RTW - week 23 (g'day Mate!)

Welcome to Australia, it’s winter here. Wait.. wasn’t it supposed to be SPRING?! We only packed one warm outfit since we have been chasing summer for the past few months, so when Australia’s cold spell continues well into their spring, we were not prepared!

Thankfully, being in Australia is like being at home. The roads.. oh the roads.. they have proper lanes… and there are no pot holes, they aren’t full of hairpin turns, one way (unofficial of course) roads, there are road signs.. AND IT’S IN ENGLISH!

Okay the rest of Australia is like being at home too, but since we have been driving everywhere, the roads are the most impressive. We are all wide eyed, jaw open in amazement. Even Hunter from the backseat is in awe.

Another similarity is that there are STORES! We walked into a real store for the first time in 5 months and couldn’t believe our eyes. There was so many options, and all so beautiful organized. Being in Target was unbelievably overwhelming – who knew?!

We were on the hunt for hats and had to go from store to store coming up empty handed each time . I think the 5 of us walked around a little like zombies for a good hour or two much to the enjoyment of those also shopping.

“Who are these bush people and why are they so unsocialized?!” haha!

Being in Australia also means that we get to communicate with people in our native tongue. Not being able to do so in the past had been surprisingly difficult.

You have to watch your tone, the words you use, and above all.. you cannot speak with any sarcasm/humour when you are dealing with people who don’t understand English.

This is especially difficult for Bryan and I who live in a world of sarcasm. We have 5 months of sarcastic aggression to get out now, so please forgive me.

Lily, our social butterfly, had an especially hard time with the language barrier. She ran up to us the first day and asked us what everyone speaks here (a question she asks every time we land in a new country) and when we said English, her eyes lit up and she immediately ran up to the closest girl she could find and took her hand.

Now, everyday, within seconds of reaching a new park she has made a “new best friend”.

We have a super cute and cozy house swap in Joondalup (just north of Perth) backing onto Neil Hawkins Park which has loads of biking/walking trails, a playground filled with birds for Hunter to feed and even a small community market.

There is even a small pool, but good luck getting us into it in these temperatures! It couldn’t be more perfect for us.

Our #1 goal of course is to spot a Kangaroo and a Koala, which we were able to knock off our animal bucket list within 2 days. Success!

Turns out, kangaroos are everywhere and its basically impossible to miss them. I don’t know if it gets any more “Australian” than having lunch with a kangaroo right?!