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
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