The Last 30 Days

I haven't written here in so long! I don't even know why. I haven't had any words in my head. 

I also don't know how to catch up. So instead of worrying about it any more I'm just going to word-and-picture vomit whatever comes to mind.

We are in New Zealand now for 2 weeks, and have been in Australia for over a month. We return to Melbourne for two more weeks and then on March 31st we get on a flight and return home, our trip at an end.

In the meantime we are ignoring the inevitable, and having a great time. In Australia we visited Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane, Cairns, Townsville, and Canberra. 

In Cairns we saw the Great Barrier Reef. It was amazing--even on the plane coming in it was beautiful, the blue water punctuated with little dashes and commas of lighter greenish water and arcs of coral.

I went snorkeling off Green Island. I wore a "stinger suit" to protect from jellyfish--this time of year in Cairns the ocean becomes home to two kinds of stinging jellyfish, some of which can kill you, and crocodiles, which can definitely kill you. 

I had a disposable underwater camera, which sadly did no justice whatsoever to the color and quantity of life there. There were fish of all sizes, from tiny to almost frighteningly large, glowing in electric blue, orange, yellow, pink, or all of the above combined. The most astounding thing was you could HEAR them! They were eating from the coral, and you could hear the sound of their mouths scraping along. 

I've always found the water a little spooky and am not a great swimmer, so I was terrified to see the shape of a shark on the water in front of me. It was clear enough to make it out, but murky enough to be very scary looking. I think it was a reef shark, which are harmless to humans, but it certainly scared the shit out of me. 

I didn't see it again, which was almost MORE frightening--how easy it is for the ocean to hide its secrets. 

I became convinced that my pale white hands flapping around at the end of my dark wet suit arms would look like delicious food and just get chomped off, and spent the rest of the time with them tucked in. 

And yes, I did take a picture of the shark even as I was afraid of it, hah. 

It was exhilarating, and I've never seen anything like it. So much life, so much different life, all sharing the same space.

Australia is an amazing place. It has outback and bush, of course, but also rainforest, which I didn't realize. The animals are so different, filling the same ecological niches you have in other parts of the world with different flavors of marsupial and giant birds. Everything is venomous.

We rented a car and drove a large triangle over the course of a few days following the Cricket World Cup. It was so fun, such freedom and the open road and the ability to stop or go as you see fit.

Being too cheap to stay in a hotel at some random place along the way, we just slept in the car along the side of the road between Adelaide and Canberra. We pulled over and turned off the car and got out to look at one of the clearest skies I have ever seen. The longer we stared the more stars we saw. They looked almost like they were dripping from the sky, with a hazy strip of milkway blurring the middle.

We had planned on it being a short stop just to refresh, but we are lazy people and we slept there for over seven hours.

We woke just after sunrise and drove on to a lake, and breakfast pastries.

The cricket World Cup had been a lot of fun, more than I expected. I have been to three or four games so far, often sitting by myself or with new friends while Subash is in the press box. I love watching all of the fans, decked out in team colors, happy.

We are watching more matches here in New Zealand and then back in Australia for the quarter finals and finals. 

I have become much more invested in it than I expected, especially Ireland, who is a bit of an underdog, struggling to be accepted into a tight club of larger cricket-obsessed countries, but doing surprisingly well. They have won both of their matches so far. We are watching an Ireland v India match soon, which I am really looking forward to.

I can't believe there are only 30 days left! I am really looking forward to going home and seeing my family, and our cats, and eating an everything bagel with cream cheese. But I don't want all of this to be over, and the idea that we have to find new jobs and pay our taxes and sort a life out is overwhelming. 

But! We aren't there yet. We still have lots to see and do and soak up before the plane ride home. 

It's been an amazing experience and I am SO glad we took the chance on it, whatever happens upon our return. If you have ever thought about doing something like this, DO IT. I keep thinking about how time just goes by, and how easy it would have been for us to stay in our comfortable lives in our jobs and our apartment, and we would have been happy, but we would have missed all of this.