Carolyn in Oceania: *Insert Jaws theme music here*

I found myself in Byron Bay, booking a surf lesson, despite the torrid tales I had heard along my way down the east coast, about the incidents in the Byron area. A man was bitten and killed. A boy was bumped off his board, but not hurt. A woman's kayak was tipped, and her arm was munched off. So when our instructor parked at the beach, and brought out a waiver for us to sign, I asked "In case we get attacked by a shark, right?" He scoffed, and said that the media loved to make things up...he's lived in Byron Bay his whole life, and the last shark attack was in '93. BUT...if at any point in time he told us to get out of the water, we were to do so with no questions asked. Ooooooh. Okay. So on we went, learning some dry-land training before hitting the waves. It was a small group...a girl from Ireland, and a couple from Denmark. Only the Irish girl had tried it before, and said Canadians were usually good at picking it up, but I still had my doubts. Which turned out to be misplaced, because I ruled that board! haha! I was up on my second try (the first attempt didn't really count I figure, because I was the first to go, and was so excited that I forgot what to do), and every time thereafter. So I quickly progressed to paddling on my own, and doing the jump-up method, instead of the slower 4-step stand-up process. It was all fun and games, and I was feeling quite confident (not only with the board, but also with the surroundings)...with only 15 minutes left, our group was whittled down to three, as the Danish guy had hurt his ankle. All three of us girls had paddled out to our instructor, standing in chest-high water, to have another go. Suddenly, although calmly, the instructor said "Okay, we're headed in now...kay Caroline? We're going in." I thought, okay, sure, might have spotted a shark a ways out...but as I paddled in and got knocked off my board, I immediately thought (with a remarkably calm awareness), that there was the distinct possibility the shark was a lot closer than I realized, and he was going to bite me in the leg any second. So that sped up my process in getting out of the water. Our instructor had taken over the board of another woman coming in from the water, and paddled out a little ways, then came back onto the beach. Approaching us, he said, "I'm not going to lie. I saw a big shark and thought it best to get you girls out of the water before going for the other guy." The other guy, as it turns out, was not part of our group, but the 10 ft. shark our instructor (Dan) spotted in the wave had looked to be heading right towards him. Dan thought by the time he told us to get out of the water and turned back to him, he would be a goner. Luckily enough, the shark swam right underneath him. I asked Dan how close this guy had been to us...maybe 15 ft away. So therefore, the shark had been about 20-25 ft. away. So I asked Dan if that was it for the day, and he said we only had 10 minutes left anyways, but if we wanted to head out for one more try, it was up to us. He looked skeptical. The other two girls immediately said no, no more. I pretended to hem and haw: "Weeeellllll...aw, nah, I guess it's best if we don't." I was sorta bummed I didn't spot it in the wave though...that would have really been a creepy sight.

I spent two nights in Newcastle, before embarking on a 20 hour bus trip to Melbourne. I had a brief stopover in Sydney, but got a glimpse of the Harbor Bridge and the Opera House en route to the bus station. Melbourne's pretty big...over 3 million. But I was super excited because I finally got to see friends!! People who I actually knew, and didn't have to explain the tiresomely repeated basics to ("I'm from Canada, no, only traveling three months, no, quit my job, yeah, was in NZ first, but going home after Aus...just down the east coast, flying out of Sydney"). Kim moved to Mt. Gambier about a month ago...with her boyfriend, who was sent here for six months for work, so she took the bus and train here to see me. And Darren has been here a little longer, staying in the Melbourne downtown core too, so he escorted me on a visit down the Great Ocean Road...