The biggest thing I have missed so far on this trip has been some good ole Texas chinese food, and the first night here in Melbourne they all took me out and I had the much awaited honor of gorging myself on some fantastic chinese, and then while leaving Tony tossed me the keys to the car and told me to give it a go... and it was in this moment that 2 fundamental problems arose in my mind.

1. I have not the slightest clue how to drive a stick shift.

2. I have not the slightest clue how to drive in Australia on the opposite side of the road. So what did I do?

Well the first thing was walk to the wrong side of the car to get in to drive, and then remembered that the driver's seat is on the right, but after this was sorted in my mind, the jouney began. Since last Wednesday, it has been one adventure after another as we have basically taken a daily road trip somewhere, and I lost track of how many busy intersections I have stalled in because I am too focused on not pulling into oncoming traffic in the right lane. But alas, I have survived the test and now am just another local commuter, who's car occasionally dies at red lights, nonetheless just another local.

We took a drive to a town called Torquay which is home to the Great Ocean Road, along which we stopped and caught an amazing sunset on the beach and enjoyed a scenic drive getting there. This weekend we are going to an AFL game, Aussie rules football, so that should be interesting to see, a little more fast paced than American gridiron.

Other than that, just enjoying seeing my face again after a 2 month break from shaving, getting my nose pierced, and finding my latest reason to love this country...the fact that Cuban cigars are legal Down Under...life just keeps getting better.

And now a blog dedicated to my two favourite people in Australia..Emma and Ana. It all began in Magnetic Island where shortly after we met, they taught me how to pronounce "no" properly in Australian, which later spurred me to be renowned as an Aussie local where ever I may traverse, so for that I was already endebted to them, but it has gone much farther than that since I arrived in Melbourne.

I want to first say that Ana, Emma, and her family are honestly some of the best people I have ever met in my life, and I will be forever grateful for their hospitality. I was a complete stranger to Emma's dad, Tony, and he was gracious enough to arrange a room in his house for me to stay in while I was just some stranger from Texas, and they have truly made me feel welcome, not to mention made my trip infinitely better by showing me around and getting to see the highlights of this amazing city. And in a couple weeks her mum and stepdad, Trish and Bryan, have offered to let me stay at their house as well; so being a weary traveler far, far from home, to have all these people to do life with for a bit really does make this the trip I had hoped for when I first started planning this.

And since Emma and Anastacia are professional talent scouts for Calvin Klein models here in Australia, they have shown me a few "tricks of the trade" if you will, such as the slicked back hairstyle of the Europeans, the "pout" look that all good models have, and of course the secret language of the model industry...I think my portfolio is well on its way.

So, all that to say, thank you Emma, Ana, Tony, Trish, and Bryan for already making this the trip of a lifetime!

After we left Maggie Island we took a bus down to Airlie beach Saturday morning which is about 4 hours south of Magnetic Island, and departed on one of the most amazing trips of my life, sailing the Whitsunday Islands. We left the pier Saturday night, then Sunday morning we reached Whitsunday Island, which is the largest of the 74 Whitsundays, and home to Whitehaven Beach. As you can see from my pics below, it is a stunning beach with perfect white sand and amazing water, well, you get the idea from the pics...awesome. Then, Sunday afternoon we left there and commenced to THE one thing I came to Oz to see, the Great Barrier Reef. I'll post another blog for those pics, as it deserves its own page to describe the things I saw...and swam with... :)

Here is a slideshow of all my reef pics




On Sunday afternoon our yacht sailed to the Outer Great Barrier Reef, about a 4 hour sail from the Whitsundays, and after very rough seas and a good 4 hours of being seasick, it was like an oasis coming upon the reef. As the name suggests, turns out it is a really good barrier, the huge waves were breaking over the edge of the reef, then the water turned perfectly calm over the expanse of the reef...pretty awesome to see. After suiting up in my scuba gear, I got the chance to take 2 dives on the barrier reef and see the most incredible sights I imagine I will ever see in my lifetime. The coral and fish life were breathtaking, and was so amazing to see all the sea life that I have grown in my tank back home the past few years actually at home on the reef, makes a 60 gallon tank look a little unimpressive compared to what was in front of me..sigh. We were greeted on our second dive by a huge 5 ft parrotfish that came a couple feet away from our faces and slowly checked us out, but the biggest surprise came as I was heading back to the boat.

