Sydney

Sydney was awesome! I had so much fun! I didn't even get to do everything I wanted to, there is so much to do in that city! Friday was my friends 21st birthday, so we went out and celebrated Friday night, although we had a hard time finding places open because it was Good Friday.
I am now an accomplished surfer. I took a two hour surf lesson at Bondi Beach on Saturday, which was beautiful, and I stood up on a couple waves! It was really cool. We took a tour of the Blue Mountains on Sunday-not a bad way to spend Easter if I can't be at Legal Seafood with everyone. They are the Blue Mountains because the eucalyptus trees have an oil in them that makes them appear blue from far away. I bet you thought I wouldn't know that. On Monday we wandered around the city and got caught in the rain, I was soaked! Overall it was a great weekend, but I didn't get nearly enough sleep! We flew home Tuesday morning at 7 and I slept all afternoon. I think I got more sleep Tuesday afternoon than I did any night while I was in Sydney, but it was worth it! I've been catching up on work and stuff this week, I finished one paper and started another that are due in two weeks. I haven't uploaded my pictures yet, I've been crazy busy and trying to catch up on sleep which isn't working! This next week is "Autumn break" but I keep calling it spring break. So I'm off tomorrow morning to Cape Tribulation which is north of Cairns, and I'll be there until Wednesday night. Then I'm here trying to do work for two days and Friday afternoon I'm off to Melbourne to do a tour of Great Ocean Road. Pretty Exciting!! I'll update with pictures as soon as I can!

Day two of Hidden Valley

This is delayed, but better late than never! On Sunday we woke up and had a delicious brekkie (Australian for breakfast) and got ready to go on a hike. Our guide, Ross, then took us on a hike through the bush. We were following a road for a while and then all of a sudden he just took a left off of the road and we were walking through the grass. He grew up there so he knew the area really well, but I was amazed that he could know exactly where to go. The bush is so different than the forests at home. There are trees here but they aren't anywhere near as thick as they are at home. So after hiking for about an hour or so we were warned that it was going to start getting pretty steep (we were heading downhill). He wasn't kidding either, but we took it slow and made it to another cliff, where it was even steeper and rockier. But at this point we could see a beautiful gorge that was waiting for us below. Don't worry I made it down safe, I managed to save my clumsiness for swimming later. I managed to slip on the rocks and fall, it was pretty funny. It looked like a cartoon, my feet just came right out from underneath me. No injuries, promise!

We spent the afternoon here; we had lunch and swam in the river. I jumped off a cliff again, this one was a little scarier! It was a blast! No one wanted to leave, we actually tried to delay as long as we possibly could. After we left the gorge we hiked back to the resort and packed up to go home. It was a little depressing to go back to campus after such a great weekend!
Well anyway now that you're all updated on the happenings here, I'm going to go to bed. I'm off to Sydney tomorrow morning for the weekend. I guess there are a million gluten-free places to eat there--including pizza, burgers, tacos and bakeries. I'm bringing my big suitcase so I can bring food back here. Seriously, I am. Totally not kidding on that one.

Hidden Valley

Last weekend I went on the Hidden Valley tour and stayed at the resort there. It was AMAZING! We were picked up at the uni (oz speak for the university, and oz means aussie o-z get it?) at 9 am Saturday morning and from there we drove north to Paluma. We drove by all this sugar cane and our guide told us about these cane beetles that were eating all the sugar cane. They were looking for a way to get rid of them and some country suggested the cane toad because they would supposedly eat all the beetles. Well after introducing 100 cane toads they didn't eat any of the beetles and they hopped off. But they are poisonous, not bad enough to kill humans, but other animals. There are no predators for the toad, and now it's overtaking Australia. They reproduce at a ridiculous rate too. I thought I would share that little fun fact with you. So the first place we went was Little Crystal Creek. It was this beautiful river with a bunch of waterfalls. We stopped there for a while and we were able to swim and hang out.

So after we hung out at the upper part of Little Crystal Creek we adventured down to the lower part. There was another waterfall and a couple of people in the group we were with were jumping off of the rocks. So I did too, only to read a sign later that we weren't supposed to. Oh well.

Now, I think that's a pretty sweet jump. I kind of look like I'm second guessing myself actually, but my form is top-notch. Don't worry I didn't hit any rocks or anything, I made people go before me to test it out. See, I used my head! So after this we went on a hike through the rainforest. It's not as lush or wet as I had expected. Maybe we weren't in the thickest part of it, but either way it was beautiful. It's so different than home.

We saw a bunch of cool trees, Strangling Figs and Quandongs.

That's me and my friend Nicole in front of the Quondong. We hiked to a lookout that overlooked the valley and the other mountains, you could even see the ocean!

It was really pretty. Later, after lunch because we were all starving, we finally got to the resort. This place was so cool. It was completely powered by solar power. They are totally off the grid. They had a bunch of cabins, but mine was the best. No, really it was. My friend Caitlin and I shared a room and we got our own cabin with a patio and little propane stove and tea kettle. So after we got there we had about an hour and a half before we went on a platypus walk so we had tea and sat out on the patio and played cards. It was perfect. Now here is where I would like to post a picture of a platypus and talk about how awesome it was to see one, but those animals are sneaky. We waited for almost two hours (quietly and you know how hard that is for me!) but we never saw one. We split into two groups, and the other group saw a brief glimpse of one but that was it. I haven't given up hope though- I'm going to find one when I go to Melbourne in 3 weeks. We then went on a night walk to see night animals. We saw possums, gliders, spiders and wallabies.

Ok, this last one wasn't actually on the night walk. It was our other roommate. He was big! The spiders we saw are harmless though, we made sure to ask! Well I still have to tell you about the Sunday, but I'm tired and I need to go to bed. So I'll post more tomorrow. 4 days until opening day. I still get just as excited all the way around the world, even though I can't listen to or watch the games!