Blue Mountains

Last weekend our group took a trip to the Blue Mountains which are located about 2 hours outside of Sydney.  We first stopped by a Wildlife Park and saw more animals, one being that crocodile.  We watched him get fed and heard a little bit about his life... apparently he was eating tourists, adults and children, and so he was taken out of the wild and put into a zoo.  In this zoo, however, he began eating all of the crocodiles that were put into his cage with him (his mates), so they finally moved him to this particular park in a cage by himself.  He was pretty ferocious I must say.

This little guy down here is an Echidna.  It is a marsupial that lays eggs and native to Australia.  This is the first time we have seen one of these fellas in real life, although they are one of the common animals in pictures that you see everywhere around here.

We saw a bunch more kangaroos, but the most interesting were the Albino Kangaroos.  They looked so strange I thought.  Also, they can't survive in the wild because there is no way for them to blend in.. so I guess they get eaten and die out.

Oh I almost forgot, we got to pet koalas here and get our picture taken with them!  I can't get the picture to upload that I have of me with the koala, but just so you know - I do have one =)

After the Wildlife Park we drove to a place called Wentworth Falls and began the 1,000 Steps Walk down the mountain.  Everyone was concerned about how we were going to get back up the steps, but as it turned out, we got to take a cable car type thing back up to the top.. thank goodness!

These three peaks are called the 'three sisters'.  There is an Aboriginal legend about three sisters and their witch-doctor father.  I can't exactly remember how it went, but they named these three mountains after the sisters!  

This is Vanessa and I posing in front of the Blue Mountains.  They appear blue because of the haze that comes off of the Eucalyptus trees.  It was a tough little trek down the mountain, but definitely worth it because the views were amazing, the weather was also amazing there.. it was slightly more chilly than what it has been in Sydney!

On the hike, we stopped in this one cave and our tour guide showed us how to do an echo.  She said that, from a young age, Australian children learn to say "Koooeeee!" if they get lost in the woods, so we all did it and it echoed back to us.  I tried to upload a video of it on this blog, hopefully it will work!  This is the short video clip of the group doing the echo...  (just press play!)

Finally, we stopped at this little town called Lura for lunch.  It was very quaint and had a bunch  of neat little ships, including a candy shop that had candy from all over (including American candy!).  So, needless to say, everyone from our group were buying their favorites that we cannot get here.  I bought some Junior Mints, a Reeses Cup twix bar, and a Cadburry Easter Egg.  It was all great, except they did not have Mr. Goodbars, so that made me sad.

The Blue Mountains trip was very nice over all and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

#3: Croc Hunt, Rain-Forest, Beach... The End.

This is me in a shop in Cairns.. I'd like to think that I look like a real Australian!

After the Wildlife Preserve, we took a little drive up the mountain and hopped on this boat for a Crocodile Hunt!  Our guide talked just like Crocodile Dundee and was pointing out various things, the first being this green tree frog.  He said some special stuff about it.. that I cannot recall right now, but it was definitely green and in a tree.  It had been a very long day and I, along with that girl in the picture, took advantage of the boat ride and took a little nap!

Unfortunately, we only ended up seeing 1 Crocodile on our boat ride (they were hiding from us I guess) ... but I took these pictures of the Crocodiles at the Wildlife Preserve.   

After the Croc Hunt we got back on the bus and traveled further up the mountain into the tropical rain-forest.  We first hiked up to a lookout point and I dropped 2 batteries out of my camera down a ravine and into a river.  Hopefully they won't leak out and spoil the fresh water, I was kind of worried about that for a few minutes.  This is us on the trail, it was incredibly humid and we all look pretty gross.

We then hiked back down to the river and were able to swim in the freezing water, which felt great because we were so hot.  The current was fairly strong in the river, but some of us made it over to this rock that we climbed on.  We were also able to swim upstream a little bit further and go down this waterfall type thing.

We ended this long (but great) day by going to the beach.  You couldn't swim in it because of the box jellyfish, but we enjoyed just walking around and taking some 'jumping pictures'.

