Wrapping up Australia

This will be my last post about my travels in Australia. Thanks for joining me on this journey “Down under”. It was an amazing time exploring all that Australia had to offer!

If you want to read up on the whole trip you can do so here.

Here are some of my thoughts after taking some time to reflect on the trip.

My top 3 highlights:

Highlight #1: Accidentally seeing the Southern Lights

Both Photos and I had experienced a few setbacks in Tasmania. We were ready to put it behind us and started looking forward to Melbourne. But on the last evening, we stumbled upon the rare opportunity to experience and photograph the Southern Lights. We didn’t expect it, but what a pleasant surprise to stumble upon such a beautiful natural wonder! For me, catching a glimpse of this rare sight more than made up for the troubles we encountered!

Highlight #2: Sailing around the Great Barrier Reef and the Whitsunday Islands

Visiting the Great Barrier Reef was a priority for us when the idea of Australia was still being tossed around. It’s a pretty big draw for most Australian visitors and we were no different. There were a lot of different ways to enjoy the reef and after going back and fourth, we ended up doing a multi-day sail aboard the Kiana. I couldn’t have been happier with our choice as we got to experience not only the reef but the Whitsunday Islands as well! The entire area is absolutely stunning! From the bright blue water, to the amazing marine life, to the white silica beaches of Whitehaven, it was the perfect way for us to put an exclamation mark on our trip!

Highlight #3: Seeing/Making friends new and old

Throughout our entire journey, we had the opportunity to catch up with old friends or make new ones along the way. Through my travels I’ve been able to meet wonderful people from all over world and this trip to Australia was no different. Whether it was reconnecting with old friends of mine, meeting some of Photo’s friends for the first time or making new ones through various activities and tours, I’ve shared experiences and memories with them that will last a lifetime. To this day, I’ve kept in touch with a majority of the people I’ve met while travelling and I am excited to see what adventures life takes my new found friends on as well!

Favorite meal:

When planning for Australia, cuisine wasn’t something that was very prominent in my research. And as I think back to all the food I ate this trip, it’s difficult to pick a de facto standout meal. Everything that we ate was good and tasty! But if I had to choose, the meal I enjoyed the most was the meal we had after a day of hiking the blue mountains. Both Photos and I were tired and on a whim looked up places to eat on the internet and chose Nomad. We didn’t have any expectations but were glad to have such an outstanding meal. The food was fresh, flavorful and really hit the spot for both of us! I think partly being a pleasant surprise and the overall satisfaction from the meal made it so memorable.

If I could change the itinerary, how would I change it?

I would have travelled Tasmania differently. Our original itinerary made Hobart our base in Tasmania. We booked our accommodations for the duration in Hobart and planned to make day trips out to different attractions in Tasmania. What we failed to realize was just how big Tasmania is and how long these road trips would be. For example, we wanted to visit Wineglass Bay. It’s a three to four hour drive from Hobart. It would have taken us half a day to get there and back, leaving us little time at the bay.

If I had to do it all over, I would start in Hobart, road trip north along the coast ending in Launceston and flying onward from there. We would have seen more of Tasmania and not been limited by driving time.

However, all things considered, our original itinerary ended up being a blessing in disguise! With Photos being ill, having a “home base” to rest was probably the best thing for us. Alternatively, had we not stayed in Hobart, we wouldn’t have gotten to see the Southern lights which ended up being one of my highlights!

What surprised on this trip?

The abundance of asian food! I struggled to find food that was uniquely “Australian”. There is a lot of similarities to the cuisine at home in Canada and I was surprised to find that there was a large asian influence on the culinary landscape. In fact I would say that the asian fare would rival that of Vancouver, especially if you’re partial to South East Asian food. I guess in hindsight it makes sense given how close they are to asia.

When I left home, I had loaded up on asian food thinking that I might be without it for a while. I was very happy to see that I was wrong in this regard.

One memorable story from this trip

The surprise engagement photo shoot that Photos stumbled into while we were in Melbourne. In all my years of travelling, I’ve never experienced something so random and so cool! Seeing the beautiful beaches and pier of St. Kilda, having Photos mention doing a photoshoot in another country was on his bucket list. Seeing a cool piece of graffiti art with an engagement message on it. Meeting the couple behind the art, and having them agree to doing an engagement photo shoot with Photos.

You can’t dream this stuff up, you can’t plan for it on your trips and you can’t look for it while you’re travelling either. The number of coincidences that had to happen for this sequence of very fortunate events still boggles my mind today. This is a story that’s going to live with me for the rest of my life, as I’m sure it will for photos and the happy couple as well!

Did I pack adequately for this trip?

I’m going to say yes! In fact, the trip to Africa I took last year really helped me sort out the packing I did for this trip. Both trips had similar areas of intense heat and also areas with cooler temperatures. So from a clothing point of view I was golden!

If I had to be very nit picky though, I would say that  I brought more toiletries then I needed. There were only two places that I needed my own toiletries on this trip: In Ayers Rock and onboard the Kiana. Everywhere else, we were fortunate enough to be provided toiletries by our AirBnB hosts or hotels.

Regrets?

It’s not really a regret, but we never did end up seeing bioluminescence while in Tasmania. It was something both Photos and I were keen to see and photograph, but it never happened for us. We were able to join a facebook group that would alert people to sightings, but it never worked out for us. As a consolation we did end up seeing the Southern Lights, but the regret is we didn’t get to see what we set out originally to see.

Advice for people considering similar trips/destinations?

The biggest difficulty was just how big Australia is. It’s a long journey from North America and as with all trips, the hope is to see “everything”. I failed to realize that Australia is about the same size as the United States. Coming to grips with the fact that you can’t see it all in one go (unless you go for an extended time) certainly helps to narrow the scope of planning.

Some other random thoughts:

• If you visit Ayers Rock, invest in a fly net. When people advised me to do so, I thought it excessive. But the number of flies in the area is NO JOKE. If you don’t want to be waving your hand in front of your face every few seconds pick up a fly net
• If you’ve never snorkeled or scuba dived before, try to before going to the reef. I spent a lot of time trying to get use to breathing through the snorkel, and getting comfortable in the water that I didn’t get as much time to enjoy the reef.
• Sunscreen, Sunscreen, Sunscreen. The sun is intense in Australia and making sure to properly protect yourself from it will go a long way in keeping your trip comfortable. Its common sense, but remember to re-apply every few hours. We went through a lot of sunscreen on this trip and am glad we did
• Credit cards are accepted almost everywhere (at least in a majority of the places I visited). I brought a good amount of cash with me, but ended up with 2/3 of it still by the time I got home.

Final thoughts?

I think one of the unique things about Australia is that it lacks many “big ticket” tourist attractions. When you think of travelling to Australia, maybe only a few things come to mind: The Great Barrier Reef, the Sydney Opera house, Ayers Rock etc. But past that, I struggled to think of noteworthy landmarks that I “had” to see. And therein lies its charm. Once you’ve seen the “big” items on the list, you leave yourself open to all the awesome “little” things that Australia has to offer. And it’s the “little” things that really made this trip memorable for me. Things like graffiti art, amazing beaches, beautiful coastal walks, wildlife, spectacular natural beauty, the list goes on and on.

Australia is diverse, it’s beautiful and I loved every day I spent there. As with every trip I’ve taken and will take, I feel absolutely blessed to have the ability and opportunity to travel and see this amazing part of the world.