Aurora... The sun is rising!

We made it to the east coast! Finally... This is a little taste of what we left:



And this is where we are now:

Beautiful waterfalls inside tropical rainforests....



A butterfly...
Nate fixing the starter in Mount Isa... It was really hot. Besides a few electrical issues, the car has been doing really well. Better than either of us expected.


Watch your ankles in the water!


Nate trying to decide if Ol' Red will make it to our camp spot...

She's made it through a lot... This was about a foot deep. She made it.Cleaning my feet in flood water on the way by. Monsoon rains are pretty cool.


Ok, That is all we have for you right now. We are having a pretty good time. Much better now that everything is green and wet. Hills are also helping our morale. I'll update again soon. Miss you all!

Love, Nate and Dy

The Territory

Alright. We made it to the Northern Territory! Out of WA and all that hot desert once and for all! It is still quite hot, but now we've added in the all too necessary element, water. It's the wet season in these parts, so I guess the cyclone warning is high. We haven't seen anything that even meets the tropical storm standards of New England, but we've heard of bigger. We both really like it up here, at least in comparison. It's tropical, lush and green. I'll post a few photos here.

Lovely seashells....

A little butterfly decided to hitch a ride around with Nathan for a little while.

Victoria River, I think.

A boab.

From here we head to Kakadu National Park. We put some new tires on the car (burned through the last set of fronts due to gross misalignment), everything else on ol' Red is going strong. The mystery problem hasn't come back. Kakadu is pretty huge. If you google it, you'll find some gorgeous photos, far more beautiful than either of us can take. Kakadu will take us at least a few days, but we may take a little longer if it's nice. I hear it's great for bush camping. After Kakadu, I think we head to Cooktown, but we haven't fully decided yet. We just have to be in Brisbane in time to get our visa's to Viet Nam and in Melbourne in time to catch our plane. Alright, hope this was a sufficient update. We're safe, cars running.

Love, Nate and Dy

Who steals dinosaur footprints!

Alright. We should be leaving Broome today. We had a few things to do to the car (thanks Nick). Here are a couple pictures of us in Broome. Both were taken at Gantheaume Point (not sure about spelling there). The tide varies by about 8 meters, this is high tide. During low tide, there would be no water under Nate at all. We found that little shady spot that I'm sitting in under a rock. This place is so hot that we have to crawl under rocks to stay cool.



Ok Darwin, here we come.....

UPDATE: Broome

I know it took a while to get any sort of update on here, but what can I say, there is not much out here, not much internet. I just went through the photos I've taken so far. I thought I'd post some up here, but it turns out they are all crap. This is the best I've got - Nate looking very Miami Vice at the pinnacles.


So, we are currently in Broome. You can find it on the google map in the last blog entry if you are interested in looking. We have an unreasonably long drive ahead of us to Darwin, 1900 km, right through the Kimberleys. I don't know how we'll survive it. It's hot up here. When I say hot, I don't think you really understand what I mean. It's hot.

Alright, I'll leave it at that. If you want any more details, just message me. I'll try to post a better update with some photos before we leave the area, but no guarantees on that.

Love,
Nate and Dyanna

The Route

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Mission Complete

It is about 10:00 in the morning right now. I have been up all night. I had two reports to finish which I am about to go hand in to my professors. I didn't slack or anything, just putting on the finishing touches. I don't know if it is because I haven't slept at all or if it's because I just finished writing the last two papers that I will ever have to write for this degree, but I feel sick to my stomach. There is nothing I love more than changing everything. That is exactly what I am about to do. I love it. To all of you who miss me, I'll see you soon enough. To all of you I'm leaving here in Perth, I hope to see you often.

Love, Dyanna

Highly Recommended

As many of you know, I have an almost unhealthy obsession with John Lennon. He is at the top of my "most respected musicians" list and probably holds close to the top of my "most influential people" list. There is very little that this man has said that hasn't had some sort of profound effect on my thought pattern. I dig him. So, you can only imagine how excited I was when my sister emailed me the following link - Eyes on Darfur - and after a moment of scrolling around (and shedding a couple of tears), I stumbled upon Amnesty Internationals Save Darfur album, Instant Karma. It consists of a handful of phenomenal artists covering Lennon songs. I'll be totally up front with you here, Avril Lavigne covered Imagine and I wasn't too happy about it because I'm not a fan, but you've got to respect the girls taste in music. She didn't totally screw it up either. Actually, it's soothing. (I may have to edit that comment out later).

The reason I blog about it, besides that it is an amazing album, is that it is going to an excellent cause. For all the things that we'll waste twenty bucks on these days, it's good when we can spend it on something worthwhile. I want you all to consider purchasing your very own copy. You can order the cd here - Instant Karma - or for the iTuners, just go to the iTunes store and search for instant karma. Do it for the people of Darfur and do it for the memory of a legend.

Margaret River in early October

Nate and I went down to Margaret River last month for a few days. It was rainy and gloomy the whole time, but still good. We have managed to miss big surf by about a week both times we've gone, which sucks. It was pretty flat for MR when we went this time, but ok. Nothing too ridiculous. This is my attempt to show you some photos. I'll post a few here and the link to my facebook album or something like that. Unfortunately, I chose to save $100 and bought a counterfeit memory card for my camera from some guy on eBay. It deletes whatever pictures it feels like deleting and even though I managed to recover most of them, some lost quality in the recovery. There is a reason Sony can charge so much for their gear... It's apparently worth it. Ok. Enjoy and feel free to comment.

Love, Dyanna (and Nate)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=48944&l=8a6e5&id=519103434
The link to the album.



I'll miss the Aussie trees...



Nate against an amazing sky.



Me taking a photo.



Nate and I posing for the camera.



Nate and I enjoying the splendor of the sea.



Nate with the kite.



North Point, but not much surf.

Add Your Voice

I don't want this blog to be about making a political statement or anything like that, but Darfur is beyond politics. I won't say much, just that support from the international community is needed. Click the link, add your voice, let the world know that you personally will not stand for violence.

xkcd

I would like to thank Randall Munroe for putting out some comics that really speak to me. If you enjoy these two and you haven't already discovered his genius, go to www.xkcd.com. You will not be disappointed.

The First

"The whale does not sing because he has an answer, he sings because he has a song." Gregory Colbert, Ashes and Snow

So Nate (my boy toy of ten years) and I will be breaking out of this joint they call Perth in about a month to start something new. I have lived here for nearly three years and he's been here a year. We are both ready to get the hell out of here. This blog is hopefully going to log our departure so that I won't have to email everyone I know from the tiny little internet stops on the way around Australia and anywhere else we might end up. We'll see how it goes, though. I suck at this kind of stuff. Anyway, I hope that you enjoy it and all that jazz. I'll post some other junk to entertain you when I see fit, as well.

Love, Dyanna