Hi everyone!


Well it sure has been awhile since I posted anything, I suppose it's time for an update. Someday I will write a detailed article on my mid-semester break a couple months ago. For now I'll just say I went with Julie to the Whitsundays, the highlight was when we went on a sailing trip and visited Whitehaven beach-people say the sand there is so white you need sunglasses even when the sun isn't out. It was a bit cloudy when we were there and the sand was super bright white so I believe the rumor. After Whitsundays we ventured across to New Zealand's south island, somewhere I had been wanting to go for ages. I got to go climbing at castle hill which was awesome and a bit scary and I ripped my pants while I was climbing so I made my tank top into an improv skirt for a bit before some guy lent me his extra pair of pants, thank goodness-he saved the day! After Christchurch, which was a pleasant little city, a very English style city, we rented a car and drove south through McKenzie country and on to Wanaka, Queenstown and Milford. It was a beautiful mountain filled trip with good food and good company and a great little rental car named lucy, jucy lucy to be exact.
Since the break I have been in school and I have done a bit of climbing on the weekends. mostly at a place in the glass house mountains called slider. It is a pretty cool crag except the hike in is a bit treacherous and the belay spots are on a 45 degree angle, hence the name slider. I climb with a few people who work at the gym in Brisbane, they are awesome and I enjoy our climbing excursions.
Most recently, my friend Marion was visiting and we went up to a scuba dive open water course. Due to a bit of claustrophobia Marion had to stop the class but I continued on and even cleared my snorkel mask at 6 meters under water-I freaked out a bit because I kept sucking water up my nose but I did it. I even saw a sea turtle, a few rays and some other cool, colorful fish. Marion held a crocodile, snake and Koala! While I wasn't diving we saw some pretty awesome sunsets during our stay on magnetic island, and we stayed at a cool little bungalow place where there were so many birds and they were soo loud, but they were the really pretty rainbow colored ones, I forgot the name. After maggie, we went to Melbourne. Melbourne was a busy, cultural and very artsy city. The queen victory markets (largest open air market in the southern hemisphere) were fantastic, Julie and I had some epic bratwursts, one of our many great meals in Melbs. Dana also caught up with us for dinner and for an afternoon, it was interesting to hear about her study abroad experience in Melbourne.
Well that is what I've been up to, right now I'm getting ready for finals and starting to get psyched about my sis coming to vist.
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An update my stay so far...

This is just a rough outline of what I've done so far:

The first part of my trip was wonderful. I spent a week traveling around a bit with dad. Our first encounter with reverse round abouts proved to be quite the challenge but we managed. We checked out Sydney and the Blue Mountains before venturing up to the tropical northern parts of Queensland. From Cairns we attempted to drive south past Whitsunday Islands to Brisbane. Unfortunately the weather had a bit of a different agenda for us. In our annoying, giant Ford rental car we followed all the other cars who felt that a posted road closure was not reason enough to stop driving. Well we learned the hard way that when they close roads for flooding the road it's for a reason. After a tense drive we made it back to Townsville and arranged for a flight to Brisbane the following day. We ended up spending a couple days near Noosa on the Sunshine Coast. The rain continued but lightened up a bit on our last day. After the travels dad ensured I was settled in Toowoomba before venturing home.


Weekend 1
Coolangata, Gold Coast
Julie and I went down to the southern end of the Gold Coast to watch the Rip Curl Pro Surfing Competition. We enjoyed the sun and blue-green ocean. Julie brought her huge rolling suitcase along for the weekend and it proved to be quite a pain. Stairs and the beach were serious obstacles for the beast (the name we gave her suitcase).

Weekend 2
Julie is my travel buddy so pretty much every weekend description is going to start with Julie and I. So with that Julie and I went down to Surfer's Paradise and stayed at the Marriott for 100 bucks a night. We were high rollin! We ate at Hard Rock Cafe and I took my first and only surf lesson. I was so excited, surfing has been on my list of things to do for so long. Surfer's was very urban, it was completely different than the southern part of the Gold Coast we had seen before.

Weekend 3
This weekend I went with all the American girls and my Canadian neighbor Ryan up to Coolum on the Sunshine Coast. After an epically long journey consisting of 3 buses and 2 trains we made it to our holiday condo. We went up to Noosa and swam and laid on the beach. The trip would have been a lot more enjoyable if one of the girls hadn't complained the whole time. She drove the rest of us crazy!

Weekend 4
at our favorite South Bank restaurant Toscani's. We eat there about every time we go toThe koalas and Kangaroos got a nice visit from Julie and I. We also found some gluten free pizza Brisbane now.

Weekend 5
Easter Weekend, Julie and I stayed at South Bank and the highlight of the trip was our excursion to Stradbroke Island for the day on Saturday. We went on a gorge walk along the ocean which was absolutely stunning.

Weekend 6
I took a break from the traveling and just stayed in Toowoomba.

Mid Semester Break had arrived-it definitely deserves its own post!








I miss all you guys at home, and I am having an amazing time. I hope you are too! Thanks mom and dad for everything! love you guys!

Hey there everyone!

I can't believe Erin convinced me to make a blog. Anyway I will do my best, I can't guarantee how often I will update it but I'll try. I am studying in Australia right now and I have been doing quite a bit of traveling and just enjoying the sun.