Kangaroo Island

The week I have done a little bit of last minute traveling. As of right now the only traveling I have left is the 22 hours of flight home. But before I do that I will explain a little place called Kangaroo Island. This island is located off the shore of South Australia and is the 3rd largest island off of the Australian coast. The island gets its name for the amount of kangaroos that were once present. Now there are fewer kangaroos but a mother and its joey were still able to wake me up in the morning. I slept out under the stars in a swag with my body tucked into a ball (I forgot a sleeping bag and blanket). Besides kangaroos the island has plenty of wallabies, so much so that I bet we saw over 200 in a matter of 5 minutes driving around in a field at night. As other proof that there are plenty of wallabies, the road is scattered with wallaby roadkill. Like the kangaroos whose numbers are now lower than what they were when the island was first colonized the number of sea lions is also down. One of the types we saw were the Australian Sea Lion which has just recently been classified as an endangered species. These animals reminded me much of dogs how they would interact with each other by chasing, barking, and playing with other sea lions. On the last day we walked to a remote part of the island where another smaller Australian Sea Lion colony exists. This group was not familiar with humans, unlike the sea lions at Seal Bay. So we had to keep a farther distance and be more cautious around the sea lions. They are not comfortable on land but in the water they feel very safe, and if you lie still on a rock they will come very close to you because they are very curious animals. Visiting Kangaroo Island allowed me to see parts of Australia that are still very wild and untamed. The scenery does not compare to New Zealand but I don't think many places in the world can compare.

1,700 km and Lessons Learned

Our travel through New Zealand took us a total of 6 days, and approximately 1,700 km. I don't have enough time to write a little recap at the moment because I am leaving for Kangaroo Island in a day, but hopefully the pictures do the area justice for right now. New Zealand is the most beautiful country I have ever seen, it is pretty small with rough snow capped mountains, crystal blue waters, and lush green forests. A quick preview of what is to come later: Our lessons, Jeff: Have your itinerary printed when going through New Zealand customs. Mike: A Nissan wagon should not be ramped off a pile of rocks along side the roade. Molly: Although the car was small, sleeping between 2 dogs (me and Mike) on a 4 dog night will not keep you warm. Group: After 1,700 km through New Zealand, it was amazing.


