For my final “study” (lol) break at Murdoch University, a few friends and I decided to go to Bali, Indonesia. It is actually cheaper to fly to Bali from Western Australia than it is to fly to Eastern Australia from Western Australia!

We left Perth on a Sunday evening and got on the four hour flight to Denpasar, Bali. The customs forms were super confusing because non of us had any background in the language but we eventually figured it out.

We arrived in Bali at around 11pm and as soon as we got off the plane we were hit with a wave of HUMIDITY. Man, it was toasty. We went through immigration and border control and got to the main lobby of the airport. There were people all over the airport that kept following us around trying to get us to ride in their taxis to the hotel, but we were told by a friend who had been to Bali recently, to only use the BlueBird taxi company. We walked by someone who had a card saying he was with the BlueBird taxi company so we went with him. He gave us a ride to the hotel and turns out he was not actually really a worker, so we got overcharged! When in Bali, only go in the BlueBird taxis, and make sure it actually says BlueBird on the car itself, and that there is a meter inside the cab. There were so many people driving cars with fake taxi company names on them with the exact same logo as the BlueBird company, like BlueBrid (which is kinda difficult to see if you hop in a taxi quickly!) So keep your eyes peeled!

We finally got to our hotel, and luckily, someone in our friend group has a family member who works for Holiday Inn, and they got us a real cool deal at a FIVE STAR RESORT. Right on the beach! It was so cool! We were greeted at the front desk with tea and cold towels to wipe our sweaty faces off with. There was a huge pool and our room overlooked the ocean. We ordered room service that night, which was ridiculously cheap (food is very cheap in Indonesia) and planned the next day.

The next day was really laid back. When I travel, I usually plan every second of my day with fun stuff, but for once I just relaxed! We laid on the beach and then I went and found some shells and then we went in the pool. We all went out for dinner, and there was some pretty cool stuff on the menu, like lizard!

We were up early the following day, because we had a 13 hour tour to go on! In Bali, there aren’t really big tour buses because the roads are too crazy! People just rent drivers for the day and they take you to cool places, and it’s really cheap, so that’s what we did.

Our first stop was a sarong making factory, we watched them being made from scratch and then being painted.

Then we went to a Barong dance show, and saw traditional dancing in super cool costumes and heard traditional Balinese gamelan, which is an ensemble of percussion instruments.

Next, we went to an art gallery. Most of the art was either traditional Indonesian and Balinese art work, or realistic paintings of landscapes in Bali.

After the gallery, we went to a waterfall closer to the center of the island. It was so hot and there was a lot of walking involved, I almost passed out! I bought a bottle of water at a little market place – ALWAYS drink bottled water in Bali, even brush your teeth with it, and keep your mouth closed in the shower, you do not want Bali Belly, one of the friends I went to Bali with got it from brushing his teeth with the tap water, not fun! – When I bought the bottle of water, I put it on the floor while I opened my backpack, which was a huge no-no! I didn’t know that was considered disrespectful in Indonesia. As soon as I put the bottle down, the woman that sold me it picked it up off the floor and put it on the table near me.

We finally got to the waterfall and the spray coming off it was so refreshing. There were signs everywhere saying ” No entering if menstruating.” These signs are all over Indonesia in sacred places, like temples and such. Women are not allowed in sacred areas if they are on their periods! We hung out at the waterfall for a bit, then made our way back to the car.

After the waterfall, we went to a coffee plantation and tasted different coffees and teas. There is a certain type of coffee they make in Indonesia, called Luwak coffee.  There are these cat/possum/tree-climbing creatures in Indonesia and they have a few of them in pens around the plantation and they feed them coffee beans, and then when they poop them out, they make coffee out of the pooped-out beans! Luwak Coffee….yum.

Next was my favourite part of the entire week. We went to the sacred monkey forest! It’s pretty self explanatory! There were wild monkeys running around all over the sacred forest. Most of them were friendly, but we were told to be very careful because they steal stuff, so I made sure to bring my jacket with zip up pockets. We were walking around and a few of them even came up and jumped on our shoulders after realizing we had peanuts to feed them.

We continued walked around the forest, which was absolutely beautiful, so I had to get my phone out and take photos. After taking my phone out of my pocket, I kind of spaced out and didn’t put it back in my pocket right away, I just lightly held it in my hand. (Cue jaws theme…. oops… foreshadowing…) Suddenly! I felt something grab it out of my hand, and I turned around giggling because I thought it was one of the friends I was with that was messing with me, but then I realized that he wasn’t right behind me, but he was staring in shock next to me, at the monkey that had STOLEN MY PHONE.

The little Indonesian lady that was showing us around told us not to move and she ran off. The monkey just sat there staring at us chewing on my phone. He knew that she was going to get food to make a trade for my phone with him. They are super smart little monkeys. Luckily my friends were there with their cameras ( safely attached to their wrists) and were able to get a picture of him, because most people probably wouldn’t believe if I told them a monkey stole my phone.

The lady came running back about 3 minutes later with a bag of chips and threw them at him, but he just ran off with the chips and my phone into the woods off the path! I thought my phone was gone forever but then the lady started chasing him, and after about 2 more minutes she came out of the woods looking extremely disheveled carrying my phone. She really was my hero, and probably the most bad ass woman on earth. And now I have a phone with a bite mark on it from an Indonesian monkey.

After that escapade we were all really hungry, so we went and had dinner and watched the sunset at the Tanah Lot Temple, which is a really popular place to watch the sunset, it was so busy!

The next day we woke up pretty late, and went in the pool for a bit, and then walked down the street to find a place to get lunch. We all got duck and it had really cool Indonesian spices on it. There were lizards running around everywhere because the restaurant was mainly outdoors which was really cool. Me and the other girl that came on the trip had heard that spas were really cheap in Bali, and it was also her birthday, so we decided to try it out. It cost us about 5 USD for an hour long massage, and it was the best massage ever! Everything in Bali is so cheap, it’s ridiculous! We decided that we would go into the town with all the nightlife that night. We went to a hibachi restaurant, and watched the chefs do some really cool tricks, then we went and drank out of whole coconuts on the beach!

The next day we spent the whole morning snorkeling at a place called blu lagoon! The water was ridiculously clear and I saw so many colorful fish, but sadly there was a lot of trash in the water. They aren’t very strict about littering in Indonesia, so there is trash everywhere if you aren’t in the very highly tourist populated areas.

After snorkeling, we went to a bat temple, which you guessed it, is a temple next to a cave full of bats! We weren’t allowed in the cave because the bats are very sacred and they don’t want to disturb them .

Then we went back into the town with all the night life to go do some shopping. Bartering is a huge thing in Indonesia, and we were all pretty good at it and got some sweet deals on clothes! I left early to go back to the hotel because I was doing a hike the next day that required leaving the hotel at 1:30AM and I wanted to try and get some amount of sleep, which didn’t actually happen because I was too excited. After about a 20 minute nap, my alarm went off and I got on my hiking clothes and went downstairs to meet my driver and guide, along with the other people that had signed up to do the hike. There were only three of us in the group!

