I’ve always enjoyed the occasional shopping excursion as much as the next gal but as of summer last year I’ve been forced into having to basically replace a wardrobe. While gone for our trip, somewhere in the mix of things, miscommunication between my mom and I led to ALL of my spring/summer clothes…ALL of them other than the few things I had on the boat…being given away to our church. When my mom told me that my mouth dropped to my feet. Ten years of clothes…gone. What could I do? Be mad…no. They went to a good cause and I hope someone who really needed it is enjoying my all time favorite black dress. We are returning to the States as spring arrives and so Drew and I have both been aware of my need for some new clothes. While I was excited to look around when we got to Australia I wouldn’t exactly say I was looking forward to it. Over the years I’ve seen too many cute dresses in the window only to go in to try it on and it fit everywhere on me but up top. And swimsuits…FORGET ABOUT IT! Much to my surprise though the stores in Australia were unbelievable and shopping there became my best friend for a couple of weeks. The stores were any girls paradise as there were LOTS of them whether they were lining the streets or neatly stacked inside of what on the outside looks like a run down building. There were price ranges for any budget as well as opposed to some places we’ve been where all I could do was laugh at some of the things I found. Not there though… I was in shopping heaven!

Poor Drew…he was such the trooper! I offered many times to go by myself but whether it was fear of me roaming the city alone or fear of me having money in my hands without his supervision, he chose to stick by me and for days on end he was in and out, in and out of store, after store, after store. Going home to run a bed and breakfast I knew I would need some nice stuff and was definitely able to get a good head start with what I was able to find in Australia. I highly recommend it to any gal out there that doesn’t sport a stick figure.

Looking back on it I enjoyed Australia for many reasons other than those most people normally peg it for. The coastal drive was fun and offered us a great view of some of Australia’s beaches but I most enjoyed the shopping, the casino in Sydney which was good to us so that probably put it on my list, and the larger city feel of Sydney & Melbourne was a warm welcome for Drew and myself as well. I know he mentioned in a previous post that we like big cities…the noise, the people watching, the shopping, the FOOD!!! Melbourne probably is at the top of my list as one of my all time favorite cities ever as it was a perfect melting pot!

Coming down to the last few weeks of “The Big Trip,” I was wondering if we’d end up in a any places that would end up one of our favorites of the entire trip. The problem is that as you come to the end of of four years of traveling in 20 or so countries, you become increasingly difficult to impress. As we near the end of our time in Australia, with New Zealand’s South Island, Hong Kong, and Paris to go, I realize it had been quite a while since we visited a place that I left thinking “damn, I could live here…” Enter Melbourne, Australia.

We arrived at the end of almost 4 days of rain, somehow navigating our way to our rented apartment downtown. Princes Highway, the coastal tourist route from Sydney to Melbourne, was officially shut down on many of the sections we were driving through. Mudslides washed away parts of the road and bridges were washed over. The radio announcements were continuous that any unnecessary travel should be avoided and as Marge and I continued on through police barricades, past fallen trees, and over swollen rivers we discussed our options. We had shopping and eating to do and we weren’t interested in wasting any money in some podunk town in the rain so our travel was necessary, at least in our eyes. Weary from the road we arrived in Melbourne and quickly found that any flooding we navigated through to get here was child’s play compared to the hell that is driving in Melbourne. There’s tiny streets, trams, trains, buses, cars, motocycles, walkers, bikers, bridges, one-ways, no-right-turns, and strictly-enforced, expensive parking. I never want to drive in this city again. But what I do want to do in this city again is eat, walk, shop, and maybe one day live! I say shop, but honestly I haven’t purchased one thing for myself. Someone else, however, is having the time of her life.

Our apartment, in the CBD (Central Business District), allows us to walk to anywhere in the area. Where we can’t walk, public transport is easy to catch. Stepping out for our first night in the city, I looked up a couple of Melbourne food blogs for hints on where to eat. Melbourne is a foodie city. Within a six block radius of our hotel we can get Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, Greek, Turkish, Halal, Lebanese, and a plethora of other types of cuisine. And these are your typically American version of “foreign food” where you go to a famous French restaurant in New York only to have the majority of the kitchen staffed with Mexicans. This is the real deal. Melbourne is filled with first, second, third, and fourth generation immigrants from all over the world. As a matter of fact, on our first night we ended up in a gourmet Mexican restaurant hidden up a skinny staircase on a quiet block of Collins Ave. Mamacita’s had been open only four days and had received great reviews on a local foodie blog. Had we not found the blog, we certainly wouldn’t have found the restaurant. It was the best Ceviche I’d had since leaving Ecuador almost two years ago and if it weren’t for the high prices we might still be sitting there eating it. From the bartender at Mamacita’s we were schooled on a few cool bars in the area and ended up at Cookies, whose fifty-page cocktail menu had us in stitches. The next night we ended up there again, this time for dinner, enjoying their huge Tapas menu after finally finding a seat. This place is apparently packed EVERY night of the week and the two we’ve visited so far were no different. Our third night in Melbourne we found Sichuan and to me, Chinese food will never be the same. Those little Sichuan peppers are the stuff of heaven and I can’t wait to get to Hong Kong to eat it again. After dinner we visited a bar next door called Fad and through the bartender, found our way to a Melbourne secret called “Siglo.” It’s a high class, cigar bar on a rooftop of the Melbourne Supper Club overlooking the parliament building in the theater district. This is the “it” place in Melbourne. By the end of the night we were sharing a table with a Russian fashion mogul from NYC, a retired-at-forty investment banker and his wife, and two well-known Australian financial writers. Life is good here in Melbourne.

