WINikki

Modern transportation is a marvel. A mere hour in the sky and I arrived in Melbourne, Australia. It was a weekend trip from Thursday, October 30 to Monday, November 3. I had been looking forward to visiting Melbourne since I first flew to Australia. Since Melbourne is in the southern state of Victoria, I waited through winter so that the weather would be more inviting for my visit. The Spring racing carnival is an exciting time for many people. The biggest event is the Melbourne Cup, taking place November 1-4th. Ben and Ziva, friends from Sydney (xchange) came along and we went to the Flemington Racecourse on Saturday with a group of Australians we met. The races are all about fun, fashion, and drinking, and so that’s what we did. After being explained some horse betting ... read more

Sunday, September 28 Day 9- Left Byron Bay at 7:30AM via Greyhound and got to Surfers Paradise by 9AM. Surfers Paradise is known as the Miami equivalent of Australia. As soon as we got to the beach I jumped in on the 10 o'clock surf lesson. Learned to surf for 2 hours and had lots of fun. Ziva didn't want to join, she took some pictures from the beach. After that workout, I had lunch at Hard Rock Cafe. Afterwards, it was back to the beach for another 2 hours before we caught the 5:30PM greyhound to Brisbane. Monday, September 29 Day 10- Australian animals all day long! What could be better than the Australia Zoo. Home of the crocodile hunter. Ziva and I got to the Zoo in Beerwah at 9:15AM. We watched the otters ... read more

*I know there is lots to read. But, I've come back with 973 pictures on my camera. So, you'll have plenty of pictures as well. Monday, September 22 Day 3- Woke at 6:30am to shower from a trickling drip of water. I was well aware that I was not in for a luxury lifestyle. Country living. Our outback tour group only had 6 people. Marko from Finland, Merium from Mexico, Frank from Germany, Lawrence from London, Ziva and I. We jumped in the back of Ted's truck after loading the dogs in their cage and headed out on our 'wildlife trek'. We were quick to learn that we were taking part in Ted's favorite thing of all time, pig hunting. As soon as a wild pig was spotted in the hills the GreatDane Shepard mix hunting ... read more

Wine. Vin. Vino! The Hunter Valley Wine trip. A day of drinking, basically yeh. It is a two and a half hour drive north to Hunter Valley from Sydney. THe Macquarie exchange group on campus arrange a bus for 58 of us to go to 3 wineries and bluetounge brewery. Friday, Sept 5 it rained all day. Our bus driver got lost going in circles around the vinyard maze and eventually took down a barbed fence turning around. We all laughed and yelled for him to stop, but I don't think he cared, and then we got scared a bit of going down a muddy slope. Thank goodness we did not. A group of wallabies (mini kangaroos) were in a field chilling with the cows. That was cool. No pictures though because the bus windows had ... read more