Australia

To start I want to wish everyone a very happppppy new years. After a low key christmas with some great friends, the crew and I headed off to the heart of sydney for the new year. This new years was hands down the best one of my life. It began at 9 am as the boys headed into town to reserve a front row spot on the lawn with the darling harbour bridge and sydney opera house in perfect view. Downtown sydney was absolute madness as 1.2 million projected people flooded the city. Sydney is known as the second largest new years celebration behind rio de janero and the second major city in the world to celebrate the new year behind Aukland, NZ (thanks for that tid bit Nick). After a long day of chilling on the lawn with a perfect view of the harbour kelly, brock, nick, tom and I watched the first set of fireworks take over the sky and light up the night.

the fireworks off the sydney harbour bridge

dont know who that weird guy is but if you look past him you can see the entire harbour lit up for the new year

New Years 2007!!!!!

Afterwards Nick and I headed deeper into the crowds of people searching for excitement. I will tell you this I have never experienced anything quiet like this. Being that i am a small town gal and not much of a fan of big cities, to see so many people from everywhere around the world on such similar terms living life and celebrating the new year really makes you realize how lucky we are all to be alive and bring in a brand new year!!! There is no way to explain the energy that was being passed through the streets of sydney that day so I wont even try to put it into words. After Nick and I spent about half an hour crawling through bushes and dark alley ways we made our way up to the best seat in the house. I climbed my way up a fence and watched the best fireworks display ever from a birds eye view of the crowd. Fireworks surrounding the 10,000 people on the street and I from all directions, from on top of the harbour bridge to behind the opera house to even the sykscrapers the fell behind us. Later that night Kelly, Nick and I wandered the streets of sydney full of energy and new years love. We sang along with a street performer and danced in a shopping center, things that will forever and always be held in my memories as New Years 2007!! I will say though that I am very lucky for all the people i have met along my travels thus far and without them I dont think I would have made it through the holidays. I miss everyone at home so much and wish you could have all be here experiencing all this. Tomorrow morning at 6 am I board a train with not much guaranteed but a hope to get some harvest work once again, in a small town called Griffith. Its going to be a rough few weeks considering I am scrapping the bottom of the barrel right now and still have so much I want to do in the future. So in other words wish me luck in all my endeavors and hope that I find some work. For all those who may worry DONT because it wouldnt be worth it if there wasnt alittle struggle along the way. I wish the best of luck for everyone in the year to come and hope that you keep with all your new years resolutions.

Ok so after Cape Trib we headed down to Cairns. The weather is out of control hot and yes I am as tan as someone my color can get(but thats not me bragging or anything). Up in Cairns Kelly and I had quite a few adventures. We attempted to get to a small rainforest town but the hill on the way up was just too much for Muff(thats the name of the Van that I have been living out of for almost a month now). So after sitting on the side of the highway looking like fools for about two hours we decided to take the easy way and head back down the hill saving our day trip to Kuranda for another day. In Cairns I also went out on a day trip to the Great Barrier Reef where my intial intention was to sunbath and maybe go for a snorkel while Kelly did some scuba dives. However I was coaxed into doing an introductory scuba dive. It was amazing, it was a completely different ocean experience than anything else I have ever done.

Currently I am writing to you from Byron Bay which is our final stop along our 3000 Kilometer drive down the east coast in hopes of making it to Sydney for Christmas. We made it pretty far in the first two days of driving but it wasnt pretty. Hope all is well on the home front. Happy Holidays to All!!!

Ok so unfortunately Lexie has left us and is traveling south for a bit before heading home for the holidays. Lex you will be missed by all!! So Tom, Kelly, and I headed up north to Cape Tribulation where we experienced exotic forms of widelife and beautiful rainforests. Not much to write just figured I would put a bunch of pictures up for all to enjoy. Currently we are in Cairns for about a week. I am however looking forward to my 3000 Kilometer drive down the coast to Sydney for Christmas...it should be quite interesting..

Just taking a stroll to find a not existing creek to swim in!!

For some reason they tell you not to swim in these waters?!?!?

nice shot of the walk to the beach

Cape Tribulation Beach

Again I miss you all and hope you have a wonderful holiday!!

Ok so here it is my official travel blog...i figured this is better than trying to keep in touch through a million different emails...plus all you computer nerds can spend the days following my adventure through australia.

This was our First Mate on our Sailing Trip to Whitsundays.

Today is the 1st of december and basically up until this point I have been having the most amazing time of my life.. It all began in Sydney and that lasted about two days before Lex and I made the treck up to Byron Bay, this is where the jet lag finally wore off and the real party began. Thanks to Lexie's antics on stage at Cheeky Monkeys bar we meet some cool lads who we began our northward route up the east coast with. We made stops in Surfers Paradise (during Indy Weekend), Noosa Heads, Redcliffe(where i swear we almost died), Rainbow Beach(which if your not doing fraser island DONT GO), hervey bay, and finally up to my current point of Airlie Beach.

The Wildlife is absolutely amazing in Australia, this is just one of the baby kangaroos we got to feed bottles to.

I have been trying the whole work thing but I am having too much fun to be pinned down in one place..so I do anything from a day of work at one job to a maximun of two weeks before I move on to my next adventure. So far I have experienced housekeeping work(which i decided i was too educated for, thanks mom), working on sailboats(which I loved but it wasnt enough funds for all my future plans), and tomato picking(which is hard work but quick cash and I guess it didnt help that Kelly and I stopped showing up after about a week and a half haha).

This is where Kelly and I ended up while the others were slaving away in the Tomato fields hehe

Airlie Beach Waterfront

If you asked me what I would be doing after a graduate a few years ago I probably would have answered with working on Wall Street but now i realized thats a boring answer anyways. But I will say I bet no one guessed i be picking tomatoes on a farm out in the fields wearing a straw hat. Now that farm work is over we have found ourselves back in Airlie beach for another go around. I think that gives everyone the basic go around for my trip so far. Wish I could add all my stories but then Id probably be banned from the site all together so I will keep it G-rated for all those out there underage or overage!!

P.S. Happy Belated Thanksgiving!!! Miss everyone so much.