Our days were spent wondering the streets. We did none of the usual tourist stuff short of visiting the central market for a brat.  We lived by the motto “be a traveler, not a tourist.” Doing so certainly influenced our opinion. The city felt more like a home than a destination and one day, I wouldn’t mind making it a home…at least for a couple of years. Tonight we visited Chapel Rd. It’s a pricey area outside of downtown centered around the South Yarra and Toorak neighborhoods. We chose a boutique hotel and even though our room is the size of walnut and there is an odd window looking from the main part of the room directly onto the toilet, there is a great rooftop pool overlooking the city.

Tomorrow we head back to New Zealand for a visit to the South Island. Although I’m sad to leave Melbourne knowing we’ve barely scratched the surface of this great city, I can leave knowing for a fact we will visit again one day. As far as cities go, this has been one of my favorite all time, ranking right up there with NYC…if not higher. People can tell you all day long to concentrate your travels on a particular place but until you’ve gone there and seen it for yourself, their opinions mean nothing (sorry Dad!). Melbourne was a highlight in four years of travel. Take note and give it a visit. You’ll be glad you did.

When we figured out that selling and delivering Dosia would afford us a trip to see Australia we were quick to make a plan to fit as much of the country in as possible. There were things we didn’t really care about like Ayers Rock (it’s basically a bigger limestone version of our granite rock in Stone Mountain, GA) and there were things we really wanted to see but wouldn’t have time for like Northern Queensland, salt water crocs in the wild, and the Great Barrier Reef. We settled on the self-drive tour from Brisbane to Melbourne.

We left Brisbane and drove directly to the Gold Coast/Surfer’s Paradise area where we were absolutely blown away by the development and tourism. This place is Myrtle Beach on crack. It’s street after street of shops and restaurants and hotels. There are hordes of Japanese and Chinese tourists unloading off buses and plenty of Aussie families dotted throughout the crowd. Every leftover spot is filled with the teenagers and twenty-somethings who seem to flock here to work and live in the summer. After a month of relative calm in NZ and nine days of nothing on the Tasman Sea, we were ready to be with a crowd. Had the torrential rains not started during our overnighter in Surfer’s Paradise, I’m sure we would have spent one more night there but as luck would have it, we arrived during the season’s first quality rainstorm which made walking the streets and sitting in the sidewalk cafes a little awkward. We drove out the next day and headed south.

We stopped for lunch in Coolangatta, a place where, looking back, we would have enjoyed spending the night.  It was a small upscale beach community packed with surfers of all ages.  Surfing here in Australia is not the young man’s sport it was back in Tahiti last year.  Sixty and Seventy year old have no problem walking the beach in their board shorts waiting for the next set.

From Coolangatta we continued south to Byron Bay which is known as a backpacker/surfer/hippie hangout. From the second we pulled into town, I knew it was going to be the type of place we’d enjoy. Barely a person over 32 (the cutoff in my mind since that’s almost my age) wandered the streets and even though the rain continued, the beach was packed and the bars were full. We found ourselves a room at the Lord Byron Resort which was hilarious since it was neither a place of “resort quality” or “lordly” in any sense of the word but it sufficed and we settled in. Our first night we found our way to a restaurant called St. Elmo’s and ended up having the most amazing meal we’ve had anywhere across the entire Pacific Ocean. This appears to be a continuing theme throughout our time in Australia. Pork belly, Zuchini fries, scallops…the tapas menu in this place was out of control but the quality of the food was thoroughly controlled. The next day we somehow managed three hours of sunlight in which to walk the beach, check out the surfers, and quickly discover that Oz is not a place where topless sunbathing is discouraged.