UPDATE:
We again had to wake up very early to catch our flight out of Adelaide to Melbourne and finally arrive in Christchurch, New Zealand. In Melbourne we had to go to the international departure which means going through a more rigorous security scanning. We were unable to take our face wash in the containers it was in so we quickly bought a new container and emptied out face wash into the containers. I refused to do this with my toothpaste and went through security with it. The security in Melbourne went pretty smoothly, but would not be the same in Christchurch. Upon arrival we needed to go through customs to be admitted into the country. Unknowingly I needed to know some pretty detailed information, which I should have printed out previously. Mike and Molly made it through security without the necessary information, but I was the lucky one to be detained. I was asked to sit in a chair while the boarder security looked at my passport and attempted to see when I would be leaving the country. I was questioned very briefly and they saw my innocence and allowed me to enter their country after they found that I would be leaving in 6 days. Next, we needed to find a taxi to take us to our location where we were to pick up our campercar. Our taxi driver "Stinky Pete" drove around aimlessly when he got close to the place, so we opened our doors threw him some money and hopped out slamming doors to let him know of our frustration with him and his smelly car. We walked to the place to see a sign saying "will return at 5:15." So we walked around town looking for a place to eat. We were unable to find anything or even a place to buy blankets that we would need in the car. We eventually got our car where they man who checked it out for us was very friendly and helpful on directing our travel plans and places to get food before we left Christchurch. Driving on the left side was not as difficult as I thought it would be. The only difficult part was making turns into the correct lane, yielding, and turning the turn signal on instead of the windshield wipers. So now we were in the car; we needed to fuel it up and get some groceries for the following days. After doing both we were off driving down the left side of the road headed for the mountains. This part was my favorite part of the drive. All the vegetation was very green with snow capped mountains in the background. The green grass often had sheep fenced in by natural fences such as tall evergreen trees. This area was very peaceful yet still had houses scattered through the fields. As we made it to the hills our cars little engine pushed its way up hills and took a rest coasting down the other side. It was quite obvious we had a pretty small engine when trucks pulling trailers passed us going up hills. The road became more narrow and lined with rocks. After a few hours of driving we needed to find a place to sleep, so I pulled off onto a little side road which overlooked a stream which had a railroad track following it off into the distance and again snow capped mountains were the backdrop to our parking spot. This night was freezing cold, I don't think it ever dropped below freezing but it had to be pretty close. In our stupidity we thought we might be ok without sleeping bags or blankets for the first night. Well... we were incorrect and were very cold for most of the night. I turned the car on a few times to see the time, once Mike caught me and asked the time. He said, "please tell me it's like 5:30," I laughed and responded with, "HA... I'm not telling you what time it is." The reason I didn't want to tell him the time was because it was only 2:30 in the morning, and we had plenty of darkness left. As soon as we saw a little bit of light our house was quickly turned into a car and we had a new driver behind the wheel. Mike began driving and like me thought it wasn't too difficult until he ran off the road and our left front tire met one of the many rocks that lined the edge of the road. In the battle between our car and the rock, the rock won and punctured our tire. We had to pull over and get the spare to replace our battled car. When we arrived into the next town after driving through Arthur's Pass we looked for a tireshop. It was Saturday morning so places didn't open until later and being that we woke up at 5:45 we arrived in town at 7:30. Also with the freezing cold of the previous night we decided to also get blankets for the next few nights. After getting the tire replaced we traveled to Punakaiki Park which is home of the Pancake Rocks. These rocks looked layered similar to pancakes, hence the naming. The laying occurs from erosion and slowly these rocks will be claimed by the seas. Again we were on the road heading for Fox's Glacier, where we were hoping to do some skydiving. Unfortunately, due to cloud cover and high winds we were unable to go skydiving, so instead we decided to visit the glacier. Fox's Glacier is huge and takes up an entire valley and continues up the mountains approximately 12 kilometers. Instead of just staring at it Mike and I decided to hit the trails unaccompanied by a guide and attempt to walk on the glacier. We were briefly stopped by a guide asking us what were doing on the trail, and we told him we were going to take a hike up to the glacier to get some pictures. He had no problem with this and allowed us to keep walking up the stairs dug into the side of the mountain. I'm unsure of the number of stairs we had to climb or ascend to get to the glacier but my guess is close to 500 steps one way. As we walked up the hill along the path it was very warm where we shed a few layers of clothing. Once we got onto the glacier it was quite slushy that was quickly turning into ice because the sun was going down. Along with the sun the temperature drastically dropped when we were walking along the glacier. Before it got too icy we turned around and descended the glacier where Molly was waiting for us. We drove a little bit outside of town where we pulled off the road beside a bridge and camped for the night. Again in the morning we attempted to go skydiving again but the pilot told us that it again was not going to be a good day so we headed to Queenstown for our next few days. When we arrived there our first objective was to book activities such as white-water rafting and skydiving. Both of there activities went off and were very enjoyable. The skydiving did not seem like free-falling but rather that you were being pushed up by a huge fan. After seeing Queenstown from the air, land, and water we headed to see Mount Cook on our way back to Christchurch. We saw the mountain from a distance but this was perfectly fine with us. The best part of the trip was the freedom our campercar allowed us to have. We did not have to find a hostel to stay in nor did we need to have a planned agenda for the day, we could simply change the plans for the day depending on how we felt and the amount of driving we wanted to do for the day. As you can see the scenery of New Zealand is absolutely stunning, and I would definitely like to visit the island again and possibly take more time to enjoy more of the land such as the North Island as well as the South Island again.

