Its been a little over a week now that I have been home and so far I have had numerous parties thrown in my name, got to spend time with my family and loved ones and celebrated my birthday and Canada day with beautiful weather. If I had known I would have got such an amazing welcoming I would have come back sooner :P
Travelling across the world really makes you appreciate what you have right in your own backyard. Montreal is a beautiful city and I am very proud to call it my home. We live in a beautiful country and I hope I will someday say I have traveled it like I traveled Australia. In the meantime I can remember the great times I had in Australia and gaze at my desktop screen savers while I work hard to pay down my debt :)
Australia was a fantastic trip and a wonderful experience. I grew as an individual, have become more confident in myself and the things I can achieve and have taken some really nice photos and experienced some once in a lifetime events :) I want to first thank all of those who have supported me through this journey with mailed care packages or with emails and words of encouragement :) I missed you all while I was away and I am happy to be able to see all of your wonderful faces again in person! :)
I have done crazy stuff like scuba diving, rafting, sky diving and bungie jumping. I hiked through rainforests and deserts and surfed beautiful beaches and even though my exchange has now come to an end, I will keep my new found sense of adventure and continue to travel and live life to the fullest. Already since I have been back I learned to shoot a rifle, went camping and took on life with a new revitalized spirit !
This may be the end of the Australia chapter for now, but isn't the last you will hear from the traveling nerd :)
Thanks to all my loyal fans and supporters! especially my GGF and my family :)
Till the next update!
:)
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Our last days and our trip to the Gold Coast
By now our exams are all done, we have finished all our assignments and are now preparing for our last cleaning inspection, closing all loose ends and saying goodbye to new friends. The last few days were spent with the new friends we had made over the course of the semester, hanging out at our flat enjoy the last few days we would be calling this place home.
We took the last couple of days to go back to gold coast and go see the hinterland (tropical rainforests and waterfalls) of the Gold Coast
This brought us to our final cleaning and packing to leave the apartment. It wasn't fun to leave but we were excited to come home and see our families and our old lives :)
Till the next update!
:)
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| A last stroll in southbank |
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| The city skyline, the last time we would see it :) |
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| Our corridor :) |
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| Gold Coast Hinterland |
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| Rainforest |
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| Sushi with Dave :) |
This brought us to our final cleaning and packing to leave the apartment. It wasn't fun to leave but we were excited to come home and see our families and our old lives :)
Till the next update!
:)
Direction: Cairns, waterfalls and rainforests!
We again found ourselves in a position to travel :) after having such an amazing time driving in western australia we decided to do the same thing but in queensland instead ... The plan was to head north and see how far we made it but we ultimately decided to drive all the way to Cairns (our total journey lasted 4200 Km) and spanned a large part of the east coast ! :)
Along the way we stopped for photo ops and food :)
We would have loved to keep heading north but we ran out of time and had to come back to study for our last finals :) No worries we still got to see quite a bit :P
Till the next update!
:)
Along the way we stopped for photo ops and food :)
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| The sunset behind the sugar cane trains |
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| Roger on one of the magnificent beaches of the east coast of Australia |
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| Rock, sand and water :) |
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| Wind farm in Raven (top of the mountain) |
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| Low tide |
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| ZEN |
Till the next update!
:)
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Destination: Pink Lake
My last blog ended somewhere between the stars and the cold lol .. but fortunately to all sunsets there are sunrises to follow and we saw this one surrounded by giant limestone rocks that made shadows that streaked across the desert. You could see the sunlight light up the desert like a line scanning across the desert floor. It was awesome !
We then headed north again to hit Pink Lake (a lake with a pink hue due to a naturally occurring beta carotene) passing by a few cities on the way to have some fresh rock lobster and take some magnificent pictures :)
Till the next update!
:)
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| The shadows if the pinnacles |
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| The pinnacles desert regional park |
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| We saw sooo many kangaroos at night ! |
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| A picture of the side of the Indian ocean road, it wasn't always like this but you can see patches of sand dunes |
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| A lot of farming along the highway once you are about 2 hrs north of perth |
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| Me in front of the coral coast |
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| Pink Lake!!!! Destination reached .. now time to hightail it back to Perth to catch our flight :) |
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| What most of the highway looked like :) |
:)
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
WA roadtrip ! Where the ocean meets the sky, I'll be sailing !
