I have found my new love.

Sailing.

Last week Dan and I spent 3 days and 3 nights on a boat sailing the Whitsunday Islands.  It was actually the most amazing few days ever.  We were on this boat with 14 other passengers and 4 crew.  We all slept in bunks below the deck, but our bunk was just under a large hatch in the deck.  The hatch was maybe 3 feet by 4 feet and we left it open at night so it was basically like sleeping on the boat deck under the stars.  It was so amazing.  The whole 3 days were spent snorkeling, sailing and wandering around on whichever island the skipper decided to go to. 

The snorkeling was so amazing.  I was a bit of a baby because the water was cold so I whinged a bit about it, but I always got in.  We saw tons of fish, a sea turtle, some jelly fish.  Dan even saw a sting ray.  We saw these blue crabs that seemed to be trapped in small pools when the tides went out.  There were so many of them that when they all moved together it actually looked like the ground was moving. We saw some snakes as well when we were walking on one of the islands.  Luckily Dan spotted them because I definitely wouldn’t have seen them.  That island that we were on had beaches that were made of silicon.  It had something to do with the ocean being really deep there and the silicon comes out of the ground.  It was really great for exfoliating!  It also made the sea water taste weird. 

The trip was a bit gross though because we were on a boat and there aren’t showers, we went from Friday morning until Monday night when we got back to Adelaide.  By that point Dan and I had salt permanently imbedded in our skin.  Dan’s hair could basically be molded into any shape and mine only moved in sheets!  Needless to say, showering was the first thing we did when we got back. 

 

When Dan first got here we stayed in Adelaide for a few days.  I tried to take him up to the Conservation Park that’s near Adelaide.  Somehow our timing was message up and we couldn’t catch a connecting bus and ended up walking for ages down a road and when we finally got there we only had barely an hour before the bus home left and we had to catch it because there was no way we were walking the whole back again. 

That night I took Dan out and I made him try a food that’s famous here in Adelaide.  We had whats called an AB.  Its just chips with gyro meat, tomato sauce, that white sauce that goes on gyros, and some other sauces on top.  It’s something that most people tend to only eat in the middle of the night on the way home from the pubs.  At that point it tastes really good, but most people don’t eat it any other time. 

We also went on a wine tour that weekend, which was fun.  There were a bunch of young people on the tour which was good.  There was a group of Canadians though that were so obnoxious that I couldn’t stand them and by the end of the day I’m fairly sure they knew I didn’t like them. 

 Before we went out to the Whitsundays, we spent a few days in the Gold Coast staying in Surfers Paradise.  We were meant to go surfing while we were there, but there had been some really bad storms the week before which had torn up the beaches and left heaps of debris in the water.  The storms had only been a few days before us so it was still pretty windy which made it hard to lay at the beach because we froze. 

The one day we decided to rent a car and just drive the entire Gold Coast.  We went Zorbing.  It is definitely the most random thing I have ever done in my life.  We got put inside this giant hamster ball thing, but there was one inside another.  There was a smaller one suspended inside a larger one, but the small one was big enough to fit Dan and I when we were sitting down.  After Dan and I climbed in, they fill the small ball up with a few inches of water and pushed us down a hill.  We basically just tumbled and rolled around uncontrollably for the minute or so that it took us to get down the hill.  It was so much fun!  A bit crazy, a bit of a waste of money for the 1 minute it took to get down the hill, but it was really funny! 

We then drove down to these rock pools where we had lunch.  It was just a river that because of the placement of the rocks created natural pools with a little waterfall.  We stayed there for a while even though the water was icy cold.  Dan got in a few times, but I couldn’t.  I jumped in a few times off the rocks, but it was so cold I couldn’t stand it!

After a while we drove back up and went to a beach for a while.  It was a beach for surfing so there was just heaps of surfers everywhere and we were a little bit jealous, but we did some swimming in one of the channels and tried building a sand castle!  We also discovered the sand crabs that were really tiny and white.  They would dig little holes in the sand and the sand that come out of the holes was in perfect little balls.  It was really weird, but not as weird as the ones we saw in the Whitsundays.

The whole trip was so amazing.  We probably could have planned things a bit better.  We ran into a few problems, had a some close calls at missing flights or trains.  Amazingly, it all worked somehow.  

