Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello Mates!

How's it everyone from Wollongong, Australia, about an hour south of Sydney?! We just arrived today from Tasmania so I'll backtrack and run you through our Tassie road tripp'n adventure.

We ended up waiting until the last minute as usuall to book a car so that we could cruise up the east coast of Tassie but it ended up working out. We found a place called "cut price rental" and when Jimmy gave us a lift there we soon realized we were renting a car from a gas station repair shap, no joke! The joke was that our car was someone elses that they were working on and they were renting it for the time being while the owner thought they were "working on it!" The front end was smashed in but she ran beautifully and we decided to call this shela car what else but "Sally!" After a thorough (complete sarcasm) check of Sally we were off to use and abuse her up the coast of Tasmania. We took off some two and a half hours to Coles Bay on the northeastern peninsula where we set up camp on Richmonds Beach, a beautiful long sandy beach with great shells and chunky light sand. We were greated by an adolescent Wallaby who of course we named "Gary Jr." who chilled with us for a couple hours as we ate dinner, letting us feed him ucolyptis leaves and pet him! A Wallaby is just like a kangaroo if you don't know. We just chilled that day once we got to the beach and played volleyball, dug a sand castle and caught an amazing sunset as the sun set over the west coast which was the mainaland Tassie as we were looking from the Peninsula. I know it sounds like we have drank a lot but we have taken nights off and thank God this was going to be one of those nights which would follow the rest of our Tassie trip, we are calling it detox, haha just kidding!

We awoke the next morning by the ranger saying we couldn't camp on the beach so we packed up and took off before having to pay and drove towards Wine Glass Bay to hike down to it. We hiked to the beach, some hour walk over boulders and moderate terrain, making friends with a Walloby and catching an amazing view over the bay as you could see the fog roll over. By the time we reached the beach the fog broke off and made for a little windy but otherwise beautifully sunny beach day on one of the top ten beaches in the entire world! The sand was super big as it really consisted of tiny pebbles that felt so amazing on your feet as they felt like stepping on a cushion. We hiked alongside the ocean over some rocks that were discouldered orange in spots because of the algey and saw a dead massive seal that reaked of rotteness. It was sad but I think I got a pretty killer photo alongside the big guy as he probably when alive outweighed me by a couple hundred pounds. We mostly just sat in the sun and enjoyed the day and then took back up the trail which proved to be a bit harder as obviously is was more uphill! We got back in the car and headed back to a beach called friendly beach where there was free camping. We stumbled across a spot passed the seemingly endless beach by accident that was completely secluded so we set up camp there. There was a beautiful break off the rocks so Jay and I climbed out to the end of them and watched the break for quite awhile soaking it all in; on a desolate beach on the peninsula off Tasmania completely isolated away from all living organisms while we chatted about how we wish we had boards and could wedge between the rocks of this sureal surf break. We camped alongside the cliffs edge of the beach and fell asleep early on the soft sand as the sun set behind us over the mainland.

We woke to rain the next morning early around 7am or so and as soon as we caught a break in the rain we packed up and headed south in hopes of better weather to the southern peninsula. The weather turned around slowly as we headed south and proved to be a great day for all the cool scenery we saw. We first went to Tasmanian Peninsula which was a massive cave that you could look through to the ocean that had origionally formed by the land atop the cliff collasping. We then did a quick hike to Devils Peak which looked over a towering cliffside down into the water some thousand feet up. It sucks that the pictures will never do this spot justice but I have the mental imagery so I guess that's all one can ask, you just gotta get out and see it for yourselves! We got these amazing fish and chips at this little trailer next to our next spot we visited, which was a blow hole that spewed water pretty high up. The swells weren't really kicking at the time so it wasn't that impressive but it was still cool to check out. Next we went to a cave that you had to hike down to that was pretty cool. The cliffs in the distance were absolutlely massive and some of them looked like giant totem poles that shot out of the water. We wanted to check out Port Arthur, which was the first Australian prision spread across multiple acres and a beautifully maintaned garden with other bulidings in rubble, but we opted not to because it cost $25! So instead we went to a pub close by and had some beers while we sat and talked story in the sun. We soon realised that we could just walk around the fence from the pub and we were at Port Arthur so guess what we did? Blending in with all the old people we walked around for about an hour checking out two of the most visited landmarks in Tasmania, the church and the prision, both which were incredible to see. We got some sweet jump shots as usuall and decided to call it a day and head back to Hobart (downtown). We didn't want to impose on Jimmy's family because we had told them we would be back a day later so we decided to crash in a hostel which was pretty nice. Got some beers but soon realised that's the last thing we wanted to do so we made up random games to motivate us, like through bottle caps at the ceiling and than trying to rikashade them onto empty beer bottles, before passing out early again and catching up on lost sleep from the previous month!

