Week 15: Rock Jumping!

As its getting to the end of session the weeks seem to be descending into a blurred studying mess. This week I had a fluorine presentation on Tuesday which went alright I hope, my voice went all wobbly a few times but I had practiced enough, i hope. Then on wednesday we had a prac test for coasts. It was my first ever multiply-choice exam, which counted towards any modules. It was pretty tough, with some really stupid questions like "Who first discovered Kiama Blowhole? Charles Darwin, James Cook, or two other blokes", we will see what the outcome is.

On a more positive note the Bush Fires have calmed down a lot towards the end of this week. Early in the week we had a warning email from KB letting us know what would happen if we were to evacuate, luckily it never came to it! But it was quite a surreal email to receive.

Juicy juicy chicken!

Wednesday we had an American themed pre-drinks which was super fun. We played beer pong, and I was unbeaten the WHOLE night (mind you I played one game and decided to retire a champion). We also had some jello shots, they were pretty good actually. I have had some before and they were foul but these were good. We all had a pretty great night! Ooo also wednesday evening I made the Lemon and Thyme Chicken that we were taught by our Masterchef expert... OMG it was amazing!!! So so so juicy :D.

Thursday morning was the official KB opening so I woke up to a whole load of people in suits outside in the courtyard. I sleepily trudged out and nabbed some food, its was really fancy and tastey food. I cant even describe what it was all I know was that it was in the shape of a muffin, its had bacon and pumpkin in it with a lovely chutney on top. I then went out for a jog. I went out for a 3km job on wednesday aswell but it hasnt shown up on my phone which is annoying but hey. I ended up doing 7km down to the beach and back, I did have a decent break at the beach and walked along it a bit. I think north beach is one of my favourite places since arriving here, there and the Mt Keira lookout. Friday passed as a blur, delving into my GIS project, I also headed to fitness which was a killer of a session, especially after wednesday jog and night out then thursday jog and early starts each day. Its safe to say I got a decent sleep on friday night, after watching a weird but good film about a guy who begun hearing a voice who was narrating his life.

Mid-jog paddle :)

So saturday... definitely the highlight of the week! We headed up to Macquarie Pass National Park, about 40 min drive from the Gong. We parked at the bottom of this creek and headed 30mins up it by foot. I was in my thongs (flip-flops) and struggled on the difficult path... where's a risk assessment when you need it hey! So we arrived at a serious of pools with massive rocks on the side to jump in from. Ok im going to go hydrology geek for a moment... there were insane pools and streams and rivers and eroded streams and waterfalls ah it was amazing!!! So we spent the morning jumping off various heights of rocks into the plunge pool, my guestimation is that they were 15-20ft, it would be like jumping out of the second floor window at KB. So fairly high :P although I dont like heights I had a blast. The adrenaline mixed with the freezing cold water mixed with the warm sun was a great mixture! We also had an underwater camera and have got some good shots :). Oh also, there was some rock climbing moulds and some rope set up on the side of the plunge pool and my friends said that they have never seen anyone climb up there to a little low ledge. So being the competitive guy I am I thought I would give it a shot. Lots of cheering by my friends, lots of pain in my arms and legs later I managed to make it up, I chuffed to say the least! Ill add a photo of when I was hanging upside down clinging on! That evening we headed out for a friends birthday which was good fun, pre's at kb then out into town.

Great timing of the photo! 

Possible my favourite place so far :)

Enjoying the warm sun

I think at this point I had a brain freeze!

The "impossible" rock climb ;)

That brings me to today. I headed off to town this morning to buy an underwater camera off someone from gumtree, so $150 later I am now the proud owner of a waterproof and shockproof camera, really chuffed :). I cant wait to use it in the sea and then up in the barrier reef over the summer! This afternoon I have been studying for my exam next week.

So that's it for now from a cloudy Wollongong :).
Oh and a final note Australia (Sydney) is now 11 hours ahead of the UK as you guys changed your clocks :).

Week 14: Happy Pants (Trousers!), Daniel Churchill Masterchef Lesson and much much more!

It feels so long since I wrote week 13, its been a pretty busy week this week!

We welcomed in this week with a fire alarm at midnight on sunday night... me and my flatmate were part way through watching Oblivion ( the one with Tom Cruise in, pretty good actually with some very unexpected twists) and the fire alarm kicked in... yay! To be honest when its 20 degrees outside its not that bad, I remember fire alarms at UEA when its raining and freezing cold outside brrr!!

So the week kicked off with a productive day making a decent start on my GIS project (Habitat Mapping on Lord Howe Island if you were interested) and finished off two assignments. The productive day before turned quite sour after my memory stick decided to corrupt its self losing everything on my stick! Times like those are when I am glad I am organised and tech savvy, luckily I backed up my stuff only a week before... phew! 