Sydney and Bondi Beach

Our trip to Sydney and Bondi Beach were for only a weekend. I left directly after giving a presentation in my Aboriginal Studies Tutorial for the airport to catch a flight to Sydney. Upon our arrival we made our way to the hotel located near Darling Harbor. Sydney is much larger than Adelaide, but was not overwhelming with people. We toured areas in the city such as the Harbor Bridge and the Sydney Opera House. We were able to get a couple pictures of both the bridge and the Opera house when we were standing in the Botanical Gardens outside the Opera House. While walking through the garden I looked up in a tree to be grossed out by the number of bats hanging in the tree. In the garden the bats are viewed as pests because they often kill trees, because there are so many of them. These are not the normal bats we have at home, these bats are about the size of big squirrels with a brown body and black wings. After we wondered around the gardens searching for an exit we went to the Sydney Skytower. This building was an observation point to look out over the entire city. From this point I could see the bridge, the Opera House, and far off in the distance the Olympic Stadiums. Unfortunately, I was unable to travel to the Olympic stadiums, but I did get to travel to Bondi Beach. Bondi Beach is a very popular beach for people of Sydney. From the bus I looked over into town and saw the sea of people gathered on the beach. In Bondi I stayed in a hostel where I didn't get too much rest. When I checked into the place they gave me two sheets and a pillow case. I found my room and bed with no pillow so I made a pillow out of a few dirty clothes stuffed into my pillow case. I slept pretty bad that night listening to a person in the room grind away on their teeth. The day before I signed up for some surfing lessons which I needed to catch a bus for at 8:30, so I woke up early, packed my stuff and had some cereal I bought the day before. We traveled about an hour south of Bondi to a private beach only accessible through a 4WD vehicle. It was interesting driving along the beach, parking up against the dunes, and calling that our camp for the rest of the day. We first began our surfing on the beach where they taught us the main idea of surfing and how to stand up. I understood the idea of surfing but understanding and putting into practice are two different things. My day was filled mainly of missing waves, nose diving into the sand underwater, looking for the next wave, and always paddling. I did however manage to catch a couple of waves which I rode all the way to the beach. I'm glad we did not surf at Bondi because I'm sure we would have all been made fun of by people who know how to surf. With tired shoulders, nappy hair, and a slight sunburn I headed back to Sydney to meet up with the rest of our group for our last night in Sydney. To end the trip we went to have some pizza, but not a regular pizza. I got a crocodile pizza and Molly got a kangaroo pizza (meat that is). Crocodile takes alot like chicken with a hint of seafood fishy taste. We headed back to the hotel to get some sleep before our 4:20 wake up to catch our flight home for a day of classes. Sydney was a very different experience compared to Adelaide or Cairns with the large city and not as laid back. I enjoyed the city but wish I had more time to tour the Olympic Stadiums and also to visit the Blue Mountains. My most enjoyable moments while in on the trip was witnessing Blue Whales jumping out of the water off the coast of Bondi Beach. There was at least 3 whales but there possibly could have been 4 or 5. I didn't see it the first time one jumped out but saw in the ocean a very large foamy area. I watched in this area for a few minutes and began to see spurts of water shoot up from blow holes. I sat and watched the whales for about half an hour. In this time they propelled themselves out and splashed back into the water 4 times. It was an amazing site to see as I sat out on an area that jutted out into the ocean.

Spring Break in Cairns, Atherton Tablelands, and Port Dougls

Stick and I asked our Residential Coordinator to take us to the airport, and Meg being a nice RC she said ok even with the early time of 6:00 AM leaving our unit. The flight to Cairns, which is located in northern Queensland, took about 3 hours. Although excited to arrive I managed to sleep about 2 hours of the plane ride. As I normally do I wore jeans on the plane because I normally get pretty cold on airplanes, upon arrival in Cairns I began to sweat and the jeans were quickly replaced by shorts. We waited for our van to pick us up from the airport. The van was provided by the first hostel we stayed in called Travelers Oasis. You couldn’t miss this van when it passed you on the road, it had “Travelers Oasis” written on the sides and decorated with flowers and all types of tropical plants. When we checked in we got some meal vouchers which we later found were pretty crappy and useless and were led to our room. The room was for 5 people all that were in our group, some were arriving later in the day. We set our stuff down and got changed ready to go to the Lagoon. The Lagoon is a local pool; they use a pool instead of the beaches in Cairns because the beaches are extremely muddy and have little to no sand on them. Cairns in itself is not a beach town, but was developed mainly as a shipping center. We laid out in the grass near the Lagoon and quickly realized that we would be needing to buy some suntan lotion. We headed back to the hostel and on the way stopped in the mall to do some quick shopping for the essentials, consisting of peanut butter and bread along with some suntan lotion that only comes in SPF 30 (little extreme but it’s needed) .

