***** BRISBANE TO TOWNSVILLE UPDATE ***** (new update 12/30/10)

Hello everyone! Thanks for your blog comments! :D I'm glad you liked my crazy travel story. It gets crazier (and better)! I am still in Brisbane but not for long!! Queensland Rail, the most amazing travel company EVER, has booked all their stranded peeps on a PLANE to Townsville or Cairns or wherever their destination is. You might be confused because when I posted last night, I was getting ready to take the Tilt Train to Townsville, from Brisbane. Let me explain: I got on the train (delightfully cushy business class, my own single seat again, tv in the arm rest and all that good stuff) and we were due to leave the station at 6:25 pm. At about 6:30, they came on the intercom and told us that we were delayed ... not because of floods this time, but because there were people in the tunnel!!! They said the police were on their way. We only had to wait a few minutes and we never heard another thing about it so I'm not sure why the people were in there or what happend to them, and it really has nothing to do with my story but I thought it was entertaining so I wanted to share. :) Anyways, we finally left Roma Street station (again) and everyone was happy. I made some good friends on the train -- Kristine and Nilly from Germany, Mandy and Yoon from South Korea, and Mary from Townsville. We were having a good time and very excited to be on such a nice train, finally headed up north. Then at around 9:15, we stopped at a train station called Nambour and were told we'd have to wait about half an hour while engineers surveyed a bridge up ahead to see if we could pass. They came back on the intercom a little while later and told us we'd be going BACK to Brisbane because we couldn't get past the bridge. We were sad and exhausted but there was nothing we could do. Some people on the train were pretty upset and demanding accommodations. It obviously wasn't Queensland Rail's fault that it's raining harder than it has in years (some people say this is the worst rain in 30 years; some say the worst in 90 years!!) so I was just like, whatever. I called the Base hostel in Brisbane to make sure they had rooms in case I needed one for the night. They did but thankfully I didn't book one. After about half an hour, one of the Queensland Rail guys came down the aisle and was asking everyone for their name, contact information and trip details (like if they were from Brisbane or Townsville, if they had a place to stay in Brisbane, etc.) and said he wasn't able to guarantee anything but they were going to try to put us up somewhere for the night if they could. He came back and told us we would be staying at the Festival Oaks Hotel in downtown Brisbane, paid for by Queensland Rail!!! And they would be providing transportation to the hotel! We got to the train station around midnight and they put us all on buses to the hotel (the people who lived in or near Brisbane got taxis to their homes). It took a little while to check everyone in but once I got up to my room I was so happy!!! It was on the 11th floor, 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, balcony overlooking the city, kitchen, and even a WASHER & DRYER!!! I was so tired but I did a load of laundry and took a bath (and called to arrange a late check out, of course) before I went to sleep on the super comfortable king bed. :D :D :D What a life! In the morning, I called the front desk to find out if there was any information on trains to Townsville. I was told there were several Queensland Rail people in the building and they'd be holding a meeting by the pool at 10:30. Also, we could go downstairs to the restaurant next door and have breakfast, on Queensland Rail -- up to $15.00!!! I haven't spent that much on breakfast the whole time I've been here!! I got scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, tomatoes and grilled mushrooms (my fave!). It was delicious. My friends Mandy and Yoon got a banana split, chocolate pancakes and a sandwich. HAHA! We were stuffed. We went upstairs and were told that they were going to fly us to Townsville, either today or tomorrow, and if we were in the group that had to wait until tomorrow, we would get to stay another night in the hotel!! I was actually kind of hoping I'd be in the second group so I could stay and enjoy the pool and fitness center (and my sweet room), but I found out shortly after that was in the lucky first group and I was booked on the 4:55 pm flight up to Townsville! How awesome is that!??? I am so in love with this company. They've been so nice the whole time. I need to write a long letter to thank them (or maybe just send the manager of QR a link to my blog). They're even providing taxi service!! Oh and right after the first meeting, they offered to buy us lunch! I was still stuffed from breakfast but they said "Come on, get a drink or something!" so I let them buy me a mango/orange juice ... and a fruit salad. :D Okay I gotta run back to the hotel now to make sure I'm there in plenty of time to catch my cab to the airport. Just wanted to let everyone know what's goin on. Talk to ya soon! and I'll post pics of the room (and our food haha) soon. p.s. Skype me!!

