Pasifika festival

Yesterday we went to Pasifika Festival. “Experience the sights, sounds, tastes and colours of the Pacific.” It was awesome. Such an amazing atmosphere, packed with people and music all over the place. My colleague at the hostel is from Niue so I wanted to try out their food. Yuck! But hey, at least we tried. We also bought watermelon and pineapple filled with ice cream omnomnom.

 

Shabnam and I
 
 
 
The food in the Niue section
 
Me, Frida, Erynn, Jules and Steven 

New country, new adventures

Okay so I have now been in Auckland, New Zealand 12 days. I got work for accommodation at Nomads my second day and am still working there. It’s easy and I like my roomies, we’re like a small family!

Anyway, I am hanging out with my uni buddies. How did I get to know people at uni, you wonder? I overheard a girl talking about a Swedish passport while standing in line to get through the custom at the airport. We started talking and had to queue for 50 mins, thereof we got to know each other pretty well. It ended up with me getting a free ride from the airport, a goodie bag with the uni schedule, lollies and a map. Way to go, right?!

 

At the uni

 

SUP Hong, me, Steven and Jules
 

So what have I done over here this far? Everything and nothing. Partying, hanging out, walking, stand up paddle boarding, tanning, eating froyo, driving and so on. Last Wednesday a couple of guys and I rented a car and drove to Waitakere ranges and Karekare beach. Such an amazing place! The beach was covered in black sand from the volcano and while we were there it was sunny but there was water in the air from the breaking waves, which made the mountains look mysterious and awesome. The current was really strong and while we were in the water we had to be really careful not to be dragged out to sea! How to feel alive. Afterwards we had a picnic on the beach, walked to “the structure” and saw a seal playing around in the waves. We also climbed on one of the mountain sides, probably not a good idea to do only dressed in a top and bikini bottoms lol.


Turned out we didn't really have to wade through the water

 
 
 
Me, Peter, Erynn, Steven, Frida, Hannah and Kevin
 
 
Steven and Kevin
 
Kevin, Steven, me, Hannah, Frida, Erynn and Peter carying Sonia
 

 Btw, we are atm 12 hours ahead of everyone back in Sweden. It’s the end of daylight saving on April 6th, and we will then only be 11 hours ahead of you guys, I think.

 

 

I love Melbourne

So I’ve been told I need to update more. Quite aware of that haha. The thing is, life in Melbourne is my life atm. Things happens all the time and at the same time nothing happens. Small and big things, probably not of importance for anyone else, but I love it.
 
So I celebrated Christmas and New Years Eve here. All of the traditional decorations still didn’t give the feeling of Christmas. No snow or ham, no Christmas haha. I still had a great time though! We spent our days at the beach and partying. A couple of friends and I watched the New Years fireworks in Doclands. I also got to celebrate Australia Day. Drinks on the beach all day, of course. Only thing is we accidently ate raw chicken the night before on a birthday party. Not a good idea the day before you’re supposed to drink all day in the sun haha.
 
Started Saturday, this week it is St Kilda Festival and is going on until Sunday. Not as much happening as I thought, but it gives you an excuse to party, if you need one. There’s music going on, sales stables and so on. Yester day was the Pride March. Jasmine and I was goofing around as always and filmed the whole march. In the end of it Thea walked past with the Liberal party and we joined them for the last couple of hundred metres. Felt pretty good I have got to say.
 
Anyway I have started to slowly plan what and where I want to go in New Zealand, going a little slow I have got to admit. So sad about leaving Australia, but I’m coming back sooner or later!
 
 
 Australia Day, St Kilda beach
 
Jasmine and I at the Gay Pride March
 
The Gay Pride March

Au pair again

So Johanna and I had a great couple of days in Sydney. Our last few days, we simply enjoyed our time there and walked around the city. On the Wednesday we spent the day with Frida and Åsa. We bought take away food and sat in the Queen’s Park for a while. In the evening we once again used our Merlin Passes to go up to see the sunset from the Sydney Tower Eye. It was really beautiful.

