I've Come From the Land Down Under

As promised, here is Part II of my trip to Australia.  I know that most people's interest in hearing about other people's vacation lasts about as long as a full drongo in a saltie billabong (which is a real Australian saying and totally not a bunch of Aussie slang I just strung together), so I'm going to keep it short and sweet.  I'll skip the boring parts like the drop bear that destroyed my tent when I was in it, and focus on the good stuff like the rock I found shaped like Mel Gibson's head.

Part I left off at Perth, the capital of the Western Australia.  It has the look of a big city but is really just a small town at heart, much like New York if that was in any way an accurate description of New York.  From there I joined my tour group and started up the coast towards the town of Exmouth, a two day trip that would take us six days to justify the stupid amount of money we each shelled out. My fellow tourists came from Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and Japan.  Some people might worry about spending eight days with complete strangers, but it's surprising easy to get along with people who aren't related to you.

We stopped at many interesting points along the way.  Places of note include Yanchep National Park, home of dozens of koalas. Koalas sleep 20 hours a day, waking only to eat, defecate, and mate, which makes them the hero and mascot of every male on the planet.

Then there was the animal sanctuary where I got to feed kangaroos and emus and hold a joey, which in this case was a baby kangaroo.  Most people don't realize that the term joey also means a tasmanian devil baby; unfortunately they won't let you hold a tasmanian devil baby even though that would be a kickass name for a punk band.

We stayed in hostels along the way in small remote towns, which describes any town in Western Australia. One town we stayed in, Denham, bills itself as the Westernmost Town in Australia.  That night we went to a bar at the end of the town's main street called The Old Bar, which bills itself as the Westernmost Town in Australia.  So I can say I've been to the Westernmost Bar in the Westernmost Town in Australia, which means I can now bill myself as Achieved the Second Least Impressive Thing Ever Next to Winning an Oscar (come on, we all know it's just a big popularity contest).  

We also went to Monkey Mia, where wild dolphins are fed by hand.  A crowd of people gather on the beach in the morning in hopes of being one of the lucky few to be picked to feed the dolphins. My tour guide advised me to stand out if I want to be picked, so I went down there naked.

Kidding! I wore a hot pink tank top and short shorts even though it was maybe 55 degrees out, and I got picked! Let that be a lesson to you, kids: dressing like a tramp gets you exactly what you want.  Anyway, I dangled the fish in front of a dolphin, who eagerly took what I offered him and then lost all interest in me. Let that be another lesson to you kids!

I sense that we've reached the end of your interest for the day, so let me wrap up by saying I went swimming and snorkeling at a lot of beautiful beaches which are often inhabited by dangerous sharks, which makes me kind of a badass. Also, I stayed in a haunted hostel. You know how that goes.

So concludes my trip to Western Australia. I still have to cover my trip to the Northern Territory, which means this sequel has officially became a trilogy! Feel like overpaying to see something you're now officially sick of but feel obligated to see it through to the end? Good! Go do that and I'll see you later!