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December 30th UPDATE:

Just wanted to let you all know I made it safely to Townsville!! I didn't even take a Xanax on the plane -- that's how happy/tired/delirious I was! And even though there were at least three screaming babies on the plane, I had a lovely 2-hour flight, reading Big Sur and drowning out the baby noise with my ipod. I thought QR was going to pay for a cab FROM the Townsville airport as well but when they put us in the cab in Brisbane they told me I was on my own. No big deal -- they'd already gone above and beyond, and thankfully my friend Ian was able to pick me up, no problem. My friends Mandy and Yoon were trying to get up to Cardwell for a job on a banana farm. Cardwell is about a 2-hour drive north of Townsville (past Ingham, which was one of the major flooded areas), and they weren't sure how they would get a bus once we got there, or even if the bus would be able to get them all the way up there through the floods. As soon as we got to Townsville (fyi, you're allowed to carry on liquid for domestic flights within Australia. woo hooo!), Mandy was greeted by a QR representative who gave her a voucher for a cab. We assumed the cab was taking her to the bus station and she asked the woman what they should do about the bus. The lovely QR woman explained that the cab voucher was good for the entire trip up to Cardwell!!! Two hours away so probably $500 or more!! AMAZING.

just got to Brisbane for the second time today

I'm exhausted!! I got to Brisbane this morning at 5:30 am after a 14-hour (I think ... could be +/- an hour ... the time changed and I lost track) train ride from Sydney, where I visited the Ian Thorpe Center for a shower/sauna/steam and then spent the rest of the day walking around Sydney, carrying one of my heavy bags. Before that I was in Melbourne. I left Melbourne Boxing Day evening and took a delightful 11-hour train ride to Sydney. On both of the trains I had my own single seat; it would have been better if I lucked out and got a double seat all to myself for the entire journey (more room to curl up and sleep) but it's highly doubtful that would have happened on a busy holiday train so I was very thankful for my awesome single seats. okay, back to the present. I am sitting in Brisbane, which happens to be the same city I rolled into at 5:30 this morning, then scrambled to find a shower before my 8:55 BUS (yes, bus, not train -- I had received a text from Queensland Rail the night before telling me that my 23-hour train had been replaced by a coach ... sweet) out of Brisbane, up to Townsville. The shower thing was an epic disaster. I was so happy because I knew exactly where I could swim and shower all morning ... the Spring Hill Baths, which are just about a 15-minute walk from the train platform, up some stairs, through the beautiful Roma Street Parkland, up a hill, and then down a side street. It was a little harder this time because I had both of my heavy bags with me (it was too early to check the larger one in for my next train) and by the time I got to the baths I kind of felt like I might die. And it was closed. =( Apparently it's Boxing Day again today, since the real Boxing Day landed on a Sunday, and Christmas landed on a Saturday, everyone got an extra two days off. Sweet for them but terrible for me!! I walked around, trying to figure out what to do, thinking about heading downtown to shower at the hostel, or maybe catching a bus to the other public swimming pool on the other side of town ... the buses weren't running (at least not at any of the bus stops I passed) because of the "holiday." I had to walk all the way back to Roma Street station to use the showers there. Which I found out closed down, probably years ago. I was desperate so I texted my friend Ronnie who hosted me through CS about a month ago. Thankfully he was home and awake and even though he had another couchsurfer that he had to drive to Byron Bay, he said of course I could come shower -- he even offered to come pick me up!! My hero!!!! He came and got me and I took a 5-minute shower at his house, put new clothes on (I'd been wearing the same ones since Melbourne. yay me!) and felt 1000 times better. He dropped me off at the station and I ran up to the platform and got on the bus. The Queensland Rail guys started off the journey by very kindly giving us all bottled water. I was pretty stoked about that and also the fact that I had made the right call by getting on the second bus. The first bus filled up but only three people got on the second bus. We picked up four more at a nearby station and ended up with seven people, plus a driver and two QR guys, for a grand total of 10 people on a giant bus. Woo hooo! I had as much room as you can possibly have on a bus and I fell asleep after about an hour. When I woke up (in Kybong: BFE), I was told by another passenger that QR was buying everyone lunch!! Up to $14!!! That was awesome. I got a greasy BLTA on white bread and a box of dried out watermelon ... not the greatest lunch ever but it was FREE! Another win for QR! :) We had about an hour to kill at the transit centre/truck stop so I just ate my food, went on the internet and wandered around. I got back to the bus and there was some confusion because some extra people were getting on our bus. Apparently we were driving them to a station about 30 minutes away, and we could get on the bus or wait, because the bus was then coming back to Kybong. That was a little weird but I decided to get on the bus and go for a ride rather than wait in the rain and possibly get left behind. On the way to the other station (Gympie North), one of the QR guys informed us that after we picked up everyone else from Kybong, we would be going back to Brisbane. ????????? We had driven four hours, but we had to turn back because the road about an hour or so past Gympie North was flooded out. So they could take us there and we could wait for a train up, but they preferred to drop us off at Roma Street to wait for the train (that we may or may not be able to get on) because it was more comfortable and we'd have more options there. So we went back and picked up the rest of our little crew, then drove all the way back down to Brisbane. For about the first two hours we were uncertain about whether we'd be able to get on the Tilt Train (the all business class train that runs from Brisbane to Cairns) but our awesome QR guys came through and got us all booked on the Tilt Train. Woo hoooo!!!! We got back to Roma Street about an hour ago and I got my ticket so it's official. At 6:25 I'll be leaving Brisbane once again, and if all goes well (KNOCK ON WOOD!), I'll be rollin' into Townsville tomorrow afternoon. Here's a pic of me happily waiting in line for my Tilt Train ticket after a verrrryyyy long day (make that a very long THREE DAYS):

Full Circle (now with pictures!)

