No sleep tonight

So it is Saturday, 9:30 pm. No sleep for me tonight. In 6 hours at 3:30 am the shuttle will come to take Cat and I to the airport. 36 hours of travel later I will arrive in Boston.

But first, let me tell you about my week!

Tuesday I had my Conservation Biology exam. I actually felt really confident about it. Wednesday we went to the reef for the last time. It was a beautiful sunny day. A bit chilly with the wind out on the water, but it was such a great day. I went with Amanda, Annie and her friend Cordelia from Maryland who is visiting this last week. I just did snorkeling and didn't see any turtles or sharks but it was amazing. It went by so fast. I could swim around in the coral forever. It is different every time. I really am going to miss it. We caused a bit of a scandal when they were doing a head count and they couldn't find us. We were up getting warm in the sun on the top deck, sitting wedged between the railing and the captain's room. That night it was the second State of Origin game for rugby so we went into town to a pub called the Courthouse. We watched the game outside on a giant projector. There were so many people there! It was a good game and very close but the Blues beat the Maroons. Booo! One more game to go and they are tied 1 to 1. Thursday I went to Kuranda with Annie and Cordelia. It was an adventure figuring out how to use John's Kuranda bus to get up there but we did it! It was a lovely day of strolling through the stores and doing some souvenir shopping! ;) We were very successful with our purchases. Thursday night I had to do some hardcore studying for my last exam on Friday in Agroecology. I feel fine about that one too. After my exam I headed to Smithfield shops to cancel my Australian bank account. That night we had a final get together of all the people in the lodge who are leaving this weekend. It was a great end to the semester. I am going to miss everyone so much. I have made friends and had experiences that I will always remember....

Today Cat and I went and got Sushi Train together one last time. Then the day was spent cleaning our apartment and packing. It was very sad to put everything away. Now the suitcases are packed, the walls are empty and all thats left is to wait with my friends for the inevitable goodbyes....

Out on the reef!

Stylin' in our wetsuits.

Go Queensland Maroons :) 

And now I'm somehow on my last week

Okay! I can't believe this is my last week in Australia!! Wow.

Alright then, Tuesday was my last day at the zoo. I can't say it was all that exciting. There was not much for us to do actually. I just did the usual things. But I did get to hold a koala for a bit since it was my last day! :) Her name was Willow and she was so soft and cuddly. That was nice, and I got some pictures. At the end of the day I also went to the free-flight bird of prey show which was pretty cool. It was sad to leave but I am ready to move on. I learned a lot during my experience there.

Wednesday I spent the entire day studying for my Conserving Tropical Rainforest exam on Thursday. I literally did nothing else. That night we all got together and did a big review session using an old exam. The studying paid off though, and was definitely needed. It was probably the hardest exam I have ever take! 2.5 hours, 16 essay questions to answer. But I felt good about what I wrote, I studied hard. Thursday night I celebrated the end of my most difficult class and went dancing with my friends.

Friday was spent relaxing and tanning near the pool. It was also my roommate Sam's last day here so I hung out with her a lot. It was sad to see her go :( Saturday I began studying for next exam on Tuesday, I think its going to be pretty easy. I am very comfortable with the material. That night was just spent hanging with friends. Sunday I watched my friends do a reenactment on the Hunger Games, but thats about it! Monday I spent the day studying, tanning by the pool, and getting Sushi Train with my friends Cat and Amanda! Just a few more days!!! Getting really excited to go home.

Banded knob-tailed gecko in my hands! I love them.

