Gold Coast

After my trip to South Australia, I immediately headed to the Gold Coast, Queensland for 3.5 days. The only reason I went was to support my sister and her friends as they ran the half marathon there. I actually regret going up there because there was nothing to do there. I ended up waking at 8am every morning, walked around a little bit and then took a nap on the beach for two hours or so.

I only took photos on two occasions: North Stradbroke Island (would not recommend visiting*) and at The Spit.

* I am being a little unfair. Objectively it is a stunning place. But perhaps I am simply spoilt, but I find the east coast of Australia to be generally quite similar and therefore boring to me. 

Perth

I have recently returned from a two week work trip interstate and I am very glad to be back in Sydney. Travelling for work really isn't that glamorous and I got a little sick of it by the second day. Though, I am very grateful for the opportunity and I got to visit Perth, Western Australia for the first time! As I was there for work, I didn't have time to properly explore the city and subsequently I don't have too many photos. However, I did meet up with a guy from Tinder; we 'met' a few months ago when he had an interview in Sydney. He drove me around Perth for a little while (Fremantle is gorgeous!) which was super lovely!








Eating alone is still something that makes me a little uncomfortable. For the first night, I ate alone at The Greenhouse. I was quite disappointed with the food.











Perth is very much one extended country town and kind of non descript. That being said, I do want to return to Western Australia for the wildflowers! However, it is such a long trip over; it is a 5 hr flight from Sydney (and a 3.5hr flight back due to the winds).

Adventures in Sydney: Auburn

Auburn was a suburb that I wanted to visit for a while and for the Sydneysiders/Australians, how ridiculous is this. Seriously ridiculous.


Why Auburn? It is apparently home to the largest Turkish supermarket in Sydney and has a large Turkish community. At this point, I was experiencing a small bout of wanderlust blues (in particular, I was thinking about my trip in Turkey).

I first visited the Auburn Botanic Gardens and the Japanese Gardens. It was very cool seeing the peacocks in the garden!










Lunch was at Mado Cafe which is highly raved about online. I had manti which are Turkish dumplings. The food was different so in that respect it was nice, but the food was pretty nondescript.






It was definitely very cool to see Turkish snacks that I had purchased whilst in Turkey on the shelf however the store was quite small which I didn't expect. But overall, it was a lovely day out and I got to see another part of Sydney that I haven't really been in before.

Returning to Adelaide

The last post for my trip in South Australia! All that I had left was to drive back 450km to Adelaide from Flinders Ranges. By this stage, I was sick of the music on my iPod and struggled to find radio reception; the only clear radio stations were talkback stations. In fact, I tuned in once when the presenters were discussing different types of potatoes. Yes, really.

The drive back was pretty uneventful and what I have discovered in remote Australia is that the roads are really friggin straight.








I parked on the side of a relatively busy stretch of road, squeezed past shrubs and jumped over the fence for this photo. I actually have a scar on my left hand from a scratch that I got from the shrubs.



The coolest part of the drive back was when I was stuck behind a vehicle that was going at 40km/h on a 110km/h stretch of road.

How cool is that? I have never seen a L plate that large before! 

One of the many things that I learnt on this trip was that leggings are awesome for hiking/long drives. Comfort aside, they make peeing so much easier. Especially when driving. It is simply so easy to just do my business quickly at the side of the road in the bushes or even just behind my car door without having to worry about buttons or zippers.

There are still two states (well one is a territory) which I have yet to visit in Australia; Tasmania and Northern Territory. To be fair, I have yet to properly explore Western Australia however South Australia is my favourite state and Adelaide is my favourite capital city. I love the city and I love the area. Job aside, I would move to Adelaide in a heartbeat. What do I love about South Australia? Well it has such disparate landscapes. With the incredible Great Australian Bight (which I have only seen from a plane) to the pristine areas such as Kangaroo Island and to remote country/ outback regions further north in the state. I would love to go back to explore the coastline of the Bight and also to the salt lakes such as Lake Eyre. One day.

Flinders Ranges (Part 2)

Wilpena Pound

After my long hike the day before, I decided to have an easy day and drove for 150km in total. As you do. I was visiting the park right before the school holidays started and during the week, so the national park was very quiet. I was lucky to see another car on the road and the roads were super easy to drive. The speed limit was 100km/h but I cruised at a steady 60km/h (since I was in no rush). It actually took a lot of concentration to not go faster than 60km/h.

My little Ford Focus Hatchback.

Spot the kangaroo!

I also drove on unsealed roads (shhh despite not being covered on my rental insurance) and it was going reasonably well until I reached a point where the road dipped down and there was a large puddle in the middle of the road. This happened on two separate occasions. First when I was driving to the gorges and second when I was trying to reach Parachilna from Blinman.

It is never too cold for ice cream; it was around 12 degrees that day. A quandong ice cream. I had never heard of the fruit before but it is basically a plum that is native to Australia. 

I had to stop halfway on the unsealed road between Blinman and Parachilna which was disappointing however it was very cool to find this dry river bed. The photo doesn't show how wide the river would have been which is just crazy.

After 5hrs of driving, I was quite tired and didn't want to return back to the campsite where I had nothing to do. As mentioned before, I didn't have phone reception (so no access to Pandora) and I was sick of my music on my iPod. Thankfully, at one (and only one) of the lookouts, I had a little bit of radio reception and listened to the crackling radio playing today's popular music for 3 hours as I waited for sunset. It sounds a little silly to have travelled so far to sit in a car and listen to the radio. But it was such a cool experience sitting in the middle of nowhere and at one point, there were 15 kangaroos just chilling within close vicinity of my car.

Although I really did enjoy the solitude and serenity at Flinders Ranges, I was glad that I was leaving early the next morning (and also the final night sleeping in the car!) since I was missing civilisation. I was also starting to feel lonely. I very rarely feel lonely even if I am alone, so this was a little unusual. One night, I actually sent an SMS to my good mate via the Telstra payphone (yes really). There was also a power outage at Wilpena Pound Resort (including campgrounds) for a few hours which was a little scary. Firstly, this meant that I had no food (I had been eating at the restaurant for dinner every night) and secondly, I wasn't very keen on showering in darkness.

I'm not sure if I would return to Flinders Ranges. Admittedly, I thoroughly enjoyed my time at this national park and it is probably the craziest thing that I have done in 2015. I am actually super proud that I challenged myself. It proved quite a few things to me. Firstly, I am perfectly capable of travelling by myself. Secondly, I am reasonably capable of driving around country Australia (not confident in busy urban areas) so hello Tasmania! (I've been wanting to visit Tasmania for two years now but always put it off since I couldn't drive). Thirdly, I am capable. But like a lot of things, there is so much to see and just not enough time. One day, maybe.