The Amazing Race!

The really nice people at the local church give the international students a lift to the grocery store ever Tuesday and Thursday night. Last Tuesday they invited us to join a mock The Amazing Race on the Sunshine Coast for $5 (transportation activities, food and drinks). Ironically the night before I was telling Corinne how I would love to do the real Amazing Race. So automatically it was obvious to us that we would definitely be partaking in this adventure!

So today (Saturday) we got up headed to the church and formed our team name “Team Génial" meaning Team Awesome in French. Our team was Corinne, Etienne (my best friend here, and reasoning for the weird team name), Kylie (Aussie that regularly helps with the shuttle to the grocery store) and Bill (our Aussie driver). We were competing against 13 other teams.

We heard the rules which was basically don’t speed, don’t cheat (ha it’s a church) and they gave us an explanation on how we would be scored. So each destination you got points based off your arrival placing 1^st (100), 2^nd (95), 3^rd (90), etc. at the end of all the tasks the team that had the most accumulated points won. We got our mock passports with Julia Gillard (the current Prime Minister) or Tony Abbott (her opposition) and answered a simple game starting question and sprinted for our team’s van!

We read our clue and figured out that we were headed for Bulcock Beach, Caloundra a 20 minute drive. We arrived in 2^nd place (95 pts). We started our task only one person could do the first part. They had to crawl across the beach about 25ft get to a squared of section and dig for a plastic bottle with a message inside. We found several decoys before finding one with a message. Then the whole team could compete to put pieces of a biblical proverb puzzle together. We finished first.

We got our next clue and sprinted for the van! We figured out where we were headed and took off to Military Jetty, Caloundra about 10 minutes down the road. The clue said we needed to get wet so Etienne stripped off his pants in the car and put his board shorts on! Pure dedication! We arrived in 1^st place (100 pts). The next task was to take jump on a ski boat, towing one of our team members on a tube! Etienne had never been tubing which made the experience for him even better!

Etienne: “Do you have a clue how to stay on this thing?”

Me: “Yes…HOLD ON!”

Corinne: “Bahahahaha!”

Etienne did amazing and didn’t fall off at all! For the rest of us it was a nice boat ride cheering him on! We got our next clue took an epic “Team Génial" and ran for the van.

We were off to Kondalilla Falls National Park, Flaxton about a 50 minute drive arriving 1^st (100 pts) The clue told us we would be doing a run so we brushed off the sand and put on our running shoes. I had done the hike before and knew we were looking at an intense run down a mountain and back up about 4Ks. We arrived jumped out and surprised the “customs officer” that we were so early. She gave us a clue and took off down the mountain. We jogged most of the way (taking a few breaks…wake-up call that I am definatly not in shape oops!). Then we ran into someone who looked oddly like she might be involved in the race. We had been so fast she hadn’t gotten to her station yet so we followed her to the check point urging her to go a bit faster! We got to the waterfall, she gave us our clue and ran back up to the top of the mountain to be greeted by Subway and Cokes.

We grabbed some and jumped in the van arriving in 1^st place (100 pts) This time we were off to a nearby hardware store. We arrived with an option to either build a shelf or sort out screws and then shoot a target with a nerf gun. We choose the shelf...terrible choice we should have known it would have crappy directions. This was the funny task though because we were still sweating from the last challenge, the sharp edges of the shelf cut Corinne and I so we were bleeding and arguing started up because there was confusion of how to construct the stupid thing! We saw 4 other teams that choose the screws and hit the targets before we finally finished. Talk about blood sweat and tears!

We hoped in the van and headed back to the church about 25 minutes arriving 5^th (75 pts). We waited to hear the results, but were confident that we had won based off our own calculations having 470 points. We were announced as the champions by 30 pts and received a $100 gift card to Big W (aka Aussie version of Walmart) which generously the driver and other older Aussie girl gave to Etienne, Corinne and I to split!

It was an awesome experience we because it was a fun way to see the Sunny Coast, meet people and have fun! Sorry again for writing another book!

Trip to Straddie

So my Environmental Health Risk Management class required a 3 day 2 night field trip on Stradbroke Island. This class sounds really nice, but really it has nothing to do with caring about the environment. Instead it’s focused on how humans are the most important species. Sooo basically I am not a huge fan of the course and the forecast called for rain all weekend, but oh well you have to make the best out of what you’ve got.

So the first day we spent 7 hours in lectures by different professors and skill professionals…soooo boring! But in the evening it was all rewarded by guest on the research center’s courtyard! To everyone’s surprise (including the people that work there) a young koala was climbing around in a tree!!! It was my first wild koala siting so of course I got the nickname Paparazzi since everyone else in the class was Aussie. Later that day we had to do some water quality testing, so of course I couldn’t stop looking at the trees because I wanted to find more koalas. And in fact I did find 2 more a mother and baby! That night my class and professors sprinted down the street (getting chased by an insane thunderstorm) to the Little Ship Pub for dinner and drinks. IT IS SO WEIRD TO DRINK WITH YOUR TEACHERS! But that’s totally normal in Australia which is awesome relaxed culture.

The next day we spent a large chunk of the day working on projects and listening to lectures, but we got a 2 hour break to adventure Point Lookout and the sun actually came out! It’s officially now one of my favorite places in the world! It was absolutely incredible. I didn’t know where to aim my camera because there were Humpback Whales, Dolphins and Sea Turtles all at once! It was madness I was super excited. I saw a whale fully breach for the first time, there was a 2 pods of around 20 dolphins surfing waves and Sea turtles swimming around a gorge all at once. It was magical!

After all of this fun 3 friends and I went down to a beach in a different gorge and jumped in for a swim, watched a surf competition and then went for some gelato! Amazing! Overall the trip was a success simply because the beauty of nature!