I'm exactly where I was six weeks ago: Melbourne! More specifically, the Park Hyatt Melbourne, my former (and hopefully future) home. :) I rolled into town early this morning after the best train ride of my entire trip. 11 short hours (from Sydney) in a nearly empty train car. There was no one in the seat next to me, or in front of me, or across the aisle from me ... I hardly saw another person the entire time! It was fantastic! I still had a hard time finding a comfortable sleeping position in my double seat, but that's to be expected. I think I slept about six hours, off and on, which is pretty solid, especially considering on my last train ride (Brisbane to Sydney a week ago) I slept about one hour. It was the worst night of my trip, if not the worst night of my life. But I'm not going to dwell on that because it was a long time ago and ... I'm at the Park Hyatt! woo hooooo!!!! Free internet and shower and STEAM ROOM!! I just spent about an hour and a half in the spa mwahahaha :] I'm going to hang out in the city today; I'll probably go read in the Fitzroy Gardens and then get something to eat for lunch and then wander around. I left my backpacks at the train station at the Traveler's Aid storage room (which is an awesome service) so I wouldn't have to carry them all over town -- and also to make myself more inconspicuous sneaking into the hotel haha

My week in Sydney (well six days, five nights) was wonderful!! I spent three nights at the Base hostel downtown, which was pretty good (clean at least, and in a great location, down the street from the Town Hall train station, close to The Rocks, Harbour Bridge and Darling Harbour -- and a Woolworth's grocery store) except that the staff was pretty lame and they charge for everything! $8 for laundry (so I didn't do it) and $6 to store my luggage for the day when I checked out on Friday morning at 10am (the Base hostels in Brisbane store it for free). Of course there was also the matter of my stolen Reef flip flops. :( They were never returned and housekeeping didn't find them in the room so someone took them and is probably wearing them right now and thinking how comfortable they are. Such a bummer. I wore my running shoes all weekend (twice to the beach haha) and then yesterday I finally decided I needed a second pair of shoes. I found a really comfortable pair of Reefs and paid SEVENTY DOLLARS for them. :/ There was another pair for $50 but they had a much thinner sole and they didn't seem like they'd be as good for long walks. I figured $50 was already waaaayyy too much to pay for flip flops, so I might as well just pay the extra $20 and get a really good pair. Ugh. At least there wasn't tax on top of that :/ I just hope no one steals these ones. The next time I stay in a hostel (Thursday night in St. Kilda, near Melbourne) I'm not letting them out of my sight! Anyways, back to the reasons I liked Sydney. Actually, I LOVED it! The beaches are gorgeous (see last blog for pics), there are several awesome walks (I did four really cool ones), museums (I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art, which was okay as a museum and excellent as a place to hide from the rain for two hours, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales,

which was awesome -- I went there yesterday for about an hour but I could have spent several hours there if I had more time), beautiful gardens (the Royal Botanic Gardens,

Hyde Park,

and a couple others that I didn't make it to this time) and of course all the famous stuff like the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. I didn't actually go to the Opera House OR the Harbour Bridge (well I walked under it and up some stairs to the bridge level but that's it) but I did look at them and take pictures.

I planned on paying $10 to climb 200 stairs up to the "pylon lookout" at the bridge, but the day I wanted to do that it was raining and there was thunder and lightning so I decided it probably wasn't a good idea and went to the museum instead. I never made it back, but oh well -- I saved ten bucks. :) I made a few new friends in Sydney: a couple nice boys at the hostel (one very sweet Canadian boy had Shawshank on his ipod and we watched an hour of it my last night at the hostel. woo hoooo!), Roxy, a lovely American girl who I met through my friend Karine in California (we walked all around Sydney one night and had hot chocolate and chocolate-dipped strawberries/waffles at the Max Brenner chocolate bar. yum!), and Chris, my Sydney Angel. He rescued me from homelessness on Friday night. Well actually I would have just checked back into the hostel (I bought a package of 11 nights at Base hostels so I could have used one of those, but I didn't want to). I sent out several requests on couchsurfing and didn't hear back from anyone. After I checked out of the hostel that morning, I posted a message on the Sydney Emergency Couch Request group page but I didn't hear back from anyone all day. After I got back from the beach that night (I walked from the Spit Bridge to Manly Beach and then hung out there for a few hours), I got online and still hadn't received any messages from couchsurfing hosts. I knew they had beds available at the hostel so I wasn't too worried but I really didn't want to check back in, especially because that would mean I had wasted the $6 on the storage locker. Finally, when I had 20 minutes left on my internet card, I got a message from this guy named Chris, asking if I had found a palce to stay. I told him I hadn't and he invited me to stay at his place. It was just a 15 minute walk from the hostel, across a foot bridge that goes over Darling Harbour. When I got there, it was the most amazing apartment building, and Chris was soooo nice! He just came back from a trip to New York and California but I'm hoping he makes another trip out there next year so I can repay his kindness. I had my own room and bathroom at his place, he let me do laundry, took me out to dinner on Saturday night in Chinatown, and he even tivo'd the Heat/Knicks game and we watched it when we got back from dinner. The only bad part about the weekend was that the Heat won. Everything else was completely wonderful. :) His house was the perfect home base for exploring the city and the nearby beaches. I'm so grateful to him for rescuing me and being so much fun to hang out with.

