amazing how time is going by...
So somehow I only have a little over a week of class left in Australia, could someone please tell me when that happened? Cause I feel like I've just gotten here and I'm already thinking about packing to come back the USA...kinda weird.
Anyway, this past weekend was simply awesome. Lara, Mville and I along with the amazing help of our Aussie friend Claire took a trip down to Margaret River...one of the biggest winery regions in Australia. So needless to say we did some wine tasting over the course of the weekend.
We left on Friday afternoon and got to MR around 3:30 where the three of us had some time to walk around the town before most of the shops closed at 5. We got some time to relax then before getting some quality dinner at the Goodfella's Cafe where the three of us split a bottle of wine between us. After the meal we met up with Claire and her boyfriend at one of the two bars in the town for another couple drinks before headin back to the hostel to sleep cause we had to be up ealry for our tour in the morning on Saturday.
Saturday Cheers Scenic & Winery tours picked us up at 9AM at our hostel to take us on a half-day tour of the area. We first went to the Lake Cave where we climbed down and back up over 300 steps to see one of the 50 caves in the area but one of the more popular ones. After the hour tour of the cave we got driven down to the Kari Forrest and then up to Redgate Beach for scenic views. From the beach we were taken to the Redgate winery for a tour and a tasting of the wines. After trying around a dozen wines we were then taken to a few more sites along Surfpoint before heading back to the hostel around 1pm.
For the afternoon we walked up to some shops and got some lunch in town before coming back and relaxing in the hostel for a bit. Fellow Eloners Shannon and Justine were actually in MR over the weekend too and saw us walking around the town that afternoon and then we later learned that they were staying in the same hostel as us. So we met up with them late in the afternoon to hang out before the 5 of us went to dinner together that night.
Shannon and Justine made the trip for me though when they let me take their hired car out for a drive during Saturday afternoon. They had hired the car so that they could do some site-seeing of their own on Sunday but when Lara told them that it's been a goal of mine to drive at some point in Australia they gave me the keys and let me drive for a bit. I loved it and it definitly only made me want to drive more! You have to concentrate so hard on what you're doing tho because its not so bad to be on the other side of the road, it's the sitting on the left hand side of the car that really throws you off. Saturday night was really chill, not like their was a whole lot to do in MR anyway but yea we went to bed kinda early.
Sunday was a day to waste because our ride home was picking us up around 1 from the hostel so we just hang around the town for the morning and kept trying to figure out ways to waste time basically until we were going home. Ended up having some brekky...sitting in the "park" for a bit (the park consited of a short walkway, some grass and a bench)....and then getting some lunch and doing a bit more shopping. On the way home we stopped in the MR Chocolate and Cheese Factories and stopped at Sandalford Winery for a tasting. We then drove up to Busselton where we had lunch along the beach and saw the largest wooden jetty (or pier) in the southern hemisphere..over a mile long. Then we made an express trip home to get some work done before classes on Monday.
Basically at this point I only have two papers for one class and a final exam in each of my other two classes to do before the semester is over. We have one week of class left next week, followed by a weekend trip to Rottnest Island, then a study week, then Lara and I head over east to Sydney and Melbourne before coming back for the last of our finals and pack to come back the the US.
That's about it for now.....until next time!
the 6 of us at Nature's Window
Life since the outback...
So since we've been back from our expedition to the Outback classes have pretty much taken up most of the time.
I've turned in my big politics paper, taken my second Law test and started preparing for my presentation in my gender studies class. All that I have left for the semester is two finals and a paper for my gender studies class....and three weeks to take care of most of that.
Last weekend was really low key, didn't go out at night at all, but we did some more exploring around Perth and found this place called Harbour Town...basically a huge mall, but of outlets with really cheap stuff in them and lots of good deals on stuff. We pretty much spent all of last Sunday there after doing absolutly nothing on Saturday.
I was suppoesd to start my volunteer job at Boronia (women's correctional facility) this week but the women I would be working for forgot I was supposed to come and didn't plan anything at all for me to do....so that pretty much was a dud. She claims that she's going to get it worked out this week and I can start this coming Wednesday....but we'll see if that actually happens or not.