Our next stop coming down the coast was Coffs Harbour. I wouldn’t exactly describe this as the most interesting spot in the country. When you open up the tourist guide and the first thing you read about is The Big Banana Ice Skating Rink you know you aren’t visiting the entertainment capital of Australia. But we managed to locate a beautiful apartment for rent overlooking the harbor and the Tasman Sea beyond and I made an amazing dinner of pork chops and asparagus which we enjoyed on the porch.

After our stop in Coffs Harbour, we decided Sydney was calling to us and blew through both Port Macquarie and Newcastle on our way there. It’s nothing against these two cities, which were both on our list to visit, but we were beckoned by the capital city with it’s gorgeous harbor and plentiful restaurants. We went straight to the hotel I had booked for the following night and announced we’d arrived early. They promptly announced that our rate wouldn’t be near as kind but they did have space. The Citigate was a decent find. It was located at the far end of George Street which is great if you’re looking to walk. Everyday for four days we ventured down this street into the downtown area where Margie shopped till she literally dropped. Seriously, everyday we were back in bed by 10:30 pm except on Saturday when we were forced to leave the city because the combination of Valentine’s Day, Chinese New Year, and, believe it or not, a Taylor Swift concert, overtook ALL the available hotel rooms in the city! That night we ended up staying in a TRAILER near Cronulla. Yes, a trailer. It was sold as “a cabin” but was clearly a trailer in the midst of an actual Australian tralier park. That’s all we could find after 6 hours of driving around looking for a place though I have to admit, it was brand new and not half bad for the $99 AUD we paid. However, the movie Valentines Day we went to see that evening wasn’t worth the free parking at the theater.  Who the hell is Taylor Swift and why is she in a movie?

Sydney was interesting. It was busy and bustling but not overwhelming. The food was outstanding and I would like to hire a Sky Writer to publicize our support for a food court, made-to-order salad joint called Hero Salads. It was the most amazing salad I’ve ever eaten and we spent literally hours trying to locate it for a second meal before leaving Sydney. It seems the labyrinth of underground shopping malls and eateries has thrown off my internal GPS. Heading to Darling Harbor our last night to see Avatar in the iMax, we inadvertently ran into the Chinese New Year fireworks display and were treated to an amazing show before an amazing show. If you haven’t seen Avatar in iMax 3D, we highly recommend it (especially on the largest iMax screen on the planet). We took in a Thai appetizers at the Opium Den and dinner at Lotus in the upscale Potts Point neighborhood which was, oddly enough, located next to Kings Cross, the Red Light District, where we stopped for drinks before catching a cab home. We visted The Rocks, the Opera House, took a ferry through Sydney harbor, and basically experienced everything we should experience in the Southern hemispere’s self-proclaimed “greatest city.” It was an amazing time but left us with a “this is it?” feeling as we drove south along the Princes Highway towards Melbourne. If only we knew. Everyone says it. “Skip Sydney bro…head straight for Melbourne.” Now we know. Melbourne has made my list. It’s one of the most cosmopolitan, fashion-conscious, foodie-loving, easy-walking cities I’ve ever been to. And I love it. It’s topping a new blog post I’m writing called my “Top 5 Places I’d Live Outside the States.” It’s well-deserving and I can, without hestation, recommend Melbourne, Australia to anyone headed this direction. Stay tuned.

It was surreal watching Dosia motor off the fuel docks in Brisbane without us.  After 8 years of ownership, my time with her is over.  It wasn’t nearly as sad a moment as we had expected.  Margie cried for about 5 minutes as she ironically counted out the big stack of cash for our “delivery fee.”  It was more of an acknowledgement that this stage of life; the sailing, the travel, and 11AM beers in tropical bars, is coming to a quick close.

We arrived at the entrance to Moreton Bay just before dark on Friday and after a quick look at one of the shoaling, short cut bar entrances, we moved onto the main shipping channel for the LONG 43 mile trip up the Bay and the Brisbane River to the customs check-in point at Rivergate Marina.  It was 2:30 AM when we finally tied up the lines.  Marge headed off to bed and I got to work cleaning up the engine room and starboard cockpit locker from the coolant explosion a day earlier.  At 6:15 AM two absolutely hilarious guys from Australian customs showed up.  I thought they were gonna give me a hug when I showed them I had already completed our arrival forms which cut 30+ minutes off the check-in process.  After hearing all the horror stories on checking in, it was the easiest process ever.  Of course, I’d have been thoroughly disappointed if I showed up to this country and was charged over $600 AUS for quarantine ($300 + overtime weekend arrival) but luckily I wasn’t responsible for those charges in this case.  It’s pitiful Australia chooses to have such a high charge for something so ridiculous.  That one fee is enough to keep thousands of sailors away every year.

