Into the Wild

After being in Sydney and Melbourne it was finally time to get out into the mountains and the outback. First up were the blue mountains outside of Sydney.

Before getting to the blue mountains was our first stop at a wildlife preservation. Here I got to see nearly every animal from Australia. Tasmanian devils, kookaburras, kangaroos, and many, many more. It was cool to see them even if it wasn't technically in the wild. I got to feed a bunch of wallabies too and even picked up a baby, which I'm not really sure if I was supposed to. Oh well, it was worth it.

Then came the long ride into the mountains and as luck would have it, it was cloudy, cold, and rainy when we went up. Our guide had us stop a few times to see if we could see anything to no avail. I did see a waterfall shrouded in the mist, so that was really cool! After realizing that we couldn't see anything out in the mountains we had the opportunity to see aboriginal dances and learn more about the culture and the didgeridoo.

One guy even started teaching me how to play the didg. After about 15 minutes I was getting a good sound to resonate. It's a lot harder to play than I originally thought, but once you hear the sound you're listening for it gets easier. It would take a lot of time to learn to circular breathe and keep playing, but maybe someday I'll practice and figure it out. The guy there told me it took him two months to learn and his brother, a musician, only two weeks.

The next stop on this two week trip with my parents was Uluru and Ayer's Rock. Finally some time in central Australia and the outback! Flying in we could see the massive rock in the distance and then at night we got to see it closer at sunset and eat a barbecue under the stars! I got to see the southern cross and the milky way again. Though this time, because of a full moon, the milky way was tougher to see. But that also meant we got to see a partial lunar eclipse! The earth was casting a shadow on the moon and it was incredible to see.

In the morning we went to look at the rock again, but this time at sunrise and on camels. It was a lot of fun and interesting to learn all the things a camel can do. One very impressive thing is their ability to retain food and water for four weeks. They can go without either for that amount of time. Just awesome. Unfortunately there wasn't enough time to climb Ayer's Rock, but now I have a(nother) reason to come back to Australia.

Made it to Port Douglas today and now I'm off to the barrier reef! Hooray!

Leaving the Country

I love traveling outside of the United States. Being surrounded by a different culture and experiencing as many new things as I can. And so begins my trip down under. I'll be traveling to Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Uluru, Auckland, Cairns, and Yungaburra.

I've been excited for this trip since I was accepted to study abroad in the rain forests of New Zealand and Australia. I'll be traveling all over Australia for two weeks with my parents and from there will meet up with my study abroad group where we'll be living in the rainforest for a month.

Today we're flying out of Milwaukee to Chicago, a very short flight, we didn't even reach cruising altitude before we had to descend again. From Chicago to LAX 3.5 hours and from LAX to Melbourne, a whopping 14.5-15 hours. I'll be keeping this as updated as much as I can, but due to possibly lacking the internet at times I might find that hard to do.

I'm starting in the south (Melbourne) where it will be the coldest I'll be experiencing (hopefully). I'll be going to see penguins in their natural habitat on one tour and going on many other tours and awesome experiences that I'll be taking pictures of and sharing here (if possible) and on Facebook.

I started this on the plane to LAX and am finishing it in the airport...on my phone. Waiting for three hours to board a ginormous airbus.

Leaving at 11:30 pm US time I'll be missing out almost entirely on May 27th which is pretty cool I think. It'll be like I'm time traveling (hello LOST) and then gaining that day back by experiencing a day, July 11th, basically twice. I'll be even more confused as to what day it is than I am normally during the summer. I'm excited for that and the only reason I can come up with is the fact that I'll feel like I'm in Back to the Future or something, but instead of traveling back multiple years, I'll be "traveling" one day. Oh well.

As I said before I'll have intermittent Internet access while down under, mostly when we take trips into the nearby town and I'm going to update this as much as possible. I may even be able to Skype for a short time. If you want to you should be able to search for me by name. Otherwise try minicoop1227. Until next time, from Australia, have a good Memorial Day weekend!

Taken from the plane to LAX