Melbourne

Now on to my second post of the day! :)

This past weekend Sam, Beth and I all went to Melbourne in Southern Australia. It was only a weekend trip however we did manage to get a lot into the few days we were there.

Our flight from the Gold Coast left at 10:35 AM on Thursday and so we woke up bright and early to catch the city bus to the airport. We were out the door by 7:30 and then had to catch three busses to the airport (1 to Uni to meet with Sam and then 2 after to get to Cooli Airport). We arrived at around 9:45 and waited in line to check in.

We got to the counter with 43 minutes left until our flight left and the lady continued on to tell us that check in for our flight closed at 45 minutes prior to take off and she then shoved us off to the side to wait for someone to come out and help us. We expected someone to come out and rush us to our flight so we could get on, but that was NOT the case. The workers just continued to ignore us and after our flight had left then someone came out to help us.

This guy then continued to tell us we would have to pay $170 each in order to catch the next flight to Melbourne (which btw is pronounced as Mel-Bun no Mel-Born). We went to every other airline possible to try and take a different company but the $170 was the cheapest we could get. So even though we did not want to travel with them we ended up paying the $170 to get on the next flight. Our original ROUND TRIP tickets cost $150 and for just one way we had to pay the $170 it was so ridiculous.

Ok but enough ranting and raving about that, now onto my weekend! That night when we got into Melbourne we went to little Italy and we worked our magic with the owner of a restaurant and had some amazing food, and got free champagne, wine and garlic bread out of it haha. The girl at the front desk of our hostel told us how to get the free food and so we listened to her advice and it worked perfectly.

When we found a place we thought we wanted to go to the owner was like "ladies sit down we will give you the best seat in the house" and we stood looking at the menu taking our time acting like we weren't interesting and then he offered free wine or free champagne, we then continued to look uninteresting and he offered us free garlic bread and so we sat down. :)

 

Then after dinner we went searching for desserts because we have been told Melbourne has really good desserts and so we went on a hunt. On our walk we found a really small casino and went in and played for a little while. Beth was playing on a machine and got bored of it and so then moved over and played it and my first dollar I played I won $12 haha made me happy. First time I was in a casino last year I won $7, this weekend I won $12 so maybe when I am actually legal to be in a casino I will won a lot more!!! :D

After leaving the Casino we continued our hunt for a good dessert place and we found one! By far the best I have had since being in Australia! What made it even better was that I was able to pay for it with my winnings from the casino. :)

The next morning we went on a tour of the great ocean road and 12 apostles. There is not much I can tell you about it as it was all about the scenery but it was really gorgeous! I decided to take a helicopter over the 12 apostles and am happy I did because it was gorgeous!! The pictures will be posted soon I promise! Until Picassa finishes uploading here are a few for you to look at!

 

 

 

Wild Koalas!

Sunday we went on another tour saw some more scenery and then went to watch the penguin parade which is where you just watch a bunch of wild penguins come home for the night. They leave the ocean in groups and walk up the beach walk through the forest right next to you. It sounds boring but it was really cool and they are the smallest penguins in the world; standing only about a foot tall. The sad thing about this was we were not able to take pictures so I don't have anything to show you. If you are interested search "faerie Penguins" in Google and I am sure you will be able to find something about them. They were super cute and I loved how they would walk. They do not have knees and so they would wabble and it was the cutest thing I have seen!!!

 

The next morning was our last day in Melbourne. We woke up early and walked around the town and just wasted a few hours doing that. Since it is their fall time it was cold enough that we could see our breathe our during the day. We could also see a ton of fog above buildings, it was a nice change in weather!!

 

I really loved Melbourne's architecture it had a lot of old fashioned churches, mixed with modern skyscrapers, Art Nouveau houses and even more Victorian style buildings. It was a huge mixture of different design styles but I enjoyed it and wish I could have gotten more pictures of the buildings.

