Port Macquarie

So I am currently in Port Macquarie, NSW. My friend and I are making our way down the east coast of Australia. I haven't been surfing due to a chest cold so I decided to go to the hospital..... but it wasn't a people hospital it was a Koala Hospital....

It was totally cute and set up the same way any human hospital is set up....

It had a patient list on a board as you entered the Hospital, althought this patient list was public information... I guess there is no privacy act with Koalas.... It had an emergency room, which was a bit slower paced that I am used, or maybe I just caught in a down moment.....

They had an ICU inside, but unfortunately only medical staff and family were permitted in the ICU, so even though I am a human nurse I didn't qualify....

They had a medical ward, with hospital beds, the beds looked a bit different then I am used to but lined up in the same.... they even had a long term care wing, where the Koalas have been released back to the wild but unfortunately didn't make it on their own...

The kitchen staff were great serving up eucalyptus plants for meals... and the paitents looked like they were enjoying their stay at the hospital...

From Port Macquarie I am heading south to New Castle where I meet my friend Georgia and then down to Sydney for awhile....

Hope you all are having a beautiful day, heard it was cold at home, hope everyone is staying warm, Love Jamie XXX

Byron Bay, Yamba and Bellingen

Finally after 3 weeks, my friend and I were able to pull ourselves away from Byron Bay and its crazy energy.... We had our final dinner at an Italian restaurant and I loved every minute of it...

but I can't believe I forgot to tell you the best part of my trip to Byron Bay... my dream of swimming with dolphins finally came true.... repeatedly..... each morning when I went out for a surf the dolphins would come close, you'd see the birds fly in the air and feed off the fish the dolphins were feeding off of and then you'd see the dolphins breech right close to you.... the closest I got was about 5 feet... it wasn't what I imagined, hanging onto the fin swimming joyfully as they jump and play with you but it was still beautiful and I was always excited to see them....

After leaving Byron my tent mate and I decided to continue on together by Greyhound to Yamba.... Yamba is a really cool little surf town, we stayed at the best hostel ever!! totally brand new, it even had rain heads in the showers... pure luxary.... the surfing was fun, a bit small but clean.... apparently Yamba can go off and is home to Mr. Billabong.... we drove past his 18 million dollar vacation home still in construction.... we also had a fun afternoon of rock jumping into these fresh water swimming holes and touring around to see what beaches in Yamba have to offer.....

After Yamba we continued on to Bellingen, another quaint town... this time a bit more in land... it was very lush... so a nice change of scenery.... at the hostel we could pitch our tent and create our home. Over our 2 day stay there I had a lazy float down the river on an inner tube, a beautiful relaxing wander around town... and an awesome 3 hour hike through the rainforest in Dorrigo National Park.

We are slowly making our way south to Sydney where I am going to meet my friends and stay for Christmas.... I'll be sure to add more photos soon... Have a beautiful day!! Jamie

Coolongatta to Byron Bay

I know its been a couple of weeks since I have entered a blog, but I went through a bit of a down phase in my travels.... My second day on the Gold Coast in Coolongatta I went out surfing. The wind changed direction and set up Rainbow Bay or Snapper Rocks beautifully... The waves were rolling in clean and small. I had a beautiful ride that took me quite far down the beach. I paddled out for more and pinched a nerve in my neck/shoulder. I got out of the surf and was quite bummed, but was optimistic that it would get better. So that afternoon I left the Gold Coast and carried on to Byron Bay in New South Wales on the North Coast.

Byron Bay is a small town with a lot tourists. It kind of reminds me of Whistler but with a surfing vibe to it instead of a skiing/mountain biking vibe. It is got a hippie flair with loads of healing/ massage centers. So I took full advantage of the massage, in hopes to help heal my shoulder so I could get out and surf again. With a bit of time, one of the massage therapists in town and the massage therapist from Canada I became friends with in the Hostel, my shoulder has almost healed and I can get out surfing again. The second part to my down phase in my travels was the weather, it poured rain for a few days. Thankfully these past few days the weather has turned for the better, the sun is shining once again and the surf has been a lot of fun. Its shoulder season here for surfing so the swell is small, but I am not complaining, I like the smaller waves.

Byron Bay night life includes going to the local pub for a few drinks to listen to a variety of live musicians. In fact every where you go in Byron someone is singing or playing the guitar or the drums... you can hang at the beach each day and listen to live music all around you. I absolutely love it....

