Life's a Beach!

Managing a travel blog is not as easy as it looks. Some internet cafe's have the slowest connections and I sometimes spend an hour just trying to upload photos, only to run out of time and then realize half of the photos didn't actually upload. So unfortunately this is all you get this time around. I have been heading north up the east coast of Australia seeing gorgeous beach after beach after beach.

BYRON BAY


SURFER'S PARADISE


FRASER ISLAND



So many beaches, so little time. I could honestly take a year to do this exact same trip and still not get enough. The weather has gotten warmer, it's bikini weather by day and sweatshirt weather by night. My tan is coming back. I am loving it here. My time is running out so I am heading up to Cairns to do some diving on the Great Barrier Reef next. Stay tuned for another post shortly and maybe I can get some more photos on here next time!

G'Day

Leaving Fiji I went from flying on on of the smallest planes ever, to the largest. I arrived in Sydney on July 5th and my first thought was...this city is HUGE! Sydney has a population of over 4 million people! Deciding where to stay was my first task, and with some advice from others I finally chose Bondi Beach, one of the top ten surfing locations in the world. The beach was absolutly gorgeous and if I was a surfer I'd say the surf was amazing. My hostel was right on the beach and my only wish was for the weather to be a little warmer so I could enjoy the beach a little more.


Walking around Sydney is a little surreal when seeing the Opera House and Harbour Bay Bridge up close and personal after growing up with seeing them on TV.



I visited the Toranga Zoo and loved watching the giraffes feed with landscapes of the city skyline behind them.

The City of Sydney is similar to San Francisco in the there are street performers everywhere trying to earn a buck by displaying some talents. I caught a couple of aboriginis in full costume playing some tunes.

One of my favorite parts of the city was my walk through the botanical gardens. They are a large grassy area just next to the opera house full of all types of trees, flowers and wildlife. I was surprised to learn that white cockatoos are wild here, as well as "flying foxes" fruit bats. I'd only been in Australia one day and already was seeing tons of wildlife in the wild....and I'm in the middle of the city!



The next day I noticed another type of bird flying around. Larakeets aparently also fly everywhere in the wild here. Birds this colorful are ones I usually only see in cages.

I took a trip up to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, just about two hours drive inland from Sydney. The Blue Mountains are part of a great dividing range between the coast and the interior of Australia. They are called the Blue Mountains because the over 700 varieties of Eucalyptus trees in the area release their oils into the air and create a haze over the entire area that gives it a bluish glow. My favorite part of the day was seeing a wildlife preserve and hanging out with the koala's. I even got to pet this one...it was so cute and fur was so soft.



Do you know what kind of bird this is? It's almost as big as an emu. If you guessed Cassowary you were right. I think it's the ugliest bird I've ever seen!



Australian is a whole different way of speaking English. How well do you know Australian? See if you can guess what the following phrases mean. These are things I've heard over the past few days that really made me think twice about what was being said to me. No cheating.
"Sit down for some bush tucker."
"Dropped your sunnies."
"You're just havin' a sticky."

MANY BULAS!

cheers in Fiji

Everyone who has been to Fiji will tell you that to really experience Fiji you need to get off of the main island of Viti Levu and go to the outer islands. Now that I've been there, I agree completely. There are so many little islands to choose from, so after a few hours and days of conbut I decided to head to Taveuni, the garden Island of Fiji. Taveuni is known for its beauty and excellent scuba diving. The island lies just north and east of Viti Levu, about 1 hour in a tiny plane that seats 15. After I landed I walked about 15 minutes down the road to a little place called Beverly's Campground. A small campground right on the beach where they set you up with a tent, throw a matress, pillow and sheets inside, all fro $15 Fijian, which is a little over $10 a night US. I felt like I'd found a little slice of heaven and watched the sunset from my front yard.






Fiji has over 300 islands in its archipelago, each fringed with coral reefs and lapped by warm azure waters - the diving and snorkelling are superb. Amid its wealth of natural beauty, Fiji's true magic lies in its people and the fascinating blend of their diverse cultures.

Fiji is an interesting blend of Melanesian, Polynesian, Micronesian, Indian, Chinese and European influences. For nearly 50 years, until the military coup of 1987 and the Indian emigration that followed it, the indigenous people of Fiji represented an ethnic minority in their own land.