We then left for the airport at 11, even though our flight was not until 2 PM to make sure they could not rip us off again. However we got there and for FORTY minutes
not a single worker was at the counter and so we stood there waiting. Then when we checked in we were told our flight was delayed another hour. It was ridiculous and anyone planning to visit Melbourne I advice you to NOT take Tiger Airways.

Alright well that is all I have to tell you about my trip to Melbourne!!!

More posts to come soon, and I will be home sooner then you know it!

Love,

Chels

One month left and I am just figuring this out...

 

I have been writing in my blog since December and have been told by several people that they cannot leave comments. I always figured this had something to do with them making errors, however I just figured out it was my fault. I had the settings so that only members could write comments, oops! Now it is fixed and you can easily leave a comment after you have read one of my entries! Feel free to write comments as I would love to hear any input you have, and it is always nice to know I have people reading my blog. :)

Anyways I have lots to talk about in this post, so prepare for a lengthy one!


School is going good, and surprisingly I only have two days of classes left. Wednesday (or Tuesday for everyone back home) is the last day I have to go to any of these classes. I have made it my goal to make it to every single class this week and so far I am on the right track. I made it to my Monday class today, which is AMAZING because it has been a while since I made it to that class...on the bright side the class is basically pointless when you go, so I never really miss anything lol.

With classes ending in two days that means I only have two papers left to write and then two final exams as well. I can't believe the end of the semester is already here! My last final is June 24th at 8:30 in the morning, and I will be home shortly after that.

I am trying to figure out my flights currently by as of right now I am going to fly to Fiji either June 25th, or 26th and will stay there for a few day before flying home on either June 30th or July 1st. I will keep you all updated once I officially change my ticket.

I do have a question and am curious what people think. When booking my flight home I of course am hoping for a row all to myself but just in case I can't what seat do you think I should chose? Aisle, or Window? There are pro's and con's to each and am just curious what everyone else would do for a twelve hour flight!

I have been in Australia 105 days, and only have around 30 left. The days are going to tick by!!!

Ok Instead of writing on extremely long blog I am going to write two entries today. This is going to be the end of this blog, and now I am off to go start on my second entry of the day. :)

Bipolar weather!

So right now I am sitting in my room with the fan off, in my warmest pajama bottoms and a zip up hoodie on! It is extremely rainy and my thoughts about Australia's weather being bipolar still stand! Past couple of days we have had so much rainfall that a natural disaster has been declared and there is flooding all over Queensland. Luckily the flooding isn't really to close to me but it is all over the news at night. A few days ago it was just a downpour all day long, today it was blue skies and tonight we ran to the car to get out of the rain. Needless to say I am not use to any sort of weather and so I am not very fond of all of this rain. I much prefer when the weather behaves itself and doesn't close down beaches, and flood places.

Anyhow, it has been a while since I have updated you and there are plenty of things for me to tell you about so prepare yourself for a long post!

This weekend we stayed in Gold Coast and are learning we get a bit bored when we aren't traveling and do not have set places to go. So tonight we decided to go bowling. Man, do I need to practice that! We played two games and I came in second place both times. However, I never even made it past 100. :(

Last weekend Beth and I flew to Cairnes! We met up with Kirstine and Emily who are the two British girls we met when we were traveling in New Zealand last month. I was really excited that we were able to meet up with those girls one more time before they flew home to England.

We left on Thursday out of Brisbane. However to get to that airport we had to first take a train for an hour and half and we arrived in the airport pretty early. We waited around for our flight and were extremely surprised when we got on the flight that not one single time did we have to show proof of who we were. Not one single time did we have to show a photo ID or anything. That would never happen at home with security as tight as ours!

We arrived in Cairnes at around midnight and took a shuttle to our hostel. We stayed at the Cairnes all girls hostel and absolutely loved it. Dawn left our key in a keylock on the gate since we were getting in after the reception had closed. We just paid for our hostel the morning after and it worked out really nicely for us. We ended up getting a room with just Beth and I for only $24 a night which is an AMAZING deal because usually we will pay that much for a dorm style room. It was nice to not have to worry about anyone else being in our room except for the two of us.

