Where in the World is Hannah Marie Tashjian!?

I'm back in society after an amazing adventure to say the least! I don't even know where to begin! The stories? The scars? The red dust? The things I lost along the way or the ones I gained (mostly intangibles but also many heart-shaped rocks!)? I guess the last time I wrote was after my family reunion phone call at the beginning of July! Okay, let me see if I can cover 5 weeks in this blog! I've been keeping track of all the little details in my journal and they will make for wonderful stories when I return but I know some of you are super curious about what in the world I've been up to in general! First of all, let me just say, it's been such a breath of fresh air to be completely disconnected! What it did actually was help me connect with myself in beautiful ways.

Jennifer and I didn't end up going to New Zealand. We got to the airport, luggage in hand, dinner in containers for us to eat before hopping on the plane, just to find out New Zealanders are super intense about their rules! Jennifer's passport wasn't legible enough for them because it had gotten wet. Australia was totally laid back about it but NZ said "No way!" I think we handled the situation quite gracefully actually and the lovely man behind the counter told us he could credit our tickets to fly anywhere else within Oz. After gratefully accepting the help of our Sydney friends to spend a couple more nights there, we decided to go to Uluru (Look it up! It's a HUGE Rock in the middle of nowhere!!)

First we flew from *awesome Brisbane up to Cairns and spent time in the rainforest, on the beaches and at the Great Barrier Reef. We went on a live-aboard ship for a night and did six dives/snorkles in the middle of the pacific ocean! AMAZING! We also spent one day on an island which was unbelievable, felt like we were in a commercial for vacation! We took a beautiful hike up to the windiest place on earth (I swear!) and sat on a shelly beach looking out onto amazingly blue waters with the Reef existing just below the surface. I didn't take any pictures of any of the things I saw because I'm not an underwater photographer and it was more about the experience (snorkeling is SUCH a weird concept! I'm swimming around in the biggest aquarium on earth and Breathing?!? What?!) But over the course of our trip we saw: sea turtles (one swam right up to me!), a camouflaging octopus, nemo-fish!, angelfish, cuttlefish (which look like squid), sea stars, rays, sharks(!), lots of teeeeeny tiny fish, and some HUGE fish, like the Queensland Grouper!!

We also spent lots of time in Australia's beautiful Rainforest along the coast! Exploring in the dark was so exciting! One night we saw cane toads, lots of spiders!, a wallaby hopping along the road, fortunately for him we were driving slow so we could try and spot the huge PYTHON (10 feet long) stretched across the road warming herself!, a dingo runnning about and earlier in the day we saw Cassowaries!! BIG DEAL ~ they are very dangerous dinosaur birds! HUGE! And they were RIGHT next to our car! It was very, very, very cool. Australian wildlife is fascinating! As is the landscape, from the rainforest, to the beaches, to the beautiful oceans, to the VAST desert and amazing farmland! It's so Diverse! In the five months I've been here I've seen soo much (more than most Australians actually) and hope to see more after I settle for a bit and get a job. Seeing all retired couples in their campervans these last few weeks has made me want to fast forward to the end of my life and travel to my heart's content! Anyway, Jennifer and I parted ways July 25th(?) leaving me stranded Literally In The Middle Of Nowhere! Fortunately we met friends along the way so I wasn't entirely alone.. but there is NOTHING on the outskirts of Uluru and with no plan other than find my way around as I go, we said our sad goodbyes! I miss you Travel-buddy!

But it magically turned out beautifully, as it always does! I've just finished an amazing adventure of a road trip where I traveled (if you want to look it up on google or a very detailed map of Australia) from Uluru to Kings Canyon, up to Alice Springs, where I met some boys heading north to Katherine, then Darwin, through Litchfield National Park, then back down to Katherine (hot) Springs, across to Broome, down the Great Northern Highway along the coast to Port Headland, into Millstream National Park and back out again to the coast at Karatha and Port Sampson, then down through Karijini National Park (where I climbed up and down Mt. Bruce) to Tom Price (big mining town), headed further west up towards Exmouth on the peninsula and Cape Range National Park where we snorkeled at Ningaloo Reef, then drove down to Kalbari National Park and got to meet the stromatolites who created life on earth!!!!, then down through Geraldton to Nambung National Park and finally to Perth!! What an exciting arrival it was after being in the car and sleeping in a tent for three weeks!! More details to come I promise, but now you can picture what I've been up to and how strange it is for me to be part of society once again! It's a beautiful day today so I'm heading outside, all tanned and freckled and fit! YAY Adventure! *More pictures to come soon as well I promise!