CAIT AROUND THE WORLD

March 2, 2023 — I was up early the following morning and headed to the grocery store at just after 8:00am. I needed to stock up on provisions after decimating my stash in anticipation of the flight from Hobart to Sydney the day before.

After a very successful grocery shopping trip, I headed back to the hostel and got bins for my stuff so that I could put it in the refrigerators and on to the dry foods shelves. The bins idea is actually ingenious: so much cleaner and easier to access than having your stuff in bags, and you’re able to actually use your bags to grocery shop because they aren’t tied up in the fridge or on a shelf. So handy.

With all my stuff sorted, I headed out again to try and get stamps at the post office. That, unfortunately, was not a successful mission. I got postage to send cards home, but my cards were too full of writing and the postage would have covered a lot of my writing. I have that lying in wait for when I need to send a card and can write around the postage. Until then, my cards lay safely in my laptop case, ready to be sent home.

After changing and making a peanut butter and jam sandwich (inspired by one of the girls I met on my tour in Tasmania who was eating peanut butter sandwiches every day) my roommate and I walked down to Merewether Beach. It was a long, hot walk but the end result was a beautiful beach and gorgeous water. We floated in the beach baths for a little while, finding pretty shells and enjoying the sun-warm water (seriously, it was about ninety degrees in those pools).

We laid out on the sand when we tired of exploring and I read my book for hours while I laid in the cool shade, alternating between chilling and tanning as the sun moved.

Finally, around five I decided to head back to the hostel. We said our goodbyes and I picked up my stuff to catch the bus. We had planned to do the Bogey Hole but I was getting hungry and wanted to head back for dinner, so I planned to do it the next day instead.

I went back to the hostel and made chicken Caesar salad, which turned out so incredibly good. I used a combination of mixed garlic and chicken spices on the chicken, added Caesar salad dressing to lettuce leaves, and cut up a few pieces of Australian tasty cheese (basically the equivalent of mild cheese, but white in colour) to go with my salad. It was so good, and so nice to have something other than pasta for at least one night.

I chilled for the rest of the evening, not doing much of anything other than showering, reading, and watching some Netflix until it was time to go to sleep. And so the curtain falls on my first day in Newcastle.

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