Week 41: Fraser Island!

We started the week with another early start and headed out for a lovely breakfast at a pretty swish restaurant. I had a very fresh apple juice and pancakes YUM YUM YUM! We made a trip to aldi for food for our camping trip and then hit the beach at Surfers Paradise. The beach was very unique with skyscrapers lining the beach-front but the waves were really great and the sea nice and cool. We headed back and grabbed a lovely wrap for lunch and spent the arvo by the pool. Next thing we know its time to pack up the car once again and head back to Brisbane. The evening passed playing some fifa and cooking up a lovely soy sauce chicken with couscous, mmm!

Tuesday morning we rose at 5am to complete the 3.5 hour drive to Hervey Bay where we would drive onto (or reverse onto it turns out) a barge and head over to Fraser Island for our camping trip. 

We drove straight off the barge onto the largest sand island in the world. The tracks were pretty soft and sandy but the 4x4 did a great job on the terrain and we didn’t slide around too much (kudos to the driver aswell, stella job!) . 

We stopped off at the town of Eurong for our last bout of civilisation before camping in the wild for 3 nights. From Eurong, which is on the east side of the island, we made it to the beach and flew up the beach on the hard sand. The beach definitely felt like the M1 but even so it was really cool to be driving along a beach. We decided to find a site to camp just to the south of a big shipwreck. We got out massive tent up (it must have been an 8-person jobby or something for just three of us), our set up was completed with tables, chairs, eskies, water container, roll mats, sleeping bags, stove, cooking equipment etc… etc…! Once camp was established we went for a little walk up to the shipwreck which looked really cool all rusted and orange. Dinner came in the form of some curries that we reheated and were delicious, we wallowed the evening with some drinks, yarns and games… as you do camping!

Our exhausted selves managed to sleep through the bright early sun and we had a respectable lie in until 8 or 9 ish, I rustled up some bacon sarnies for everyone and we packed a lunch for our trip to the champagne pools. We jumped back in the car with lunch and headed further north along the beach to the champagne pools, we had a few touchy moments in some deeper areas of sand but the car coped very well. The champagne pools are basically rock pools which the waves spill over which look cool. It was fairly busy but it was nice to get back in the water as the sea was shark and croc-infested apparently! On our way back we stopped off at the Pinnacles for lunch, which is a cool exposure of colourful cemented sands with the quartz eroded out. The other two fell asleep in the sun so I went for a little paddle. We whiled away the rest of the arvo attempting some sea fishing (attempting being the main word there!) and once it cooled off a bit I went for what turned out to be a lovely and intense jog, it was great running barefoot on the hard sand along the sea. 

Dinner came in the form of a tuna pasta bake which was lovely and we once again whiled away the evening with a few drinks, the skies were clearer so we went stargazing. The sky was lit up completely of starts in every direction and all of a sudden I noticed a shadow in my peripheral vision, so I turn my head and what do you know a dingo is standing no more than 2-3m away from us. Luckily he didn’t show too much interest in us and stared at us a little bit before scampering off but it scared the life out of us. They are the reason that we had to lock up all our food in the car and I’m sure everyone has heard the Dingo-eating-a-baby ‘story’.

The next morning we packed up camp and drove back down the beach, past Eurong and to central station campsite, where we set up camp for our last night. It was lovely to have some basic amenities again. We were camping in the sub-tropical forest, which was really picturesque. In the arvo we headed over to Lake Mackenzie which is a freshwater lake elevated above sea level and stored by the underlyinf vegetation. The water was perfectly clear for the first 10m, it was an impossible blue colour to the very white sand below, and unfortunately there was organic matter on the lake-bed any further away from the shore. 

The other two had another nap on the beach whilst I went for a little walk along the lake and found a great secluded beach just along from the main busy beach but alas the sun was going down so we headed back to camp. We spent the next few hours reading and chilling before smashing out an amazing pasta, bacon, mushrooms, cheesey dish… YUM.

We rose at a pretty early 6.30to pack up camp and head to the barge. Overnight we had a bit of rain so the tent was pretty damp and sandy but even so we packed up in no time at all and was well early for the barge. We were bitten further to death by the sandflies by the barge terminal; this was ontop of the mosquito bites that we had already suffered. Just as we were pulling into the shore on the mainland we got a little display from some dolphins, they were playing around in the water which was really cool. Lunch came in the form of a subway and we made the journey back to Brisbane. In the evening we had a peruse around the South Bank area of Brissy, we grabbed a pizza and then churros and ice cream for dinner before heading over to the Suncorp Stadium. The Broncos were playing the Rabbitohs in the NRL so we thought we would go and watch a game. The atmosphere was extremely friendly compared to Prem Games and nowhere near as loud. The Bronco’s made a very slow start losing a few tries but fought back well. The winning points came from a very controversial decision by the ref for the Rabbitohs. Despite this we had a great evening cheering on the Bronco’s! 

