Back to Bathurst

There are a couple of things I forgot to mention in my last blog…When we went on our sailing trip (and I don’t know HOW I forgot about this), I got to steer! The skipper let me drive the boat for about half an hour, so now I know if journalism doesn’t work out, I have another option.

I also forgot to mention ANZAC day. Australians celebrate the day on April 25 to remember the soldiers from WWI when they landed in Gallipoli (their first major military action) up until the soldiers today. ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. I saw a parade for it on TV.

The last thing I failed to write about was the Virginia Tech shooting. Being overseas, all the mourning seems kind of far away, but I’ve still heard a lot about it. Sara was the first one to tell me about it that morning and I couldn’t believe it. Then I got several e-mails to my school address about it through NinerOnline, UCF and Facebook messages. When I was waiting for the bus a couple days after, I saw a story about it on Australian TV. It’s nice to have a news station that covers other countries. I think our news stations need to have more international coverage. Nichole and I talked about it briefly because it hit so close to home. She’s from Wilmington and mentioned how easily that could’ve been her school…

Now I guess it’s time to wrap up the past week or so…After leaving Airlie Beach, Pete and I trekked to Hervey Bay (said Harvey Bay) with Astrid. We ended up being on the same bus after all. It took quite some time and I had a sore throat, so I didn’t get much sleep on the bus, but such is life. Once there, though, we pulled up to a really nice hostel and stayed the night. Astrid and Pete tried to show me how to play chess, but my distaste for the game was only confirmed and later we played monopoly. Not my favorite either, but I actually put some houses on the board that time. I usually give up before I get to that point.

We were going to go on a two-day tour of Fraser Island the next day, but there wasn’t enough space left on the trip. Astrid got to leave the next day (Wednesday), but Pete and I postponed it til Thursday. We did get to walk around the marina and down the first pier I’ve seen in Australia, though, so postponing it was fine with me. Oh, and we saw pelicans! That amused me. Later, we met Nichole for dinner. We were going to go to Pizza Hut because I was craving breadsticks and don’t you know that the Pizza Huts here don’t have breadsticks! What is that? It’s not Pizza Hut if there are no breadsticks. They only have garlic bread, so we went to Red Rooster.

Thursday morning, we took a barge to Fraser Island about 45 minutes from Hervey Bay. It’s the largest sand island in the world and used to be occupied by the Aboriginal Butchella people. It used to be called Gurry for “paradise.” To be honest, I don’t think the name quite fits, but I still had a lot of fun. Once on the island, our group took a bus type thing across the island. Only vehicles with 4-wheel drive are allowed to drive on it. It was incredibly bumpy because everything is sand. Our bus driver’s name was “Captain Kirk”…interesting character. He was really nice, but everyone gave him crap because he didn’t drive well. After driving through a bunch of trees and walking through a rainforest, we drove right along the beach. It’s called the 75-mile beach, but it’s really 69. We stopped by the crystal-clear Eli Creek and the Maheno shipwreck along the way. The Maheno got stuck there in the 1930’s when it was being towed to land, but only one-third of it is still visible. The rest is under the sand. In its day, passengers compared it to the class and comfort of the Titanic and when it was first wrecked, several people had their weddings on the boat.

On our way to the Champagne pools, we got stuck when the driver turned into the deeper sand. He killed the 4-wheel drive and there were actually a few vehicles in the area that were being pushed. We were stuck for a couple of hours, but it gave the group a chance to walk up to Indian Head. It’s a huge cliff that cuts into the beach and the view was amazing. Some people saw sharks in the water from the top and we were told to look for turtles and dolphins as well. One couple saw a dingo (the island is full of them), but I had no such luck.

Then back to the bus once the sun went down. It was still stuck when we got there, so we took a different bus to the campsite. Of course that bus got a flat tire once we got there. (Pete said to put on the comment card that they need to be more prepared for break-downs). Our driver made dinner, which was delicious…steak and potatoes and salad and garlic bread. The “tents” we stayed in were pretty nice, too. They were small but had hardwood floors and no bugs.

The next morning, everyone got up early to leave for the second day of touring by 8:00 only to find that the flat tire was still in the process of being fixed. Apparently the first set of tools didn’t fit. Once we got on the…well I guess I can call it a road…we went by the Pinnacle where the colored sands are. They’re like big triangles of hard sand-art by the beach. Then we walked through another rainforest before lunch. The forests have the largest trees I’ve ever seen. One type of tree was used for all the flooring in the Sydney Opera House. The driver pointed out one of the trees and said it has about $80,000 worth of lumber.

Since we had a two-hour delay in the morning, we didn’t go on the four kilometer hike across the sand to the lake, but that was fine by me. Instead, we went to Beerabeen Lake…I think. There are two that start with a B, and I think that was it. I saw an aerial view of Fraser Island while we were there and the lakes in the middle of the sand island are impressive. It started to rain after awhile and we got back on the bus and drove to the barge to get back to Hervey Bay.

All in all, I had a good time on the island, although I’m not sure I would do it again. Everyone talks about Fraser Island, though, so I’m sure I would have wondered what it was like if I hadn’t gone.

Saturday, all four of us took different routes to Coolangatta to catch our plane to Sydney. All these long trips are chipping away at my self-esteem. There are only so many buses, planes, trains and shuttles I can be on before looking in the mirror and thinking, “Oh dear, is that what I look like?” I’m sure no one cares.

So now my break is over and I have to go back to assessments and hiking to the library. I almost cried when we got back last night because I wasn't ready to be back. I’d like to go to the Twelve Apostles in Victoria before I leave in July, but I definitely put a dent in my account over the past few weeks, so we’ll see how that goes. I don’t regret any of it, though. I’ve had more fun the past three weeks than I can measure and almost every dollar was well-spent…There was a frozen pizza Pete and I invested in while in Hervey Bay only to find out the hostel didn’t have an oven, so we’ll say all but $6 was worthwhile. But on the flip-side, I did get a much anticipated swing in the hammock before I left. Can’t argue with that.

By the way, I've added pictures to the past couple of blogs now!