break, bikes, balls, broadwater

54 Regatta crs, Douglas 4814 QLD, Australia. So I thought I would give out our address while I remember, if anyone feels like sending cookies or recess peanut butter cups, we would love you.
For Easter break we headed down to the whit Sunday islands with two other students. We rented a car and I got the lucky job of driving the three hours down there. So steering wheel on the opposite side and driving on the opposite side didn’t bug me to much, but what did was the damn turn signal was on the wrong side! Every time I went to signal the windshield wipers went on. …Great. When we got there we found out that are room wasn’t held for us ( it got booked the night before) and every place was booked out because of the holiday. We finally found a hostel, but we said there were only two of us. We snuck into the room and found out some interesting things. First there was a medium sized bed. Second, that was all that was in the room. Basically we couldn’t figure out how they even got the bed into the room because it took up the entire tiny space. Lets just say im glad crystal and I got the bed that night. The next day we found better accommodations and booked a cruise to some islands with an overnight stop at long island. So we toured around on a huge catamaran checking out the sites (oh yea, free beer and wine on the boat) and playing on white haven beach which has the finest most pure silica sand in the world. Its crazy. The sand squeaks when you walk on it. They then dropped us off at the island and we checked in. they had a nice pool with a swim up bar and karaoke that night. I am thankful that no one I know besides crystal had to hear me sing, that’s all im saying (it was time warp by the way). The next day we headed back to find our rental car and head home.
Went mountain biking today( late march) above school. Saw a neat snake but couldn’t stop to see what it was, also tons of kangaroos on the path eating. I would stop to watch them as they bounded away, one just went below me on a trail and waited while the younger was in front of me (15ft) and didn’t really know what to do. Its mom was below me and was just sitting not really moving and watching it. The youngster crept a little closer to see what I was doing, then decided that wasn’t smart and bounded down the hill towards mom. This trail is unlike anything back home, its just a small single track, really overgrown with grasses that hit you in the face and there are tons of rocks and other obstacles in the way like a fallen tree that people didn’t move they just stacked up rocks on either side of it to make an interesting crossing. Not to mention the sharp 180 degree turns that you forget about as your barreling down the hill. After the millionth spider web in my face and grass things all over me, I called it a day and headed home.
The highlight of living out here so far has been the excitement of getting to test ride some dirtbikes. Honda and Husqvarna put on a demo out in some farm land where you get to ride their new bikes. So the roommate and us went out and had a ball (well Nick and I did, the girls just watched and yawned). I got to ride the 450’s and 250’s and it just proved to me that I need to get a bike somehow. I wish that this did this back home because it was really a neat experience. We jumped on a bike and tore off onto a track they had set up, did a few muddy laps and traded for another bike. So at any time there are probably six other riders on the course and I have to say I did pass and roost a few of them.
So Crystal convinced me to play volley ball. This came about when I went with her and some friends to watch them play (they joined a city team). They then tell me that they are short one player so im it. So we’ve had six games by now and yes we are getting better even though we’ve lost more than half of our games. What can you do.
Broadwater trip- for my animal behavior class we had a voluntary field trip up to braodwater which is a few hours north of us. So of course I went and pulled some strings to let crystal go as well. We arrived at a beautiful camp ground that has an hour walk through the rainforest. A biologist was there and knew tons about the animals and plants out there so he showed us everything, like the worlds second smallest kingfishers nest (a hole in a river bank that was a little bigger than a quarter and it can stand up in its hole). We then got to walk around and view things for ourselves like the huge camps of spectacled flying foxes. There were everywhere and very loud but really cool to look at. Some of the mothers had babies under their wings. I must have taken 80 pics of them. There was also a neat river that we got to jump in and it reminded me of back home because it was so damn cold! It also screamed Australia because there were other people there and you look up the river and here come this older bloke with that aussie hat and a beer in his hand walking down the river at us. Quite funny. We have to go back there camping because we were told that they are a family of platypus that live there and you can view them in the morning when they come out to feed, plus there is a really huge waterfall that we want to hike to.
ok thats all for now, lots of love
Scott and Crystal

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