The Rolling Stones

I can't believe it's already April. We have a very exciting trip coming up this week, but before getting into that I'll recap the past few months. Despite the lack of posts, the Stones have been busy with work and play.

About a month after our trip to New Zealand, we traveled to Tasmania over the Christmas holidays. Apparently Christmas is the only time during the year that people actually travel to Tasmania, so it was quite a full little island. Full enough that, upon arriving in Hobart on the last flight on Christmas Eve and finding that Europcar had lost our rental car booking, we were unable to find another available car in the entire state of Tasmania. After a frantic Christmas day calling every rental company, friend, and distant acquaintance we knew in Tassie, we luckily were able to rent a car from the owners of the bed and breakfast where we were staying. The rest of the trip was very nice.

Tasmania photo album

After Tasmania, we spend the remaining week of our Christmas holidays on the Bellarine Peninsula in Victoria, just an hour outside of Melbourne. We spent the days going to the beach, reading, and getting my nose pierced. Wayne, Debra, Tofu, and Lexie joined us for a portion of the trip, as well, which was quite entertaining.

Bellarine Peninsula photo album

Since then, we have also traveled to Warburton by bike. It was a weekend spent riding 40 kilometers from Lilydale to Warburton, spending the night, then riding 40 kilometers back the next day. Luckily our friends Tyler and Andrea went with us and were able to help us take our minds off the pain.

Warburton Trail photo album

Over Labor Day weekend (which occurs in March in Australia) we toured the Grampians and Pyrenees wine trail. One of our friends is from Ararat, a small town in the Grampians, so we were lucky enough to spend the night at his house one night (at which point some neighbourhood kids decided to egg our car! I guess they don't like outsiders... or else there's nothing else to do in Ararat), visit some gorgeous wineries, and then made our way to a house in the Pyrenees for two more nights. Once again, Wayne, Debra, Lexie, and Tofu came up for part of the weekend so it was full of funny little-white-dog stories. Don't worry, I am taking notes for Darcy Down Under!

Grampians and Pyrenees photo album

Now, we are just two days away from one of the more exciting and uniquely Australian (read: un-Kim-and-Will-like) trips that we have undertaken so far. On Wednesday we will be flying to Western Australia for our maiden foray into the Australian bush. We will be flying to Karijini National Park, a national park that is halfway between Perth and Broome and exactly right in the middle of nowhere, which is famous for its gorges and fabulous scenery.



We will then be driving about 10 hours through, once again, absolutely nothing to get to the coast of Ningaloo Reef. Ningaloo is rumoured to be even nicer than the Great Barrier Reef, just not quite as expansive (hence missing out on "wonder of the world" status), and is also famous for its population of whale sharks right off the coast, which Will and I will be swimming with. Don't worry -- we are assured that they are gentle and loving creatures.


After we get enough of the Bush, we will fly back to Perth (and civilization) and spend the remaining days in Margaret River wine region. Those faithful followers of this blog will remember that we spent Christmas 2009 in Margaret River, but we loved it so much that we couldn't go to Western Australia without stopping by (I say that as if WA is the size of Rhode Island, when really it's bigger than Texas, California, and Florida put together).

We will see you on the other side with LOTS of great pictures to show for it! 

Update to come...

OK, just one more paper to go... I can do this.

[Side note: apparently they don't call assignments "papers" here. I emailed my boss and told him that I was having "paper issues" so I would be coming in later that day, and he was extremely confused. He even asked the office if they thought I might be "stuck on the toilet." How am I just finding this stuff out??]

But as promised, I said I would reveal the exciting travel itinerary Will and I have coming up. So here it is!

On Tuesday (the day after I hand in my last assignment) I fly to the Gold Coast in Queensland for a Youth Mentoring Conference that I am attending for work. Due to limited vacation days, Will won't be joining me for this particular trip, but I'm really excited about it as it is the first time I've been to Queensland! (and it will be really, really warm -- something that Melbourne hasn't quite been able to master yet this year)

I will be returning from Queensland on Thursday night, just in time to fly out on Friday morning to...

...wait for it...

...NEW ZEALAND!!!!

Yes, we will finally be able to send all of the post cards that people have been requesting. Cue at least five conversations I had before moving to Australia:

FRIEND: Wow, so you're moving to Australia, huh? Why not New Zealand?
ME [thinking]: What, Australia's not good enough for you?
ME [actually says]: I'm a little fearful of orcs and hobbits. I thought Australia would be a safer bet.
FRIEND: Oh, well, send me a post card when you get to New Zealand.
ME: steam comes out of me ears

Apparently unbeknownst to Americans, Australians quite enjoy the occasional laugh at the Kiwi's expense. It may be a beautiful country, but there are, in fact, many more sheep than people. And they say "sex" instead of "six." And "fush" instead of "fish."

SO THERE.

I digress. Despite my personal feelings about New Zealand, it has always been top on our list of places to visit while we're over here. And lucky for us, our friends from Atlanta, Colin and Kirby, inspired the trip by offering to meet us in Queenstown.

So Will and I are flying into Christchurch on Friday morning then driving to Marlborough for the weekend. We will then head back to Christchurch on Monday, stay the night with Will's old coworker, then fly to Queenstown on Tuesday morning, where we'll meet up with Colin and Kirby. Queenstown is known as the "Adventure Capital of the World" and is where bungee jumping was invented. So who knows, you may see a couple of pictures of Will like this:

It's paper time in Masters land. I have two papers due in the next week -- one for tomorrow, the other due next Monday. Once again procrastination has come back to bite me. Even after taking a couple of days off work to get a head start on everything, I somehow managed to be "really really busy" during those entire two days and yet not write a single one of the 5000 words I have hanging over my head. So now here I am: a place I am quite familiar with. PANIC... and SPEED WRITING.

But I just have to get through next Monday and then Will and I have a very exciting lineup of trips planned. I'll save that for a new post, as joyous events such as trip announcements should not have to mingle for all eternity in a blog post dedicated to paper panic.

In the meantime I'm getting quite a lot of help with the paper writing process...

Check out the Fiji pictures here if you're interested!

*Darcy has been made famous on thechive.com, a silly photo-blog.

http://thechive.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/bombs-away-81.jpg