    On the morning of our flight, a few of us went into the town of Cairns and got some breakfast.  We wanted to see the Lagoon that is in the middle of the city.. this is a picture of it.  You can see how it starts as a water fountain, and then progresses into a swimming pool, and finally to the ocean.  It would be a fun spot to spend the day!   

After the lagoon, we went back to our hostel for the last time, took a bus to the airport, and flew back to Sydney.  When I got home I threw all of my luggage down and studied for 2 straight days for an Economics test that I had.  I ended up doing pretty well on it, but I realized that school is just getting in the way of these other, more important, other things that I am doing (just kidding of course).  Finally though, two days later, I was able to unpack and do some laundry.  I loved the Great Barrier Reef and Cairns and would definitely recommend it to anyone!

                                                  

#2: Rafting and Roos

During the free day in Cairns I opted for Extreme White-Water Rafting.  A bunch of people went Sky Diving and Bungee jumping, but I am saving those for New Zealand (which I am going to on April 8th during my Easter Break).  Anyway though, the rafting was definitely the best I've ever done.  Since we were the "extreme" group, our 6 rafts went ahead of the other large groups of rafts, and we were able to go at a faster pace and stop for swims and for jumping off rocks.  

Within the first 5 minutes of the trip, our guide (Dave) flipped our raft over and one guy, Remy, fell out of the boat and got a bad nose bleed!  It was pretty gross, but we washed it off and were able to get back on track.  I was the only person, besides Dave, in the boat who had been rafting before.. so everybody else didn't really know what to expect.  I think they all enjoyed it though!

      

At the end of the trip the company had pictures available for us to purchase that they took of us on the river, but they were expensive.. so that last picture is a picture that I took of their picture (if that makes sense).  Anyway, but that was on one of the rapids.. I guess I thought I was going to drown because I was holding my breath in every picture! 

The next day we hopped on a tour bus at 6:30 am and drove all over.  The first stop was the Wildlife Park and I was finally able to see some kangaroos!  The kangaroos were just walking around and we were able to touch and feed them.  I even tried to pick one up.. unsuccessfully I might add.

This was the biggest kangaroo there I think, he mainly just stayed in the corner and ate all of our food.

A bunch of the kangaroos had little baby joeys in their pouches, it was fascinating!  I felt like they were more reserved than the other kangaroos without babies.

I had to get a close-up

Also, I'm not sure what this animal was.. but it had a baby too!

We also saw some other animals at the Park including this bird, koalas, crocodiles, and ... some other animals... but the kangaroos were definitely my favorite!

We weren't able to touch the Koala's here because we would give them "brain damage" apparently... I thought that was pretty funny.  Hopefully we'll be able to get closer to them at some point though.  These particular ones just slept all of the time and seemed particularly lazy.. what a life.

#1: Cairns - The Great Barrier Reef

Unfortunately, these past three posts did not come out in order.. so the whole trip is kind of confusing.  This is the first post, then the Rafting and Roos, and finally The End.  I had to break up the trip because we did so much stuff!  

Well, we took a 5-day trip to the city of Cairns, which is where the Great Barrier Reef is located.  The plane ride took 3 hours and when we got there we checked into the Bohemia Resort Hostel.  This is Mike and Liz in our hostel room..

The next morning we got up early and got on a boat heading out for the reef.  The boat ride took 3 hours and it took us to a few little islands where we snorkeled and scuba-dove.  I had a cheap underwater camera so my pictures aren't that great, but better than nothing!

This is the the first island we came to and the glass-bottomed-boat that we took over the reef.  They had these suits you could rent for the day to protect you from jelly-fish and the sun, but I didn't get one (I was too cheap, plus I wanted the sun!) .. so I look a little out of place!

Sea turtle!  You had to look close for them because they kind of blended in.

This is the front of our cruise boat that took us to and from the reef.  The rides were long, but the weather was perfect and the scenery was beautiful.  It was a good chance to relax and get some sun.  The boat crew would also periodically throw big shrimp into the water and these gigantic black fish would come up and eat them right when they hit the surface.  We also geared up on the boat, snorkeled right off the back, and ate lunch on it.  