Though Travelers Oasis we booked a trip to the Atherton Tablelands with a group called “On the Wallaby.” For a start to our spring break we went to the bottle store and got a beer for the evening, right after buying the beer I walked out the store and the handles on the bag ripped. I probably looked like a complete drink but the guy at the counter told me to go and get a new bottle. With the new bottle web decided to head towards the Lagoon where we would sit under a pavilion, drink a beer, and relax. When we found an empty shelter we twisted our tops and the rain began to fall again. Some people were sitting in the grass and quickly joined our group. They were all German, and we quickly became friends. They would talk to each other in German then one would try telling us what was said. Most of the time they could not understand us if we talked quickly or used colloquial English so they would also look at us with the look of “WHAT?” We became pretty close with two of the girls named Meike and Carolin. They had graduated high school and wanted to travel around Australia before starting to study. They bought a car earlier in the day and Mike and I began to think of a way that they could take us to Port Douglas. We exchanged numbers and we told them that we would give them a call upon arriving back from the trip to the Atherton Tablelands to go out for a night.

On the Wallaby picked us up from the hostel at 8 the next morning and traveled from hostel to hostel picking up guests. The small bus pulled a trailer where we placed our bags. As we left Cairns we passed many field of sugar cane, which is a main crop for the area. Plumes of smoke rose from the areas where they were harvesting had started. Due to the high amounts of sunlight and rain the growing season is basically all year so they are constantly harvesting sugar cane. Leaving the fields we headed into the mountains where we would take a road that had something like over 200 curves, bends, or turns before we would reach the Tablelands. As we wound up the side of the hill we traveled into a rainforest environment, we also stopped at Heales Lookout which looked over many of the sugar cane fields we had passed and part of the hill we had traveled up. On our way to our hostel located in a small town called Yungaburra we stopped at a few waterfalls and parks. We first stopped to see a tree, but this is not a regular tree this is a fig tree, and not only a regular fig tree but a very special on; special in the sense that the tree grew it roots about 20 meters off of the forest floor. This happened because a bird pooped in the top of a host tree, the fig seed sprouted, and began to grow roots toward the ground. As it connected to the ground it eventually grew more and more roots eventually strangling the host tree and a few other trees surrounding the host tree. Our next stop we made was at a waterfall called Millaa Millaa Falls. We were able to swim into the falls and sit in behind them. During the wet season this swim would be very difficult and probably a little dangerous, but we were in Cairns during their dry season. As we traveled through the rainforest we arrived at Lake Barrine, this lake was created by a volcano. As the magma under rose close to the surface it was cooled by water and then sank back down, over many years this continued to form a crater which filled with water. This happened to another lake near by called Lake Eacham; they are often called sister lakes. Surrounding these lakes are rainforests were we took a short hike thought the rainforest around Lake Barrine. As we walked through the forest, our guide Bart told us of animals to watch out for, but stressed that the animals should be the least of our worries when there are plants that are much worse. One of the plants he showed us would act very similar to fiberglass, except it takes months to leave the pores of your body. We then traveled to see an area where volcanic gases blew a deep hole in the mountain. We stood on a platform that was about 58 meters above the water that was covered with algae. The hole is much deeper than 58 meters the water in the shaft continues to at least another 60 meters and after that they were unable to measure the depth of the water. Located close to the shaft is another small water fall of the name Dinner Falls. This water was a little cooler than the previous waterfall, but Mike and I decided to go for a swim anyways and jump off the falls. To get up the falls we had to climb up some rocks that were slimmy and slippery with algae. We only had a small area that was deep enough for us to jump into or other wise we would have landed on rocks, needless to say we did not hit the rocks and survived the jump. From Dinner Falls we headed to a park that was around Lake Eacham for our picnic lunch. There we encountered a Bush Turkey. To describe a Bush Turkey think if a chicken that acts like a duck or a goose at a park, they always want what you’re eating. The Bush Turkey did not get any of our lunches but sat there waiting for someone to forget about their sandwich. From lunch we walked about Lake Eacham, saw some turtles, and some people went for a brief swim in the lake. Also while we walked part of the lake we saw some kids jumping out of the trees and into the water which gave us an idea for the next day. After visiting this lake we were all pretty tired so we headed for our hostel at On the Wallaby. Before dinner we had one last small event and that was to go platypus spotting. We went to a small creek and viewed a platypus in it environment doing what is does best, swim. On the Wallaby fed us a barbeque dinner and offered a night canoe trip. I went on the night canoe trip in hopes of seeing some interesting wildlife because most of Australia’s wildlife is nocturnal. During the trip it rained, and rained, and was cold. We did however see some tree possums and also a tree kangaroo. After some hours out on the lake we headed back to the hostel and curled up for a nights rest.