I took lots of pics of MacKenzies Bay when I went there on Saturday. It was so beautiful!

When you walk out into the water, you're about waist deep for a few steps and then there's a big sand bar that goes out about 15-20 yards so you're in shallow water again. It's also one of the only dog beaches in the area so there were adorable dogs running around all day. And it rained a little but the rest of the time it was warm and sunny -- and there's a big rock overhang so I was able to keep my stuff dry while I swam in the ocean in the rain.

It was such a nice day!! There was even a rainbow out on the ocean when I was walking back to Bondi.

Oh! and before I went to Bondi I mentioned to Chris that I wanted to find a used bookstore and pick up a book for the beach. He jumped on google and found a little cafe + bookstore called "Gertrude & Alice" a few blocks up one of the main streets in Bondi. When I got there, I found it right away and it was so cool!! I took pics of it, of course.

I kind of wanted to hang out in there all day but I was excited about the beach so I only stayed a few minutes. I found Cakes & Ale, which I've been wanting to read for years, and it was only $6 because the previous owner for some reason stabbed the book with a sharp object three times so there are three tiny holes all the way through the book. Good times. It's totally readable and every other book  I picked up was around $10 so I feel like I scored :) I'm about 3/4 of the way through the book and of course it's excellent. Johnboy, let me know if you haven't read it yet and I'll bring it back for you.

Here are some more pics of Sydney:

Town Hall

obligatory ferris wheel pic

my favorite place to shower/sauna in Sydney :)

Harbour Bridge at night (better pics coming soon)

Me and Roxy in front of the Opera House :)

So that's it for Sydney, for now. I'll be back there before & after my trip to New Zealand in February. It's already almost 1:00 pm (I think I've been at the hotel for almost four hours!) so now I'm off to explore Melbourne once again. 

p.s. I just found out the Lakers beat Toronto today for FIVE STRAIGHT WINS!!! YEEAAHH LAKERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

As for "my other team," they're on a 1-game win streak, thanks to their new boy SASHA!! (no seriously, he had 10 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists in the win against Atlanta)

this looks so wrong :'(

Goodbye Reef flip flops =(

My Reef flip flops have disappeared and this feels like big enough news to prompt an entire blog, or mini-blog anyway (I only have about 15 minutes of internet time so I gotta be quick). I'm in Sydney. I was supposed to leave today (for Melbourne) but on my second day here, I decided I liked it enough to stay a while so I changed my train to Sunday evening. I spent three nights at the Base hostel in downtown Sydney, close to the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, which I have seen from afar and taken pictures of but still haven't actually walked over to. I'm planning to do that tomorrow. As soon as I get some breakfast (brekkie), I'm going to take a bus to the Spit Bridge (about 30 minutes by bus) and then walk 10km to Manly Beach. It's one of the famous Sydney walks (the tour guide calls it "one of the most scenic harbour walking tracks in the world") and I'm really excited about it. You pass several small beaches and coves, aboriginal sites, rock formations, and the Sydney Harbour National Park. It's supposed to take 3-4 hours to complete the walk, but I'm planning on about 5 hours because I know I'll take a million pictures -- and stop to swim a few times along the way.

I took an amazing walk on Wednesday! I took the bus to Coogee Beach, which was gorgeous, and then walked along the coast 6-7 km to Bondi Beach. I walked past lots of beaches and coves and baths and stopped to swim a few times that day. The path also goes past a beautiful old cemetery, the Waverley Cemetery. Here are some pics from that walk:

So if my walk today is half as beautiful as the one on Wednesday, I'll be stoked. I'm planning to couchsurf tonight and tomorrow night but so far I don't have a place so keep your fingers crossed that I'll find something! I'll update this blog later with more info about my visit to Sydney but I think my internet's going to time out in the next couple minutes so I have to go ... buy new flip flops. I hope everyone's having a wonderful day!! :)