This week I turned 26. However, it wasn’t my birthday celebrations or even the moment itself that I find myself drawn to write about this week. I looked back at the last 12 months and can’t beat away the feeling that it feels like five years since my last birthday celebrations on Bohol in the Philippines.
Every day is a new adventure. I’ve been in an airplane over 50 times this year already and crossed countless time zones. It’s no wonder my life is like one big blur of crazy adventures and trips at the moment.
As an example, this morning I woke up at 430 to go on a sunrise camel safari then headed off to jump out of a plane at 12,000 ft over Australia’s most iconic landmark, Uluru. We then went out for a classic Aussie BBQ, now I am back writing and editing knowing I am waking up in 5 hours for a sunrise bike ride, followed by a hike and a sunset adventure later in the day. You get the picture. You can begin to see how the pace is so fast, so unusually fast that when I look back to a moment that was 12 months ago, I cannot fathom the idea that it wasn’t several years ago.
I guess this is a good problem to have but maybe I need to slow down a little at times. Later this year I will spend a whole month on an island in the Philippines, which will give me a chance to ground myself after a year of travels with no longer than seven days in a single accommodation.
This past week in Bali I met some cool people through Instagram of course. One day five of us cruised up to the north of Bali to explore an unpublished, unknown waterfall. We spent half the day there, with no other tourists in sight for the entire afternoon. There is nothing like hanging out a waterhole undisturbed for hours in the sun. Another day Jorden and I drove out to Uluwatu and just chilled in a cave on the beach. It’s the times like these where I actually stop and realize I can do whatever I want on any given day, life is unreal.
What did I do for my Birthday? I headed to Mrs. Sippy with Jorden and our new mates for a day of beers, diving off the boards and chill chats with new friends. I dove from the 5m so many times my ribs still hurt when I laugh. It was a great birthday and I am as happy as I’ve ever been! My birthday was capped off by a flight to… Australia!
I’m here in the Northern Territory with the tourism board on an adventure campaign for the next 7 days. We are doing some crazy activities like skydiving, hot-air ballooning, open door helicopter tours. Our aim is to showcase the adventurous side of Uluru to get a younger blend of travelers to head out to Alice Springs to visit Uluru and go on some outback adventures!
I’ll post photo-journals as of tomorrow and have a wrap of the whole week in next weeks edition of ‘The Weekly’. I also opened applications for my Nusa Islands Blogger Workshop this week. If you want to check out the details you can click here.
I hope you all had a great week!