Birthday and Camping

So I am now 21 and a proper adult (sort of).

I had such a lovely birthday. Me and Ryan want out to an amazing indian restaurant in West End the night before. It was so delicious. And so exciting to be in a proper restaurant, it's been so long! So that was a nice pre-birthday evening. Then on my birthday I woke up to cards and presents. I had a little cake and some champagne with gold in it from my parents, some lovely jewels from Tess, a bumble bee toothbrush holder from Ryan's parents and a volcano making kit, Mr Topsy Turvey book and AMAZING SWAROVSKI JEWELLERY from Ryan. He bought me an earings and necklace set with little pink gems inside hearts. I love them! :D.

For lunch me and Ryan went to Nando's before meeting Hwaran and Sayo at the modern art museum (GOMA). We made a birthday cake out of lego, played in a room full of balloons and went down the slide. I really think that everyone should get the chance to play in a room full of balloons on their birthday, if not every day. I think life would be better with a balloon room.

Anyways, after GOMA we went to Max Brenner's an amazing chocolate shop in South Bank where we met Lizzie. We had to cue for half an hour but it was so deelicious! I had a banana chocolate milkshake and it was so good. Hwaran and Sayo even got chocolate pizza which they gave me a slice of. It had chocolate sauce with marshmellow, white chocolate and crunchy yummy things as topping. It was so sickly! I couldn't even manage to finish my 1 slice. I don't know how Hwaran and Sayo managed to eat the rest of the pizza! We then headed back, I skyped my family again as now it was my Dad's birthday as well (yes, we have the same birthday). Then people started to arrive for predrinks. We all got a little squiffy before heading out to the valley. We went to a club called The Met where me, Sayo and Katia managed to cue jump and get in for free because it was my birthday. Unfortunately not everyone could get in due to flipflops/ID that wasn't accepted. It was a good night though, Sayo and Katia introduced me to Tequila Sunrise which was so good and so unexpected as I never thought I liked tequila. We ended up staying out all night until the first train in the morning and got home around 4.30am.

It was a wonderful 21st. So far I like being 21, and am not at all keen on getting any older than this!

So, last weekend I went camping to Girraween National Park with QUEST. It was so much fun. The park is inland, up in the mountains and was stunning. It's in the granite belt and there are absolutely huge rocks everywhere. When we arrived we had a talk from a park ranger, set up our tents and then headed out for a wander. We went to granite arch where 1 huge rock is balanced upon 2 other huge rocks and then were heading back when for some reason we decided to go up the pyramid. The path went up 100s of steps before finishing where the huge rock ascent started. We had to scramble up a ridiculously steep rock to get to the top of it. I was literally going up on all fours it was so steep. The view was pretty amazing though and I was glad I made the effort to get right to the top. I was so scared to go back down though. I hadn't expected to be going on such a trek so only had daps on with next to no grip. Going down was scary! I did make it though :)

That evening we ate BBQ chicken, roasted marshmellows and drank a lot of goon. Everyone was so friendly and it didn't matter at all that I hadn't known anyone going. That is one of the things I love about QUEST. Everyone is an international student and wanting to make friends. So everyone talks to each other and it doesn't matter if you don't know anyone already.

The next day we went on a huge hike. First we went to the sphinx and the turtle. Rocks that supposedly look like their namesakes but I couldn't see it at all. Then we went to Castle Rock on the way back. The view was so amazing from up their. You could even see the sphinx and turtle where we had been earlier. They actually looked a lot further than I thought. It's so crazy that most of these walks are even allowed though. You literally are on a stupidly steep rock with no barrier and a sheer drop off the edge. In the UK I think they would definitely have something to say about it. Health and Safety and all that. I guess Aussies are credited enough to be trusted not to fall off a rock though.

The evening brought more goon and barbequed food. Somehow I managed to lose my bowl and cutlery although managed to find the cutlery in the grass in the morning! There is supposed to be a bird that steals blue things so I think perhaps that he may have made off with my bowl. We had to pack up our tents in the morning and head back to civilisation. We stopped for a walk in the rainforest en route. We somehow managed to pick a one way walk though and ended up walking a couple of k back along the highway. We must have been so funny to see, we even ran part of the way. Anyone passing would have just seen a huge line of people jogging along the side of the highway in the middle of nowhere. Rather amusing I imagine.

