Family Gap Year Post #28: Fast Travel up the Eastern Side of Australia
Description
For our fast travel exploration of the eastern side of Australia, we flew into Melbourne and stayed for a couple days. Then we flew to Sydney and stayed for a couple of days. Next, we flew into Brisbane, drove up to Tin Can Bay, and then drove back down to Brisbane for a couple of days.
Highs
My favorite parts of this trip were the everyday things! We met up with my friend at a school fete, which is a little carnival fundraiser. I also loved the Collingwood Children’s Farm. And one of the highlights of Melbourne was getting haircuts!
In Sydney, we loved meeting our incredible AirBnb host family. We ate dinner with them, swam in the pool with them, and went to the beach with them.
I also loved the sunset cruise around Sydney Harbor.
Up north, it was such an experience to feed dolphins by hand in Tin Can Bay.
In Brisbane, I loved our Lebanese carpet picnic and meeting a fellow American and swimming in her pool.
Lows
Fast travel isn’t particularly easy for our family. The constant changes activate our nervous systems. While I’m grateful for the opportunity to explore so many cities, I was excited to settle into rural Australia by the end of it.
Lessons Learned
- I am a person who loves calming and green landscapes. Whenever I’m in big, urban areas, I always seek out the green!
- One of our family hobbies is watching IMAX movies. They always feature people who are leaning into their passions, which is so inspiring!
- We want to go on a gem-hunting vacation. As my boys get older, I need to incorporate their preferences into our vacations more and more.
- I want to explore how to incorporate rites of passage into education. This inclination came from a conversation with my new friend, Ann.