That night, when we got back from the reef, we were all exhausted and starving.  We took quick showers and headed to this restaurant that served heaping plates of home-cooked food.  It kind of reminded me of Cracker Barrel.  I tried somebody's crocodile meat that they ordered but I ordered the chicken, which turned out to be an entire bird, it was great!  We also ordered this massive desert, but we didn't have any trouble finishing it at all.  The first day of our trip was a huge success.

Sydney - Tropfest, Beaches, and Mardi Gras

I can't believe that I have been in Sydney for this long and haven't written anything about it yet! It is amazing! I have done and seen so many different things in such a short amount of time, I am just glad that I have a few more months here to do more. During the first week that we arrived, we mainly did tours of the city and got settled in. School hadn't started yet and it was extremely nice to relax and take in the sights. This is the famous Opera House located on the Sydney Harbor and also the Harbor Bridge. These are two of the main sights to see on the harbor, at night they are especially pretty. You can pay 200$ to walk across the top of the bridge, we saw some people crossing it while we were on a night cruise on the harbor.. however I am on a budget, so I'm not planning on doing that.

Also, during that first week or so in Sydney, a bunch of us went to the Independent Film Festival called Tropfest. It is one of the 2 biggest Independent Film Festivals held in the world. People bring blankets and food and spread out across this massive lawn. There are big movie screens set up and they play short films and they are judged. We got there around 11AM and stayed until 11PM that night. It wasn't crowded when we got there at all, but around 3PM or so it was packed, we had really good seats though!





























Now to one of my favorite parts of Sydney... the beaches!! The beaches are amazing here. They are normally pretty crowded, but if you go at the right times, they are really nice. There are tons of different beaches to visit and some are they are all different! Bondai is one of the main beaches. It is a large beach and sometimes it gets so crowded that you almost cannot put a towel down. It's actually not that bad though because there are tons of people to see and meet. I also love watching the surfers and hope to try it out one of these days.





This beach also has an amazing salt-water swimming pool open to the public. It is built right beside the ocean, so waves come up over the sides of the pool and onto the swimmers! Also in this area there is a small hike that leads up to a place with a view of the beach and over the area of Bondai. The climb is over a bunch of rocks and cliffs where the waves come crashing into. It is all extremely beautiful.





























These next pictures are of Manly Beach. It is one of the other more popular beaches and generally less-crowded than Bondai. I especially liked Manly because there are a bunch of beach volleyball courts on the water. Some people were playing more intensely, while others (like us) were just hitting around for fun. We also got some absolutely amazing gelato, italian icecream, at this beach... so that makes it probably my favorite! These are some of the people I went with..

Also, during the day we spent at Manly, I was lying on my towel eating my peanut butter sandwich (which I eat at least 5 to 8 a week) and I look up and this seagull is just standing there around 1 foot away watching me.... it was actually kind of creepy. He really wanted some, but it would have been a bad idea to feed one, because millions more would have flocked!





I know this is kind of a long post... I'll try to keep up with it better and make them shorter in the future. Right now I just have some time to sit down and do it because I am at a friend's house watching the movie Cars.. which I have seen before.


Anyway, but another noteworthy thing I did was attend the Mardi Gras parade (or the Gay and Lesbian Day Parade) in downtown Sydney. Apparently it is a pretty big deal and it and the one in New Orleans are world renown. I didn't really know what to expect with this parade... but it was absolutely crazy. I just mainly spent my time trying to figure out the gender of the people I was looking at! They lined the street with gates and you had to get there really early to get a spot on the railing, then people would come and crowd behind you. We got a pretty decent spot considering we didn't go that early. I found a crosswalk, where they had the gate propped open for people to get to the other side, and the security guys said they would close it eventually. So we claimed our spot on that gate, and when they finally closed it, we had a great spot!



I will load some more pictures from Mardi Gras on here when I get a better connection. This will do for now though! I just got back from a 5-day trip to the Great Barrier Reef, and once I get the pictures from my underwater camera developed, I will make a new post!