It’s hard to believe what we witnessed yesterday. A 25 point comeback with a quarter and a half to play on the biggest stage in sports??? Not possible. Not even Tom Brady could manage that.

Tom Brady makes the impossible look routine. He is not human. He is a demi-god, sent from God himself to bless Patriot Nation and make life insufferable for everyone else. His sperm should be frozen so that in the event of an apocalyptic disaster the world could be repopulated with his greatness.

I watched the game at the 24/7 Sports Bar at the Star Casino in Sydney, which 2 weeks earlier held about 15 people for the AFC Championship Game. Yesterday, it was the biggest Super Bowl party in Sydney and ESPN Australia was broadcasting from there.

They did some interviews throughout the game and I should have walked up to the producers and told them where I was from and ask if they wanted to interview me, but something stopped me. Maybe it was knowing that I probably would have gone full Masshole and started dropping F-bombs and talking about how handsome the greatest man to ever step on a football field is.

The crowd was full of random team jerseys and much like the U.S., you were either a Pats fan or a fan of whoever is playing the Patriots. I made friends with some Aussies that invited me to their table. When the Falcons made it 28-3, one of them looked at me and said, “Well, it’s over now, right?” I looked him dead in the eye and said, “Not as long as Tom Brady is on that field.” I meant it too. My biggest regret it not putting money at halftime on the Patriots to win the game. They were +1600 when it was 28-9. I have to imagine they were at least +1000 at halftime. $100 would have made me at least $10,000. I was that confident, but the thought never crossed my mind.

The argument of who is the greatest of all time is over now. In my mind it was over after his 4th ring, but after #5 you can’t even make a case for anyone else. He is the GOAT. PERIOD.

Frodo Baggins can hike his ass back to the shire, because the real Lord of the Rings forges his own rings out of the fucking Fires of Foxboro and he travels by duck boat.

Knew what day it was this week so I didn’t miss the coastal walk. It’s about a 4 mile walk and is highly regarded as one of the most beautiful coastal walks in the world. Unfortunately, it was cloudy, which led to some pretty much empty beaches, but the views were still beautiful.

 

Turns out I took most of my pictures on my camera during this walk. I can only post pictures from my phone on the blog right now. Most of the people that were at the beach that day were surfers. Riding at least 1 wave is one of my goals. Bondi Beach is one of the most famous beaches in the world and during the summer is normally wall to wall people. It was pretty much empty. The surf wall though is pretty cool. It’s covered in murals done by local artists and they paint over and change the wall every couple weeks.

The next day I headed back to the Blue Mountains. You already saw the kangaroo fight. It was our first stop and an amazing way to start the trip. Those were Eastern Grey Kangaroos, different than the wallabies we saw the other day. I want to see some Red Kangaroos. Those are the big jacked ones, but I think I have to go to the Outback to find them so it may be awhile.

 

 

After the boxing match, we headed to Wentworth Falls. We took about an hour and a half hike down to and around the falls. On the way, we stopped to check out the homes of some funnel web spiders. They’re extremely deadly, but I’ll talk more about them in an upcoming post about spiders and other Australian animals, including koalas.

Again, I think my best pictures are on my camera. Wentworth Falls is actually quite large and a lack of rainfall has diminished the waterflow. No worries though, because other than the kangaroo fight, here comes the highlight of my trip so far……..Minnehaha Falls.

As you can see, at the bottom of the falls is a freshwater swimming hole. We took about a 25 minute hike to get down to the base of the falls.

I wasn’t not going to go for a swim. It was kinda chilly, but no worse than Old Silver in June. Besides, I had to hike back up a mountain after, so I took the chance to cool off.

This was the best day of my trip so far. I really can’t wait to be alone with nature. Away from all the touristy stuff. I’ll be leaving Sydney in less than a week. Headed to Canberra (Australia’s capitol city) and then to Melbourne and Tasmania. I think the real fun is about to start!!!

 

 

 

 

 

For my birthday I took a trip to the Blue Mountains and explored the Jenolan Caves, but the big story of the day is I saw 3 kangaroos!!!!

They were just the wallaby variety, but because of that I was able to get just a couple feet away from them. One of them was hopping right up to me, but she changed her mind for some reason.