The reason the hike was so early is because the whole point is to see the sunrise from the peak. We arrived at the base of Mt Batur ( which is actually an active volcano) around 3am and got given flashlights and started making our way up. It was a really difficult climb because the ground isn’t very stable, it’s mostly really thin powdery dirt and rocks. We made it to the top and our guide gave us some snacks and we watched the sunrise. We had to eat pretty fast because there are stray dogs wandering around that try and steal your food,

(View from the top of Mount Batur)

On the way back down the mountain, we stopped at a chili pepper farm, and our guide hopped over the fence and grabbed us a few to try.

And there were also terrifying spiders everywhere!

We made it to the bottom and our driver took us back to the hotel.

When I got back to the hotel, my friends were about to leave to go see some temples and a rice terrace,  as much as I needed sleep, seeing more cool stuff sounded way more fun, so I went with them.

We stopped at an elephant temple, which was surrounded by rain forest and really cool little ponds. One of my friends snapped this really cool picture of me in the rain forest!

There were so many mosquitoes in the forest, it was insane, I probably used a whole bottle of bug spray that day.

Next we went to a rice terrace which I thought was so pretty, it’s hard to believe it’s farming and not just crazy architecture!

Then we went back to the hotel and got ready to go out to dinner for our last night in Bali. I picked the dinner place. It was called pirate’s bay, and was a pirate themed restaurant on the beach, with tree houses and an old boat you can eat in. It was so cool. We ate in a tree house, and you had to ring a wooden bell when you needed service. It was a great end to the trip. We went home pretty early because we had to leave the hotel at 4am to get our flight. I probably got a total of 2 hours sleep in 72 hours, man I crashed hard when we got home to Perth!

Penguin Island

Penguin island is a great day trip from Perth. You can take the train from Perth CBD to Rockingham station and then take a bus to the Penguin Island discovery centre. It’s about 45 minutes from Perth CBD. Once you get there, you can figure out what kind of tour you want to do ! There are many options, but the one I picked was the glass bottom boat tour that then drops you on the island. If you’re brave enough, you don’t actually have to take the boat to penguin island. It’s sometimes dangerous depending on the current but you can walk across the sandbar, a lot of fishermen do it as the island is only about half a mile from the mainland! If you do happen to go on one of the boat tours , they will take you around to see the surrounding island, like Seal Island! Seal island isn’t actually home to seals, but sea lions! There are about 15 of them that lounge around on the beach in the sun, and they are generally surrounded by lots of pelicans too!

After seeing Seal Island, you will make your way past Camel Rock, which is, you guessed it, a rock that looks like a camel!

If you are lucky, you may catch a glimpse of a dolphin on a nice day. They tend to follow the rays around in the sea grass because the rays swim so low that they scare out all the little fish. Easy lunch for the dolphins!

Your next stop on the boat tour will be Penguin island, hooray!

Make sure that you pack enough snacks for the day, because Penguin Island doesn’t have any cafes!

Your first stop on the island will be the penguin rehabilitation centre. If you get here at the right time ( check the times before going) you may get to see the little fairy penguins eating lunch! Fairy Penguins are the smallest penguins in the world.

During the day, the wild penguins are generally out fishing, so it’s likely that you will not get a chance to see one, but still, keep your eyes peeled, you may be lucky!

After visiting the penguins, you can make your way around the island (by foot.) It only takes about 45 minutes to walk around the whole island without stopping, it’s very small. Of course, you will want to make stops. There are some really cool rocks to climb on, just make sure you only climb where it is safe, because limestone is not the most solid of things to stand on, and be respectful of the wildlife!

Once you’ve gotten tired of walking around, take a break on one of the beautiful beaches, and if it’s not too wavy you can even do some snorkeling! Be sure to bring your own snorkel gear though, or rent it from the Penguin Island Discovery Centre on the mainland, because you won’t be able to get any once you’re on the island!

Rottnest Island

Rottnest island was named by the Dutch (Rottnest = Rat’s nest) because when they arrived to this island, they found these little rat-like creatures. It turns out they were actually quokkas! Quokkas are the world’s happiest animal, and are running around everywhere on this island. They also happen to be very friendly.

When you get to Rottnest island on the ferry, the first thing you’ll want to do is get on a bicycle! You won’t get to see even half of the cool stuff if you don’t have a bicycle! There is so much to see. The first thing most people do is try and find a quokka to get a famous quokka selfie. You can’t leave Rottnest without one.

They are friendly enough that they will come up to you, but don’t feed them or pick them up because it can make them aggressive, and we want them to be friendly for everyone!

There are multiple different bike trails around the island, one of them takes an hour, one takes 2 hours, and you can even go the whole way around the island, which takes 6 hours. I picked the 2 hour trail because I wanted time to stop and look at things and not be rushed.

On your way around the island, there are so many breathtaking views! The water is so clear, so make sure you go for a swim, or even a snorkel! You can bring your own or rent snorkel gear from a store on the island. If you do go snorkeling, make sure you go to Little Salmon Bay, on the 2 hour bike loop. They have a snorkeling trail that you can follow that points out all the best stuff, and there’s also crazy big lobsters there! Friendly lobsters of course, don’t be scared!

If you keep following the loop around, you will eventually get to the pink lakes! The lakes are pink because of certain microorganisms that react with the salt in the water, don’t drink it!

If you decide that you want to stay the night on the island, there are plenty of different types of accommodation, but the coolest is definitely the hostel inside the barracks!

If you’re still awake when it’s dark out ( which you probably will be because you’d be crazy not to go out and stargaze) you will see so many quokkas just hanging out because they are actually nocturnal! They only come out during the day to hang out with us humans. If you also want a cool place to eat, there’s a restaurant inside the hotel that sits on the waterfront that has great seafood, and there’s usually a lot of quokkas running around there too!

Don’t stay up too late though, because you will want to be up in time for the sunrise. There is a perfect place to watch the sunrise about a five minute walk behind the barracks, so you can get up, watch the sunrise and then go back to bed. Perfect!

Now that you’ve stayed the night, you have a whole extra day to explore, or even relax so make the most of it!

Kia Ora! ( Maori Greeting)

I just got back from 10 days on the South Island of New Zealand, and I thought the North island was beautiful! Holy *&#^!

I left Perth Thursday night. My flight was delayed and I was so worried that I would miss my connection. I almost did but luckily they also delayed my connection because of the cyclone!

I arrived in Christchurch in the morning, so I had plenty of time to explore. The hostel I was staying in was a little out of town so I tried putting my backpack in a locker in the central bus station, but apparently if you don’t do it 100% right after .005 seconds, the locker steals your money! I did that twice then decided I would just carry around my backpack.

Christchurch has some really incredible street art and I saw a lot of it. This was my favourite :

Then I went to the Christchurch museum and walked through the Botanical Garden :

Then I made my way back to the hostel for the evening to meet up with all of the people that would be on this 10 day long bus escapade with me!

