While in Byron Bay, Neil, Justin, and Colin hiked to this awesome waterfall.

Back in OZ mate!! Tooooo eeasssy!

In fact, Australia is too easy!! After speaking Spanish and Portuguese, and dealing with customs officials, and looking forward to all the times ahead after going through countries where we can't understand the language, Australia is definitely too easy, Mate!

Justin, Collin and I met in the Santiago airport in Chile and flew for 13 hours-or-so to our first stop in Auckland, New Zealand for a layover, then to Sydney for another layover, and then on to Brisbane. We left at 11PM on the day before Easter and arrived in Australia on the day AFTER Easter!! What!! We missed Easter. Oh well, maybe on the drive back across the dateline, we will celebrate July 4th twice! The flight was long, but enjoyable nonetheless. I haven't watched many movies on our journey, and to see FIVE in one sitting was quite nice.

Once we hit Brisbane, we rented a car and headed towards Byron Bay, which is a super fun, chilled-out town on the East Coast of Australia. We still had a few days to kill before our team was to arrive to all meet in Brisbane. So we ate Mediterranean kebabs, which are all over Austalia, and of course, some tasty meat pies, mmmn.

We have been having a good time in Byron; it is hard not to when you are staying in a hostel, each room having 16 people, and everyone is very sociable and from all over the world. We had a blast. I didn't surf at all, as the waves were small, and I am still letting my foot heal, which is making great progress now! We also went on a two-hour drive inland from Byron to Nimbin, a small town, and listened to a guy play guitar for a little while, then we went into the forest a bit and hiked to a waterfall. The countryside is spectacular around Byron.

Other than the fun of Byron, there are also a few shocks we are experiencing. One is the COST!!!!! Yikes!!!!!! Australia is the most expensive place I have been. This is my third time to Australia, and the first two times, the cost here in Australia was a bit lower, and our dollar was much stronger then, giving us a 2-to-1 rate back then. But now, it is extremely expensive. For example, a burrito is $7, or to stay a night in a hostel, sharing with 16 people in a room, is $25 a head. Having a full breakfast costs about $13, or even buying a candy bar costs $1.60. It is a tough shock to handle.

And of course, the fact that everywhere I look there are Caucasian and Asian people all around and speaking English, is quite different. I am used to seeing brown people everywhere speaking Spanish or Portuguese. Not to mention, when you go out at night, no one knows how to dance either. Oh, the differences between Latin America and Australia. Although, I guess if our team is camping in the middle of nowhere anywhere in the world, and I look around, they are all Caucasian, speak English and can't dance either, HA HA HA(excluding Adam of course, the dance master)

Well, we are in Australia and will enjoy being able to communicate with everyone around us for a while, with no translation necessary. I know we are all looking forward to getting our vehicles and heading up north along the beautiful coast and into the outback.

Cheers Mate,

Neil

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