Our next adventure at On the Wallaby was a mountain bike ride. On our way to biking we stopped at another fig tree called Curtain Fig Tree. The concept of its growth is much the same except this one took host trees in a wide pattern. Our bike ride looped through the rainforest and through some farmlands on the Tablelands. We didn’t bring any rain gear so obviously it rained, BUT being clever and useful individuals we found some trash bags and made some stylish ponchos out of them. It kept us fairly dry as we rode the bikes throughout the day. On this ride we stopped occasionally to take a break and enjoy the rainforest. At one of the places we stopped we hid the bikes in the woods and continued to walk back along the trail to a small water fall. This water fall was located pretty close to Lake Eacham and little did we know had leeches in the water. As we left the area we got the leeches off our legs that we could see. Once we arrived at Lake Eacham we examined our feet and legs for leeches, and then went jumping out of trees into the lake. These were the same trees we saw people jumping out of the previous day. After buying lunch at a local stop we went for a canoe trip in the manmade Lake Tinaroo. We took the same trip as we did the night before and saw similar animals except small bandicoots and the brown possums. Again it decided to rain which left us cold yet again. All day we were trying to dry clothes at the hostel but it continually rained on and off so our stuff was never thoroughly dry. In the evening we headed back into Cairns and stayed at Cairns International Backpackers Hostel. The reason we picked this place was because it was pretty close to the harbor where we would launch from the next day for the reef. In the evening we met up with a friend from the On the Wallaby and ran into Mieke and Carolin at a pub. The group of us went sat around and talked for awhile and then we left for our hostel to prepare for our day on the sea.