On the way back, I saw the Christchurch cathedral, which isn’t so happy looking because of an earthquake that came through three years ago. It is going to cost Christchurch millions to fix it!

The next day we woke up bright and early to go find our bus. It was a charter bus through Stray Travel, and we were all very excited to meet the driver, because he was going to be with us for the next 10 days.

His name was Twinkles and he was really cool, he gave us all easter eggs!

We had a lot of driving to do that day.

Our first stop was Castle Hill, which is also in a scene from Lord of the Rings! We climbed all the way up onto a giant boulder and admired the views.

Then we drove through Arthur’s pass which had some incredible views.

We kept driving and had to go over a long, windy and narrow bridge through the valley. I felt like we were in a movie!

We stopped in a little town called Hakatiki and saw the world’s greatest sock store!

Then we had about a three hour drive to the town of Franz Josef Glacier. On the way there we saw more than 15 rainbows. It was unreal!

We arrived at the hostel, which was the cutest little hostel I have ever seen. The wifi was called ” Free soup,” because they had free soup EVERY night. That was the best part. At the hostel I met this German guy who had just graduated high school, and had no idea what to do with his life, so he just picked up his things and decided to move to New Zealand for a year, how brave is that?!

After settling in, a few of us decided to try and find the glow worm caves which were supposed to be 20 minutes away. After about 20 minutes of walking down a pitch black dirt road, we were beginning to get super paranoid! – But what if Big foot does exist? – But then we started to see glow worms all along the sides of the path on the wet muddy areas. It was so cool! It looked like stars glistening. 20 minutes later, we still weren’t at the cave, but the path started narrowing and one of the girls suddenly screamed and ran back towards us. Of course, all of us knew it was big foot so we freaked out and started running to, but that path wasn’t wide enough for everyone so I fell down and twisted my ankle! Oh noooo! And it wasn’t even worth it because it wasn’t big foot. It was a big, terrifying possum in the middle of the path! We decided not to go any further because we had no idea how far the caves were, and my ankle was pretty swollen, so we headed back. It was still cool because we got to see the glow worms along the way! Running away from the possum had taking all of our energy away so we passed out as soon as we got back, we had a big day ahead!

The next morning, I woke up really early because I had signed up for a horse trek! I’m actually terrified of horse riding, so I was really nervous, but it ended up being really fun and I got to ride a really friendly horse called Apache, and we had some awesome views!

After that, we went and got lunch and headed out for our glacier heli hike!

We had to wear 4 layers and a really big jacket and some big snow pants, along with crampons ( which are the spikes that go on your feet.) Everyone was so excited! We walked out of the back of the reception building through this path in the rain forest, following signs towards the ” helipad.” We all felt like spies.

We had a nice fancy taxi ride up the glacier in this helicopter, then we hopped out and began our hike. We hiked through crevasses and little caves, and even saw an ice avalanche, because the ice is moving very fast ( 2m per day.) The ice was so clean that we even got to fill up our water bottles in a little stream of melted glacier that was running parallel to us. Much better than fiji water!

After our long hike, we all went to the town’s hot pools and chilled out for the evening. Man, what an awful way to spend Easter!

The next day, we woke up early to drive to our next destination. On the way we stopped at Lake Matheson, the mirror lake ( can you tell which way is the right way up?)

And Thunder falls :

I was tempted to go swimming but then realized that the water was absolutely freezing!

Then we drove past lake Wanaka, which is a lake that sits next to the town of Wanaka. Hey! Fancy that !

After driving past the lake, we stopped at the Wanaka tree ( creative names, eh?) The Wanaka tree is usually completely in the water, but the lake was much more dry than it has been in a while! Global warming isn’t real though right?

We were on our way to the hostel for the night when the bus driver made a phone call and realized the company had actually cancelled our booking there! We ended up being split up around hostels and motels across the town. I got split up from the friends I made, but that’s okay because they had extra space in their motel room, and free hot chocolate!

That night, we spent a while trying to find a good place to eat. We saw a sign down a little alley for pizza ( No Maddie! Don’t go down the dark alley!) and went down to check it out.

It was this cute little stone building called “The Cow” with an almost medieval tavern feel to it. They even had a wood stove inside and people were sitting around it. Everyone was so friendly and it was the best environment! I’m so glad we found this little place instead of going to one of the popular restaurants along the waterside.

I woke up at 6am the next day feeling very nervous. I was having an aerobatic flight lesson today! I’m scared of planes and heights! Am I stupid?!?!?!

There was 6 of us going, but I was the only one having the aerobatic lesson, everyone else was having a regular flight lesson… Still pretty cool! They all went up first at the same time in 5 little biplanes, and then once they all came down, my pilot came up and introduced herself to me and brought me over the stunt plane. I was FREAKING OUT. We took off and went up pretty high, and saw some incredible views over the lake. The way the lesson worked is that she would do a maneuver and tell me how to do it, then I would replicate it. Easy as huh?

We did a roll, a flip, a barrel spin and a left stall turn! I thought it would feel like a roller coaster, but it just felt like I was floating. You could not tell you were upside down, it was the coolest experience ever!

We left Wanaka early in the afternoon and headed into Queenstown AKA Adventure capital of the world, and now officially my favourite place on earth.

We settled into the hostel and then all went on an evening boat cruise on the lake. It was beautiful and you could stargaze from the roof of the boat!

After the boat tour, most people on our tour went out to the bars, but a few of us are way cooler than that and went to a cookie place. It’s called cookie time, which is also the name of the brand of cookie itself, and is NZs favourite cookie ! I got an ice cream sandwich with Salted caramel ice cream. Yum ! That filled me up, time for bed.

The next day, three of us woke up really early to go on a day long hike. We took the Queenstown Gondola up as far as it would take us, then we started walking. It was all up hill and so tiring! At one point it started raining, and we almost turned back, but I’m so glad we didn’t because the rain stopped shortly after, and when we finally made it to the top, there were some absolutely breathtaking views. New Zealand is unbelievable. Not only that, but there was a kea ( bird) just hanging out at the top ! Next time you watch Lord of the Rings and think that there is no way the landscapes are real, think again!

It took us about 3 hours to get back to the top of the gondola. At the top of the gondola you can take a luge down, which is basically a descent powered go kart. It was so much fun!

Once we got back to the hostel, we napped for a little, then decided we wanted to watch a movie that night. Unfortunately there wasn’t wifi in the bedrooms, so we went down into the lobby to download a movie, but the wifi wasn’t fast enough, so we spent the whole evening hopping around restaurants using up all of the wifi that they would give us to try and download this movie. We eventually gave up, but at least we got some yummy food out of it ! I had some bolognese pizza, and some poutine ( Canadian dish with french fries, cheese curds and gravy.)

The next day was an adventure packed day. First thing in the morning, we went to the shotover river, to go on the world’s most exciting jet boat ride! The boat basically went through a canyon and we were so close the rocks!