The next day we took a brewery tour of the first beer to be produced and sold in Australia, Cascade Brewery. It was an old brewery set amongst the forefront of Mt. Wellington, intwined in Spanish chestnut trees and a beautiful garden. The tour was lovely as our guide was a big sweat heart and took warmly to a bunch of Yanks asking stupid questions about how beer is made and how we can make it stronger! Four ingrediants to make beer; barely, hops, water and yeast! We took off back to Jimmy's that night and had a light barby while I had noodles because I've been feeling a bit sick with a head cold, and went to bed early .

We boarded a flight early this morning at like 6:20am and go into Sydney about 8:00am. We got picked up by Di's daughter Zoe (Di was one of our mums from China we traveled with) and settled into another house which is Mandy's house, (the other mum). Today it is the 23rd but techinically back home it's the 22 which is Thanksgiving so we went and got a feast! We also met up with Sarah, who is Pele's friend we traveled with in Europe, and are all grinding tons of food tonight which we are about to start preparing. I am really hungry so I best be off, Happy Thanksgiving to all you Yanks! Missiing everyone heaps and if there's one thing I'm thankful for it's the incredible upbringing from my family that has allowed me to have the ability to travel the world which fuels my passion to keep breathing!

Cheers and good on ya!

Grant

Byron Bay, Nimbin, Surfers Paradise, Frasier Island, Austraila Zoo, Maloolooba and Tasmania, wahoooo!

Dear mates, (upon request from Pele)

What an epic journey ever since I performed the rain song on the last entry it has been nice almost every day! That day I last wrote we saw a little rain during the day but by time nightfall it cleared up and we had an awesome night filled with a wet T-shirt contest and lots of dancing and good house music. The funny thing about wet T-shirt contests is that it always ends up one girl taking off her shirt and the other girls getting jealous and then they aren't suddenly shy anymore and they take their shirts off and it's a big cat fight until obviously the girl with the biggest boobs wins, every time it's the same outcome so why do we still go to these stupid contests? Haha we go because everyone is a winner in the end! The next day we hung out with our newly acquired Scottish campaignen Jo and went to the beach to body board for a couple hours before getrting our trip iternary planned out for the next week or so.

We also decided to abolish the rule that you can’t say “fuck” because despite the fact that it is a terrible word, we all realised that we definitely enjoy saying it. We therefore decided to re-implement a previous rule from our Eurotrip last year that was you can’t say the word “mine” or you have to do “5” star jumps, which are like doing jumping jacks but yelling out at the top of your lungs “I’m a star!” Believe me it may sound like nothing on paper but in person it’s the real deal and it embarrasses the crap out of you, trust me! During the day we became bored so we shopped around town for some surf gear and quickly learned that shopping wasn’t the best thing for us as everything was so expensive we just cried. We made it to a chemist/pharmacy where we tried on sweet ass sun glasses for about an hour and I flirted with the counter girl pretty hard until she gave me a tourist discount and turned me down for dinner that night, but I still think she liked me for the record. We ventured out again that night to a club called the Cheeky Monkey and along the way we broke Scottish in (Jo) with the “mine” game and she quickly became known for her amazing ability to do star jumps and not give a hoot what anything thinks about her, it was good fun to see her joining the gang with such good spirit! The bar/club was filled with picnic tables that everyone danced on and after about a half hour of dancing I locked eyes with a gorgeous Swedish girl and she quickly became my entertainment for the night as we danced the night away with her and her friends as well as our gang joining in. Elina and I decided to call it a night after getting sweaty dancing and head back to the hostel. The walk back was actually pretty hilarious because we were both pissed and walked the complete wrong way until after about a half hour of walking we found our way back amongst a town the size of probably a thousand people, haha. I said bye to Elina the next day, hoping I’d met her sooner, but glad I met her anyway and we loaded up the car and realised our car was dead again (this would be a reoccurring thing the rest of the time with our car which we named “Lucy”). We swooped up some jumper cables and head them across the street until someone stopped to give us a jump, it was actually quite amusing and embarrassing all at the same time. Off to Surfers Paradise and the continuation of our endless Aussie summer…

