Dec 2006

At least I found out what I wanted to do.. I went back to Darwin. I have lots of really good friends here and I got my old job back straight away.

I left Townsville and my dear friend Andrew in the beginning of December. Got a ride with a truckie, Allister. The trip took almost four days. We stopped in Charters Towers, Heugeden, Mt. Isa, Three Ways, Tennent Creek, Katherine, Tipperary (cattle) station, Adelaide river and a few other places before Darwin.

He is a really nice bloke and I had such a good time. I really enjoyed driving a road train.

We stopped in Adelaide river so that I got to see the buffalo that was in one of the Crocodile Dundee movies, Charlie.

In Darwin I got my job back and started the next day. One of my best friends up here has gone south so everything feels a bit different, but I'm getting used to it now. Making more friends and new memories..

I pretty much just hang out at the pub or with people I've met at the pub. I prefer that. Can't stand all the people in the city.

Now it's the day before newyearseve and I'm with Heidi in Palmerston. Tomorrow I'm actually working.. Hopefully we'll finish pretty early so that I can go out for a bit.

This computer can't find my camera, so no pics this time..

As I'm writing this I'm in Mission beach. Yup, back again. But not very long. Leaving tomorrow, going back to Townsville. Which is where I came from on Tuesday.

After spending a couple of days in Victoria, Andrew and I flew to Townsville on Wednesday. The next day we drove back to Airlie beach to catch up with friends. It wasn't quite what we'd expected, but I had a really good weekend. It was all different now that there were so many new people and very few of the old that we used to know. But on the other hand, it was like we'd never left. Strange...
Saturday we went out and had a really good time. The wolfjuice might have had something to do with that, hehe. It's a dangerous mix of vodka, redbears, redbull and cheap white wine..
Sunday was spent by the pool or in the shower. Very hot day.. It was a very good, lazy sunday. Especially after having eaten the biggest brekky of my life, the so-called "fat-boy-breakfast", which consisted of steak, bacon, sausages, eggs and veggies.

After the weekend we haeded back to Townsville and stayed there for a couple of days. I was supposed to go to Mission on Tuesday and stay a while, but it seems that there will be a change of plans since my friend up here suddenly got a girlfriend, and then it feels a bit awkward to move up here..

So now I'm back to scratch not knowing where to go next. But that really doesn't bother me cause I've got friends in so many places I'm spoiled. All I have to figure out is which place I'd rather be.. So I'm giving myself till after this weekend to come up with some sort of plan..

It's all good. Plans change all the time. It's part of what I like about travelling, the freedom to do exactly what you want, when you want.
So now I'm going to take some "me-time" and see what my gut feeling tells me, hehe.

Hope everyone is enjoying this pre-Christmas-holiday time, and I hope you get lots of nice, white snow back home!
The wheather here doesn't give me any Christmas feeling at all, so I actually envy you a bit.. But just a little bit.

Take care!!

Leaving Darwin was hard, I really liked it there and I miss all my friends..

But my dad was coming over so I had to fly down to Melbourne to meet him.
Wow, it was cold down south! I got a cold that I'm still trying to get rid of..

But the bonus was seing daddy, and that was fun!
He had brought birthday presents for me! Thank you all!!
I got a new camera, and I took about 300 pictures while we were travelling 'round the south. But I forgot the cable so I can't upload them at the moment.

First thing we did was fly to Tassie!! Great little island. We flew to Hobart and went to a winery, the Cadbury chocolate factory.. Mmmm.. And drove to Ross where we spent the night.The Man'O'Ross hotel is a really nice pub, I think my dad wished he could stay there for the whole stay, hehe..

But the next day we had to keep driving, had a tight scedule. We went to a wildlife park close to Launceston to see the Tasmanian Devil! And then we watched the V8 car race until I got hayfever... (It suchs to be allergic..)

The last day we wanted to see a bit of the Tasmanian wilderness.. But the fog put a stop to that, so all we saw were the signs pointing towards the lookouts..

Ah well, Tassie is beautiful, and I would love to go camping there some time.. Maybe next trip.

Back in Melbourne we rented a car and headed for South Australia. We stopped in Apollo Bay before the Great Apostels and in Mount Gambier before we went to some fossil caves in Naracoorte.
After that we took the inland road down to Melbourne again, which we drove straight through. We stopped in Traralgon to say hi to Andrew and then spent the night in Maffra at Helen and Robert's farm. They are truly lovely people!

Next day we headed for the Snowy mountains. We stopped in Jindabyne and drove up the mountains to see Australia's tallest mountain: Mt. Kosiouzco. (Don't know if I spelled that right, but it doesn't really matter..)
We went to the Snowy River festival and watched some horsemanship and Stockman's challenge. (Basically people riding horses, cracking whips, saddeling their horses and that kind of stuff.)

We've been to Canberra and saw the new parliament building, but that wasn't too exciting so we kept on driving towards Sydney.

My birthday was spent in Sydney, at the Aquarium and Darling Harbour. In the evening my dad took me to the operahouse to see a ballet, it was a really, really good day! Tusen takk pappa!

The next few days were spent i bit north of Sydney, we went swimming at Killcare beach so that my dad got to swim in the Pacific and watched the surfers..

Before we headed back to Melbourne again we went up in Sydney Tower and took a tour in the harbour on a jet boat, good fun!

We stopped along the way at Birldland wildlife park and got to hold a big snake and a cuddely wombat! We stopped at for luch at Helen and Robert's again and my dad dropped me off at Andrew's in Traralgon.

Altogheter we drove more than 800km on Tassie and more than 4000 on the mainland! Unreal! I don't have to say that we saw a lot and had a lot of fun!

Thanks to everyone for remembering my birthday! Some of the messages was real unexpected, I can't believe you remembered! But they all warmed my heart. I miss you all!