The next morning we slept in until 11 because we were just so darn tired (we didn't go to bed until 3 after arriving to our hostel and settling in). We wanted to go to the rain forest that day and so we went up to Dawn and asked her if there were any tours for that day. Turns out there were but they had left at 6:45 AM. Even if we had known about that we probably would not have woken up early enough to make it. So we did not get to see the rain forest after all. :(

Instead we went down to the lagoon and hung out at the park for a couple hours. It was relaxing and it felt great to just have a relaxing day. The night before we left for Cairnes I pulled an all nighter to get two assignments turned in and doing nothing is exactly what I wanted to do then.

Saturday we woke up early and went on our tour to the Great Barrier Reef. We went on a really nice boat and it was an all day event. I thought the boat ride out to the reed was going to be a couple hours but it didn't seem long at all!

Once we got there we got separated into groups to go diving. It was Kirstine, Emily, Beth and I in our own group with a dive instructor. They went over everything with us and I got really excited for going diving. However, when it came time to do it I became a real wuss. They had us doing all of these under water tests where you had to show that you knew how to get water out of your goggles under water, and what to do if you breathing piece came out. Well I kept panicking because it just felt way to unnatural. I kept shooting up to the surface and when you have a negative buoyancy it is really hard to stay on the surface which freaked me out even more.

Beth was freaking out just as much as I was, which I was happy for because I felt like I was being ridiculous. I seriously thought they were not going to let me actually go diving. However after several times of me shooting up to the surface (which I later found out is really really bad for you) they got me to calm down enough to where we could go diving.

I had not mastered how to breathe through just my mouth and so I had to hold my nose the entire time I was swimming. Since I didn't know how to get the water out of my goggle there was water where the nose piece was and every time I would attempt to breathe through my nose I would get water up my nose. I am sure the instructor was laughing at me and I felt really weird holding my breathe underwater knowing I could breathe and also because I never normally hold my nose.

The dive lasted for about twenty minutes and I was more scared during it then I was when I went sky diving.

After we went diving we all went snorkeling. We didn't go snorkeling for to long until we got on the boat for lunch. Once we got on the boat we saw a bunch of dolphins swimming off of the side of our boat. It was really cool to see, and best of all we didn't have to pay for a tour to see it. We were lucky to see that!

After lunch there was a second dive that we decided to go on. This time we did not have to do the testing that they had us do the first time. Not doing this testing made me feel so much better and I was a little more brave this time around. I finally figured out how to get the water out of my goggles (4/7 times I was successful, the other 3 ended up with more water in my mask) and I was also able to swim without having to hold my breathe.

This made the second dive WAY more enjoyable for me! When we were down there we saw a sea turtle, a shark, and a clown fish (AKA Nemo!). Sadly even though we had an underwater camera the girl who had it at the time didn't capture any of these items! :( I really wish I had gotten a picture of it but all well, at least I saw it in real life! The second dive lasted for about 40 minutes and I was extremely happy I decided to do a second dive.

That took up most of our day and after it ended we got back to Cairnes around 4:00 PM. We all decided to go to the grocery store and pick up some biscuits (which are what they call cookies) and some other lollies (which is what they call sweets). We hung out at our hostel eating biscuits and lollies and then went out for dinner and drinks after that.

We had a really fun night and parted ways at the end of the night! I was really sad to say goodbye to Emily and Kirstine but know that if I ever travel to London I have a place to stay with either of them and also my own personal tour guide. :)

The next morning we headed back to Gold Coast! We left our hostel at 7:30 AM and didn't get back to our Apartments until about 3:00 PM. We had to take a Bus, Plane, Train and another Bus in order to get home.

So that was my last weekend! I really enjoyed going to Cairnes and seeing it since that is where I originally had planned to study abroad. In some ways I think I would have really enjoyed if I had studied there, but Cairnes also had its down sides. It was just nice to put that curiosity away.