After the jet boat ride, I went back to the hostel and made lunch. Pro tip : Hostels have really good kitchens with everything you could possibly need, and you will save so much money cooking for yourself!

After lunch, I started getting pumped because I was about to jump off the world’s highest cliff jump : The shotover canyon swing ! It has a 60 meter ( 200 ft) free fall that goes into a 200meter swing. The platform you jump off is 108 meters high ! I put make up on so that I couldn’t let myself cry.

There is over 70 way that you can jump/ fall off this cliff. They range from scary, to very very very scary. You can simply walk off forwards, you can ride a trike off, you can slide off, they can Sparta kick you, or you can even got thrown backwards in THE CHAIR. Dun Dun Dunnnnnn. Of course, that one sounded the most terrifying so I picked it.

The jump masters put the harness on me and sat me in the little chair, and messed with my head for about 5 minutes. “Why are you doing this? Are you crazy? Don’t you see the cross down there?” Then one of them pushed me almost all the way and I thought I was going then he grabbed me again and pulled me back up and said “Just kidding!” What a jerk. Then they eventually pushed me while I wasn’t expecting it. It was exhilarating!

I deserved a good meal after that, so we all went down to Fergburger, and waited in like for 45 minutes to get the “World’s best burger.” It was SO GOOD.

We all were in serious food comas, so we went back and passed out.

The next day we left really early because we had a lot of driving to do.

We saw some [more] incredible views along the way!

We arrived at our hostel mid afternoon, and it was in the middle of nowhere! The town we were in only has 100 year round residents! This was the view from our window of Mt Cook, the highest mountain in New Zealand :

Mount Cook is what some people call Mount Everests child, and a lot of people come here to climb to the peak as practice before attempting to summit Everest.

Later in the evening, we took an Argo off-roader into the mountains to see the Tasman Glacier, the largest in New Zealand.

Later in the evening, we went stargazing and I saw the biggest shooting star I’ve ever seen.

The next day we left this cute little town and headed out towards Rangitata, which is where a really cool river scene from Lord of the Rings is filmed. In Rangitata, we were staying in this little hut in the middle of nowhere, with triple story bunk beds! Sick !

We walked down to the bluest river I’ve ever seen and hung out with some cows.

Later that night, we all made a huge dinner because it was the final night of the trip. It was sad, you make such good friends on these little trips ! During dinner, we looked outside and saw a possum with a baby on her back, it was so cool.

The next day we left bright and early for the airport, but we had a slight delay …. #NewZealand

We arrived very early at the airport, because most people had morning flights, but my flight wasn’t until 9pm, so I went and checked out the International Antarctic Discovery Centre. I hung out with some rescued huskies, and even went in a storm room and experienced an Antarctic storm for 5 minutes. I will never complain about the cold ever again.

Then I went back to the airport and waited to board my flight.

I had a 9 hour overnight layover in Melbourne, so I decided to just hang out and nap in the airport until my morning flight to Perth. I was a little bit paranoid of someone taking my bag, so my dad gave me the awesome idea of tying my shoelaces through it while I napped! Obviously if you are going to sleep in an airport, make sure you do it in a safe place, like not by the front doors where anyone can just walk in! Most airports also have showers, so make sure to check that out because I don’t know about you, but planes make me feel gross!

The day ( or like an hour later after I woke up from my nap,) I slowly made my way to my flight’s gate. I had gotten an emergency exit seat, woo! Extra leg room ! After another 4 hour flight, I made it back to Perth and napped for a really long time.

What a great 10 days!

Buckle your seat belts, kids! And welcome to the craziest 10 days of my life.

It was a dark and stormy night…..

No, Okay. So it all started on Friday morning. A group of 35 of us were about to get piled into 3 buses for 10 days. We were all so excited!

I woke up at 5:45 AM and went to the bus to find my friends. We got on this awesome bus that looked like it was ready for the outback.

The first part of the driving today was just to get out of Perth, so we all napped.

Our first stop was at a pretty beach called Hangover Bay ( the sign has been stolen multiple times.) The water there was an incredible turquoise :

On our walk back to the bus we saw a huge golden orb weaver! They have really strong webs, you can pluck it like a guitar.

Then we drove a little further and stopped at another pretty beach to make lunch! It was called Dynamite Cove.

After lunch we set off for Geraldton, a town on the coast of Western Australia. In Geraldton, we saw a WW2 memorial. Each seagull on the roof of the memorial represents a life lost on the HMAS SYDNEY.

We set off for our home for the night, a farmstay ! We set up our tents and the farmer drove a tractor around and gave us all a ride to see some piglets and some horses. We even saw a kangaroo on the way!  When we got back, we cooked dinner and watched the sunset.

The stars were also incredible, but no picture could capture that!

Bright and early to see the sunrise over the farm the next day!

After putting our tents away, we got in the bus and headed out for Kalbarri national park. You can see so many different landscapes in this park. On one end, you can see the cliffs:

And if you drive for a couple of miles in land , deeper into the park (maybe seeing emus if you’re lucky), you can see incredible red rocks and gorges:

And all of this before lunch !

We drove by this really cool tree :

It’s like this because the wind blows so hard in one direction over this field constantly! Pretty cool !

Then we headed out towards the stromatolites :

A stromatolite is layers upon layers of cyanobacteria that has built up over millions of years. These stromatolites in Hamilton are the oldest and largest in the world. If you stand on just one, you can do hundreds of years of damage! One of the people in our group dropped his hat and ran on them to get it back! Don’t be that person!

When we got to our beach side campsite, it was so windy that most of the tents wouldn’t stay up ! The wind made for a very long night, and everyone was really grumpy the next morning. But all of that was made up for because we were heading to Monkey Mia to see some dolphins!

We got to Monkey Mia at around 7:30am. The dolphins usually swim by that area at 8:15, but come 9am they still hadn’t come! We almost all lost hope. But there were some emus and pelicans around to keep us entertained. SUDDENLY everyone started running towards the beach! The dolphins had arrived!

There were three of them and they all came very close! They are wild dolphins but they come and visit Monkey Mia because they get fed fish.

In Australia, you aren’t allowed to touch dolphins. The oils on are skin can seriously damage them. If you are swimming in Australian waters and one comes up to you, put your hands up so that if anyone sees you, they know that you aren’t trying to pet the dolphin, you could get in serious trouble !

After hanging out with the dolphins for a little bit, we went on a boat ride. We saw a pearl farm that has recently sunk, some dolphins hopping around, some sea turtles, and a dugong ( which is kind of like a manatee!)

While we were following the dugong around to try and catch a better glimpse of it, our captain beached the boat on a sand dune! We all had to go to one corner of the boat to put the weight on that side and he revved it up as hard as he could and we made it off! Phew.

After leaving Monkey Mia, we went to Eagles bluff, with on one side, an incredible view of the Ocean, and on the other, a crazy lookout of the outback.

Then we went to this place called Shell beach… But not a shell in sight!

Just kidding.

The whole beach is made of little tiny cute white shells.