Adelaide wins as some of the strangest weather I have ever experienced.  It is getting into the fall here, which means cold and rain.  Luck for me though, it doesnt get really cold here.  I havent seen a real winter jacket being sold anywhere and the buildings dont even have heating because it doesnt get cold enough to use it.  My room gets really cold at night though, so I wish they did have heat.  Adelaide gets a bit colder than some places though because we get the Artic winds.  This just means that I have to have layers because as I'm walking to Uni in the sun I get so warm and then all of a sudden a freezing cold gust of wind will come along and I have to put on 2 jackets.

Last week we had tons of rain.  There were some pretty bad storms because a lot of the beaches were really torn up, but it wasn't like storms at home.   There was no thunder and lightning and the sky never even got really dark.   

Has anyone else ever taken a holiday from their holiday?  Momma and I got breakfast delivered to our room while laying in bed at the hotel and laid by the pool everyday in Cairns.  The week before however, was a different story.  My mom got here last Sunday and she was pretty jetlagged so we just hung around in Adelaide, shopping and going to the beach on Sunday and Monday.  Tuesday morning we had an early start for our adventure to Kangaroo Island. 

            We had to get a cab at 6am to the bus station, where we got picked up by our tour guide for the trip, in a cramped little van.  We then drove for an hour and a half through the Adelaide Hills to get to ferry that we took for 45 minutes to Kangaroo Island.  We then packed ourselves back up into the little van and headed off on our two day adventure. 

            After some stops at different look out points, we headed to Seal Bay, which is exactly how it sounds.  The whole beach is covered with seals.  A tour guide took us down onto the beach where we came really close to some and we even got to watch a momma seal teaching the baby seal how to swim!  Afterwards, we headed to the Little Sahara for sand boarding.  I climbed straight up one of the sand dunes and it is way harder than it looks.  I will never again complain about walking up a hill because for every step up these dunes, I slid back down half way.  The slide back down wasn’t nearly as exciting as I thought it would be either.  Basically, it was like sledding down a hill, but if you fall off you roll around in sand until there isn’t an inch of you not covered in sand. 

            When we made it to the cottage we were staying in , we were a bit surprised.  From the outside it was really cute.  It was in a really remote area and had a campfire out front, but the inside was so gross!  The place smelled so bad and it was so dirty.  Im pretty sure it hasn’t been cleaned since it was built.  The beds were pretty gross too.  Mom and I washed all of our clothes as soon as we got back cause we definitely thought we were going to get bed bugs.  Luckily this was only for one night and we didn’t spend too much time inside.  After dark we got to go out looking for penguins.  Luckily we got to see a few hiding in the bushes, but the best thing was definitely the stars.  There were more stars than I have ever seen in my life.  They continued all the way down to the horizons on all sides making it look like we were in a dome.  We could see the Milky Way too which was so amazing! 

            The next day we went to go see some of the other sites on KI like the Remarkable Rocks and stuff.  We got to stop at  a koala park too and momma and I found a koala in a tree.  It was really low to the ground and it was awake, which is awesome.  Koalas are only awake for 4 hours everyday, the rest of the day is spent sleeping.  Also there are hundreds of types of eucalyptus tree and koalas only like to eat 20 or so.  The ones they eat are drugs so the koalas get really high from eating and then sleep even more.  I think that’s so funny!!

            A few days after this we went on our holiday to Cairns.  We stayed in the Novotel Cairns Oasis Resort.  It was so great to stay in a hotel since I have become very used to hostels.  The bed was definitely the most comfortable bed I have slept in, in a long time.  One of the first things we noticed were the huge bats that hung in trees near our hotel.  They were the biggest bats I’ve ever seen and a little bit creepy.  Our first day there Mom found a house boat for sale.  I think she should have gotten it.  I mean living on a house boat in Cairns, Australia sounds pretty great to me.  We also went to the botanical gardens because I had read about a rainforest walk that I wanted to do.  As it turned out, it was boardwalk a few feet wide and only a few inches above a swamp.  The boards were kind of squeaky and there were no handrails to hold on to.Mom was convinced that a crocodile was going to come out.

 Cairns is one of the main cities to get to the Great Barrier Reef, so the second day we did a tour out to the outer reef.  Mom made me wear a lycra suit in the water that made me look like an alien.  It was bright blue with a hood and mittens.  That paired with the goggles, snorkel and fins, we all looked really weird.  Snorkeling was so amazing though.  Heaps of fish were swimming around the platform where you get into the water off the pontoon.  The fish were crazy, from tiny orange and yellow ones to a blue and green one that was almost the size of me.  I saw tons within the coral everywhere.  I got really upset though because I kept running into these two other people who kept touching the coral.  They would break off pieces and touch them.  It made me really angry because the Great Barrier Reef is a World Heritage area and coral is living thing. 

