Phone Phreak

A friend of mine who was about to set out on her own travels asked me the following question:

Hey, what are you doing for a phone while you travel? Did you buy a prepaid sim card for the phone you had? Or do an int'l phone plan? I'm trying to figure that out.

I remember having lots of similar questions myself before I left on my trip and wrote a few posts about it. Here is the answer I gave my friend:

I have 2 phones: a Blackberry with an international calling plan, unlimited data and worldwide email. And I have a second handset for local SIMs. The second handset is a piece of junk that I got for free from a friend in NZ, but it's quad-band, unlocked, and GSM. That's important. I had thought that I would just use my US number and not worry about the expense of international calls, but it turns out it's really important for a lot of reasons to have a local phone number.

I thought the Blackberry would be all I would need since (unlike an iPhone) Blackberrys can be unlocked and used with local SIMs, but I found that swapping SIMs was a real PITA -- I couldn't reliably receive calls at either number because I might have the other SIM in at the time. Two phones is a crappy solution, but it's the best I've found so far.

You know what's better than carrying around two phones? Tell me. Please.

The other day, a friend showed me his Skype phone, a phone that uses a local Wi-Fi Internet connection to let you call other Skype users for free, and all other phones (even international ones) for a ridiculously low rate. But I refuse to carry a third phone.

(Remarkably, there isn't a Skype application for BlackBerrys, though they keep promising one. There are other VoIP BlackBerry applications (e.g. Truphone), but I haven't been satisfied with them.)

The Great Ocean Road

I had been wanting to do this famous drive ever since I arrived in Melbourne in January: The Great Ocean Road. I mean, it sounds pretty ... great, doesn't it? With my couchsurfer friend T, a borrowed car, and a stowaway Punjabi passed out drunk in the back seat (don't ask), we picked up The Road in Torquay and set out for a weekend of long drives, beautiful views and peaceful slumber under the stars.

 
Required touristy photo op

The drive itself strongly reminded me of Highway 1 down the West Coast of the U.S.: a windy cliff-hugging road chock full of sights and tourists eager to see them all. It rained intermittently all weekend, making the driving conditions treacherous -- all the more so considering that the rear tires of our borrowed car were bald, as we discovered the hard way in one particularly tight slippery turn. No harm done, we took the rest of the drive at a leisurely pace.

We stopped at a campsite near Johanna Beach after a day of beach towns and surfer dudes. By nightfall, the guy in the back seat had roused himself enough to down most of a box of wine, blasting Punjabi music in the car and passing out drunk again. We turned off his music and quietly poured out the rest of his wine before falling asleep ourselves to the sounds of the ocean and the patter of rain on our tents.

 

The next morning, after a quick picnic brunch, we broke camp and headed West toward the Twelve Apostles, a series of sandstone pillars just off the coast. The rain cleared just enough for us to get a couple of sunny seaside snaps.

 

Mission accomplished, we turned around and cut inland for the drive back, through thickly forested park land, eventually setting up camp at the trail head of Beauchamp Falls. I was less impressed by the falls than by the trek, surrounded by towering beech and gum trees and a thicket of fern.

 

That evening, a noble effort of sausages and onions grilled over an open campfire was very nearly quenched by another sudden deluge. The rain let up long enough for us to scarf our damp sausages and retire to the relative warmth of our tents to sleep once again to the sounds of rain.

The ride back was uneventful, unless you count the sobering of our Punjabi friend, who then refused to pay his share of the petrol because he hadn't seen anything. <sigh>

Tasmania!

Some Aussie friends of mine were taking a long weekend in Tasmania, and I decided to tag along. Before coming to Australia, I probably couldn't have found Tasmania on a map. Now I know: it's the big island under the right butt cheek of Australia. Just a short, cheap flight from Melbourne, it's perfect for a long weekend get-away.

We flew to Hobart, the biggest city in Tasmania, on the south part of the island. My friends and I drove right onto a ferry and headed out to Bruny Island. For you Seattleites, think of the San Juan Islands, but with better beaches and water you can swim in.

 
On the ferry to Bruny Island.

 
The views in Tasmania are spectacular. On Bruny Island, the coast and the bay are separated by only a hundred meters or so in places. There are penguin tracks all over.

 

I'm a huge dork.

The water was a little cold, but we went in anyway. Lots of surfers on every beach we went to. Unlike us morons, they were wearing wetsuits.

Mostly, we wandered around Hobart and hung out on beaches, but one day we drove into the bush to visit friends of friends for a barbecue. We ate English sausage and drank Tasmanian beer. I can enthusiastically endorse Moo Brew. When the sun set, the pademelons (pronounced "paddy melon") came out. They're like small wallabys, which are like small kangaroos. Sadly, it was too dark for me to get any pictures.

I also didn't take any pictures of downtown Hobart, which is a pretty little English-style town. But Google street view works there, so have yourself a virtual walk-about.

Healesville Sanctuary

I had been in Australia for over a month, and I hadn't seen a single kangaroo or koala. This past weekend I rectified that situation. With a few friends and a rental car, I headed to the Healesville Sanctuary to get my fill of Australia's wildlife.

 
OMG, koalas! Zzzz...