The water was so clear and you could see lots of little fish swimming around your feet.

We went back to the campsite and went in the natural hot pools! Relaxing! Then we went down to the beach and I have never seen such incredible stars! It was crazy! Our guide told us they would be even better later on in the trip, I couldn’t wait.

The next day, we had a 600km drive! Our bus driver was really smart and told us a lot of cool outback tips. If you see large trees, dig near them and you will find water!

On our drive we saw this really long fence. It runs the whole way across the North of Australia. They have this because a lot of non-native animals in the South of Australia (like feral cats) that kill the small native animals, like bilbies! They want to keep them out so they can repopulate the North with all of these awesome creatures.

We also saw some free-range cattle and some goats on the side of the road, and even a thorny devil (a super cool little lizzard)! Then…..

DUN DUN DUNNNNN

We broke down!

Okay we didn’t actually break down, but it was almost just as bad as that! Our AC STOPPED WORKING! It was actually cooler outside than it was inside the bus by the time we stopped, and that’s saying a lot because we were in the Outback. Fortunately, our bus driver used to be a mechanic and fixed it in no time! Off we went!

We drove through Carnavon, which is where most of Western Australia’s fruit is grown. When driving through Carnavon, you are supposed to throw out all of your fruit that you didn’t by there.

We saw one of the largest rivers in the world, the Gascoyne river :

We kept driving and saw some really cool termite mounds. The termites here are basically ants with no pigment, and they build these huge mounds to protect themselves from the sunlight! If these mounds were hit by a truck, it would destroy the truck before destroying them. Depending on the temperature in the mound when the Queen lays her eggs, the roles of the termites will be different. They could be warriors or workers!

We made our way to coral bay and went snorkeling and saw some pretty cool corals and fish.

We went to bed really early that night because we were going snorkeling with whale sharks the next day!

Everyone was so excited to go see whale sharks today! We got to the place and tried on wetsuits and flippers and put them in these little backpacks and went off to the boat!

They send out a little plane to spot whale sharks, and then once they spot one, they let the captain of the boat know so we can go catch up with them! In the mean time we went snorkeling on Ningaloo reef. We saw hundreds of starfish!

After about 2 hours of waiting for the plane to contact us, we had lunch on the boat. At this point, everyone was getting a little sea sick as the waters were really rough. We all laid flat on our backs on the boat because that is supposed to help ! Which I did, but most of us took a nap too. At around 2pm, we were all starting to lose hope. Everyday since the beginning of the season there had been whale shark sightings in the mornings, but none yet for us! We still kept looking. We even saw some dolphins!

At 4pm, the captain came out and told us that it was time for the plane to go home. It was the first time this season that there hadn’t been sightings and he was really apologetic, but they took us for one more snorkel to make up for it. We went to the cleaning zone ( like in shark tales) where the sharks go to get nice and clean! We swam with about 15 whale sharks and even 2 turtles. It was awesome but so tiring because the waves were so high! We went back to our campsite after that, and everyone passed out right after dinner. Long day !

We left coral bay the next morning with a lot of driving to do! We drove on a road that doubles as a plane run way in case of emergencies, seeing as there aren’t many hospitals out here! We finally hit some hilly areas. It had been all flat until now. The legend says that the hills were made by the rainbow snake sliding through the earth. There is only one plate under Australia, so all the hills are just different layers of dirt on top of each other.

We drove down a little dirt road to eat lunch at a rest area. There was a guy there with his dog. His name was Dennis and he has been travelling for the last 3 years because he has cancer and wants to make the most of his life. (pro tip :stop and talk to people !)

We left the rest area and kept driving. Our driver wanted to take us through a shortcut, which turned out to be a crazy bumpy dirt road with kangaroos and emus!

After driving down this road, our bus was filthy!

After hours of driving, we finally got to Karajini National park. The average rainfall for the area is 2 days per year. Make our first day there one of those 2! We were drenched! We set up the tents, but didn’t put any of our stuff in them because we didn’t want it getting wet! Then we went for a hike.

We walked to a place called Dales Gorge, which was beautiful, and we went for a swim and hung out under the waterfall. The rain almost made it even more surreal.

Afterwards, we all trudged back to camp in our soggy clothes. Luckily it had stopped raining in time for dinner! So we grilled some food and all sat around in a circle, but then it started downpouring! Everyone ran for shelter. The rain was not about to end and eventually everyone grumpily made their way to the wet tents for the night.

We woke up the next day and opened our tent door. We were basically in the middle of a giant puddle! It was still raining! This is the most rainfall the park has seen in years, just our luck ! This trip was beginning to show everyone’s true colours. Everyone was grumpy and cold (except me, I thought this was hilarious), and somehow even though our clothes had been in the bus, they were all damp. We were supposed to stay at Karajini national park for 3 days, but there was a cyclone coming down that way, so our driver made the decision to head back, we were going to have to cut the trip a day shorter than planned!

Before we left the park, we went on one more walk and found some aboriginal carvings in the rocks :

When we got back to the bus, we just threw all of wet shoes and sweat shirts on the floor, man that was going to get stinky!

Even though we cut the trip a day short, we still had 2 more days left on the trip because they couldn’t fit all of the driving into one day! I was excited. I was enjoying this, I thought it was really ironic and funny!

We drove through huge floods. Our bus driver told us than in the 17 years of him driving these roads, he has never seen it like this!

We arrived at our next accommodation later that evening. All of the roads were starting to get blocked because they were all cracking from all of the water! The dry ground wasn’t used to it and the dirt was giving out under the roads causing them to crack. We weren’t sure if we were going to be able to leave the next day! Our tent got flooded that night and my phone got water damage ( pro tip : don’t put your phone on the floor of a tent when there is practically a monsoon outside!) and stopped working. The rain was basically following us!

We woke up the next day and the roads were open ! We had breakfast and were ready to go ! About 90 % of the people on the trip wanted to be home right now, but I was having the time of my life. I found some rice to put my phone in. There was already another phone in there! Oops! We all jumped on the bus and drove straight to our next bed for the night! The rain finally let up, and it didn’t actually rain again once for the whole trip ! We still had to go home a day early though because the rain was still catching up with us and we didn’t want to risk the roads cracking and not being able to go home. We arrived at the sheep farm in the early afternoon. We were sleeping in the sleep shed! And it was dry ! What a luxury! Luckily most of us had fly nets because there was so many of them, it was crazy!

We all started cooking dinner because everyone wanted a feast for our last night! Everyone was happy again because it wasn’t raining and our clothes weren’t totally drenched anymore. We made curry and had smores and stargazed, then we all went off to our communal shed for the night.

The next morning, we packed up everything and went and said goodbye to the sheep and headed out. We drove past the rabbit proof fence and the school used to teach and house the stolen generations of that area. Rabbit proof fence is a movie about 3 children who were part of the stolen generation. The stolen generation is basically put short, when white people first came to Australia, they took all of the aboriginal children away from their parents at a young age, to rip away all of their ties to their culture because they disagreed with it completely. These 3 girls escaped one of the schools ( seen below) and walked 200 km all the way to this fence they recognized as the rabbit proofing fence near their home, and followed it to their family. I highly recommend reading about this, it’s very interesting and so sad that this actually happened to people. So recently that some of these children are still alive now!