            Mom and I didn’t do much else while in Cairns.  We mostly went shopping and laid around by the pool.  One morning we even got breakfast delivered to the room!  The one night while we were out shopping, we watched as these crazy birds flew in flocks and dive bombed in front of cars as they were driving by.  It was so crazy , like suicidal birds!  While we were in one of the shops, one of the birds flew in through the door and smashed into the window behind the girl working there.  The bird got stuck between the window and a picture frame.  The girl working there ran out and got a random guy off the street to help get the bird unstuck.  Between the crazy birds, the bats and the threat of crocodiles, we had quite the adventurous week. 

             I was really glad to have Momma here for a while.  It was funny though.  She let me take care of all the travel arrangements and planning.  When we would go somewhere, like the hotel, the people working there would look to her for confirmation, but I was the one who knew what was going on an what we were doing.  I was really sad when Momma went home, but the rest of the time will go by so fast.

For the last week I have been really hung up on the fact that here instead of gummi bears, they have jelly babies.  The little jellies are shaped like babies and I think it is the weirdest thing.  Who would want to eat babies?

 In Australia, Tasmania is the butt of most jokes.  Since it is isolated from the rest of the country, people say that everyone there is related.  Most of the jokes have to do with people having two heads, one tooth or just being bogan (hillbilly).  The first person I met there was the shuttle driver from the airport to the hostel and he was definitely bogan.  When he smiled and only had one tooth I wanted to laugh so hard because it was exactly what everyone had told me.  Luckily, every other person I met there was normal.  

I flew in to Hobart on Friday and immediately made my way over to the Cadbury chocolate factory to meet up with Allie and two of her friends.  I hadn't eaten all day, so I proceeded to eat my weight in free chocolate and then felt incredibly sick afterwards, but it was really fun.  They have a store in the factory where you can buy all the Cadbury chocolates for really cheap.  Of course I bought a ton and have eaten half of it already.  I also decided to buy this giant box of Cadbury Raisin Brunch Bars for $12, thinking that the box was filled with individual boxes of the bars.  When we got outside and opened it, it was just a giant bag filled with unwrapped bars.  All four of us ate these bars all weekend and somehow I still ended up bringing home like 100!

I also got to drive on the wrong side of the road in Tassie.  Saturday morning we rented a car to drive to Cradle Mountain.  I was the first one to drive and ended up driving the whole 5 hours to Cradle Mountain.  The roads were crazy small and curvy.  It was a little bit scary, but we made it and driving on the wrong side of the road is much easier than I thought it would be.  My biggest problem was that everything in the car is flipped, so I kept hitting the windshield wipers when I was trying to use my turn signal.  We also saw some sort of road kill, about every 10 minutes.  It was pretty gross.  We were also really sad because we wanted to see a Tasmanian devil, but we didnt see any live ones.  We also thought it was so funny that all of the big towns marked on the map were not big towns at all.  We would think, okay we are coming up on a big place and there would be a few restaurants and buildings and then thats it.  Even Hobart, as one of their biggest cities, was not a real city.

By the time we got to Cradle Mountain, it was around 2 pm.  It was really cold and we didnt have time to do a really long hike, so we just did a 2 hour hike around one of the lakes.  It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.  I actually texted one of my friends from Tassie and told her that I was going to move in with her because I loved it so much.  We were driving back to Hobart when it got dark and the stars were so amazing.  Earlier last week I had gone to the beach with a few people at 6am to swim and look at the stars.  It is weird that theres different stars in the sky.  I kept looking for the big dipper.  Not being near a big city though, the stars were absolutely amazing.  

Sunday we drove down to Bruny Island just off the South East corner of Tassie.  Again, we kept laughing at how small everything was.  One of the big places to see on the island was Blighs Museum.  The whole museum was about the size of our living room at home.  We did get to see a penguin though.  We mostly just drove around the island since it was raining and really cold out.  Back in Hobart, we went on this ghost tour of one of the old penitentiaries.  It was pretty dumb, but the scariest part was the fact that the guy giving the tour looked EXACTLY like one of the photos of a prisoner names Isaac Daly.  He might have been the only ghost there.

