Working-holiday's mini-vacation

Enjoyed a very inspiring meditation course a bit north of Brisbane and then caught a ride a bit south to Byron Bay, spent a night in a noisy dorm and left at 6am to try my luck at what multiple people said was a safe and worthwhile endeavor on Australia's central East Coast: hitchhiking. With a cardboard "Sydney" sign and big smile on my face I waited hoping my new friends weren't pulling my leg. 30 minutes later I get a ride with two Punjabi Indian guys who are going an hour and change south towards Sydney; "great!" I say hopping into the back seat. On the outskirts of Ballina, I wait some more and after another 30 or so minutes get picked up by an Australian woman going to Port Macquarie, maybe just more than half the distance to Sydney. I wasn't earnestly expecting to get a ride and then found it extra surprising to get picked up by a woman. At Port Macquarie I got some lunch and hid from the bright Australian sun for a bit before trying my luck again on the on-ramp. Not long later an older gentleman picked me up, and unfortunately dropped me off at an exit that wasn't much closer to Sydney and had almost no traffic coming on the freeway. A mild sunburn and contemplating where I'd spend the night if no one picked me up later, two young shirtless hippies stop on the shoulder of the freeway to give me a lift. They're not going far, but I felt sure any place is better than this one for a driver to see, consider, and stop to give me a ride. I was right; only waiting 10-15 minutes a little down the road I caught a ride all the way to Newcastle, a city connected to Sydney by lengthy commuter trains. My last driver picked me up a few minutes after sunset, which relieved growing nerves, though I can say the person driving was the oddest fellow I'd met that day. He dropped me off in Sydney (which is a vast suburban sprawl surrounding a riverside skyline), and I took a bus and walked to my hostel. What a day!

Sydney was gorgeous, definitely a first class metropolis. Pictures are up (or will be up) on Flickr, and I was fortunate enough to walk and absorb much of the central regions of the city.

Many minutes, or perhaps hours were spent in Sydney trying to figure out how to reach my original planned destination: Perth, Western Australia. After considering flying directly, flying indirectly, taking a train, ridesharing, transporting a vehicle, and anything else I saw I'm my research, I opted for a round-trip hitchhiking adventure and an indirect flight, with a pleasant stopover in Bali, Indonesia. For an extra ~20-25% of the cost of the direct ticket, I was able to come to another tropical paradise in a country my almost-full passport has never gotten the stamp of.

It is a highly-anticipated day where I start working and making back the money I've spent on my travels so far, but this opportunity was not to be passed, and well worth every iota of effort, at least so far.