Hello again, again from a cafe here in Amed. It’s been three months since my last missive and not too much has changed. The weather’s still perfect, the rice fields are still beautiful, the volcano still looms, and I’m still diving and not doing too much else.

There are several well-trodden conversational paths in Amed, one of which is about the way time seems to pass here. Most people in my cohort here could not really be said to be busy, certainly not by the standards of our former lives. And yet, the days do seem to fly by. Diving occupies most mornings, followed by food and idle chit chat. At that point the sun is generally beating down, so you while away a few hours reading, napping, working, or lounging by the pool. Then there’s dinner to be attended to, and with diving the next morning it’s early to bed for most. And that’s how, without really doing a whole lot, you can really fill your days!

My main mission for the first couple of months here was to prepare for the freediving instructor course I was planning to take. The plan was taking it very slow, to remember how to freedive again and to get my body re-adapted to depth. And that’s pretty much what I did! I’d planned on doing a several-week coaching program to help me hone my skills before the course, but between a few extremely welcome visits from friends and a very unwelcome couple of weeks with a cold I ended up postponing that until after the instructor course.

That time spent with friends was great though! Amed is a sleepy town but there are a handful of fun things to do, and lots of beautiful roads to scooter up in the surrounding hills. Left to my own devices I tend towards the extremely active schedule I detailed above, so having other people to help motivate me to explore is a real bonus, on top of the delightful company. The other thing I was looking forward to when coming here was making friends and then actually sticking around long enough to hang out with them, and that has also been lovely! Many of the freedivers who are here long term live here seasonally, spending 3-6 months here, then maybe a season in the snow, a couple months at home, going off to other idyllic destinations for freediving competitions, etc… So some of my new friends have left while I’ve stayed, but pretty much everyone has plans to come back, and it makes for a nice larger social group with a rotating in-person cast.

So, the instructor course! I’ve known pretty much since I got into freediving at the beginning of 2020 that I wanted to eventually work as a freediving instructor, but I took a slow and cautious road to it. There are a handful of performance requirements to become a freediving instructor, like holding your breath for 4 minutes, swimming 100m in a pool on one breath, and diving 40m deep. I’ve been able to do those things for a while now, but I wanted to broaden my knowledge, do some work as an assistant instructor, and feel rock solid in my diving before taking the course. Sometimes I have a pang of regret that I left it a couple of extra years, but realistically this was always going to be the way for me. And when it came time to do the course, the preparation certainly paid off.

It’s a reasonably intense process, 9 days of being at the dive center from 9am to 6pm with one rest day in the middle. You teach theory in the classroom, skills in the pool, and diving in the ocean, with your instructor trainer and other instructor candidates as simulated students. The ocean teaching sessions get very, very long (I think our max was around 5 hours), as 4 instructor candidates each take turns taking 3 “students” through some portion of their course. And then, sprinkled throughout, you also have to do all of your own performance requirements. When taking an instructor course you actually have one year from finishing the course to finish performing the requirements and get certified, but I wanted to make it a point of (perhaps misplaced) pride to do them all during the course, first try. That’s exactly what I did, and misplaced or not, I do feel proud. The 3 months I spent as an assistant instructor in Sydney were also really useful, helping me feel at ease during the teaching portions, even though I still had lots to learn.

So now I am officially certified as a Molchanovs freediving instructor, and with a couple of extra days tacked on after, also as an AIDA freediving instructor. I’m excited! At this point I’m allowed to hang out my shingle and just start teaching courses, but in my usual slow and steady way, my current goal is to get a job teaching at a freediving school so that I can get lots of experience teaching without having to worry about all the ancillary stuff that comes with starting and running a business. There are a few good schools here in town and with any luck I’ll manage to land a job with one of them.

First, though, I’ve got that postponed coaching program that I’d intended to do before the instructor course. I’ll be spending the next 3 weeks getting coached and trying to really refine my own diving, and I’m very excited about that as well. I’ve hit a bit of a plateau with my deep diving, and need to go back to basics and focus on improving my technique and body awareness. Even though I’ve known that for a while it’s very hard to do on your own, and having outside direction from some extraordinarily experienced coaches should be huge. After a few sessions it’s already been a bit of an up and down process, excitement about progressing mixing with frustration and embarrassment about not being as good as I thought I was or would like to be. But that’s all part of the deal, and I’m taking it as a mental challenge to let go of expectations and just focus on putting in the work. If you know me well at all you’ll know that that really does not come naturally to me! It’ll be a good test of whether I’ve matured at all since my long-lost days as a tennis brat.

And with that, you’re more or less all caught up. I’ve also plateaued a bit with learning Indonesian but I’ve got a decent little base and try to screw up the courage to use it when I can. I should really sign myself up for actual in person lessons but hey, one vector of personal growth at a time. What I’m currently telling myself is that I’m laying the groundwork now and then when I line up a job to come live and work here I’ll make Indonesian a point of emphasis and really get fluent. Only time will tell!

Hello from one of several cute cafes in the little dive town of Amed, Bali, where I’ll be spending the next several months. But first, Hong Kong.

Hong Kong was great! It was a bit of an adjustment to go back to tropical weather after some cold days and nights in Japan but certainly a change for the better. While I didn’t approach my time in Hong Kong with any specific plans, I actually managed to see and do a fair bit. In no particular order, since I can’t remember, here are some highlights:

• I went for a quick urban hike to Jardine’s Lookout. This spot on Hong Kong island has amazing views out over the city, where you can see the unreal density of high rises. There were lots of signs about wild pigs, and at the end I did see a couple. They’re large!
• I went to the Hong Kong art museum, which was cool. It’s a big flashy building on the waterfront, and each floor has a delightful area with benches in front of huge windows where you can catch your breath and gawk at the Hong Kong Island skyline across the water. Some highlights for me were the gorgeous paintings on scrolls or screens, Leo Wong Kwai-kuen’s photography, and the frankly astonishing collection of little snuff bottles, most of which had elaborate carvings or painted decorations or were simply made of beautiful materials.
• The food. It is, in fact, just as good as advertised. I had noodles with dumplings, I had dim sum (accidentally ordering so much that the waitress laughed as she dropped off the last plate), I had BBQ pork and duck, I had eggplant and mystery meat from cheap takeaway spots, I had allegedly Michelin-mentioned pan fried Shanghai-style buns. Pretty much universally delicious.
• I went for a nice long hike in the new territories. Before arriving I had thought that Hong Kong was all city, but actually it’s made up of several islands, and the part that’s connected to the Chinese mainland is mostly mountains covered in dense green. Look up some pictures of the New Territories in Hong Kong, it’s beautiful! My hike was to the east, in Sai Kung Country Park. It turned out that this is a popular area for both beaching and hiking, and while it’s a ways from Kowloon it’s also accessible by speedboat, so it was quite crowded with both hikers and beachers. The crowds and the fact that the trail was a concrete sidewalk the whole way were a bit of the bummer, but the scenery was spectacular. And for as much as I like to complain about other people, the little beach towns saved me, because if I hadn’t been able to refill my water twice (I ended up drinking almost 5 liters of water and another 1.5 liters of electrolyte drink) I would’ve dropped dead from dehydration.
• I visited Nan Lian Garden and Chi Lin nunnery, to the northeast of Kowloon. The garden is beautiful and peaceful, and I especially enjoyed the display they had of scale models of various prime examples of Chinese wooden architecture, mostly temples and castles and such. The models themselves were made of really beautiful wood and extremely pleasing to look at. The nunnery is sort of connected to the garden and had cool buildings and lots of golden statues of the buddha and various other holy figures.

So, yeah, Hong Kong. I recommend visiting!