We woke up fairly early to buy some breakfast and an underwater camera so capture some stuff at the reef. We were unable to eat all of our breakfast so we gave it to the crew members as we boarded the boat. Because our one friend knew someone who worked on the boat we got a pretty hefty discount on the entire trip and were basically treated as royalties on the trip. As the boat left dock the captain told us that the wind and rain was going to make the trip out to the reef a little rougher than usual. I didn’t have a problem with the rough seas until people on the boat started getting sick. At that point I quickly headed outside where others were gathering to avoid the people getting sick inside. Crew members were in and out of the doors placing bags in the trash can, which was conveniently located beside me. A few times this can slid pretty close to me as we rocked and rolled to the rough seas. Upon arriving at the pontoon the sea was much calmer because the reef broke the waves. The part of the Great Barrier Reef we were at was called Moore Reef. When we first arrived we were given instructions on our SCUBA diving that was to be held later in the day. As soon as our talk was over Mike and I quickly headed to get some snorkel gear on and head into the water. It was quite interesting watching Asians swim with the snorkel gear on. To give an example of what they looked like picture a new born gazelle trying to walk now imagine that this gazelle is in water, ya they didn’t move very gracefully or quickly. While snorkeling we had a brief encounter with Emily. Emily was a sea turtle that lived around the Moore Reef and stayed close to the photographer because he gave her food. Also around the camera man was a pretty big fish named Wally. We would see both of them later in the day when we went SCUBA diving. As Mike and I swam in the water we saw many types of coral and very colorful fish. The pictures we took with the underwater camera during the SCUBA dive do not do the area justice; they do not display the vibrant colors of the fish and the multicolored types of coral. After snorkeling we went on a semisubmersible boat that allowed us to view the reef while staying dry in the hull of the boat. After our short boat ride we ate some lunch. Most of the food provided for lunch was Asian cuisine because the majority of the boat was Asian except for our group and the boats crew. Shorty after lunch we had our schedule SCUBA diving. There were mixed emotions about SCUBA diving, I was excited but worried that my ears would not pop, Mike was just scared to be underwater and unable to breath, Mark was a relaxed worried, and Molly was a combination or Mike and Me being afraid her ears would not pop and afraid that she would not be able to breathe underwater with the gear. Our instructor walked us through a short tutorial and down we went. As we descended we were to equalize the pressure in our ears to the water by plugging our nose and blowing out. From this point we latched our arms together and started kicking for a bar that was underwater about 25 meters away. The entire time on our way I felt like I was pulling everyone down with me and the coral got closer and closer to my face. The instructor pumped a little more air into my vest and I began to become more buoyant. When we reached the bar underwater we were instructed to kneel down and hold onto it. At this point the photographer took our pictures with Emily and Wally and some other sea creatures. At this point our instructor asked us to swim around in a circle unattached to him to test our abilities. After we were able to perform this task we followed him around the reef where he pointed out large clams, clown fish, different types of coral, and allowed us to experience SCUBA diving. Before our air ran out we headed back to the staging platform where we ascended and finished off our SCUBA diving. Arriving back above water everyone was very excited they chose to do it and everyone agreed that they would do it again if they had the opportunity. The crew was beginning to clean up to prepare to head back to Cairns when we arrived back on the pontoon and we had yet to get the gear off our back and wet suits off. The most difficult part of SCUBA diving is getting the gear on and off. Wet suits are meant to fit snug so that they keep your body warmth inside the suit, this also means they are extremely hard to get off. After fighting with the suit we finally got them off and headed for the boat for our trip home. They offered pictures of the day but they were a little pricy so I found my favorite picture of the day with the turtle and purchased it. If you want to look at pictures of the day go to www.daypix.com and select September 26^th and the trip called SunLovers Reef Tour. Due to an action packed, day many of us decided to take a nap on the way back to the port. When we arrived back on land we had to quickly go to a hostel to find a place to stay for the night. We decided on a place called Shenanigans where the lady at the front desk was extremely nice to us and gave us motel accommodations at the hostel price. We again met up with Meike and Carolin and they had invited us to go to Port Douglas with them the next morning. Mike and I were waiting for the invitation and immediately said yes.

Port Douglas is a small town located north of Cairns, and the main reason we wanted to head to Port Douglas was because there were sandy beaches on the way there. Meike and Carolin picked us up outside of our hostel and we drove to a beach. At the beach we did beach things, like swim, lay out, try to surf, and go for a walk. The surfing was pretty lousy since none of us knew how to and the board they had was a short board. They had a long board in their car when we first got in, but it was obstructing their view, so they had to get rid of it. If we had the long board we may have been more successful at surfing but I am not making any promises. After our attempt to surf Meike and I went on a walk to the right of where we had our stuff because it jutted out into the ocean and it looked like a nice place to walk to. Well on our walk the beach turned into a nude beach and it was mainly guys. Meike and I both felt a little uncomfortable walking along this beach but we were almost to the rocky part so we continued on. In the rocky part we were surprised by people laying out half asleep behind rocks. You only saw the person as you stepped over top of a rock and looked to where you were stepping and sure enough we saw some surprises. When we got to the point we first wanted to get to we didn’t really have the guts to climb the whole way up the rocks in fear of what would be awaiting us at the top so we turned around and headed back to where Mike and Carolin were laying out. When we got back we went for a quick swim then got into the car to continue to Port Douglas. About 5 minutes into the ride Mike looks at me and asks where his bag is… he worries about it for a little and remembers he put it on top of the car. Well light weight bags do not stay on a moving car well so we had to turn around and find it. His bag landed in the middle of the road but luckily all of the passing cars missed his bag with the camera inside it. After he found his camera we were off to Port Douglas no turning around this time. We pulled off the side of the road at a lookout where people were attempting to launch their hang glider. When the wind was right they were off floating above the water and continued to climb higher and higher. We were strictly spectators and did not want to hang glide so we continued on our way to Port Douglas. When we arrived there we walked around the town and Meike told us that it was named “The Loveliest Town in Australia.” It was a quaint town with small shops lining the main street with small diners scattered amongst the shops. At Port Douglas we went to the beach and walked up a small hill that over looked much of the beach of Port Douglas. The sun was beginning to get low in the sky so we decided to grab some lunch and possibly look for a place to sleep for the night. The original plan was to sleep under the stars but this plan was quickly foiled as it began to rain. The second part that nixed our plan was when we searching for a spot near the beach a bunch of crabs scattered as we put a flashlight on the beach. So back to Cairns it was to try a hostel at 10:30 at night. We found a hostel that was still open and found a place to stay for the night. Meike and Carolin got their own room and Mike and I split in different rooms. The following days we continued to joke about the day how it started out good and continually got worse and worse, but Meike and Carolin were good sports about it and didn’t get upset with Mike and me.