I was pretty sad to head back, especially as I had an assignment due monday that I had hardly started. That at least is handed in now, and I have no more classes until the 3rd May. Camping was so good, if a little cold at night. The first night I hardly slept at all because I couldn't warm up. It was nice to have a warm shower and a cosy bed when I got home.

Now it is midsemester so I am mostly doing nothing, but trying to get at least a little work done. It is a nice change from these last few weeks which have been crazily busy!

I tried to put some photos in but it didn't seem to like it. There's plenty on fb though if you did want a peek.

Hope you are all well,

love Claire xxx

This and that

So I haven't blogged for a while but I'm also not really sure what I've been doing. One thing that I am very excited about is that I'm going to start volunteering at the RSPCA. I'm going for training on saturday and then will start going every friday. I have to do a couple of hours of admin work, but then I got to do dog walking and animal enrichment activities. I really miss Lexie and Moss so it will be good to work with the dogs :D

Other than that I have been mostly working these last few weeks. My job is getting pretty tedious but at least I should be doing some fun things with the money over summer. I will hopefully be going whale watching in Surfer's Paradise this weekend. And then on monday I'll be going on my field trip to Fraser Island with my Australia's Terrestrial Environment course. It's crazy that it's midsemester already though! I don't feel like I've been here all that long, but at the same time when I think about arriving here that seems like a world away.

Ryan has moved into his own place and got a job where I'm working now. He's going training for it today so should be starting pretty soon. We've been vaguely starting to make travel plans. So far we are thinking that we will go straight to Ayre's rock when exams are over, then possibly visit Alice Springs as well. Then we're going to fly up to either Darwin or Cairns where Ryan will buy a campervan and then we're going to travel all the way down the East Coast. We've heard it may not be worth going to Darwin and I can't seem to find any flights to there from Ayre's rock either so it's looking like we might be starting in Cairns. Which is meant to be amazing for backpackers and it's right by the Great Barrier Reef -so I think I'm going to get my scuba diving certificate there. You can do courses where you live in on the boats which sounds like so much fun! I've always wanted to go on a boat holiday :).

Anyways, things that I have actually been doing...

At the beginning of September the Brisbane festival started. This is not at all like the Edinburgh festival. Everything is expensive so I haven't actually been to any of the events. The opening was pretty amazing though. It's called Riverfire and it starts with a fighter jet zooming between along the river with a glowing ball of fire shooting out the back of it. It was really cool -looked a bit like the sun. Then the river lit up with fire along it (this wasn't actually on the water, there were platforms along the river) and the fireworks started it. But they didn't just come off the river, they were coming off the tops of all the skyscrapers on the other side of the river (we were at South Bank). Then the bridge lit up with a waterfall of sparks. It was all really pretty. It finished with the jet coming back through. I am a big fan of fireworks so this was pretty amazing, especially with the jet. And it was free :).

So the next week I had my fieldtrip to Lamington Park. This involved a 12km trek in the rain. It wasn't a great day. It was pretty much the same as Brisbane Forest Park, except we got to see some heathland as well. There's supposed to be really good views from there but it was so misty that you couldn't actually see anything at all.

Me at Lamington with a big uprooted tree.

The next day I was going on a trip with QUEST to Springbrook -which is pretty much right by Lamington so I was feeling pretty concerned. This actually turned out to be really good though. The sun was out and everyone was much happier. We went to 'best of all lookout' where you can see all the way to Byron Bay. Then we headed to the 'Forest of dreams' where we saw glow worms and fed parrots.

Feeding a parrot!!

We then went to a waterfall where some crazy people went swimming. I was considering it until I heard the horrible screaming noises everyone was making when they got in.

Me from behind the waterfall -slightly damp!

After spending some time there we headed over to this place called Natural Bridge. It's hard to explain but is basically water going through a hole into a cave and somehow this is a bridge... It was pretty too and we even saw some glow worms in there natural habitat. After that we headed home.

