Went Walkabout and Met Some Mozzies!!!

Mossies is Australian slang word for mosquitos. This experience was one of the less enjoyable experiences I've had since I’ve been in the Land Down Under.

Anyway right now we are what would be equivalent to Spring Break. Almost everyone took trips to the Great Barrier Reef, Sydney or Fiji so I was bored and decided to take a solo hike. I went to the Buderim Forest, which is the remaining patchwork of a rainforest that has been developed around. I heard there was a nice waterfall so I figured I would check it out and maybe jump in for a swim.

Well I hopped off the bus in town and walked through a few neighborhoods till I got to a back road sounded by a bamboo forest. It was sooo dense and unique, I expected to see a panda instead of a koala! I got to the trailhead and began the decent through the tropical trees crossing a stream multiple times. When I reached the bottom it was a small, but peaceful waterfall.

I sat down to enjoy the rainforest’s stunning scene and sounds. Seconds later I was being viciously attacked by dozens of mossies! It was insane I suddenly became everyone’s dinner! I snapped a few shots of the waterfall and booked it out of there! Figured I could at least share the pictures. Enjoy!

On Top of the World :)

The other day Corinne, Kerry, Grant and I decided to take a hike. Short, but sweet climb on Mt. Coolum! Which is a dome-shaped mountain that rises 208m above the sugar cane fields and coastal resorts to dominate the skyline in the Sunshine Coast lowlands. It’s basically a massive bump out of nowhere, but the top was beautiful. The climb was a rocky staircase amongst the eucalyptus forest, but we unfortunately didn’t find koalas though. Anyway at the top we have a great overlook of all of the Sunny Coast.

Didgeridoo!

Lately I’ve been overwhelmed with school work so I haven’t been doing too many exciting things worth blogging about. Yesterday I turned in a massive 17 page paper! Uni is terrible in Aus, but now we just started Spring Break! To kick it off Corinne, a few other friends and I went to Eumundi Markets. I’ve been there a few times so I knew what to expect, but the girls all went separate ways to shop. Corinne and I stuck together and did a bit of walking around until both of us had the irresiable urge to splurge some on Aussie commodities!

We were walking around when I was intrigued by a stand selling didgeridoos! Now for those of you who are less familiar with what a didge is…it is one of the oldest known wind instruments. The didgeridoo was created by the Aboriginal Australians and is still played at ceremonial events accompanied by dancing and singing.. The didgeridoo is a piece of termite-bored eucalyptus tree. So in short it’s a branch of a koala tree that had a center hollowed out by termites.

Anyway so the two men at the stand were the creators and artists and they were awesome! They encouraged me to try different types and work on making a beat. They helped me to build confidence because it was quiet embarrassing when the sound just sounded awful, but by the time we left I had a decent sound!

So they main guy at the stand handed me a didge with hand painted sunshines and a sea turtle.
At this very moment I knew it was a calling. The didgeridoo was so symbolic for my experience in Australia! The sunshine represented my spirituality and the turtle represented the love I’ve developed for rescueing and rehabilitating sea turtles back to health at UnderWater World. I knew I had to get the didge! I had wanted one for so long, the symbolism was perfect and he knocked down the price $50 because I was a student!!!

Corinne on the other hand took to the UGG shop! We found a decent priced shop selling true Australian UGGs, not the “Made in China” crap we have in the US of A! She knew she needed to get them when they had a beautiful pink, have a sweet Aussie tag on the back and the tred on the bottom says AUS with a the AU flag! Too cool!

We also picked up a few hand painted and carved boomerangs! Needless to say Corinne and I spent over $500 in like 2 hours! Hahaha I guess it was kind of materialistic, but life’s short and you have to splurge every once in a while!