time.

Time flies
time waits for no man
time heals all wounds
all any of us wants is more time

the great ocean road...

the great ocean road is a road that is constructed obviously along the oceanside, going from the southeastern boarder of australia. some of the views are just simply breathtaking, as we were fortunate enough to go through the grampians national park, and stop along many landmarks along the way...

the bad news...

while working our arses off in perth finding work, carrie recieved news that forced her to make a decision to sacrifice and go back home and be with the people she loved. since we had left most of our things in melbourne (which is literally clear across the country), I decided that I would see her off and we hopped on the train back to adelaide leaving our days in perth behind us. the train from perth to adelaide is not a short ride, but literally three days of travel. before we left we had decided that even though we lacked funds we would splurge and see a little bit more before she had to go home. so we decided to abort the final leg of travel by train from adelaide to melbourne and decided to go on a three day tour along the great ocean road to get back to our city of departure.

perth was hard...

Perth is hard...
finally arriving to perth we learned a few things, one that perth is expensive and that the grocery store is more popular than paris hilton on a drunken night. Carrie and I both worked endlessly without very much reward in our search for work applying for jobs that we thought we might have the slightest qualifications. Even though we had heard lots of great things about the city (which I think we both agree that it was a nice city), it was definitely inundated with a lot of travelers, and university students all looking for work during this minor recession that australia is feeling. All the while, we were both spending almost 300 jr. bacon cheeseburgers a week for our accommodations, which was nice but not spectacular by any means.

I can't say that it wasn't a little depressing working so hard each day and not really getting to enjoy the city for lack of funds. We did try to find simple cheap pleasures like going to the beach, strolls along the river, pretending really nice cars belonged to us, or watching the cockatoos wrestle. yes, they wrestle. I think now about our time in perth and although it was hard, I think some of these simple moments are some of my fondest memories. Other fond memories in Perth include meeting up again with bonnie, our friend from glen helen, and meet a few other locals and travelers in the city. We did also become champions of living cheaply, making dinners for two for ten bucks or less, and going grocery shopping at the “FF” (which stands for “free food”) which to me and you might sound a bit disgusting eating foods of things that other travelers left behind, but people must have felt sorry for us, and really left some little gems behinds like boxes of cereal, a full carton of eggs, unopened bags of pasta and rice, etc...and being poor, it wasn't hard to humble ourselves and make the most of the little we had and could make.

Finding work in Perth was not just like finding a needle in a haystack, but trying to find the needle before thousands of others found it as well, and although in the end we were fruitless with our job search, you do learn a fair bit about yourself. I think that when the chips are down you really start to see the nit and grit of what you are made of. carrie's tenacious attitude towards finding work still inspires me although she is gone now, to never quit even when it seems so difficult. she really pushed me to go the extra mile each day with finding work when i'm sure it was pretty evident to her that i didn't want to and being able to have her during that time i will always be grateful.

on to perth with a day in adelaide...

after the holidays we decided to finally venture over to the east coast and check out all the great things we had heard about perth. before getting to perth we would stay the night in adelaide. the night layover was a blessing for a couple of different reasons. from melbourne to adelaide alone it is a ten hour train ride, and adding the additional 3 days and two nights on the train to perth would have been an exhausting trip. on our one day layover we were also fortunate enough to catch the return of lance armstrong, in his debut in the tour down under.

christmas, boxing day, & new years in melbourne...

after out little east coast run, carrie and i returned to melbourne to celebrate christmas, boxing day and new years in victoria. we went to the country towns of victoria where simon's family lived for christmas and boxing day, but spent new years in the city of melbourne. we also did a few other things like spent a few days at the beach, visited the dandenong rainforest, a lookout over melbourne city, and the most southern part of victoria called wilson's promentory (which has since been devestated by the fires) and went to the second day of the australian open. i won't spoil the fun by elaborating on what exactly happened on holidays, i'll just let the photos speak for themselves...