The next day Mike left and a true relaxing vacation began. We laid by the lagoon, went out at night, and slept in until about 8. In Cairns we did a little shopping getting gifts and souvenirs and ended up staying in the same hostel for the last few nights. The hostels overall were not the greatest experience of the entire trip. Our least favorites were International Backpackers followed shortly by Jimmy’s Hostel, both places were a little shady and not the most homey. Jimmy’s was the most outgoing with a little place where people hung out at night to talk and share their views on the world. In Jimmy’s my one roommate came in as the other was waking up this was at 6AM. Chuck came in at 6 turned on the lights and wanted to have a conversation with us while he was drunk. He had no idea I was on the top bunk until about 3 minutes after turning the lights on. We learned a little about travel and how we would change things if we were to go a second time. One of the best things we learned is that we will be renting a camper van when we go to New Zealand. It frees you up to travel when you want where you want and see what you want. This is very similar to what Meike and Carolin are doing as they travel along the east coast of Australia. We all enjoyed our time away from Adelaide to soak in the sun, swim with sea creatures, and experience warm weather. Some of the pictures we took do not do the trip justice and only self experience can satisfy the wants of traveling. Sorry this post was extremely long, but I wanted to try noting everything I could remember in the past eight days.

Toga and Planned travels

Last weekend we went to a toga party located in the Hall. Usually Hallies and Village People (depends on where you live) do not get along but we have nothing against Hallies so we decided to go to the their toga party. We were also invited by people from the Hall to go to their party. To begin our party we did a little of pre-gaming with a few games of Dizzy bat. After that we headed down to the party where we had fun meeting new people and dancing our wreaths off of heads. From the toga party we met many new people and we actually enjoyed their type of living better than ours, which made us consider moving to the Hall. Besides the toga party we were looking forward to our trips for spring break. We will leave on the 23rd and get back on the 1st. It should be a very interesting trip with new experiences such as staying in hostels and not having a daily plan of where we are staying for the night. I'm looking forward to it greatly and will hopefully be able to get some underwater pictures while scuba diving.

I Found an Athletic Club a.k.a. Track and Field Team

So this week I responded to an email about a 6km run that is going to be held on the 21 of September. In the email they had set a time to meet every Monday and Friday to get a workout in. I ran down to where I thought they would be meeting and asked an older man if this is where the Bay Fun Run works out and trains. He told me no and this was the athletic club and thought that the people doing the Fun Run worked out on the other side of the street. So I jogged over to the other side of the street and saw people doing something similar to a stepping class. I first thought to myself "You got yourself into the wrong type of Fun Run" so I waited until that stuff was over before I asked to speak with someone in charge. She assured me that I was in the right area and asked me to join in, so there I was jumping rope, squatting with 4 lb dumbells, using elastic bands for resistance, and listening to techno music with her shouting "Alright! Good job! Only 2 more! Almost there!" and so on. At the very end we had a small relay race and if you were not actively racing at the time you were to be doing lunges. The people in the group are not the fastest individuals in Australia and that equated into doing lunges for about 5 minutes straight. So my quads and hammies were feeling a little sore after 5 minutes. To round out the session we were asked to go on a run up to campus and back, I was all for that being that this is what I thought we were going to be doing all along. After the session was over I ran over to the Athletic Club (Track and Field Team) and asked if I could speak to the sprinting coach. I spoke with Tony about joining the team and asked him about the competition. He told me in the up coming weeks they would be burning lanes into the field where they would have meets and practices. I could not attend practice the next day for I had prior commitments of attending the Pancake House which is all you can eat pancakes on Tuesdays for 7 dollars. I did however attend practice on Wednesday still feeling a little sore from Monday's workout (sorry coach). I did a small workout and talked to Tony for a little while about track and what my goals of training with the team would be. He was a very interesting man who I will hopefully get to know a little better as I continue to train. Tomorrow we will be going to the Adelaide Show which is basically a fair/carnival and Saturday night is a toga party. This weekend should be quite intersting with the toga party and also other random activities.

