Wow, we have done so much since my last post, I don't know where to begin. I apologize for not posting more often. We have to pay for internet at the hotel, so we don't do get online that often. It is Wednesday night Jan. 19 and we are in Melbourne which is in the state of Victoria. I can't believe our time here is almost over-it has flown by.
Before we left Sydney we did some pretty cool stuff. Thursday we took a train to the Blue Mountains which are about 60 miles from the city. When we got there it was quite cloudy and drizzly again, but we were able to hike down into a rainforest. We also found a trail to this beautiful waterfall called the Leura Cascade. I took some great pictures, but I don't have access to them right now.
On Friday, most of the students took surfing lessons at Bondi Beach. This is a very popular beach in Sydney. It was fun to sit in the sun and watch the students. The water was very cold, so they had to wear wetsuits. They all said they had a wonderful time and it was one of the best things they had done so far. Even though we wore sunscreen, everyone got a little sunburnt that afternoon. The sun is very intense here.
Saturday, we toured Olympic Park in Sydney which is where the 2000 Summer Olympics were held. The main stadium was opened in 1999 and cost $650 million to build! It now hosts lots of different events like concerts, cricket, soccer, Australian football, and rugby. Cricket is a very popular sport here and this is the season. The Aussies are a bit upset because they were just beat by England for the first time in many years.
We left Sydney Saturday night. What a trip that was! We were to take an overnight train to Melbourne, but they were doing some work on the tracks, so we had to ride in a bus for 2 hours then get on a train for the next 10 hours. The seats were roomy enough, but still hard to sleep when you are sitting up!
We got to Melbourne around 8:00 a.m. Sunday, but our hotel rooms were not ready so we stored our luggage and went off to find breakfast. We found that and more when we came across Victoria Market. It is an open air market with lots of fresh produce and rows and rows of vendors selling everything from Uggs to Aboriginal art. I think we all bought souvenirs and are planning to go back tomorrow (Thursday). We toured the Art Center, went up in the Melbourne Skywalk, took a river boat tour and visited the aquarium all with little sleep and no showers!! Needless to say we were all extremely happy to get back to the hotel that night.
The last three days have been absolutely amazing, but I will tell you about that later. There continues to be flooding, now in Victoria but to the north of us. Brisbane in Queensland is cleaning up after a massive flood. Australia has had a drought for the last fifteen years, but this summer they have been hit hard with heavy rainfall. As you can imagine it is all you hear about on the news. We met a man from Brisbane the other day who had been on vacation when the floods hit. He said his house was okay, but his nephew's home was full of water up to one foot from the ceiling. They lost everything. It's all very sad.
On a lighter note, so far I have seen no snakes in the wild. There have been signs warning us about them. Oh, and I must make a correction to one of my earlier posts. Koalas are just koalas not koala bears. Many of you know that they are marsupials like a kangaroo, possum, wallaby, etc. We have seen lots of them both at a sanctuary and in the wild. More on that later! I will leave you with another Australian analogy. Read it and complete it. kangaroo : jump :: koala :
No comments:
Post a Comment