Australia with Sarah: Fraser Island Lady Elliot

I have done so much in my final days in Australia this past week! My sister, Sarah, came on May 31st and met me in Wollongong. The next day I showed her around Wollongong and the University campus and we went to my International House "Farewell Formal" that night. She got the chance to meet all of my friends I have made in the International House.

Saturday, Sarah and I flew up to Brisbane with 2 other International House friends and did a little walking around before the rain came. Brisbane is one of the largest cities in Australia and is about halfway up the Eastern coast. It is known on the the "city on the river".

The next morning we caught an early bus to Noosa Heads, part of the Sunshine Coast. Noosa Heads is a nice beach town and has good surfing. Even though it was drizzling and wintertime, the water was still warm enough to surf so Sarah and I rented surfboards and did our best. I would say we were quite successful at surfing the "white" (crashed waves). Eventually, we will be able to surf the "green".

Sarah and me surfing in Noosa Heads

After our surfing, we caught a bus further up north to Hervey Bay. Hervey Bay is another touristy town that is home of Australia's best whale watching and great fishing as well. It is also very close to Fraser Island, the world's largest sand island. The 4 of us went camping on Fraser Island for 3 days and 2 nights to explore the island and the things we experienced were amazing!

Some of the best sites were:

Lake McKenzie- a fresh water lake in the middle of the island, spelled the same way as our friend, McKenzie, who traveled with us!

Champagne Pools- named after the bubbly effect of the water when the waves crashed over the rocks. Was our warmest swim on the island and my favorite spot.

Lake Allum- It is hard to tell, but the water is actually a dark brown color due to plants that make tea. The natural oils in the water is supposed to be good for skin and hair. 

sand dune in Fraser Island

Maheno Shipwreck- was used as a hospital ship in WW1 by Australia. The ship was sold to Japan and then crashed in 1905. The ship is on beach during low tide and surrounded by water during high tide.

We drove around in pink 4WD cars. There are no paved roads and the beach is the highway!

We also saw tons of wildlife including:

we saw dolphins jumping on the ferry over to Fraser Islands

Fraser Island is known for its dingo population. Dingos look like skinny, muscular dogs. There were many signs telling us not to feed them and to watch our for children and babies.

In Lake Allum there were turtles that we all got a chance to hold.

While driving the beach our second day, part of the beach was closed down due to a whale that had been beached during high tide. It was a year and a half old, humpback whale and weighed 4 tons! Police were pouring water on him to try to save him til 9pm when high tide would come again. Whales get beached about once a year and the story made national news! We were told the whale had a 20% chance of living.

Unfortunately, the whale did not survive. There was a pack of dingos feasting the rest of the day.

 

Dugong Sharks were spotted less than 5 meters from shore! We saw at least 5 of them which had trapped a large school of fish by the beach.

Our tour guide that we all called "Santa". He was a bush-loving, technology-hating Aussie that claimed he could survive in the wild with a knife and lighter.

Fraser Island has definitely been one of the if not the highlight of my trip. Although the weather was a bit chilly, it left the island quite empty so we got to enjoy the beauty without too many people around.

The day after we got back from Fraser Island, Sarah and I went to another island the following day. This time we went to Lady Elliot Island, 100km from the mainland and made out of coral. We were told that the coral island rose above sea level about 3000 years ago. Birds spotted it during their migrations and would leave their bird poop behind, fertilizing the coral. Then the birds started bringing seeds as well and Lady Elliot became a home to many birds. Lady Elliot resort was built in the 80's and can hold 150 people. The only was to get to the island is by plane. The runway for the plane takes up the entire radius of the island. It is the point furthest south of the Great Barrier Reef, so Sarah and I went snorkeling there. We snorkeled off the beach where the coral was very shallow and then went in a glass bottom boat. From the boat we saw a manta ray in the water. They look like big sting rays and are 4 meters wide and completely harmless to humans. While snorkeling from the boat we saw a turtle a tons of fish including a "Nemo" fish! Lady Elliot was a cool place to experience the Great Barrier Reef, the 8th Wonder of the World!

Aerial view of Lady Elliot Island

Snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef!

After Lady Elliot Island, the journey continued in Sydney. Sarah and I stayed the night in a hostel in "The Rocks" area. We spent some time walking around Darling Harbor and the next day caught a ferry to Manly. We rented bikes and rode along the water to Aborigianal carvings. In the afternoon we took a ferry back and climbed the Sydney Harbor Bridge! Unfortuneately ,it started down pouring in the afternoon, but rain or shine, we still climbed the bridge! The Bridge took about 45 mins to get to the top, but when we were just stairs away from the very top our guide sent us back down and said that there were lightning warnings and the top on the steel bridge was probably not the best place to be. We climbed all the way back down, waited 30 mins for the storm to pass and then climbed in for the second time! This time we got to the very top and got a great view of the city!



