Crystal Creek & Building Anticipation

Wow! Today is September 21.. meaning that I will be back at home in only two months! I can't believe how fast this trip has flew by! In only 3 days I will be headed off to the OUTBACK! I am soooooooooo excited!! I feel like a little kid a few days before going to an amusement park! Every Australian that I have talked to about the trip has said that it is an amazingly spiritual place. I just can't wait to get out there and finally understand what everyone keeps talking about! When we go out there, we will be sleeping in 'swags' cooking our own food, and really just experiencing the 'true' Australia!

My biggest fear?... the animals out there that have enough poison in them to KILL me. (But I am sure I will survive ;))

At any rate... this past weekend was a blast. I was invited to go up to Crystal Creek with some of the frisbee players. Friday night we left Uni around 5pm and stopped at one of the BIGGEST liquor stores I have ever seen!! They had such a variety in there! Then we went to Woolworths and got food to cook for everyone. From there, it was off to Dave's house. It was my first time in an Aussie's house. (Their houses aren't much different--by the way) We ate dinner--hot dogs and potato crips (which are just chips in the US). Then we had a party. I got to meet a lot of Australian's and we all had a blast! FINALLY, we went to sleep.

The next morning I woke up to the sounds of pots and pans banging together. It wasn't a nice sound to wake up to at 9am. At any rate, I got up and had breakfast and then we were off to Crystal Creek. During the Mission Beach excursion we stopped at Paradise Swimming Hole, which is in Paluma and is a part of Crystal Creek. This time we went to Big and Little Crystal Creek.



Big crystal creek was a great place for climbing around on the rocks and working the way up the mountains. And as always, there were tons of GORGEOUS pictures to be taken...









Sunday I had a field trip back up to Paluma. This time we were around the same place in Paluma, but higher in altitude! Some of my classmates and I went to play on the playground that was there.. we also got to see an echidna! and I actually got to take a good picture from the bus!



and check out this road that the bus was FLYING down! (At one point we actually ran into a sign!!! for the sake of the bus driver i will admit that the sign was pretty close to the road...) Meanwhile.. this road is a VERY narrow two-way street... and on the left-side (the side that I was sitting on. remember: they drive on the left side here) there was a GIANT cliff going STRAIGHT down about 800 meters (2400ft)!!







I hope that these pics show the gist of what I am saying about this road!!!

Coming up REAL soon...

THE OUTBACK!!

Kiara

Magnetic Island

This past weekend was pretty interesting..

We decided a couple of week sago that we would go out to magnetic island for a weekend. Well we FINALLY made it! And following a week where I had to write two papers and had a midterm.. it was well deserved. We left for Maggie on Friday after class... the island is absolutely BEAUTIFUL!!. It is right across from Townsville, and it is paradise!



Once we got to Maggie, we went checked in our hostel and went to the beach! Geoffrey Bay was very nice. The water was warm and clear.. and there was plenty of dead coral to examine (for the nerdy bio majors!!). That night we went to the night market and had dinner. I had cashew chicken and rice noodles. I was REALLY good. Then we sat out on the beach and talked about everything that came up... Cara did her 8 minute abs (after drinking). It was pretty funny.. Once we walked back to the hostel from the beach, we met some cute Aussie islanders. We played a couple of games of pool with them and then went off to TRY to go to sleep. Once we finally got settled into bed and were about to go to sleep, Alex hops down off of his bed and yells "Oh My GOD! Kiara, Kiara!!" I had no idea what was going on and had my ipod in. I asked him what was wrong and he says..."idk but there is something crawling ALL over me." We all bust out laughing b/c there was clearly NOTHING on his bed... at least from what we could see. It was absolutely HILARIOUS that he tried to get me of all people to help him. I HATE bugs!! That was probably the funniest part of the trip, by far.

We woke up really early Saturday morning to go horseback riding.. unfortunately, the reservation website was down and they didn't get the information. We were kinda bummed out.. but we went a jumped in the pool at Magnum's (our hostel) and then went out to Alma Bay. We spent most of the day at the beach and then went to rent SCOOTERS!!! The scooters were really great..



I had a pink one named Paris (yes hilton).. I must say that she rides good.. no pun intended. We rode around the island on our scooters for a bit and then went to get some dinner.



One the way back from dinner, I was following Alex on my scooter, and I see a light go down a cliff. Thank goodness he wasn't hurt, and lucky for him, the scooter started up again and only had a few scratches. Not bad at all looking at the cliff. After the big scare, we went to the hostel and just chilled out.

Today, or Sunday, we got up early and tried horseback riding again. The ride was ABSOLUTELY wonderful!. We went thru the bush on a track and ran into some wallabys and a few snakes. My horse's name was Matilda. She is a very pretty horse. We went into the water too... I think someone took the pic, but I will have to share it later! But the scenery was beyond words...




Afterwards we went back to the beach for the day.. Somehow, I ended up getting sunburnt. I am pretty hurt from the burn and sore from the horse ride. But overall, a good weekend!

Outback is coming up soon... I am beyond excited!

Till next time,
Kiara