theLOWdown: Aussie East Coast

Once Whitney came over I told Steve that I would be leaving soon. I wanted to let him know up front about my plans since he had been so generous to me. He used to travel a lot "back in his day" and encouraged me to go see as much of Australia as I could....to a point....Steve also wanted me to come back and work with him for the next 6 months, something I had no intentions of doing. Between the guys' party habits that I was living with and waking up everyday at 6am, something had to give and it was me, giving Steve my notice.

I told him that I was going travelling with Whitney after New Years Eve. He was under the impression I would come back after a couple of weeks and continue working. I told him if I couldn't find work elsewhere I would do that. We would continue exchanging texts while I was away, about what I was up to, places Whitney and I should stop and see, things of that nature. I considered him a friend.

Once he found out that I had a bartending job lined up in Sydney and wouldn't be returning for sure. The texts stop coming...I haven't heard from him since. To be fair I went out on a limb when I told him I had a job when I didn't but I just kept my confidence up that I would eventually find what I was looking for. It's a shame really. I don't think he should have taken it as personally as he did. I tried to reconnect with him since but to no avail. Not that I have much experience in hiring backpackers, but they/we are a flight risk at any given time. Once the money is made it's usually on to the next destination. That's the code.

Whitney was a girl I met during my short stint in Texas. We worked together at Hula Hut in Austin. We hit it off right away and became good friends. She was in nursing school and decided that during her Christmas break she would come to Australia to see me. I was excited to see a familiar face and the prospect of her staying over with me for an entire month. I was still new to travelling alone and welcomed her happily.

Since she was only going to be there for the 1 month, I wanted her to see as much of Australia as possible (or as much as I could afford). The life we were living in Gold Coast was not the way I wanted her entire trip to be. She barely saw me...and when she did I would be exhausted. I put on a brave face most of the days and tried to do whatever she wanted after I got off of work...but 6am comes very early, especially when it is followed by 8 continuous working hours. It makes it hard to do a lot in the nightlife category, plus Australia is expensive.

We began making travel plans within our budget....well, more like outside of our budget. I didn't realize this at the time but Whitney was a hard person to travel with at first. Lovely girl, very outgoing, sweet, good intentioned, gorgeous, but she had never travelled like this before and I'm not sure she ever will again.

There is a major difference between "backpacking" and "vacation" that I think she missed the memo on. They are 2 entirely different activities. I don't think she realized this...at first. The first few weeks it was a very trying time for us. Something had changed once she came off the plane for me. We decided we would actually be together together. Why start then? I don't know, doesn't make too much sense does it? There were a lot of fights and misunderstandings, mostly about money. Finally, once she saw her Visa bill...she adjusted and things began to run a lot smoother (shocking I know).

These paragraphs probably make it seem like a nightmare of a trip. It really wasn't. We had a great time together and I would do it all over again. It's just that I felt very restricted in what I could do with her. A lot of times I would spend unnecessary money just to appease her. Some money was well spent, other money was spent out of pampering to make her happy.

I would pack lunches for us during our trips to save money on food (fruit, sandwiches)....she wouldn't want these lunches and want to go out to eat (just eat the f****** banana!). Or I'd pack water and she would go and buy a coke or something. Oh, the fury! She would always rather spend the "extra money" (where is this EXTRA MONEY you speak of?) to make it easier than to save a bit more and work a little harder. Things like this made our time together difficult.

There was another instance, when we first arrived in Sydney from the airport, we could have done a little walking, rode a train, a ferry and a bus to our first destination and save ourselves $30....instead we got a shuttle car, directly there...easy, less adventurous but still....expensive.

I guess the major difference between us was that she didn't understand what I was doing here. Which was surviving, for the most part. It's not about what you WANT so much as what you NEED and don't NEED. You need water and a sandwich for sustenance to keep going...you want something with taste because it's what you're used to having.

We clashed a lot on that, understandably so because to her, she was on an awesome VACATION in Australia....the point she missed was that after she left and went back to school....I'm still in Australia, on my own (no parental assistance), and if things kept going the way they were I would also be completely broke. I see where she was coming from, it just didn't mix well at the time.

Plus you can't really meet as many people travelling as a couple. Backpackers don't usually open up as much to couples on the road. I think it's a hook-up thing....they can't hook-up with either of you because you're together so they have no real interest in trying to meet you. Can't argue with that logic really.

The only place where we really got to hang out with other backpackers was at Kings Cross in Sydney. Other than that, we kind of just hung out together.

Our route around the East Coast of Australia went something like this...Gold Coast, Mount Tamborine, Fraser Island, Brisbane, Byron Bay, Nimbin, Sydney, then back to Byron...and then my eventual return to Sydney.

Some places we only went for the day, some places a couple of days.

Look at that view! T-REX's house

Mt. Tamborine is a rainforest destination up north of Gold Coast. Whitney and I both enjoy bush trails and hiking related activities and we wanted to see some rainforests and waterfalls while we were there. It was a really nice place, it's basically its own functioning tourist town in the mountains. They have a brewery (which we went to of course), a distillery, a few climbing activities, and a sky walk which was really cool and slightly terrifying.

I'm not a big fan of heights and that walk made me feel like I was in Jurassic Park. Or better yet, like the goat they feed to the T-Rex in Jurassic Park. Not a good feeling.

Fraser Island was amazing! It's the largest sand island in the world, yet it's covered in rainforests and completely self preserved. There is over 100 lakes on the island, the one we went to was Lake Mckenzie which would have been great if it hadn't been overcast. It was still a beautiful setting however. They drive you in huge trucks through the sand all over the place. It's a guided tour, because it has to be. If you went by yourself you would easily get stuck, these tour guides do this for a living and we still got stuck. We chose to only do a day trip because of our own time constraints but there is an option to stay overnight and camp out and visit more of the island. Given the choice I would easily take another trip back.

Bluest water you've ever seen

We didn't get a fair chance in Brisbane. We stayed in the hostel the entire time. It was pouring down rain and there was a bar in our hostel (go figure). It seemed nice but there's a reason it's considered 3rd in the Australian hiearchery of large cities. It just didn't seem like there was much difference to it than any other normal city. Having been to Melbourne and Sydney now I can say that for certain.

Byron Bay was obviously my favorite place. We went there twice and I tried to live there. It's a lovely hippie town by the ocean which was exactly what I had been looking for and also, what I thought Gold Coast would be. We stayed there the longest and it wasn't because of the topless beaches. Okay, that helped a bit. The next entry will be more detailed of our stays there, our trip to Nimbin, and in Sydney.

All in all it was an amazing trip! Once we got more accustomed to traveling with each other everything clicked (Whitney also saw that Visa bill she was accumulating). I'm glad we got to do most of everything on our list.