A Quick Year and a Half....now in Limbo

Now that I have a little bit of free time I can update this thing.

The end of the semester was a ton of writing (~2 weeks straight), then right into one exam...then another. Luckily they were a week apart so I could get some studying in between. But as I usually do horribly on exams I'm not sure how much it helped. But oh well everything is done now...thesis completed and exams are finished. I officially graduated two weeks ago Wednesday. Yay to me.

On the same day as my last final my parents took the 33 hours to travel down here. It was really good to see them again and was eager to have my mom see Oz. My dad has been here about 15 times with work over the years but not sure how much he has been able to be on holidays. The first few days we just chillaxed here in Briz. We went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary to get up close with the koala's, roo, wombat, emu and others.

We also spent two days at the farm that my previous housemate's boyfriends parents own a little south of Briz. The pics of the rain-forest in my previous posts were from the farm. These are a little different view of the place. Still one of the coolest places I've been. Nice and chilled out.
The pictures upload is giving me a server error so I'll try them tomorrow.

Then off to Melbourne to drive the Great Ocean Road and see the city for about a week. The GOR is amazing...very scenic, similar to PCH but more green with trees and not desert. We did the obligatory stop at the 12 Apostiles (really 11 now as one fell apart last year) and also several of the other turn offs along the way. It took about 3 days but you could do it all in one but wouldn't have enough time to see everything or go slow enough to prevent nausea. I do wish we had a better car as it's also a drivers road. I'd prefer something like my WRX but it was still a great time. Definately something everyone should do if they get down there.

We then spent a few days in the city. Went to an Australian Rules game at the famous MCG. We had a great time as it is very different from watching it on the tube. You can see the whole field and how everyone moves, which they don't show on tv. And we had a rather obnoxious fan that sat behind us and talked the whole game. Yeah they have the same type of fans down here as we do back home.

The next day after the game we tried going down to Phillip Island to catch the seal colony and the penguins as well. But the 15 foot waves put us off a bit. And the penguins only come to shore at night. It was raining and was about as dark as night so they might have been on shore but the rain and cold put us off from spending the $25 just to find out. So it ended up being a nice drive with my parents and had some good ice cream at the dairy farm on the way back to Melbourne. The next day we took the flight back to Briz.

I had a doctors appointment and soccer game the next weekend so we just stayed in town for the next few days. We took a little trip down to the Gold Coast (about 45 minutes south) to see the beach and the tourist town. Of course we picked the day when the GC marathon was going on. It was the biggest ever turn out with about 33,000 people running....not including all the support and spectators. We ended up sitting in traffic due to all the road closures for about an hour or so before we arrived at the beach. By then the sun was going down so it ended up being 2 hours or so on the beach.

A few days later we saw the real beach up in Carins. It was nice and warm. A good change from the chill Melbourne and Briz weather. We stayed in Carins for three days and took some day trips driving around the mountains. My dad's friend here in Briz recommended a train ride up the mountains which had some great scenery and then we took a gondola ride back down. Both were amazing as you go right through the rainforest then float above it.


We then spent three days up in Port Douglas. The place we stayed was about 50 metres from the beach. The town is all touristy but still pretty cool. Kind of like a little vacation paridise with all the palm trees, the rain-forest, the beach and the Reef. Me and my dad spent a day driving a little up north to find the rainforest but found it took a trip across a river on a ferry and then about a 2 hour drive farther north to get to the trails. So on the way back we stopped off at a little trail that took you through some rather pristine rain-forest. A little more dense than the stuff down here and just as amazing. It was also cool to show my dad all the cool stuff around the forest as I'm not sure if he's ever been in the rain-forest before.


The next day we took a trip to the outer Great Barrier Reef. The tour we went with has it's own huge moored dock type thing that you swim off of. As my mom gets sea sick quite easily we thought it would be a good idea to take this trip as some of the other tours you just swim off the boat. With 25 km/h wind it was a good idea. The reef is probably one of the most impressive things I've ever seen. It's hard to describe but it's like your inside an aquarium with the most beautiful fish you've ever seen swimming all around you. I spent about an hour and a half in the water, my parents a little less. I could have stayed there all day. If I end up staying here I might have to take up SCUBA diving as I'm sure it's even better being underwater for an extended period. And it's hard to think of how large the reef is that you can see it from space and just the little 50 m radius we swam in was so minuscule. Another thing everyone should do if they come down to Oz. So I have to thank my parents for helping me check another one off of my life list of places to see.


On the trip back the flight was limited due to the weather here in Briz as we were passengers 143, 144, and 145 on the flight that was limited to 144. So we didn't end up getting on our flight but rather took a flight down to Sydney before heading back up here. It was kind of good as my mom was able to see Sydney but bad as it was just from the airplane. It was nice to get back home instead of being stuck in an airport all day.

The last few days in Briz were just spend touring around the city a little and eating at the great places to eat here in West End. I think they both had a great time down here and enjoyed the country and the people.

So now I'm in limbo as my visa runs out at the beginning of September and I've been frantically looking for a job in the two weeks since they left. I can always get a visitors visa after my student one runs out but it would be nice to find some work. It shouldn't be too bad and hopefully I'll hear something soon from the places I've already sent my CV to. I'm kind of looking everywhere but it would be nice to maybe stay here in Briz for a while. But we'll see what comes up.

I have another doctors appointment on Friday to find out my surgery date and I hope it's in August as my health cover expires when my visa does. So Friday I should know if I'll have the surgery for sure. I'll let everyone know. Other than that nothing exciting the past few weeks. Just job hunting all day. Hopefully the pictures will be attached but our net has been acting up the past few days. If not I'll get them up asap as there are some good one.

Cheers,
B.

P.S. Images are not uploading....gotta love google. More later