After watching my floating home disappear on the horizon we jumped into “Dosia II,” a brand new Volkswagon Jetta TDI, and headed south towards the beaches of the Gold Coast.  We decided to skip Brisbane not because we didn’t like it, but everything seemed to be closed and we were looking for something a little beachier.  And that’s exactly what we found in the tourist mecca of Surfer’s Paradise.  We arrived just before the rain started.  That’s the same rain that has now followed us for a week down the entire coast of Australia.  Seriously, after hearing all about the droughts in Australia we’ve had not one day without rain and only two days with any sunshine at all!

Our stops along the way from Brisbane included Surfer’s Paradise, Byron Bay, Coff’s Harbour, and now Sydney.  I can’t say the drive along the coast is the most scenic in the world.  Some of the towns don’t have a lot to offer.  We enjoy touristy areas with lots of bars and restaurants and shopping just as much as we enjoy the out islands of Tonga.  But we don’t really seem to care for the “in between.”  I wish we would have spent one more night in the Gold Coast/Surfer’s Paradise area and a third night in Byron Bay and skipped everything else on the way to Sydney!  Ouch.  That’s seems harsh.  Of course, we may have enjoyed some of those areas more if we could have gotten out of the car and gone to the beach or something but it seems the rain was destined to stop us.  More about Sydney in the next post!

Well hello! Happy belated new year to everybody. The days have quickly ticked by since our arrival back to New Zealand and in the midst of it all I have failed to post this year! In preparation for our trip across the Tasman my significant other has been up to his elbows in boat projects for two days straight. Most cruising wives/girlfriends can back me up in that more often than not, the best way to help out on days such as these is to just stay out of the way. So here I sit on the couch, legs tucked underneath me, trying to leave as much room as possible for my boat monkey to get his work done. We’ve been given the go ahead by Bob McDavitt, a weather guru god if you will to the sailing community, to set sail for Australia this week. We wait now on our alternator to be returned to us and then there’s nothing else I can think of that would delay the inevitable any longer. It’s passage time, once again.

Thus come mid afternoon tomorrow the galley will be ablaze with sauces, casseroles, boiling chicken breasts, chopped this, and chopped that. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. Knocking out any, or possibly all, cooking that would otherwise have to be done at sea is a hands down must for yours truly. If you’ve followed us along our journey through any previous passages then you are probably fully aware of my ridiculous fear of gimbal stoves. At anchor, I’ll cook all day but when there is motion in the ocean, I’d rather eat cardboard.

After more than a year of this incredible lifestyle, the stove and I (at sea) I have thus far failed to establish a good relationship and its in sensitiveness has made more cry on way more than one occasion. You label me any name in the book you want to…punanny, pansy, or even worse a different p word…I could care less. There are many women far braver than I who tackle their own gimbal stove with no fear whatsoever but I, unfortunately, have been unable to do so. It’s a fear I hope to conquer…one day.

Speaking of conquering fears, last night I layed awake for a solid hour. My armpits were sweating. I was nervous. Drew was dead to the world. There was no one trying to come aboard Dosia and inflict bodily harm on me. I was merely thinking about the bungee jumps that are waiting to taunt me when we arrive back in New Zealand to travel the South Island. Will I find the gonads to jump? Just how pissed will I be at myself if I return back to the States having not taken the plunge(s)? My dad writes me the other day…”Marge, do me a favor. If you’re going to jump off of anything or out of anything, please wait until after you do so to tell your mother.” Thus he enforces the fact that its all dangerous. I don’t crave the danger. I really don’t. It didn’t thrill me to stand on the edge of that Sky Tower in Auckland and look down over my toes at a distance so great it looked like the building beneath me was inverted. All the while a giant bulls eye was there to guide me “home.” It reminded me later of the skit Ron White did that time where the guy asks him how far the single engine plane they were riding in was going to take them and he replied, “all the way to the scene of the crash.” I cried like a little girl. The fear that consumed me was so intense. Mascara was streaming down my face so bad the guy had to delay my jump so I could wipe it off just to be able to watch as I plunged to the earth. However, as soon as I went, as soon as I was falling, I loved every second of it. I know that I would love sky diving over the incredible Nelson Lakes or bungee jumping in Queenstown. I will hope every night for the courage to take the plunge when the time comes…

Until then I’ll continue to partake in wonderful events that aren’t so life threatening like our buddy, Tom’s from s/v Zen, birthday the other day. Being the dessert lover that he is, I whipped up a cake for him and his lovely wife, Monique, took a small group of us out to lunch to celebrate in Paihia. The day was full of good food, great laughs, awesome music, and incredible company. I am going to miss these people that I’ve formed these bonds with out here so much when this is all said and done. There isn’t a single wave that would have been the same without them, or Drew, by my side.