To make up for the fact that the trip had to end a day early, we got taken to a really pretty river walk, and to a chocolate factory ! Yum! I got hokey pokey ice cream while I was there : An Australian favourite!

After leaving the chocolate factory, we drove the 45 minutes back to the university. I was pretty sad to be leaving but most people were relieved.

This was definitely the best 10 days of my life, and probably the most eventful !

Fremantle is a small town quite close to Perth. As Australians love to shorten words and add Os to them, it is locally known as Freo.  It is bustling on weekends and in the evenings and has a personality of it’s own. It has an awesome atmosphere, and is the perfect place to sit back and people watch.

Here are some of the awesome things you can do in Fremantle :

You can walk along the beach and see some really cool sculptures during certain times of the year :

You can walk around and see the really quirky stores that range from Victorian era themed clothing, to fairy costumes for people of any ages :

You can do a torchlight tour of the Fremantle Prison. Very spooky, be prepared for jump scares! It is listed as a World Heritage Site, and is said to be haunted…

You can go to the Fremantle market on the weekend and get fresh fruit, hear music and see all kinds of art work!

You can have a didgeridoo lesson at Didgeridoo Breath, hosting “The most comprehensive range of Authentic, Hand-made Australian Didgeridoos on the planet.” It is really difficult to play the didgeridoo and it gets you out of breath really fast! I have a whole new respect for people who play the ” Didg!”

You can visit the Fremantle Roundhouse, the town’s center for punishment back in the day! This pillory ( the wooden device below,) unlike the ones in Europe that were just used for holding and humiliating people, is used to torture people. Their feet would be tied to the bottom as they were seated and their ears would be nailed to the back of the board… Not fun!

You can go to the Western Australian Shipwreck Museum! Below, you can see the Batavia, a Dutch ship that unfortunately didn’t make it through Australia’s stubborn reefs back in the 1600s. If you go to the site where she washed up, you can still see the damage to the reef today.

You can go clubbing ! The Newport Hotel on Wednesday nights ( student night) is my personal favourite. Be sure to check the bus schedule and plan your way back before going out, if not you’ll have to pay for a cab!

Fremantle is a great place to just hang out and eat yummy cheap food if you have a free afternoon! They also have a lot of festivals and street performances, so be sure to check the calendar if you plan on visiting!

I’ve been in Perth for a whole month now. I’ve settled into my apartment and my classes. I’m slowly getting used to hearing squawking parrots everyday and seeing palm trees everywhere! ( Which I thought would never happen.)

Here is a SMALL amount of awesome things you can do while studying in Perth in a month :

SCHOOL WORK! Definitely the funnest thing to do here!

Meet cool animals at Caversham Wildlife park :

Meet cool animals that were brought to your campus for you to meet :

Meet cool animals that just hang out on your campus (bandicoot, not a rat) :

Relax on one of the many beaches ( Cottlesoe beach and Leighton beach) :

Go surfing on one of the many beaches :

Watch the sunset on one of the many beaches (and turn around only to see crazy angry clouds staring right at you after having stared at a very peaceful sunset) :

Go to Adventure World, and go on Australia’s best roller coaster and the world’s tallest, steepest and longest funnel waterslide :

And forget to put sunscreen on ( don’t try this at home kids, it’s a very serious issue, sunscreen is very important!) :

Invest in sunscreen and aloe ( definitely a must do) :

Go see Perth’s basketball team, the Wildcats, at the Perth Arena :

Go to the Perth bell tower and ring the bells :

On your way to the bell tower, see some cool statues and stuff around the harbor :

Go to Kings park and see some cool views, day and night :

Make yourself look like a fairy at one of the local street markets :

Wander through London Court, a cute little medieval themed alley way :

Go to the international food market on Friday nights :

See really cool graffiti all around the city :

Get an acai bowel from Pixels cafe :

Go to an international culture festival and see some really cool dancing :

Give into your cravings and eat every kind of meat you could imagine eating in Australia in one sitting ( Kangaroo, crocodile, emu, buffalo, wild boar, camel.) :

Of course, while studying abroad, the amount of fun you are having should be equal to the amount of studying you are doing! Which is why I am studying a lot… Get it done and you can go have fun!

PS. Eating Australian food definitely counts as a culture lesson, going to the beach definitely counts as an exercise science lesson and hanging out with Australian animals definitely counts as a biology lesson, in case you needed help coming up with excuses for yourself…

              How to remove the odor of sulfur from clothing.

If you’ve ever been to a geothermal area, you know this almost rotten egg-like smell very well. At first it’s absolutely awful, but then you almost get used to it.

Geothermal areas are stunning. It’s almost like something out of a movie. You’re walking around steamy rocks and the mud is boiling so hot that it is bubbling (almost like that scene in The Labyrinth.)

A couple of weeks ago, I spent some time in Rotorua, New Zealand, which is nicknamed “ The Sulfur City” ( GROSS!) There is a park right in the town that has hot pools and mud pools, so you can pretty much smell it throughout the whole place!

During my stay there, I went to a park called Hells Gate. It is Rotorua’s most active thermal area. You can find mud pools, hot pools, steaming cliffs, a cooking pool and even a mini mud volcano that erupts every now and then!

Once you’ve finished your walk around this park, you can then go into the Hellsgate spa where you can relax in a mud bath or a thermal pool. I did both because I figured I would never have the opportunity to do it again! At the entrance to the spa, they have a little area where you can rent a bathing suit and towel if you so wish to. I thought this was just for people that forgot their bathing suits, and I had my perfectly comfy one, so why would I rent one!?

The pools felt incredible, and have amazing health benefits. It is great for your skin and good for muscle pain. I had just done a hike a couple of days before so I needed that. It was almost so much fun that you didn’t even notice the smell of the sulfur !

After my 20 minutes in the mud pool were up, I went to go wash all of the mud off. They warned that the sulfur smell might stay on your skin for a couple of days after, but I thought I had washed it all off, so I put my nice clothes back on, and threw my bathing suit and towel in a plastic bag and went on with my day. When I got back to the hostel I was staying in, I hand washed my bathing suit and towel and hung them out to dry.

A couple of days later was laundry day, and also happened to be the eve of the day I left New Zealand, so I figured I would wash all of my clothes so that they would be nice and clean for my trip to Australia. I put all of my clothes in one load, along with my bathing suit and towel.

BIG MISTAKE!

I went to open the door of the washer so I could put all of my clothes in the dryer and the smell of sulfur hit me like a truck. I was horrified! It was all over all of my clothes. For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to put my clothes in the dryer anyway… I thought it might help. IT DID NOT! It made it even worse.

