I arrived into Sydney just short of 3 weeks ago, the start of a new chapter of this trip. The kind of chapter where I actually understand what everyone is saying, have had to learn to stop looking for the bins in the toilet, no longer get called beautiful by strangers on the street every day (self-esteem crash is bound happen soon) and where Havaianas and bicycle helmets are available in vending machines. South America this ain’t…

It was a 2-day trip to get here, including a 14 hour layover overnight at the airport in Santiago, Chile. It was oddly nice that everyone spoke Spanish again, like I was back on familiar territory. Not that that stopped me from replacing gracias with obrigada on a few occasions – despite having done the exact opposite in Rio the day I left. I was tempted to just skip the connection and stay in Chile and continue travelling South America but without encouragement I’m not brave enough to throw caution to the wind like that.

The crew on my Qantas flight were very cheery, very Australian. They made a big deal out of the fact that we would be flying the entire way in daylight – it was what they referred as the ‘chasing the sun’ route (spot the lack of creativity in entitling this post). Which probably contributed to why I was at a complete loss as to what I was meant to do to avoid jetlag. So I slept a bit, watched some films, and silently cursed the lack of legroom (I want bus travel back!).

But I had the best start to Australia I could have wished for – friendly face at the airport, a place to stay where I didn’t have to sleep in a bunkbed and the kind of ‘normal’ activities I haven’t really had in 7 months, including catch-ups with travel mates over post-work drinks, a gig, and shopping for a much-needed new pair of trainers to alleviate the strain on my Kawasakis (who are dying a slow and painful death but I’m refusing to put them out of their misery and turn off life support just yet). I was also a tourist, proper excited at the first real-life view of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, learned a bit of history at the incredibly well done Barracks Museum, went to the beach (Manly. Closer on the bus than Bondi) and day-tripped it out to the Blue Mountains where I trekked for 3 hours and didn’t cover anywhere near as much ground as the map had let me to believe I could.

I got my visa application for India submitted, a slightly more complicated process than my research had led me to believe as they have changed the procedures from 1st January this year. It now involves the original paper form and checklist, a new (long. Oh so long) online form (which, among other interesting questions asks you to list all countries you’ve visited in the last 10 years. I ran out of space on that one), a passport photo of different dimensions to a standard passport photo (just to make the ones you have totally redundant) and then you now need to schedule an appointment in advance for submitting it all at the consulate. Ah lovely bureaucracy. So after a 2-day completion/appointment-scheduling delay, I left my passport in their hands and hoped I hadn’t given them any reason not to issue the visa.

I also made some decisions on how long I’ll stay in Australia and what I’ll be doing after because I arrived with no concrete plans whatsoever. I like to think I’ve learned from my mistakes in how I planned South America (I really shouldn’t have committed to a date for the Inca trail. And I should have waited longer before booking my flight out) so I decided to take New Zealand out of my plans for this trip. There are kiwis I’ve hung out with over the last few months that might disown me for that but I’d rather do it right and time and money just doesn’t logically allow for that right now. Instead, I’ll be heading straight from Sydney to Kuala Lumpur next week.

I also sorted out my transport plans for Australia – 1 overnight bus, 1 flight and 1 hop on/hop off bus pass got booked. I dread having to face my next credit card bill.

After 4 lovely days in the Sydney sunshine, I went to Melbourne on the overnight bus and arrived to a cloudy sky, rain and a significant drop in temperatures. Wtf, Melbourne? It’s supposed to be your summer! It didn’t really change my plans much, I still drank loads of flat whites at the many cafes, window-shopped vintage shops in Fitzroy and Collingwood and tried my best to find some of the places the cool people of Melbourne go to. I’m not sure I managed that but I did find a Mexican restaurant that reunited me with mezcal for the first time since July (bringing back Central America memories) and served way too small portions for the money (bringing back London memories).

Next stop was Cairns. With Tigerair. Which lets you fly with only your drivers licence for ID. Which they never even checked! They did check the weight of everyone’s luggage with Ryanair-like discipline and tried to tell me mine weighed too much when it was clearly within 100gr of the limit. I think the lady at the counter was maybe just equally as tired as I was since she was at work at 6am and I had spent the night under the fluorescent lights of the check-in area in the neighbouring terminal and eventually she realised that 14.9 was indeed less than 15.