Willow and I :)

Beautiful Cairns :) 

White water rafting & studying

Hello!! I had lovely weekend to tell you about. Well, Friday was uneventful, I slept in and wasn't feeling well so I went to bed early to get up at 5 am the next day for white water rafting on the Tully river! After getting ready I went with my friends Annie, Amanda, Cat and Nick on a 30 minute walk to the place where Raging Thunder (the rafting company) was to pick us up. We arrived just in time and were taken to the Adventure Tours headquarters where we checked in. There was some issues at reception where the woman was being crabby and unhelpful as we attempted to update our package to the Extreme Tully (more rapid swimming and rock jumping).We held up the whole line and she confused me with another person, Phillip Beattie. Do I look like a Phillip to you??? Well eventually we got all sorted out and were equipped with a wet suit shirt to keep us warm as it was a rainy day and the water would be cold. We then boarded a gigantic tour bus with lots of other people and took about a two hour drive north to the top of the river. Once we arrived we got off, got set up with a life vest, wind breaker and helmet before hopping onto a boat. We were lucky enough for all 5 of us to be in the same boat and get a great Aussie guide named Cal. Very funny, he made it a great day. Since we were part of the smaller extreme tour we got to go first and went at the level 3-4 rapids at a faster pace. So exhilarating! A quick look at my face in the pictures will give you an idea of how fun it was. We travelled 14 km in a little over four hours with a quick lunch break for kangaroo burgers in the middle. It was breathtaking, rafting in the middle of World Heritage tropical rainforest. At some points along the way we hopped out of the boat and got to swim through the rapids and climb up giant rocks and jump into the river! So great. Now I have to say I did experience two moments that were probably the scariest of my entire life. Going through some of the larger rapids I fell out of the boat twice. Well more like thrown out. (Mind you, Amanda was the only other person to fall out of the boat that day and she only did once, I was the laughingstock of the whole tour) The first time I got stuck underneath the raft when I tried to come up for air, for a few frantic moments I thought I was going to never find the surface. Fortunately, I did. Later in the afternoon when I fell out again it was even worse. This time the rapids swept me under the water for 10 meters and I was underwater for around ten seconds. I could see the surface above me, but no matter how hard I tried I could not reach the surface. Very freaky. When I finally popped up I was way down the river from the boat and had to get rescued by another boat who plopped me on shore so I could wait for my boat to pick me up. They found it pretty hysterical, me standing on the bank, paddle in hand, abandoned. It was kind of funny. Exhausted and exhilarated we finally arrived home at around 6:30 pm starving and ready for dinner. That night I went to my friend Ella's brother's house with some friends but I was ready to go home by 10, I couldn't stay awake a second longer.

Sunday I spent some time by the pool before going with my friends Ian and Jordon to the PhD student's house who I did the dingo volunteering for, Liz. She was having a BBQ for all the volunteers who helped her with her project. It was a lovely afternoon. We sat and talked and had some really great food! It was nice to have something home cooked. And she had so many pets: 2 rats, a bearded dragon, 3 dogs, and a kitten named Miss Pickles. When the sun was setting we walked to Kewarra Beach with the dogs and stayed there for a bit before we went home.

Today was my first day spent on hardcore studying for my exams. My first one is this Thursday. Ahh! Very scary. Tomorrow is my last day at the zoo!

Yupp, that's me screaming

And screaming again..

And again...

My friends, Cal and I

A planned boat flip, me falling in first

Study Break!

This week has been study break for exams which are the next two weeks. It has been good to just relax and not worry about class. I can't believe its almost over.

Lets see, last Friday I went to my last class of the semester, Saturday I went to AjHackets Bungy and watched my friends go bungy jumping. It was right in the middle of the rainforest, so beautiful. I did not do it because I could not bring myself to spend $150 on something that I do not find all that appealing..... That night I went out dancing with my friends. Sunday was my roommate Sam's birthday and her parents were here so we went to the beach even though it was cloudy and got lunch at a nearby restaurant. A tavern burger with everything on it and a side of chips! Nothing better. That night we hung out and watched movies and did some serious roommate bonding. Monday started off as actually a nice day so after a quick trip to uni we caught a bust to Trinity Beach. But it was actually very windy and turned pretty chilly! But it was still perfect for reading a book. I am now on the second book of the Game of Thrones series, I would recommend it to anyone! Tuesday I went to the zoo. What an exhausting day! I did my usual cleaning and handling of the snakes, met a girl who is visiting from England and volunteering. In the afternoon we got to carry around a huge Burmese python. It took three of us to carry her. See the pictures! Then we had to do some hard manual labour, moving these cement bricks from a garden and lugging them across the zoo in a trolly to the maintenance section. So that evening I was too tired to do much else! Yesterday I spent the day doing pretty much nothing but reading, until that night when I went to Zumba. It is so nice to be able to workout again! All that is left on my foot is giant red scar. Today I got up early and went to Smithfield shopping centre with Cat to pick up a few things, I got a QLD State of Origin shirt! This afternoon we have a sort of end of semester ceremony where study abroad students get a certificate for their time here. And thats it for this week, only a couple more to go.....