I stayed in the Hostel for the first week in Byron but have now moved to the luxurious camping spot down the road. The kitchen area overlooks one of the surfing spots called the pass so each morning I can check out the surf while having my breakfast.

Hope you enjoy the pictures, sending lots of love... Jamie

The Sunshine Coast

Well I made it to the Sunshine Coast!! It is Surfing time now. I stopped in Noosa Heads for 3 nights, determined to find a surf board and start surfing. I did my best to look around and find a surfboard but was out of luck. So I walked everywhere my first day, through the national park, along the water, I saw all the surf breaks I could find and just enjoyed the beauty of the national park. Seeing how I wasn't able to buy the board I was looking for I decided to borrow a surfboard from the hostel, the waves were small but alot of fun, and probably just right for my level.

I talked to my friend Georgia in Sydney and she hooked me up with a good friend of hers and a friend that I hadn'd seen in years, going back to the begining of my Whistler days. His name is Ray and he lives just south of Noosa in Mooloolaba, so I carried on down the coast got set up in a great social hostle and found Ray. Ray and I had a fun afternoon of catching up and surfboard shopping and thanks to Ray I found my surfboard. Its a beach beat board, locally made 7'4, mini mal surf board from Mooloolaba. I was very happy with my purchase when I was able to catch a few rides on it the next day. I spent 3 nights at the Mooloolaba Backpackers and made a few new friends, we all went surfing together each morning and had a blast.

Last night I travelled a bit farther down the coast and am now on the Gold Coast, I'll be here for a couple nights and then off to Byron Bay... This mornings waves were a bit chaotic but I had fun anyway.... I don't have any pictures of me with my new surfboard yet but stay tuned Ihope to soon....

Have a great day!! Jamie

Slient Night

Silent Night is a 60 foot yacht with beautiful sails and a really fun crew. I spent two nights and two days on this beautiful boat sailing around the Whitsunday Islands just off the coast of Airle Beach. It was spectacular, there were 12 passangers aboard this ship and 2 crew. I learned a bit about sailing, helped raise the sails and enjoyed lounging on the deck of this boat. We went snorkeling and saw very coulourfulcoral beneath the sea and a lot of little fishies.... I had a really fun night last night just hanging out on the boat, listening to the guitar and watching the sunset. Yesterday, we went to this beach that was beauitful, the whitest sand I have ever seen, it was called Whitehaven beach, the sand was like cake pastry flour and the water was crystal clear blue. We were able to swim but needed to wear our stinger suits, they are a very thin wet suit. Right now its jelly fish season so the risk of getting stung is present and if you do you might get really sick, so as precaution you were thes very sexy suits (not really)....

I will attach pictures soon, just not a computer that I am able to....
I am off to Noosa, hope to get some surfing in real soon....

Hope everyone is well, keep emailing me your updates, I love reading them....
Have a beautiful day!! Jamie

S.S. Yongala

So I met a young girl from Belgium on the liveaboard that I stayed on while in Cairns. She told me of this ship wreck down the coast and said I needed to do it. Apperantly it is the top dive in Australia, so I decided to tag along. She and I travelled from Cairns, stayed a night in Mission Beach. Mission Beach is a quaint town, not much going on except people skydiving, chilling and picking fruit. I chose the chilling route. From Mission Beach we continued to travel on the greyhound south to a very small town, Ayr. This is where we did the wreck dive out of.

The S.S. Youngala is a steam ship boat that sunk in 1911. It laid undiscovered for 50 years and now makes an incredibly beautiful dive site. There are massive amounts of coral and huge fish that flock to this artificial reef. Its incredible, we saw sea snakes (which are venomous, but apparently don't pose a huge threat to humans), marble rays (absolutely beautiful watching the ray swim), we saw cute sea turtles, along with many schools of fishs that surround you as you dive... We did two dives, the first dive took a bit to adjust too, but the second dive I was able to just chill and enjoy.

I will post a link to the S.S. youngala site so you can read more about it....

I am now in Airlie Beach, the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands, going for a 2 night/2 day sail tomorrow.... Gloria, I don't think Airlie is the Airlie you remember, it is a very commercial/party town now.... beautiful but commercial.... I hear the Islands are incredible though....

Have a great day!!

The first two weeks in Aus!

Hey Everyone!!

Hope all is well in the northern hemisphere, it is incredible down here.... I have only been in Aus for two weeks but I have been having sooooo much fun, I have done a ton of things and each day has been such an adventure.....