Leaving Byron Bay which we all agreed was our favourite spot in Australia thus far, we took off for Surfers Paradise but made a detour to Nimbin which is a little hippie town inland from Byron. This little town was so funny as there were heaps of old hippie people cruizen the streets and just loving life so peacefully. There was a marijuana museum that we went to and took some pretty hilarious photos and don’t worry we didn’t dable with any drugs. The only really drug related story would be that I got my palm read by this crazy cracked out old guy that actually proved out to be quite hilarious and read me pretty well, I was impressed I must say but not impressed enough to belief is BS! He did tell me I’m not getting married until between 30 and 35 so I was totally stoked and pumped about that because I definitely don’t want a wife anytime soon. Note to future wife: If you read this I was totally kidding!

Getting to Surfers the weather turned soar again and even though we only really came to Surfers because of the great night life scene we had hoped to surf but never got the chance as the swells picked up and were super choppy. Some random guy had given Jay a bottle of a liquor called “cowgirl” which tasted like bubble game delight that would stick around us for the next week as she became our mascot, long story I won’t get into haha. Anyway, the first night in surfers we went out but weren’t really feeling up to it so we called it a pretty early night. The next day I got some exercise by running down the really long stretch of beach and doing push ups which felt really good to get some fitness in. This sounds really bad but we didn’t do very much during the day but just had a nice relaxing time. It sounds like we drink a lot and I am about to dive into another fun night out but for the record I could talk more about what we’ve been doing in the day but it would probably bore you as we have been pretty low key waiting for the weather to turn. The second night out was last Saturday and it was the night of the big five bar pub crawl night which turned out to be the best pub crawl I’ve ever been on! The clubs in Surfers are massive and play really good dance/house music and the girls are seriously out of this world gorgeous! We met two Swedish girls who were really cool and another Swedish girl who turned out to be cool but a little on the crazy side. All the bars were heaps of fun and after the last bar we were all just tired and sweaty from dancing so we called it a night.

The next day we got a jump for our car and once Lucy was kicking we took off for the three hour drive to Rainbow Beach, our hub before heading off to Frasier Island which is the biggest sand island in the entire world. We met the rest of our group that night and called it a night to recover for the long two days ahead. Our group of eleven included our gang (Jay, Meadow and Jo), two hot Swedish lesbians and five not attractive German girls. So even though we had all girls in our group it would turn out to be not what we expected as far as everyone being down to party and have a good time.

The next morning we loaded all of our gear into our Safari four wheel drive SUV and the eleven of us piled in while Jay drove and off to Frasier we went! The ferry across to the island is only like 10 minutes and after about a five minute drive getting off the island we had to stop because a loud noise was clanking against the ground below. We got out and took one look underneath the car to know what had happened, our muffler had fallen off, just great! We loaded the muffler across the floor inside and as Jay says “kept it liquid” meaning we kept it moving just with one less muffler, haha! We got to Lake Mckenzie where we spent most of our first day which was absolutely phenomenal; white picturesque sand beache that surrounded a lake of crystal clear aqua blue water. We knew right away who our crew out of the eleven was going to be when the annoying German girls asked when dinner was and the two hot Sweeds replied “grab a bag of goon!” Goon for all of you who don’t know is box wine or the bladder as some of us more commonly refer it as. After a little bit we decided it probably was a good idea after baking ourselves in the sun to grab some food so we headed north up the east coast and set up camp along a doon about 50 feet from the beach. After we started cooking wild Dingo’s started showing up and trying to grab scraps of our food and noise their way into the rubbish bag we had. It became the males jobs of course to scare and chase the Dingo’s off which turned out to be quite fun. We got used to the Dingo’s by the end and just kind of accepted them as they wondered around our camp and kept to themselves. That night we met our neighbours who had shagged up next to our camp site and got acquainted with what else but the Goon! The tents that they had given us were three person tents and since I lost my ownership with the gang because I wouldn’t do my cats and dogs at a restaurant I was voted out of the tent which turned out to be the best thing ever. If you put two and two together if you recall we were with two super hot Swedish Lesbian chicks who were super rad so what do you think Grant did but shag up in their tent of course! I haven’t had many dreams of home but that night before I woke in the morning I had a dream I was going to present an offer as I was a real estate agent, which is what I plan to do when I get home, and thinking about how good my life was when I was sleeping in a tent with two hot lesbian Swedish girls. And than just as I began to get really pissed I woke up a hot Swedish girls arms around me and realised I was living the dream! I know now when I am driving back home to present an offer to a client in the near future that moment will come back to me and I assure you I will probably swerve off the road and kill myself, haha just kidding!

