G'day mates!
For me, there has always been something about Mary, oops I mean Australia. The fascination started back in the day when Noozles was on Nickelodean. That Koala Bear (yeah, I know Koalas really aren't bears, but it sounds so much cuter), Blinky, and his Eucalyptus tree totally intrigued me, well as much as a seven year old could be intrigued. I really wanted to noozle with a Koala! I mean, who wouldn't? (Get your minds out of the gutters...noozling is just an Eskimo kiss) <<WARNING: airplane oriented discussion>> A year or so later, I was at a discount book store and bought an airplane book that went through all of the airlines of the world. You know the type (well...maybe not if you aren't as much of an aviation geek as I am), it gives a brief description of the history of the airline, their fleet, and their destinations. At the time, Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services (aka, QANTAS) had nothing but 747s in their fleet and was the only airline like that in that book, although Tower Air was around and I am sure there were others. I was like, "That is mega-rad! No matter where I fly on QANTAS, I will be flying on a 747...I want to fly them someday!" (Remember, this is the early 90s) At the time, the 747 was like the end all and be all aircraft for me and I plotted in my silly third grade ways any way I could to get on QANTAS. (In hindsight, it is somewhat ironic that we aren't flying QANTAS or a 747 on this trip...) <<Airplane oriented discussion over>> In the twenty-ish years since then, it seemed like Australia kept coming up--from family members going there to the Olympics, and even a cube-mate (and very good friend) of mine having dual-US/Australian citizenship. The more I learned about how beautiful (seriously look at the pictures from the first post) and diverse the country was, and even more so how awesome, laid-back, and hospitable the people are, I was like, "I HAVE to go there!" New Zealand got into the picture because I really like kiwi fruit and where else to go but the land of the Kiwis, not really... It was actually because of a trip I almost took in 1996 as part of People to People, a student ambassador program (I ended up going as part of a delegation the following year to the British Isles). The pictures and activities I saw during the info sessions were literally awe inspiring. So, since we were going to be in the neighborhood (it is a large 1,300 mile neighborhood, but a neighborhood nevertheless), it made complete sense to add it to the itinerary. I mean, the home of ZORBing, the natural beauty, Lord of the Rings, ... really is there any question that it was going to be added?
The why part of this story is so much simpler than the where. You see, I am finally getting my booty out of school after only 23+ years (K-12 = 13 years, Undergrad = 5 years, M.S. = 2 years, Ph.D. = 3+ years, all WAY too scary to think about) and my awesome parents said, "Hey, lets have a HUGE celebration now that his money grubbing fingers are out of our pockets, one so big no one will want to be within a 7,000 mile radius of us...." Okay, so there were some liberties taken there. Seriously though, my parents very generously offered to pay for the trip as my graduation present and off I went to plan the trip of a lifetime (love you, mom and dad!).
I had been mentioning the trip to friends on and off since undergrad that I wanted to do this trip and WAS going to do it! With me graduating, the timing finally was right and I successfully twisted three of my friends' arms to accompany me on the trip--Suzanne, Nina, and Antja. Yeah, that's right, I have three girls accompanying me on this trip (be jealous, I know you are). Although, for some reason the arm twisting didn't really involve much. It seemed that when I barely got Australia out of my mouth, I got an "I'm going!" from each of them.
And that is pretty much that--the story of how this whole trip got started. It came from ridiculously small beginnings, a Koala on TV that got stuck in my head over twenty years ago, and has evolved into a really cool, very exciting, very real, and great three week trip across two of the most fascinating countries of the world!