Me and Louisa them met up with Guy and Ryan for dinner at a Turkish restaurant. I discovered that I do not like Turkish food. For some reason I thought it would taste like Moroccan food so was massively disappointed. There was a belly dancer though, although she did not roll her belly which we found odd.

Last week we went to QUEST's film night where we saw a pretty odd Australian film called Priscilla Queen of the Desert. It was about transvestites travelling to Alice Springs to put on some shows. Was surprisingly good. We then headed to RE which is a pretty cool bar in Toowong with live music. Was pretty dead by 11.30pm though -people seem to head out and go home earlier in Australia.

This weekend me and Ryan went to Wet and Wild -a water park at the Gold Coast. I bought my first rash vest for it! It's very nice -blue, stripey roxy tee :). However ended up not wearing it as wasn't allowed it on some of the ride. Ryan, Guy and Rich had been the week before but I had been working. But Ryan loved it so made me go even though it was cloudy. It was fun though although they have a ridiculously scary water slide. You go up to the top where the slide is unlocked for you to get in. You get in and are standing up with your back against the vertical slide. You are locked in and then there is a countdown before the floor drops out from beneath you and you fall down at ridiculous speeds. It was so scary that I couldn't even scream! Horrible ride. After falling down you do a loop the loop which you can't even notice due to going so fast. At least it was over quickly. The other rides were much nicer. I especially enjoyed the Kamikaze which involves a 2 seater rubber ring, which you sit in facing each other. It's a bit like a half tube or something. You drop off one side and then go up the other and then again until you slow to a stop. I got straight back on this one it was so good. The rest of the slides were all pretty mellow. It seemed that most of the rides there were either too scary or not scary enough.

So that's about all I've been up to -it seems that I may have done more than I thought.

Love you and miss you xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Byron Bay

So last weekend I went to Byron Bay with QUEST (exchange students society). So far it's my fave place in Australia -had such a good weekend there! Unfortunately my camera was being ridiculous so I don't actually have any pics though.

The journey there was pretty weird. Our driver seemed to have no idea what he was doing. First he forgot his log book -whatever that is -so we had to wait around for like an hour before we could even leave and then he got us lost and going round in circles! On the way we stopped off at Mount Warning, for a trek in the jungle. But we didn't have time to go all the way up so it did seem a little pointless. Saw a HUGE snake though, literally a few metres long. It was a tree python hanging down in one of the trees right by the path. A couple of people tried to touch it and it got a wee bit annoyed and they screamed. We also stopped off at Nimbin which is a hippy drugs town. I didn't like it there though, it was just a bit wierd and old looking.

So we finally arrived at our hostel after getting lost a couple more times. We were in an 8 bed room with a few people we knew and their friends. It was such a nice hostel -really clean and modern and big, there's even a hot tub. I think it was called Nomads -in case anyone finds themselves in Byron Bay. We then had a BBQ on the hostel terrace and I've realised that I may actually like steak! So we went out that night, started at a bar that the hostel had given us wristbands bands for but left pretty quickly and ended up in a place called Cheeky Monkeys. I was a big fan of cheeky monkeys. The dance floor was actually tables during the evening, then at
night everyone just climbs up on them to dance! And they were playing some incredibly cheesie music -I think 5ive was the highlight!

The next day was spent chilling on the beach and eating the best burrito you could imagine - Best burritos in Swindon has nothing on it! Also spent some time in the hostel hot tub and then headed back to the beach to watch the sunset by a hippy drum circle! That night everyone was heading out for a meal at the other hostel where the rest of our group was staying. It was in an actually brewery where they only sell their own beer. Took so long for some of our table to get served though, it was pretty ridiculous! Met some very nice people that night, then heading on out from the meal to Cheeky monkeys once again. That night there was a male stripping competition, it was pretty weird, especially when a drunk girl jumped up on the stage and pulled her dress off. Good night though, had some yummy alcohol slushies. At the end of the night me and Louisa embarked on the longest search for pizza. I thought it would be a good idea to ask someone so asked a guy on a bench where I could get pizza. He didn't know. Then as we were going past him he asked Louisa if she knew where he could get pizza. Very funny! He was very nice though and then insisted on proving that he was from Chile by showing us his id before he wandered off beachwards. We eventually found pizza and it was delicious!

