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Published: December 10th 2007
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Well, this is the last installment of the adventures of Angie in Oz. It's good to be home but it also doesn't feel like I just spent the last 5 months in Australia. At least I have pictures to prove it. After our trip to Sydney and the Melbourne Cup, I had 2 finals 2 days after. I'll be honest, studying was not prevalent. However, I don't really think much studying had to be done since on all my exams, it was a question we'd seen exactly before or knew it was coming. We'll see if I should have been more worried once the grades come out.
That Friday, the 9th, my friend Justin turned 21 so we had a combined bday party in South Yarra. It was a distance from Bundoora but we eventually made it. It was an amazing time...too bad the last hour or so had to be filled in by others because the shots started taking over. The following Tuesday, a couple of us headed to Yarra Valley where we consumed wine until we couldn't taste it anymore. Part of the tour included Domain Chandon and I got scolded once Justin found out
Waterfall #58
our cruise on Milford Sound (but it's actually a fiord) because I didn't tell him this was one of the wineries. Who knew that Domain Chandon was that important. I guess the sister winery in France is where the infamous Dom Perignon is produced...you know, the $200 bottle of champagne. The week just kept rolling on and my last exam had been on Monday. Wednesday night was The Killers concert!! It was the last stop for the Sam's Town tour and thankfully, this was their second show since the one the night before sold out within 20 minutes. And that weekend was the last crazy weekend out in Melbourne.
The 20th was the day that pops arrived and it graced him with 37 degrees Celsius or somewhere along the lines close to 100 F. But his arrival changed that with the next day being in the 60s. I talked him into Thanksgiving dinner with the floormates. Of course, someone asked if Australia celebrated that and my response was that I didn't think the Indians had dinner with the pilgrims there so that idea was nixed. On Thanksgiving, we headed to Christchurch in New Zealand.
We spent the first day driving and driving and driving to Queenstown. Something like 7 hours later, we were there. We passed by Mt Cook, the tallest peak in Australasia. And once we were more towards the south of the South Island, the driving got more interesting. Cliffs with no barriers, curves galore and hills we didn't think our little Toyota would get up. We also lacked radio once we got out of Christchurch so dad was graced by my iPod in my head and my random bursts of singing. He said that one day I'll learn a whole song. We spent the next day checking out Queenstown but it's very touristy. We took the gondola up to the top of the "hill", walked through the Botanical Gardens and hit up the market by the water. On Sunday, we headed to Milford Sound. It's about 2 hours to the west but you have to drive south, west, then north taking a total of about 5 hours. We drove through a massive tunnel carved out in the mountain and much more of curves, massive inclines, cliffs and to add to the fun, rain. We took a cruise around Milford Sound and saw tons of waterfalls and little, rare penguins. The land went up about 600 feet and the deepest part of the fiord was about 600 feet down. All carved out by a glacier. We stayed in Te Anau and I talked dad into the glowworm caves. The cave was just as nifty as the worms that stick themselves to the top of the ceiling and the hungrier they are, the brighter they glow. Then they have little "fishing lines" hanging down to catch their prey. A river carved out the cave beautifully and we saw an eel on the way out. yuck!
The next day was back to driving to the west coast towards the glaciers. And the only way there is back the way we came through Queenstown. There's the Fox and Franz Josef glacier. We walked up to the Franz Josef but unless you're part of the hiking group...you're not suppose to walk up to it so the stopping point was 200 m away. We then went to Hoktika and checked that out. The entire city is filled with green stone and that's really all you see in the jewelry stores. After that stop, back to Christchurch and our 7 days was up. Before we left NZ, we checked Christchurch out and hit up a museum and the Botanical Gardens. That garden was by far my favorite because it had a massive rose garden. You could smell it before you even got to the start of it. I really couldn't get enough of it or enough pictures. 😉
I was encouraged to do bungy jumping since NZ is the home of the original but I couldn't find myself doing it alone and my dad was not an option since he wasn't willing. I did get pics of someone else doing it and we went by the one off the bridge. yikes. I'll have to go back and check it out in line 10 years. Well, back to Oz it was. We had the prettiest car once we got back to Melbourne and it was almost brand spanking new. I fell in love. Mitsubishi Lancer if I recall right. Back to Chisholm to get my extra bags from Marshneil and off to the Grampians we went, which is about 3 hours out of the city. Once we got there, it was deafening. The cicadas were out...these bugs that come out every 7 years (but in this case 4) and all of them together making noise makes it hard to sit outside. We did some walks in the hills and these bugs were loud and clear even that far away. Then after our time there, we headed south to Great Ocean Rd so dad could check out the sights. We did some of the more popular stops like the Twelve Apostles and Loch and Gorge. We tried to limit them though since the flies are super, super pesky and won't leave your face alone.
We stayed in South Yarra once we got back into Melbourne. I drove into the city and ended up accidently turning onto the right road. Melbourne is set up where if you make a wrong turn and don't know the city, it takes a long time to get back on track. I found this out the hard way the day we left for the airport and my mistake cost us a mere 40 minutes. My dad compared it to the setup of Chicago where they have separate lanes going in the same direction and it's difficult to get to the other. We went to St Kilda beach and dad asked if it was a nude beach. Once I looked around, this lady was topless and was like.ummm no. That was interesting to say the least. We did some more sightseeing, had dinner one last time with Ms. Mandy and now I'm back for a week almost already. Once I figure out how to get my computer up and running online, pics will be added but I'm procrastinating. I won't discuss the flight home since I might have had the worst seat on the plane but that's over now. Instead of sleeping all the time, my jetlag is making me a night owl, which I'm despising.
Next weekend is graduation down in lax, which I'm super pumped for to head back. And after that is the cities now that I have an apartment thanks to my awesome roomie!! (you know who you are 😉
I hope you all have amazing holidays!!
Cheers
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