My roomate Tracy and I flew into Hamilton Island, which is one of two aiports in this part of Queensland. We ventured up here for the Great Barrier Reef, and Cairns and the Whitsundays are the two best places to get access to it. Flying to Cairns is pretty expensive and my other roomate had already been there earlier this year, so Whitsundays it was! Plus we got an awesome deal with Jetstar since it's the middle of the Aussie winter. Hamilton Island is a small island, one of many in the Whitsunday area. This area is called the Whitsundays because [View Full Entry]

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After being home for a few days I decided to venture back into my favourite city in Australia : Melbourne. There is still so much for me to explore and that's what I did, although it was a gloomy winter day. I spent a few hours in Fitzroy which the suburb that is known for its funky Bohemian fashion stores and cafes. After some browsing and shopping I wasn't too pleased, I suppose the nightlife might be what makes this place hot because it is known for its live music at most of the jazz bars. I then spent some time [View Full Entry]

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We had thought that getting to Nimbin would be pretty easy. Most people that have gone to Byron Bay always go to Nimbin on the way so it's easy to see why we thought that, but we were wrong. It turned out that going straight from Byro n Bay to Nimbin was impossible since there laid parks in the way. The only route was to head south through Bangalow and then towards Lismore which are both small towns before taking the turn north which led to Nimbin. In total it would take about 2 hours the locals told us. We left [View Full Entry]

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Belinda and I rented a car and went on a road trip for a day. This is the first road trip I have been on in Australia and I suppose it doesn't really qualify for a road trip seeing it was only for a day, but it was still quite the adventure. We headed to Byron Bay which is an hour south of the Gold Coast. It was pretty easy getting there because the Pacific highway takes you straight there. Byron Bay is one of the most beautiful places I have seen in Australia. It's on the east coast and is [View Full Entry]

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Belinda and I took the train to Brisbane for the day. The train took us almost 2 hours which was really ridiculous. But it was pretty cheap to ride the train since with the ticket you can also use the buses as well as the ferries. But we didn't end up using either. Once we got into Brisbane we were puzzled as to what we should do. It was a pretty grey day so we weren't too keen on walking too much especially because we both didn't know much about the city. We decided just to walk around the main streets. [View Full Entry]

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Last night was Bond univerisity's annual law ball at Conrad Jupitar's which is the casino. The theme was Viva Las Vegas, how appropriate! It was good times, with a 3 course meal and all you can drink beer and wine which is seems to be everywhere in this country, and I'm so not complaining. The after party was at a club called Melbas which is at Surfer's Paradise. This club is pretty popular because most of the people that have been to the Gold Coast have told me to go there, but once I was there I really didn't see what [View Full Entry]

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I arrived in the Gold Coast on Sunday. My flight from Melbourne was only 2 hours and it's another hour on the airtrain from the Brisbane airport to the Gold Coast. I didn't see much of Brisbane on the train, but this weekend will be spent soaking up as much as I can in 2 days. I came to the Gold Coast to visit my best friend, Belinda. She has been here for almost two years, studying law at Bond Univeristy which is located right by the coast. It's a beautiful campus, especially because it is a private university. There are [View Full Entry]

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Travelling for a short time is rewarding because you know that you will be home within a few weeks or months at the least. So enjoying your time is easy and finances usually are not an issue. The hard task of travelling in a country for 10 months is realizing that you are in fact not travelling anymore, but LIVING there, therefore, it stops being a vacation. I came to this realization about a month ago, when I was shopping and saw some clothing that I wanted to buy because you always want something to remember your stay, and clothing is [View Full Entry]

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Our last day in Sydney started with a trip to the Rocks market. It's the historic part of Sydney where the settlers first landed and the market is great. I got some postcards and some pins. We then took the train to Newtown which is the queer suburb of Sydney. It wasn't that exciting but it had more diversity though than the city which was made up of a lot of Asians. Newtown was a small community and had a huge African population mixed with the queer. After Newtown we headed to Burwood to meet Pravin for the TYO's Share Refuge [View Full Entry]

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We started the day by heading to Manly Beach which you have to take a ferry to get to. The ferry ride was about 30 minutes and Manly beach is pretty quaint compared to Sydney. The beach is lovely and filled with surfers and I loved that Sydney was so warm, but not hot. Laura and I went shopping after hanging out on the beach a little bit. On the way back to Sydney we were able to take the Jetcat which is a faster ferry, it took 15 minutes and takes you right up to the opera house on the [View Full Entry]

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