Moving right along...

Well, it seems I've been a very bad girl yet again and gone months without posting. Not that anyone's reading this anyways.... (achem. yes, thats me fishing for comments.) But, one thing i've learned in the past year of this travel adventure I've been on is to not beat myself up about anything, and to just keep going forwards without hesitation. So, here's another entry, or few entries even, typed up as I sit on a Boeing 737, twenty thousand feet above Fiji, headed to VanTown...

just a normal night spent at e55 where Kayla works

These last 3 months have been both dull and full of insane adventures. Unexciting because, as you know, I was basically living an oh-so-normal life in Melbourne, with my husband, house, car, dog, and two and a half kids. Achem. I mean, my apartment and job. Life was pretty much as it would be in Montreal, lacking only the comfortable framework of my life there; all the references I have for who & where I am in my life. And I absolutely loved it.

me at work in my little uniform!

My shifts at the deli never started before 9am or ended later than 6pm, my coworkers were a hilarious mixed bag of aussies and frenchies, and I got to discover some delicious french cheeses and other snacks. I think I was averaging about 4 mini quiches and pies a week, all for free!

A band at BarOpen, my nunnery mates in my kitchen...

After work I'd hang out with my AMAZINGLY fun and lovely housemates or head over to fitzroy to play spot-the-hipster and have chats/drinks/music with my hostel buds and other new and old friends. I was happy as a pig in something it likes to be in. My body on the other hand wasn't happy, but sometimes, my darlings, needs must.

An aussie rules football match (47,000 in attendance!) More music nights at the nunnery

My life was filled with all kinds of happy nights and days: footie matches, tons and tons and tons of coffee at one after another 'best' café in melbourne (thank you alex!!) Visiting arts factory friends (on that note, apologies to my wonderful housemates who were endlessly hospitable to my neverending flow of visitors) music sessions with the Irish, nightime visits to the playground next door, tri-weekly-four-dollars-Bimbos pizzas.

..33000 feet. Distance to destination: 4615 miles...

My bed.... sigh!

Then the nights and days got much too chilly, and my lovely bed with its crispy cold sheets wasn't quite so inviting anymore. One day while Grant was visiting, we sat down to work out our respective budgets and all that other oh so crucial nonsense. I then discovered that my plan to work hard and save up money for a trip to Asia in august was completely unfeasible given the unfortunate relationship between how much money I was making vs. spending. Then I noticed how much it felt like autumn in Montreal. Then I started to miss home. Then I got invited to a very good friend's wedding in canada in august. Then I learned of the september '09 birth of my very first nephew ever. Well. Then All Signs Pointed to "Go Home!!"

So I gave notice at work, and booked my flight to Byron. ;)

leaving Melbourne at 7am, destination: ballina airport...

At long last, ladies and gents, The Outback!

Now, allow me to digress just a tiny bit, back to a few weeks ago. I was still living at the nunnery, I was job hunting, kindof, and unsuccessfully at that. It was a big saturday nite out on the town, and my irish friend Richie says to me: "Well. Me and Barry and driving to Uluru on monday, you should come." Slipping back into my old ways, i was dismissive of the idea; after all, wasn't I supposed to be job hunting? Plus, I had JUST moved into my new apartment that day. and wasn't i excited about that! My own bed, room, siiiiiggggh. And, for gods sake, it's a hard 3 day drive in one direction, a week would clearly not be enough time. Right?

Sunday morning I decided to go with them. Sunday evening we planned. Monday morning, nice and early, we were on the road, on our way out of melbourne, hurtling towards adelaide, with nothing but the thought of flat red landscapes and near-unbearable heat seducing our minds and exciting our bodies.

Thank god the traveler in me won out that one! I'd realized that it was my last and only chance to see the outback, to see SOMETHING of the rest of australia before returning to canada when my visa runs out at the end of july. I had no money to spend on this kind of thing, but as my 4 friends were in the same boat as me, I was sure to spend as little a possible. The plan was to camp all along, to spend one or two days up there, to eat only supermarket-picnic lunches and dinners. And with 5 people; it could never ever be any cheaper than this.


