I recently spent three nights in Sydney with a couple other girls from my program, Becca and Amanda. Lucky for us, Becca has a close friend, Courtney, living in Sydney at the moment, so we stayed with her for the weekend. She showed us around all the places one is supposed to visit while in Sydney. Of course, our first stop was Circular Quay, which is where both the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House are. I was surprised to find that the Opera House is not, actually one big building, but a few buildings positioned close together. As expected, we took lots of pictures in front of Australia's icon from every angle until our cameras tired of capturing the same shot over and over. After we had had our fill of tacky tourism for the day, we went inside some old building close by. I don't know what the name of the building is and if we hadn't been with Courtney, we would have seen no reason to go inside. We followed Courtney assuming we were just going to the lou or something, but to our surprise, there was a mini replica of the city of Sydney sitting a foot or two below our own feet protected by a ceiling of glass.
Courtney took us to Bondi Beach, where she and I ate a full rack of ribs... each! from a restaurant called Hurricanes, a local favorite. We wandered around the city taking in the sights. There was an art exhibit going on throughout the entire city ( I think it was called "Art and About"). Perhaps the most interesting piece we saw was a giant bike, at least 30 ft tall, made entirely out of parts from regular sized bikes. She showed us Manly Beach, which is similar to Huntington. We took the Ferry from Manly back to Circular Quay so we could look at the Opera House from yet another angle. We asked a man to take a picture of the four of us in front of it, but he only managed to get the corner of it in :P. One of our evenings, we went back to the Opera House so we could watch the sunset behind Harbour Bridge. Unfortunately, it was cloudy, but the view was still very beautiful. Another night, we trekked over to Darling Harbour to watch a fireworks show. There were so many fireworks, it would have had Jared saying "is it the grand finale, yet" non-stop. I also managed to meet up with my friend Todd, who lives in the suburbs of Sydney for a coffee and chat.
After Sydney, I made my way into the Outback, sort of. We drove West for ten hours and were still about another days drive from the very beginnings of the actual Outback. Carnarvon Gorge was beautiful and we were lucky to be there during a particularly rainy season, because it meant the weather was not too hot and the wild flowers were blooming everywhere. Speaking of... did you know Australia has a native wild hibiscus species? And it's edible? I sure didn't!
We spent the majority of our time hiking around the gorge. One of the hikes required five or six river crossings each way, which would have been no big deal since there were large stepping stones leading the way across... except for the fact that high rainfall had caused the water level to rise well above the stepping stones. Every time we came to the river, we would take our shoes and socks off and forge through. Everyone moved very slowly since the current was fairly rapid and there were big rocks hiding just out of visibility waiting to stub any unsuspecting toe. At one point the water was nearly up to out butts. Some people slipped and got entirely soaked... and of course, being the kind people that we are, the rest of us laughed at them. We got smart by the time we were making our second pass at all the crossings and just left our shoes and socks off until we reached the end of the trail.
Just like at Girraween, there were kangaroos everywhere. We saw quite a few joeys with their mothers and some huge males. There were pretty faced wallabies and kookaburra. I spent some time waiting patiently by the platypus pool hoping to catch a glimpse of one. After a few attempts, I finally saw one! Actually, I saw the tip top of its head before it ducked quickly below the surface, but hey, that's more than most people can say. :)
One morning we woke up at the leisurely hour of FOUR AM so we would have enough time to hike to the top of Boolimba Bluff for the sunrise. Half of the hike was, quite literally, straight up a huge flight of stairs so that by the time we reached the summit everyone's knees were shaking. Unfortunately, we missed the sunrise by about fifteen minutes, but the morning mist hid the sun from us anyway, so it wouldn't have mattered much when we showed up. Even though we missed the sunrise, we were happy to have conquered such a grueling trail and the view from the top rivaled the view from our sunrise perch in Lamington.
Tonight, at 11:30 pm, I hop on a bus for my final field trip during my stay in Australia. My destination is the Heron Island Research Station where my class mates and I will have the opportunity to conduct our own research projects as well as dive on the Great Barrier Reef. I'll talk to you all in ten days!
~ Jessie
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