To start, I ate kangaroo.  Last week we had it in the dining hall for dinner one night.  It was just a kangaroo steak and it tasted a lot like regular steak, but we had it with a berry glaze sauce.  It was surprisingly good!  In the last week, I have also tried sticky date pudding, which is a very common Australian dessert and Tim Tams, which are cookies that are more addicting that Oreo’s. 

 This last weekend got off to a very eventful start.  Wednesday nights are pub nights at college, so pretty much everyone goes out.  I made the mistake of staying out until 3:30 am when I had to get up at 5 am to catch a flight to Sydney.  Needless to say, I over slept and missed my flight.  A few hours of crying to the lady that works at the front desk and a lot of money later, I was on a flight to Sydney. 

Since Allie goes to University of Wollongong, which is about an hour or so from Sydney, I had to then take a train all the way out there.  This meant taking a short train from the airport to Wolli Creek and then an hour long train from Wolli Creek to Fairy Meadow.  By the time I finally got there, I was so excited to Allie and Craig at the train station.  It was like the next best thing to being home.  Sadly, I didn’t get to see much of Fairy Meadow since Thursday night we just went out to dinner and hung out in Allie’s apartment with some friends and Friday we caught the train back into the city. 

In Sydney we checked into our hostel and then went to go see some of the big sites.  We walked to the harbour to see the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House.  We then went into China Town to have dinner, but it was crazy cause all through China Town were people selling things.  This was at night, when it was dark, there were tables of clothes, jewelry, watches, all right down the center between restaurants. 

On Saturday, Craig left to go home around 11 and Allie and I began our adventure.  She has this Lonely Planet travel guide called Walking in Australia with all kinds of hikes throughout Australia.  There is this one hike in Boudi National Park outside of Sydney, in Killcare, that we decided we wanted to do.  We had called to check out the bus times and they said there was only 2 buses heading out that way on Saturday and that there was only one back into the city, but that we could catch a cab or walk a ways to catch a different bus.  So Allie and I took a train to Woy Woy where we got on a bus heading to Killcare.  We asked the bus driver if he went near Putty Beach, where our hike started, and he said he could get us pretty close.  The driver went outside of his normal route to get us close to Putty Beach, but as we were getting off the bus he told us that there were no more buses heading back that day and that a cab would be around $50 and handed us a map of the area.  Allie and I are both thinking that we would get to the entrance to the national park and there would be some sort of information center that would help us figure out a way to get back.  After walking a ways down the beach, we realized that there was no information center and we didn’t have the number for a cab company or anything.  We wandered into a camp grounds and found a sign with some numbers on it and started calling some information numbers trying to find a way back.  At this point, we are both already a bit hungry because it was now 2 o’clock and we hadn’t eaten since 10 am.  We had also assumed there would be some shops or something near the entrance where we could get some food, but again, we were wrong.  After finally calling the non-emergency police number and asking them for the number for a cab, we scheduled a cab pick up at the entrance to the park at 7:30 pm, even though we didn’t exactly know where the entrance was. 

Already a bit hungry, we set out on this hike.  It was a really amazing hike, but it was basically an endless staircase.  There were areas where the stairs were so steep, it was like impossible to get up and some places where it was hard to even see the path.  In one place we lost the path for a little while.  The hike was called the Coastal Walk, which was completely appropriate since every little while the path would take us to the cliffs looking out over the water and then back in to the forest.  One of the places along the hike was called Maitland Bay.  It was one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen.  It was kind of hidden and seemed as though most of the people there had gotten there by boat. 

It took us 2.5 hours to get to the “end” of the hike.  However, this meant that we then had to walk back the way we came.  We were so hungry and tired that we basically sprinted back.  Somehow, we made it back to the start in 1.5 hours.  We were so hungry at this point and we had over an hour before the cab was coming that we just started walking out towards where we thought the town might be.  We wandered aimlessly through a neighborhood for a while until we ran into a few guys and asked them where the nearest place to eat was.  Luckily, it was just down the street.  At then end of the street was like 2 restaurants, a liquor store (bottle-o as its called here), and a post office.  Both of us ordered a Cajun-chicken burgers.  They were probably the best burgers I have ever had.  It was Cajun-chicken, tomato, lettuce, beets, pineapple, and a ranch type sauce.  I would never have normally tried all those things together, but it was so delicious.  When the cab came to where we were, we were so relieved to find it was only a $27 ride, not $50.  After another hour train ride from Woy Woy to Sydney, we were both so exhausted that showered and basically just went to bed. 