Once we pickup our car from the rental agency we headed off with map in hand and adventure on the horizon :)
We basically picked up a tourist magazine / brochure for the western coast of australia and stopped at every spot that looked interesting :) We make pitstops all along the coast for and eventually stopped for the night in a 600 person town called Cervantes and slept in a national park called the Pinnacles where we watched the stars, which we're simply no describable .. there were millions of them and the brightest thing around us was the moon which was 1/10 full and acted like a giant street light in the dark sky. Once the moon dissapeared (around 2 oclock) the sky was absolutely magnificent .. I could actually see the milky way (clouds of stars streaking across the sky)
The first major stop was at a town known for its sand surfing just 1 hour out of perth. It was like a movie, huge mountains of sand and lots of people on dirt bikes and quad bikes driving around the mountains.
After surfing we hit the road again headed for a small town called Cervantes to eat and sleep the night. we found a beautiful national park with limestone rocks protruding from the ground and drove around there while watching the stars. The night in the desert gets cold around 9 degrees celcius so falling asleep and missing the stars wasn't an issue because we would get up every two hours to turn the car on anyways :)
Till the next update!
:)
We basically picked up a tourist magazine / brochure for the western coast of australia and stopped at every spot that looked interesting :) We make pitstops all along the coast for and eventually stopped for the night in a 600 person town called Cervantes and slept in a national park called the Pinnacles where we watched the stars, which we're simply no describable .. there were millions of them and the brightest thing around us was the moon which was 1/10 full and acted like a giant street light in the dark sky. Once the moon dissapeared (around 2 oclock) the sky was absolutely magnificent .. I could actually see the milky way (clouds of stars streaking across the sky)
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| Me and Rog in front of the WA coast at one of many beautiful stops |
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| A pier where people were fishing for Whitie (i guess a type of fish lol) |
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| Me, a sandsurf board and our beloved hyundai i30 |
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| the view from the top of the sand dunes |
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| What looks like the desert, but only a few kms from the beach |
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| Sand surfing! |
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| the climb |
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| quadbikes tearing it up |
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| exhausted from climbing the dunes |
Till the next update!
:)
Western Australia!!!!
I will split the blog about WA into three spanning the three days we spent traveling Perth and the western coast :)
We landed in Perth at around midnight, took a cab straight to our hotel dropped off our bags and spent the next 4 hours walking around the city area and seeing the nightlife. The next morning we woke up and headed out to find a way to the outback! as this was the main reason for going to WA :)
The first travel agent we stopped at (called travel forever) gave us a great deal on a rental car with unlimited number of kms ! So we booked it and spent the rest of the first day seeing perth city and fremantle (a smaller city closer to the Indian ocean) which has some exceptional italian food (surprisingly the largest migrants after the British and the Italians in WA)
After dinner we saw the hangover 2 and went to the casino to try out our luck (we lost 10$ each lol)
Till the next update!
:)
We landed in Perth at around midnight, took a cab straight to our hotel dropped off our bags and spent the next 4 hours walking around the city area and seeing the nightlife. The next morning we woke up and headed out to find a way to the outback! as this was the main reason for going to WA :)
The first travel agent we stopped at (called travel forever) gave us a great deal on a rental car with unlimited number of kms ! So we booked it and spent the rest of the first day seeing perth city and fremantle (a smaller city closer to the Indian ocean) which has some exceptional italian food (surprisingly the largest migrants after the British and the Italians in WA)
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| City skyline |
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| Perth towards the evening |
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| Risotto with seafood (no where near as good as momma's but good considering we were in Oz) |
Till the next update!
:)
Noosa!
