It’s been around five weeks since I left New Zealand, since I left my home and my ‘family’ in Wellington, and crossed the ditch into Australia. I was pretty upset to be leaving New Zealand, and even though I chose to head to Australia, I did it more as a way to avoid heading back to the UK as opposed to my having any real desire to see this country!
And after only five weeks, I can definitely say that I’m happy to have made the choice to come here.
I’ve had a whirlwind of a time since arriving , with my first few days being spent in Sydney with my sister, Candace, and with nothing better to do than play tourist, we ended up heading to Bondi Beach out first day there…
The beach itself isn’t much to write home about. Sure it’s pretty enough, and it has a great surf, but I’m not sure why it’s such a huge tourist destination as I’ve definitely visited better beaches! I can only assume it’s mainly because of its closeness to the city itself? Still, it’s one of those ‘touristy’ things to tick off if you’ve got the spare time to do it and want to get out of Sydney for a day!
We’d had breakfast in Darling Harbour that morning and decided to head back there for dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe (it had to be done!). After settling in with some cocktails and some damn good food, we were treated to a fireworks show my sister tells me they have every Saturday evening at 9pm- and we got to watch it right from the comfort of our harbourside facing table! The firework show itself lasted a good long while and I certainly recommend it as one of those freebies to check out if you’re around the area.
The day after we went out to The Blue Mountains, which I’ll talk about more in a seperate post, but for now will say that it was an amazing day all round! We visited Scenic World and got to see The Blue Mountains themselves as well as The Three Sisters, plus some of our guides were just hilarious and definitely kept us entertained in the queues!
After the long weekend, we ended up in Canberra where my sister lives and I spent the next week and a bit in a sort of limbo trying to decide whether to find work there or to move on to somewhere more exciting.
Thankfully- as fate would have it- I ended up acquiring a work for accomodation position at the Dreamtime Travellers Rest in Cairns, and arrived here on the 31st of March! I’m very much in love with Cairns already- this tropical little city is pretty cute, and quirky, and SO WARM!
Though there isn’t much to do if you’re not willing to pay out for day trips and activities, I did have quite a bit of fun heading up into the rainforest village of Kurada my first week here. There’s also the Esplanade and Lagoon which is like a free outdoor swimming pool overlooking the sea (which you can’t swim in even if you wanted to because: crocodiles! :D).
The plan is to be here for the next six weeks before commencing my first Aussie Road Trip around Queensland and the Northern Territory with a couple of friends who are flying in from America for the four weeks we have planned. I’m pretty excited about getting to see them again!
And after that? Who knows! But I look forward to seeing where this next adventure takes me.
–Carmen-Shea