And now, finally, I’m in Bali. I am very, very excited to be here. It’s been a long time now that I’ve known I want to do more freediving, become an instructor, and start teaching. For one reason or another that plan has been delayed a few times, but now I’m finally here to follow through. Bali is great—the landscapes are stunning, the food is incredible, the people are genuinely friendly, and everything is cheap. There are parts of Bali that are so overrun with influencers and drunk Australians as to be unliveable, but thankfully Amed, where the freediving is, is about two hours from those parts of Bali. It’s pretty much a perfect mix, touristy enough to have good coffee and lots of restaurants and accommodations, but still quiet and populated by people who are just here living their lives.

I spent my first few days here just dealing with administrative stuff, hitting the bank and getting a SIM card and finding a place to live long term. After that I spent a few days doing… very, very little. Amed is an easy place to do nothing in, and with the NBA playoffs just starting I have to make a deliberate effort not to spend all morning every morning just watching basketball.

In the past few days I’ve finally gotten out diving again though, and wow does it feel good. To warm up for a dive session what I do is pull down the rope until I’m 10 meters underwater, then hold on to the rope, close my eyes, relax, and just hang. You feel… nothing. You’re weightless, your hearing is muffled, your eyes are closed, and you don’t realize how much you can hear and feel yourself constantly breathing until you’re not. My connection to time completely melts away. It’s just the most peaceful feeling.

I’m taking it slowly with the depth—my body isn’t adapted to the pressure right now, and the last thing I need is to rush and hurt myself. Eventually I’m looking forward to pushing myself, diving deeper, improving technique, and trying new disciplines. But for now I’m already thrilled just to be warming up.

Well, it’s been a whirlwind time here in Japan. I’m writing from a trendy cafe in Tokyo, craft beer in hand and jazz on the truly ostentatious sound system taking up one whole wall of the room. It’s my last night here, though by the time I get this finished and posted I’m sure I’ll already be gone. Tomorrow afternoon I’ve got a flight to Hong Kong, so let’s look back at this trip through Japan. Strap in, this is gonna be a long one with a lot of photos.

My next stop after the last post was Matsuyama, the biggest city on Shikoku. I stayed in an area called Mitsu, which I believe used to be a bustling hotspot but is now much quieter. It’s where the port is, so the seafood is extremely fresh, and it also has its own style of okonomiyaki, not too dissimilar from the style in Hiroshima. I was still sick as a dog during my time in Matsuyama so I took it very easy, with just a bit of beer from my hostel, the aforementioned delicious okonomiyaki, a day of casual strolling up to a viewpoint, and a visit to Matsuyama castle. One highlight were the kites (as in birds of prey): I don’t know if it was because of the fishing activity, the thermals from the seaside cliff, or some other reason, but there were always at least a half dozen kites circling around. They’re really beautiful animals and I spent lots of time trying to photograph them, to little avail.

On the recommendation of the guesthouse owner from Takamatsu I booked one night in Ozu, a small town a little bit west of Matsuyama. This was one of my favorite stopovers of the trip. It has a beautiful little old town with lots of narrow roads and traditional buildings, but wasn’t crowded at all. I had a really nice relaxing day just ducking in and out of all the little alleys I could find, taking pictures, strolling around. I also had one of my favorite meals in Ozu. It was at a little restaurant run by a guy in his 40s and his parents, and I got to try tai-meshi, the typical dish in the area. Tai is sea bream, and tai meshi is pieces of sea bream sashimi in a delicious gingery-wasabi sauce (if I remember correctly) which you stir a raw egg into, and then pour over rice and eat. Very, very tasty. Even better than the dinner was the company. The restaurant was owned and run by a very nice man named Aoki and his elderly parents. Aoki had spent about a year in the US when he was 25 and takes every chance he can to practice his English when foreigners come in. So not only did I have a delicious dinner, but when the other customers finished Aoki came out for a chat. He was incredibly nice and friendly and, after a couple of weeks where the most social interaction I’d had was pointing at the thing I wanted on a menu, it felt great to actually converse a little bit.

After Ozu my plan had originally been to take the ferry over to Kyushu and then go down the east coast, but I was still sick and just didn’t feel up to trying to figure that out, so I switched it up and booked a few nights in Hiroshima to basically just rest and recuperate. Hiroshima was a bit of a strange experience. I thought it was interesting and valuable to check out the museum and see some of the personal accounts of the atomic bombing, and to really consider the devastation of war on a more personal or individual level. At the same time, Hiroshima was much, much more touristy than Shikoku, and it just made me feel… off that it’s such a tourist destination, and the reason why. It’s not that anyone’s doing anything wrong in visiting, obviously, but it made me feel a bit strange all the same.

I had been waiting to see how my recovery would go in Hiroshima before deciding on my next step, and luckily I started feeling much better pretty soon after getting there. My friend Alex in Australia had recommended Yakushima and it sounded right up my alley, so since I was feeling better I skedaddled on down there. The first stop was Kagoshima, at the southern tip of Kyushu, where I would catch the ferry to Yakushima. I only spent one night in Kagoshima and the highlight was Sakurajima, the big smoking volcano just off the coast. I hiked up to a viewpoint for sunset and had a great time just staring at the volcano, and the next morning I was off to the ferry.

Yakushima is a small island off the southern tip of Kyushu and one of the rainiest, and therefore mossiest, places in Japan. There’s a ring road around the outside and the middle is all just mountain and forest, with the forest getting more protected/untouched the farther inland you go. It’s famous for the beautiful forest, in particular the moss and giant cedar trees, and for the populations of monkeys and deer that hang around. Apparently as a consequence of their being isolated on a small island the monkeys and the deer have both shrunk, making them extra cute. My first day there I went for a nice long hike in the forest, which was as spectacular as advertised. The cedar trees take on fantastical shapes, with huge gnarled root systems and bulky bodies and trees growing out of stumps, all covered in various amounts of deep green moss. There are massive boulders and lots of streams and, once you’ve gotten away from the most trafficked areas, it’s an incredibly peaceful place. For my second day I booked a tour of the island so that I could check out the UNESCO world heritage protected area in the west, which is very difficult to get to using the island’s limited public transit system. The tour was, frankly, quite disappointing, but there were a couple of pronounced highlights, specifically checking out some big groups of monkeys and a couple of spectacular waterfalls.

After another quick stopover in Kagoshima I only had four nights before meeting friends in Kyoto, so I decided to do two nights in Fukuoka and two in Himeji. I didn’t do much in Fukuoka—checked out a couple of gardens, hung out in beautiful Ohori Park, went up Fukuoka tower to check out the view, had some tasty food. Himeji’s main attraction is its castle—one of only twelve (I believe) that retain their original design, and apparently the most spectacular of those twelve. The Himeji train station has a castle exit, and it’s honestly breathtaking, with the castle looming in the distance the moment you set foot outside. Visiting the castle itself was nice, though honestly I preferred wandering around the grounds and checking out the neighboring garden to the castle keep itself, probably because it was so crowded that they were limiting entries and the top floor of the castle was packed wall to wall, almost provoking an attack of claustrophobia in your not-at-all-claustrophobic correspondent. So a mixed bag.