Friday was Oktoberfest...curtin uni style.....basically school sponsored drinking in the Guild (same as if Elon sponsored an Oktoberfest and held it in Moseley). It cost us $15 to get in and that got us a free 500mL beer stein to fill with one of the dozen beers they had for sale.....to fill the stein tho it cost $7 so yea only did once cause I didn't feel like wasting that much money on a beer. The event took place from 4pm till 11pm and then they had a free bus to Northbridge afterwards but by 11 no one was in the mood to head all the way into the city so we just went back and ate some food (a Sandy's or Domino's delivery would have come in handy right around that time....but not in Australia).
Yesterday (Saturday) was one of the best day's that we've had weather wise since we've been here. So Lara, Mville, Sandra and I hoped an early bus and headed down to Fremantle for most of the day. We walkled around some of the markets before getting some ice cream and coffee and relaxing along the street for a while.
Now we're gettin ready for another week of classes and trying to see if we can squeeze anything else into the time we have left here cause it feels like all the weekends are disappearing way too fast. Kinda weird to think that I only have a month and a half left here....seems like I just got here yesterday but at the same time I think about all we've done and yea....we've done a hell of a lot since we got here back in July.
Until next time....
Lighthouse at sunset...
awesome sites and lots of nothing
So this was a 7 day tour which covered the same amount of distance as driving from New York to Miami and back again in the US (only without the traffic). The road we drove on was the MAJOR Highway for the state and all it was was a one lane road in each direction going straight up. No hills, no trees, no nothing except the bush and the occasional kangeroo or emu walking around. We had to stop at every gas station we came too because they are so far apart that you couldn't get to the next one on one tank of gas.
We stopped in a different town every night on the tour starting with the first night just outside of Geraldton at a bed and breakfast place on the beach. The first day was pretty much all driving just to get up near Kalbarri and such. The second day we went to Kalbarri National Park where we saw Eagle Gorge on the coast...spent a little time in Kalbarri while our tour guide Rory went to get the tire on our trailor fixed (yea we broke down twice on the trip with flat tires on the trailor, fun times let me tell ya). Then we headed deeper into the park where we saw Nature's Window and "the loop" which is a huge gorge with a "river" running through it creating the shape of a loop (I say "river" cause their wasn't actually any ater in it when we were there)...that night we stayed at the Monkey Mia Dolphin backpacker resort.
The next morning we got up early to go out and watch the dolphin feeding along the shore outside of our resort and then took an hour long catameran tour out along the bay were we saw more dolphins. We then drove for a little while to Shell Beach for lunch. Shell beach is exactly what the name says it is... a beach of ALL shells. For as far as you can see it's all shells...absolutly gorgeous. We then drove for a long while to get to our overnight at Coral Bay...a old rundown farm area that looked like it was something out of Psycho...but it worked for one night. The next morning we drove up to the main Coral Bay area where we got the chance to go on a glass-bottomed boat and snorkel over the Ningaloo Reef. Despite the FREEZING cold water that was definitly one of the best parts of the trip because where else can you snorkel over a 240km reef? We had lunch at Coral Bay before taking off up the coast to our last major stop in Exmouth. When we got to Exmouth we were told to quickly drop off our stuff in our trailors (yes we stayed in trailors for two nights in Exmouth) so that they could take us for our sunset suprise. The tour guides drove us out to the lighthouse in Exmouth and gave us all a glass of champagne to drink as we watched the sunset over the Indian Ocean. Can you beat that? I don't think so.... We came back for a mexican dinner that night (tacos on the barbie).
