The last section of my Australia trip seemed to just fly by!
When we arrived on the eastern coast at Townsville after about a month in the middle of nowhere, we celebrated our new holiday 'civilization day'. It is an event that can happen on any tuesday when necessary (cheap pizza and movie night!). We also took the liberty of having nice, clean, spider-free hot showers, gettting a hair cut and eating fresh food.
We spent a few days sitting on a really nice boat in the Whitsundays on the Great Barrier Reef with a bunch of other backpackers. I did lots of snorkeling and exploring of island beaches, Simon even learned how to Scuba dive. We had proper meals cooked for us each day and there was a hot tub to sit in when we got out of the ocean. It was a real luxury after so much time camping in the outback.
I thought Queensland was absolutely beautiful. It feels like the Australia that you imagine before you get here. The weather is tropical, there are palm trees and sugar plantations, outback roadhouses and cattle stations, country towns and modern cities. A little bit of everything.
People generally think Queenslanders are a bit out there (literally and figuratively) and that Brisbane isn't all that spectacular, but I couldn't disagree more. Maybe it was because I had such low expecations of it, or because I had just come from such rustic places, but I thought it was beautiful. I was even lucky enough to stumble on live music at least once a day for the week I was there, either in funky jazz clubs or free live concerts in the street.
I did stop in and spend a few days in the famous surf town of Byron Bay just south of the border into New South Whales. Unfortunately we were approaching winter and it was mild and rainy (15-20 deg). It's a fun spot and I can see why so many backpackers flock there.
While I was enjoying the beach, Simon decided to head straight down to Sydney to sell the car so that he could get back to Germany. I caught the greyhound bus into the city and met up with him again a few days later.
I didn't have much time to see Sydney but I saw the Opera house, the harbour bridge, the botanical gardens, did a bit of dancing and even got up to the northern beaches (Manly and Dee-why) for a few days.
Winter in Australia is a funny thing. Although it's not actually that cold (15 deg), when the sun falls behind the clouds, the temperature drops rather quickly. The houses don't have proper insulation or heating so most people have a space heater of some sort that takes up a lot of electricity and produces very little warmth. And, everybody lives next to the beach, so when it gets too cold to go swimming , there isn't a lot to do. Mind you, that doesn't appear to stop the surfers, they are in the water all the time with a good wetsuit.
My last week in Australia was spent back in Melbourne for the Swing Dance Festival. It was an exceptionally inspiring event with live music, workshops, competition, dancing until the wee hours of the morning, good food and great company! Here is a clip of the Jack and Jill competition, which is entirely improvistational. Each person signs up individually, then you dance with 3 different people in the preliminaries and if you make it to the finals, you dance with whoever draws your name from a hat. I took 3rd place in this one and had a whole lot of fun!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3FraWV4ALY
After catching up on a bit of sleep and getting my things together I hopped on a plane for the very long flight to Sweden!
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