And then! Finally! Friends! I can’t even express how good it was to spend time with some of my favorite people in the world. People often ask whether I get lonely living like this, and the answer is of course I do sometimes. The biggest thing isn’t finding people to do activities or have a laugh with though, it’s missing the people that I’m really really close to, that I can be my whole self around, that understand all my references and like to joke around the same way I do. Daniel, Jennifer, Chris, Michelle, and now baby Edith are those people (among others—don’t feel left out dear reader). Our week and a half in Kyoto was a balancing act—they understandably wanted to make the most of their trip halfway around the world and check out some sights, while I mostly just wanted to see them and avoid the crowds. Kyoto is very touristy, and we were there right as cherry blossom season was starting, so there were lots and lots of people. We still managed to fit in some fun activities though—a quick trip to see the deer in Nara, an evening light show at a temple nearby, strolling by the river, yummy food. We were a bit limited by Daniel falling deathly ill and Edith’s continuing adjustment to time zones and overstimulation and everything, but that just meant more downtime, which suited me fine. I especially relished the chance to spend some time with Edith. She’s in a bit of a shy phase so it was a slow process to gain her trust, but we spent lots of time together and by the end were doing hugs and kisses, and she even gave me the chance to change my first poopy diaper.

The time in Kyoto went by in a flash, and the next thing I knew I was holding back tears while giving Edith a hug goodbye. Next stop: Fuji. I never got a glimpse of Mt Fuji on my first trip to Japan and was really hoping to see it this time. April weather was always going to make it tricky, so I booked four nights, two in the town of Fuji and two in a tiny fishing town called Heda with views of Fuji across the bay. My Fuji peeping didn’t start out very promising—it was rainy and gloomy on my travel day, and pretty much stayed that way for my whole time in Fuji. The trip to Heda was, again, on a very rainy day. I didn’t like my chances of getting to see Fuji at all, but I did enjoy the drive in to Heda, which winds up through the mountains that were completely covered in clouds that day.

Heda turned out to be an adorable little town with incredibly fresh seafood, rows of beautiful cherry trees by the river without massive crowds, and tasty coffee at my comfortable hostel. The only question was whether I’d get a glimpse of Mt Fuji. My hostel sat right on the waterfront of a bay with a narrow opening to the northwest, so the view of Fuji required walking a ways around the bay to get to its southern and then eastern sides, peeking between each gap in the buildings to see if I could catch a glimpse. It was a somewhat cloudy day and I figured it was a lost cause, but the walk would be nice anyway. After a particularly long stretch of buildings blocking the view, I came out into a parking lot expecting more blank cloudy vistas, and BAM! There it was. The surprise added to the experience, but either way I can’t really describe what it’s like to look at Mt Fuji. It’s just mesmerizing. During my stay the bottom of the mountain was blocked by clouds, so the perfectly conical, snow covered top just floated out above the city beneath it. It dominates the vista, looming over whatever happens to be in the foreground—fishing boats, torii gates, or just an expanse of water. I spent at least an hour just admiring it from all different vantage points, and I honestly had trouble tearing myself away. This was an experience that absolutely lived up to expectations.

Having drunk my fill of Mt Fuji there was nothing left to do but head to Tokyo for my last few days in Japan. On my first day I got to meet up with my friend EB and meet her husband Taiki, which was an unexpected and very fun encounter. We strolled around the impressive buildings and even more impressive forest of Meiji shrine, and then had an awesome dinner at an izakaya they had looked up. Taiki speaks Japanese, and they’re both adventurous eaters like me, so we tried a bunch of different dishes that I never would’ve been able to otherwise. The dinner was great and the company was even better.

The next day I checked out Shinjuku Gyoen, a huge park with a greenhouse, lots of cherry trees, a traditional Japanese garden, and enough space for a good long wander. I had a great day seeing that and just strolling around. Even though it’s a crazy mega-metropolis I really like Tokyo. There’s lots going on without it being overwhelming, and there’s more of a sense of people living there and just going about their lives rather than drowning in a sea of tourists (depending on the area, obviously). The other highlight of my time in Tokyo was catching up with my friend Kieko, whom I’d met 12 years ago on my first visit when she helped me and the other guy from my hostel find our way home when we were lost in the middle of the night. It was awesome catching up and swapping stories, meeting her Brazilian boyfriend and practicing some Portuguese, eating incredibly tasty food, and going for a long sunny stroll by the river. Really the perfect capper to my time in Japan.

Next stop: Hong Kong. My flight to Bali was on Hong Kong airlines and for a negligible sum they let me extend my layover to several days, so I decided to give myself a little bit of time to see just how much dim sum I could fit into my body and to check out the megacity vs tropical mountains contrasts. We’ve time traveled since the beginning of this post—it’s now two days later, I got in last night, and I’m having a great time here. I’m staying in Kowloon, which is apparently the grittier (and cheaper—Hong Kong is very expensive) area to Hong Kong Island’s polished, business-y vibe, at least in places. Right away it was clear that there’s a different kind of energy here. While Tokyo is massive and crowded, the streets get very quiet at night. Here, on the other hand, at 11pm the streets were still chock full of people, all kinds of delicious smells, neon lights everywhere, just lots going on. I’m balancing laziness with a desire to hit all the highlights, and I’m sure either way it’ll be a great few days.

Greetings from chilly Matsuyama, Japan! We’ve got a lot to catch up on.

The rest of my stay in Canberra was great. I got to spend lots of time with Colin and family, including some hiking, tennis, and general strolling around town. After that it was time to get to Sydney, and I made a point to arrive in time for Sunday dinner and Mike’s world famous smoked pulled pork. For as incredibly delicious as dinner was the real highlight was being reunited with everyone in good old St Ives. It’s been really fun getting to know them and they’ve taken such good care of me during my time in Australia. I think it’s pretty exceptional to be gifted a whole extra family in your thirties, and I don’t take it for granted.

That was pretty much the theme of my time in Sydney—enjoying the friends I made during my first stint there. As has probably been pretty obvious if you’ve followed the blog, my year in Australia was lonely at times. When I take a step back though, I feel very lucky about the people I met and the friendships I made during that year. It was bittersweet saying “hello again” and “goodbye for now” so quickly with these friends in Sydney, but the good news is that most people who live in Australia travel regularly, and one of the places they travel most frequently is Bali, where I’m planning to stay for a while. So I expect to see most of these friends again pretty soon.

Besides catching up with people my time in Sydney was pretty much spent trying to sell my van and eating at all my favorite places again. The less said about the van sale the better—it caused me a ton of stress and cost me a fair bit of money, but I got it sold the day before I left. Otherwise, yeah, strolling and eating and chatting and getting ready for the next move.

And then, before I knew it, Japan! I’d been to Japan once before, for a week in the middle of my 6 month trip right after graduating from college. I loved it and had always wanted to come back, so this was the perfect opportunity. The flight over was great—I was a bit worried about the low cost airline I was booked with, but they gave me no trouble about my heavy luggage, the flights were on time and pleasant enough, and I somehow got upgraded to an exit row for both legs of the trip. I was thrilled the first time, and when it happened again, apparently because the seat I’d picked was “unusable”, I really started to wonder if Australia had wanted me to leave all along, and now this was my reward.

After the surprisingly comfortable trip it was, of course, time for a surprisingly uncomfortable hotel stay. If you chatted with me at all during my last month in Australia you know that I was pretty much underwater stressing about selling my van, so I did basically no research and preparation for Japan. The one thing I managed was to book a cheap hotel for my first two nights so that I’d have somewhere to go. I booked it a couple of weeks out and it had free cancellation until just a day or two before, so I told myself I’d check it a bit more thoroughly sometime during that window and adjust if need be. As you can imagine that never happened, so it was only while sitting in the airport, the free cancellation window firmly closed, that I discovered that in Japan pretty much all heating is provided by AC units in the rooms. When I was booking I’d seen options for rooms with or without AC. Savvy, frugal traveler that I am, I said “who the hell needs AC in February in Japan” and booked the really-only-marginally cheaper, non-AC room. So, yes, I spent my first two nights in Japan, where the temperature was already a shock after a year in Australia, in an unheated room. This was not ideal, and some combination of the preceding weeks of stress, the travel, and the cold saw me come down with what has turned into a pretty solid cold. Bummer!

