I leave January 18th, but because of travel time and the time difference (Sydney is 16 hours ahead of  Eastern Standard Time) I don’t arrive in Sydney until the morning of the 20th. I have until March 22 to explore the Sydney, Melbourne and Tasmania areas. On March 22nd I fly from Sydney to Auckland, New Zealand and have until April 25th to see as much of the two islands as I can squeeze in before I fly from Christchurch back to Sydney. Once back in Australia, I will begin my journey up the coast. On May 22nd, I fly from Brisbane to Port Vila, Vanuatu to go visit my friend Matthew Thomas Hardwick. He joined the Peace Corps after college and he never came back. At this point, I have to assume he is King Matthew and walks around constantly saying, “It’s my island!!” That stay will be short, but sweet and full of kava. I fly back to Brisbane on May 31st. That gives leaves me with 4 weeks to do the rest of the East Coast up to Cairns and hopefully head West to Darwin and then South to Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park in The Outback before I have to be back in Sydney for my flight back to the US on June 29th.

To Do:

Australia:

• Learn to surf without getting eaten by a shark
• Snorkel or dive the Great Barrier Reef
• Celebrate Australia Day in Sydney
• Get the perfect picture of Sydney Harbor
• Climb Mt. Kosciuszko (Australia’s highest mountain)
• Hike Tasmania’s Overland Track (6 day hike, widely ranked among the top 10 hikes in the world)
• Cage of Death at Crocosaurus Cove in Darwin
• Cage dive with Great Whites
• Camp under the stars in The Outback
• Ayer’s Rock at sunrise/sunset
• Tattoo to symbolize the trip

Sydney Harbor

New Zealand:

• Cape Reinga
• Waipoua Forest
• Waitomo Glowworm Caves
• Hike Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe and Tongariro (the 3 active volcanoes in Tongariro National Park)
• Lanarch Castle (Only castle in New Zealand. Always visit castles when you have a chance, even if you have to sneak in because it’s closed the day you go)
• Bendigo (gold mining, ghost town that’s been deserted for about a century)
• Fiordland National Park- Doubtful and Milford Sound
• Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park
• Geek out for a day on the Lord of the Rings Hobbiton set tour

Waitomo Glowworm Caves