Sarah and I ready to climb the bridge!

Sydney Light Show

 This past weekend I went to Sydney both Saturday and Sunday night for some events. Saturday night about 10 Ihousers went to Olympic Park (where the 2000 Sydney Olympics were held) for a footie game (AFL-Australian Football League) where my Aussie friend's high school friend was playing. He plays for the Sydney Giants. They unfortunately lost to a Melbourne team, but did well for being a brand new program.
On Sunday, we returned to Sydney for the "Vivid Light Show". It is the third annual year of the Light show in Sydney and it supposedly gets better every year. It was the 2nd night of the 18 day show where Sydney buildings and icons have lights shown on the buildings! The Opera House portrayed a rippling effect and had an image a women crawling around it. Other buildings were brightly colored and there were some interactive lights. It is had to explain, but hopefully the pictures help you visualize it. However, I don't think the pictures do it justice and it was one of the coolest, most unique things I have seen!

projection of the women on the Opera House

One of the most colorful shots. The lights are always moving and telling stories

The faster you pedal, the brighter the lights. A bit of engineering :)

Ifeast!

Everyone who cooked for iFeast! (I am in the blue kimono on the left. My Japanese friend Mayumi had a spare for me to wear while serving food!)

Last night (Sunday May 6th) we had and international feast. People from our international house got the chance to form groups and make up to 3 dishes for their country! Since there are about 30 Americans living at iHouse, I decided to help the Japanese team. We made red bean mochi, sushi and okonomiyaki. Red Bean mochi is a dessert made with red beans and sugar inside of a cookie dough and rolled in coconut. Okonomiyaki looks like a pancake or pizza that is made out of seafood and cabbage and topped with special okonomiyaki sauce. The dishes were not too difficult to make, but sharing a kitchen with about 20 teams and serving for 200 people was no easy task. We spent about 3 hours cooking on Saturday and 4 hours on Sunday before the big feast. It was delicious! Some of my favorite dishes were:

-chocolate balls from France

-mango smoothie from Sri Lanka

-goat from Kenya

-Kangaroo stew and lamingtons from Australia

-Pad Thia from Thailand

-noodle stir fry from Korea

-apple danish from Austria

There were so many more good one! United States made macaroni and cheese, apple pie, puppy chow and buffalo chicken dip which were all delicious as well! It was an awesome night and one of my favorite experiences at Ihouse!

We had some help for the China and Indonesia team with the sushi rolling

Serving okonomiyaki at iFeast

Red Bean Mochi

Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road

AFL game at the MCG

 I spent this past weekend in Melbourne and it was amazing! My roommate Kayla, Kenzie from KU and I caught an early flight Saturday morning to Melbourne. We started by walking the city to Federation Square, the botanical gardens and Flinders Street before we headed north to the famous Victoria Markets. That night we went to an AFL "footie" (Australian Football League) game at MCG (Melbourne Cricket Grounds). St. Kilda Saints beat the Melbourne Demons in an exciting match. A crowd of about 30,000 came to the game in a stadium that fits 101,000. It is only the 5th round of the season so crowds usually aren't too big yet. The atmosphere was fun, even though it rained, but we were undercover and did not get wet. I decided I prefer an Australian football game to rugby. Footie is the more popular sport around the Melbourne area and rugby is more popular in Sydney. They play on a circular field and try to score the ball between 2 central posts untouched for 6 points or anything else for 1 point.

12 Apostles at Sunset

Then, Sunday morning we met up with 6 other people from the Wollongong International House and rented cars to drive the Great Ocean road towards Adelaide. Leaving at 9am, we drove about 8 hours along the coast, making many stops and taking tons of pictures. At our furthest point, we started seeing some of the famous limestone rock formations including the 12 Apostles, London Bridge and the arch. The drive was amazingly beautiful and our weather was perfect. We watched a magnificent sunset at the 12 Apostles before driving the shorter way back to Melbourne. 