I was still feeling mostly fine for my first couple of days in Osaka and spent them pretty much just wandering around all day, dipping into cafes and restaurants, looking for tiny alleys to stroll down, and soaking it all in. Even tired and freezing, I was really excited to be here. I don’t want to slander good old Australia, but one of the things I struggled with there was that, when I wasn’t out in some incredibly beautiful part of nature, it felt just like the US. And that doesn’t really light me up, travel-wise. Japan, on the other hand, really scratches that travel itch. I have to admit I was initially a little taken aback, having forgotten what it’s like to travel somewhere you really, truly, cannot even begin to speak or understand or read or anything. But pretty much everyone I’ve come across has been very friendly and accommodating, and I’m easy to please, so I’m getting along very well.

After the unheated nights I upgraded to a place around the corner that was basically the good version of the previous one. Still just a tiny room with a tatami and a futon on the floor, with shared bathrooms and only a couple of shared showers on the first floor. But in this place there was heat, sweet sweet heat, and everything else was just a bit cleaner and nicer and better. So I spent a very comfortable couple of days there and then it was time for my first Japan reunion, with my friend Rob. I hadn’t seen Rob in a couple of years, since I was living in San Diego, and it was awesome to get together again. To his enormous credit, given that he’s busy with work and I’m… not, he organized absolutely everything for us to spend a couple of days hiking the beautiful Kumano Kodo pilgrimage trail a few hours south of Osaka.

The Kumano Kodo is a pilgrimage trail that’s apparently been in use for over a thousand years, at least in parts. It passes a huge number of shrines, winding up and down through beautiful forest and across the mountains. In recent times it’s become more of an attraction for foreign tourists than an active pilgrimage trail, just like its sister pilgrimage (I didn’t really understand the arrangement here but there was a display about it), the Camino de Santiago in Spain.

From Osaka we took the train a couple of hours south to Tanabe, where we spent the night in a more western-style hotel. Many hotels and guesthouses here provide yukatas, a type of light kimono often worn indoors and/or as a bathrobe. Normal ones are probably what you’d imagine—nice patterns, you wrap them around yourself and hold them closed with a sash. The one in Tanabe seemed to be some kind of cultural fusion situation, as it was all white and buttoned all the way down the front. This was… a shockingly bad choice. In combination with the unusual black leather slippers (slippers are also typically provided since you take your shoes off pretty much everywhere indoors, but they’re typically patterned, again as you’d expect) that looked like ladies’ pumps it made for quite an exceptional look.

The next day we hopped on a bus to Takijiri-oji, one of the major shrines along the route and our starting point. We poked around the info center and gift shop for a little and then hit the trail, which was everything I’d hoped for. Soaring cedar trees, mossy rocks, streams, walls made of perfectly interlocking stones. The whole thing was picturesque. We eased into it with our first day— about 8 miles, but a decent amount of elevation gain. Our destination was a town called Chikatsuyu, and we arrived a little after 3pm. This gave us lots of time to settle in to our beautiful guesthouse, go for a quick stroll around town, and then get into our much nicer yukatas for dinner and a relaxing evening.

The next day was the big kahuna—17 miles to Hongu Taisha, the main shrine of this whole section of pilgrimage, which also boasts the largest torii gate in Japan, 34 meters tall and 42 meters wide. After a couple of hours walking on the road through adorable little mountain villages the second half of this route was even more beautiful than the day before. We took our time, stopping at all the shrines and chowing down at various points, and ended up spending just over 9 hours on the trail. It was a delightful hike but obviously not ideal for my cold, and I was pretty beat by the end. That said, the shrine was beautiful. They asked not to post pictures online out of respect, so you’ll have to use your imagination (or google), but it’s pretty much exactly how you would imagine a Japanese shrine/temple complex nestled in the woods. The giant torii is also impressive and didn’t carry the same prohibition, so you can enjoy my crappy picture of it.

And that was it for hiking. The next morning we just enjoyed a bit of slow time in Hongu with a couple of coffees and a nice stroll around town, admiring the mountains all around. Then it was an hour and a half on the bus back to Tanabe, then three and a half hours on the train to Osaka. We checked into our hotel and then met up with Ryo, Rob’s good friend who lives a little ways outside of Osaka. Ryo is very nice and has been giving me lots of advice about what to do around Kyoto, and it was great to put a face to the name (put a face to the texts…?). They went out for dinner while I nursed my cold with takeout in the hotel room and an early bedtime. The next morning we met up with Ryo again for coffee and I was glad to have a chance to actually chat with him a bit.

And then, before we knew it, it was time to part ways. Ryo headed home, Rob headed off to Tokyo, and I caught a bus to Takamatsu, on the island of Shikoku. A couple of people recommended Shikoku as a close, easily accessed area that doesn’t see as much foreign tourism and might be a bit more off the beaten track, which is exactly what I’m looking for on this trip. So far that seems pretty accurate—I’ve seen one other white person in my day and a half here, and have already had several locals be very surprised and excited to see me. Takamatsu is certainly a legitimate city, but nothing like the scale of Osaka or Tokyo, and I’m enjoying lots of udon, which the area is known for. My cold is holding steady these days so I’m mostly laying low and resting, but the one major attraction I did visit was Ritsurin Garden. This was another thing that made a strong impression during my first brief visit to Japan—I absolutely love Japanese gardens. Ritsurin is a huge one with several different ponds and viewpoints, and I spent a couple of hours wandering around and enjoying it.

Otherwise Takamatsu was a good, relaxing stopover, and yesterday I caught the bus to Matsuyama, the other big city on Shikoku. I’m spending three nights here in another Japanese style guesthouse, this time one that’s also a small craft brewery. I’m bummed that my cold will limit my ability to try all of their offerings but I think I’ll still manage to sample one or two.

I was so close to getting another blog post out after just one week, and then… I didn’t. Anyway, greetings from lovely leafy Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory. I never did end up doing that summit walk—it just started raining more and more throughout the day so I huddled up in my van and got into a good book.

The past two weeks have consisted of either hiking or just lounging around little towns, planning next moves or just relaxing. There’s not much to say about the relaxing, so we’ll just go through some of the nice hikes here. First I did the southern circuit in Cathedral Range State Park. It was a great hike with some time in the forest, some fun rock scrambling, and a long stretch clambering around the rocks along a ridge. No snake sightings, which was probably for the best—there were some sections in the rocks where there was truly nowhere to go.

Next was the Mt Buller to Mt Stirling hike. These are both ski resorts, and the trail was mostly on fire roads or four wheel drive tracks, which isn’t my favorite. It had nice views across the Australian Alps though, and was a good warmup for the big kahuna that came next.

That kahuna was the hike to Mt Speculation via Mt Howitt and the Crosscut Saw in Alpine National Park. It was a solid undertaking—36km, about 2300m of elevation, 14 and a half hours all told. It had been a while since I’d done a really big hike like that and I was a bit nervous going into it. I did learn from the past though. Bring and eat way more food than you need, and a water bottle with some cold brew in it goes a long way when that afternoon swoon hits. It was a gorgeous hike. Really beautiful creekside trail to begin with, through towering mountain ash forest and between the giant ferns. Then a steep climb up to Mt Howitt and its huge views, and the rest of the trail undulating up and down along the ridge out to Mt Speculation, harder than the elevation profile suggested. I was solidly worn out by the end, but pleasantly surprised at how ok my legs felt the next day—just goes to show that eating and drinking the right amounts does in fact make a difference.

On the drive back into town the next day I stopped off at Bindaree Falls, which turned out to be one of the nicest waterfalls I’ve seen in Australia. I don’t know if it was the lack of people, the lack of expectations, or the beauty of the falls that made me enjoy them so much, but I suspect it was all three.