Our vessel was a big old 80s boat of a Volvo, complete with sheepskin seat covers, which Barry was renting off some random Aussie guy for nearly-nothing-a-week. It alternated between being spacious and cramped, depending on how tired we were, how well we'd slept the nite before, etc. Day one was a westward drive thru Victoria's farmland and forests towards Adelaide, our first stop. The temperature had noticeably changed upon our arrival. We explored the little city a bit and bought camping gear for the week to come, including a tent that was an exact replica of the one I had lived in back in Byron. We visited a music shop and unabashedly played like children with every different kind of instrument. Adelaide felt reassuringly small and yet urban, reminding me of Ottawa. I found myself really enjoying this scale of urbanity.


Day 2 was the REAL beginning of this adventure. We headed due north from Adelaide, and within a few hours were stripping off layers of clothing as our volvo transformed into a sauna. I was spellbound by the horizon as it opened into something impossibly expansive. That night as the sun set: the sky, the sky!! It filled my senses. My eyes couldn't drink it up fast enough. Though living things were scarce, i felt enveloped by nature. We were passengers in a shiny steel boat that was hurtling at top speed across an ancient sea of sand and soil, a terrain peppered with ancient, crumbling rocks that seemed to laugh at my gall. Sorry if i'm waxing poetic, but nothing about 3 days of driving across notoriously unchanging terrain was uninteresting to me!


I'd heard so much about outback driving; how important it was to bring along water and spare fuel, how flat and straight the road was, the risk of kangaroos as dusk. In practice, however, the road was well signed and well travelled (but dusk was in fact terrifying...) Coober Pedy was a ghost town straight out of an old western, and surprisingly dead considering it was pretty much smackdab halfway up to Uluru. Coober Pedy: where the main attraction is an underground Church and the famous opal mines look like piles of dirt alongside the highway. Where the weekly delivery of fresh fruits, veg, and bread happens on wednesdays, and didn't it just happen to be tuesday?! I was determined to buy a piece of rough opal, and found myself entering a dusty, big shop with faded, handpainted signs. The lights were off, and I had to give a little shout to rouse the shop owner. He bustled in turning on lights, urging me in his thick greek accent that he would make me a good deal. He excitedly told me that he had been to canada, and with fondness recalled a 'great love' in Montreal. Walking out 15 minutes later turning a lovely shimmery blue rock over in my hand, I had the feeling I'd been shafted, but didn't care.


After DAYS of driving, of making and discussing ipod playlists, of hundreds of silly-face photos taken inside the car, of drastically increasing food/alcohol/petrol prices, our bodies stiff and sore from sleeping on the ground, our nerves frayed from the incessant buzzing of water-hungry-flies; after 62 hours of crossing the outback, we finally arrived at "The Rock."


In the wake of flatness that defies imagination, Uluru rose out of the ground like some mystical red beast. It was captivating, invigorating, and easy to see why so many sacred aboriginal sites could be found here. We hiked the Olgas, and then explored the base of Uluru at sunset, marveling as it transformed from golden beige to burning orange to brown to darkness... No pics of the sacred sites however, as this is extremely disrespectful of the aboriginal tradition which reveres these sites through secrecy. In fact, I think you're not even supposed to write about them..... hmm.....


And then we drove back.


This adventure was so much more than just seeing Uluru, you see. Once at dusk we almost hit a wild camel. We veered off the highway at one point to explore what had been a lake 30 years earlier; thanks to drastically changing australian conditions nothing remained now but a thick layer of salt crystals.


The day we left Uluru, we finally had our first car troubles! Seeing that our fuel level was low, we had wisely pulled over to top up the gas tank from our petrol can, but then the darned thing JUST WOULDN'T START. Within 30 seconds of popping our hood, someone stopped to offer help, so barry left with them, headed for the next petrol station. A very VERY hot, dry hour later, an hour of us guzzling water as fast as we were sweating it out, and playing music while holed up in the car to escape the flies, Barry (our saviour!) returned with a mechanic who... started the car. Air in the gas line perhaps... Achem. I guess you'd say we were lucky?