London Bridge (middle part fell in 1990)

Graffiti Alley

On Monday, we again walked the city. This time we went along the river, to Chinatown and through arcades (alleys) in the city. My favorite were the unique alleys we found. Some had a lot of personality including the graffiti alley and others were very ritzy. There were lots of different street shops and heaps of people in them. Melbourne is a very cute, quite city with amazing artsy architecture. Many people in Australia seem to be either Sydney lovers or Melbourne lovers. I am very split on the 2 cities and love them both, but almost everyone I was traveling with preferred Melbourne. The last thing we did in Melbourne is go to a rooftop cider beer bar. They had nine cider beers on tap of flavors apple, pear and berry. We all had a cider and watched footie before catching a late plane back to Sydney. I am so happy I had the chance to see Melbourne and am already recommending it to everyone back in Wollongong!

Another "arcade" or alley in Melbourne

Mudgee, Australia

This past weekend I went to my friend, Caitlin's hometown in Mudgee, NSW Australia. Mudgee is a town of about 8,000 and known for its wine country and mining. Caitlin's home is outside of town in the bushland country with sheep and alpacas as pets. It was about a 4.5 hour drive northwest of Wollongong over the Blue Mountains. We stayed in her house and threw a Mexican themed birthday party with her parents and little brother. It was so much fun and all of her friends brought "swags" which is a sleeping bag/tent to sleep in outside. The weather was a bit too chilly though and most people slept inside. On Sunday, we were planning on going to the rugby union match called "City vs. Country" (similar to the All-Star game) but drove back to Wollongong instead to get school work done. The game was held in Mudgee this year and televised in Australia, Europe and New Zealand.

Easter Break


This past week I had off of school for Easter Break (similar to Spring Break back home). On Sunday morning I flew into Townsville, Australia. We only spent a couple hours there before catching a bus south to Airlie Beach, but still had time to explore the town a bit. Townsville is a mining town that sits just about in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef along the east Coast of Australia. It isn't as touristy for the Great Barrier Reef since it is about a 2.5 hour boat ride to the reef, but is good for traveling to Magnetic Island, a beautiful National Park.


Snorkeling Whitsunday Islands

Airlie Beach

We arrived in Airlie Beach that night. Airlie Beach is a touristy town which is known as the link to Whitsunday Islands. There are over 70 of the islands which are close to the coast and have coral of the Great Barrier Reef near to the islands. The biggest attraction is the beautiful White Haven Beach (3rd most photographed thing in Australia, 1 is Opera House/Harbor Bridge and 2 is Ayers Rock) which is a long beach made of 98.1% pure silica. We learned that NASA used silica from that beach for there aircrafts because it is on of the most plentiful and purest deposits of silica in the world. Our first 2 days in Airlie we spent relaxing at the free lagoon and at the markets. Although there were beaches, swimming in them is not recommended due to the jellyfish populatoin that tend to hang around. There are deadly jellyfish that paralyze you with one sting. Our third day we went on a boat raft where we snorkeled in two different locations by Whitsunday Islands, took a bushwalk on an island and when to Whitehaven Beach. We unfortunately didn't get the weather we expected. It rained and the wind was at 30 knots, but the water was a warm 30 degrees C (86 F!). The coral was beautiful, vibrant and close to the surface which was good to snorkel and there were hundreds of different fish! On the bushwalk we saw some of the biggest spiders known to Australia and ants that Aboriginals eat for their unique flavor. They had green butts and tasted like a sour warhead candy! We went to a look out of the islands and also walked along Whitehaven Beach. Although we didn't have perfect weather, it was still a beautiful location!


ants eaten by the Aboriginals on Whitsunday Island



Whitehaven Beach, Whitsunday

That night we took an overnight bus to Cairns, which is the most popular destination to snorkel and dive the Great Barrier reef. We met up with friends from Wollongong and about 20 of us rented cars and drove around the rainforests. We stopped at many waterfalls, a figtree and a dairy farm. We spent three days in Cairns and it unfortunately rained all of them. Our last 2 days we weren't able to spend by the lagoon so we did some shopping instead. It was so fun to see a different part of Australia. All three towns were big tourist population and summer homes to Australians. Not many people live year round in those towns.
I am now back to Wollongong and back to classes. Although "Spring Break" is over, I still feel like I am on a 5 month Spring Break!


Waterfall in Cairns rainforest

Mom and Dad arrived

Mom and Dad have arrived in Wollongong! I spent Friday showing them around Wollongong, the uni, the beach and the international house and met up with my new friends! On Saturday morning we watched the sunrise before they headed into the Blue Mountains. That night, I went on a Harbor Cruise in Sydney with the International House. We had perfect weather and a gorgeous night on a boat with views of the Opera House and Harbor Bridge. Back to school again today, but excited that KU is going to the Final Four. Hope my Jayhawks can bring home the title this year!