Let's rewind... Last weekend I flew to Melbourne with my three girl friends. We absolutely loved it. This was a much needed trip as we grew bored of campus and bored of the Gold Coast. Melbourne is a city along the southern coast in the state/territory called Victoria (I live in Queensland). It had a great mix of modern architecture mixed with beautiful old buildings. We felt it had the most European feel to it, at least compared to anything here we've experienced thus far. I hear there are beautiful must-see botanical gardens, I wouldn't know because Amy and I accidentally took a 4 hour nap after out lunch outing on the Thursday we arrived. Thursday night we went to Lygon Street, which was the small Italian section of the city. We were skeptical about the idea of Italian food in Australia, but it turned out to be the best meal I've had in a month. We found a coupon for a free bottle of wine with $50 purchase. I had a bowl of Linguini in garlic and olive oil with calamari, mussels, clams, and shrimp. Afterwords we had some delicious gelato. This than became a once a day treat/problem/addiction.
The next day, Friday, Hilary and Eliza had planned to do a tour and Amy and I were just going to stay bck in the city. Late Thursday night I had the feeling that we really should go. Easily was almost the worst decision of my life (not going that is). What we did was unbelievable, word's can hardly describe it. We did the "Great OCean Road tour". Basically sat on a small bus and drove through these windy roads along the cliffs over the ocean on the southern coat. We stopped at a beach, I took lots of pictures and even got several good pictures from the bus. Along the drive we also just happened to see a bunch of real life wild kangaroo's. There was one that was massive - definitely the alpha male. I would not mess with him. Thankfully I brought my camera with the intense zoom so I got some close ups.
We went to a camp where you can often see wild koala's and wild parrots will land on you. The parrot's were the highlight of my day, by far the happiest I've felt the whole time I've been here because it was just so cool! They are obviously not afraid of human's but they do live in the wild. You could pretend to have food in your hand and they would just land on you. They also seemed to really love my head. Just like the Kangaroo's Koala's were a lot cuter and seemed a lot less drugged than those at the animal sanctuary. (This is probably not true but it was still a lot cooler seeing them just hangin' out in the wild)
We then got to see a temperate rainforest. This was really cool. Not much to say than it was very green, many interesting and huge trees. We saw some kinda that was second biggest to the redwood's in Cali. Now I can't wait to see a tropical rainforest. Apparently on the continent of Australia you can find every type of rainforest there is (3 or 4?).
The day just kept getting more spectacular as our destinations changed. We saw a very important landmark called the 12 apostles. Huge sand stacks (sand deposits) off the coast, line by huge beautiful cliffs. I took about 500 pictures. They were named this way because there were originally 12 of these large stacks, now they are no longer all visible because they've been washed away or collapse by the water.
We then went to another magnificent site, called Loch Ard Gorge. These were really just more huge beautiful cliffs over the coast line, with caves in the water, etc. We were able to walk down onto a beach outlooking a waterway between two cliffs. .Really nothing I can say that the pictures will not display other than the pictures do not do these sites justice.
Last we saw the London bridge. a marooned large cliff sat a decent distance away from the coastline. These two pieces of land had been connected until 1990, (my arrival into the world shook the earth) when the bridge collapsed. Our tour guide told us the story about the couple that was stranded on the island. During the huge rescue efforts, the news copters came and the couple hid their faces because they were cheating on their spouses! Karma.
This day was truly the best experience I've had so far here. I will probably never see anything like these locations again in my life.
The following day we spent the day exploring the city of Melbourne. First we went to the Queen Victoria Market. There were some cool aboriginal things, and I bought a new pair of sunglasses, but it wasn't anything more spectacular than the Columbus flea market. Same concept. After we dropped out stuff off at our hostel, we went to Federation Square. This is a part of the city with some shopping, but the focal point was this really cool building, containing the National Gallery of Victoria and some sort of moving art museum. Outdoors there are often performances on the modern/cobblestone steps. There was some sort of concert while we were there. We went into the NGV, and it was really cool. I enjoyed the aboriginal art. We also saw really cool street art nearby. Overall, I loved Melbourne. I hope I can return.
And for the actual best part of the weekend. The pumpkin pizza. We went to this really cute restaurant/bar, sat outside, had this minty fruity delicious pitcher with some alcohol called pimms no. 1, which was also delicious. But the pumpkin pizza was by far the best thing that has happened to us in the last month. So. Good.
Since we've been back the stress of school work has hit... but still I've done a lot of procrastinating. There is just something about being in Australia that makes school work un-appealing.
