Today is Saturday the 22nd of January and it has been a while since my last update. This one will not have any pictures unfortunately but I might be able to add some when I get home. The last few days have been awesome. After dropping Shannon off in Sydney I started my solo trip up the coast. My first stop was Newcastle. Newcastle was really nice. Lots of stuff to do and see including many old buldings from the mid to late 1800's. I found so many people to talk to that I didn't get everything done the first day so I had to stay another. I met a guy named Anton from Iceland in the Newcastle YHA (where i was staying). He highly recommended that I stop in Tea Gardens on my way up and stay at a small little hostel called Lazy Paddles www.lazypaddles.com.au. Boy am I glad I did. The hostel was small, had two rooms of three bunk beds (twelve people total) however the rooms weren't full. The hostel was run by a guy named Larry. He is a really relaxed and trusting guy who loves photography, nature, and kayaking. He let us take bikes out for free to see the town or to get to places to hike like Yaccaba. I hiked to the top of Yaccaba (300m) with two girls from Germany. We had a really good hike seeing Koalas in the wild. Since the hike includes about a mile of beach, on the way down we decided to cool off in the ocean. We found a really calm little bay with crystal clear water. It didn't take us long to discover that there were loads of stingrays hiding under the sand. They ranged from about 10-24 inches across. Also Larry has a pile of Kayaks for rent and also runs a 2 hour kayak tour most mornings at 9:00. About 50% of the time they see dolphins on the tour. Unforutnaly when we did the tour there were no dolphins but there were lots of birds and a high tide which allowed us to go into the mangroves. Apparently the best time to see dolphins is early in the morning. The next morning I took one of Larry's kayaks out for a few hours. I traveled up the Myall river in search of dolphins. I left at 7 and by 8 the sun was getting hot and I knew I had been traveling with the current and the paddle back would be longer. So i took a short break and was about to head back when out of the corner of my eye I spot a head sticking out of the grass. A horse? It was big enough... Then it stood up a little further and revealed itself as a massive kangaroo! The largest kangaroo I had ever seen. It was bigger than any of the ones at the zoo and even bigger than the cardboard cut-out of how big kangaroos get (also at the zoo in Sydney). He jumped away before I could get a picture but that's alright. Once I was almost back to the bay where I started I spotted them. Dolphins! I kayaked right along side them until we got into the bay and then I just sat there while they played all around (and under) me. It was really great. I sat out there for another hour or so getting a little sun burnt. It was worth it.

My first night in Tea Gardens I asked Larry to recommend a few good restaurants for me to try. Apparently there are two award winning, yet not to expensive, restaurants within a block of his place. I picked one and sat down at a table by myself in a corner of the nearly full restaurant. There was a guy at a table next to me also dinning alone. He invited me to join him. Turns out his name is Don and is a farmer as well. We talked so long that we closed down the restaurant and at the end of it all he bought me supper. Thanks Don!

My time is almost up on the internet here and those are just a few highlights of my last few days. To everybody back home I am having a blast and i will see you in 7 Days!

Sydney, Blue Mountains, and Hunter Valley

Ok so time to get everybody caught up on my trip so far. I arrived in Sydney on the 26th and found Nick and Tara without to much trouble. We spent the first day just wandering around Darling Harbor and Circular Quay. We saw the sites (opera house and bridge) and made plans for the next few days. The following day we went to the maritime museumsaw a military destroyer and submarine. We only saw half of the museum because it was so large we ran out of time.

The 28th we renteda car and headed out in the direction of the Blue Mountains. The Blue Mountain area is beautiful. We saw the three sisters (not much of an attraction but it is amazing what you can do with a land formation and a story) and did a short hike to Katoomba falls. We had a hotel in Katoomba but it was fairly run down. So when we stopped for supper in Mt. Victoria at a cheaper and much nicer hotel we decided to try and get our money back from the first place and stay in the second place. It was successful after telling the people at the run down place that we had seen the town and were heading back to Sydney (they laughed and said "ya there isn't much to do around here is there").

The following morning we went on a very beautiful hike down to Wentworth Falls. We planned a two hour hike but ended up taking a wrong turn which lead us down a 4 hour trail. This was fine because it was so immensely beautiful and we saw at least 4 large waterfalls with another half dozen ones that just fall from nowhere and seem to go nowhere. Later that day we headed out to Hunter Valley (wine country).

We woke up in the Hunter Valley on the morning of the 30th ready to drink! We spent the majority of the morning and early afternoon driving around to wineries and sampling there award winning wines. I bought two semillon wines (the grape that the hunter valley is known for) and Nick and Tara bought one shiraz, one port, and one desert wine. We learnt a great deal about wines.

Then on the 31 we got up really early to head back to Sydney to return the rental car and bring our bags to our original hotel (who so kindly agreed to store our bags for the day). Late morning on the 31st we went to the Sydney zoo. Then at 3 went to a spot near the opera house to start waiting for the fireworks. It was really hot and sunny this day so we all tried really hard to protect ourselves from the sun. It was successful except for one patch behind my thump where i have new skin (because of the cast for three months). Ps. We had trouble finding a spot in the harbour 9 hours before the fireworks!. We had an awesome view of the fireworks on the bridge but the ones that were launched from the barge were obscured by a tree. Once the fireworks were done we headed out into the streets with the other 1.5 million people and walked to get our bags (about an hour). Then had to head back into the mob of people to find a cab and not just any cab but one that was empty! The cab dropped us off at the domestic airport at 3am (pity nobody told us that the airport only opens at 4!). Anyways we had no other option since all the hotels were booked months in advance or $750 a night. We managed to get some sleep on a patch of airport floor before our departure at 9am Jan 2.