After a few lazy days and some beautiful riverside campsites the next move was to explore Mt Buffalo National Park. It’s pretty much one steep winding road that climbs up this mountain, with several waterfalls in the lower section and lots of boulder piles to scramble on higher up. I went one day for a couple of quick looks at different falls, and came back the next day to walk the Back Wall track at the very far end of the park, getting views back to the highest peak in the park and also across to the other mountains. It was a chill hike on a shortish, flattish trail, which was perfect for that day. After another waterfall visit for a quick dip on the way back (the need for a shower was getting pretty dire at this point) I kept it moving to the next part of Alpine National Park.

After Mt Buffalo the forecast was for a thunderstorm and I decided not to risk 6-7 hours on a ridge in bucketing rain. I spent most of the day in the van reading and relaxing, but I managed to get out for a couple of misty strolls during breaks in the rain. I really just can’t get enough of all the different eucalypts’ bark.

The last hike I did was Mt Feathertop via the razorback. I’ve come across several razorbacks already in Australia, it seems to be the default name for any ridge. Which is exactly what this hike was all about—basically just 11km each way walking along a ridge, with huge views to either side. It was partly cloudy all day so I never got the full, unobstructed views, but that was more than made up for when I got to watch the clouds streaming through a saddle in the ridge. On the way back I spent a while doing my best to photograph the kestrels that live near the beginning of the hike. It’s astonishing watching them—their ability to hover in a precise spot, sometimes flapping their wings but sometimes motionless, just making micro-adjustments to the position of their wings and letting the wind hold them up, seeming to hang suspended from a string. And then how fast they suddenly veer off, dive, loop around. It makes for beautiful watching but very difficult photographing, and between their aerobatics and the clouds streaming through I’m not sure I got a single photo in focus, though I still really enjoyed the attempt.

And that’s pretty much that. After Feathertop I spent a couple of nights at a beautiful campsite near the Victoria/New South Wales border, and then yesterday I motored over to Canberra. I’m here to visit my friend Colin and his family, from way back in the Microsoft days over a decade ago. It was awesome catching up over dinner last night and I’m really looking forward to the next couple of days checking out Canberra and hanging out with them. After that there’ll be nothing left to do but jet over to Sydney and try to really, finally get everything lined up and ready for the next step. You can find videos for this post here.

Apologies, dear reader, for the long pause since my last post. Apologies also in advance for the tone of this blog post—I just finished Quichotte, by Salman Rushdie, and I’m sure I won’t be able to keep some of that literary-ness from seeping into my writing. I’ve always thought of myself as a clever writer and I’m in the mood for self-indulgence, so you’re just going to have grin and bear it. (Don’t worry, it wears off pretty quickly as I slog through this update.) Also strap in because it’s going to be a long one.

Anyway, it’s been a minute! I’ve covered a lot of ground! Happy new year! I had a great new year’s day in the general area around Port Augusta, SA. First I went to the Australian Arid Lands Botanic Garden, which is pretty much what it sounds like. The aridity of the experience was enhanced by a hot and sunny day, and my stroll around the grounds was a sweaty one. It was nice and peaceful with basically no one else there. I got to spot lots of cool critters, including a sweet lizard, lots of birds, and buckets of kangaroos. So lots of playing with my camera. After that I went for an absolutely delightful hike at Dutchman’s Stern, so named because the vertical cliff face of the peak looks like the vertical stern of a Dutch ship from back in the day. Beautiful forest, another cool lizard, tons more kangaroos, and a handsome goat were the highlights here, beyond just the beauty of the forest and the hills themselves. I had a great time.

After that it was time to head towards Adelaide. I spent the night at a beautiful free camp and went for a nice hike the next morning in a place I can’t remember. I’d been stressing out about trying to get an oil change for my van during the holidays but after a couple of calls was finally able to book it in with a very friendly mom-and-pop (technically pop-and-son, in this case) shop, so that was a big relief. After a couple of hours of driving I was on the outskirts of Adelaide and ready for some food. If you ever find yourself in the very far northern suburbs of Adelaide do yourself a favor and eat at Mama Rashida’s African Cuisine. Mama Rashida herself was incredibly nice and my fried whole Barramundi, rice, and plantains were divine. I ate way too much and didn’t regret it one bit.

The next day I took the van in and hung around a couple of cafes. They were quick with the service so I said my goodbyes to Adelaide and headed out of town towards Mt Gambier, in the very southeast corner of South Australia. This area is perhaps unimaginatively known as the Limestone Coast and is known for a string of sinkholes, including some filled with crystal clear water. The first one I visited was Umpherston Sinkhole. This one is right in town, and it’s famous because some crazy rich guy back in the day wanted to turn it into an attraction, covering the walls in huge mats of ivy and planting tiered gardens in the bottom. He did a great job! It’s beautiful! I especially enjoyed it because I hadn’t looked it up beforehand and only stumbled onto it while looking for a bathroom, so it was a delightful surprise. After that I went to walk around Blue Lake, which is exactly what it sounds like. The color really is a tremendously deep blue and very beautiful. Lastly I went a little ways out of town to check out one of the dormant volcanoes in the area, Mt Schank. It’s pretty neat because it is really clearly a volcanic crater. A short hike up gets you to the rim, which you can walk around. When I got there I could see dark clouds and rain on the horizon and coming fast, so I packed my dry bag and decided to hustle. Sure enough the storm moved faster than it seemed like and I ran the last third of the crater, getting caught in the deluge for the last bit of the descent. It was really nice.

That was it for South Australia. I spent the night at a beautiful free camp next to a waterfall which I checked out the next morning with my morning coffee, friendly neighboring farm dog in tow. Now I had a few days to check out Grampians National Park and the Great Ocean Road before I needed to be in Melbourne to meet up with my dad and his girlfriend Jean and to watch some tennis. I went to the Grampians first. I have to say, I’ve been pretty annoyed with my experiences at visitor centers so far in Australia—they seem to be oriented entirely around convincing you to stay in stupidly expensive caravan parks and trying to scare you out of doing any substantial hikes. The Grampians Visitor Center was a delightful exception to this rule. The ranger gave me great advice about where to camp and which hikes to do, and I left feeling good about the few days I had planned. Since I’d gotten there in the early afternoon I headed for camp and went for a short stroll to check out a few waterfalls cascading over beautiful red rock faces.

The next day I headed out to hike Mt Gar, dubbed much less poetically by the white people as Mt Difficult. It was an absolutely stunning hike. I don’t know the geology of the area but the rock formations were just astounding. One in particular was a large face made of black rock perfectly criss-crossed with cracks. I don’t even know why I’m trying to describe it, and the pictures certainly don’t do it justice, but I just could not stop staring at it. I also got to spend some time hanging out with a decidedly unbothered echidna and saw a nankeen kestrel crying from a cliff edge, so that was cool.

I changed campsites that night to a slightly more isolated one in the middle of the park. My reward was a morning coffee stroll looking at approximately a million billion kangaroos grazing away. Once I was properly caffeinated I headed to a lookout, which turned out to be completely clouded in, but still a nice spot. Then I went over to Mt Rosea for my first hike of the day. It was really nice, beautiful forest and rocks, and a great view at the top. After that I headed into Halls Gap, the town in the middle of the park, for lunch and to agonize over whether to continue south or stay another day in the park. Ultimately I decided to stick with my original plan, head south for another hike that afternoon, and then call it for the Grampians.