Bungy Jumping! 

The golden orb weaver, larger than my hand.

The lovely rat room at the zoo

Me and the Burmese python

Cute koalas 

3 weeks....

I'm not sure how but somewhere along the way I went from daily blog posts to weekly ones....

Anyhow! Last Friday I gave two big presentations, one of which was my final for that class. No more Effective Speaking!! That night I went to bed early because I had to wake up at 6 am Saturday to go to the Great Barrier Reef! Well I slept through my alarm and actually woke up at 6:55.... so I had to throw everything together super quickly so my friend Amanda and I could sprint to the bus stop and catch the 7:07 bus into the city. I don't think I have ever gotten ready so fast. What a lovely day it was! It was on and off rainy all day but the water was warm. We went to the wharf and got on the Sea Quest boat which took us out to Norman Reef. It took about an hour to get to the outer reef and am very very glad that I took ginger pills before we left! It was pretty choppy. But the current made snorkeling really good exercise! A friend of mine from class was actually working on the boat! He's from Ecuador. I started out by snorkeling, then I did an intro dive with an instructor, then we had a delicious buffet lunch, went to a new location, and I did another snorkel. It was beautiful! The colors of the corals and fish just blow me away every time! You can't get enough of it. I enjoyed the diving but I think I like snorkeling better. I'm just not comfortable with being that deep underwater, it freaks me out if I think about it too much. But its something you need to experience. There was someone taking pictures of us diving underwater so I have a good picture to share with you. It was a long day and I was exhausted by the time we arrived back at the wharf around 4:30. But the day wasn't over. That night I went to a bonfire on the beach with friends. I left early though because I was so tired!

Sunday was a day of relaxing with the roommates and finishing my essay due last Monday with my partner, Greg. I feel good about our work. We should do well.

Monday I began my final assignment of the semester which I handed in today! Nothing more until exams!!!!! I can't believe it. I worked so hard this semester it is good to be nearly done. Oh and I went swimming in the pool in the rain :) Tuesday I spent the day at the zoo. Another great day of volunteering! I love spending time with all the snakes and lizards. I had lots of free time this visit to handle whatever reptiles I wanted. And this time I didn't do painting, but gardening! I ended the day with some weed pulling. But I even enjoyed that.  It was fun working with another zookeeper who works in reptiles named Hirani. Wednesday was my last long day of class. After class we walked to the shopping center and were going to take the bus back because we had a lot to carry and then it was a half hour late! The bus actually showed up at the same time as the next bus that comes after it. Wednesday was also the State of Origin. It is kind of an all-star Rugby game. Queensland picks the best players from their state and faces off against New South Wales. Maroon vs. Blue. A very big deal here. Obviously I back the Queenslanders! They won :) And there was a great fight during the game! I felt very Ozzie watching the game with my Australian friends ;)

Today was spent doing nothing special. I handed in my last assignment and went to my second to last class! Tomorrow is the last day. Then a week off before finals begin!

Oh and here are some photos of my campus at uni! 

The boat!

The ocean!

The walk to uni from the lodge.

Cloud covered mountains at campus!

Entrance to campus

Me scuba diving and kneeling on the ocean floor! Yes that is a real fish in the picture.

One month to go!

I cannot believe I come home exactly one month from today. It is unbelievable. It has gone by so fast. I have one more week of class before exams! This week went by especially quick. I will try to remember everything I did.

