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Published: March 3rd 2009
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Wilson's Prom
Our car we rented...pretty nice So I am getting a little behind on my bloggin but these past few weeks here have been very interesting to say the least. A few friends of mine that I met here at the graduate house decided to rent a house and car for the weekend at a very good price and go down to Wilson's Promontory a few weekends ago, which is a national wildlife park where you can camp and hike. The house we rented was about 8 miles away from the park but it was beautiful. It reminded me a bit of conneaut with the smells. The house had 3 bedrooms: 2 with double beds and 1 with a single and a pull out. There were 5 of us that went so it was perfect. It had a grill in the back along with a fireplace, a common area, and a fully functional kitchen. It was only a quick walk to the beach. We went on a Friday and Jens (pronounced Jentz), from Germany, and I cooked on the grill for dinner both Fri and Sat nights. On saturday, when temperatures reached 115 in Melbourne and 95 where we were, we decided to go on a hike.
The hike was supposed to take 3 hours and we completed it in 2 hours and 20 minutes. The first 45 minutes were all in the sun and up hill. This was one of the hardest things I think I've done. I was sure I wanted to quit. But the rest of it wasn't as bad. So once we reached our destination...the beach, we went for a swim had some lunch and then hiked back. But while we were there it was then that we heard about the beginning of the tragety. Some people that were camping on the beach informed us of the fires that had started to burn all across Victoria (the state that we are in and that Melbourne is in). As we looked you could see the smoke filling the sky off in the distance. This was a little frightening because the winds in Australia can get violent at times and the fires here spread very quickly. After hearing of this we didn't think the fires were to bad so we went on with our day and hiked back. The hike back was mostly uphill and at this point was pretty hott. This took about 2
Wilson's Prom
a view from the back hours and 40 minutes, mostly in the shade but still in the heat. After we had finished the hike we decided to watch the sunset on a nearby beach before returning home to cook another feast. Sunday consisted of mostly rain, so we decided to go to a few beaches as it cleared up a bit. We heard on the radio that some of the fires were still burning and 3 people had died. We stopped at the visitor center to make sure that the roads were open on our drive back to hear that the rain we recieved was only here and not over the fire sites. On our way home we didn't think to much of the fires but we had heard the death toll was up to 35 which was pretty bad at the time. Again we had no clue at this point that there were more than 10 fires across the state of Victoria. All week that was the big news story.
The following weekend I decided to go to Sydney with a friend I met who goes to Duke. Thats another story, so apparently there are 2 airports technically called Melbourne Airport. The international
Wilson's Prom
This was the most difficult key ever. one and this dinky one about an hour bus ride away from the city. Well when I booked our flights I apparently booked the airport in Avalon. So after we got the details of that taken care of everything ran smoothly. After arriving in Sydney we caught a train to our hostel for the evening. The one thing that I thought was kind of odd, is no one checked my passport/id. The took my boarding pass and that was it. Not once did they check to make sure I was who I said I was...crazy. Anyways the entire weekend was full of rain. Everyday it poured. In addition to the rain the weekend still consisted of tradgedy...a plane crashed in buffalo killing 50 people, 2 shark attacks occured in Sydney, don't worry we didn't go swimming, and in Victoria the fires continued to burn. But the weekend was good overall, a nice break from Melbourne. After arriving home I heard the update of the new total of fatalities to the fires: 189. As this week comes to an end I say farewell to another friend, Laura. She returns to Spain on Friday.
To reflect on the fires....This is a
Wilson's Prom
the girls room huge tradgety here. I can't believe how much people have lost. Over 330,000 hectors are ashes. You constantly here the horror stories people share about the speed of how fast the fire spread. The winds just changed and that was the end. People heard a big load noise and all of a sudden a huge cloud of smoke. The smoke was so think you couldn't see and there were accidents everywhere. The firefighters found kids burned in bathtubs and families in cars along the side of the road. After reading a newspaper article of all of the heroic and horrific stories it brought tears to my eyes. On a positive note, the fires began on a saturday morning and by monday night Australia had raised more than 60 million dollars. The money and donations keep coming. Its amazing to see a country respond to such tradgety so quickly. I'm sure they are dipicting the same thing on TV at home, but being here and seeing the effect this has on so many people is hard. One fire that wiped out an entire town was only about 20 minutes from work. Everyone here knows someone that was affected by it either
losing a loved on or a piece of property. I work with a woman whos son has lost more than 5 kids in his class. Another woman I work with lost her house and her son was to be married in it next weekend. This is a time in history for Australia and I can say that I've lived through it.
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