Along our exchange we have met a varied group of people from all over the world :) One of our friends Tobi (from Deutschland) will be staying in Oz after his exchange with his girlfriend to travel so he purchased a camper van. Its typical australian to buy a camper van filled with travelling stuff like fold away chairs and portable grills lol
We took the van up the coast of queensland till Noosa Heads (a beach area about 2 hours north of Brisbane) We stopped along the way like real backpackers at every beach or beautiful lookout and slept the night in the van in the parking lot of the lookout point called arkwright lookout. There we woke up in the morning to see the sunrise before continuing our journey around Noosa :)
Along the weekend we stopped at garage sales, looked for koalas and turtles in the wild and hiked up and down the mountains
There are tons more pictures but I can show you all when I get back to MTL :) ps so far I've taken over 6000 pictures and videos !
Till the next update !
:)
We took the van up the coast of queensland till Noosa Heads (a beach area about 2 hours north of Brisbane) We stopped along the way like real backpackers at every beach or beautiful lookout and slept the night in the van in the parking lot of the lookout point called arkwright lookout. There we woke up in the morning to see the sunrise before continuing our journey around Noosa :)
Along the weekend we stopped at garage sales, looked for koalas and turtles in the wild and hiked up and down the mountains
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| The view from the top of mount beerburum |
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| Our first garage sale :) |
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| Point arkwright |
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| The view of the beach from point arkwright |
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| Dinner clean-up :) |
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| The van!! :) |
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| The sunrise :) |
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| My new desktop background |
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| ART |
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| An crazy adventurer on a rock |
Till the next update !
:)
Stradebroke Island :)
So its been a while since I blogged .. I have been super busy with end of semester and enjoying every minute of whats left of an amazing exchange :)
Today we had a cleaning inspection (which we passed with flying colors) and yesterday we got back from perth (which I will write about in my next blogs)
So a couple of weeks ago we went to an Island called Stradebroke island right off the coast of Brisbane :)
it started off as a rainy day but got nicer once we got to the island but that meant there was no one there .. the beach was completely desert and we had kilometers of sand and water to ourselves :) the weather was nice but not exactly swimming weather but we did get our feet wet :)
It was amazing to have an entire beach to ourselves with nothing else around .. there was no city near the beach. Closest thing was 10 minute walk and was a little cafe and a bus stop.
Till the next update!
:)
Today we had a cleaning inspection (which we passed with flying colors) and yesterday we got back from perth (which I will write about in my next blogs)
So a couple of weeks ago we went to an Island called Stradebroke island right off the coast of Brisbane :)
it started off as a rainy day but got nicer once we got to the island but that meant there was no one there .. the beach was completely desert and we had kilometers of sand and water to ourselves :) the weather was nice but not exactly swimming weather but we did get our feet wet :)
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| A gorge near the main beach |
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| Roger and Dave racing off into the distance |
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| Looking towards the lookout point |
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| Our tent :) |
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| Dave drawing in the sand :) |
Till the next update!
:)
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Snack
For those of you that worry about my eating ... Here a picture of todays snack :)
Till the next update!
:)
Till the next update!
:)
Location:Staff House Rd,St Lucia,Australia
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Paniyiri! :)
So I made a mission to go the paniyiri ! :) and it was very nice ! I went on saturday night, it rained but was stil pretty busy :) it was nice to hear some greek music and I had roger try some loucoumades and octopus and spanakopita :) hte food was OK.. nothing like MTL but still nice to have something half traditional lol ... the music was good and there was big rides and and a dancefloor with a lice dj :)
It all took place in mustgrave park in southbank (which is a very nice are) and then the party continued to the greek club lol
I took some pictures but it wasn't too easy considering the rain and how wet we were getting :(
Till the next update!
:)
It all took place in mustgrave park in southbank (which is a very nice are) and then the party continued to the greek club lol
I took some pictures but it wasn't too easy considering the rain and how wet we were getting :(
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| Some of the rides! |
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| Bumper cars! |
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| Fireworks behind the trees |
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| What they call honey puffs lol |
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| The guy told me it was the best octopus he ever ate .. it was the worst for me lol |
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| Nothing compared to yiayias |
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| The paniyiri |
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| The greek club |
Till the next update!
:)
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