oceania

the toyota land cruiser that took me and kai from darwin to rockhampton

when i finally did make it to sydney, i had no where lined up to stay. my last hitchhiker friend dropped me off at a train station, and i took the metro into downtown syndey. i figured this would be my best bet to find a hostel. and i was right. immediatly after stepping off of the platform i saw multiple different youth hostel signs. the first one that i passed by, i ended up staying in for two weeks! i quickly befriended three irish girls who were staying in the same room as me. at the end of the two weeks, they were moving into an apartment, and invited me to tag along until my move to auckland! sydney was kind of a laze-about time for me, after my roadtrip with kai, and the truckers. i was relishing in being in one place for more than 24hrs. one of the highlights of my trip to sydney was taking the ferry to manly to meet up with a friend. who recommended i check out nannying. i had mentioned to her, that i was interested in staying roughly in one place for my time in NZ and not popping around too much over the holidays. so i was thinking of getting a job. so i then became addicted to checking ads, and sending out tons of emails, in hopes that i would find a family willing to take me over the holidays, and for my time in NZ. several days before my flight to auckland i got a call from a woman named jo. jo and her husband paddy were looking for a live in nanny for their four children; for over the holiday season. she sounded delightful on the phone, and after the initial call i had my hopes set on her family. the pattersons. after a few phone calls and emails later, i was offered the job! and im happy to say that for the past month ive been staying in stratford, new zealand to the patterson family. the children are zak(10), hannah(8), cooper(4) and keith(2). i feel like ive been here for months. when the time came for me to pack up and say by to orla, siobhan, and aisling (irish girls) it was tough. just when i meet someone and get to be good friends with them...i have to leave. jo and hannah picked me up in new plymouth, and i felt like we clicked right from the beggining. today is december 27th, and i have officially survived my first christmas away from home. not as blubbery as i thought i would be. i think it had something to do with the fact that it wasnt as christmasy here as it is at home, so there wasnt as many triggers to set me off. like arols on the radio, main street and each store front window decked out to the nines, snow suits, or stockings with clemetines at the bottom. so yeah, i guess it just didnt feel the same. plus this was the first christmas where i wasnt the youngest one in the house ahha! i cant believe the international part of my trip is almost over. in less than a month i will be flying back to calgary and attempting to make my way across another country. this one being my own though. i hope to be back in nova scotia sometime in february or march. wish me luck!

darwin

i arrive at the darwin airport at 3am.
i was lucky enough to find a couchsurfer in darwin named dan.
dan even offered to come get me at the airport at that outrageous hour, which i was so happy for.
on the flight to darwin i met a canadian girl from quebec, who was planning on staying in darwin for a week or so, while she tried to figure out where to go from there. since we had similar plans, and hit it off really well we decided to exchange information and hopefully met up. so over the next week in darwin gabrielle and i met up in the city centre and contacted many different people who were looking for travel mates for an aussie adventure!
one day we met up with an irish guy named kai. unfortunately for gabrielle and i, kai could only take one person. and since gabrielle's main focus was to travel the west coast, and kai was heading east, i decided to say farwell to gabrielle and leave with kai.
i met kai on a monday and we left for the outback the following morning. kai owns a beast of a landcruiser, which was perfect for the terrain we were about to face. i told him thats my plans were wide open and i was game for anything. and he told me that he really wanted to get to australia's most northerly point before wet season hit, so we set off for cape york.
kai and i spent almost three weeks camping in the outback. this was by far my favorite part about my trip to australia. we slept somewhere new almost every night. and 99% of the time it was just a spot we picked in the bush on the side of the road. highlights include waking up in my tent being stared back at by 19 kangaroos, seeing all of the indigenous communities, and of course making it to cape york, the northern most point of australia.
i needed to make it to sydney by the end of november, and kai was looking to head west, to central australia, so we split paths in rockhampton. and this is the part i waited to tell my mom about till after it happend. i decided i wanted to hitchhike!
kai was not thrilled about the idea, so we picked a decent looking spot on the side of the road, and i made a sign saying 'south', although i knew it wouldnt last long since it was POURING rain out! and kai parked a little down from me, so he could see who picked me up, and get their plate numbers. within two minutes of standing out on the road, a white suv stopped, and i jogged up to the side to see where he was heading. his name was ian and he was heading five hours down the road to maryborough. ian was the first of the four guys that took me from rockhampton to sydney. this was the thrill and experience of a lifetime. although i must admit, im not in any hurry to do it again.