Heading North

I finally left Melbourne after stalling for 3 weeks. I needed to work a little bit but somehow things didn't work out. Not many people want to hire you for only 3 weeks. So I tried to keep myself busy and managed to get a job for the last week that I was there. I was only handing out fliers on the street but that is better than nothing. I learned a lot about human character while doing this job. Many people are rude. Most people would not even acknowledge my good mornings or hellos and instead would rudely scoot passed me in hopes that I wouldn't give them a flier. But, there were also some people who had some manners. During my time here I managed to find the weirdest people. I was talking on a payphone one day and this guy came along and was standing on the curb. I looked to see if he was waiting to use the telephone but it didn't seem like he was. I talked another 5 minutes and he stormed passed me into a liquor store and then stormed back out while screaming into my face "grievance!!!" I did not know what was going on. So I asked him if he needed to use the payphone because I was uncertain. He told me in no uncertain, and quite rude, terms that duuhhhh he needed to use the phone. I was pretty upset and no one else was on the street so I let him use the phone for fear of my life. There were many more crazy people in this place. Two days before I left for Sydney my ipod was stolen from my room. Nice. I was terribly upset and went straight to the police. But what are they gonna do. Apparently there was a serial theif in the hostel because another guy two doors down from my room had his ipod stolen as well and a girl on another floor had her locker broken into and her camera and passport stolen all in the same day. It was pretty strange because I was in the room most of the day. Note to theif: I hope you are enjoying my iPod or the dirty money you received from it. Karma will get you eventually.

I took the longest bus ever to Sydney. I left at 7 in the morning and arrived in Sydney at 8:30 at night. I was glad to finally get to my hostel, take a shower and go to bed. I could sleep though because I was too excited for the great event occurring the very next day. I was to pick up Aaron from the airport early in the morning! I hadn't seen him for nearly 5 months and I missed him terribly. He's here now and he's the greatest boyfriend that exists. He travelled almost 15,000 km just to be with me! I feel so special and I'm glad that he is here now.

We spent a week in Sydney taking in the sights. The first day we walked down to Darling Harbour, a posh little harbour development with lots of cool cafes including the Lindt Chocolate Cafe. We restrained ourselves from the chocolate for the first day, but don't worry we stopped there a few days later and stocked up on chocolate Lindt balls of all sorts! This first day we also headed up to the AMP Tower, the tallest building in Sydney. It is similar to the Calgary Tower and overlooks the city. We got a good perspective of the beautiful city and what it contained.

The next few days we chilled out so Aaron could get used to the time difference. After that we did a lot of walking around the city. We made it to the Sydney Opera House and took many photos of its unique architecture. We also walked to the Harbour Bridge, which is also a unique piece of architecture, and walked across it. In the middle of the bridge is the Pylon Lookout. We climbed to the top and gazed at the different view of the city as well as the Opera House.

The last day in Sydney we went on a tour of the Blue Mountains and the Jenolan Caves. The Blue Mountains were spectacular but nothing like our mountains. These are merely hills compared to our beautiful Rocky Mountains. We stopped at Echo Point to view the Three Sisters and travel down the valley in a cable car, the steepest of its kind. After that it was a long drive to the Jenolan Caves, but the view was extraordinary. Once at the caves we were led on a tour of the Lucas Cave. It was amazing! Much better than the other caves that I have toured in New Zealand and on the West Coast of Australia. It was a very long tour and had many different types of stalactites and stalagmites. Many pictures were taken.

Nice smile, Aaron!!

Tomorrow we are on starting our journey along the East Coast of Australia, next stop Byron Bay.