Oz

We arrived in Byron Bay last night after an 8 hour drive up the coast, which included multiple kangaroo sightings and some awesome hitch hikers we became friends with. They are from Sydney (which we've fallen in love with), so when we go back in a week they have us all set up to stay at their house and go to their favorite restuarants, cafes, and bookshops. They also have a friend living in Seattle right now, so I'm excited to meet up with her when I get home. For those who don't know, this is coming much sooner than I'd thought, and I'll be back in your parts on the 15th of this month.

We dropped the boys (George and Jack) off at a train station yesterday, and they are heading home to England today. We spent a glorious five days with them here and are so glad we got this many chances to travel with them. A highlight was going to the Reptile Park, where we hugged kangaroos and pet koalas and anacondas. We even payed the 15 bucks to get our picture taken with a koala. Totally worth it. We also spent an entire afternoon at the beach, swimming in the warm water and burning our little butts to a crisp. By some miracle the two gingers barely burned at all, and us bronzed Americans got scorched.

As we got into Byron Bay last night, we drove up to the parking lot on the beach to a mystical sight of gentle waves lit up by the dropping sun, loads of surfers lined up for perfectly peeling waves, and drum beats drifting up from the rocks. Not to mention the abundance of babes lounging and wandering about. The air was warm and muggy, not much like New Zealand at all, and we sat watching the scene, quickly allowing ourselves to be sucked into it. We decided after a few minutes that we could stay here at least a week...we might have to rearrange our plans.

It still feels good to be on the road, believe it or not, letting the wind or the weather or an odd looking coin determine our direction. Our path is unkown, and this gives us joy. To think that my life on the road is coming to an end - my five month camping jaunt is about to become nostalgia instead of reality - is a complex thing to process. At times like this, I really feel like I could travel forever. Not to say that I'm not excited about getting home.. it actually feels like exactly the right place for me to be, and I have no hesitations about heading back. It will be nice to have a bed and a bit of stability. This was especially clear after our horrible nights sleep last night...

The heat and the humidity really got to us sleeping in the car. If we rolled down the windows, the mosquitos would sneak in, or an unexpected downpour would rain down out of nowhere. So we were stuck with each others' smelly, sweaty bodies, not appreciating the body heat of spooning in the slightest. At some point in the night, our unwanted company did sneak in, and it turned out that we only got a couple hours of sleep at most. Instead, we talked sporadically, knowing our companions were wide awake at any given point, and thrashed our hands around in the air every couple minutes to get the mosquitos away from our faces. It was the sort of thing where I'd just be drifting off to sleep, when I'd hear Christy's sleeping bag rustling around and her hands frantically slapping at the open air, out for death, or blood, or revenge, or all of the above.

The mosquitos are huge here - easily the size of my thumbnail - and filled with a frightening amount of blood. It was a satisfying moment, after I'd been chasing one of em around the car with my headlamp, to slap it against the back window and get instant silence from that incessant high pitched buzzing. I held my hand out to the girls, so they could see the nasty bugger and the thieved blood across my hand. If anyone has seen the youtube video of the kid yelling blood, it went a little like that. SLAP ... BLOOOOOD.

We are feeling quite ambitious at the moment, and are trying to make it up to the Great Barrier Reef AND down to Melbourne. Nobody thinks we can do it, but we are determined.