Sydney!!! (Day 1)

Corinne, Etienne and I planned a trip down to Sydney. We obviously are cheap college students so we searched around for the cheapest possible travel and accommodation. We came up with the train and a cheap hostel. Unfortunately for us when Australia first became a country the 7 states were more like countries so the gauges on the train tracks were different and one state does Day Light Savings while the other does not. Soooo this meant that we had to take a 4 hour bus ride from Queensland to New South Wales, spring our clocks forward and get on a train for 11 hours to Sydney.

Soooo starting from the beginning now…

We packed up a single suitcase for the 3 of us (We even brought Nemo!!!) and took the bus into Brisbane. We left Brissy at 2pm on a coach bus with about 95% senior citizens and 5% backpackers which gave us a good laugh. The drive was quiet enjoyable because we got so see a fair bit of Australia’s coastline on the parallel highway. Then we turned off an exit inland. This was probably the most beautiful part of Australia I’ve seen. It was like Frederick’s farmland meets a tropical island. We drove though rolling paddock hills with cattle and sheep, yet it had a twist of an island feel because there were palm trees, tropical parrots and at the crest of the high hills you could still see the ocean. I think I might have found a future home! Just kidding.

We then took the train down to Sydney and arrived in the city at just before 7am…it was tough to sleep on the train so we were all tired, but so excited we didn’t care. We navigated our way to the hostel dropped off our bag and headed toward the harbor!

We found the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge which was just amazing! It seemed so surreal. We had a bit of fun taking pictures at the Opera House attempting to sing opera style...Corinne defiantly was the best as she belted out a note in the dead silent gift shop! I turned and walked away like I didn’t know her! It was awesome though and I’m sure the employees see that all the time!  

Afterwards we walked through the touristy shopping area (Circular Quay) and the old town of Sydney (The Rocks) on the way to the Sydney Harbour Bridge. We walked over the bridge which gave us outstanding views of the city. By the time we got to the other side we were super hungry and tired…it was only 10am!!! The time change and lack of sleep was harsh! We walked back and took a power nap at the hostel so we were ready to head out in the evening.

That night we walked back over to the harbor in between the Opera House and Bridge. The Opera House was lit up orange, the city lights and a full moon looked magnificent! The temperature was just right so we had shorts and a tee on and we spent a few hours just sitting relaxing enjoying the view and some live music from a pub. It was such an amazing day!

All packed up!

Senior Citizen bus!

People doing the Bridge Climb like Oprah

Clear harbor water with kelp

Walking the Sydney Harbour Bridge

Found Nemo!

Halloween in Aus!

Last minute a group of friends and I decided to go out to the O’Malley’s Irish Pub for Halloween…sooo the last minute penny pincher costumes were pulled together in a matter of hours. My friends Kerry and Grant: Aussie Surfers that got attacked by sharks, Corinne: Hippie, Etienne: Superman, Susanne: I have no idea she just had a mask and I was Terri Irwin (Steve Irwin’s wife who is a local around the Sunny Coast).

In Australia they acknowledge that it is Halloween, but they do not hand out candy so the whole costume thing is rare unless you can find a house party or club that is themed. We found out that O’Malley’s was celebrating so we figured out costumes, had a few drinks and headed for the bus. The entire public transportation bus was full of zombie Uni students all going to the same place so it was awesome! The pub was super fun. They started with karaoke and moved on to a DJ late at night. We had a blast and met a bunch of people, but I probably wouldn’t recognize them when they were not in costume!

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!

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!