Road trip, Australia

At the moment, I'm 3 weeks into a 1 month long roadtrip, with a friend of mine from Canada, Natalie. We started from my hometown of the Sunshine Coast, Australia, and drive down south hitting the beaches before heading inland towards the amazing Jenolan Caves (the neighbouring town is known as Katoomba; which was art deco and cool cafe's at their best). We then headed back to the sea, to a cheese factory ( ....yum), to a national park with wild kagaroos, birds, and wombats, and then into the metropolitan wilderness known as Melbourne! That place is wild. Alleyways galore crammed full of rad little shops, cafes, bars, and anything else hip that you ought to search for.

THEN to top it all off, our last day in town was the creme of the crop with the St. Kilda Festival - Music, international foods, rides, and a great gaggle of lively spirited people all spread out along the beachside suburb. Highlight there? Firstly, the rad dude in the burger shop who was just too much of a crack up to forget (we had a micheal jackson sing-off, an accent competition, and general mayhem in a 10minute burst of fun), and secondly, the AMAZING performance by Kimbra! Check her out if you haven't heard of this wild bird yet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHV04eSGzAA

Now... now we're in sydney. We went to Manly beach today, and tomorrow the world. I mean. The city. I haven't really ever cared much for Sydney, but hopefully it proves me wrong tomorrow with some good adventuring!

Brisbane Flooding

Yesterday after work, I drove down to Brisbane to go check out what was going on and photograph some of the mayhem. So my friends and I drove to another friends house - where we actually had my welcome home party only a few weeks ago all together. This time though, we all stood up the street from it, at the waters edge looking at the water engulfing the street, houses, pay phone booths and anything else that was in it's path. One of the weirdest things was driving down a street and then suddenly being at a new lake - with kayakers, boaters, and swimmers where solid ground used to be, but the one that made it the most glaringly shocking was seeing a street lined with cars along an incline. The first white van had hgih tide marks all the way to the roof where the dirty water had receded along. Next was a red four door with the front headlights peering out above the murkiness; and finally all you could see a sliver of what looked like a white hummer. Bummer hummer. 

The attitude of the Australian people is astounding. Talk about survivors and optimistic even at the most heart-wrenching of times. For the most part, people are volunteering their help, their clothes, and even opening their homes to strangers to help out their fellow Australian. It's amazing, and makes you proud to be an Australian. I'll pop-pictures up once I get them developed!

Flooding in Australia

The rain will not stop in my state in Australia, Queensland. All around the world the news reports are being heard, and the other day I got to see and experience some of the direct effects of it for myself. Most up the flooding has been in the north of the state, and I'm closer to the south border, and also the coastal area. It's has been mostly the rivers doing the flooding - they have gotten so full they have all just started to overrun the land, then the roads, then even whole towns. 

For work the other day, a colleague and I had to drive 1hour north to the town Gympie - on the way there, the water was already across one lane of the highway, but we persevered and thank God. After 3 hours of what normally is a one hour drive, I was back home. Locals had been thinking they'd be able to get home as of Monday, after the expected peak, but now at Wednesday, and the streets we drove along are now completely lost to the water, and the town flooded WAY more than when I managed to get out.


The local dam (Wivenhoe) is at 191% capacity, and is releasing the equivalent to 6,000 Olympic pools every second. If it swells with more water, it could cause the dam to crumble, which would be a major catastrophe; causing more damage than has already been ravaged.

So far, these are the statistics.
12 killed
51 missing
180,000 without power
bull shark spotted swimming in one town's flooded streets, Goodna


More information can be found here:
http://qldfloods.org


To donate to the flood relief fund:
http://www.qld.gov.au/floods/donate.html


My friends house in Brisbane, which is elevated one floor off the ground level, is flooded inside the house (approximately 9 feet from the ground outside). The sister city, Ipswich, has water to the ceilings. Fears are that for Brisbane, the worst is yet to come. My area missed the worst of it; we were merely cut off from getting home by all the roads in being flooded, but our house situated on quite a large hill now overlooks what we refer to as "Lake Bli Bli". My town of Bli Bli has no lake. Fresh milk and bread are running out - I purchased one of the remaining 4 one litre cartons of milk, and the same goes until roads can open back up from interstate, as production areas in the state are also flooded, and so are shops, malls and electricity to many areas is also gone. ATMs are running out of cash, drinking water is running out ...

I encourage anyone who can to donate to help these people to please do so.

Australia

This country is soooo huge. I got a bit spoiled in Korea. 

I wanted to be at the top of the country one day, and the bottom the next, it was no problem, just a super affordable bus ride away and a couple of hours with my charged ipod, and I was set.. but here is just unfathomable and expensive to do such an expedition. I was talking on skype to a friend who is in a little dot on the map called Kintore. It's a speck, really. A red, dusty speck. A bit of a dream to photograph, with this amazing spectacular earthen colour, and the local people so full of character. So i had this bright idea to pop over and hang out there for NYE... bzzt! 

Her father (I was over at the family's house for din dins and catch-up time) told me it was an $800 ish/ 2 hr flight to Alice Springs, and then a 7 hour drive.

Nevermind.

But I really, truly would love to head out there.

This family is sooo awesome. I worked for them when I was in University on my days off from school, and they are the most well-traveled people with the biggest hearts, and actually run this really amazing organisation called World Outreach, so the father was in Pakistan during the floods, told me about the amazing sights in Calcutta, and want me to come with them to Bangladesh on their next trip there. Of course I'm so in. It's really inspiring to talk to people like this and to know that i'm not completely bonkers to want to see so much of the world.