Australia!

AUSTRALIA

The students have a midterm break between the 2 semesters and it happens to be about a month long!! 

My roommate Ashley and I had been talking about what we wanted to do over the break for quite some time. There are so many awesome places to visit in Thailand and even surrounding countries that are super easy and convenient to get to. 

After a lot of talk and we decided that we should make the trip to Australia! Both of us have always wanted to check it out but it was something that we didn't really think we'd be able to do until we were older. 

Ashley has some family friends (sisters) that are living in Melbourne now so we got in touch with them and starting planning! Everything worked out great with the timing and planning of the trip! 

We flew out of Bangkok which obviously meant a trip to our ALL TIME Favorite Mexican restaurant (in Thailand)! 

We spent 18 days in Australia and it was absolutely wonderful! We spent the first couple of days in Melbourne with our friend Kyla. She still had to work so Ashley and I spent our days walking around, checking out the city, and enjoying the weather (ok, we were actually FREEZING)! 

 

 

About 5 days later, the three of us flew from Melbourne to Sydney, where we would rent a car/tent. We took a road trip up the coast and had an amazing time!!

This is the place that we rented our car from - Wicked Campers! 

 

And here is a picture of our car....and TENT! :) 

This picture is from the first day that we had the car, so our first time putting the tent up...oh and it was FREEZING where we were in the Blue Mountains... We found out it snowed a bit 3 days prior!!  We were miserable setting up the tent!

(and the car door was already damaged...we had nothing to do with that!) 

It was soooo cold in the Blue Mountains that we got there, set up the tent and bundled up inside with every piece of clothing we had...AND a few bottles of wine! :) That is what our first night of road tripping consisted of!! The next morning we woke up before 7 because we were so cold and miserable! We decided to pack up right away and keep driving north...where we were hoping for better weather!! 

Our next stop was a small little town called Forster. We were there on a Tuesday and it was pretty quiet every where around town. We found a camper site and set up camp for the night and then went out and about to find something for dinner. 

After Forster we decided that we wanted to drive the rest of the way to where we were headed (Byron Bay) because it was still a bit overcast and chilly.

And that's about all she wrote.... We planned on staying in Byron for only a couple of days and continue north just a little bit more...well, 5 nights later we were still hanging out in Byron Bay.

Byron Bay was amazing and beautiful. The town was really great! People were friendly, atmosphere was super beachy and chill, and lots of great food and fun! 

We found a great site to set up camp so it worked out great that we just stayed there. We spent the days at the beach, listening to live music, enjoying happy hour specials, and meeting new people! We really enjoyed our time in Byron Bay! 

Oh and there was a big surf festival taking place that weekend so there was a lot of extra stuff going on down by the beach!! 

Surf festival on Saturday! 

 

  

After leaving Byron Bay we had to head straight back to Sydney to return our car. We flew out of Sydney (back to Melbourne) on Tuesday and didn't leave Australia until Saturday. It was nice to have some time at Kyla's house to regroup before going back to Thailand. 

Funny enough, our last dinner in Australia was Thai food! 

My Thai friend Nim (who I practice yoga with) lived and studied in Melbourne for quite some time. Her uncle and her brother are still currently living in Melbourne and own a DELICIOUS Thai restaurant...and it is 100% legit Thai food! We went in for dinner and had a great experience...and great food! :) Definitely made me excited to come back to all of my favorite Thai dishes! 

Pi Guy, owner of Nine Elephants

Unfortunately we started school the day after getting back into town! It was hard to get back into the swing of things but I will say, it was great to be home. 

Australia was amazing and I can't wait until I'm able to go back someday! 

I am always up for a FaceTime chat so don't hesitate to give me a shout! :) 

Hopefully I'll have something exciting to post about soon! :) 

Love Love Love

LD