Ultimate Oz Week Pt2
This week has been so crazy and packed with fun activities I haven’t had a chance to write so here’s an update on how the last week has gone.
In a word, AMAZING!!!
Seriously, Ultimate has been such a great decision I am SO glad we decided to do it and I literally don’t know what we would have done if we hadn’t done this program (probably turned around and come home to be honest). If anyone out there is reading this thinking about doing a Working Holiday definitely definitely definitely factor in doing Ultimate beforehand.
In such a short amount of time we have become such great friends with the other people on this tour. This week has literally reminded me so much of like Freshman orientation at college or the first week of camp where everyone just bonds together so quickly and everything is so busy and exciting. I’ve already written a little about Monday so I’ll start with Tuesday.
Tuesday we woke up in our hostel room (there’s 8 of us in there but it surprisingly isn’t that bad) and went to a super informative meeting about working and finding jobs and also traveling and exploring in Australia. (More on that in a blog post tomorrow—but let’s just say it got us pretty excited and it definitely changed our plans for the next couple of weeks (!!)).
The best part of that was that one of the guys that came in to speak to us had literally THE FUNNIEST way of speaking I have ever heard in my life. Literally every word he said was some sort of Australian/Kiwi slang, Lewis and I were in tears. I really hope I come across him again so I can get a video because people from home would not believe it. His best phrase was PROPER FROTHIN! As in, “I bet you all are PROPA FROTHIN’ to get explorin’ the ozzy outback right mate.”
After the talk we all walked to the liquor store and loaded up on alcohol (to my disappointment yes it really is as prohibitively expensive out here as people said it would be, ugh). Walked down to Darling Harbor to catch our booooozeeeee cruisssssse yayyyyy. Even though the weather still wasn’t (and still hasn’t been) the fantastic Australian weather we were expecting we made it work for this booze cruise. Oh my god it was so much fun.
Oh side note, speaking of being out here and trying it, the night before there was a reptile show at the hostel with snakes and a crocodile and lizards and stuff. So I’m like, I HATE snakes but I promised myself I’d be out here trying stuff so yeah sure I’ll hold that python, of course. I’m doing a fake smile trying to get my photo with it when the thing darts, I kid you not, STRAIGHT INTO MY OPEN MOUTH. NOT COOL. I tried to turn and run (fight or flight, flight, all about the flight) but obviously that didn’t work because its ATTACHED TO ME. Ugh nightmare.
The next day, Wednesday, we set up our bank accounts and then got on the road about 3 hours north to Port Stephens for the Base Camp part of our week. We spent 2 nights at this awesome camping/hostel/compound kind of thing called Melaleuca Surfside Backpackers. It was so not what I was expecting but so cool. Everything was super rustic and outdoors, there were so many tropical plants and just plants everywhere it really felt like we were out in a jungle or something. The bathrooms were outside, pretty much everything was outside.
When we first got there we explored around a bit, had some dinner and did this huge beer pong tournament. Thursday we had an absolutely packed day. We all woke up for the sunrise on the beach which was stunning.
After that we went on a hike in Tomaree National Park to this gorgeous peak that looked over the water. Words really won’t do it justice, and the pictures won’t either to be fair, but here are the photos.
The rest of Thursday was pretty chilled out, we all just hung out and talked. Friday morning we went on a dolphin cruise (and we actually saw some!!), had fish and chips, saw MASSIVE pelicans, and hopped on the bus back to Wake Up in Sydney.
This week has been such a whirlwind but has far exceeded my expectations and I don’t want to say goodbye!!!!
#explore #timateoz #featured #BACKPACKING #wanderlust #travel #AUSTRALIA #workingholiday #sydney