Next day we decided we'd better go to the lighthouse at Cape Byron. It's the most Easterly point of mainland Australia. Had to go up so, so many steps to get there though. That wasn't lovely. The view was though. We even think we saw some whale splashes!!

Up by the lighthouse.

I really, really loved it there and the 2 days we spent there was not enough at all. It's so chilled there and so much prettier than the Gold Coast or Brisbane! I will definately be going back. Hopefully this month, while it's still whale season, as I want to go on a kayak tour to see whales and BABY DOLPHINS!

This week hasn't been so fun as I worked most of this weekend and have had an exam today so had to revise for that. Saturday night was riverfire though. It was really cool. It's a big firework display on the river. It started off with fighter jets with huge flame tails flying along the river. They were amazing! The ball of fire looked like the sun was out at night! The fireworks were really good, they had them coming off the river and all the skyscrapers as well! The bridge was made into a sort of waterfall of sparks as well and there was fire on the river. It was all so pretty! It marks the begining of the Brisbane festival. Most things that are on seem pretty expensive though, but at least riverfire was free :).

This week I've got a fieldtrip to Lamington National Park and then a QUEST trip to the Gold Coast Hinterland -so I should have more to tell you about soon.

Lots of love

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Orientation and Sightseeing

I've been pretty busy the last few days. We've been having orientation week which involves going to lots of meetings and basically hearing the same stuff over and over again but also getting free food which is nice and meeting people. I've joined a club called QUEST which is for international students and they organise trips for you, so that will hopefully be alot of fun!

We went out on Tuesday night to a bar called Down under. It was a very good night! I kept on bumping into people who I'd met earlier in the day at orientation as well which was cool as I wasn't expecting to know anyone in Australia. Drinks are quite expensive here, beer seems to be the cheapest when you're out or "goon" which is boxes of wine for pre-drinks. So it seems I'm gonna be drinking alot of those while I'm here as I definately cannot afford spirits. It's going to be very different from back home! Luckily I don't seem to get a hangover from these drinks at all though, so I'm hoping that will carry on! Bad times though I have 8am lectures every day except fridays when I have the day off. No going out in the week for me I guess. I'm very pleased about having fridays off though as hopefully I might be able to go away for the weekend sometimes :D

Yesterday me and Ryan did some sightseeing. We went to the botanical gardens at mt coot-tha. They were very pretty and so different from anything at home. Absolutley huge as well, we were there for hours!

The lagoon.













Me in a big plant













Me trying to take a photo of us at the lookout.





You could see the whole city from the lookout. I hadn't even realised we were so high until we got there. Until that point you're pretty much surrounded by trees so can't see out.














Totem poles by the lake. I'm not really sure what the story behind these is but in my head they were carved by the aboriginal people.

After we'd looked all round the gardens we thought we'd head for the summit of mount coo-tha and there was an arrow on our map of the gardens that pointed towards it so we decided to walk that way. It was AWFUL! We walked for so long up the steepest hills along the grassy verges in the middle and at the side of what was quite a busy road. It felt like at least an hour or maybe 2!
It was probably actually only like 40mins but it was horrible! Saw this on the way which was something of an ominous sign.....
We stopped for a little rest in a field and then Ryan got stung by a horrible insect/plant. It was a long, long walk with no bus stops and I definately do not reccomend it! But at least I have some slight sense of achievement from doing it. The view was worth it though, amazing. And then we got nachos.

Me being exhausted.
The CBD from mt coot-tha.
Viewing.

We saw kookaburras for the first time while we were there! They seem naughty though one of them swooped down and stole chips from a lady's plate whilst she was eating them! Also, the other day I saw a pelican! I had no idea they even had them here. It was amazing!

There are so many huge birds here, they are so different from home! I've seen so many odd looking things. Havn't seen a parrot yet though. Anyway I think I might head down to South Bank today, we went there the other day and it is lovely.

Lots of love
Claire xxxxxxxxxxx