I started my journey in Cairns, spent 3 days there. Cairns is in Queensland on the North East Coast of Australia. My flight was really long 24 plus hours so I needed to chill and decided to go to a yoga class.... I thought that would give me a good stretch and a chance to relax... on my way there I thought I'd cross this field as a short cut however I ended up getting chased off the field by these birds that were nose diving me. Instead of being chill and relaxed I thought I was going to be pecked to death.... I did manage to survive without a scratch, apparently these birds do it all the time to people, its crazy...

One day I went to the zoo in cairns, got to hug a Koala Bear, totally cute, I mailed Garret the tourist photo I got when I hugged the Koala bear. The is also a photo in the slideshow application on this blog. I couldn't resist the Koala Hug, Koalas are so cut and cuddly.... I also held a small crocodile (with its mouth taped shut) and I attempted to touch a snake but I just didn't have it in me....

Cairns is a big city so I kind out wanted to get out of there fast... So I went to a small town north of Cairns to Port Douglas,, very quaint, and ritzy, it took all my will not to spend my travel money on the beautiful clothes and jewllery there.

I had my first chance out on the Great barrier Reef there, it was just a day trip with three dives, not bad scuba diving, but not totally impressive... I took seasickness tabs in hopes to keep my breakfast down but unfortunately it didn't do the trick, my breakfst came up fast, but then I felt great, this trip was the prep trip for the liveaboard I signed up for... I'll tell you about that in a minute.... While in Port Douglas I walked along 4 mile beach, this girl and I despartely tried to get a coconut from a Palm tree for a good hour, no luck, we ended up stealing one from the ground.... One night I went out on a local sunset sailing night, had a beautiful night out on the boat, I befriended a local 22 year old living on his Granddads boat, he had a crab trap set and said he was sick of eating crab, so I happily took some off his hands.... delicious!

I continued to travel North to Mossman Gorge, a great swimming spot also a World heritage Site, continued to the Daintree national Park another World Heritage site.....I stayed in a place called Cape Tribulation... its were the Tropical Rainforest meets the Coral Sea... I learned about the variety of rainforests this national Park has within one rainforest.... In the guide book it says the Wet tropics World Heritage Area covers 0.01% of Australias surface area but has 36% of all mammal species, 50% of all bird specieces, around 60% of all butterfly species and 65% of the fern species..... extremely beautiful.... My stay in Cape Tribulation was filled with walks through the rainforest and beach, finding the local swimming holes and going on an exotic fruit tasting class.... spectacular..... My favorite fruit was one called Rollinia, it was white slimy, delicious custard like fruit.... On one of the hikes my guide jumped at one point and yelled snake, you know when your 40 year old Aussie guide jumps and yells snake, there must be danger.... I moved quite quickly.... what happened was this frog had jumped towards him because the frog was being chased by a brown snake, the snaked literally jumped 5 feet to catch this frog, the frog died within 30 secs and the guide told us it was a venamous snake.... gross but cool all at the same time....

Finally made it back to Cairns and jumped on a liveaboard ship for 4 days and 3 nights, my plan was to work on this boat as housekeeper, dishwasher, basically the boats bitch.... whatever it took so that I could dive at least twice a day.... well it was far better than I expected and although I worked, it wasn't hard work, just busy work and I managed to convince them to let me stay an extra night.... so I spent 5 days and 4 nights, all my meals, accomadations and diving included..... I got 15 dives in, my confidence with diving went way up... The reefs this boat took us to far exceeded my expectations and far exceded the diving I did in Port Douglas..... the diving was incredicle... I can't even explain the reef and wildlife under the sea along the Great Barrier Reef, it is just absolutely spectacular..... I saw sharks, and a crazy mount of beautiful fish... cute sea turtles, just unreal.... one dive, my dive partner and I got taken a little farther than we expected with the current, and well we needed to get the little motor boat come out and get us, we were maybe 200 meters from them boat... opps overshot my landmark I guess... had a good laugh about it....

The video of the shark dive was taken just before the night dive, its all good though, they are grey reef sharks so no threat to humans....

I just got off the boat, and am going to head south tomorrow to do another dive, its a Wreck Dive, supposed to be Australias number one dive and one of top ten in the world.....

Hope you have fun reading the blog and sharing it with friends... Have a beautiful Day!! Jamie