Friday morning we had to be up at 5am, yuck! Both Johanna and I were both excited and sad. After 1 month together with so much laughter, I thought my belly would cramp to death. We were going separate ways. I know it sounds dramatic but it was really sad! But hey, hopefully we’ll be studying in Sweden together next year. Oh yeah, that’s right! I’ve finally got some plans of going back haha.

I have now been in Melbourne for 5 days and approximately 3 hours. The flight was alright, I guess, since I slept the whole way. Feels like I’m a pretty used to flying by now. But anyway I’ve met a couple of great gals over here. Started my stay with some great, sunny days at the beach! It’s raining now.. A girl called Jasmine, and I have been spending our days walking up and talking to random guys. Talk about getting a confidence! Now way people would react the same way in Sweden though. It’s fun and I can’t complain haha.

Oh I almost forgot! It is, today I believe(?) the last day of Chanukah. And since my host family is Jewish and they celebrated Chanukah this last Sunday, I went with them. Such an opportunity to learn about another religion and I had a great time. There was a show onstage, fireworks, a market and in the end people singing.

Lots of love to my mum and dad, who are always there for me, even when I’m at the other side of the world. You’re the best <3

Alysha, me and Bianca at Chanukah in the Park
 

Sydney baby!

Saturday. Johanna and I have been couchsurfing! It was really fun. We stayed at a Swedish guy’s apartment in The Rocks, 21st floor and the view was over Harbour bridge and the Opera house!! Talk about brekky view! Anyway, the first day we went to Madame Tussauds. It was smaller than expected but really good. We were a little scared because all of the wax dolls looked like they were going to move any second haha. Oh and Johanna’s love, Johanny Depp was shorted than she thought. She might have cried herself to sleep lol. After MT we caught the bus to Chinatown where we got headaches and completely lost. It was stressful, people were screaming and we didn’t know where to go haha. After a couple of hours walking around in the markets we finally found our way out and went to the shops. In the evening while the slow cooker was on, we walked down to watch the sunset by the opera house. Amazing. Later in the evening we had the worst Moroccan dish ever haha. But if you’re hungry you eat anything, right? Later on in the evening we went out to Scary Canary. By the time we found the building we both had to go to the loo. The line was way too long, so we managed to sneak inside The Base hostel, haha. After that we had a great night dancing!

 
 
 
 
 

Sunday. The second day Pär, the guy we were staying with, showed us around at Bondi and Bronte beach. A simple, chill day at the beach. We had totally deserved that. In the evening Johanna and I made enchiladas with a fresh salad. Oh salad, how I have missed thee.

Monday. It was time for us to move on to a hostel again, we found one in King’s Cross. It’s probably the worst one we’ve ever been in lol. We’re sharing our room with three men and one of them smells really bad. But hey, you can’t be lucky all the time. At least we don’t spend all our days in there. So we packed all our stuff in the apartment, enjoyed the view for a last time and spent the day walking around in the area. We went to Sydney Wildlife Zoo and Sydney Aquarium. Sydney Aquarium is great! I totally recommend people going there. They’ve got dugongs. And of course a lot of other animals haha. But all the people working there were really nice and good at explaining. On the way back we saw Sydney observatory, walked on Harbour Bridge and also walked past the Opera house again. It was raining back and forth the whole day and when we got to the opera house everyone had to hide from the rain. Oh and I’m officially a Chinese tourist. Maybe worse. I take pics ALL the time and of everything and anything haha. All of this we did in a couple of hours. And since it was raining all day and night we decided to go to the movies. We watched The Hunger Games: Catching fire. It was SO GOOD! I’ve got to start reading the books.