The weekend was nothing special. Just hanging out with friends. I met someone from France! That was a new one I think. Monday I did work and got my stitches out!!!!! So exciting. It is so nice to be able to walk around properly again. But I'm not used to paying at the end of the appointment so I was so distracted and happy I got my stitches out that I walked right out and forgot to pay! They had to bill me, another Meghan moment. Tuesday I got to back to the zoo for the first time in 2 weeks! It was so great. I missed it so much. Lots of cleaning and snake handling. A really good day. Oh and I painted a fence for the croc park. Felt very Tom Sawyer. And I got black oil-based paint on my leg that WILL NOT come off. That night I worked on my group project due tomorrow. Wednesday was spent at Uni.... Today I did work that I needed to do and finished my group project and my final assignment for Effective Speaking. I only have one more assignment to do before exams!! Thank god. I am getting burnt out. For the first time I am actually starting to look forward to coming home. Of course I have always missed everyone, but I really miss some things now. I feel out of the loop! And I'm getting poorer by the second.

Oh and sad news. No more dingo fieldwork :( Of course I miss my last two sessions because of my foot and then she unexpectedly ends the fieldwork early! Oh well. She is having a party for all of us who helped her and I will be able to use her as a reference in the future.

Sydney on wheels

So on Saturday we got a ride to the airport for our 720 flight. I checked in and got my first wheelchair of the weekend. Woo! We even got to use the elevator. Pretty special. I thought the D they put on my boarding pass was for disabled when it was really just for domestic since we were leaving from the international terminal. Typical Meghan moment.

We got to board the plane first and I slept the whole flight it was great. Then we took a shuttle to Nomads West End Backpackers in central Sydney. After dropping our stuff we made the first attempt to get a wheelchair at a pharmacy in the world square. Unsuccessful. They told us we should go to a hospital and that pharmacies didn't do that here. None were nearby so I just gave up on it for a bit. Sushi and miso soup for lunch! We then went to the botanical gardens which were lovely, but my foot was in serious pain so we went to the Sydney hospital which was actually really pretty. But they were mean there and told us that essentially we were stupid to think they would have  wheelchairs to rent and gave us a list of pharmacies to go to. So the pharmacy people from before did not know what they were talking about. None of the pharmacies were close so we went to the Art Gallery of NSW. The paintings were amazing! From 17th to 20th century. No pictures obviously. From there I decided the wheelchair was necessary so we took a quick cab to the nearest pharmacy, got the wheelchair and took a taxi back. It was pretty funny though as we were trying to leave the pharmacy. I am in the wheelchair one minute and my friend Annie pushes me out the door, but there is ledge so it gets stuck and she nearly dumps me into the street. We were quite the sight. The wheelchair took some getting used to. We then returned to the botanical gardens and went deeper into them and started up the walkway along the harbor to Mrs. Macquarie's chair. We saw hundreds of flying foxes! So cool. There was an especially funny moment when I was actually in tears from laughing because the feet of the wheelchair fell off and Amanda had to actually use this wrenchlike tool to get them back on, we made a complete scene right tin the middle of the walkway. However, we got a spectacular view of the harbor, the bridge and the opera house. It was a lovely day, chillier than we were used to. Low 70's with a brisk breeze. We then walked towards the Opera House and got a look of it up close. At this point we came to Cirqular Quay and walked around there for a bit. We then had a long walk/ride back up to the hostel. Annie and Amanda certainly strained some muscles pushing me up all those hills.. I felt so bad! I wouldn't have gotten it if I really didn't need it. Oh, and the whole day I got weird looks whenever I would stand up to get a closer look at something or to pose for a picture. I think people thought I was a faker. Once we got back we were ravenous so we made some pasta in the hostel kitchen and then we to see The Avengers at the closest cinema. IT WAS HUGE. It was so big that we had assigned seats. Anyway, the movie was amazing and everyone should see it.

