Sydney
Returning to Sydney is a really weird feeling. It is the place the journey started and it will now be the place the journey ends, well sort of. Today I sold my car, for a thousand dollars, a monumental 5500 dollar loss as the backpackers just stopped coming. I sold it to a local who was a kind of hard ass, so I decided not to tell him about the fact that the drop down motor is just about shot, and the way I was bypassing it was to use the choke while driving in town, and that there are several short circuits appearing suddenly, and that it used to have power locks, but I decided since he was screwing me on the deal I wouldn't tell him about those facts. He also said he didn't want to pay for any of the camp gear so I gave it away to some people in the hostel. When I showed up without it he looked really surprised as he expected he would still get it for free. I also gave away the spare belts, and sent everything that would fit on my surf board back to Canada via Air Canada freight. The main issue it turns out is that there is a bit of rust around the windshield that when I saw it I didn't really care about as the engine was my main concern. Apparently the mechanic will not give it a "Pink Slip" (roadworthy ticket for registration that has to be done every year in NSW) because of this rust and it has to be cut out and new metal welded in to fix it. The mechanic said everything else was fine, but that had to be fixed in order to renew the registration. This really annoyed me as that there should have been no way that the vehicle should have gotten registered last year if this rust was there 2 months before we bought it (Which it most definitely was) and second the mechanic never even fired up the engine when he said this. The engine could have had a blown piston, and leaked gallons of oil, but they don't care about that, they only care if it looks good. What a load of Australian Bullshit. This has actually been a really frustrating week with not being able to sell the car for a decent price, which is really unfortunate that this has overshadowed the fact that I am having an otherwise really nice time in Bondi. Anyway, it is sold and gone, so I can muse about the huge loss on the car later. I went surfing a couple of times as well as sea kayaking again with Steve (a computer networked from England) and Olivia (A Calgarian).
The kayaking was really nice as we were in a quiet part of the city in a small harbor. Anyway I went roaring around just having fun when Olive started feeling sick. I didn't hear this and decided to race the personal trainer (Rob) to the beach to see how good my kayaking skills were. So we went roaring off towards the beach leaving Steve, Olive and our intrepid guide to follow in our spray of high speed departure. Well the race was close, very close, until I ran a tight shortcut of sharp rocks and shallow water emerging ahead of my rival who took the safe route. I stuck the sand first and looked out over the harbor with pride which is when I noticed that the three stragglers were not moving. We waited several minutes before they finally arrived when I noticed something very strange, Olive wasn't paddling and the guide was towing her. Which was strange as we didn't bring any rope with us. That is when I noticed the rope was actually a bikini top, and the Guide was actually wearing a shirt suddenly. The guide was using her bikini top to tow the sick Olive back to shore. It wasn't until later I got the full story from Steve of what transpired in the stands during my epic race for the beach. Olive was feeling sea sick and she was able to hold it in until a big boat went by and sent her projectile vomiting up breakfast. I can only imagine the spray of toast, orange juice and half digested kangaroo meat arcing high in the air mimicking the harbor bridge that sat in the background. The second spray erupted out in the direction of the opera house, and the third and final eruption of mount Olivia covered the harbor mouth. 
Fish as far away as 40 yards flocked to this free feast and none went away hungry. It was described as "Gag able" and the guide said it would have made excellent photos had she pulled out her camera instead of concentrating on dodging the acidic spray that was raining down around her. It was then that the guide pulled the bikini off and tossed on a shirt so she could tow mount Olive to the beach. After a few minutes on land Olive was feeling better and we started doing jump shots (taking pictures of you jumping in the air) with Sydney's landmarks in the background. I got a couple of good ones, and it is rather fun looking at the different poses you can do in mid air.
We returned to the beach and I stumbled upon a gold mine. There were all these really old bottles piled on the beach that these people had just pulled out of the water. They had been coming here for years, but this is the first time they have ever found them here. Some of them looked really old; some even had dates on them that said 1945, the year the war ended. They said if I wanted any I could have them, so I rinsed them off and took the ones I thought were special, 
and wrapped some of them with the surf board, putting the rest in my bag. Soon a rescue boat arrived to take Olivia back to the docks, Kayak and all and we followed in our little boats. I have been hanging around a lot lately with Steve and Olivia, they are really cool people we have even been cooking together lately and the meals are greatly improved with the aid of better food. We have been spending a lot of time on the beach, and then watching Olivia eat (I should mention this girl eats more than me, she has like 5 meals a day, and steak for breakfast); we actually bug her a lot about how she is always eating. She in turn gave me a new nickname FB (farm boy). It is nice to have some people to spend some time with. Steve was actually supposed to leave 3 days ago, but his flight got cancelled due to that volcano in Iceland, so he stayed here instead. A couple days ago I hit the boomerang shop in Kings Cross and found another one of those cool shop keepers that I run into when you go looking for cool stuff. I chatted with her for a long while before buying a really cool boomerang that is rarer than finding an American backpacker in the outback. It is really weird walking around downtown Sydney when I venture down there. I recognize so many places and get that strange feeling of coming back to a familiar place after a long time, but I can't say I am happy to be back here. I didn't really enjoy the center of Sydney when I stayed there, and I didn't really enjoy walking around there the other day, but it felt familiar, and therefore almost comforting. Maybe because I knew that I was coming to the end of my trip and I knew that I was ready to go home, this familiarity signaled the return to home, the return to the pace of life I left 6 months ago. It also signaled a sudden remembrance that I am about to go home and I hadn't bought gifts for several members in my family and I missed Christmas, my mothers birthday, and my brothers graduation of University, and that if I don't get them something special I will be so screwed. Luckily I have ideas for them and am implementing a plan to purchase such gifts as soon as possible. I just realized that I bought some boomerangs, and they are made of wood, and that they resemble sticks, sticks that my dog loves to retrieve and chew.................this could be a problem.Going home in 3 days,
Adam
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