Farewell Australia!

Santa arrives via kangaroos in Australia!

Today we leave Australia and head to New Zealand.  It is bittersweet – we are SO excited to be heading back to New Zealand, but sad to leave Australia.  We really enjoyed our time here and hope to come back one day.  There is so much to see and we only scratched the surface.  We loved exploring how Australia was different than the U.S., from the insects to the birds to the plants.  We saw cockatoos and lorikeets everywhere we traveled across the country, and never got tired of seeing them, even though the locals find the cockatoos loud and annoying.  We saw bats all over the place too, which was a treat.  At one campground we ended up moving our tent to another site because they kept us up all night eating fruit from a nearby tree.  All the plants are very different here; even the palm trees are different from what we’re used to seeing.  The birds make different sounds than what we are used to hearing too. I loved being woken up in the morning by all the strange bird sounds.  My favorite is the crazy laugh the kookaburra makes!  It is amazing all the subtle differences you don’t think about until you’re experiencing them. 

My favorite emu pic! 

One thing we really liked was Australia’s campgrounds, or caravan parks as they’re called here.  They have tent sites as well as powered sites for campervans, but they also rent other accommodations such as a trailer without a bathroom, or one with a bathroom (called “ensuite”), all in various sizes for families, couples, etc.  The caravan parks have communal camp kitchens with various ways to cook, from toasters to gas burners, and sometimes even stocked with dishes and pots and pans.  It made traveling very easy here.  If it was pouring rain (as it seemed to be a lot!) we could rent a small trailer for less than we could a motel room.  We would have a dry place to sleep and could use the same camp bathrooms as the campers.  Plus we could always cook a hot meal without having to purchase dishes, etc.   

Whatever money we saved on accommodation we ended up spending on gasoline (or petrol, as they say here).   We paid anywhere from $1.20/liter to $1.80/liter, which works out to be about $4.50 to $6.80/gallon. Yikes!  I won’t complain about the gas prices in the U.S. again!

Yummy scones!

We pretty much gave up coffee while we were here since nobody here sells drip coffee and buying lattes and cappuccinos every day gets expensive!  Tea is big here, probably due to the large British influence, and so we started drinking tea, sometimes with milk.  The campgrounds and even hotel rooms all had plug-in water boilers (not sure what their official name is) so a person could easily make tea.  I have learned to enjoy a cup of tea, and most especially with scones (my new favorite!).  The scones are pretty much like a biscuit, but they always come with great jam and this yummy thick cream on top – they’re SO good! 

The food didn’t seem a whole lot different than what we’re used to, besides seeing kangaroo meat in the grocery stores.  We tried vegemite, an Aussie favorite, and didn’t particularly like it.  It tastes like a concentrated beef bouillon cube – very salty.  We saw vegemite rolls in the grocery stores – they’re like cinnamon rolls, but with vegemite rather than cinnamon and icing (yuck!).  It’s also placed in restaurants on the table next to the jelly so you can put it on toast.  Vegemite is made from brewers’ yeast extract and is a by-product of beer manufacturing (thank goodness they took it out of beer!).  It is one of the richest known sources of B vitamins (except for B12).  Regardless, it must be an acquired taste. 

Having fun with Uluru  :)

The Aussies themselves have been nothing but great to us!  They are so friendly and outgoing.  We really enjoyed all our interactions with them.  Many of them had been to the U.S. before and if they hadn’t, they knew a lot about our country via the TV (I don’t know if that’s good or bad - probably bad.  I'm thinking of The Simpsons...). Most of their TV shows are from the U.S.  Our entertainment culture is everywhere, from their magazines to their movies.  They know way more about us through the TV than we do about them, that’s for sure. 

Not only did we meet lots of Aussies, we met travelers from all over the world.  It’s very easy to travel here – they have fabulous visitor centers (called i-sites) that are full of info and helpful people.  In addition, Australia has a strong backpacker culture and network.  If you are under 30, you can get a visa that allows you to travel and work here for 12 months.  We met lots of young people who were picking fruit for a week or two to fund their travels.  We met others who worked for months bartending or doing retail jobs in the bigger cities.  Most of them were from Germany and the Netherlands, but we also met people from France, England, Korea, Ireland and lots of other places.   There is a whole network here for them to access, from buses to youth hostels to travel deals.  If I was a young person (or I should say younger person since I hope I’m not old yet!), I would definitely come here to work and travel.  Such a great experience and you would meet a wide variety of other people to travel with (why didn’t we know about this way back when?)!

The trusty rental car we drove halfway around Oz!

We loved their accents, as well as some of the words they used.  Some favorites were:  mozzies (mosquitoes), brekkie (breakfast), ute (utility vehicle), Rice Bubbles (Rice Krispies), nibblies (snacks), coldie (beer), prezzies (presents), and fair dinkum (genuine or true).  Time for some nibblies and a coldie!  :)

We will miss the land of Oz, that’s for sure!  We are grateful to have been able to spend so much time here (and still just scratched the surface).  On to our next destination:  New Zealand!