After a lot of googling and time spent watching my clothes dry just to see if they smelled okay yet, I figured out how to get the smell out.  Here are some tips on how to avoid this, or how to deal with it if it happens to you.

1.Rent a bathing suit : I know it seems kind of gross, but they do wash them with ammonia, which gets everything out! It is not worth having to either throw your bathing suit away or deal with having to get the smell out of everything you own. If you decide to take your own bathing suit anyway, make sure you don’t wash it in with your clothes until you’re 100% sure all of the sulfur is out of it.

2.Wear old clothes the day of : You’re going to a spa so you want to look nice, I know, but even if you think you have washed the smell off yourself after, it will keep coming out of your pores for the rest of the day, and then your clothes will smell. You want to wear clothes that you don’t mind soaking in ammonia the night of.

3.Don’t put your head under : First of all, it will sting your eyes, and second of all, you don’t want your hair smelling like sulfur for the next couple of days. Make sure that if you have long hair, your hair is back.

IF YOU DO HAPPEN TO GET SULFUR IN OTHER ARTICLES OF CLOTHING BECAUSE YOU WASHED THEM WITH YOUR BATHING SUIT :

1. Do not put them in the dryer : The heat from the dryer makes it even harder to get the smell out in the long run.
2. Rinse your clothes under cold water : Warm/ hot water is your worst enemy for the next couple of days, avoid it!
3. Soak your clothes in baking soda overnight : Put a whole cup ( I know it’s a lot) of baking soda in a bathtub full of COLD water and make sure it is fully dissolved before putting your clothes in. If you don’t have a bathtub (hostels generally don’t have bathtubs,) you can use a recycling box.You might have to do two loads if you have a lot of clothes and are using a recycling box. Leave the clothes in the bath tub with the baking soda overnight.                 
4. Rinse in cold water (again) : You don’t have to rinse thoroughly, just try and get most of the baking soda out.
5. Soak in white vinegar : Put 250ml of white vinegar into your bathtub and fill with COLD water, then soak all of your clothes for one hour.
6. Question your sanity : You could go back to sleep for an hour, but you’re probably too nervous about your clothes to do that, so try and find something fun to do so you don’t question yourself as a person for making such a silly mistake. Word search  is always good!
7. Rinse your clothes in COLD water : Ok last time, I promise. Just make sure most of the vinegar is gone.
8. Wash your clothes in a washing machine : I know it seems so technologically advanced now that you’ve been hand washing your clothes, but you can do it! Select a cold cycle and make sure to use scented laundry powder, and even fabric softener if you have some. If you don’t have a washing machine because you’re staying in a hostel or hotel that doesn’t have any, make friends with your local laundromat.
9. Air dry your clothes : DO NOT put your clothes in the dryer. You are not 100% sure yet if all of the sulfur is out of your clothing. Hang them out to dry, anywhere will do, but in the sunlight is best! If you can’t hang them outside, that’s fine, your room just might look like a clothing bomb exploded!
10. Smell check all of your clothes when they are dry : Make sure you take breaks to avoid nose blindness! If you think you might have gone nose blind, try sniffing coffee beans like you do when trying on perfume in department stores. If you smell any hint of sulfur on the clothes, throw them in a separate pile, make sure you check the collars of shirts or the waistline of pants, because those areas are thicker.
11. Repeat all these steps with the clothes that still smell bad : It took me 5 tries to get the smell out of all of my clothing completely, and I still have a very stubborn sweatshirt, but every time you do it, the load will get smaller and the smell will get weaker, I promise!!!
12. Buy yourself a beer: You’re a trooper, that was ridiculous, you deserve it.

Good luck !!  –Maddie

I arrived in Cairns late at night, and man, the humidity hit me when I walked out of the airport. So did the mosquitoes! I got a taxi to my hotel and started to try and figure out how to deal with my sulfur ridden clothes (you can see how this happened in my last post, and read about how to deal with it in my next post!) I finally went to sleep at around 3am, which was fine, because I had arrived a day early for the orientation of my program anyway, and most people wouldn’t be arriving until mid-afternoon, so I was in no rush to be up in the morning!

I woke up at around 10am, really excited and ready to go ! I packed up all of my clothes, and looked outside and it was perfectly sunny, so I wore shorts and flip flops and started to make my way to the hotel where I would be staying for The Education Abroad Network orientation. It was about a 25 minute walk, but that’s okay because it was nice out and I packed lightly. I got about halfway there and it was almost as though I had walked through a portal. One second it was bright and sunny and the next it was like a monsoon ! Apparently it was the end of the wet season in Cairns… Oops! I took refuge in a pie shop. This may have been the worst of best decision. Best because the steak, bacon, and cheese pie I ate was absolutely incredible, and worst because now I’m addicted to them. When the rain settled I went on my way again. By the time I got to the hotel, it was nice and sunny out again. The view from my hotel room was incredible!

Later on in the day, I went to the grocery store to buy some snacks, seeing as the orientation didn’t start until that evening. They had kangaroo in the store!

I spent about an hour in there just wandering around and looking at all of the different new foods that I would eventually get used to seeing everyday!

That night, I had an orientation dinner with a huge group of people from all over the United States (during which we were warned not to swim in the water right off the hotel because there are salt water crocodiles,) and a few of us went for a walk along the harbor afterwards. I saw a pelican for the first time !

All of the trees along the harbor were lit up, and there were huge bats flying in and out of them, they sounded just like what I imagine pterodactyls would sound like!

The next day we woke up nice and early to head out to the wildlife park. I met all sorts of Australian animals!

The kangaroos were so friendly, unlike the stigma going around because of that viral video of the guy punching the kangaroo that wouldn’t let his dog go!

After the wildlife park, we went to the Daintree rain forest to learn about indigenous culture. It was so hot!

Our guide showed us how boomerangs are made, and told us all of these stories, and even showed us how to make body paint out of rocks in the stream!

After that, we went for a swim in the gorge. It was really refreshing after spending this really humid day in the rain forest!

On the way back, we drove a very scenic route with amazing views of the ocean.

The next day was a classroom day. We learned all about Australian culture and some of the words that we might not have heard before. Australians shorten a lot of words and just add Ys or Os to make them easier to say. They also have completely different words to any other English I have heard before. Here are a few examples:

Arvo = Afternoon

Chook = Chicken

Bonzer = Great

Dunny = Outside toilet

Lollies = Candy

Brekkie = Breakfast

Maccas = MacDonalds

Budgie smuggler = Speedo

Fair Dinkum = True

Thongs = Flipflops

Some of them are going to be really confusing but I will hopefully get them eventually !

The next day was reef day. I was so excited.

We woke up really early to get the boat out to the Great Barrier Reef. It was such an incredible day! So incredible that it deserves a blog post entirely dedicated just to this day! So look forward to that in a couple of weeks!

The next day, and my last day in Cairns, was a free day. I decided to go to Fitzroy island, which was a short ferry ride away. Fitzroy island is quite small and home to beautiful beaches and hikes, and even a small resort and a turtle rehab center!

