Dec 31: New Years Eve

It is New Years Eve, and we are three guys looking to party. We aim south again, this time seeking Bateman's Bay. Oscar has two friends: Mei and Tom, who are staying at a holiday cottage just south of the main population centre at Guerilla Bay.

We meander our way there, stopping at the cove at the edge of Jervis bay for some snorkelling. Oscar has outfitted us all with borrowed equipment from the lab at work - including wetsuits and fins. I am so glad I decided to come to Australia. I spend the better part of 15 minutes chasing a cuttlefish around the reef. He changes color, from brown to pink to orange to match his surroundings. I've got Oscar's waterproof camera and so I got to take a few photos.

We pull in to Bateman's Bay late, but are welcomed by a barbecue. Tom and Mei are excellent hosts, we enjoy a feast of surf and turf: prawns and steak. The five of us sitting outside the oceanside cabin, old friends and new seemed like a truly fitting way to close out the decade, and to start a frech one.

On the east coast of Australia we would have been some of the very first to bring in the new year. I got to yell happy new year and shoot off my fire cracker a full 18 hours ahead of my friends and family in Edmonton. It is kind of like I got a sneak peek at the future... Mei and I did our best to establish 2010 as another epic dance year, punishing the pub's little dance floor.