Let me spell out the situation here...so the reef is very very shallow, only a few feet of clearance as you are drifting over it, then suddenly it comes to a complete drop off into deep ocean where you can't see the bottom, and this is where I found myself treading water as I was waiting my turn to get back onto the boat. It was in this moment that I saw a large shadow move under me, and as I put my face underwater and looked below me, it was in this moment that I watched a 10ft SHARK pass directly under me, and what made this moment even more spectacular was that its top fin just about grazed my foot as it passed. Somehow fear never really came into my mind; seeing something as unreal as this, my brain just shut down and I just watched in awe as the graceful creature swam into the darkness below... and probably went and ate one of the snorkelers nearby, but for my purposes, it was a beautiful moment.
We then saw a second shark in the video above, but wasn't quite as menacing, but the fact that we were in such close proximity to sharks was stunning. After our 2nd dive we put our snorkel gear on and they tendered us out to the edge of the reef, and with a strong current moving over the reef all you did was make yourself as flat as possible to not scrape the top of the coral, and enjoy as I floated back over the width of the reef, whick took about 20 minutes. This is where the 2nd video above was from, so all the coral and fish were about 2 ft from your face and in such shallow water, the colors and formations were beyond words.
And as I was floating, the only thing I kept thinking about was God's love for us, that the Creator of the universe would take time to make something so beautiful, full of colors and such incredible complexity and balance, all for us to admire the beauty of His work; just a small glimpse for me of how He loves us and if he would go to such complexities just to make something most people would never see, I can only imagine what lengths He would go to in providing for all my needs and desires...all in all, it was a great day :)

Ok, so it has been quite a while since my last post, but I am just now getting to a computer to post some new pics, this past week has been quite a blur as I've done quite a bit of travel. So last friday was our last day on Magnetic Island, and to celebrate we rented scooters for the day and toured the island, which turned out to be a really awesome experience. The island only takes roughly 30 minutes to drive around, so we definitely saw all the sights there were to see...in about an hour, then basically just had scooter races the rest of our 7 hours, which I came up lacking in since I think it only had 1 horsepower where as Colin's had the full 2hp.

It was a bittersweet day leaving Magnetic Island, when you work closely with people for 5 weeks you make pretty good friendships, but that is what comes with a trip like this, meeting people one day then moving on the next, so I am thankful for my time there, but I was definitely ready to move on to the next adventure.

Oh, and I was extremely excited to:

1) Make it off the island alive

2) Be able to enjoy, or for that matter, even look at my surroundings without having to perpetually scan the ground for the next snake waiting to claim my life

3) Eat something other than the 5 items on the dinner menu at the hostel, and a PB&J for my other two meals

4) That's about it, otherwise I am easily satisfied.

Its been a really good relaxing few days here on the island as our time comes to a close. Today was day 28 of shirtless Aussie summer, thats right, a full 4 weeks without dawning upper clothing, and I'm really starting to wonder how hard its going to be returning to shirted society...not something I'm particularly looking forward to. One of the staff we work with, Lisa, took us out to the ocean pier a couple days ago and we fished all afternoon, and ended up catching some interesting things, definitely not your average Texas perch. or catfish. We caught a lot of small I forget what they're called, a freaking huge pufferfish the size of a watermelon, as shown in the video below, and I caught a Rock Cod, but it is almost small enough to be considered bait, so we'll just say we were shark fishing but were unsuccessful.





Then yesterday we went for our usual mid day mountain hike to a nearby beach, and ran across our 4th Death Adder, so we sprung for the usual "pick up the deadly snake with a stick and video it", another successful day on Maggie Island. Although this guy was much more calm, I think we have achieved Snake Charmer status with the locals, but I think its time for me to get off this island so I can find something better to do with my time.





Only two more days of scrubbing toilets, which is always a good thing, then on to our yacht sailing, then staying in Melbourne to finish out March. I think the most exciting prospect about the near future is chinese food in Melbourne, and this is amplified by the fact that I've been having the same 5 entrees for dinner every single day for 5 weeks, so I'm about ready for something besides PB&J for breakfast and lunch, and Chicken Curry for dinner, but I make sure and get my daily beach time in to offset this depressing thought. It's worked thus far.