From hot and humid Cairns, I powered through the East coast southbound. I learned that in this country, the whole make-it-up-as-you-go-along approach isn’t actually financially beneficial and it’s better to try to make sense of the millions of tour packages available and pick one of those. And ask for a discount. On top of the discount your hostel travel agency already claims to be giving you. It might not feel like much when you see the final price (I hadn’t been out of South America long enough to be ok with Aussie prices) but it will at least cover the credit card fee, 2 nights out in Cairns and goon for you sailing trip. So armed with too many damn paper vouchers (this is one if my main qualms about travelling in Australia. You need to hold on to so many bits of paper to present for your various tours and hostels and bus journeys. They have no practical information on them but they always need to be presented) I got an itinerary sorted and started ticking off the East coast Australia boxes.

Diving and Snorkelling at Great Barrier Reef, check. Sailing at the Whitsunday islands, check. Driving a 4wd across Fraser Island, check. Reaching Australia’s most easterly point at Byron bay, check.

I got talked into doing a dive at Great Barrier Reef by one of the crew members on my boat and am so glad I did it even though I had decided I was content with just snorkelling. There was only one other certified diver on the boat so they got us in the water first (before all the people doing intro dives) so we got to leisurely take in the beautiful coral and colourful fish (and an octopus! But no sharks, I was really hoping for one).

Next, after arriving on the overnight bus, I had half a day in Airlie Beach before setting off on the 2d/1n sailing trip around the Whitsundays. And it wasn’t till there that I started to get why people are willing to spend so much money travelling this country. Because Whitehaven beach was beautiful and sailing across that bright blue sea was awesome. It was freakishly hot though and not a comfortable night’s sleep and trying to return from that trip without a sunburn required some serious amounts of sunscreen. We had two snorkel stops and I got to swim with a turtle again at the first one and swam over a giant mantaray at the second. And I saw small yellow sharks at Whitehaven beach and dolphins swam right past our boat when we moored for the night so I finally started ticking off some of those animal boxes too.

Back from the sailing, I got straight on an overnight bus to Rainbow Beach where my Fraser Island tour started from. I met my lovely fellow group 7 members at the hostel and the next morning, the 4×4 convoy set off. I really wanted to love Fraser Island and parts of it I did. But it also felt occasionally like those bus tours I still have issues with that herd people around certain main stopping points and I felt less vowed overall than I had expected. But driving on the beach was fun, the views from Indian Head amazing (mantaray, turtle and two sharks spotted) and I survived 3days/2nights of camping so I’m clearly not too old for that kind of lack of comfort. We were expecting to encounter dingos but didn’t see any so that was a bit of an animal fail on Fraser island’s part.

After Fraser Island, I managed to squeeze in a quick stop with the pensioners at Noosa (where my camera broke again. I didn’t handle it so well this time so on the way back to my hostel I bought a giant pack of liquorice and went to see ‘Unbroken’ at the cinema which is a very good film for putting life into perspective a little bit) and with the hippie surfers at Byron Bay (this is my kind of place!) before catching the bus back to Sydney, where I picked up my passport this morning (including my Indian visa! Which was issued well within the 10 working days they say it takes despite there being no record of my application on the tracking website. Yay for nearly-extremely-efficient bureaucracy!). 

It’s been a few weeks of culture shock (coffee is good! Everything is expensive! Why is no one moving out of the way when I’m trying to pass them and politely say ‘permiso’?), readjustment (from the travelling ways of Latin America. Because there is nothing challenging about travelling here), acceptance (I might want it to be but wifi is not a human right. But I’ll still rather go without it than pay for it at the hostels. It’s totally a principle-thing that i refuse to pay anything extra for that but I’m sticking to it), and realisation (I might have lost my ankles forever to the humidity. Australia in January is a stupid idea, it’s too damn hot!). I’ve been surprised at how few Australians I’ve met but maybe that’s because on this route along the East coast, everyone is either Swedish or German. Fact. 

Now I’m chillin’ in Newtown (because I clearly didn’t try hard enough to be a total hipster when I was in Melbourne) where I’ve picked up a second-hand guidebook for India for just AUD$10 (today’s bargain indulgence) and am quite enjoying being back in more comfortable temperatures. I only have a few days left on this rather big island now so here’s to hoping the rest is as much fun as it’s been so far. And that I maybe still get to see a kangaroo and a koala. Or at least get to meet an Aussie or two.

Today I’m listening to: Sia – ‘Chandelier’