The next day we took the free local bus back down to Cirqular Quay to the wharf to catch the ferry to Manly. I absolutely loved it there. We walked (well I rode) around the cute shops and went to Manly and Shelly beach. We relaxed and tanned a little in the sun (obviously elevating my foot out of the sand). There were big waves and lots of surfers. We then walked along the Esplanade and through the markets, had a peanut butter sandwich (the main meal of the weekend), and went along the manly scenic walkway before grabbing the ferry back. We had to leave fairly early to make it in time for the rugby game at ANZ stadium between the Sydney Roosters and the Newcastle Knights. We were only 20 minutes late. I love rugby! It is a fun game to watch. And the roosters won even though they had been doing bad lately so I like to think that we brought them luck ;) That night we were all exhausted so we just chilled.

The next day Amanda and Annie woke up early to catch a train to go hiking in the Blue Mountains, I obviously could not join them on this so I had booked a 4 hour spa treatment instead. :) I slept in before catching a taxi to a tall swanky building, 99 on York Street. There I took an elevator up to the 7th floor to Ayurve Spa. So nice. I got a body scrub, body massage, manicure, pedicure and facial. It was just what I needed. Ultimate relaxation. We all arrived back at the hostel at just about the same time. Since it was our last night in the city we decided to have a nice dinner out. We had to return to the wheelchair back to the pharmacy in Paddington so we had dinner there. We somehow stumbled upon the MOST expensive restaurant possible, La Scala, but it was extremely delicious. How I love risotto! It was a perfect end to the weekend.

The next day we woke up at 3:30 am for our 6 am flight. We arrived back to Cairns at about 930 so we had the entire day still.

I would just like to say that after this trip I am officially an expert at hailing cabs!

The rest of this week has been quite boring so far. Tuesday I napped and went to the pool to tan. Wednesday I had class all day and Thursday I just did work and class before hanging with my friends.

Today I had class. I had to present a debate arguing against the world adopting China's one-child policy. I think it went pretty well. The rest of the day will be spent reading Game of Thrones!  

 The world square

Hyde Park

Good times in the wheelchair

Flying foxes!

On the ferry

Manly beach

Rugby time

Sydney Today!

Hello everyone! Happy cinco de mayo! Not a very popular holiday here. It's 5 am and we are about to leave for the airport to go to Sydney until Tuesday!

So this week. Wednesday was a long day on my foot with all my classes. My foot got really sore so I did not go to class on Thursday, it was not worth it for the short time I would be at Uni. To avoid walking I have been biking to class! I know it sounds weird but it puts a lot less pressure on my foot and I get there much much faster. Thursday was spent recovering on the couch. Friday I went to Uni for one class then came back and went to my doctor's appointment. Essentially he said I was doing a good job taking care of it but that I needed another week with stitches. So combined with that and the fact that the side of my foot was starting to hurt from walking on it funny. I have decided to do Sydney in a wheelchair. There will be just too much walking and I will otherwise slow my friends down. I am sure that will be some great pictures to go with it! Last night we also celebrated my friend Danielle's birthday and went out to dinner at this cute Italian place in the city. I left early and managed to get a decent amount of sleep.

Time to go! Blog you soon.

Recovery

I wish I had something interesting to report, but I don't. I have spent the past 5 days lying around, resting my foot, and writing two giant papers. Thankfully they are both done! I went to the pool twice, but it hasn't been very sunny. My foot is healing well though and I should be able to get my stitches out on Friday. Tomorrow I go back to class for the first time since before break. I can't wait for Sydney on Saturday!!!

Here is a lovely picture of the wound :)

Croc Watch & Stitches! (Unrelated)

Okay!

I have had a bit of an eventful week since I got back from holiday! Let me fill you in.

The weekend was the most boring part:
Saturday I did work the whole day so I would be able to go out with my friends visiting from Townsville that night. Sunday I lounged around the whole day and caught up on my favorite TV shows that I had missed while I was away. I went to bed early because I had dingo early in the morning.