The following morning we decided to out for lunch again and I had an amazing breakfast burger at a place called the Regatta… yum. All the camping equipment that we borrowed had to be returned so we headed back down to the Gold Coast and cleaned up the equipment and the car. The arvo was spent making a red wine chocolate cake… MMMMMM it was very rich but so good. 

In the evening I was invited to Eddy’s Dads birthday meal, we headed to a great little Chinese place and was joined by about a dozen people. We had a great variety of dishes, some of which I had never heard of but Chinese food is always amazing. After dinner we headed up to the “Panorama”, which was a great viewpoint looking over the Gold Coast, Surfers Paradise area all lit up with millions of lights.

My final day in Queensland was very chilled out, I got a lay in and chilled on the veranda before we headed over to surfers paradise, where we continued to relax and then headed back to Brisbane just in time to grab dinner and head out. We made it to the Royal Exchange (RE), a great student place with sports on TV screens, cheap drinks and an outdoor dancefloor. I took it a bit easy knowing that I would be getting up early to head home in the morning.

Week 40: And up to Brisbane, Gold Coast and Surfers Paradise

So the final week before mid-session break begun as all other weeks have, monday and tuesday spent doing work and the evening spent watching Games of Thrones! Tuesday evening I packed up as much stuff as I could fit in my duffle bag ready for my mid-session break adventures. Wednesday I finished my classes and then made my way to the airport. It was the quickest flight of my life, I spent most of it on Google Earth on my laptop drawing a line down a river... so fun right! Next thing I know I land and get in touch with Eddy (I have been told to tell the world that Eddy is a girl! Happy? :P ), who was picking me up from the Gold Coast Airport. But it turns out along with the change in time of my flight (via email a few weeks ago) they changed to destination to Brisbane. So I rocked up at the wrong airport... Oops! Haha. But with a slight change in plans we met up at Eddy's Brissy place with Richard aswell!

Wrong airport! LOL!

I spent thursday chilling in Brissy doing some study and in the evening we headed out for a night out at a place called the Indooroopilly, it was a good standard student night out! We drove out to Eddy's Gold Coast Place which was an amazing house set in a beautiful valley, it was absolutely stunning. We headed out for a walk and a paddle in the creek, which has interesting recently been in flood and there was loads of debris high up on the banks. In preparation for the Easter Party, we made some jelly shots and some chocolate eggs with jelly inside them, pretty cool! Dinner came in the form of a beautiful roast lamb and we spent the rest of the evening playing a card game called Canaster, after a couple of rounds I was dismally behind but rallied and made a spectacular comeback to win :).

Saturday morning was a relatively early start and headed out to a self defence lesson which was great fun learning a few self defence moves and maybe one day it will come in use. We stopped off at a few shops on the way back and prepared for the Easter Party. Mid-arvo lots of people started rocking up and we played a very interesting darts game to start off, you set up some beer cans infront of two chairs opposite each other and have to piece your opponents can, it was messy but fun nonetheless. Then we headed down to the field and played a bit of an egg and spoon obstacle race, then a game of ultimate frisbee before we made a trip down to the creek for a swim. The water was nice and cool, but for some reason warm near the bottom, very odd! By this time we devoured a massive lasagne between us all for dinner and continued the night with yarns and some kings.

Darts game :)

Sunday came around and I awoke feeling worse for ware so headed out for a jog, I managed a very slow 7 ish km jog in the high 20's degree heat. It was very painful and sweaty but it made a good start at feeling better.

Beautiful house in a beautiful location! 

We sat down for a lovely lunch of chicken pie and an array of salads. We spent the afternoon sorting bits and bobs for our upcoming camping trip. In the evening we made the trip to Eddy's Surfers Paradise place and headed out for a brief drink (I had a mango beer... interesting!) and very brief night out before coming home fairly early to get a good nights sleep. 

Week 39: Wet wet wet

Monday kicked off with classes all day. We then headed out to North Gong in the evening for two friends birthdays and got some amazing $10 steaks and a few drinks.