W&J Biker Mates

I had a good feeling about this week and getting a bicycle. I contacted someone online again about getting a bike and told him that I didn't want another "no sale" kind of deal that I had before. I set up a time, which I eventually changed to an earlier day so that I would not have to ride the bike back a total of about 20 km. My housemate, Burf, drove me there and back on Friday night. This same day Stick and I went to the mall where he bought a bike I had looked at before. We looked kind of ridiculous walking through the mall after buying the bike. We had just gone grocery shopping, so I was loaded with 4 grocery bags and carried a backpack full while Stick was behind me dragging a box with a bike inside it. He refused to pay the $16 it would have cost to have the bike assembled there. We also got a few strange looks as we loaded up the bus that was headed for the Medical Centre where we could catch a bus to campus. Luckily when we got on the Loop Bus there were very few people on the bus/van so we asked the driver if he would take us to our doorstep which is really close to one of his stops anyways. He agreed, so Stick and I didn't have to walk across campus loaded with groceries and a bike in a box. I guess you can consider it Christmas in September for him, he opened the box and we began to assemble the bike. After assembling the bike he desperately wanted to go for a ride but we didn't have a pump for the tires. Later that evening we went to pick up my bike and the guy also threw in a helmet. The helmet was a piece and had a few dings and notches out of the helmet and had no pad inserts, but that's ok I'm not picky. When I got home we put my front tire back on and took it for a little spin in the parking lot. We both went to bed early that night because we were planning on going for a ride the next day. I got up around 9:30 and aired up all of our tires and ate breakfast. It was about 11 before we left our room on the bikes and headed to the wooded area between our place and main campus. There are a few trails I found while running that are also very suitable to ride a bike. A few times on hill climbs we asked each other, "why did we want bikes again?" We rode for probably close to 2 hours and decided we would head home. I decided to go down a pretty steep hill and Stick chose to go around due to some loose handlebars. We had planned on a meeting place on the campus side of the bridge. I was the first one there and waited a few minutes wondering where he was because we should have both arrived at about the same time. Next thing I notice is Stick carrying his bicycle over his shoulder rounding the last bend. As he got closer I saw his chain dangling from his rear sprocket set. He sheered the chain due to raw horsepower trying to climb a hill. So now he had a broken bicycle that he purchased one day ago and no way to ride the bike back to the store for a return. We sat in the room pondering a way to get the bike back to the big W, and the only idea we came up with was for me to act as a tow truck and pull him there. Luckily the road to the mall is mostly downhill so I had to do very little pulling. To pull him we were originally going to use a cable and it ended up with him grabbing onto my backpack. When we got to the mall we had to push our bikes through the mall to the big W. I forgot to remind you that this is a Saturday afternoon when the mall is absolutely packed and we had 2 bicycles trying to weave through the mall avoiding running into everyone. We made it to the big W and got the bike exchanged, and struck a deal with the person in the department to let us in the back of the store and assemble to bike there since there was no way for us to get the box home this time. We assembled the bike in the back of the store in about 20 minutes and we headed back to our unit, uphill the entire way. Stick and I were both exhausted after a long day and took a nap and still went to bed extremely early. Hopefully we do not have anymore broken chains or broken parts on the bikes.