The next hike was Mt Abrupt and Signal Peak, and it was great. They’re neighboring peaks at the very southern end of the Grampians, so in one direction the view is mostly farmland, but looking the other way shows the whole sweep of the Grampians rising away to the north. I started up Mt Abrupt, following stone steps up the ridge right to the top. I was a bit tired and daydreamy but a brown snake suddenly slithering away between the rocks right next to me snapped me to attention and got me staring at my feet the whole rest of the way up. After a quick snack at the summit and with afternoon slowly turning into evening I started to head down, excited to check out Signal Peak and then get to a campsite at a reasonable time. Some combination of fatigue and this wanting to make sure I made the right move made me perfectly susceptible to the absolute worst trail sign I’ve ever seen, which guided you through a fork in the road not by signaling to either take the right or left trail, but rather by seemingly indicating the actual angle of each trail, which functionally made it look like three arrows pointing in the exact same direction. I looked hard at it and even thought “that’s weird, those three trails shouldn’t be in the same direction”, but who was I to question the sign? This wrong turn ended up having pros and cons—it added a bit of time to my hike, but going down the much less traveled back side of the mountain let me cross paths with several more cool snakes, which I managed to snap a couple photos of. The forest back there was also just tremendously beautiful with the late afternoon light filtering through. I laughed at myself for taking the most obvious wrong turn in history, laughed at the sign for how unbelievably ill-conceived it was, and double timed it towards Signal Peak. That section of the hike was also beautiful, and I got treated to a couple of sightings of some beautiful parrots (or rosellas, I’m not quite sure), but at that point I was pretty tired and it was pretty late so after a quick look around the summit I scampered on down to the van. The short drive to the campsite saw me nervously pass about a dozen kangaroos or wallabies staring at me from the side of the road, never letting on whether they were going to suddenly bounce out right in front of the van. Luckily I made it without incident and the campsite was beautiful.

The next day it was time to head to the famous Great Ocean Road. Being just a couple of hours from Melbourne this is a huge tourist attraction and I simply was not ready. The traffic. The crowds. The tour buses. It all took some getting used to. The coast was beautiful though, cliffs and sea stacks carved by the wind and sea. It reminded me a bit of the Nullarbor but the cliffs were yellow and orange rather than white, and, again, the crowds! I spent the day poking along slowly, pulling into each viewpoint. Besides the cliffs the big attraction in the area is the Otway National Park, which has towering Mountain Ash trees mixed in with lots of waterfalls and ferns galore. I spent the night at Beauchamp Falls, where there’s a short walk through absolutely gorgeous forest to a beautiful waterfall. I went in the late afternoon and got to enjoy a bit of tranquility in spite of how slammed the campsite was for the holidays.

The next day I got up and headed to Triplet Falls, another gorgeous walk through damp tree fern and mountain ash forest to a thundering waterfall. This walk is a little bit more out of the way and I had it completely to myself in the morning. After these tastes of the forest it was back to the coast—the plan was to finish driving the Great Ocean Road and then cross Melbourne to go stay with my friend Georgia’s parents. Georgia and I met out in WA but she grew up next to Melbourne. When I said I was heading that way she told me her parents would be happy to host me for a bit. Sure enough, they gave me a very warm welcome, with a delicious dinner waiting when I arrived and lots of good conversation over a drink or two. The next day I got myself, my van, and my laundry all clean, and had a fun night hanging with them and a few friends they had over for dinner. It felt great to get a little bit of that family feel and social interaction again.

And then it was off to the airport. Luckily dad and Jean’s flight got in without a hitch and airport pickup was as smooth as can be expected. We got checked in at the hotel and thankfully the parking situation they’d promised did in fact work out, even for my annoyingly tall van. The next week was a bit of a blur—I pretty much overdosed on tennis by going four days in a row and lost all bedtime discipline, staying up late watching the night matches on TV when I wasn’t there myself. The weather was a blessing, a bit cooler and decidedly more overcast than usual at the Aussie open, which frankly was the only reason I made it through four days in a row. We took full advantage of the hotel breakfast and I very quickly lapsed back to caffeine consumption at my usual city levels, minimum 3 cups a day. It was great catching up with dad and getting to know Jean for the first time, and we had lots of good meals, enjoyed the tennis together, went for a nice trip out to a sculpture garden where Jean’s cousin has a piece, and generally just soaked it all in. Jean was also gracious enough to take my haircut to its final destination, full mullet. It ended up a little shorter and more bogan (American translation: redneck) than I’d necessarily meant to shoot for, but hey, go big or go home right?

And before we knew it that was it. I dropped dad and Jean at the airport and then headed to the library to get my life in order a little bit. I had thought I might leave Melbourne that same day but ended up having a few extra things to do, so I stuck around. This gave me the chance to hang out with a friend from Sydney and her beau who were also in town for the tennis. It was great catching up and I got to see a couple of trendier, cafe-ier neighborhoods that I hadn’t checked out. She was also gracious enough to help measure me for a custom freediving suit that I just ordered and can’t wait to try out in Bali, so that’s exciting. These days I’m quite frugal and find myself mostly interested in nature when I travel so it was nice to have a few days’ reminder that it can also be nice to go to a new city just to enjoy a few great cafes, a stroll, and a book.

And that finally brings us up to the present day. I managed to tear myself away from Melbourne and was stoked to break in a bunch of my new hiking gear that dad had graciously brought over to replace what was stolen in Alice Springs. Holy cow did it feel good to hike with a good, light, properly-fitting backpack. Good gravy was it exciting to hike in shoes with actual tread rather than soles worn completely flat. Sweet lord how I had missed my hydration reservoir, I can’t even tell you. The hike I did, Mt Saint Leonard, was decidedly underwhelming, and I was draggin’ ass after a bad’s night sleep, but I’m still stoked to get back to it. After the hike I spent the night last night at a ski/mountain bike resort that lets you sleep in the parking lot, and since it’s been raining all day I’ve just been hanging out in my van, finishing my book and composing this astonishingly long post. There’s a short walk to a summit lookout from here which I’m planning to do later this afternoon, though with the clouds being as they are I can’t imagine I’ll have much of a view. For simplicity’s sake I’ll probably spend the night here again tonight, and then tomorrow I’ll have to decide where to go next. The plan is to do lots of hiking in the Victoria high country for the next week or two, scoot over to Canberra to see a friend from way back in my Microsoft days, and then just head straight to Sydney to catch up with friends and sell my van. My flight to Japan is in exactly one month, which feels crazy. I’m excited to try to get the most out of my last month here in Australia and really looking forward to the next step as well. You can find videos for this post here. I highly recommend this edition—we’ve got terrifying ants, hiking views, echidna trundling, and health and safety fables, among others.

Well, it’s been a fairly eventful week and a half. I’ve been making pretty quick progress and seeing a lot of beautiful places, so if you usually just read these in email format I would recommend going to the actual website to see all the pictures in this one. I started off according to plan, going back down the Albany highway for some hiking. My first stop was in the forest along the way, to stroll through a portion of the famous Bibbulmun track, which is a long backpacking route from somewhere to somewhere else. I think maybe Perth to Albany? Anyway, for these purposes it’s enough to know that it includes a beautiful stretch of forest where I had a lovely walk, with highlights that included a bunch of tiny psychedelic looking spiders and some black cockatoos, which I love.

Next I continued down to Stirling Range National Park. This park is a weird rectangle of “mountains” (they’re hills, really) that rises up out of what is completely flat farmland as far as the eye can see all around. It’s beautiful though, all untouched desert scrub forest stuff, and there are really a pretty large number of different peaks. The first day I hiked a couple of the less frequented ones in the western side of the park—Mounts Maggog and Toolbrunup. It was a great chance to destroy my out-of-shape quads, get some solid views, and enjoy the scenic drive through the park. I don’t know what it is about this area but every day as the sun gets low the whole Stirling range seems to get shrouded in mist/fog/dust, and I couldn’t get enough of the jumble of misty peaks fading into the distance.

