Two Nuts on a Roll

Blake and I arrived in Brisbane, Australia on September 8th. From there we headed South to Surfer's Paradise (what a bust!) and up North to Bundaberg (Rum!), and to the Great Barrier Reef. We then took a plane down to Sydney, and stayed there a short few days. A train ride brought us from Sydney to Melbourne, and from Melbourne we flew over to New Zealand for a short visit. Back to Melbourne, and another Train down to Adelaide! From Adelaide, we went around the Adelaide Hills, McLaren Vale, and Fleurieu Peninsula. Phew! It's been a whirlwind 50 days of travel! We are currently in Adelaide, staying a record 10 days in one Airbnb, and will transition to another Airbnb for 7 days after that. We're using Adelaide as a home base for now while we search for jobs. We are hoping to find employment in Adelaide, but so far the prospects look sparse. Sydney and Melbourne seem like better bets for jobs, but they are also much more expensive cities, so it really is a toss u...

Beautiful Adelaide, city of roses to me, has been quite a beautiful place to visit! Although we were enjoying our time in the city, we knew we needed to explore the area surrounding Adelaide, so off we headed! Our first stop was up in the Adelaide Hills, West of the city, at the National Motor Museum. I thought maybe it was a museum for literally motors, but turns out they meant CARS! We saw cars ranging from the earliest models available and used in Australia, to the newest and fanciest advancements! Here I am in a 1928 Chevrolet! Beep Beep! Next on our list was down a bit South and East of the Hills, at the oldest German settlement in Australia, Hahndorf. We had a lovely meal, decent beers, and a good look around of the city. Just imagine a touristy little German town in Australia! From there it was a visit to the Hahndorf Farm! Where we pet and fed and played with lots of adorable little farm animals, including these sheep who were super excited to say Hi to me....and ge...

Pop quiz! How do you pronounce Melbourne? Wave goodbye along with us to this barely 24 turnaround in Melbourne and say "G'day" to much easier to pronounce and much easier to digest Adelaide! We arrived at the Melbourne International Airport around 8am, so naturally we went to breakfast - after eating breakfast in New Zealand barely 4 hours earlier. We walked around and enjoyed the day, including a nice night in a boutique hotel that had a relaxation room outfit with 2 massage chairs! The next morning we got up early again, and headed a short walk over to the railway station. And yes, after taking too many long and expensive cab rides from our accommodations to airports and train stations, we were smart enough to purposefully book a hotel a 2 minute walk from the station.  Being a bit of a train buff, I was very excited to travel on the famed Overland run by South Australian Railways. Imagine my extreme excitement to discover that the same morning we were set ...

How to plan a trip for New Zealand: Step 1 - Think long and hard about how much time you think you want to spend there. Step 2 - Double it. Step 3 - Add it together again Step 4 - You will accomplish up to half of what you hoped. Blake and I did not have this handy-dandy helpful step-by-step planning guide when we planned our own trip, and so we ended up with just 8 days for this incredible little country. Don't let it fool you, New Zealand is made up of two small looking islands, but there is so gosh darn much packed into every square inch of this country that they have to make the roads windy like the way your brain is lumpy to increase the surface area. It takes you at least an hour longer to get anywhere than you thought it would, and everything is far more interesting than you even imagined it could be, so you want to spend at least an hour longer than you anticipated...so you see how the time adds up! I urge you now to sit back, relax, maybe have a cup of tea (or ...

Alright folks! If you haven't read Melbourne Round 1, go back and study up because at the end of this post you will be required to report the number of times you correctly pronounced the city name in your head. Go! While it may come as a surprise, Blake and I are not what you call "thrill-seekers" or "adrenaline junkies." Sure, we appreciate adventure...that's why we're on this whole intercontinental journey, but not the crazy stuff. Above is our faces after we rode the "Scenic Railway," a nearly one hundred year old wooden roller-coaster in St. Kilda Beach, a southern suburb of Melbourne. The roller coaster is a rather basic and simple style. It goes up, then goes around a curve, then goes up and down and up and down and up and then around another curve, and so on until it completes two full ovals with decreasingly sized up/downs until it comes to a full stop. This is the first, and likely last, roller coaster Blake and I will ride to...