The 5th day we got up relatively early to head out to Turquoise Bay. Now if you haven't figured it out by now, Australians are real original with the naming of places.....(SHELL beach and the LOOP) so when they say TURQUOISE bay they mean that the water is...you guessed it turquoise. And since we were still behind the Ningaloo Reef there weren't any waves except those crashin over the reef in the distance. We got to spend the whole day reading and laying in the sun along the shore of the bay. We had lunch there and stayed until about 3 in the afternoon before going back for dinner at the camp. Rory collected some money from all of us (except Lara because of her problem with eating things that swim in the sea) and went to buy some fresh fish for us for dinner that night. We had calamari, prawns and red backed emperor....all (except for the calamari) had been caught earlier that day. Probably the best fish I've ever had...even though I really didn't care for the calamari. The next morning it was time to make the first half of the long haul back down the coast to Perth so we left early and ended up REALLY late. We didn't get in to our overnight until around 9 and had dinner around 9:30.
The next morning was our final day on the tour and we left early to get to Jurien Bay for lunch before going to see the Pinnacles. the Pinnacles are rock formations that kind of stick up from the ground all over the place...kinda hard to describe (check my pictures when i get them up to see what I mean)...and then wee made the final drive home to get back here by around 7pm.
Overall I really enjoyed the trip, it was a ridiculous amount of driving and a huge amount of nothing all the time. The road is just straight up with hardly a turn or hill. Their were a few hard times with the accomadation and the alte night driving and even later dinners but the tour guides tried their best and all in all got us to see everything we wanted to see.
The last day of our tour we all got some scary news coming out of Bali with the three suicide bombings happening their. Luckily (as far as I know) no one that we knew was affected by the bombing but obviously hundreds were. We all were feeling very lucky to have gone to that wonderful island when we did becuase we could have just as easily chosen to go this week and we all would have been there when the bombs went off. The scariest part was that they were so close to where we were, the two in the restaurant in Kuta was right down the street from our hotel and the on at the bay was just down from the restaurant that we all ate at on our last night in Bali. I only hope that people continue to visit that wonderful place and keep those people going because without tourists they really have nothing.......
On a lighter note...now that I'm back I have to get the rest of my work and papers done for the semester in the next 4-5 weeks before I'll be flying over to Sydney and Melbourne for 4-5 nights in each city.
Stay tuned!
Ok so it's been a while...
Yea so I've gotten kinda sidetracked since I've been home from the Outback and haven't had a chance to update yet. SO let's backtrack a bit and talk about the weekend before the tour up the west coast.
So the weekend before the trip turned out to be a pretty busy one. Our RA's here in George James organized a Friday night trip to the theatre in Perth to see a ballett presentation of Cinderella. Yes yes I know....ballett, but I figured I might as well go see the theatre and get a bit of culture while I'm here so Lara and I went along with 14 other people from Curtin to His Majesty's Theatre. It actually wasn't that bad in the end, just longer than it needed to be I think.
Then Saturday was Grand Final day in Australia, which is the same as Super Bowl sunday in the US. The local team from Perth, which ironically is also the Eagles, was playing in the game against the Sydney Swans. It was an awesome game, but unfourtunaly the West Coast Eagles ended up losing a close one to the Swans. So due to the loss that night ended up being pretty quiet and we went to bed kinda early so we could go to the Perth Royal Show the next day.
The Royal Show runs for a week here, but since we were going away on Monday and woulnd't be back until after it's over, Sunday was the only day for us to go get our first Royal Show experience. I guess you could say it's equivalent to a state fair in the US, but at the same time it wasn't just rides and food....their was a lot of livestock, animals and other things going on to keep you occupied when you weren't riding on one of the $6 fair rides. (Yea, $6 for a freakin ride....kinda ridiculous!) But they have these things called "show bags" where all the companies and vendors come and sell bags of their stuff for really cheap prices. Anything from clothing/sports teams to obviously candy and chocolate. We ended up buying 3 Cadbury chocolate bags for $10. Went to a really cheap fashion show on the side and saw a hypnotist show where we watched Mville get hypnotized...quite humours as well. We spent almost the whole day at the Royal Show before heading back into Perth to meet up with a bunch of other friends to go out to dinner to celebrate Sarah's 21st birthday since we were going to be on the tour when her actual birthday happened.
After dinner we came home to pack up our duffle bag and get up way too early the next morning to leave on our tour....