Monday I woke up at 3:30 am so Liz could pick me up at 4 am for fieldwork. I liked this site. It was easy cane to walk through, nothing like the last one. It was a cool and comfortable morning. We didn't catch as much in the cane, probably because it was sparser than normal, however we did catch a lot in the forest! Lot's of cute melomys. There was an especially cute one with white spots that Liz had caught before and named Bambi. Just catching, weighing, measuring and tagging, the usual. We got through it pretty quickly and I was back to sleep by 9:30 am. The rest of the day I did work on my major essays I have coming up.

Tuesday was a rather eventful day. I went to the zoo, like usual. The morning went normal, the usual feeding and cleaning of the lizards and frogs, followed by the rat room. The afternoon, after lunch, is when things got interesting. A new crocodile arrived, from Hartley's, a crocodile place up the road. Her name was Oprah. She weighed over 200 kg and was over 3.5 meters long. Awesome I know. This is where the cool part comes in. I basically lived through an episode of Crocodile Hunter. She arrived in on a stretcher of sorts, she was strapped down, sedated, her mouth was taped shut, and her eyes were covered. I got to help carry her to her new enclosure!!!!!!!!! We picked her up off the truck and carried her to where she would be staying with her new boyfriend, Zac, who made her look petite. They obviously couldn't let me into the enclosure since he was there but before they lifted her in I got to touch her! I held up her tail and her foot, and pet her stomach, (surprisingly soft). Imagine being up close with a croc like that! Incredible experience. I then got to watch them take off all her straps, and then, just like the show, it took two of them to sit on her back while they took off the tape and ropes on her mouth. Then I handed them the syringes which had the stuff to wake her back up. After that I was put on croc watch and had to wait for her to wake up. It took nearly a half an hour but when she did she went right in the water and her and Zac immediately started mating. They wasted no time on that! Then I took some time to exercise one of the black headed pythons on the lawn before being put back on croc watch to make sure Zac wasn't too aggressive with her. Too bad that wasn't the most eventful part of my day......

That night I was hanging with my friends. I was walking around barefoot and stepped on a large piece of glass. I didn't even notice at first but all of the sudden I look down and my foot is profusely bleeding. There are two long deep gashes in the arch of my right foot. I'm bleeding all over the place and my friends tell me I'm going to need stitches. So before I know it I'm being carried to the car and traveling to the 24 hour clinic in Cairns. The doctor sees me fairly quickly, and I am given some seriously painful shots of anesthetic in my foot. 11 stitches later and I'm free to go. (Not before paying a solid $230 bill). I'm lucky I didn't rip any tendons the cuts were so deep. Just enough to tear some nerves that will keep my big toe tingling for the next 6-12 months. Stuck on crutches for the next two weeks. This same day I also bought my non-refundable ticket to Sydney for next weekend. Guess I'll be doing the city in a wheelchair! I really am so so lucky though it wasn't any worse.

Wednesday morning was thankfully a public holiday, Anzac Day, so I slept in. I wake up and take one step out of bed, feeling kind of dizzy. I take another step and a pool of blood appears below my foot. I keep walking, more dripping more puddles, as I feel myself nearly passing out I bang on my roommates door telling her to come out. She finds my lying on the floor, still conscious, near large puddles of blood. I figure my stitches have somehow ripped open, and we don't know what else to do, so she calls 000 (the equivalent of 911). They promptly arrive and take off my bandage and assure me that my stitches have not ripped open, but that I cannot be walking on my foot anymore. They clean me up give me a new bandage and are soon on their way. I know it seems unnecessary for them to have come, but believe me, at the time it was pretty scary.
I spent the rest of the day relaxing and alternately either being in extreme pain from my foot, or extremely sick from the codeine. Chinese and chocolate were obviously on the menu. I don't know what I would have done without my roommates to help me!

Today I did work and rested. I went to see the doctor across the street to get all the information I needed and to pick up a pair of crutches. I even made my way to dinner at the dining hall! Tomorrow will be much of the same, relaxing and working on my papers. Class is not possible at the moment but I should be back next week. Sadly no dingo fieldwork or zoo either :( .... or camping at Fitzroy island this weekend :( :(

Well that was my exciting week! Hopefully it continues to get more boring.