This week I also booked a flight to the Whitsundays in June which is probably the last flight I have to purchase while I am here! My time is almost up and I can't believe I have already been here several months and only really have ONE month left! My how time flies!

I am flying to Melbourne next week and booked my tours for that yesterday! We are going to Phillips Island and The Great Ocean Road. I am pretty sure that will be the next place I right about in my blog.

For now I am headed to bed, wishing for better weather for tomorrow.

I love you & miss you all! I will see you all very shortly. :)

BTW my picassa has been uploaded with my pictures from Cairnes! Enjoy! http://picasaweb.google.com/ChelseaTaylor77

xoxo

Chels

Fraser Island

Before I start typing about my weekend let me just say HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!!!!!! I hope all of the moms I know had a wonderful day with their families! Sorry I couldn't be there to spend today with you mom, I love you and I have an I.O.U. for when I get home!

 

Now I will continue on to talk about this past weekend. Let me just say Fraser Island was absolutely GORGEOUS and so far has been my favorite place that I have been to in Australia! I will upload pictures to Picasa as soon as I can so that you guys can see just how wonderful this place was! We only made it a weekend trip but we packed a lot into just a few days!

It was Kat, Carolyn, Beth and me going on this weekend trip! We left on Friday night after Kat got after work and got on the road at around 8 P.M. which actually worked out so that we avoided any traffic jams! Originally I thought the drive to Hervey Bay (which is where we would stay that night) was only 3ish hours, but it ended up being about 5 hours which still isn't that far of a drive. We got to our hostel at around 1:00 AM and were all ready to go to bed. We checked into our hostel and it was us four girls and then two guys as well who were from New Zealand and San Diego. The guys were really cool and I was surprised to hear that neither of them had met many Americans while being here. I am slowly learning where I chose to study abroad so did basically every other American lol. I like traveling because I get to meet so many people from around the world and there are usually plenty of interesting conversations to be held.

The next morning we were up at around 7:00 AM and I was exhausted because I didn't fall asleep until sometime after 3:45 (which is the last time I looked at the clock). We got picked up by a shuttle bus and then headed down to hop onto the catamaran to go to Fraser Island. It was only about a forty minute ride until we got to the island and as soon as you stepped onto the dock you realized just how pretty of a place you were going to spend your weekend. I really wish I could get pictures to capture just how pretty all of these places are but I can never get them to capture all of its beauty!

 

When we got off of the catamaran we dropped off our bags to be taken to the resort and then met our tour guide Peter, who was absolutely hilarious the entire trip! When we got on our big four wheel drive bus we continued on to drive through the forest. Somewhere along the line I found out that Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world and that is basically just another bragging right it has. :)

We drove for a little and then hiked through the forest for about ten minutes until we got to Basin Lake, which was a really pretty fresh water lake on the Island. There is a story that the entire Island is a god who wanted to be part of the earth, and all of the lakes are here eyes so that she can still see into the clouds where the rest of the gods are.

After Basin Lake we took a thirty minute hike through the forest, where it started to rain! I kept laughing to myself at how I was walking through a rain forest, through the rain! After our little hike we ended up at Central Station and had lunch. Central Station is where the rail road use to be, but no longer is. Lunch consisted of really good ham and pineapple sandwiches along with some pasta salad.

After lunch we went on another small hike through the forest along Wanggoolba Creek where the water was so clear you couldn't even tell the creek had water in it!!! We only hiked for about fifteen minutes to meet Peter at the bus and then drive to Lake McKenzie.

It is really hard to chose my favorite place on Fraser Island but this is definitely towards the top of the list. I have never seen sand so white, and water SO clear. Not to mention that it was surrounded by a rain forest just made the scenery stunning. It started to rain a bit and to add to the beauty a really big rainbow started to show in the sky! Normally I would have asked for blue sky and white clouds but the rainbow stretching across the island seemed to be just as good! The sand at lake McKenzie is so fine that you can clean your jewelry and exfoliate your skin with it. I took a couple pictures with my underwater camera so we will see how they turn out, I still have to take 15 pictures before I can develop it.