My day started with a girl on the tour saying she had a huntsman spider in her bathroom at our hostel. Don’t know what a huntsman spider is??? Search it on Youtube. Right before bed is probably the best time. I didn’t think they were in this area of the country and I certainly didn’t think they’d be in the city, but our tour guide was nice enough to explain that they’re all over the place and they get in your car through the vents all the time. He said “Sometimes you flip down your sunscreen and one comes flyin at you, mate.” We have vents right above the showers. My showers are very, very fast now.

After about a 2 1/2 hour drive and more horrifying spider stories, we finally arrived at the Jenolan Caves. The caves are one of the oldest in the world to have guided tours and the first caves in the world that were ever lit using electricity.

 

After the caves tour, we went and saw a few of the more notable lookouts in the Blue Mountains including The 3 sisters rock formations. WARNING: Mom, you may want to skip some of these pictures. 😂 Love you!!

We searched for snakes and funnel web spiders as we walked to one of the lookouts, but sadly came up empty. Getting out of the city and into the mountains was exactly what I needed after a bit of a rough start to the trip. I am headed back to the Blue Mountains in the morning. This time we’ll be checking out a few other lookouts and some of the waterfalls scattered throughout the mountains. Hopefully they’ll be more wildlife sightings to report!!!! Oh, here’s another kangaroo to brighten your day:

 

The area of Sydney known as “The Rocks” is the oldest part of the city. Back in the day it had a reputation for drunken debauchery and prostitution. Sounds like my kind of place. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Oh well. Now on weekends during the summer they have street markets and live music. I’ll probably end up taking the nightly ghost tour at some point.

I stopped into Fortune of War, the oldest pub in Sydney, for a couple pints. $10 (about $7 US) for what was pretty much the equivalent of Bud Light. Everything is expensive in Sydney.

When 2 people are sitting next to each other at a bar in Australia and they both have on Red Sox shirts it begs the question, “Where are you from?” The couple sitting next to me in Sydney, Australia was from freaking Attleboro, 25 minutes away from where I live. Massachusetts is like Isla Fisher in Wedding Crashers. “Don’t ever leave me…..Good, cuz I’d find you.”

I spent the next 2 days dealing with the important tasks of finding a place to watch the Patriots game and then getting up at 5:30am to go watch football starting at 7. I held off on drinking until alittle before Pats kickoff, but it would be a long day. PATS WIN!!! #OneMore

After a recovery day (yes, it took the whole day), I headed back out to explore the city and make my plans for Australia Day!! I visited the Anzac War Memorial and saw the Welcome Wall, which is sort of an Australian version of the signature books at Ellis Island.

AUSTRALIA DAY!!! Headed down to the Opera House bright and early to find a good spot for the festivities and planted myself firmly on the wrong side of the giant ship where they would do the salute to Australia. The daytime was mostly about the parade of decked out boats in the harbour and the floating, live entertainment.

The night was about celebrity performances, fireworks and drinking. Keith Urban must have been busy, because other than The Wiggles, I didn’t know any of the Aussie celebs that performed.

Highlight of the day: Kangaroo burger for dinner.

Coming soon: The Blue Mountains and world famous Bondi Beach

Stay tuned!!

*Accidentally deleted all the pictures off my camera today. Won’t make that mistake again. Thankfully I’ve been using my phone some too.

I’m finally here!!!! It only took 3 flights and an entire day lost somewhere in the space time continuim. I did not have a January 19th this year. I mean, technically I did, but it didn’t last 24 hours. Thursday was lost to a 16 hr flight across time zones and the International Dateline. Thankfully, I slept for about half the flight, because the time I spent awake was brutal. Wedged in the middle of a 3 person row, with crappy food, uncomfortable seats and no escape because the other 2 managed to sleep most of the flight. I only peed twice the whole time. Yes, you needed to know.

When the plane landed, I was excited to see that it wasn’t raining. It had rained in my stops in Toronto and Vancouver and was forecast to rain in Sydney all day today. By the time I cleared customs and headed outside to the shuttle, it was pouring. Met a lovely couple, Erica and Junior, on the shuttle bus who are here from Miami for their honeymoon and also heading to New Zealand, so we had lots to talk about. Checked into my beautiful suite (it’s a 6 person male dorm room) and headed to my room. Open the door and one of my new roommates is asleep. I have yet to go to the room and not find someone sleeping. I can tell I’m going to love hostel life.