The next day on Frasier we got up super early and took off about an hour north to Indian Head and played in some tide pools call the “Champaign Pools” for the first half of the day. I met a really cute Dutch girl and walked with her and her group up to Indian Head which was about a 500 foot cliff that over looked the violent sea below filled up with sharks. Sharks off Frasier Island use this ocean for breading which is why you won’t hear any stories of me boarding in the ocean off Frasier or skinny dipping during the night as that’s when they hunt. You can only drive on the highway, which is the beach, when the tide is low so you can’t only drive in designated times during the day so after about mid afternoon we took off for Eli Creek, which I thought was lame but others found it quite cool as they saw a fresh water eel and played games, and then took off for Lake Wobby. Meadow thought it would be cool to run to Lake Wobby, about a 30 min walk, so he took off and Jay and Jo and I walked to the lake through a massive sand dune and took some pretty hilarious pictures. It was really incredible to be completely surrounded by a desert and still be able to see the ocean and then cross over a hill, which we slalom skied on our feet down, and than come across a small lake as if it was an oasis. We took off after the sun started to set and four wheeled it back to camp. We were all super drained and a bit tired of the annoying German girls telling us to slow down when were going over bumps, which to our defense we were, and from the sun all day so we called it an early night.

The next day we be one to remember as we woke up around 6:30 am so we could drive at low tide and before driving we walked to the beach for a breathtaking sunset but not without our friend the Goon bag, great call Jo! After a rude awakening from the Goon bag we took off for our last half day to our favourite spot, Lake Mckenzie. We got smashed all day and got a bunch of people to join in on our festivities and good spirited fun and took a much needed rest before taking off back to Rainbow Beach and leaving our new favourite place Frasier Island behind.

The next day we of course got a jump start for our car and took off south for what would become an Epic day. We really wanted to go to the famous Steve Irwin Australian Zoo and to our great amazement that day turned out to be the Remembrance Day called Steve Irwin Day! Getting to the Zoo you could tell by all the signs how much of an impact the enthusiastic and passionate Steve Irwin had on not only the Australian Zoo but on the tourism in this country as well, what an incredible person who will be surely missed by all the world that loved him. We also saw Terry and Bindi and I definitely felt so sad for them. We got to pet Kangaroos, Koalas, Wombats and other cool animals and had a great day at the Zoo, definitely one of the best. We ran into our Swedish girls and were meant to meet back up with them in Brisbane but we never ended up making it so that was the last we would see of our beautiful Swedish girls who were so good together and great fun to have along the way. Leaving the Zoo we headed to Mooloolaba where I was meant to meet up with a buddy named Nathan whom I had met in London last year on my Eurotrip. Mooloolaba was a cool little upscale surf town with a really good vibe. I met up with Nathan that night while the boys got pissed and played Goon Pong (Beer pong with goon) and I kept it pretty mellow catching up with my buddy.

