Goodbye Sydney

Day 5 begins.

 Sydney has treated me well, as have the people in it. It was a short stay for this leg, but I will return after the outback.

 I made great new friends, Ariel and Mandy, as mentioned. I owe them a lot of thanks for helping me get my footing after landing in this crazy new world. Sydney is an interesting place. Many things are very different here than in Canada - internet access being a big one. Not many people are on home based internet connections it seems, but rather pre-paid wireless internet sticks.

 I had a great backstage tour of the Sydney Opera house yesterday thanks to an old friend I graduated from The Ontario Institute of Audio Recording Technology with, Matt Giusti. It was an awesome experience. In my opinion, a much better way to see the landmark than a paid guided tour. Vivd Fest is on this week here, so the place was hustling and bustle with stage crews getting prepped.

 Now I make my way to Newcastle via train. My last trip by public transit out of Sydney. Its a 158Km trip, which will give me a solid start on the some 3000Km trek up the coastline. After only a night in Newcastle I will begin my trek towards Coffs Harbor, where I will hopefully spend a few days to watch the Humpback Whale migration taking place right now.

  I have nearly all my supplies now, all that's left if cooking fuel and fishing line which I will get in Newcastle of Coffs. I found both books I was searching for and an excellent map for my route. The books are bush survival type guides on edible plants and animals in Australia. They are (and I highly recommend them to anyone thinking of doing a similar trip to mine);  the Bush Tucker Field Guide, by Les Hiddins, and Edible Wild Food Plants of Australia, by Tim Low.

These books are now my survival guides, my cookbooks, the centre of my survival. Along with these two books I have a third, Dangerous Creatures. This book outlines all the most deadly animals in australia, how to identify them, and how to treat their wounds.

 So here I go, with my feet on the ground, to face the lonely continent, across the wilderness, of Australia.