 Sydney Wildlife Zoo
 
Sydney Wildlife Zoo
 
The Harbour Bridge
 
 
 
The Opera House
 
The Harbour Bridge
 
The Opera House

Tuesday. We caught the ferry over to Manly, where we went to Manly Sealife Sanctuary. It was pretty small but we got to see the fish feeding, which was really good. And I’m compelled by the Lion fish, they’re so beautiful. And I got to see them eat, awesome haha. After watching the Port Jackson babies eat I talked to the girl working there for a while. She told me a lot of interesting stuff about the sharks in the tank. After Manly we walked back along George Street and tried to find Sydney Tower Eye. It’s pretty hard when you’re on the ground and all the buildings are high and you can’t really see this one tower ahah. Eventually we found it and the view was spectacular. We could probably see all of Sydney and all the different places where we’ve been and where we want to go. Oh and we also got to go to a short 4D movie! I’ve never been to one before. I’ve got to say it was pretty cool! After the Tower Eye we headed towards the Chinese Garden that we had seen from above, but when we got there it was closed. So instead we took a lot of pics outside haha. Playing around in the dirty fountain pool when people were watching and also climbing on things. YOLO.

 Sydney Tower Eye

 
 

Wednesday. Today. The plan is to plan our lives lol. We’re also going to go to a couple of gardens and hopefully meet Frida and Åsa later. Peace out.


Pics

Brisbane, the view from Mount Coot-tha 
 
 Dreamworld
 
 Dreamworld
 
 Byron Bay
 
 Byron Bay
 
 Byron Bay
 
 Byron Bay
 
 Byron Bay
 
 Byron Bay
 
 Byron Bay

The last week

 Okay so the last few days we have been to Brisbane, Southport and Byron Bay. Before Brisbane we asked so many people about what you can do there and got heaps of tips, but we ended up barely doing any of it. It was raining all the time. We both really liked Brisbane though. Such a nice city and I prefer cities to towns. We spent a lot of time at the library with the free WiFi and also just walking around. We went to Mount Coot-tha with the botanical gardens and also both the museum and the art centre. In the nights we went out partying and we were lucky to have the hostel right on top of the best nightclub in Brisbane, Down under bar!! OMG so much fun!!

 

So after our awesome days in Brisbane we went to Southport. A small town but from there we went to both Dreamworld and Surfer’s Paradise. Dreamworld with WhiteWater world was AWESOME! We had so much fun and were screaming during all the rides and slides! We were really lucky with the weather until the end of the day. We had been standing in line for our last ride for a while and had just gotten in when the guy told us we had to get out again because of the storm that was coming. Thank God! We barely got to the very exit of the same ride when we heard slamming on the metal roof. It started hailing. No one likes hail, but this was like the doom day! The hails were big as golfballs, kids were crying and parents were screaming. After one hour it was all over and we had a nice evening, like it never happened..

 

 
 
 

So anyway, we spent the day after in Surfer’s Paradise. We walked around, chilled at the beach and accidently walked into a shop with $5 clothes.. Only bought a few things ;)

 

Wednesday we went to Byron Bay, which is where we are atm. The first day we walked all the way up to the lighthouse. Help us, the walk was unbearable! So hot and warm and sunny and steep and blah. BUT we made it!! And the views were amazing and totally worth the effort! From one of the lookout point we also got to see some dolphins. Which speaking about dolphins, we didn’t got to see at either of our two kayaking tours.. Kayaking is always fun though! But we were really bummed not getting to see any dolphins, or marine life at all really. In the evening we met up with our Swedish friends Åsa and Frida. They made vegan dinner and we had some wine. Afterwards we went out dancing for a while.

 

Tonight we’re catching the Greyhound nightbus all the way down to Sydney. In Sydney we’re staying with a Swedish guy via couchsurfing. Hopefully it will be as good as expected!

 

 

Btw the pics take waaaay too long so I'm gonna try and upload the rest of them later


Australia Zoo

On Monday morning we went to Noosa. We walked up a killer hill to a lookout point. Unfortunately it was cloudy so we couldn’t see anything.. In the evening we partied with our roomies!

Tuesday morning, hungover and tired, we caught the bus to Mooloolaba (yes I know, what a name!!) where we went to UnderWater World. It wasn’t as big as we thought it would be, but it was still really good.