The next day Nathan picked us up and we headed to Noosa for a quick paddle out and surf, which ended up being just a quick paddle out as it was too chop and the current was too strong to get out. Jay and I were paddling out and I’ll never forget that we were almost passed the last set when I solid wave just came bombing into us and smashed both of us. We didn’t have leashes on our boards so they took off to the beach while we had to make a paddle back in while we were beat tired from paddling out there, not fun at all. We watched Nathan for a bit who was a super good surfer shredding and cutting when the opportunity arouse and after body surfing a bit we took off back to our hostel. Our hostel was filled with mostly long timers, meaning people working and just chilling there for extended times, and we all definitely felt this was the chillest and most fun hostel yet. We said bye to Jo when we got back from Noosa and it was pretty hard as we had all grown pretty attached to hear and all loved her so much as such a good hearted fun spirited girl. Have fun in Perth Jo and come see us in the states when you get around to it! The boys decided it was best to take a night off that night and since I had taking the previous night off and feeling pretty amped after meeting some hot Canadian chicks I decided to go solo and go out. It was a great call because the Canadian girls were a lot of fun and after playing some drinking games I was taking a liking to one of them whose name was Lindsay and turned out to be a super rad chick. With their friend Matt we all four went to a club called “Friday’s” which was covenant as it was Friday and kept the rules from our previous games and had some fun at the bar. We were all really comfortable with each other and by the time we got to the dance part of the club we were all having a blast. I quickly grabbed Lindsay’s hand and danced with her for the whole night as we exchanged laughs back and forth amongst the booming loud dance beats. We got bummed out at the club as most the kids their were young and university kids who just got out of school so we walked to the beach and laid under a palm tree under the stars for hours talking. It was a really good night and after having some run ins with some really lame Canadians previously, Lindsay totally redeemed the Canucks for me! Rad girl who I hung out with a little the next day before we got yet another jump for our car and took off for the Brisbane airport and barely made out flight where we are currently, Tasmania!

We got in last night and were greeted by my mate Jimmy at the baggage pick up holding a six pack and dressed in a suit! He took us to his house, which is lovely and super homey, and then we went to his buddies engagement party! Not going to lie, it was a little awkward but heaps of fun as Jay and Meadow broke it down on the dance floor with their ill robot skills and dance moves while I had some champagne and caught up with good old hilarious Jimmy! Some of you met Jimmy when he came to visit in Portland and if you did you know what I’m talking about as he is a freaking great kid.

Today Jimmy took us to a cricket match, Australia vs. Sri Lanka, and we sat in the sun all day while having some beers and just chilling out and relaxing. It was a really good cultural experience that I definitely won’t forget and I still have no idea what the hell is going on in that sport but I am getting the hang out it. Afterwards we came back for a barby at Jimmy’s where is parents cooked us some insanely good sausage, lasagne, hamburger, salad and much more! Some of Jimmy’s mates had come over and we played cricket for awhile which Jay, Meadow and I proved to be incredible awful at but managed to hold our own. Oh ya I almost forgot, in the morning we picked up our friend Pele, whom Meadow and I travelled with for about three weeks in Europe with, and Meadows girlfriend Amanda from the airport. We now have a crew of five, well six including Jimmy but we leaving him tomorrow for our road trip around Tassie. Tonight all the boys turned their cars towards Jimmy’s massive front lawn and turned on their lights and stereos up and we played grid iron (football) for like 3 hours! It was heaps of fun as all the Tassie boys through out all the southern football cliché slang they learned in movies and we all just had a riot laughing and playing some football, which Jay and I miss horribly!

Well, I am finally caught up to this very moment and I am sorry I haven’t written in ages as I’ve once again been lost in translation and having an epic time! I haven’t proof read this all and I’m too tired to care so I’m sorry for all my grammatical errors. I hope you all keep reading my blog as my intention is to inspire all of you to get off the couch and see the world! It’s late her in Tassie and I need to get some shut eye so I best be off as always.

Cheers,

Grant

Rain rain go away, come back another day...

Dear Friends and Fam,

How's it everyone from Byron Bay, Australia! We just got here about an hour ago after driving for another 5 hours from Scotts Head, a campsite next to one of the best surf breaks I've seen. But lets backtrack a bit, even though Tom's Dad told us not too but I think for this purpose it's all right.