Lecture Recess

Okay wow! So now I have to fill you in on my entire lecture recess! I figure the best way to do it is to quickly go through everything I did and then use lots of pictures to really illustrate it, because most of the names I give you won't mean anything to you. The weather all week, besides the last day, was great. Bright, sunny crisp and clear. Cooler than I'm used to, and without the humidity.

We were picked up from our hostel in Adelaide at about 6:30 am on Sunday by the Groovy Grape tour van. We picked up a bunch of other people so there was a group of us, all around the same age, from Mexico, Switzerland, Brazil, Germany, UK and France. After traveling about an hour we arrived at the Sea Link ferry  and took it to Kangaroo Island. It was about an hour but I was still exhausted so I slept the whole time. When we got there we met up with our tour guide Luca. An Italian who has been living on the island for almost 10 years. We stopped at the IGA to pick up some snacks and then went to our first lookout, at Pennington bay. An overlook of the ocean and cliffs. Then we drove more down an extremely bumpy dirt road. Most of the driving we did on Kangaroo Island was on roads like that. We arrived at Vivonne Bay where we did some sea kayaking down this beautiful river. That was one of my favorite things. Then we had some lunch at the icnic area before heading to a nearby gift shop. On the way to our next destination, Flinders National Park, we saw an echidna walking across the road, which was really cool becuase they are so rare! When we arrived at the park we went to see the Remarkable Rocks, this really cool huge rock formation jutting out into the ocean. Then we went to Admirals Arch where we went to an outlook and saw fur seals and Aussie Sea Lions. So cute!! Then we went to Hanson Bay Reserve where we go to see koalas, kangaroos, and parrots. We walked around through the eucalyptus trees and saw an awesome sunset. We stayed in a farmhouse hostel. We played UNO, had pasta, and sat around a bonfire. The sweedish girls did some weird yodeling.

The next day we woke up early and went back to Vivonne Bay, this time to Ellen Point. Gorgeous. A scrubby rock outcropping looking over the water, complimented by the sunrise. We saw another wild koala as we were watching along. Then we went to Fur Sea Bay where we taken onto the beach and got up close with the wild sea lions! We couldn't get too close but we were right on the beach with them! After that we went dune boarding. We had to hike up this extremely steep dune with our sandboards and then slide down. So cool! After that we drove to Snelling Beach where we got to go swimming and tanning. The water was so cold, but so refreshing!  We had lunch there before driving back to the ferry and heading to the mainland. We said goodbye to everyone and then grabbed some chinese "wokinabox" for dinner before returning to the same hostel we stayed in the first night. We were buggered and went to sleep early.

Tuesday we woke up early to get picked up by another Groovy Grape tours van, this time manned by the enthusiastic Aussie named Lorry. He was funny, very strong accent. He's somewhat of a bogun. On this trip we had an older Aussie couple (Barb and Wayne, so adorable), along with others from Sweeden, Swiss-Germans, French, a lot of people from Europe. This day was a lot of driving, we had many miles to cover. So for the first bit I just took a nap. Lorry educated us on the Murray River system as we crossed it on the Jervois Ferry before arrivng at our first stop in Meningie where we picked up a few things and got a view of the lake. After more driving we stopped at a Cafe to get some 'pies and pasties', filled with meat of course. We also stopped at the Victora/South Australia line to get some pictures with the signs as we crossed over. Then towards the end of the day, after more driving and shopping ofr dinner, we went to Mckenzie Falls. It was a steep hike walk down, but they were lovely. We saw a kookaburra there too. When we left we took 'Mount Difficult Road' (yupp that was the actually name), to get Brambuk Backpackers where we spent the night. It had super comfy couches and a fire in the living room. We had a delicious BBQ with more kangaroo. Yum. It may seem like we didn't do a lot today but the drive was so relaxing, there was always a beautiful landscape (mainly farmland and pastures with cattle), and I read a good book.