Also on the way back, we stopped in the Barrossa valley to do a winery tour. We arrived at 3pm sunday afternoon, with only an hour and a half left before everything closed, and managed to hit up a few wineries. The last, "Torbreck Winery" was by far the best experience. Our sommelier was a sarcastic young guy at the end of a degree studying wine. There was a 5$ fee for tastings, which seemed reasonable considering that some of the wines we were tasting were upwards of 120$ a bottle, but even that was forgone at the end. I guess he liked us?? The picture says it all........


We arrived back to the cold wind of Melbourne late sunday night, after an hour spent on the shoulder of the highway, about 10 minutes outside the city when our volvo finally broke down (for real this time.) Our AAA paid for cab brought us home to the warmth of our beds, their hostel, my new home, still shaking the sand out of our pockets and washing the dirt off our faces.


The city suddenly seemed a thin veneer of concrete, steel, millions of people on top of what I knew was underneath: the red soil that is and always has been the core of Australia. I went to (my very own) bed that night warmed by the image of vast landscapes of brilliant orange sand against azure skies, and the thought that I had seen and know another face of Australia. I could go home a happy girl now.

Life gets oh-so-normal, oh-so-quickly..

Now. where were we.....

a standard evening spent lounging at The Nunnery

Ah yes, the days are getting shorter and colder with summer disappearing oh so quietly, and thanks to a bedroom shared with / heated by 9 other bodies, this fact was easy to escape, for a little while at least. My days were a mix&match of different elements, usually starting with me stumbling out of bed at 9:45 to get the only-till-10am free breakie. Next, a long sitting-chatting-drinking-tea session, then an extended getting-clean-and-dressed phase, mixed in with a distraction or two of some kind: facebook? ukulele? laundry? reading? Then it's probably lunchtime already... 2 hours later I'd emerge from the hostel, ready to face the world. I'd head to the library to work on my CV or hand out a few resumes, then suddenly it's already 5pm - time to start thinking about making dinner, preferably before the kitchen-rush around 6.30 or 7. Dinner would be followed by a night of poker? beer? tea in the kitchen? wandering up and down Brunswick St? Music improv in room 20? Finally, I'd go to bed, usually later than I'd hoped as I'd spent at least an hour wandering around the hostel chitchatting with diff people, unable to tear myself away from the stimulating company of others. I'd get out of bed late the next day, rinse, and repeat.

Our housewarming party; yes. that's beer pong. Chrissy's at the front, Carly's at the back

After about 6 weeks of this odd routine, I finally got an apartment and a job!! I got the apartment first; not the usual order of things, but ah well - needs must. Sometimes you have to seize opportunities as they come to you and worry about the details later. So now I live in a lovely share house with three other girls: Kayla - whom I met in Byron Bay back in September, Carly - an energetic and outgoing American gal, and Chrissy- a modest, funny Kiwi who works as a nurse at the local hospital. They're FABULOUS and I love them ever so much. Moving in, tho exciting, was also a bit saddening as I had made some great friends at The Nunnery, the hostel I'd been living in. Then I reminded myself that The Nunnery is about 5 mins away from my new place; Yay!!

Being in my new place that first night, in my first ever OWN apartment and OWN room was a very odd feeling. It was so.. quiet. I had space to think, to stretch out in all respects, and that felt very very good. I don't really have any furniture - save a bed&bedframe donated by an aussie friend whose family lives out of town, and a lamp I bought at IKEA, but it doesn't matter one lick! I've already committed a few housemate faux-pas; situations where i've displayed a shocking lack of awareness of those living with me, but I'm learning real quick. Noisy poker game in the backyard till 1am, just under my flatmate's window? when she has to work early the next day? Probably not a good idea. Derrr.