The first night in Terrigal, Central Coast I went out after dinner with Tom's Dad Trevor to the bay and took a dingy out and dropped some fish in his trap to catch some craw fish for the next morning. The bay was really chilled out and no one was there so it was a nice paddle out and we saw a really cool specie of Pelican I'd never seen before that was white with these huge black feathers and massive long beak. Tom's parents prior to this cooked us one of the many beautiful meals while we were there and we ate our hearts out as we haven't had a proper home cooked meal in quite some time, two months now to the exact! Being at Tom's place was just nice to relax and feel like you're home away from home and I'll say it again, Tom's parents took amazing care of us and we owe them our lives! That first night we went to the local pub to get some drinks with Tom and a couple of his buddies and it was a pretty lively environment for a small little beach town. There were heaps of beautiful girls but we all found it a little intimidating at first but after feeling comfortable we met a couple cool girls and I'm sure the other guys will back me up when I say that the Aussie accent is super sexy! We ended up going to another club which Jay couldn't get into because he had shorts, super lame, so we he went back with Josh and me and Meadow and Tom tore up the dance seen for a bit before heading next door. I am not kidding when I say this, I spit outside while talking with the guys and a bouncer saw me and wouldn't let me back into the club, how weak is that?

Anyway, the next morning we took some boards out and caught a couple waves before a storm rolled in and it got choppy. The storm lingered around for the next couple days so we watched movies and talked story with Tom's parents as it was the weekend and they were off. We tried some vegimite (Australian yeast sauce they put on toast) which actually wasn't too shabby. That afternoon Tom took us out for a local legend, the Whopper Wonder which didn't dissapoint! It was a massive steak burger with pinneaple, egg, onion, tomatoe, lettuce and other veggies, ohhhh was it magical! That night we met up with Tom's buddies and took off for another night out. We went to a dance place after waiting for a cabi for like an hour and a half and danced to some good vibe music, lots of techno and old school songs which was fun. The next day the rain continued and we were supposed to leave but were reluctant with the weather and Tom's parents mentioned we could stay another night and though we didn't want to impose, we also didn't wanna camp in the rain! So we stayed another night and Trevor helped us map our where we were tentatively going for the next two weeks as we road tripped up the east coast.

The next morning we said our heart felt goodbyes and made Tom promise he would come live out in Oregon with us. We took off five hours north to Scotts Head and got to the campground in the middle of the night but found a spot under a spotlight and set up our tent. The weather stayed good through the night but the ground definately made for a rough nights sleep. Getting up the next morning we walked through the trail that led to the beach about a minute away and checked out the break and what a site it was. The break started at the point and slowly broke for about 200 feet, absolutely the perfect longboarding wave! We cruised to town and to the only surf shop next to the only market and restaurant and rented the two boards they had. We surfed the point break for about 4 hours switching off with the boards and I can't tell you how good it is to finally catch up where you left off (Hawaii) and cruise a wave for a good while, it's such a free feeling experience. After our bellies were red and our shoulders ached we called it and got some lunch. Meadow and I went back to the beach for an hour or so and just chilled out reading and listening to music along the roughly mile long stretch of desolate sand. What a good day, the next would turn out to be not so good...

I am now writting a day latter than when I started...
The next day we woke to our tent half blown over from the winds of the storm that was slowly rolling its way in. The surf was real choppy as the consistant break we'd come to know and love dissapeared and the temperature dropped considerably. We decided it was best not take any chances, since we had been camping for free the last two nights, and take off early that morning. The drive was about 5 hours to Byron Bay and rained most the way. Getting to Byron Bay was a relief to be back in a hostel with a matress under our backs instead of the hard ground from the two previous nights. We were roomed with a super cute Scottish girl and an Aussie chick who got our spirits back up as they'd been drinking all day because of Melbourn Cup (The race that shuts the country down). It is simply a horse race that everyone dresses up for and drinks the entire day, we got the end of the celebrations and just had a couple beers to get aquanted with our new crew.

Today has been pretty lame with the storm lingering around and I haven't even seen the beach yet which is really depressing but we just checked the forecast and it looks like it's getting better by the end of the week, cross your fingers! I am just at an internet cafe here in Byron, a small hippie community of surfers and liberals, waiting for the rain to stop. Better be off as my internet is about to run out. Paigemon or anyone who was on the Europe trip, we have enforced three new rules; can't say the word "fuck" or you get flicked in the forhead, can't say the word "5" or you have to do ten pushups and can't say "right" or you have to do cats and dogs! Traveling is funny because you can get so bored sometimes that little games like those are what keeps your spirits high and your motors turning! Traveling is for the nomadic at heart that want to escape what lies ahead temporarly and embrace what is just around the corner...

Cheers,
Grant

Gday Mates!