So Tuesday was spent catching up on the GIS I had lost the day before and it didn't take too long at all. Once you know what to do on GIS it is a breeze! Tuesday evening there was a Global Buddies meet up at North Gong Pub, a nice little evening with my global buddy catching up on the past few weeks. I represented my country by wearing my t-shirt with London on it... represent! 

Wednesday was also spent doing work... its that time in the session where there are exams and deadlines coming up and im trying to get ahead! After coming back from my lecture I noticed a really weirdly coloured cloud... turns out it was smoke from the bush fires in the mountains. Eek! There are massive blazes going on west of Sydney and west of Wollongong. Everyone is saying how early in the season they have started and this year is going to be a hot one... i cant decide where thats good or bad I have never stayed anywhere for a long time where the temperatures are 40+ degrees. Late afternoon I headed out for a 7km run to the beach and back... I seriously love being able to hit the beach whenever I want! In the evening we went to hostage and glassy, free transport and free entry is definitely the way forward. Take note Norwich. We had an early night and I came back and wolfed down a lot of garlic bread.

Thursday I made the trip to Woolies to stock up, so much food nom nom nom. In the evening we had KB Dinner Under the Stars, they arranged Italian food, music and converted the courtyard with table cloths and loads of candles. It was a great evening just chilling and chatting to everyone and we all dressed up smart for the occasion, I even wore a tie... dun dun dunnn. The bottle of red wine was pretty good aswell and lets face it how epic is the label! 

Friday was spent getting ready for my Fluorine presentation on tuesday, I need quite a bit more practice i think... Friday fitness was a tough one this week, I am starting to really hate doing burpee's ah well its all good for me. There was a doctors and nurses chairty event at the Patch (I think you would call it a pub!), everyone else made a real effort I was impressed but I wasn't too organised and just went smart ish. A lot of money was raised for a Cancer charity, we even got a lift back (a big thank you), once returning I once again stuffed my face with raisin toast yum yum yum and jam on toast.

Happy Pants Saturday! Ok so KB ordered a whole load of very very baggy pants (TROUSERS!) with an impossibly low crotch and we had a massive tie dying session. We made only a little mess! I was about to choose red white and blue for UK/AUS colours but decided again the red so went for good old blue and white. Lets just say our elastic band technique showed a lot about us, some were very neat, some were wacky and mine was just crazy... it ended up as a solid lump of elastic and cloth. After drying they came out pretty epic!!! I know what ill be wearing for the rest of my time here... and I am really tempted to rock up back at home wearing them I can picture my mums face if I was to come through arrivals wearing these! In the evening we made an appearance at a house party with a cheeky bit of red label scotch and once again ended the evening stuffing my face with toast and jam nom nom nom. Not before having a photo shoot infront of the Uni of Wollongong sign tehe.

 

And we have got to today, I met up with my Fluorine group this morning and they were really impressed with KB. We then had a cooking lesson from Daniel Churchill who was on Australian Masterchef, what a great guy! He showed us so many little tips and trick with some great laughs along the way. I even asked him how to improve my Tuna pasta bake so ill let you know how that works out :). It was such an amazing afternoon and I have picked up quite a few more tips and tricks that I can use in the kitchen, especially the lemon and thyme chicken I cannot wait to try that out!  I will definitely keep an eye out for Daniel on tv and for his cookbooks, hint hint mum for a christmas present.

Daniel Churchill... Top Guy!

So that ends a really great week living the life down under.

Week 13: Hot Hot Hot!!!

Week 13 coming at you!

So this Monday was Labour Day, still don't quite get the concept of it but hey ho, day off! And boy did I need it, I didn't see the morning at all and had a quiet day studying, I hit the library and nearly polished off two of my assignment... theyre only a couple weeks early!

Tuesday I was surprised to receive a care package from home! Check out the amount of stamps mum had to put on it. It was just what I needed, a bit of a pick me up. The only thing that I haven't yet used/eaten is the chocolate :) saving that for when I run out of real food. Tuesday was another day hitting the book, trying to get through some lecture material and my two assignments.

As part of my coasts module we once again headed off in the minibus for a field trip... UEA take note field trips pretty much every other week to stunning coastal locations! This time we headed down to the Kiama area to check out some rock platforms, the sun was beautiful as ever! After getting back I headed out for a cheeky jog... 7km later I had reached North Beach and got back to Uni, very hot and sweaty yum....  Wednesday we had the inaugural night out, hostage then glassy. I think it was the shortest night out I have ever had but it was still really great fun! And it meant I got a decent nights sleep, always a bonus.

Random pose.... don't ask! 

Thursday I headed off to my favourite shop in the world.... the farmers market whoop whoop and bought so much fresh fruit, veg and meat! I killed some more work work in the afternoon. For dinner I made an epic chicken in a bag for me and my flatmate... we had chicken drumsticks, loads of veg and then spices aswell. It was sooooo goooooooood.

