One Year Later

One year since being back in Minnesota has past and has brought me to the great country of Australia. Upon the first day of arrival, we were a little tired from the flights, but as we are awesome at quiz night, (as long as it isn't about Australia/New Zealand sports) we entered into the quiz. We were near the top and the 3 of us were tied with a group of ten, until the love song round came along lastly, which threw us back in the run. But, on the nice side, we did win shots for having the best team-name of "Jesus Hates the Yankees" (the team, not Americans)! The next day, we walked around the beautiful city of Sydney to see sights like the Botanical Gardens, with the huge bats hanging in the trees, and a walk along Sydney Harbor where we saw the famous Opera House and Sydney bridge. We also walked through the historical (expensive) part called The Rocks, where we had lunch and Annie was attacked by a gull and had part of her baguette stolen! While in Sydney, we were also lucky enough to have a kangaroo BBQ, which wasn't too bad and was kind of a lean meat, like buffalo. And, of course, we went to some beaches, taking a faery to Manley Beach for a day and then Bundi, the most popular/best beach in the area for another day.

After enjoying Sydney, we took a 24-hour train across the state to the city of Adelaide. While there, we played around with a friend that we knew from New Zealand, and went to Glenelg, which is like another beach subarb. She also was kind enough to let us stay at her house for a night and invite us to some social events. In the middle of our Adelaide stay, we took a 3 day tour of Kangaroo Island, which was very naturful! First off, to get to the island, we were in a not very big, 9 person fishing boat that took us out into the extreme waters with waves that were probably about 5-6 feet tall, making me feel a little sick after an hour of it! The only other thing we did that night was to go out on a night-walk through the snake-infested grasses (if it were warm) to look for koalas, which we did see a few, along with a baby koala. The next day we had a very full day which took us to look at The Remarkable Rocks, which are very interesting and you just have to look at my pictures to explain. We then went on to look at some more land formations, along with kangaroos, which I got to pet a wild kangaroo with her joey; Cape Barren Geese, which are apparantly the rarest; wallabies, and more koalas! We then went out to some huge sand dunes where we went down them on sled-like things: sandboarding. That night, I decided to sleep outside along with 2 other tour guides, which was a neat experience, and at one point I felt something jump on me and then leave again, probably just an opossum I was told. The next day we left our farm to look at more koalas, a not-so-amusing cave tour, and Seal Bay, home to 600 seals, before heading back to Adelaide. The next day we rented a car for a few days and went to tour some wineries in the Barossa Valley, which is more well-known for it's Shiraz, my possible favorite. To take up the day we visited first Two Hands, which was some of the best wines I've ever had! We also went to Penfolds, Peter Leihmans, St. Hallett, and Turky Flat to finish the day.

After leaving Adelaide, we headed for one of the most beautiful drives in the world, called The Great Ocean Road. First though, we drove through some nice, scenic, coastal cities before getting to Mt. Gambier, where we spent a night in jail. Of course, (maybe) we did it by choice and it was actually a jail that was turned into a hostel in 1995. It looked like it could still be changed right back into a jail, with some of the rooms still being individual cells that you could stay in. Everything still had bars on it and the jail was complete with it's own pet alpacas! After another day of driving and playing in a giant, awesome park, we got to the Great Ocean Road! It turned out to actually finally be a nice, sunny day, although windy, but wasn't freezing cold. We started out the drive with the Bay of Islands, which was a beautiful bay full of pillar-like islands. More along the way was The Grotto, a large archway that had a pool in it mostly protected by the ocean. Next along the drive was the London Bridge, which had one of its arches fall in 1990 and is now just one large archway. We then came to another area that was full of cool looking islands, arches, caves, and a blowhole cave. Then came the most popular part of the drive, the Twelve Apostles. I don't really understand how they get 12 out of the pillars that we could see, but I could find maybe 8, plus 1 that has apparently fallen not too long ago. There also wasn't much to explain how they name came about, but it was an awesome area and mostly the end of the main part of the road, before we came to a few waterfalls.

And so, now I find myself in Melbourne, which is looking to be an awesome city!