Dear Fam and Friends,

Cheers from the land down under, we've made it alive all the way from Thailand about an 8 hour flight overnight. The flight was good and we didn't get the best sleep but Thai airways took care of us very nice and it was a smooth flight compared to our other sketchy inner island Thailand flights. We flew into Sydney and got a cabi to our hotel on Coogee Beach about 15 minutes from downtown Sydney. After checking in we caught up with Meadow and exchanged some much anticipated hugs, releaved to see another good buddy. We also shortly after met up with our mate Tom whom we're staying with now in Central Coast. I met Tom in Belgium and we traveled with he and his buddy Josh, whom we just caught up with as well, through Amsterdam and Berlin last year during our Europe treck.

The first day we just chilled at the beach and body surfed as it was a super nice day with some great shore breaks that reminded me of a beach in Hawaii. There's heaps of beautiful topless girls on the beaches so in between body surfing you can guess what we were doing haha. That night we went out for a couple beers and soon realized it was Monday night and the bars were dead so we called it an early night. The second day we walked across the street to the beach again and chilaxed for most the day and did a bit of Halloween shopping which turned out not very successful but we got to see a little of Coogee Beach town which was cool. That night we went downtown early to catch the sunset at Sydney Harbor Bridge and the Opera House but ended up getting to Darling Harbor and getting lost trying to find them. We ended up finding the landmarks after a couple hours and seeing them for the first time was pretty cool because it's one of those country symbols that you always see that you've never seen, so it was good. The Opera House is bigger than I expected and the entire harbor is breath taking with the cityscape in the backdrop. We went to an Irish bar that night but again it was an early week day night and nothing was happening so we called it pretty early.

The next day we went to Coogee Beach for a bit and then hopped on a bus and landed downtown by where the bridge and opera house were. We went to the Opera house first and got some pretty sick jump shots and walked around inside for a bit. We then walked towards the Harbor Bridge and got lost and ended up seeing another cool spot called "The Rocks" which was part of the city built into the rocks and supposedly according to Tom used to be a really hard part of town in the late 1800's. Reaching the bridge we decided to walk across it which was pretty chill because it gave us an insanely good view of the Harbor Bridge and the cityscape. All in all, after meandering around the city for some hours we decided it was just another big city and weren't super impressed although the harbor was pretty spectacular. That night we got back relatively early so that we could throw some costumes together and take off into the night for Halloween! Aussies don't celebrate so we knew we had to impress them with our costumes. I'm sad to say they weren't our best but we worked with what we had and ended up dressing in really high gym shorts, short tank tops, moh hawks and wild hair, head bands and our hacky sac to become Team Hack! We were a professional hacky sac team from the 80's and definately played the part! We also found beer holders that were giant condoms which got some good laughs as well. The night all in all was pretty weak but we went to two decent parties with most people dressed in costume so all in all it wasn't that bad and we made the most of it of course and had a blast! I of course woke up the next morning with a giant elephant and it's penis on my back tattooe'd, really funny guys haha.

Today we did as we always do and waited last minute to wing what we were going to do as far as traveling up the east coast for the next two weeks. We found a company that rented these camper vans painted in hippie colors so we thought, what better? We got there today to find that they were all rented out so we ended up renting a toyota camery for even cheaper and the four of us traveled an hour an a half to Terrigal, Central Coast where we are now. We're at Tom's house and his mom is cooking us an amazing fish dinner that I can't wait for as she just made us tiger prawns and cheese bread! We're planning on surfing if it's good tomorrow and doing some fishing and snorkeling the rest of the day so it should be good fun.

The next couple weeks we are planning on camping along the east coast all the way up to Harvery Bay and surfing along the way, should be heaps of fun. We bought some camping gear today so we're hoping to save a little cash doing this versus buying a bus ticket and staying in hostels. It's super expensive here so we really are trying to watch our budget but we'll see, usually in the past this plan never works! Tom's parents are lovely and we just met up with our other mate whom I met in Belgium, his buddy Josh, so we might stay a couple more nights. I'm super stoked about the road trip and I hope we make it alive as we've had a little trouble driving on the left side of the road, haha! I'm sure I've missed stuff but whatever, it'll give us all more to talk about when I get home, which I hope never comes! Anyway, as always off for now...

Cheers,
Grant