The front counter of yumminess at my new workplace

After the singular most frustrating job hunt of my life to date, I got a job! A selective job hunt was proving unfruitful, I needed to cast a much wider net. I resorted to handing out resumes on Lygon Street - a 6 block strip renowned for it's absurdly high concentration of family owned italian restaurants. A 10 minute walk down this street is either hilarious or annoying depending on your mood; big, old italian men planted about every 2m along the sidewalk lay the charm on thick as they attempt to lure you into their particular pasta and pizza eatery. This strip is also renowned for high staff turnover and employment of (read: exploitation of) backpackers. CV in hand, dressed all in black, I tried to convince any one of these people that YES I had waiting experience and NO I'm not leaving melbourne any time soon. *cough cough*. 4 days and one restaurant trial-shift later, I landed a job at an authentic french charcuterie owned and operated by a french man and his aussie-of-french-descent wife. (THANK YOU french-speaking-ability!!!) The pay is good for the work, and it's 4 days a week which gives me plenty of time for ukulele playing, blog writing, and a desperate attempt to get back into shape...

I was somewhat uneasy at first in thuis new job; the owner is a bit of a character. Her bluff manner initially intimidated me, but then quickly grew on me. Though always first and foremost our boss, she clearly sees the 6 of us who comprise her staff as "her girls" - asking about our love lives, trying to set us up with delivery boys, giving us food to take home at the end of every shift. And because we are a small staff we are quickly given responsibility: 4 days in, I had a key, the safe code, and was closing alone! I speak more french in an average day at work here than I do in Montreal, which is a good thing. Also, I am finally doing my French heritage proud by learning the difference between brie and camembert. The temptation to not continually snack alllll day on cheese, bread, and terrine is almost too much to handle. All in all, the job is great, and to top it all off, it's only a 5 minute walk from my apartment along Lygon. Well. 10 minutes if it's around dinner time.

Friends and more friends! L: Grant and Kayla in the living room, C: Rich and Jenny in my kitchen, R: Halifax friend Rob with other new friends at Trivia Night at the Royal Darby (where Kayla works.)

And thus is my life at the moment; living and working in a cute area called Carlton that is wedged between hipster-town and the university ghetto, in my all-black uniform for work AND play. I spend my days peddling paté and comté to melbourne's foodie community, and my evenings biking or jogging, trying out new soup recipes, and hanging out with my flatmates - aka doing normal things (how very unbackpacker of me.) I do, however, happily reunite with my backpacker buds from the nunnery and the arts factory on a regular basis, and even random friends from canada; keeping my toe in the water so to speak. And I manage to throw in the occasional new experience, like my first Aussie Rules Footie game...

Yup. Life is good.

2 blocks from my place, Melbourne at night...

Melbourne Beginnings

So, finally my blog catches up with me. Here I am, in Melbourne! Almost a year after I came the first time, when I discovered how much I like this city, this place so much like Montreal and yet not Montreal (definitely not 30 below at any rate.) This city of art/design/culture, ultra ultra hipsters, and mild weather. This is going to be the boring part of my adventure. Well.. exciting to me, but boring to you perhaps because I won't be moving around anymore for yet another big chunk of time. I'm basically here to try out real life. Actually, I reckon this will make my blog more interesting.
Yes, I DID just say I Reckon.

The sad truth is I need to work and save up cash. In other words, I unfortunately spent in Byron all the money I saved in Byron. Crud. On the upside, I now have one more thing to check off my list of typical-backpacker-experiences-to-have-in-oz: being terribly broke and desperate for employment!

First things first. When Tamar left, I stayed at "The Nunnery", a lovely homey hostel in Fitzroy (aka, Melbourne's Plateau Mont Royal...) Room 20 -- a ten share dorm with 5 sets of bunk beds, a dresser, a few narrow closets, and two couches in the middle -- was to become my new home. I couldn't have hoped for better roommates; mostly travelers like me who had just arrived to settle in Melbourne. These people, little did I know at that moment, were to become good friends of mine in the weeks following. Maybe even years following: who knows!

Top - Room 20, Below - some of Melbourne peeps, St Paddys day.

I was intent on starting my job and apartment hunt right away.. and... of course I procrastinated. Like MAD. But this was more than just normal job-hunt-avoidance. This procrastination was being fueled by EVERYONE at the hostel bemoaning the impossibility of finding a job and home due to 1) the fact that our arrival coincided with the beginning of the uni semester, 2) the global economic crisis, and 3) being a short term backpacker on top of it all. Who wants a housemate/employee who will leave in 2 months when they can have one for a full year?

