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...

fraser island...

trying to backtrack, i forgot one of my favorite places in all of australia. fraser island. when carrie and i met in brisbane before heading down the east coast we managed a three day tour of fraser island. when i describe fraser i tell people it is exactly what you picture paradise to be. there are endless beaches with turquoise waters, fresh water lakes that are as clear as pools with white sand, rainforests with sand dunes amongst them, and other beautiful lookouts. fraser was probably one of the best tours that carrie and i have done since we've been here we were fortunate enough to see dolphins, manta rays, sea turtles, and even witnessed a dingo hunting a swamp wallaby on the beach.

byron bay...

after coolangatta we took a bus down to byron bay to visit some old friends from glen helen. our experiences in byron were really amazing as slim and faye took us to a lot of places outside of the small downtown area, so we really got to be a part of the local scene, instead of the usual places all the backpackers swarm. slim played a few gigs that we got to go see and i can say that we were really fortunate to have them agree to hauling us around.

another noteworthy event was that carrie mastered eating with chopsticks!