautiful animals carried out their daily activities.
On the way home from the tour we discovered we had a stomach bug from one of our children at the creche. We spent sunday night, monday and most of tuesday quite ill with some nasty bodily functions. It was exhausting to be sick and stuck in our little dormitory so as not to infect anyone else. By wednesday we were in tip-top shape and ready to take on the babies again. Playing and caring for the kids is incredibly awarding and we both really enjoy it. We do have a great appreciation for caretakers though as it is an exhausting task.

Friday we departed on our second, and last tour in South Africa, called the 3 day WOW Western Cape tour.      We started off with touring the beautiful countryside an admiring the amazing beaches including Hout Bay, Camps Bay, and Long Beach. We also went to Dyer Island and saw the thousands of seals laying on the rocks and playing the water - such fascinating creatures. But smelly. We did the mini hike up to Cape Point and experienced the intense winds coming off the ocean. It was deafening. The sites are burned into our retinas - absolutely stunning. We stopped at a few small towns as well before ending up in Stellenbosch for the night. We had a delicious dinner and drinks on the town. A very successful and relaxing day.
Saturday started out with a private Kaymundi Township tour from one of the locals. We learned why and how the people live in these settlements. It is very sobering seeing the rotten shacks and rusted metal boxes that serve as houses. It was nice to hear that here the conditions have massively improved and things have been changing thanks to Mandela. It is very much a welcoming community. At 10:30 in the morning we went on our Wine Tasting Tours at two different places. It was really odd drinking so early but some of them were quite delicious and we enjoyed some wicked cheeses as well. After a picnic in the shade eating some of our newly purchased cheeses we spent some time at a beach. The water was freezing cold! (15 C). We had a dinner and tried to see the whales in the bay but did not succeed. It was an early night because we had a big day on Sunday.
Sunday we were on the road by 6:30 am to make it for our Great White Shark Cage Diving!!! They served us breakfast after we signed all our legal rights away. Then we were given bright orange rain coats and a life jacket. The boat ripped out for about 15 minutes before anchoring not too far from a beach - an apparent shark hot spot. During the summer months these sharks actually spend most of their time in the shallow waters near the beach - hence why their are run-ins with humans. They chummed and baited the water and we had to wait about 30 minutes to see one. While waiting we were given our wetsuits - which was extremely difficult to get into because they were so tight! They were thick and hooded to help fight the frigid water. We were chilling on the seats when the first shark was sited. It was a smaller one at ONLY 2 metres but it was AWESOME. We were the first people to jump into the cage. WHAT A THRILL. These sharks are spectacular. Sam was afraid to even go on the boat at the beginning but now we she wants to do it again. They swam past the cage quite close, but paid no attention to us in particular. They were interested in the seal cut out and the fish heads used as bait to get them close to the boat. Every time the sharks came near the cage the crew would yell "divers down in front" or "to the left" etc. It was definitely an adrenaline kick. After our time was up we spent the rest watching the sharks come out of the water trying to eat the decoys. Absolutely amazing. Unfortunately for us the waterproof video camera stopped working after a few minutes of being in the water and our digital camera died. We wish we had more video footage to show but we have enough to capture the excitement of our journey! When we came back to shore our tour guide Xenni took us back to Hermanus where we saw whales swimming in the bay! They even breached the water. Astonishing. Our day ended with a walk along the rocks where thousands and thousands of African Penguins reside. They are ADORABLE. Some were losing their feathers and were on the "uglier" side. It was a phenomenal weekend and we really really enjoyed it! We are blessed.

Today we were back with our kiddo's. We took some photos of them and are going to get them developed for the creche and the mothers to have. Precious!

Anyways we have now written a novel - and it doesn't even capture everything. But it gives a glimpse
Missing everyone from home! Cannot believe it has almost been 5 months.
xoxoxoxox

African Time

Hello again!!

         Still in Cape Town and definitely loving life! This place is amazing. During the week we head out at 8am and take 2 different mini-buses to our project in Woodstock. (When we say mini-buses we mean large vans that can hold up to 15 people that are battered and play really loud and awful music with the guy yelling out the door trying to get as many people on the bus as possible. It is quite the experience.) We stay at our project until around 3:30 and the bulk of our day is spent caring for the children in the creche. A Creche is similar to a daycare centre with schooling. All the children are under 6 years of age and there is just under 20 of them. They are here because they and their mothers have been abused or are destitute. St. Anne's helps them get their life in track by offering living quarters, work/skill shops and counselling. It is a really good set up for giving the women a chance. The older children separate from the infants and are taught basic skills through out the day. We spend most of our time in the nursery. Sam is absolutely in love with the little babies. There is a new baby that is only one month old and he was born premature so he is absolutely tiny. They are each so cute and we try and divide our time amongst them. The older kids love to say that we are "boyfriend and girlfriend" and do" kissy-kissy". They love it when we go outside with them on the play-structures. They ran around with our camera today and were doing photo shoots of each other. Most of the photos are just fingers.
Tomorrow morning we are going on a two day tour called the "wildlife safari" where we get more of a taste of South Africa. Cannot wait!!
Missing you all
xox