It’s been way too long since my last post! This is because
we sort of had a lull in late March/early April and really didn’t do too much.
I switched my internship so I am now at a company called Musica Viva. I’ve been
doing a lot more there in terms of marketing than I was at my first internship,
so that’s been good. Other than that it’s just been a whirlwind of school,
bars, beach, and booking trips! I’m also just about halfway through my semester
abroad, so that’s exciting and terrifying and I’m really just not trying to
think about it. Also I've barely gotten any mail since I've been in Australia, so if you want to send me a note saying how much you love me, or food (I love chocolate) here's my address:
Elizabeth Slattery
60 Tribune Street Apartment 110C
South Brisbane, Queensland 4101
Australia
A few weekends ago we went on a day trip to the Glass House
Mountains and Bribie Island. This trip was organized by ACU’s student
association. We “hiked” up one of the Glass House Mountains, but it really
wasn’t much of a hike. It was a 20-minute uphill walk and that was about it.
The views were really cool, though, so I’m definitely glad we did it. We then went
to a beach at Bribie Island. Since the beach near our apartment is man-made,
it’s always great to have the opportunity to go to a real beach.
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| Glass House Mountains |
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| 8 of the 10 Fairfield girls at Glass House Mtns |
This past weekend, I had an overnight field trip on Moreton
Island for my environmental studies class. There are five of us from Fairfield,
one other American girl, one Australian girl, and three Australian guys in the
class. Our professor has no idea what is going on, so we really were not
looking forward to the trip. We also went out on Friday night, which was a big
mistake. I went to sleep at 5:45 in the morning and woke up at 6:30 to leave
for Moreton. So I got 45 minutes of sleep before my adventures began- not
really an ideal situation.
We had to drive a half hour on a bus and then take an hour
and a half ferry ride to Moreton. Moreton Island is the third largest sand
island in the world, so there are no roads and no running water on the entire
island. This meant that our bus had to four-wheel drive through tons of sand
dunes, which made me feel quite carsick at times. The island was a lot bigger
than we were expecting too, so it took a while to get from one place to
another.
Saturday was a whirlwind of observing sciency things and
collecting tons of data. I’m really not a scientific person, so I have no idea
what any of the data means. We climbed through rocks and swam in a lagoon
before we got to our campsite. Our campsite was quite interesting. Essentially,
it was several tents set up with a few cots in each of them. We had to borrow
sleeping bags from ACU’s international office. There were also bugs EVERYWHERE.
I had a feeling I wasn’t going to sleep that night, which really sucked due to
my lack of sleep the night before. It was also only like 2:00 in the afternoon,
so it really felt like this was going to be the longest day of my life.
After we dropped our stuff off, we had to go through all of
these plants and collect even more data. In order to get to this bush land, we
had to walk through the lagoon. Wearing workout pants and sneakers, we all had
to walk about half a mile through the lagoon with water that was up to my hips.
If you picture a swamp where crocodiles live, that’s essentially what we had to
walk through. Some of the other girls were freaking out and having a lot of
anxiety, but I was just laughing during most of it and trying to take it for
what it was. There were many foreign objects that I felt brushing up against my
legs, but I just tried not to think about it. We then walked through a bunch of
plants and returned back to our campsite where we had to write an essay on the
spot. We wrote the essays in pairs and all ten of us sat at a big table
together and goofed around while we wrote them, so it didn’t really seem like
work.
When we finally finished around 11 at night, we all decided
to go stargazing on the beach. Since Moreton Island is basically deserted,
there are never any people on the beaches. It was absolutely amazing. We all
laid on our backs and stared up at the stars… they have different
constellations than we do at home, so it was really cool to see them, and to
have local Australians point them out to us. Since the tents were infested with
ants and mosquitoes (or “muzzies” as they’re called here), all of the Americans
decided to get our sleeping bags and sleep on the beach. This was one of the
coolest experiences I’ve had, and has always been something I’d wanted to do.
Obviously I didn’t get that much actual sleep (probably just an hour and a
half), but I’m so glad I did it. We got to see the sunrise too, so now I can
say I’ve seen two Australian sunrises on the beach, and I’m hoping to see more
before I leave!
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| Sleeping on the beach |
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| That green blob to the left is me in my sleeping bag |
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| Moreton Island sunrise |
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| Deserted Moreton Island beach |
On Sunday, we had an early breakfast and then took the bus
to go sand tobogganing. We walked from the beach through a foresty part of the
island, and then into the middle where there were MASSIVE sand dunes
everywhere. I’ve never seen anything like it. We climbed up a bunch of huge
sand hills and used these wooden slabs to go sledding down. I may have gotten a
few mouths full of sand, but it was so worth it! Definitely a really cool
experience.
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| Tons of sand |
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| Those little wooden slabs were our toboggans |
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| Even more sand! |
After we packed up our things, we headed back towards where
the ferry dropped us off for our one last activity- snorkeling! It was really
cold out so we didn’t feel like it, but I’m glad we did. I had never been
snorkeling before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. We had to wear wetsuits
that made us float, so that was really fun. We also had flippers, gloves,
goggles, and the snorkel. We saw so many fish! We got to feed bread to some of
them, so they came right up to us and grabbed the bread for our hands. After
snorkeling, we took the ferry and the bus back to good old Urbanest, where I
took the longest shower of my life. Although parts of the trip were a little
questionable (like peeing right outside my tent and almost getting run over by
a car while sleeping on the beach), I’m so glad we got to go. My professor was
a constant form of entertainment as she was completely clueless, and we really
got to bond with the Australians in my class. I also did a whole bunch of
things that would have been so out of my comfort zone before coming to
Australia.
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| Testing out our wetsuits while getting ready to snorkel |
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| Tons of fish! Nicole took this with her GoPro |
Speaking of going out of my comfort zone, I’m leaving for
Spring Break this Saturday! 9 out of the 10 Fairfield girls are going on the
1fish2fish extreme adventures tour. It’s a 9-day/9-night trip that includes a
ton of activities. We will be going to Fraser Island, the Whitsundays, and
Cairns. Here’s the itinerary in case you’re interested in what I’ll be doing: http://www.extremeadventures.com.au/itinerary.jsp?tripId=72
I will have either extremely limited or no wifi while I’m
gone, so don’t worry if you don’t hear from me! Hopefully I’m alive and will be
able to blog when I get back to Brisbane in a few weeks!