Living in a hostel again didn't help either. The temptation to go out drinking every night proved irresistible, and I would up a few pounds heavier while my wallet got a few pounds lighter. That said, I had some really memorable nights! About a week into my time here we had a long music and beer fueled night with a few guitars, my uke, and lovely talented musicians and voices all around. The next few days as everyone recalled how fun that night had been, I recalled with a touch of sadness how fun and spontaneously musical just about every night in byron had been.

Music Nite! Chris, Corrine and Dee

(Ok, so I still missed Byron. Achem, still miss Byron. The feeling will subdue a bit over time, but I suspect it will never ever go away completely. It's like missing Saturday mornings as a kid. Or high school crushes. You know you can't relive these joys, can't actually revisit them, if you do it will be like going back to your high school as an adult - everything seems small, a bit cold, and a bit dirty and smelly.. But you can go there in your mind when you need to access that pure, naive joy you felt at the time. )

Having drinks with Madi and Kayla outside Black Cat

I spent scattered days pounding the Melbourne pavement, handing out resumes in shops, cafes & restos, lying through my teeth the whole time about my experience, my intended stay, etc. Job and house hunting became quite discouraging quite quickly! And then, on the cusp of reassessing my plan out of desperation, I was delivered a wonderful gift from Kayla; a new home in a lovely apartment with fabulous housemates just across the park from the hostel; exactly where I wanted to live. Though still unemployed, this was enough to keep me going, just enough of a taste of the months to come to revive my motivation. The next few months in Melbourne stared to take shape in my minds eye, and I found myself excited again.

thank god.

Grant, Rose, and my housemate Chrissy in the kitchen of my new home!

Just the Two of Us

After a frantic fun filled weekend in Sydney spent staying in Manly with Tamar's friend Ben, Tamar and I picked up our new home, AKA, the hippy camper, ready to leave Sydney in our dust. (thank god. Sorry, Sydney.)


We made our way out of the city late at night, it haven taken us the ENTIRE day to pick up the camper, repack all our crap, pack up the van (amazing how much we crammed in there) and then go! And of corse it started raining the moment we left. 2 hours later we were passing by Woolongong, driving through the most intense fog I have ever seen in my life, having already had a few near-death experiences, including hydro-planing on our way out of sydney.

In other words, our roadtrip was off to a perfect start!



The following days were a mishmash of small towns, rolling hills and picturesque farmland, lovely Australian scenery framed consistently by our car windshield, and one unusual 'free' overnight spot after another. We made an effort to mix it up; night number one was spent outside a random suburban home, number two saw us high up on a hill surrounded by green hills beyond which lay a stunning seaside view at sunrise. Three was a legitimately free campsite along 90mile beach (disappointingly, it was cold and rainy.) One night saw us camped JUST off chapel street; one of the main night-time streets in Melbourne. A few nights just beside the St Kilda botanical gardens... We only paid to sleep ONCE, and even that was only because our fridge battery needed recharging.


The best part of this 10 days was easily traveling with Tamar, my fabulous Scottish friend from the Arts Factory. I've never had a travel buddy with whom I was always so much on the same wavelength! It was an ease and a pleasure. Mostly.. as we were driving out of Sydney, she informed me of her infamous passenger-seat-nerves. ("Claire! The sign says 40km/h around the turn!! not 60!!" "Arent we going a bit fast?" "SLOW DOWN!" not to mention how her body would transform as we overtook other cars) (heheeeee you know i love ya tamar!!!!)



Something else from this roadtrip I'm sure never to forget: fire-ravaged Victoria. Before leaving Sydney, I was struck by the unfolding drama of news stories about the fires, fires which were spreading like.. well.. you know. The death toll, plastered across newsstands country-wide, climbed shockingly each day. But it was all so abstract; exactly what such a disaster would look and feel like was an elusive concept to me... until we passed through the small town of Yarram, a few hours out of Melbourne. Tamar and I had seen plenty of charred trees, apparently a fire-prevention strategy. But these trees, fields, bushes and grass had clearly been recently consumed by fire. If there was any doubt in our minds, the heavy smell of burning on the air was the answer... and then clouds of smoke coming off nearby forest... smoldering ground beside the road.... Five minutes of roadside exploration resulted in soot-blackened feet and shoes, and a smell of campfire in our hair and clothes that lingered for hours. Clearly the image will linger much longer in my mind.

