Super Duper Return To Canada: Hawaii Edition

Hello from Hawaii everybody. I am currently waiting for my flight to Vancouver from Honolulu as I write this. It's pretty nice! This is a decent airport. Everything is expensive af cause its in USD but I'm still alive!




But uhhhh yeah this is my last day outside of Canada for a minute I think? It's been really fun but I am looking forward to being in the cold again. It was so HOT and HUMID in Hawaii, oh woe is me being stuck in the rich white people vacation destination, it's so hard being handsome and sweaty.

Hawaii is really nice though! This is the first time I've ever been, and it was really really great except for the heat and the fact that I have to pay tax afterwards and then tip at restaurants again. That is something I'm genuinely going to miss about Australia, why don't the USA and Canada just calculate the tax into the price in the first place, why do we live in this backward country >:( But the beaches were really nice, you don't get sand everywhere like you do in Australia, the sun wasn't TOO killer, and there were no flies swarming me like there are in Australia right now ahaha. Everything is absolutely super overprice though, my wallet is SORE but soon I will be in Canada and don't have to think about currency exchange at all. But I had some delicious loco moco for breakfast and then there was some cool open market on tonight, so I grabbed a "Loaded Pork Fries" which was also amazing. It may be expensive but at least it's delicious! I now just have 6 granola bars that will last me until Canada, plus whatever snacks are on WestJet. I DON'T need the $20 USD starbucks sandwich it's NOT HAPPENING. That's like 30 CAD ITS NUTS.



Okay now I'm back in Canada, I got really tired writing that in Hawaii and then had to board my plane. I slept like poopoo, I read a bunch of One Piece before going to sleep and I had awful fever dreams about how the straw hats needed to save Sanji from Big Mom. But it's fine, I got like 4 hours of "sleep" and now I'm back in Vancouver baybeeeeee, ready to just hang out with some friends for a minute and then go decompose at my parent's house tomorrow. Can't wait to play Oblivion and walk the dogs every day.


I don't think I have the brainpower to actually write anything in here that's deeper than "I feel eepy sleepy" so I'm taking a break again, I tried to drink a coffee and it helped a bit, but my brain still wants to force shutdown. I'm going to go do something brainless until my friends are free. (nevermind I'm back).

So now that I'm back in Canada, I think something fun to do would be to make a highlight (and lowlight) reel of sick Aussie Moments that happened over the last year :)

HIGHLIGHT 1: CASSOWARY ENCOUNTER


This is such a major highlight for me. Me and The Boys saddled up in my new shitty car and took a trip to Paronella Park, which was super cool to begin with, but then we decided to also head to Etty Bay to see if we could spot a Cassowary. We searched the beach, but couldn't find anything. Dejected, we started driving away from the beach, and about halfway out of the beach road, there it was.

CASSOWARY!!!!
We all ABSOLUTELY popped off in the car, and we managed to follow this beauty for like 4 minutes until it wandered into someone's yard and we couldn't follow it any further. Absolutely magical moment that deepened all of our friendship and appreciation for Australia :D

LOWLIGHT 1: FOOT BREAKAGE


Pretty self explanatory. Early when I was in Port Macquarie, I fell off a rock while hiking near the beach and ended up getting a hairline fracture in my heel. This forced me to stay home so I couldn't work my sick new job at the turkish restaurant. Drove me crazy not being able to walk around and go on my bike. I'm super lucky the recovery didn't take very long, but omg those 2 weeks of having to just wait around in the heat of the house was torturrrreeee.... :( On the bright side, I made good friends with my housemates during that time and also got to work on my first game and finish Fallout 4. Not willing to do this again I stg.

HIGHLIGHT 2: CHROME CHOMPSKI AND OTHER ART


So there's like, lots of cool art in Australia? and I had a great time seeing all of it? Chrome Chompski is definitely my most memorable, but other highlights include seeing Sparks at the Sydney Opera House, and the painted rocks in Port Macquarie.

ALSO honorable mention to the ACMI center in Melbourne that was hosting PAX when I arrived and me and a buddy had an awesome time dancing in the rain to remixes of the Cult of the Lamb OST performed by the actual composer for the game.

Also because it respects the f out of my favorite artistic medium of video games and I think that's very cool.

LOWLIGHT 2: CAR BREAKAGE


Also very self-explanatory. My beautiful car Terrible Financial Decision AKA Terry for short, was in the habit of breaking a LOT. The worst of this is a couple weeks back when I had that big scare that the head gasket was cracked which would have been the end of the car's natural life. That whole week of stress being stuck in a stinky tiny town was awful. I was stressed every day, felt like garbage, could barely eat, and was being confronted with the consequences of my decisions. Luckily it was just the thermostat that was busted, and with a quick repair I was on my way again. Thank you Terry for an empty bank account and constant stress for 4 months or so :D

HIGHLIGHT 3: BLUE MOUNTAINS


Really I would put all of the cool natural areas I saw because they're all AMAZING, but the Blue Mountains specifically were the one area I didn't want to leave. It's so cozy, and all the hikes are so beautiful. My legs were annihilated every single day which felt really good after driving around for so long, I got to see some snakes and TONS of cicada shells, I met some cool people and learned more about the wildlife. The YHA hostel I stayed in was probably the best one I ever stayed in? It had a huge kitchen and was decorated like a little ski lodge so it felt MEGA cozy, especially when the temperature dropped at night and I didn't have to freeze while sleeping in my car. The area was so fun to explore, and apparently you can get there straight from Sydney by train! It's awesome! Everyone should go there if you're in Australia it's the BEST.

LOWLIGHT 3: HORRIBLE LONELINESS


Definitely a cop-out answer, but the lowest lowlights were for sure all the times I felt horribly and truly alone. I posted about that alot on my older posts, mostly in th first 6th months. Surprise surprise, it's hard to find people with the same niche interests as me! Wow wow who would have thought. In the end I ended up meeting a bunch of great people in Cairns, and had a lot of friends and stuff along the way, but damn it if it wasn't hard to get there sometimes haha. ANYways solo travelling sucks sometimes and it's hard to see people being close friends when you have a hard time connecting :D


Obviously there's so many more moments I could include, but if you want to see more, please go to the Archive Page and read some old posts! I cover things in much greater detail there, and should now have every old update available on that page :D Some other stuff that was pretty great though was seeing kangaroos and koalas and emus and a Wombat, going to all the cool beaches there, learning about the squeaking sand beaches, hiking around some cool areas, working at a Turkish then an Italian restaurant, ah it was such an awesome time



But yeah, feels good to be in Canada. Trying to sleep off the jetlag but it's not going super well haha. I can play games with the boys more frequently again and I can finally play the Elden Ring DLC YAYYYYYYYYY!!! Lots of fun nerd stuff now 8) I also get to take my family's dogs out all the time and they have been very good. I'm currently back in Port Alberni, and might stay here until the new year? I'm fairly uncertain right now, but there's apparently a lot of filming going on in Nanaimo so I might hit them up for now. Still super unsure, but I guess you guys can hit me up and see LOL.

But yeah, this is the end of the Lachlan Aussie Travel Blog. It might get revived when I eventually go back, but for now, its time is done. Thank you everyone so much for reading about my silly adventures, I hope this worked well as an update format haha. Anyways, I'll see all of you around. Or message you. Or like your posts online. Thank you for everything :D