Thankfully, it had stopped raining after I had gotten settled and cleaned up, so I headed out to explore. Sticking true to my “I don’t have a real plan attitude,” I picked a direction and started walking. Huge success!!! After about 30 minutes, not only did the street lead straight to the Sydney Opera House, but right as I arrived, I bumped into Junior and Erica. We walked around Circular Quay and took the obligatory tourist pictures and then went our separate ways.

I started my walk back towards the hostel. Walking around Sydney is interesting so far. I’m afraid to jaywalk at times because I’m not really sure where the cars are supposed to be coming from. Also, I’m not really sure which side of the sidewalk to walk on. They drive on the left, so logic says they would walk on the left too, but alot of people walk on the right. I’ve been going with the middle and then dodging right or left depending on which side they are coming at me from. It’s basically like staggering drunk around the streets of Boston. What really made me feel right at home though, was that I managed to get lost for about an hour when all I had to do was take one street straight back. These aren’t nice, neat little blocks. It’s really got the “Fuck your map” Boston feel to it.

It’s alittle after 8 here and the post-flight adrenaline got burnt off by all that walking. Also, because it’s gross out. They tell me it’s 30 degrees out, but it was definitely like 80 with 90% humidity. The metric system alone is enough to keep me from moving here permanently.

PS….No kangaroo sitings yet.

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

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

 

 

 

“Down Under” by Men at Work was the theme song to my first trip to Australia. Just a bunch of kids from New York, packed onto a charter bus and forced to listen to this song every single morning. It was obnoxious at first, but by the end of the 3 weeks we got on that bus and started singing every morning. Almost 20 years later, I still know every word to the song. Vegemite sandwiches are a real thing for anyone who is wondering. Maybe I’ll bring a jar of it home this time.

This trip is going to have a different theme song; “Going Away for Awhile,” by Brett Eldredge. This song perfectly puts into words my mindset headed into this adventure.

My next post will be about my vague plans and some of the things I want to do on my journey….stay tuned.

It’s almost time!! My trip is only 2 weeks away and I still feel like I have SO much left to do to get ready. Everyday I get more excited and more nervous. What the hell did I get myself into? I don’t hike, so why not fly to the other side of the world and backpack across 2 countries. Hostels, campsites and hundreds of miles of hiking trails await me. Such is life though. Whether you’re at home or on the other side of the world, there’s always adventures to be had and I can’t wait to share mine with you through this blog!!!! Please feel free to share the link with any of your family or friends that may be interested.

Some people may think I just woke up one day and decided to take this trip, but the truth is that it has kind of always been inevitable since I spent 3 weeks as a student ambassador in Australia when I was fourteen. I always said when I went back that it was going to be a one way ticket, but I’m not sure I can move that far away from my family anymore. They need me after all, ;). You can’t just replace this much awesomeness in your daily life. In a way, this is still a bit of a scouting mission in case I do ever decide to make it more permanent.

In actuality though, this trip has a deeper meaning……deeper roots. Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer has been my favorite book since it was published in 1996. It was more recently made into a movie, so some of you may be familiar with it without having read the book. It’s a look at the true story of Christopher McCandless; a young, college graduate who in 1990 gave up everything he owned and began traveling the West Coast eventually making his way to Alaska, where he would meet his end in August of 1992. McCandless seemed to be searching for some sort of enlightenment. It’s always fascinated me that someone could just drop everything and go with no real idea where he was headed or how he was getting there.

So…..why now? I don’t have an exact answer for that question. Those of you that know me well, know I’ve been lost for awhile now. No real direction in life other than towards the next source of fun. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been a blast and I’ve done some amazing things. However, it’s also kept me poor and sort of just hovering in the same spot in my life for 10 years. I guess I’m just searching for what’s next in life. A new direction to mix with the current one. Something to actually accomplish and be passionate about other than having more fucking fun than everyone else (I got that award on lockdown).  I have no idea what I’ll learn about life or myself over the next 6 months, but I’m going to find it out on my own.

Just me. On the other side of the world; kickin it with the kangaroos.

 

To my family and friends: Thank you to everyone who has supported this dream and especially to everyone who has contributed to all the gear I needed!! You have no idea how huge it was to save money on buying all that stuff. I love you all and will miss you terribly!!!