A military coup took place in Fiji on Dec 5, 2006 and the army is now in control of the country. The situation is calm and generally safe but it could deteriorate. I talked to locals who expressed their frustration with the political climate, but as a traveler I felt extremly safe. Most Fijians told me they love tourists in their country because they are economically dependent upon tourism.


From the island of Taveuni I went Scuba Diving along the The Rainbow Reef in the Somosomo Straights. This has to be the most beautiful dive I have ever done. The coral life in Fiji is amazing with beautiful colors and a wide variety of coral types. I will definitely come back to Fiji again just to dive.

Fiji is green and lush everywhere you look. All of the islands are covered in coconut palms, mango trees, breadfruit trees and there are beautiful beaches everywhere. The islands are surrounded by the warmest turquoise waters.






From Taveuni I took a three hour boat ride out to an even smaller island called Nanuku. I thought I had found heaven when I arrived on Taveuni until I reached Nanuku. Nanuku is a small island surrounded by the whitest sand beaches all the way around the perimiter. The center of the island is covered in lush green trees which provide a nice respite from the hot, hot sun. The waters surrounding the island are a plethora of blues, greens and turquoises. There are two houses on the island, one for the care taker, a guy named Dom from Colorado, and one for guests. I was only on the island for a short while, but it has earned a place in my heart as one of the most beautiful places I've been to.







I love Fiji!

BULA!

Hello in Fiji is Bula and every Fijian you see will say it to you with a big smile on thier face. They aren't trying to sell you anything, they are sincerely happy to have you in their country. I arrived in Nadi, a city on the southwest coast of Viti Levu on June 24th. I was completely confused as I crossed the international date line. It's so confusing to talk to people back home who are a day behind. I arrived in the airport and the first thing that confused me were the men all were wearing skirts. Fijian men wear sulus as a professional form of dress. They are long skirts that are worn as a part of their culture. Men also wear shorts and pants, but sulus are their formal wear. Women almost all wear dresses or skirts. I think in over two weeks I only saw 3 or 4 women wearing pants or capris. I dealt with the typical confusion in the airport and people trying to tell me the hostel I wanted to go to was full and they wouldn't come pick me up, but sure enough after a 15 minute wait, my hostel bus arrived and I was on my way to the Nadi Bay Hotel. Nadi is not a very clean city and the beach was dirty, muddy and not very appealing as a place to swim.
















I quickly left Nadi and headed east along the coast line of the main island towards Singatoka, and the beach resort of Tubakula. This was my first experience of cars driving on the lefthand side of the road which is an experience in itself, especially when cars pass each other or cows are blocking the road and people are trying to get by. During u turns I absolutly have to close my eyes and hope for the best. I ended up at beatiful Tubakula with my own little house (only $25 Fiji dollars a night which is about $20 US). The beach was covered with coral and was hard on the feet. I did see some amazing beach life though like a blue starfish.











I did dive one day on the Coral Coast (the south coast of Viti Levu) and took full advantage of the resort hotel the dive shop was located in. My dive was expensive and wasn't that great, it was a day after it rained so the visibility was murky. I did work on my bouyency and breath control so it was good practice. I did see two white tipped reef sharks at the end of the dive. I spent the rest of the afternoon lounging by the pool or in a hamock looking out at the ocean. This is the life!

Sweating in Lahaina and Loving it!

Maui has been wonderful. Riding around on Alex's beater bicycle, cruising around on scooters, laying out on the beach and making new friends.

Alex and one of his roommates.

My dive trip was great and I was impressed with how well I felt getting in the water again after over a year since my last dive. This was my first shore dive and the first dive I swam with a white reef tip shark. He must have been about 5 feet long, unfortunately the photos of him didn't turn out...but here are some others,




This is a frog fish...almost impossible to spot as he blends right into the rocks! The dive master spotted him for us.

Alex and I did pick one night to party hard and stay up until sunrise...not too far fetched for me every now and then, Sunrise was beautiful as we watched it from two chairs across the street from his house.


Alex and I went out one night and met a great group of people from Orange County California. We hing out most of the night and went back to their hotel for an all night session of Guitar Hero which I absoluty loved. For those of you who don't know, this is a video game that you play with plastic guitars and you strum along to popular songs. I was immediatly addicted as you can imagine! They invited us over the next night for a BBQ at their hotel.