Byron Bay and My Last Days in Sydney

Sorry it has taken a while to post, there has been so much going on that it has been hard to find time to write. With that said, this might be a lengthy post but bare with me-- I promise it will be worth it! I'm just going to go by day so I don't forget anything, please forgive the repetition.

Wednesday ended up being the perfect day to get to Bryon Bay because our hostel had a deal with a local pub for a free BBQ dinner. It was pretty crowded and a little crazy but we ended up having a fun night. The pub had a bunch of games and contests for prizes, like a hula-hoop contest for a Whitsundays island package. We couldn't have used any of the prizes but it was still fun to watch people participate. We also sat with our dorm-mates who were a group of English people doing our same bus pass but headed North. They were really friendly and we ended up hanging out with them the rest of our time in Byron.

On Thursday we decided to try snorkeling one last time and it turned out to be our best experience since Fiji. It still wasn't sunny but the boat took us out to a cluster of rocks about 100 meters away from the beach. When we jumped off the boat, it was a good distance away from the rocks and I was creeped-out by how deep the water was; I didn't look down through my snorkel until we were in the more shallow area near the rocks. The first 30 minutes was pretty standard except there were some larger fish than we had seen anywhere. Then when we had about 15 minutes left we saw a sea turtle! It was a young one so it wasn't too big but it was just floating around near the rocks and letting the tide carry it around. It swam for a while and we followed it until it went past our boundary. We were so happy to finally see a turtle. It was so graceful underwater and it surfaced a few times which was cool to see. After the first one went away we saw another one that was bigger but not as pretty. It didn't do much swimming, but once it bit onto the rock and ripped something off to eat. By that time I was more comfortable with the deep water and I snorkeled back to the boat. It still kind of gave me the hibbie jibbies, but I didn't want to miss the chance of seeing something out there.

Friday morning we caught a shuttle and headed to the airport to go back to Sydney. We made our way to our hostel in the city and then met up with our friend Georgie and her boyfriend. Her dad is a member of a rugby stadium and so he gets tickets to game and we all went to a National Rugby League game. It's hard to explain the game because it's not like the rugby we have in America, it's more like football. Here are the highlights from the game. It was really exciting because it was so close, if you watch the whole clip the kick they miss at the very end would have tied the game. And yes, Pamela Anderson was there (no idea why), but so was Russel Crowe because he owns one of the teams.

Saturday morning we headed to Paddy's Markets, which is a huge ground level market place below a mall in Sydney. It's basically a bunch of stalls with really cheap clothes, food, and souvenirs. It kind of tired us out, but that night we still hit the town with our some of our friends we have met here. The area that our hostel is in is really popular on Friday and Saturday nights so it was nice to be able to stay in the area and walk home instead of having to take a cab, which are really pricey here.

When we got up on Sunday we headed to Georgie's boyfriend's apartment to make them biscuits and gravy. Over here they call cookies biscuits and they don't have American style biscuits. Georgie's boyfriend loves KFC and here it comes with french fries so we had to show him what our kind of biscuits were like. They turned out pretty good for our first time and we all had a yummy American breakfast. There are a lot more differences between our food which I will post about next time. After breakfast we headed to the Sydney Zoo. We got there just in time to catch an elephant show. They were demonstrating how smart and coordinated elephants are and they were actually kicking a regular size soccer ball back and forth! They could do other amazing things too like balance on a balance beam with alternating front and back legs extended so they were only standing on two legs. It was so cool to see such huge animals doing tasks like that. Another highlight was seeing koala's eating. They had a feeding time at 3 o'clock which is when they were most active because on average koalas sleep 20 hours a day, which is more than sloths. All they did was sit there and eat, but as one of them was climbing down the tree we could see that she had a little baby clutched to her stomach. It was really small and didn't move much, but it was still cool to see. There was also a newborn baby gorilla and a platypus tank where we could watch one swimming around.

Today is my last full day in Sydney. We don't really have anything planned because we have already seen and done almost everything (that we can afford). Tonight we will have dinner with our friends and Georgie and then tomorrow we head to Sydney Airport to fly home. It's really strange because our flight departs here Sept. 2nd at 1:10pm, we have a three hour layover in Fiji, and then we get to LAX on Sept. 2nd at 1:20pm-- we lose no time at all traveling. I wish the flight were actually 10 minutes instead of 13 hours!

Just because I'm leaving doesn't mean I'm done posting. Next time I write it will be from Santa Barbara but I want to share my general thoughts about Australia, traveling, other people we have met, and of course pictures. I put them onto Georgie's laptop last night and there are about 1500(!) so look forward to some good albums.