I decided that I needed a bit of a break the next day so I headed down to Albany for a relaxed day in town. I followed the classic van life circuit, shower—coffee shop—library, and generally just recharged. Then I headed back up to Stirling Range to be ready for a semi-early start on Bluff Knoll the next day. Bluff Knoll is by far the most popular hike in the park, with the huge parking lot and stretch of boardwalk to prove it. I was excited for the standard hike, but extra excited because there is the option of continuing along a ridge trail that goes east along the rest of the Stirling Range to the edge of the park. It’s over 20km point to point, so given that I would have to hope to hitchhike back from a barely used trailhead (and, honestly, that I’m in terrible shape) I made the wise decision to just hike out as far as I could handle and then turn and head back. It was a bummer looking at the ridge stretching out ahead of me so invitingly and having to turn around, but it was definitely the right move that day. And I still had an awesome time on the hike.

After that… it was time to go! I was headed back into the absolute middle of nowhere and, frankly, quite happy about it. Hanging around more populated places seems to drag me from good habits to bad, and doesn’t bring me that much joy. In the middle of nowhere there’s really no reason to stay up late, (hopefully) no service for me to anesthetize myself staring at my phone, and untouched landscapes of almost every kind bring me a lot of happiness and wonder. The only “major” “metropolis” for the next 1,000+ kilometers would be Esperance, population just under 14,000.

East of Esperance the famous Nullarbor begins, and the official Nullarbor Conservation Area starts just across the border in the southwest corner of South Australia. Every single person here I’ve told that I’m doing a lap around the country has pretty quickly gone “Oh, you’re going to have to cross the Nullarbor!”. I didn’t know too much of what to expect, besides the fact that it’s flat, largely barren, and there is a stretch called the 90 mile straight, self-explanatorily.

Well, I absolutely loved the Nullarbor. It certainly is flat, and the road is straight for long stretches, but it’s not nearly as barren as I’d been led to believe. It’s what I’ve come to feel is pretty classic Australian desert scrub bushland, and as the kilometers roll by you can see subtle shifts in the size and density of the bushes. There is a specific area called the treeless plain (again, descriptive if artless naming), but otherwise there are a decent mix of trees, huge bushes, and small shrubs. On the Western Australia side the road follows the coast to the south with a bluff rising up in the desert to the north. Right before the South Australia border the road climbs that bluff, which pretty suddenly turns into a couple hundred kilometers of cliffs being pounded by the surf of the Great Australian Bight, turquoise where it meets the land and darkening to a deep navy blue towards the horizon.

It is an absolutely spectacular landscape. The skies are gigantic. The wind howls constantly. The ocean is beautiful and forbidding, whipped into whitecaps, crashing into the cliffs. Rugged is the perfect description of this area, and camping out by the cliffs, van shaking in the wind, that ruggedness is transmitted faithfully into your bones in the best, most awe-inspiring way that only nature can. Obviously the people who’d felt the need to warn me about this and the 90 mile straight have never driven through Kansas…

After crossing over from WA I spent the night just on the other side of the border in SA, out by the cliffs. I bundled up against the (welcome, after so much roasting in WA) chill and drank tea out by the edge of the cliffs, soaking it all in. The next day I woke up to just the perfect weather for the area—partly cloudy, patches of blue sky here and there, and a couple of narrow columns of rain with the occasional lightning bolt cascading down dotted throughout the massive landscape. I made slow progress east, pulling in to every clifftop viewpoint I could find, appreciating the rumble of the thunder, and generally just having a great day.

But of course all good things must come to an end, and as the saying goes, after cliffs, farmland. So much farmland. Agriculture is a big deal in SA, and, yeah. The next few days were mostly spent trying to stay awake and focused as field upon field rolled by. This was what people should’ve warned me about. One night camped next to a field I at least got treated to a truly spectacular sunset.

I’ve spent the past few days driving around the outside of the Eyre Peninsula, which is basically just farmland in the middle and a string of cute beach vacation towns with massive grain silos along the coast. It’s pretty and sleepy and that’s about it. One highlight was going to Coffin Bay National Park, where I went for a beautiful couple hour stroll and saw lots of emus, including one with a gaggle of babies following it.

That brings us roughly to the present day. I’ll get to the end of the Eyre Peninsula either today or tomorrow, and then I’ll be quite close to Adelaide. I’m juggling the timing to get an oil change once auto shops hopefully reopen next week while also exploring around here and leaving town to check out a few places in Victoria before I get to Melbourne. We’ll see how it all shakes out. You can find videos for this post here—turn on your sound for howling wind and silly commentary.

After another little while in Perth not doing much it was time to head out for another quick trip. This time I set my sights on a loop down to Walpole, across through Denmark to Albany (these are the real names of the towns), and then back up to Perth. Walpole is famously a place to see giant trees—tingle, jarrah, karri, and marri, among others. They’re all different varieties of eucalyptus, maybe except the marri, and they make for beautiful forests of tall bare trunks with spreading canopies up above. On the first day I went for a lovely stroll through the forest to a spot where they’ve made boardwalks around a couple of especially big tingle trees. The giant trees here are similar to the sequoias back in the states in that fire is an important part of their lifecycle, clearing the underbrush and triggering their seed pods to open. They’re also similar in that the adult trees are very fire resistant, and you often see live trees where the base of the trunk is hollow and burnt out. There used to be a tree that any visitor could come drive their car into, but they eventually (after that tree fell down, I think) realized that the trees have shallow roots and trampling them hurts the trees, much less driving over them. I also hiked Mount Frankland, a nice chill walk through beautiful forest and up onto a granite summit.

The next day I checked out the treetop walk, where they’ve built a sequence of walkways that slowly bring you up to the level of the canopy, topping out 40m/130ft above the forest floor. It’s a cool way to get a different perspective on the forest, and I had a nice time lingering, hoping for a bird or two to pose for me in the treetops. After that I went to see Elephant Rocks, a beautiful beach where huge granite boulders rise out of the crystal clear water. I had a nice little ocean shower and then headed up to Mount Lindesay where I camped out in the forest. The next day I had a nice hike up Mount Lindesay, and then went over to the beach next to Denmark, where I finally got a nice surf in. It had been forever and I was frankly getting pretty frustrated with the whole idea of surfing as a hobby, but finally the swell, wind, and crowds all lined up, and I had a fun time and even caught a few waves.

The next day, after a very slow and relaxed morning, I went over to Albany to hike Bald Head. This hike came very highly recommended and it absolutely lived up to the hype. The trail follows a ridge over granite hills out to the end of a narrow peninsula. There are lots of different viewpoints of a variety of beaches with incredible blue water, and the views out across the bay and of Albany itself are also magnificent. It’s just hard enough to give you a sense of accomplishment, but easy enough not to leave you feeling ragged. And, after wondering where they’ve been during my whole year in Australia, I saw two snakes! The second one made for quite the panorama, basking in the middle of the trail, and it immediately jumped out of the landscape when I came over a rise, even several twists and turns down the trial. Don’t ask me what type they were, I don’t have a clue, but I know that they both glistened pretty menacingly in the sun.

After some hurried research I found Porongurup and Stirling Range National Parks, both a bit north of Albany and home to some cool hikes. I swung through Albany just long enough to grab groceries and be surprised at how big and cute it was. Most of the towns along the coast are sort of little nothing vacation towns, but Albany obviously had some sort of actual industry going on, as evidenced by the big refinery-looking buildings along the water and also the size and age of the town. I was only there for 30 minutes or so, about 25 of which I spent in a grocery store, but it was enough for me to want to check out the town a bit more when I go back.