We briefly passed through Melbourne on our way to the great ocean road, which is a very well marked touristic drive along, literally ALONG, the southern coast just west of melbourne. Stunning views. Koalas. The "12 Apostles." all that touristy stuff. We concluded our adventure with a week or so in Melbourne, hanging out, being bums, being backpackers, not really exploring Melbourne outside Fitzroy and St Kilda! Spent a few nights in the camper - including one very memorable one at the espy with John Bear, aka sexy bear, that American from Seattle who we all know and love. A few nights couch surfing, a few nights at my fave Melbourne hostel "The Nunnery." Saw Tamar off, back to Byron Bay, with a promise of a visit over bluesfest, and then that was that!



And so began the new, completely different part of my Australia trip.

More Pics....
Just the 2 of Us, Part One
Just the 2 of Us, Part Two

Shadow Jumping

Hmm, now where were we?

Oh yes, 4 shell-shocked girls hurtling down the highway, byron in our wake, the beautiful byron shire landscapes passing us by, with Sydney as our final destination. We eventually took out the maps and guidebooks and very roughly planned our voyage to take us along the coastal route, stopping/sleeping at whatever beaches struck our fancy along the way. We decided to avoid cities, stopping only in places small enough to call themselves towns. Other than beaches and towns, our only real stops were petrol stations (gas, snacks, water, and bathrooms....) and supermarkets.

I can't speak for the others, but I know i personally spent these first few days ungluing my mind from byron. My body may have been in that car, but my mind was miles and miles away, still firmly planted In Byron, amongst all the friends and places I had come to truly love. By the time we got to sydney, I had myself reassembled into something mostly like one piece. I was more or less ready to move forward, and it seemed the blue mountains were our next stop.

They were stunning. I can honestly say by now that the best things to see in Australia is pure, unadulterated nature. We stayed at the YHA in Katoomba, a sweet, tiny mountain town full of cafes, 'adventure' equipment stores, and art deco architecture. Our hostel couldn't have been any less like the Factory; dead quiet almost all the time, half empty at that, the guests more focused on planning exhuasting hikes rather than thinking about what they're gonna get from the bakery at 2am that particular night (spinach and ricotta slice, or asperagus+corn+cheese pie? tough call...) The sights were amazing, and the 3hour "National Pass" hike tamar and I took was easily one of the highlights of my australia trip so far. And I FINALLY rode a horse, for the first time EVER in my life. It was pretty cool.

One and a half days in the blue mountains proved enough for myself, Jenny and Tamar. Amber had set her sights on an ambitious 2 day hike, so she and Matt (whom we met up with there) went off on their own into the Jenolan Valley, while us three girls headed back to the coast for more beachy paradises. We set our sights on Jervis Bay National Park, and by the light of dusk set up our tent at the "cave beach" campsite, kept company by the local roo population the whole time. By this point my enthusiasm for camping was pretty well worn off, and fantasies of a nice comfy bed, mine at home even, were frequent.

That day and next were spent relaxing lays on beachs, taking slow forays into local towns for coffee and breakfast, and a hilarious rural op-shop-stop. Night two saw me serenading an audience of fellow campers as we finished off our dinner, right before heading out on a futile mission to find an open pub/bar at 11pm. A laughable venture, really. The next day we packed up and headed towards woolongong, occasional beach stops along the way, to meet Amber and Matt before continuing to Sydney, since we had to return our rental car by 10am the following morning

At some point during these ten days, we coined a motto for our trip, which has since become the motto for my trip as a whole, and perhaps my life? As we raised our wine glasses/mugs by the rosy light of dusk in the bluemountains, I demanded a toast.. I'm big on toasts.. Jenny said, using a lovely translated-from-german turn of phrase, "To jumping over our shadows" which basically means: to facing our fears, pushing our boundaries, and going beyond where our selves seem to end and the rest of the world begins.

And how.