Sunday was beach day and I was so excited.  We went for a run and did a little bit of shopping before hand, so we didn’t get to Bondi Beach until after 1pm.  Bondi has to be one of the most crowded beaches I have ever seen, except maybe in Hawaii.  The waves were huge and there were people everywhere.  It looked so much like a movie to me.  There were the lifeguards everywhere and the surfers off on a separate part of the beach.  Allie and I were in the water for a while even though it was freezing cold.  By the end of the day, we were both super exhausted again. After Allie headed back to Fairy Meadow, I pretty much went straight to bed to make sure that I wouldn’t miss my flight in the morning…

I tried vegemite today.   I t was really disgusting.  I felt kind of like I was going to throw up.  My roommate and I made a deal that if I tried vegemite, she would try a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.   So this afternoon she spread some vegemite on a cracker and made me eat it.  It really was very disgusting.   I was told by a few other people that its not a good way to eat it so I reckon I might give it a second chance in the morning.  Tons of people eat a very, very thin spread of it on toast with butter, while other people eat it on toast with the soft boiled eggs they make here for breakfast.  Another girl told me the best way to eat it is with cheese and tomato on toast.  We'll see how many times I'll try it.  It was a pretty bad first experience.

At dinner, I made my roommate eat peanut butter and jelly.  She hated it.  She said it was way to sweet and went around telling other people to try it.  Most people wouldn't and said it was gross, but there were a few people who had tried it before and said they liked it.  It's weird to think that they dont eat pb & j here.  At home everyone has it.  It's like an American staple food as a kid.

I also tried a dim sim today.  They sell these in pretty much every take away restaurant around.  I dont really know what was in them because the girl who let me try hers didn't really know either.  It was similar to an egg roll with meat inside.  It wasn't all that good, but not as bad as vegemite.  I got to talking with some people and I now have a whole list of foods I have to try including:

sticky date pudding

lamington

tim tams 

mars red bar

some sort of noodle thing I can't remember the name of, but from what they said it sounds kind of like our ramen noodles only with sauce instead of broth

meat pie

chilli sauce

there was heaps more, but I can't remember it all right now.  Mostly what I want right now is some regular cheese.  At home, the most standard cheese is either American or cheddar, I think at least.  Here, the only sliced cheese I have seen for sandwiches is this white cheese that I have never had before and they use it for everything.  Its the same cheese that is in all the food, its in the sandwich bar, its used for nachos.  It's pretty good cheese, but I am just used to more variety I guess.  I have not seen any other kind of cheese here other than like more expensive cheese blocks.  I would really like a good grilled cheese sandwich made with American cheese.  The one day we were eating tomato soup with dinner and someone was saying that they liked bread and cheese with heir tomato soup.  Another girl then said that she loved to toast them together and everyone was like "wow, that sounds so good!"  I just laughed and told them that grilled cheese and tomato soup is another American favorite.  

The other thing I have been craving is bacon.  At home I love bacon, but here it is really gross.  It is really fatty and it is always really chewy.  I need mine to be super crispy.  Luckily, I said bacon was my favorite food during a get to know you game in one of my classes last week and some guy told me about this specific bacon that he buys.  He said after he visited the states, this is the only bacon he will eat.  I reckon tomorrow, I might go to the store and get it.

I am officially of legal drinking age in the US.  Not that it will matter much for a while, but it is still pretty cool.  I didn't have the normal 21st birthday either.  Thursday morning Aarika, Lisa, Dan, Jeff, and myself headed to Melbourne for the long weekend ( Monday was a public holiday in Adelaide for a horse race, the Adelaide Cup).  Luckily, its super short flight to Melbourne from Adelaide, only around an hour.  We got to our hostel super early though, so we had to wait around to check in.  It was pretty cold and rainy, so we headed to the Immigration Museum for a while.  The boys hated it, but I though it was pretty interesting.  After we all navigated our way back to the hostel, with only getting slightly lost, we went to this really cool bar to have dinner.  The inside of the bar was dark, but it was lit up by fixtures that had pictures and patterns all over them so they cast a strange glow and one section even had Christmas lights hanging from the ceiling.  Half of the bar was filled with couches and coffee tables and the other half had regular tables and chairs.  The decorations were so crazy.  One wall had doll heads lined up along the top and every wall had random picture frames, knick-knacks, and mirrors.  It was the craziest bar I have ever been to, but also the coolest.  Plus, they had $4 pizzas!

