Snapshots from Hong Kong

I have finally been able to sort through my photos from the five days I spent in Hong Kong in May - my first trip to Asia and quite an eye-opening experience! The city is alive 24 hours a day with locals selling cheaply made goods and cafes that serve steaming bowls of noodles in broth into the wee hours of the morning. If you need a goldfish you'll find thousands at the goldfish market; some antiques head to Hollywood Road in Central; your future interpreted by one of 50+ fortune tellers awaiting business in stalls behind the Wong Tai Sin Temple. Humid, bright lights, and stuff packed into every nook and cranny of this bustling city; this, to me, is Hong Kong.

Glowworms

Waitomo glowworm caves: seriously the coldest water I have ever been in and one of the coolest things I have ever done. There are around 300 limestone caves underneath the Waitomo region where hundreds of glowworm lights brighten the caves like stars in the nighttime sky. It was freezing (the water in the caves is never exposed to sunlight), fascinating, and so much fun, particularly when Val led our group in a rendition of Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On". Val's no Dion, but she did Titanic proud.

Barrron Falls

My friend Greg is a Cairns resident and offered to drive me around and see some of the city. Free tour of Cairns? Yes, please.

When he picked me up at my hostel that morning I was not expecting our mode of transportation to be a bright yellow Ford with a "GANGLES" license plate. And yet it was quite enjoyable driving to the sites in style. Greg took me to Kuranda, a village famous for its scenic railway and alternative, hippie lifestyle, some great lookouts of Cairns CBD, Crystal Cascade, and the famous Barron Falls.

Update

MAP A

MAP B

MAP C

I had a personal request to publish some maps to give a better idea of where I am on this massive continent. So here are three maps, and I'll tell you what I know.

Map A shows the state boundaries. There are six states - Western Australia, South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania, and two territories, Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory.

Map B highlights Queensland.

Map C is the route I am taking up the east coast from Sydney to Cairns on the Oz Experience, that big yellow bus I published a photo of a few weeks back.

So far in my travels I have spent time in Victoria (Melbourne and the Mornington Peninsula), NSW (Sydney, Hunter Valley, Byron Bay), and Queensland (Map B), where I have been for the past two weeks.

OK, enough geography for one day. On to the good stuff!

Sand Dunes!

Me taking the plunge!

Hiking the sand dunes at Rainbow Beach was incredible. I learned how to throw a boomerang, which was invented in Australia by aboriginals as a way to hunt food. Also got to boogie board down the dunes!

The Glass House Mountains

Between Byron and Noosa we stopped to see the Glass House Mountains, which were once lava plugs within volcanic cones that have been eroded by wind and water for over 25 million years. They are called the Glass House Mountains because when James Cook sailed to Australia he thought the peaks resembled glass furnaces in his home in England.

Glebe Markets

Now this is my kind of Sunday afternoon. The Glebe markets! Hundreds of vendors selling vintage goods, handmade jewelry, bags, T-shirts, old stamps and remodeled door frames, homemade cookies and soaps, and lots more.

Anzac Memorial

The Anzac Memorial is located in Hyde Park in Sydney, and honors the 120,000 men and women from New South Wales who served in World War I.

Happy Australia Day!

Yesterday was Australia Day, which I spent drinking strawberry champagne cocktails and eating a feast - grilled fish, sweet potato, zucchini, pumpkin and beet salad, caprese salad, and pavlova - before heading to Darling Harbour to watch the Australia Day fireworks. Above are a few pictures of the harbour during the daytime, so imagine that open space plus 20,000 people proudly waving the Australian flag. It was exciting to be a part of the festivities, and the fireworks were quite a showing! I may even go as far as saying they were the best fireworks I've ever seen.

The harbour itself is quite a touristy area, which I found disappointing. Perhaps it wasn't always chain restaurants and shops, McDonalds, and Starbucks. It was fun to watch the kids play in the water, though. Too bad I'm no longer at an age where it's appropriate to splash around and join in on the fun.

hiking and beach-ing

Back in Sydney! I had a long, but mini road trip up the coast, and now I'm back in Sydney for 2 weeks before taking a month-long even bigger road trip to Cairns. Above are some photos of a hike Rose, Jess, and I did this weekend to a private beach.

The Gold Coast

That speck of a city in the distance is the Gold Coast. This was the view from a restaurant we stopped at for lunch before heading there to spend the night.

Nimbin

I spent about 20 minutes in Nimbin, but the small strip of coffee shops, aromatherapy and hemp stores, and sight of the locals left quite an impression. Walking through this small town is like entering the twilight zone. Apparently pot is not legalized but is allowed in Nimbin, and the locals look like they arrived 30 years ago and never left. The shops all have odd names, like Happy High Herbs, and the café brownies are called “groovy cake”. 

Byron Bay

Byron Bay is an amazing beachside town on the northeastern edge of New South Wales. I spent two days in Byron where I drank well, ate well, danced on the tables at Cheeky Monkeys, the town’s most well-known hot spot, and caught some rays at its picturesque beach. Before heading out we stopped at the lighthouse and took some great photos of Byron below.

Big Things

Did you know there are some 60 large objects scattered across Australia? On my road trip I saw three: a pineapple, shrimp, and banana.

The Big Banana above in Coffs Harbour, on the coast of New South Wales, was the very first, and made for a great photo op on my road trip.