Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Newcastle and the north

Hey everyone, we made it to Brisbane!! It has been quite a trek getting up here. Lots has happened. We first spent a day in Sydney and stayed over night again with Aaron and his wife Fiona. They have been super great to help us out with a place to stay. Aaron also treated us to some Stir Crazy... best Thai food ever!! Thanks Aaron. After getting a ride to the Central Station, we hopped a train north to Newcastle. It is supposedly Australia's 6 or 7th larges city but you would never guess it. This was the start of our first couch surfing experience. We stayed with a lady named Jacinta and two of her three kids, Josh and Lochlan. She was a great host and showed us all kinds of stuff (except the moon, but that's another story). Her youngest was an 8 year old, Lochy. This kid kept us plenty busy when he wasn't in school. He had more energy than you could imagine. We stayed with them four nights. In that time we did some sight seeing along the coast, pet and fed Koala's, fed Emu's, saw Wombats (I even learned how they mate), had a fire on the beach, went 4 wheelin on the beach, watch a crazy Aussie movie (the Castle), ate wheetbix (cereal in loaf form that comes to life when milk is added), made a poor attempt at the sport of Crickett, hit seagulls with my kite on the beach.... They even took Matt to Red head Beach. It was a great stay. Matt found us some cheap airfare up to Brisbane so we caught ourselves a plane on Wednesday up to here. They one uped us on their planes though, they have pin-up girls on the front of theirs. Now I will say this, not all couch surfing experiences are everything you expect. So the tale goes... We set up a place to stay in Brisbane for the first few days. It was with a guy named Michael and a few of his mates. We show up to Brisbane and it is raining and hailing. After about 2 hours we finally get to the house we are supposed to be staying at. From the front it is the darkest house on the street. After entering, this place isn't your common home. They called it "the Forest." Forests seem a little safer than this though. There is writing all over everything, walls, ceiling, cupboards, doors, floors, you name it. Nothing in particular, just random crap that people would want to write. There were about 4 couches and 3 random mattresses with peoples crap everywhere. You would think there were probably about 15 people staying there.. that's cause there was. It turns out that anyone that asks to crash at their house, they just say 'yes' every time. If that doesn't seem nuts, everyone that is there is crammed out on to the back porch area where they are getting high and drunk with music blasting. Not really what we had in mind. I guess that's all part of the adventure though. After hanging out for about an hour and a half I figured we needed to set up something else, some other living environment. We made a contact in Sydney with a couple that were from Brisbane. They gave me the number of their son Andrew and said if were were in Brisbane we should give him a call. After a quick walk to the payphone, Andrew was on his way to hook us up. You have to love being a member of the church. Him and his roommates took us right in and got us fixed up with some bedding. At this point we are planning on heading north on Monday. We will hire (rent) a car and meet up with one other girl we found to save on the rental cost. We still have three weeks to go so there will be lots more to see between now and then.

2 comments:

  1. WOW! You guys are living large! Matt you and the Koala could almost pass for brothers. Nathan good call on the Andrew hook up, can't believe that other place it gave me the hibby gibbies just looking at the video. Also thanks for the tip on seagull hunting, never thought to use a kite!

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  2. haha i like that you posted a video just to show how gross that place was. nice touch.

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