 

 

After Lake McKenzie we headed back to the resort and checked in. We attempted to go and watch the sunset but instead of going right which was the correct way, we turned left and got onto the wrong track. So after that we took a shuttle back to the dingo bar and had dinner. From dinner we went back to reception and went swimming. The pool was heated so it was a perfect way to end the day. After a bit we all moved into the hot tub and just relaxed, had girl conversations and stared at the stars and full moon! After the hot tub we went back and took showers at our cabins. We then went down to the Dingo Bar and had a drink that was called "Bootylicious" and it basically tasted like cherry 7-up. We were there for a bit but then still made it back and were in bed by midnight.

On Sunday we woke up at around 7:00 AM again and headed down to breakfast. After breakfast we were on the bus for a pretty drive on a 75 mile long beach while we headed towards the Maheno Shipwreck. The ship had been there since 1935 when the Japanese lost it during a storm. They had taken out the propellers to make it easier to transfer but then ship got disconnected from the ship that was towing it and since it didn't have propellers there was no way to keep it on track and it ended up landed on Fraser Island. During the second war Australia had tested a bomb on it, but since it wasn't a direct hit the ship isn't totally ruined. (Although it is very deteriorated).

After the Maheno Shipwreck we stopped and looked at the Colored Sands which honestly there isn't much to say about that. We then continued onto the Sand Dunes which were just really really fun! On the walk towards the sand dunes we passed a really large spider that was just hanging in between two trees but sadly I couldn't capture a good picture of it for everyone to see.

After hiking up one giant sand hill with your feet sinking every step you took we then continued to jump off the sides of the sand dunes! You literally could not see what was below until you went up to the very edge. When you would go to jump you wouldn't be able to see what you were going to land in (but obviously it was going to be sand) and so it just felt like you were jumping off of a cliff!! When you landed you ended up stuck in sand that went all the way up to your knees haha.

 

We stuck around there jumping around for a bit before we headed over to some really pretty champagne pools. Champagne Pools are where the rocks and sand have gone a little further out into the ocean and make a little pool filled with ocean water. Then when you sit in the pool you get a view of a bunch of waves crashing in front of you and then they would continue to toss you around in the champagne pool. We hung around there for a bit before heading back to the bus.

On our way to Indian Head we saw a wild Dingo! He was just wondering around the beach and we all got off of the bus to take pictures of him while he just sat there looking at us, wondering why we were all taking pictures of him haha.

 

When we got to Indian Head we had a ten minute hike up to gorgeous lookout spot on the Island! We were basically at the edge of a cliff sitting and standing on rocks looking at our surroundings. In one look you could see the ocean, forest, and sand dunes all at once. Simply Gorgeous.

 

Since we had missed the sunset the night before Peter drove a little bit faster on the forest roads then normal so we could make it to the beach and watch the sunset over the water. We can't do this where I live because I live on the east coast so the sun only rises over the water. However, since we were staying on the west side of the Island we could watch it here! We made it just in the right amount of time!

After sunset we went and hung out in the pool and hot tub once again. We couldn't pass up the opportunity knowing we had to leave soon! After the hot tub we went and had dinner for about 45 minutes before the bus picked us up to take us to catch the 8:00 PM catamaran. We got back to our car at around 9:00 PM and headed back on the road!

 

We got back to our apartments at about 2:00 AM and then all headed to bed!

All in All this weekend was an absolute blast and one of my favorites so far! Pictures will be up soon, but it may be a few days as I have a couple homework assignments I need to start working on.

I love and Miss you all!!!

Chels <3

P.s. Sorry it is so long I obviously do not know how to make a short post!

Skydiving Video!

Ok!!! So after several failed attempts of uploading my skydiving video I believe I have now found a way for you to see it. The quality isn't the best because I couldn't figure out how to save the original to my computer. So instead I took my digital camera and recorded the video while it played on my laptop. However, it works good enough for you to be able to see it! This is me jumping 15,000 feet in Taupo, New Zealand!!!! :D :D