 
 
 
 
On Wednesday it was time for Australia Zoo. We went there with low expectations because of the experience with UnderWater World. But how good it was! And I, who totally looove lizards, was happy from the very beginning. There were lizards running around freely on the paths. Pretty big lizards on that. We saw all the animals and sat on every statue lol. At noon we watched the croc  show. It was so cool, you could hear the croc’s jaw snap even up to where we were sitting.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Fraser Island and Hervey Bay

So for three days now we have been on Fraser Island. I have had no reception at all. Actually that felt kind of good, except for everything that you need to read now later on haha. Long story short we pushed a big bus through the sand dunes. But I figure you would like to know some more details.

Day 1. We did a bushwalk along a creek with fresh water that we all drank of and finally got to Central Station. We went to Lake McKenzie and also tried to push the bus through a deep sand spot to get to another lake, we didn’t manage. In the night we were playing cards and drinking some vine before dinner. After dinner we had some more vine with our Dutch friends that also went on the Whitsundays trip with us. After a little while we saw a huge spider crawling over the fridge, Jurre and I screamed, Marjolijn jumped onto the table and Johanna hid far away. It all ended with Jurre hitting the spider once with a thong and me smashing it to death. I felt bad afterwards.

 
 

Day 2. We went to a look out spot and also to see the colored sand dunes. We got stuck with the bus on our way to the champagne rock pools, so we had to walk 40 minutes in beaming sun and deep sand, fml.  After the pools we drove to Indian Hill, which we climbed. 68 metres over the ocean I believe it was and such an amazing view! On our way back towards the accommodation we stopped at both a ship wreck and a creek. Johanna and I walked upstream in the creek, felt pretty cool carrying our backpacks above our heads while dodging branches and stuff haha.

Next to the Champagne Rock Pools

 

Day 3. We went to Lake Birrabeen where Johanna and I tried stand up paddling. After that we went to Lake Wabby, and OMG the walk to get there. It was only 4.8km return but add way too much sand and uphill, it’s terrible!!

At Lake Birrabeen

The bus we pushed

 

After Fraser we stayed two more days at Hervey Bay, such a cosy little town. When we got back to the hostel they told us that the room that we had booked wasn’t available and that they had upgraded us to a 4 bed room with no extra charge. Awesome! On our last full day in Hervey we rented bikes for the whole day. So cute pink bikes!! We biked down to the beach and watched the boat race down there.

 

 
 

Life on a boat

After staying isolated in Mission Beach, we went to Airlie Beach where we the day after were booked on our Whitsundays sailing tour. The Sailing tour was for 2 half days, one full day and 2 nights, we slept on the boat. I've never been on a sailing boat before so everything was new for me. It was pretty amazing, except for the occasional sickness haha.
On the first day of the tour we just cruised around and after a couple of hours got to the spot where we were staying for the night. Everyone ended up watching a big stim of fish feeding and the beautiful night sky. I believe the crew thought we were all high haha.
We woke up early the day after to go to Sunday Island. Stinger suites on and ready for stingrays we went into the water. I believe I swam after every singly stingray, I didn't get to pet any of them. Buuu. The Island is as amzing as on pics though and you really can't believe you're there. After the third snorkeling everyone was really tired and we ended up playing cards with our French friends and a guy from Brisbane.
We woke up early on the last day as well to go snorkeling just next to the beach. It was close from the boat so I decided to be brave and swim over there, even though I hate deep, dark water. Hopefully I'm cured after this trip! Since I was one of the first ones in the water I FINALLY got to see a turtle. Happiness. The coral at the last spot wasn't so nice, so Johanna and I thought it seemed funnier to go rock climbing. We went by ourselves and after a while, climbing on the rocks along the ocean we found a perfect spot to jump into the water! It wasn't too high but we felt adventurous and thought it would do. Whit that last jump the trip ended and we all headed home, racing with our sailing boat The Boomerang.
 
