Last night was New Years in Australia.  Sebastien and I had a nice dinner at Clare’s house, whom we have been house sitting for since the 27th, and went down to Byron Bay to see how they celebrate New Years in Australia.

In Byron they had several roads closed for the festivities.  There were booths set up where you could get a temporary tattoo, jewelry, and/or food and they had small circus rides and all this under the mystical blue moon.  Most of the people were between 15-30 years old (make that 31).  A lot of fancy dressed giggling girls and funny haircut sounding boys trying to impress one another.  Around midnight hundreds of people gathered on the beach and watched fireworks.  I thought it was brilliant.

So many things made this New Years special.  Beginning our traveling adventure, experiencing  Australia, enjoying Sebastien’s company, being engaged and feeling more connected to life.  I look forward to what 2010 brings!

I will post some pictures soon!  Much love and Happy New Years.

We are in a little piece of heaven today.  Only a few meters to the beach, pool with lots of happy kids, kangaroos jumping through the camp ground, and warm water to surf in.  I am ecstatic!

I have been rereading my traveling book, Saltwater Buddha, and just been relaxing.  Unfortunately, Sebastien has come down with a little sore throat.  Though he just took the board to see if he can’t change his health out in the water.

The only thing I would change is that it would be nice to have my family and friends here with us!  We tried to skype today but it really didn’t work out.  The video wasn’t working to show them and we had a big delay in conversation.

It is in these locations during these special times that I remember my favorite Christmas’s.  My papou (grandfather) use to take the whole family (9 of us) on a cruise for Christmas.  Papou had the right idea.  There was nothing better than being with your family in a warm tropical place during this special occassion.  No present or presents could replace those memories and with the holiday reminds me of those magical times and my Papou.  May he be in a new warm and happy place remembering us during the holidays.  Love you Papou, family, and friends.

We had seen koalas in the wild before but we never got to get so close to them.

Most of these guys have been rescued after being hit by cars or attacked by dogs.

A mommy koala and her joey were brought in in the morning and we were here while it was being treated for minor injuries before being released into the wild.

They’re really cute animals!

We hiked around until the rain came up and completely soaked us.

We had to go back to our hotel and enjoy some well-deserved time in the hot tub and sauna

We love our life!

Tomorrow, we’re driving to Sydney and we’ll hopefully get some surf in Bondy before heading up to Byron Bay.

It’s gorgeous out today. Too bad we’re gonna be spending the day driving.

Absolutely beautiful! And not a single person 10 miles around…

I’d love to see this wave when there is a swell coming!

In Australia they have this kangaroo sign.

We’ve seen a bunch of them dead in the aide of the road. That’s sad!

A bit of heat is certainly not gonna stop us. We are here for 2 days so we might as well enjoy it. We filled 2 bottles of water and we left Tim’s Place to go to our first stop: the MacKenzie Falls.

Tina wasn’t really feeling it. It was so hot she thought it wasn’t a really smart thing to do to go hiking in the middle of a National Park. We did anyways.

After a 1 km walk, we got to the bottom of the MacKenzie Falls. It’s nice but nothing very exciting. After seeing the beautiful Bridal Veil Falls in New Zealand, this one was kind of a joke. Anyways.

We went back to the car and decided to go to Hollow Mountains. We had to drive in the bush for maybe 50 km until we got to the bottom of the mountain.

It was burning hot out! There was no one to be seen around us. We decided to hike all the way up; a 2.2 km hike/climb up the mountain.

I was really surprised they let people do this. It was very steep and you had many occasions to die out there. A few times, I was thinking to myself “if you slip, you die”.

At times, it seemed we were more rock climbing than we were hiking…

We stopped many times to rest and drink water.

When we finally reached the top, we never found what we came for. The brochure showed some kind of cave thing but we couldn’t find it. I was pissed but still glad we took this hike.

On the way back, we took this dirt road for 35 km to the village. We didn’t see one car. All we saw was a few ostriches and a couple dead kangaroos on the side of the road (ew, gross!).

When we got to town, it seemed it had been deserted. Finally we saw one car and another. After getting some well-deserved ice cream, we went back to Tim’s Place.

I talked to Claudia, the manager, who told me there had been warnings on tv and on the radio, alerting people to stay in because it was too hot and dangerous, and there was a risk of fires.

I told this to Tina and she gave me that look which says so much… In this case, it said “of course it was stupid and dangerous to be hiking out there by this heat”.

Meh! I’m glad we did it. It didn’t seem dangerous or stupid at the time. Maybe Aussies are just wooses