 
It was a hot day. All the 'roos were out of hop. I tried hopping around myself to give them the idea. They looked at me like I was nuts.

 
Eric N, crocodile hunter!

 

We watched a pretty amazing Birds of Prey exhibit. This guy is a brown wedge-tailed eagle named Ace. We also saw a osprey, a brown falcon and owl that buzzed the crowd and nearly took off with some small children.

I still hope to get out in the bush and see some wild kangaroos. I'm having fun here in Australia, so I've extended my stay until the end of March.

Running Around Town, Melbourne Edition

Just another beautiful sunny day here in Melbourne, so I thought I'd go for a run and take some snaps. A guy could get used to this.


Boardwalk at St. Kilda Beach, about 3pm on a Thursday. Hoppin'!


Fooling around at St. Kilda Pier.


That's downtown Melbourne in the background.


Ahhh...

Melbourne and the Housing Search

January 2nd, I step off the plane in Melbourne International Airport into a new city, a new country, a new decade. I don't know a soul here. I buy a local SIM for my mobile, a bus ticket downtown, and I'm on my way. Whee!

 
Downtown Melbourne, the Yarra River.

It's late and shuttles aren't running anymore, so I walk to North Melbourne where I have lined up a hostel for my first few nights in town.

Housing

Finding housing is the most time-consuming part of nomading, and after traveling for 9 months, this is the best strategy I've found so far: find a place to crash for a few nights (hostel, home-stay, whatever) and use the time to find something better. Lining an apartment up in advance is pointless; until you see it in person, you don't know what you're getting. And couch-surfing is great, but more than a few weeks of that is exhausting. So I checked Gumtree and after a few false starts, I hit on a wonderful flat in St Kilda with roof access, a beach view (if you squint), and a 2 minute walk to this:

 
Beach in St. Kilda, and a hundred or so insane kite-surfers.

I'm happy with the flat, but it took a lot of hot-dogging around town to find it. I'm still looking for a better way. I tried to go to a local real estate agent to help me find a short-term rental. Alas, when I arrived, everybody was still on their New Year's holiday, so that experiment will have to wait. I've also considering hiring a personal assistant in India to help me line up places -- don't laugh, that 4-hour workweek guy suggests doing just that -- but then I'm back to lining up places sight unseen, not a recipe for housing bliss. So what's the answer? As in the words of Tevye from Fiddler On The Roof, "I'll tell you! [pause] I don't know."

Melbourne

But Melbourne! I love it here. There are dozens of different neighborhoods and hundreds of coffee shops and bars and live music venues and quirky alternative book stores, and beautiful, friendly people, and lots of sun. I spend much of my work days in the State Library of Victoria, where it's quiet and cool and the Internet is slow but free.

 
Chess Room in the State Library of Victoria.

My evenings are spent either exploring Melbourne's nightlife solo or meeting up with couch-surfers for drinks and live music. My weekend? A free concert in a park and then a Belgian beer garden with some new friends, and some coffee, a book, and a patch of shade at a street cafe in Carlton. Not too bad, eh?

 
"Coffee is my life.""

Shambhala, Golden Bay, the New Year, and Old Resolutions

Last year, I resolved to "live in a bigger world." As resolutions go, it was a bit of a cheat since I had pretty much already committed to my nomadic lifestyle. Regardless, it's a good resolution; I'm happy with it, it fits well, and I'm sticking with it.

So in that spirit of openness, I allowed myself to be talked into spending New Year's Eve with my Kiwi friends C and A at a hippie backpacker eco-resort called Shambhala in Golden Bay on New Zealand's South Island.

 
C and A in the Tea House at Shambhala, overlooking the ocean.

Shambhala has everything you might expect from a hippie backpacker eco-resort: solar power, rainwater collection, composting toilets, one totally imperturbable proprietor named John, one very hairy yoga instructor named B.J., and some of the nicest let's-get-away-from-it-all world travelers I've met anywhere who spent their days sitting in the sun reading, collecting mussels from the beach for dinner, playing guitar on the grass and singing silly songs, and generally having a good time.

 
A heading down to the beach to poke her toes in tide pools.

Just a short drive from Shambhala is Pupu Springs, where a whole river bubbles up out of the ground. It's the purest natural fresh water on Earth and a site sacred to the native Māori people. Looking down into the spring is like peering into a vast cathedral through bluegreenyellow stained-glass windows.

 
Pupu Springs in Golden Bay, New Zealand

Just a 20 minute walk from Shambhala is the Mussel Inn, a brewery and pub tucked amongst the wild growth of Golden Bay. A glowworm walkway through the woods gets you there. At night, the glowing worms form strange constellations that twinkle as the wind blows through the fern trees. The Mussel Inn was the site of our group's New Year's Eve celebration. Live music, fresh air, exotic beers brewed on-site -- definitely a proper way for this nomad to ring in a new year of travel and adventure. I almost didn't miss my usual NYE celebration in Seattle with all my old friends. Almost.

 
The gang at the Mussel Inn for New Year's Eve 2010.

And then it was 2010. From Golden Bay, to Nelson, to Wellington and then on to Melbourne, Australia, where I now sit recollecting in a coffee shop. But that's a whole other story...