Dolphins, a new apartment and some goodbyes

We drank it all!

Kitchen from the living room

Apartment and Patio from the kitchen

It has been about a week since our last update and although we are still in the same place, much has happened. The big news to start is that we have found ourselves a place to live for the next two months! We discovered a two bedroom apartment, 10 minutes biking from downtown Byron Bay which we will be moving into on November 11th with our current roommates Anton and Sandra. After searching online and on billboards for a while, we found this place through a friend of a friend who lives in the same area and we signed on for a 2 month lease to take us through the beginning of January. The place is fully furnished leather couches, a hammock on the patio, a BBQ and Wi Fi.  We do not yet have any set plans for afterwards, but we will figure that out as we get closer to the time. The apartment is a short 5-10 minute walk to Tallows Beach, although the walk is through estuaries and wetlands which are apparently prime brown snake habitat. However once arriving at the beach we realized the risk in the walk is worth the reward as there are kilometers of beautiful white sand in either direction and only the odd person walking about to share it with.

Tallows Beach to our left...

...and our right

After agreeing to take the apartment we spent the day on the beach hanging out, swimming in the waves and swimming with some dolphins! Well that may be an overstatement, we stood knee deep in the water while dolphins played in the waves and ate their lunch. We have learned that the best way to find them is to follow the seagulls which circle in swarms above where sharks and dolphins are looking for an easy meal. This does make for a scary moment figuring out which it is, but it was quite awesome to see them for the first time of hopefully many more. The whales are now mostly gone to Antarctica for the summer, but I think the dolphins will replace them nicely for our sightseeing needs.

Driving to Sydney

Tequila to wash down the steak

Delicious steak dinner

As much as we have loved all of the places we have seen, and are excited for all the things we have not seen yet, it truly is the people that we have met along the way which have made this experience so incredible. Since we have moved into the hostel a month and three days ago, we have had a consistent group which has stayed solid as a majority of the travelers come and gone. As wonderful as our time together has been, we are all on slightly different schedules and at different stages of our travels and visa's. Last Thursday we had to say goodbye to three members of our crew as Carla's visa expired and she had two return to Chile. This meant that Morgan, her boyfriend, and Roman (the two frenchmen) headed off to Sydney with her to say goodbye. From there they will look for farm work further down south. As sad as it was to see them go, it also gave us a great excuse to party all day and night Wednesday before they left. The daytime was full of games and music before transitioning to fantastic steak, fried onion and mashed potato dinner and everyone's choice of their favorite shots. It was a great night for everyone (even Becki, although she did fall off a table while dancing at some point at Cheeky Monkeys), and made for a very hungover goodbye when they left the next morning. It is great that with technology and social media it is so easy to stay in touch with people, and we hope to all meet up in the future. However, the next couple of days felt very strange not having such large personalities around the hostel at all hours of the day.

Emma, Carla, Anton, Roman, Sandra, Chris and Morgan

Life isn't all about partying in Byron Bay though, this past week Dave and I have been working lots, finally bringing in the money as well as spending it. Dave continues to work at the hostel driving the bus, and I have been working 40 hour weeks at the cafe One One One, due to a shortage of staff. Unfortunately all this hard work and lack of sleep has led me to catch the flu that is making its way around the hostel. I have pushed past and am becoming more myself yet again.

Even though we are in a HOT  climate (25-30+ C every day.... not rubbing it in at all), our minds still remain in Canada. Last week I was very happy to stumble upon real Canadian maple syrup, leading to a delicious breakfast of home made french toast with bacon smothered in sweet syrup. We have also become aware of the very temperamental climate in the US and leading to Canada soon, Hurricane Sandy! We hope that everyone stays warm and safe and enjoys a day or 2 off of work (hopefully). Baseball isn't really shown on TV here, but we have been keeping up with updates from the World Series. Our thoughts go out to Steve Zagrodny as he went to the Giants vs. Tigers game yesterday, and had to sit in the cold and rain watching his favorite team lose.

That is all for now, we hope to make these more regular, especially once we get our apartment with Wi Fi, but until next time goodbye to everyone!