Australia on the road

Australia is everything I had hoped for plus more! It feels good to be back in English-speaking territory. Not that Filipinos don't speak English, it's just it is soooo much easier to understand when it's being spoken as a native language. We spent the first day and a half in Sydney but the weather didn't play along, just 22c and cloudy skies. That didn't get us down though, we still got outside and did some exploring.

We took a ferry over to Manly, a beach town right next to Sydney. I tried some authentic fish 'n chips and was not disappointed, even though I'm not the biggest french fry fan. We also took the Monorail in Sydney around a circle but we encountered the Australian version of white trash which ruined the ride. I guess it's not just an American thing.

mean face for the crappy weather at Manly Beach

We got the rental car yesterday, which is always an experience interesting for people accustomed to driving on the right side of the road. They drive on the left wrong side here, so I had to just think stay left stay left stay left. Inevitably I wanted to signal a turn and hit the windshield whipers, even they are switched! It didn't take me long to get accustomed to the new system and now I can drive and let my brain wander without thinking about staying left the whole time.

We made the drive down to Tilba Tilba, stopping at the Hyams Beach at Jervis Bay along the way. The beach was really sick, the sand was almost as white as it was on the Maldives even. Apparently the sand is so nice there that Hawaii imports it from that particular beach. I wanted to make it a point to go swimming every day since we're driving down the coast. The only bad thing is that I got a slight sunburn yesterday, bleh.

proud because I'm standing

Today we took another scenic drive and ended in Gipsy Point, where a group of kangaroos just approached the back porch of our room. The first kangaroo I saw was roadkill so it was nice to see moving kangaroos too :) Tomorrow we'll make the long drive to Philipp Island and then move onto Melbourne the day after. I'll probably blog again once I get settled in Melbourne and get my tourney schedule figured out.