Ooo the weather, hence the title of this blog. So thursday we had a scorcher of a day, we reached temperatures of 36 degrees... now that is hot for an Englishman! In the evening, although it was still high twenties in temperature, I headed down to Oktoberfest. I think the idea of Oktober fest is to celebrate being German or perhaps an excuse for everyone to enjoy beer? Anywho we ordered a "stein" of cider, 5 seeds cider which is the usual at Unibar and it was gooood. The only irony is that a stein is meant to be pretty big yet the glass we were given was still less than a pint!  

Guess what happened on friday? More study! Thats right... although I did finish both of my assignments and almost printed them before bumping into a friend and being invited to the beach... how could I say no! Another beautiful on the beach before we headed back and I went to KB fitness. This week at fitness we worked the legs... to death! Lots of sweat and a bit of pain later I limped to the shower. Instead of silly saturday we moved it to freaky friday and had some goon related drinks and multiple banter. The culmination of which was throwing toilet roll at the fan.

Goon....

Toilet roll spiral!

I awoke late for KB sports on Saturday so bleary eyed stumbled down and played some basketball and soccer... (don't get me started on the football/soccer argument, haha). After which, everyone seemed to be doing work so I headed down to the beach again... loving the life aren't I !!! I chilled down there catching some rays doing my Sudoku like a cool kid :).

Any guesses for what I did on Sunday? BEACH!!!!!!! Todays beach day was by far the most extreme... 34 degree heat and some insane waves. My guess would be 6-7ft. After today I now understand why they say swim between the flags! A strong current was sucking us all out to sea inbetween the huge waves. I caught a few and headed back in but just as I got back to the beach the lifeguards all jumped into action and took the boat out to save some people who got themselves too far out. Check out my salty eyelashes, how random is that?!

Slightly creepy expression but check out the salty eyelashes

Ooo on a nature note, in the heat apparently the snakes come out to play... I am yet to see one but I did see this fella at some point in the week, i cant remember when!

Week 12: Mid-Session Break

So this week has been a week off from uni, basically a half term in the session.

Monday, we had a cheeky champagne picnic in the Botanical Garden right by Uni, we all agreed that we need to do this more often but with the inclusion of loads of food!

Tuesday evening we headed out for a meal and after finding amigos full (the £3 taco place), we headed off to a Japanese restaurant. Now I was pretty skeptical as I am not a big fan of seafood and ended up getting teryaki chicken which was surprising good! We also had a shot of sake (rice wine) I was expecting a strong liquor taste but was surprised to find it fairly mild, not the nicest drink I have ever had but certainly not the worst.

Too much Japanese excitement for some! 

Wednesday was a beach day, I headed down at 11.30 and lasted until 4 ish , it was such a gorgeous day! I went out for another surf, its a steep learning curve! Whilst down at the beach we saw a group of dolphin swim along the coast, it was so cool! Unfortunately my back brake gave out on my bike so I had to walk back...

On friday I tried to go for a job up Mt Keira but my injured calfs couldnt handle it and I only made it to the tarmac road before deciding it wasnt worth damaging myself further. In the arvo we headed down to the beach and had a little walk along the beach to the lighthouse and then along south beach. We saw some epic birds, they looked like a type of pelican. We ended up at Woolies and got some tim tams ready to do the tim tam slam in the evening. This involved nibbling two of the corners off and sucking hot chocolate through the middle of the tim tam... chocolately heaven!

Saturday I headed up to Sydney. I met up with my flatmate at Bondi Beach and got some amazing Ben and Jerries, before heading off to go around a few shops. We then stopped off at his Uncles place, who lives on the 15th floor (top floor) of an apartment block overlooking the majority of Sydney... it was such an epic place. There we had some dinner, rice, chicken and other bits and bobs and the family had an intense discussion on cricket, they are big fans! After this we headed down to Darling Harbor to watch the Fleet Review Fireworks, they were really good once they eventually started! After this we headed to my flatmates friends place where we cracked open a bottle of Red Label Johnnie Walker Scotch. We then caught a cab to Star City, a massive casino place. It reminded me so much of Vegas! We headed up to a club called Marquee. This place was crazy expensive... 2 drinks costed $35, luckily I didn't buy any! We danced the night away and managed to get back to my flatmates friends place at 5am. I couldnt beleive it was so late that we had got back! It was only the next day was I reminded that the clocks changed by an hour. So Aus is now 10 hrs ahead of the UK.

There is fireworks behind us... honest!

Sunday I eventually rose and headed off to meet another friend in the city, after a subway and an ice cream we decided to stay in Sydney and watch the NRL (National Rugby League) Final between Sydney Roosters and Manly Sea Eagles. We headed over to Darling Harbor to watch it on some massive screens that they had put up. After being joined by a dude dressed in a sea gull costume we settled down to watch a great game of footy. I NEED to get into this sport! We were supporting the Rooster as we were in Sydney and came out victors in a tense game! After the match I headed back to Wollongong, getting back in the small hours of the morning and crashed to bed.

On a final note I have been profiled on the Study in Australia website :). Check it out here...