The long way home

For my next installment, we hop across the Tasman sea to the land of shrimps on the barbie, Fosters and all
the animals that wanna kill you. I left from Auckland at the beginning of December, at ridiculous o'clock in the morning and arrived in Melbourne in the afternoon. I promptly spent too much on a bus ticket, made

Scenes from the great ocean road

myself feel ill with too much peanut satay and then rode a bike to my hostel. The city was pretty cool, but a massive shock after being in the wilderness in New Zealand for the past few days. I spent the next couple of days recovering to be honest. I also saw my friend Vilte from Lithuania who I met in Germany about four years ago. Ooooh and I met some penguins in St Kilda's!

      But after three days, I was ready for adventure to begin. I had some less than encouraging words from several people on my way out - "You'll never get a lift", "Ever seen wolf creek?" - but undeterred I took a train west, and stuck my thumb out. Literally the second car that passed me pulled over. Tatted up to the eyeballs, and swearing like a sailor but a lovely chap - this was my first lift  in Australia and my hundredth overall. My plan was to get at least some of the way along the great ocean road. On my way I encountered some policepersons just out of training (who gave me a lift) and about 10 cockatoos who tried to steal my lunch. By evening I got to the twelve apostles and had dinner with my ride - an Aussie and his Taiwanese lady friend. We feasted on chips and camped by the apostles.

Glimpse of Sydney

     For some reason I ended up in a hotel the following night - I'd made my way back east through Sydney. I woke up very confused. I think the staff were too. It was Friday now, 700 km to Sydney and a flight on Sunday. After a few rides, I was almost there! In Ulladulah, a car pulled over with two girls my age, "Are you a serial killer?" asked one. I reassured them that I was pretty harmless and hopped in. Due to inclement weather, I ended up staying at Tamika (remember this name) and Melissa's place... which I had to break into after a night in Ulladulah. I enjoyed having a bed, but was out of there by 8 the following morning.
     Midday on Saturday brought me to Wollongong, where I found Michal - the chef from Snails! I was now about 80 km outside of Sydney and was excited for my second reunion of that day... I found Sarah from school. We adventure-swapped and explored the city that night. After less than 24 hours in Sydney, I was on a plane to the cold winds of Oklahoma. All in all, traveling from Auckland to my parent's house took over a week. Adventuring was to take a break for a couple of weeks as I visited family, recovered from jet-lag and getting ill.

Old friends, new friends