Australia so far…

I LOVE it. Dave hates it. Hahaha!

I was so excited to get to hot weather and to go swimming that I welcomed the 90+ degree heat and humidity. I felt like my body was thawing out the first few days here.

Where New Zealand felt like more work than vacation, Australia has felt like pure relaxation! Since it is so very hot, Dave is adamant that we will not sleep in a tent at night because he is certain we won’t be able to sleep. I don’t 100% agree with that, but hey, who am I to argue? We have been in A/C every night which means we have slept in a bed every night. No breaking down or setting up our tent home for the last week and a half. Yes, it has been a nice break and I welcome it.

Two days after arriving we went on a 3 day 2 night liveaboard dive boat which catered food and beverages after each dive. We have stayed in hostels the other nights, but they all have swimming pools so it feels more like a nicer hotel.  We have had a kitchen to cook in. Some of the rooms we’ve stayed in have even had tvs and one felt more like a quaint B&B. I loved it.

Our well organized efficient car in NZ has become a place we throw our stuff in any random spot here in AU. Initially we thought we might camp and started to organize our car like we had it in NZ, but realized quickly this would not happen. We actually bought a large 5 liter water container and have yet to use it! We would have used that in a couple of days in NZ!

However, as much as I welcome the comfort of staying in a room each night, the extra cost concerned me a bit. Thankfully, gas is half the price here than NZ and food is good bit cheaper. That helps, but may not fully compensate. We think it will be cool enough in Perth to camp at night so we’ll probably be back into our NZ nomad routine when we arrive there- which Dave is soooo looking forward to! 😉

Let’s see, here are some observations on Australia, some good and some definitely very terrible things.

From October to April is what is known here as “stinger season”. This means that there is a very high risk that if you swim in the ocean you could get stung by a box jellyfish and quite literally die within 3-4 minutes. It is apparently the most lethal sea creature. The sting is supposed to be excruciating pain. Or you could get stung by a smaller type which causes paralysis. AND you can’t see them because they are clear. So there are certain beaches which have a netted area where you can swim during that time of year. When we went diving we had to wear stinger suits which is basically a thin layer of lycra. Apparently the stingers are so tiny that they can’t penetrate even thin material. The dive master noted that it is unlikely the jelly fish were out by the reef since they prefer to be closer to shore, but we had to wear them as a safety precaution anyway. No arguments there buddy.

Since stinger season is such a big deal, most major coastal cities have built very large saltwater swimming pools near the sea so it’s the next best thing to swimming in the ocean. Me personally, give me some sunshine and some water to get in and I’m happy. Dave hates that we can’t get in the ocean, but we’ll be able to once we get out of Queensland.

We are in the beautiful tropical state of Queensland and crocodiles are very prevalent here. Dave will not fish any of the rivers (thank you God) whereas in NZ I probably saw every river in the country because he fished every one of them he could get to! We went on a nature treetop walk thing and watched a video on croc migration and that pretty much sealed the deal that we would not be getting near any rivers here. We haven’t seen one yet, but we’re perfectly okay with that. They also have warnings out for Mosquitoes (or “mozzies”) which spread Dengue Fever— great. I have lots of bites, but no fever yet, thank God.

Some things they say here that are different:

They say:                                    We say:

It’s alright                                   You’re welcome or no problem

Lagoon                                        swimming pool

Eskie                                           Cooler

AirCon                                         A/C

 

I think if you were to flip USA over so that Texas and Florida were pointing north and then moved it to the southern hemisphere it would be Australia. And likewise if you did the same to the UK, it would be  New Zealand. The United States and UK of the southern hemisphere. NZ seemed to have a strong British influence to me, and AU seems very much like the states. And Queensland feels very much like hot humid southern Florida, except they get cyclones here instead of hurricanes, and crocs instead of gators- nearly 100,000 of them. Yikes!

Update:

We attempted to camp last night. That lasted approximately 30 minutes before we broke camp and drove back to the Orchid Guest House for the night. Too muggy. We are headed to Perth in two days!