The next day I got up early and hiked the Nancy Peak circuit in Porongurup National Park. It was a really pleasant hike with a little bit of elevation (a true rarity in Australia) and some sweet views of the surrounding farmland with the Stirling range rising up out of it. There isn’t much hiking culture in Australia so I had the trail to myself and really enjoyed the solitude. After quickly snarfing a PB&J I headed over to another part of Porongurup to check out the granite skywalk. This is a shorter, easier trail to a boulder pile where the parks department has built a ladder up to an observation platform. It was, accordingly, way busier, so I was dodging families the whole time and had to wait a solid while at the end for people ahead of me to make their excruciatingly slow way up or down the ladder. It was still a nice walk and a nice view, but I have to say I prefer my hiking trails a lot less busy and manicured.

And that was it for that little trip. That afternoon I headed back up to Perth, where I am now, catching up with a couple of friends I made up here before leaving forever. I got a chance to play one more soccer game, which was great, and otherwise am just taking care of a couple of errands before I go. The plan from here is to head back down to Albany with a couple of hikes on the way, notably Bluff Knoll. After that it’ll be time to head east, and quick! I have to get to Melbourne, which is apparently a 40ish hour drive, by January 12th to meet my dad and his girlfriend, and to watch the Australian Open. So I’ll be trying to find some nice places to stop here and there, but mostly on the road. You can find a couple of videos for this post here—watch with the sound on.

Well, as is always the case, an extended period without much to do has resulted in me slacking on the blog. I spent another few days kicking around Perth, not doing much, but did manage to get my tire situation sorted. Then it was time to head south. SCUBA at the Busselton jetty was really, really fun. It was a bit of a production renting the gear, getting our waivers sorted, and getting out to the dive spot, but the dive itself was just beautiful. It’s delightfully simple, just swimming out and back around and between the supports of this jetty. The pillars are covered in all kinds of incredibly colorful coral, which was a nice change of pace from the less colorful hard corals that I’d seen up around Exmouth. We also saw some fun critters, including an octopus and a couple of cuttlefish.

The next day I kept moving south, down to the Margaret River area. Margaret River is famous for two things—surfing and wine. While these are both things I enjoy, unfortunately in this case things worked out such that I didn’t partake in either. While the surf is world famous in Margaret River that doesn’t mean that it’s especially accessible to a mediocre-at-best surfer like me. There was pretty much no swell when I was there, which meant that the spots that I could conceivably have tried to surf were flat, and the spots that had waves were either overrun with hordes of much better surfers than me, breaking in two inch deep water over sharp reef, or both. So I drove around peeking at all the pretty beaches and cursing the frustration of being a casual surfer. As for the wine, going tasting is fun in a group but not especially fun or practical by yourself, so I skipped it.

I was very tired from a couple nights of short sleep, perfectly primed to get cranky. Which is exactly what happened as I started to realize I wasn’t going to be able to surf, and on top of that found out that, like all touristy places, Margaret River is pretty aggressive about squeezing out every last dollar and not letting you float around and free camp and whatnot. So I was in a bit of a foul mood when I mercifully found a national park campground (still more expensive than the standard ones, annoyingly) nestled in a beautiful area of Karri forest. Karris are a type of eucalyptus found around the southwest that grow very tall. After so much time in desert and scrubland it felt amazing to wander into real, bonafide forest. So after a good night’s sleep I kicked the crankiness and spent a couple of nice days relaxing and checking out the forest. I also discovered that this area has a huge network of caves, two of which I toured. They were spectacular!

After that I came back up to Perth to have someone investigate the intermittent check engine light I’ve been seeing on the van, which turned out to be nothing serious. On the way up I stopped in Bunbury to check out the dolphin discovery center, where you can stand in a shallow bay and the resident dolphins may or may not swim right up to you. As you can see in the videos the visibility was unfortunately terrible, but you could clearly see them above the surface, and it was a cool experience.

For this second stint in Perth I finally looked for a pickup soccer game, and have now gotten to play a couple of times. I have to say, it feels absolutely incredible. For weeks, if not months, I’ve been thinking about how much I miss playing sports. Getting back out there for the first time was honestly just bliss. I’ve tried to figure out what it is about playing ball sports that I love so much, even when I’m doing other fun things. My guess is that it’s the flow state combined with pushing myself to physical exhaustion. I love the feeling of running as fast as I can, stretching as far as I can, jumping as high as I can. And I love the total concentration that sports require, absolutely all of my attention focused on the movement of the players, where the ball is, “watch that run!”, no space for thinking about anything else.

So that’s pretty much where we’re at. I’ve made a couple of friends in Perth so I’m hanging around for a bit. I may do another little mini-trip to check out some of the other nice places further south and then come back, or I may just stay here another week and then start the full on eastward journey. You can find videos for this post here.

Kalbarri turned out to be a fun, quick stop for a last taste of the incredible rock formations in this part of the world. The park is actually split into two parts–there’s an inland part where a high escarpment has huge gorges carved into it by a river, and then a section where dramatic cliffs zigzag along the coast. I met up with a friend there and we first went to take a look at the cliffs, which were really beautiful in the afternoon light, and then to go for a nice refreshing dip. The next day we headed inland. It was pretty hot for the hike, but not bad compared to the temperatures I’d been getting up north. It kind of felt to be a bit like a mini Karijini, and going in without any real expectations was perfect. We did a couple of short-ish hikes, had a nice refreshing dip, and checked out a couple of cool viewpoints.

After a chill evening there was nothing left to do but keep heading south, down to the big city of Geraldton. With a population a bit under 40,000 it was the most populated place I’d been in a long, long time. I spent a couple of days just kind of kicking around, took advantage of the honest-to-god restaurants in town to get a couple of nice meals, and filled up on water and groceries. Geraldton provided the first substantial cloud cover I’d seen in a long time, and I took advantage of the incredible light one evening to play around with my camera. After a few days I left town and went to check out the pinnacles, an area where the desert is pierced by hundreds of rock pillar things. There wasn’t much to do besides languidly stroll around, but it certainly makes for an unusual landscape.

I spent that night parked in the driveway of a friend’s house in the little town of Cervantes, and as it happened her mother in law was unexpectedly up at the house for the weekend, so in the morning we had a nice long chat comparing notes on coffee preparation and such. And then… Perth! The only city on the west coast. Freeways! Traffic! Neighborhoods! Trees! It was certainly a bit of an adjustment getting here after several months in various degrees of the middle of nowhere, but luckily I had friends to help me make a soft landing.

I’ve been staying with Luciana and Peter, friends I met in Cabo San Lucas way back in the beginning of 2020. As always happens when I mooch my way into a comfortable situation I’ve spent the past week largely sitting around the house doing nothing, watching sports, and zoning out. Perth… doesn’t seem to have too much going on, though in fairness I haven’t looked very hard. Everyone I’ve asked about things to do has helpfully pointed out that “Perth has the best beaches”, as if I didn’t know where to find the beach when I’m in the mood for it. Unfortunately, while I love the ocean, I don’t find it overwhelmingly interesting to just sit at the beach for hours, especially alone. On top of that, while the temperature is lower here than up north, the UV index is somehow even higher, so you really cannot be sitting out in the sun for too long.

Anyway, I’m moving on from Peter and Luciana’s place tonight, and I look forward to that being the kick in the pants that I need to start looking for more interesting things to do. I’ll be hanging around town this coming week, getting a couple of new tires and an alignment, and waiting to hang out with a friend who’s coming down from Broome. Next weekend Luciana and I are planning on SCUBA diving down in Busselton, a couple of hours south, so that should be fun. It’ll also begin my exploration of the southwest, which is supposed to be really beautiful. So hopefully lots of surfing and hiking are in my future!