October 19th - Hitting the Road in New South Wales #Vanlife

Sorry for the blackout these past few weeks, but rest assured we've been putting our time to good use! We have spent the past two and a half weeks here in Sydney, Australia, hosted by Shana, Stephen, their daughter Asha, and Stephen's father Barry (Thanks a million!). We have done a bit of sight seeing in this beautiful city, but mostly our time has been spent on preparing for the next leg of our journey. After a drawn out, stressful, and at times discouraging search, we zeroed in on the van for us, and then spent the better part of two weeks making it our home. But we will get to that in a bit.

Our last week in Nepal was spent mostly in the city of Pokhara. Though it is the second largest city in Nepal, Pokhara is known for its laid back atmosphere. Many trekkers come to Pokhara before heading off to do the Annapurna circuit, another popular Himalayan trek. Feeling overwhelmed by the bustle of Kathmandu, it sounded perfect for us.

We got on the bus early morning on Wednesday, the 19th. We were warned by fellow travellers that the bus ride could be quite bumpy... An understatement to say the least! It felt like we were on the worlds worst designed roller-coaster, being thrown all over our seats and into fellow passengers.

Settling in to our hostel, we took to town and explored Pokhara. Located around the edge of a lake, the city capitalizes on the superb location and has plenty of lakeside restaurant with excellent views. The atmosphere around town is very "hipster"/"hippie" with every other restaurant being gluten-free, vegan and organic. Though we're not usually into super tourist-trap destinations, Pokhara is really growing on us. Every time we walk into town we see a coffee store or a restaurant with cute seating areas and interesting backstories that we want to explore. We found ourselves wishing we had more time (and money) to get to know the little nooks and crannies in this town.

On of our favourite spots in Pokhara, with a view of Fewa Lake.

We took advantage our our time in Pokhara to plan ahead to our time in Australia, but we made sure to sneak in some sight seeing along the way!

Somehow this doesn't seem 100% legit...

The Lakeside walk.

The World Peace Stupa, perched atop a nearby
mountain. It is one of many built world wide by
Japanese Buddhists to promote world peace.

To get to the Stupa, we took a relaxing cross-lake boat ride...

Followed by a steep uphill hike!

It was a tough hike up, but we made it!

 

After a grueling 11 hour bus ride back to Kathmandu, we spent our last night in Nepal before flying out to Sydney. On our flight out, we caught one last glimpse of frosted mountain peaks off in the distance.

Call us crazy, but we thought that might be Mount Everest seeing us off!

Arriving in Sydney, we were picked up at the airport by Shana and Steve. Over the following weeks, they put us up in their home, but also did so much more to help us along with our arrival in Australia. Without them, it may have been a rocky first few weeks. We cannot thank them enough for their hospitality! 

Sydney itself is a beautiful city, and in a few ways reminds us of Vancouver, complete with the oceanside setting, cultural diversity, and the rain (lucky us, we arrived just in time for an unseasonably rainy two weeks!). There was more to see here than we ever had time to do, but we did manage to soak in a few sights, such as the Taronga Zoo, the Harbour bridge, and of course the iconic Sydney Opera House. We even spent a lovely day out on the harbour with the Woods', who were kind enough to show us out on their boat!

The Opera house, seen by night on the ferry ride back to Manley.

And across the harbour, Luna Park.

The view from the Taranga zoo cable car. Unfortunately, the
weather was not on our side for much of our visit.

A sleepy koala snoozing in a gum tree.
They would be a bit more lively when
we returned in the afternoon.

But the focus of our time in Australia so far has been buying and preparing our van for our trip around the country. Without further ado, meet our faitful steed for the next 9 or so months!

We picked up a 2008 Mitsubishi Express from a pair of backpackers who had themselves purchased it from a carpet installer. Their uncle was a mechanic north of Sydney, which gave us a bit of comfort as to its mechanical soundness. It has manual transmission, which was a challenge at first. As to its interior, it was pretty sparse to begin with, being furnished with a bed that folds up into a couch, and a storage shelf fitted to face out the trunk.

After about a week of work, and almost a dozen trips to Bunnings (think home depot), we managed to make the van a bit more welcoming. Changes included a brand new floor surface, a fold out table we built ourselves, added magnetically fixed storage, and improved lighting! Stay tuned for pictures to come!

We plan to take to the road tomorrow. First stop: the blue mountains national park! We will head west out of Sydney towards to park, before then turning south towards Canberra, and then probably on to the Kosciuszko national park. We are psyched to hit the road, and can't wait to share the rest of our adventure!