In the night after the trip we had reservations for everyone at one of the bars. Johanna and I shared a pizza and everyone got free drinks. Later in the evening people started dropping off, but some of our friends wanted to go dancing. We had a great time!
 
After Airlie Beach we went to Agnes Water and 1770. We stayed there for two nights. It's really nothing there but we borrowed two of the bikes from the hostel and biked around both of the towns. The first night we played cards with a Swedish guy that stayed at the same hostel. The second day when we were out biking we met our French girlfriends (what are the odds!) and decided that we would all go to their hostel and have a BBQ. Such a good night!
 
Atm we are in Hervey Bay. Tomorrow we are going on our Frazer Island tour, 3 days and 2 nights.
 
 
 
 

Mission Beach

Monday was the day for our Great Barrier Reef cruise. I was hungover, fail, but we had an amazing day! We were snorkeling a bit further out than everyone else and got to see both a reef shark and a blue spotted stingray. I still haven't seen a turtle though.

In the evening we caught the greyhound bus to Mission Beach, where we spent 2 nights and 1 whole day. During the day we rented bikes from the hostel and went down to the beach. We also started our mission to bike to the shopping centre. Mission failed. It was waaay to hot! When we came back we took a dip in the pool and afterwards we just chilled in the hammocks. Simply love life here.




Yesterday we spent the whole day on the grayhound bus going down to Airlie Beach. Once here we had an awesome dinner and spent the rest of it walking around in Airlie. Today we're going on our Whitsundays cruise, yaaay!








Cape trib

I've been in Cairns more than a week now, loving it! I went to Cape Tribulation with my Swedish friends from the hostel, we rented a car to go there. Was an amazing day and we even got to see a cassowary!!




Johanna and I have been planning our travels a bit. Our first stop will be the Great Barrier Reef on Monday.
I met a guy that showed me around in Cairns. We spent a whole night talking on a beach at "the spot" just watching the moonlight and the sun rise, amazing. All the bites from sand flies on my legs are not as amazing though...

Cairns

Tuesday night I arrived in Cairns. 11pm I was at the hostel ready for sleeping haha. Wednesday was my first real day and I found out that I'm roomies with Swedish twin girls, awesome. Had such a great day chilling at the lagoon pool and meeting some other guys. In the night we went out and discovered Cairns nightlife :)


2 weeks

This time in 2 weeks I will be on my way to Cairns. I'm starting to feel a bit nervous even though I'm really excited! Can't believe I'm actually leaving my second family..

Today I went shopping for a few necessary things. Found a neon pink sports bra and a new bikini :)




YOLIAO

There has been so much going on the last couple of weeks. Party like always, meeting new friends, friends going away, planning my travels and just trying to make the most out of the time I’ve got left here. Silly nights out and lunch dates at IKEA with my Swedish bffs, dinner nights with Chiara, going to the movies with Hanna and karaoke night at Murphy’s with my German friends.
 
It feels so quiet and weird not going to Perth every weekend and having silly days with Sara and Johanna. But in a little more than 2 weeks I will be in Cairns, tanning and planning with Johanna. And I’m also happy I can spend some quality time with my friends in Mandurah before I leave. I’m going to miss everyone so much! Anyway as said, my flight to Cairns is booked and I have finally paid for the bus tour. I have spent a couple of days to plan and google things to see at each and every location down to Sydney. I’m so excited! And how I long to be able to swim again and walk around in shorts!
 
LastnightIwentonadatewiththeguyIhavebeencheckingoutforages. Just had to get that out of my system, so happy!
 
Night out at Murphy's with Gloria, Chiara, Hanna and Marco
 
Night out in Leederville with Johanna and Sara
 
Dinner date with Chiara at Brighton
 
Hej då lunch with the gals at IKEA
 
Brunch picnic at King's Park with Nathalie and Sara
 
Last night out with the girls in Leederville and Perth
 
 Spending the day in Freo
 
Night out with Chiara and her housemates
 
Before going to the Casino in Perth with Chiara's housemates
Karaoke night at Murphy's with Maryke, Kati and Hanna