The Wonderful Land of Oz: 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)!!