We couldn't wait for the arrival of our first good weather weekend back on campus, so Thursday we set out to the beach early. Only had a couple sunny hours before a drizzle turned into a pour. So Friday we decided not to take any chances and lounged by the pool. Saturday Amy and I went with our Aussie friend out on his boat. We went down the main river and stopped at our own private little beach. After swimming and relaxing for a bit we took the boat out again and made another stop to get gelato. On the way (while I was driving) we saw a school of dolphins! There were so many and they were swimming right by our boat. The weather was perfect, we had a great day. Sunday before buckling down and finishing my assignment, I spent more time by the pool getting sunburnt. Turns out it's a lot easier here.
This coming weekend we are going on a trip to a place called Whitsunday... We will be staying two nights on a boat and snorkeling along part of the Great Barrier Reef!!! I am VERY excited about this since this is like the biggest reason I came here. But I am very nervous because I hear there are supposed to be thunderstorms up north :( Go figure.
until next time.....
The next day, Friday, Hilary and Eliza had planned to do a tour and Amy and I were just going to stay bck in the city. Late Thursday night I had the feeling that we really should go. Easily was almost the worst decision of my life (not going that is). What we did was unbelievable, word's can hardly describe it. We did the "Great OCean Road tour". Basically sat on a small bus and drove through these windy roads along the cliffs over the ocean on the southern coat. We stopped at a beach, I took lots of pictures and even got several good pictures from the bus. Along the drive we also just happened to see a bunch of real life wild kangaroo's. There was one that was massive - definitely the alpha male. I would not mess with him. Thankfully I brought my camera with the intense zoom so I got some close ups.
We went to a camp where you can often see wild koala's and wild parrots will land on you. The parrot's were the highlight of my day, by far the happiest I've felt the whole time I've been here because it was just so cool! They are obviously not afraid of human's but they do live in the wild. You could pretend to have food in your hand and they would just land on you. They also seemed to really love my head. Just like the Kangaroo's Koala's were a lot cuter and seemed a lot less drugged than those at the animal sanctuary. (This is probably not true but it was still a lot cooler seeing them just hangin' out in the wild)
We then got to see a temperate rainforest. This was really cool. Not much to say than it was very green, many interesting and huge trees. We saw some kinda that was second biggest to the redwood's in Cali. Now I can't wait to see a tropical rainforest. Apparently on the continent of Australia you can find every type of rainforest there is (3 or 4?).
The day just kept getting more spectacular as our destinations changed. We saw a very important landmark called the 12 apostles. Huge sand stacks (sand deposits) off the coast, line by huge beautiful cliffs. I took about 500 pictures. They were named this way because there were originally 12 of these large stacks, now they are no longer all visible because they've been washed away or collapse by the water.
We then went to another magnificent site, called Loch Ard Gorge. These were really just more huge beautiful cliffs over the coast line, with caves in the water, etc. We were able to walk down onto a beach outlooking a waterway between two cliffs. .Really nothing I can say that the pictures will not display other than the pictures do not do these sites justice.
Last we saw the London bridge. a marooned large cliff sat a decent distance away from the coastline. These two pieces of land had been connected until 1990, (my arrival into the world shook the earth) when the bridge collapsed. Our tour guide told us the story about the couple that was stranded on the island. During the huge rescue efforts, the news copters came and the couple hid their faces because they were cheating on their spouses! Karma.
This day was truly the best experience I've had so far here. I will probably never see anything like these locations again in my life.
The following day we spent the day exploring the city of Melbourne. First we went to the Queen Victoria Market. There were some cool aboriginal things, and I bought a new pair of sunglasses, but it wasn't anything more spectacular than the Columbus flea market. Same concept. After we dropped out stuff off at our hostel, we went to Federation Square. This is a part of the city with some shopping, but the focal point was this really cool building, containing the National Gallery of Victoria and some sort of moving art museum. Outdoors there are often performances on the modern/cobblestone steps. There was some sort of concert while we were there. We went into the NGV, and it was really cool. I enjoyed the aboriginal art. We also saw really cool street art nearby. Overall, I loved Melbourne. I hope I can return.
We couldn't wait for the arrival of our first good weather weekend back on campus, so Thursday we set out to the beach early. Only had a couple sunny hours before a drizzle turned into a pour. So Friday we decided not to take any chances and lounged by the pool. Saturday Amy and I went with our Aussie friend out on his boat. We went down the main river and stopped at our own private little beach. After swimming and relaxing for a bit we took the boat out again and made another stop to get gelato. On the way (while I was driving) we saw a school of dolphins! There were so many and they were swimming right by our boat. The weather was perfect, we had a great day. Sunday before buckling down and finishing my assignment, I spent more time by the pool getting sunburnt. Turns out it's a lot easier here.
This coming weekend we are going on a trip to a place called Whitsunday... We will be staying two nights on a boat and snorkeling along part of the Great Barrier Reef!!! I am VERY excited about this since this is like the biggest reason I came here. But I am very nervous because I hear there are supposed to be thunderstorms up north :( Go figure.
until next time.....
Nice photos and love hearing your stories about adventures.
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