What's Next

Sydney has been a blast and a wonderful place to get acclimated to Australia but our time here has come to a close.  Our three weeks were awesome and much needed (as we were able to get bank accounts, cell phones, get used to Aus & over our jet lag, etc) but we are excited to continue exploring.  We bought six months unlimited travel train tickets so we're going to make the most of them and travel about the entire country. 

This wasn’t our original plan but we can't leave to see anywhere else until Alex gets a new passport which has unfortunately been a challenge.  In order for him to be issued a new passport, someone with an Australian or British passport who has known him more than two years has to sign his application stating that he is who he says he is, so, since no one here meets that criteria, we had to send his paperwork back to Bermuda for someone there to sign and send back to us before we can submit it here, then wait another 6-8 weeks for his passport to be issued.  And since we don’t have a permanent address, or know where we’ll be when it’s issued, it’s getting sent to Bermuda then couriered back here, as such, we've got time to kill in Aus before we can check out Thailand or New Zealand so the train tickets were ideal.

We're starting by heading up the east coast with stops in three beach towns (Coffs Harbour, Byron Bay & Surfers Paradise) over ten days on our way to Brisbane (a bigger city) for a few days then continuing north towards the Great Barrier Reef towns which will probably take another week to ten days.  Once we get all the way up to Cairns (as far from Sydney as Miami is from Boston), we're going to spend a week on a boat scuba diving - which I am super excited about (though I need to learn how to scuba dive first)!!  

And then after that, who knows??  We’ll probably stick out the first few winter months in the north because it’s warmer and we’ll be able to enjoy the beaches and outdoor activities but, because we can travel for free (man, I hope I enjoy train travel b/c it seems we’re going to be doing a lot of it), we want to take a scenic trip on the famous ‘The Ghan’ railway out to Western Australia so that’s on our agenda before our tickets expire, with stops in Melbourne and Adelaide along the way.  Originally we planned to spend the latter half of our time here in Melbourne but we’ve enjoyed Sydney so much that we’re not even sure about that anymore.  It’s weird (and a bit out of my comfort zone) not to know where we’ll be in six months but Alex has assured me that we’ll figure it out eventually and I’ll keep you posted.

I’m not sure how easily accessible internet is going to be as we work our way up the coast so please bear with me if it takes longer than usual to respond to emails or if the blog goes a few days or a week without any updates.  Hope you are all doing well and having a great week!