Wednesday we started off early and hiked the Pinnacle at Grampians National Park. This was another highlight of the trip. It took about 2 and half hours to the top and back. It was amazing. We walked upwards over rocks to the this incredible view that looked out over the whole area and the network of mountains. I don't even know how to describe it. We then drove to Lake Pertobe Reserve, a really pretty park and picnic area. We had lunch and then we played a game of Cricket! We were split into two teams, team smily face and team sad face. I was on team smiley face. 'Backyard Cricket' is much more interesting than the game you see on TV. It was actually pretty fun. I wasn't very good at it, but I did get a chance to be the bowler. Unfortunately our team lost, but we had a great time. Hereafter the Great Ocean Road really starts! Next we left for the Bay of Islands, another lookout spot over the ocean, then the London Bridge, or well the half thats left of it anyway! Apparently a couple went out there when the whole formation used to be attached to the mainland but then the connecting piece broke and they had to be rescued by helicopter! London bridge really did fall down! Then we watched a perfect sunset at the 12 apostles. More rocks in the sea. It was all lovely and purple and gold and perfect. We stayed at the 13th Apostle, the name of our hostel.  Lorry made pasta bolonagse (dont know how to spell that) and got comfy in bean bag chairs and watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Thursday, the last day of our Groovy Grape tour, we left in the morning for Apollo Bay, called paradise by the sea. That was just a quick stop before starting the REAL Great Ocean Road, where you really are driving right against the ocean. We stopped at the Cape Patton lookout then went to what appeared to be a camping site but had all these king parrots that we fed and we had them all over our arms and our heads! Lot's of fun. Then we stopped in Lorne, a small surf town. We had lunch by the ocean and our lunch was what is apparently an Aussie classic, a chip sandwich. Which is essentially bread with butter, tomato sauce and french fries, folded together. Sounds weird I know, I was hesitant too, but it tastes fantastic! You just can't think of how horrible it is for you. At the beach were were surronded by seagulls and cockatoos. I fed the cockatoos and they jumped right on me! So cool. Then we went to Belle's beach, another surfing place. We also stopped in Torquay, the home of RipCurl, a famous surfing store, inventors of the wet suit. We went to the outlets and I got a new bikini and flip flops for cheap! Then we made the final trip into the actual city of Melbourne. I will never be able to call Cairns a city again. Melbourne is HUGE. Skyscrapers and everything. Cairns is nothing like that. It was awesome. After being stuck in traffic for a while we were finally dropped off in front of our hostel, Melbourne International Backpackers. It was a pretty nice place. We got a room to ourselves which was great. We decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner out, so we got ready and walked around until we found Della Nonna, a cute and fairly classy Italian restaurant with reasonable prices. The linguini with seafood was excellent. We had a relaxing dinner, walked around the city, and crashed pretty early, it had been a long week.

Friday was our last day, so we woke up at 6:30 to make the most of our day before catching our 4:30 flight. After grabbing  a croissant and tea for breakfast we toured the city and simply just walked around and took in the sights. Not much was open obviously but we did some great window shopping in stores we could never hope to afford! This was the only day it was raining but by midday it did let up, it wasn't cold so we didn't mind. Once things opened we did some shopping, I got a 'singlet' (tank top) and some sushi. We walked through chinatown. We strolled through the mall. At 10 am the ACMI (Australia Centre for the Moving Image) was open so we went there. We got in for free and looked at all the interactive exhibits. It was all about the history of the moving image, from sound, to movies to televsion, video games, and it was all interactive. Very interesting. There had some stuff from movie sets, like a dress Nicole Kidmen wears in Moulin Rouge (one of my favorite moves). After spending a couple hours there we went across the street to a restaurant called MoVida were we had some delicious tapas. There was this chilled almond soup with grape granita, I've never had anything like it. Then all we had time for was to head to the hostel, grab our bags, get a taxi (yes, I hailed my first taxi!) then go to the airport. It was an easy flight back, I got to sit next to Annie, and before I k new it I was back at the lodge in Cairns. My trip was over! But what a trip it was.