Bet You Though My Blog Was Broken

Nope, life has just been crazy...I'll do my best to get caught up. We are doing so many amazing things here I don't have time right now to write about it. Sorry all!

Day 31

To be honest not much happened today. We went grocery shopping in the morning then had class in the afternoon for Events Management. Following class I went for a run on the beach then came back to make dinner and get ready for our week long field trip to Tenterfield.

Day 30

I made it to class today I promise. It was another Marine Biology day so we had our classroom session and then went out to collect plankton to look at under microscopes. We all got to go out in the boat in groups of 4 gathering our own plankton with the help of one the graduate assistants from Southern Cross. Once we collected our plankton we went to Lismore where Southern Cross University is located and looked through microscopes to see what we could find. I even found a a small fish larva our professor had never seen before so that was pretty cool.

After that we returned back to camp and Matt, Harlan, Brian and I promptly headed off to town to get some more ice cream at In the Pink. Today I had Forrerro Rocher and hazelnut. They were both pretty good but I wouldn't go so far as to say they were my favorite. We returned back to camp upon devouring our ice cream and made dinner. We got a quick trip down to the beach just before sun set and came back to do homework for the rest of the night. Not a bad day in Oz.

Day 29

Again no class since I have Tuesdays off normally, I promise I do have class tomorrow. I made my first breakfast on the grill today as I prepared some fried eggs, they were pretty good so I think they might become a staple in my meal planning. After that I headed to the beach for a short time with Brian and Harlan before I had to leave for a volunteering orientation at the preschool in town. The director for next semester is here all week and wanted to see it as well so we got a ride to the preschool which was very much appreciated. We toured the school and got to see all the cute kids. It was interesting to parallel this school to the Child Study Center back in Muncie. It's a lot different but I think it could be fun.

Once we got back Aimee, Harlan, and I went snorkeling a little further than we had normally. Oh what a difference 50 yards makes! Instead of the colorless fish we once thought were exciting we found beautiful tropical fish, there had to have been hundreds of them. They all seemed very at ease with us being there. We even got to see a small puffer fish similar in size to those we tagged in Marine Bio last week. In such a wonderful area we lost track of time and had to race back to camp because Evon was coming to cook dinner for everyone at camp.

I still can not begin to describe how wonderful this woman is. She is so nice to all of us and made us the most delicious meal ever. I can tell why she carries such a following with the Australia Centre students. She even knows my friends Liz and Jake from last spring and asked that I give both of them hugs and kisses when I get back. 

Week 4 Overview

Holy Heavens! Has it been 4 weeks already? My time here is seriously flying by and I don't know where all the time is going! This week I have tagged fish, got rained out of both a camping trip and attending a surf tag competition, caught my first look at surfers paradise, played lots of tennis, and snorkeled in my best location yet. As par usual here are the highs and lows:

High Point: Snorkeling this week, the fish we saw were absolutely incredible I can't believe we saw so many cool things in such shallow water close to shore. It was simply amazing.

Low Point: The weather was kind of crappy this week. We got rained out of 2 things I was a pretty excited about. We are planing to reschedule our trip to Mt. Warning though so I will get to see at least one thing eventually.

Day 28

Life and Culture was canceled today so I had another day of no classes. Not too much excitement today so it was nice to have a little time to work on some assignments that have deadlines approaching. The rugby guys came to our camp again to teach whoever wanted how to play rugby. It doesn't really seem like my kind of thing so I was perfectly content just watching as a few others played. One very exciting thing that did  happen today was my first up close wallaby sighting. He was just across the road from the cabins in the brush no more than 10 feet away, pretty cool. Not a lot to report today but I think the wallaby makes up for it!

Day 27

Today was another great day in OZ. The weather has cleared up and the sun is again asserting it's dominance on Lennox Head, just the way we like it. Today was especially exciting because A wonderful lady who lives at the camp took Amiee, Matt, and I to Bangalow for a few hours. Her name is Evon and she is absolutely the most wonderful person I have ever met. She calls everyone Love, and to her everything is beautiful. We had a lovely day going through the shops and even stopped to get a pastry and an afternoon tea at a local cafe. I passed on the tea but got one of the more delicious desserts I have ever eaten, it was some kind of blueberry tart and I'll have to figure our how to make it soon. On our way back to camp Evon took us to Broken Head, which is about halfway between Lennox and Byron Bay. The views are incredible and we lucked out with a gorgeous day. I think we are planing a return trip soon to let everyone see how pretty it is and possibly give us a chance to go snorkeling while we are there.

Upon returning to camp I promptly found Harlan so we could settle the tie breaker in our two games. We ended up playing to 2-4 Harlan's lead before deciding it was way to hot to be playing tennis in the middle of the day. we headed back to camp, made dinner and planned for a return trip in a few hours. Once the sun went down it was a lot more enjoyable to play. We picked up Thomas and Brian who also wanted to play and got a doubles match in before finally finishing our match. Harlan came out victorious with a 6-4 win.

We returned to camp where I met up with Zach, another of the guys at camp who plays tennis. We went back to the courts to hit around for a while before the lights shut off. It was quite a busy day but I wouldn't have done it any differently.