It wasn't a late on as we had plans for Tuesday night. Tuesday daytime passed infront of a computer as too many of my days seem to be! In the evening we got our grog on playing a Pokemon drinking game. It was basically a board game but pokemon themed, even so it was a great laugh, reminiscing the old days.

Wednesday came around and I smashed out more work, then hit the beach, before we assembled at Unibar for the quiz. Its safe to say I had no idea on the majority of the questions which so happened to be all artsy and history... YAWN. But I did get the question "What is the study of Limnology?" Right... the answer is the sutdy of inland water bodies. We had an intermission before we headed out to the grand for a classic wednesday night. I also received a care package from Mum which was really good :) with lots of photos from our family holiday over Christmas and New Year!

Thursday rolled around and sitting infront of a computer screen was not the most enjoyable experience but after a lot of stress I managed to eventually make some headway with my project... after 4.30pm, particularly annoying when I arrived at about 11am. But hey, thats the way it goes sometimes. In the evening we all gathered and watched Pirates of the Caribbean, the first one, such a classic film. We once again reminisced and were amazed how long ago it came out.

Friday morning I managed to smash out a decent amount of work before having 3 hour lunch break to head down to the beach. We headed out on my surfboard and caught quite a few waves, the rain came over whilst we were out but it wasnt cold so it didnt really bother us. I squeezed in another hours or so's work before I made it to Friday Fitness, I really need to be able to make more of these.

I was up nice and early on saturday to head off on my day-long fieldtrip to the Minnamurra river. We spent the morning in and out of the buses looking at different sections of the river before being dropped off, quite upstream to complete an analysis of the river. I got a bit soaked holding the level in a field in the rain, but once I got on the dumpy we sped up quite a bit, and the data look relatively good. We did a cross river profile and an along-river profile which meant me standing in the middle of a river, so fun :).

Sunday came around and I spent all day in the library... YAY. I did manage to get out for an 8.8km run which wasn't fast but much needed.

Week 38: KBV Camping

Its sunday again and as it is chucking it down with rain I have taken the time to give my blog a little facelift. I have put a slideshow of my flickr pictures over on the top right of the page and the background is a picture of ice from the Franz Josef glacier in New Zealand.

So, to this week. Monday and tuesday flew past in a blur of study and classes as usual. I did make a mean chicken in a bay dish on monday night with mash and veggies it was to die for! Also on tuesday I headed out for an afternoon surf which was once again was great fun, I then whipped up an amazing BBQ chicken and bacon sarnie YUM!

I spend all day wednesday representing UEA at the UOW exchange fair, so I was on a stall representing the English Uni's and were answering questions from people who are thinking of going on exchange. It was a gorgeous day and we had a steady stream of people looking at coming over to the UK. In the late afternoon I headed back out for a surf.

For the life of me I cant remember what I did on thursday, I think I went for a morning surf and then down to Uni to have a meeting about my independent project. Which is coming along steadily im currently running a variety of iterations using my model and observing the outputs. I think it was thursday that whilst out sitting on my board just past the breakers I had a 4-5ft stingray swim right underneath me... pretty damn cool!

Friday daytime was spent studying and trying to get as far ahead as possible. Then we all packed our bags and headed down to Shellharbour, Killalea to be precise for KB camping. By the time I arrived we were just chilling out playing some frisbee and card games. Dinner arrived and we cooked up burgers, snags and onions which were greatly needed. We spent the night chatting with a few drinks, staring into the fire and a the stars. It was only once we had gone to bed did we realise how squeaky the mattresses were!

We kicked off saturday with a killer breakfast of bacon and eggs and all headed down to the nearby beach. As we walked down the hill to the beach we were greeted with the most perfect waves I think I have ever seen. This was reflected by the amount of surfers out in the water. Im just going to go oceanographer geek for a moment... these waves were just beautiful, perfect form and broke along the beach amamzingly. So we headed out for a body surf and had some of the best waves we had experienced so far! We jumped back in the car and headed back to KB and I fancied another surf... so this time wasnt quite so successful. I definitely came out with lots more injuries than I went in with, but you cant win them all I guess. The evening rolled around and I made some nice meatballs in a tomato sauce with garlic bread before heading over to a friends to watch Slumdog Millionnaire, not a bad film actually :).  

I was up and raring to go on sunday, I came across a free KB bbq and then headed out to play KB sports, a bit of frisbee and soccer was good fun... and then the rain came... its been raining pretty much since then so I decided to sort my photos out and change my blog a bit. This evening we have planned a trip to go and see the Lego Movie... I know right :) should be good!