 Friday we booked a bus tour of The Great Ocean Road, which is a road that was carved into the sides of the cliffs along the coast east of Melbourne.  The road curves and bends with huge hills and drops while looking out over the ocean.  It was a gorgeous drive, but our bus driver was a little bit crazy.  He drove so fast that every car in front of us would pull over and let us pass by.  We stopped at an Aboriginal Cultural center where we got to listen a guy play the didgeridoo.  A didgeridoo is an Aboriginal instrument created by termites.  Making the instrument is just finding a tree limb that has been hollowed out naturally by termites, cutting the limb off as the desired length.  They’re so cool because each one is different and creates a different sound.  Most of the sound is actually created with the mouth by moving your tongue and having different pressures of air in your cheeks.  Apparently, these can only be played by men and Nicole Kidman recently got in trouble for playing one!  I took videos of the guy who played for us because it sounds so awesome.  It actually doesn’t sound like a wood instrument at all.  It sounded almost electronic.  I really enjoyed it. 

 We had a few other smaller stops along the road including a wildlife park to see koalas and for a rainforest walk.  We also stopped at Bells Beach, which is apparently one of the greatest surf spots in the world.  Too bad I haven’t learned yet…

 One of the main attractions of The Great Ocean Road is seeing the 12 Apostles.  These are limestone stacks that are naturally formed by the ocean.  The waves wear away at the base of the cliff creating a small inlet, until the cliff can’t be supported anymore and a sheet of rock falls.  The directions of the waves have left these stacks disconnected from the mainland.  Eventually, the stacks crumble away which is why there are actually only 9 of the 12 left.  We stopped at Loch Ard Gorge and London Bridge, two other natural tourist spots on the coast.  The Loch Ard Gorge is an inlet with caves that has a famous old story of a ship wreck to go along with it.  The London Bridge on the other hand has newer story of a couple getting stuck out on the limestone stack when the bridge collapsed. 

 

On the way back from the tour, we were passing through the city and saw the Crown Casino, which is the largest casino in the southern hemisphere.  We decided to give it a shot.  I have never been to a casino before, so at first I stuck to the slot machines with Lisa.  Unfortunately, I did not do very well on those.  A little while later, Dan decided to show me how to play the Big Wheel and after one bet, I was hooked.  I turned 21 sitting at a table, losing all my money over the next 3 hours.  Despite the fact that I lost, I had a really fun night.  I can honestly say I am much happier that we were there rather than out drinking!

 Aarika, Lisa, and I of course spent the next day shopping.  In the morning, we dragged the guys to Victoria Market, the largest market in Melbourne where I discovered my new favorite food.  Burek.  It’s a Bosnian food which is basically a fried dough filled with cheese or meat.  It reminded me a lot of a pierogi, except much thicker and it more of a pie form.  It is definitely the best thing I have eaten since being here!  Of course, we bought all kinds of other things at the market as well.  The boys decided they were sick of shopping and decided to go to the IMAX while us girls went to shop in Fitzroy, a more bohemian district.  It was a weird combination of expensive stores and thrift shops.  Some places were both in one.  

 The Moomba Festival was going on the whole time we were there, so Saturday night we figured we would check it out.  Strangely, it was an alcohol free event, which just surprised us.  Festivals like that at home always have beer tents and Aussies love drinking a whole lot more.  It was not very exciting, but we did go back on Monday for the water shows, which were really cool.

 On Sunday evening, I saw one of the coolest things I have ever seen in my whole life.  On Phillip Island, near Melbourne, there is a penguin march every evening just after dark.  We got to sit on the beach and watch these mini penguins come in on the waves from the day of eating, to go burrow in the hills.  These tiny penguins would come, a few at a time, out onto the sand only to immediately head back into the water.  After a while, they started coming out and walking up the beach into the hills.  There were boardwalks built right along the paths the penguins take up the hills.  We stood along the boardwalk and watched group after group of tiny penguins waddle up the hill.  We were only a few feet from them which was so incredible.  Sadly, we weren’t allowed to take pictures since the flashing scared the penguins.  I tried to sneak a video of it, but it didn’t come out.  Watching these penguins come out of the ocean and being so close to them, I actually felt like I was in the Planet Earth movies. 

 Overall, Melbourne was great.  The hostel on the other hand, I can’t say the same.  Oh well, it was only for a few days and we didn’t spend much time there luckily.  After 5 days traveling, we were all very exhausted.  This morning I was so glad to be back in Adelaide.  Unfortunately, this means week 2 of classes…