I started my 25th day without shirt the right way this morning, at 4:30am...uggh. We left early and hiked up to the top of a nearby mountain and watched the sunrise, which was incredible, but turns out that the top of a mountain before sunrise is actually quite windy and cold, probably amplified a bit however by the absence of a shirt..oh well. We hiked up there 2 days ago to catch the sunset, but it ended up setting behind the mountains, so we decided the sunrise over the ocean would be worth it, and it was. And it is just about time to go hit a hammock by the pool for a well timed nap. This past week has been very relaxed, haven't really been doing much hiking, just enjoying the perfect 85 degree weather laying by the ocean and hanging out with friends here at the hostel. My time is winding down on the island, we leave next Saturday morning to bus down to Airlie beach; we've seen about all there is to see here, and cleaned enough hostel toilets to last a lifetime, so I think I'm ready to move on. Although Colin and I have found good ways to keep ourselves entertained..we've become scientists of sorts you could say, performing experimental research on the fauna and flora, such as... What will happen after a month of pouring the dirty mop water on a tree? Or how will the subject in question (australian possum) respond when a laser is pointed at it, or how will it respond to me kicking it after it bit me on the toe? Or what will the response be when lemon spray cleaner is applied to various flying insects that get in our way while cleaning? We'll see, thats just what scientists do.

Here is a quick video snippet of everyday life on the island, and one of the local inhabitants we ran across two days ago. We were with a park ranger hiking up a mountain, and there was a small creek in our path we had to jump across, and I went first. Well, as I went to put my foot down, I had to make a quick change of plans because my foot was going to step directly on a death adder's face, and he looked pretty pissed. So, naturally we got out the video camera and messed with it using, and I note, a much longer and proper snake handling stick. (and no mum, I didn't pick it up this time!) We saw it strike a good dozen times, and I now have a much healthier respect for the creatures, because there is a lot of death bundled up and waiting for me there, so I'm keeping a much closer eye on the ground now.

For weeks we have been searching Magnetic Island for the best beaches and sights to see, and we have heard from all the locals about Five Beach Bay, this cove on the other side of the island that can only be reached by boat, something we've been lacking up to this point. We finally hit a stroke of luck and the manager here offered to take us out to the bays, and what a sight it was to see. After almost hitting a huge sea turtle and also almost losing our boat off the beach from the waves, we took a short hike up some rocks and came upon a 30 ft waterfall that flowed onto the beach and into the ocean, absolutely breathtaking. So of course we got in it, what else would you do at a waterfall?

And I just got done booking my flights and upcoming trip..on the 15th of this month, we will bus down to Airlie Beach, where the Whitsunday islands are located. If you don't know about the Whitsundays, do a quick google search and you will understand why this is a very exciting prospect for me! We will be getting on a yacht and taking a 3 day, 3 night cruise around the Whitsundays, making several stops at the phenominal beaches there, and one day we sail out 3 hours from the islands to the outer Great Barrier Reef, where I will be embarking on my first scuba dive, as well as unlimited snorkeling on the reef, which will mark the completion of #2 of my 2 goals in Oz, to see the reef...#1 was to hold a koala, check.

Then, I will get back to shore tuesday the 18th and spend the night at Airlie beach, and Wed morning I take a ferry to Hamilton Island to the airport, and fly out to Melbourne. I made some friends here at the hostel last week from Melbourne, and they have graciously offered to let me stay in the family's spare bedroom, so I will be finishing out March seeing Melbourne. And it just so happens as I found out in conversation that they have actually been having "Texan night" every two weeks for 3 years now, no lie, where they cook texas food and who knows what else Australians do for Texan night, but whatever it is, I will be honored to bring some authenticity to this sacred event by heaps of Ya'lls, actually pronouncing my r's, and saying the word saucepan correctly, instead of sawspin.
From Melbourne, I will be flying to Perth, which is just about the only city on Australia's western coast, where I have another contact through a lady I work with here. A dear friend of my coworker owns a huge ranch south of Perth and shouldn't be a problem to go stay out there for a bit, and eventually I would head into the actual city of Perth, but I will get that all sorted once I get over there. And just for a quick geography lesson, my flight from Melbourne to Perth is basically the equivalent of flying from tip of Florida to the northern tip of California with absolutely nothing but Outback desert in between, so needless to say not many backpackers get over to Perth, but everyone says it has the most incredible beaches in Australia, and from the sound of it, a much more authentic Oz experience vs just staying on the East Coast with all the other thousands of travelers and seeing the typical tourist sights...I never was one to take the typical path. So we'll see how that all pans out, but for now, 2 more weeks on Maggie Island with all the great people we've become friends with!

Oh and having a great tan from 18 days without a shirt in February hasn't been too bad either, that was just for all my fellow pasty peeps back home without a beach to go to everday :) By the time we are done with the Whitsundays it will be 35 days without a shirt; I don't really know how I'm going to cope with wearing actual clothes again once in Melbourne, it might be a rough adjustment period.