I got there at around 10am and it was a perfect day to be on the beaches!

The first thing I did was go snorkeling. After spending a day scuba diving on the Great barrier reef, I was hooked on looking at the beautiful colourful fish in their natural habitat! …. Haha… ” Hooked!”

There were a lot of jelly fish in this reef, and even though I knew they weren’t deadly they were still quite scary. I came up to clean my goggles and one point, and when I went back under, there was a jellyfish right in front of my face and I completely freaked out! Don’t try this at home kids… I did a twisted back flip underwater trying to get away from it and got stuck on some coral and ripped my stinger suit…. Oops…

After snorkeling all morning, I decided to take a visit to the Turtle Rehab Center.

There were eight turtles there at the time, and I got to meet one that was almost in perfect condition and ready to be released very soon!

One of the common reason these turtles are in these rehab centers is because they will eat absolutely anything. They see a piece of trash laying on the reefs and eventually they get a build up in their stomach that forms air bubbles that cause them to float up to the surface. This means that not only do they not have access to their food sources on the ocean floor, but it also makes them susceptible to predators because their belly is wide open! Please don’t litter!

Later that night was the farewell dinner. When I read the orientation schedule before I left for Australia, I didn’t understand how there could be a farewell dinner. Who would I be saying goodbye to? I’d only be there for 5 days! There were 140 people from all over the United States on this orientation, all going to many different universities across Australia, all new to the country wanting to make friends, and I think I made some of the best friends I have during those 5 days, don’t underestimate it ! I would definitely miss all of these people, but now I have friends to visit all over Australia.

I packed up that night and head out to the airport early the next morning. My boarding pass said boarding at 11:40am, so I figured that meant boarding would start at 11:40am, but that was the final boarding call ! I almost missed my flight. Always be early !

Onwards to Perth!

I arrived in Auckland in the early evening, and as I was walking to my hostel, seeing as it was the weekend of Chinese new year, there were a lot of celebrations, and I saw some dancing pandas and people on stilts!

I took my bags to the hostel and then walked around to try and find a good restaurant to eat at… I found an interesting pizza place :

The next day, I woke up pretty early and decided to go to Sylvia Park, which is the largest shopping centre (spelled RE and not ER) in New Zealand. There was pretty much everything you could think of ! Including sushi sandwiches, which I would 100% recommend trying.

I then went into a grocery store just to wander around and see what they had that was different to the US. The main thing I noticed was L.O.T.S O.F C.H.O.C.O.L.A.T.E.

I then went back to the hostel because they were hosting a movie night.

Most people think hostels aren’t very clean and aren’t a good environment, but I met so many different people and I am so glad that I didn’t stay in fancy hotels. Everyone in the hostels is so down to earth and willing to hang out with new people. There is a new person to meet from a new country and new fun things to do with them every day!

After watching the movie, I decided to do laundry, because I would be heading out to Australia the next day, and I wanted all of my clothes to be clean when I got there. I put all of my clothes and towel and bathing suit in the same washer, but what I didn’t realize, is that my bathing suit and towel still had sulfur on them from the mud bath I took in Rotorua that I wrote about in my previous blog post. I had hand washed them twice before that already but that was not enough. When I went to remove my clothes from the dryer, they all smelled like rotten eggs! Just like the volcanic areas I had been in the week before. I had no idea what to do because the only clean clothes I had at that point were the clothes I had on and some really fancy dresses that I hadn’t had the occasion to wear yet! I decided I would problem solve in the morning and it was late at this point.

The next day was Waitangi day in New Zealand, which celebrates the signing of New Zealand’s founding document. I walked to the harbor to where all of the festivities were happening and got some ice cream.

There were so many street performers at the harbor, I could have spent all day just watching them !

Then I headed back to the hostel to do some research on my sulfur ridden clothing.

I called the mud bath spa to see if they had any ideas, and they said they were worried that I would not be able to get the smell out because I had put the clothes in the dryer, and the heat from the dryer will make the sulfur set into the clothes. I was horrified!!! He said I could soaking my clothes in ammonia. I wasn’t quite ready to do this though, because I was scared it would discolor my darker clothes, so I went to google for help and learned that baking soda and white vinegar are very helpful in this situation. I only had 3 hours before my flight to Cairns, Australia, but I wanted my clothes to smell good by the time I went to my study abroad program orientation the next day, so I went to the store and decided to buy the vinegar and baking powder in New Zealand, seeing as when it would be late and the stores would be closed by the time I got to Cairns! I then double wrapped my sulfur ridden clothes in trash bags, so that they didn’t “contaminate” my few clean clothes, and stuffed them in my suitcase and headed to the airport! Phew. I guess it wouldn’t be -studying – abroad without a bit of problem solving!

On the way to the airport, I saw the sky tower, which is very well known because you can wear a harness and climb around the top.

Onward to Cairns, Australia!

I got to Rotorua late Wednesday evening, and decided to just hang out at the hostel, because I had so much planned for the next couple of days! One of my roommates was from Boston! Small world.

I woke up really early the next day because I had to go pick up my rental car! A lot of the stuff I had planned around Rotorua weren’t within walking distance, and after deciding I was going to rent a car for 2 days, I booked things a couple of hours away!

The first thing I did, was drive to Hells Gate. Hells Gate is Rotorua’s most active geothermal area. There are lots of mud pools and sulfur lakes, and even a pit that gets up to 144 degrees CELCIUS! That’s crazy hot.

After wandering around the park, I had the option to get into one of the mud pools. Why would I say no to that? It was great, although it made me smell funny.

After leaving the park, I drove to Te Waihou, which is a walkway leading to the blue springs, it was beautiful!

After getting back to my car, I realized that I still had a few hours before the tour I was doing that evening, so I went to a little cafe in a town called Tirau and had a steak pie. Yum!

After that, I headed to my tour at Hobbiton ! I was so excited. I was doing the evening tour, so I got to enjoy a hobbit feast!

It was definitely the highlight of my trip so far. I felt like I was in the movies. After we ate dinner, we walked around Hobbiton again and all of the lanterns were lit on the houses and the chimneys were smoking.

I got back to my rental car at around 11pm, and my GPS wasn’t working, but luckily it was an easy route back, and I made it to the hostel without a map or anything!

The next day, I woke up early again for another Lord of the Rings related tour. I had a 2 and a half hour drive to Waitomo, to go to one of the filming locations that is now called ” Hairy Feet.” When I got there, the owner shook my hand and said : ” You must be Maddie?” And I thought, oh no!! Am I late? But turns out I was just the only person that had signed up for a tour that day, and got my own private one!

Once the tour was over, I started heading back towards the car rental place so I could drop the car off, but I had a few hours to spare, so whenever I saw a scenic walk, I stopped.

First I stopped at Omaru falls :

Then I stopped at a park with a giant tree whose name I can’t remember grows :

Then I dropped the car off and slept a lot ! I was exhausted.

My last day in Rotorua, I went to Te Puia, which is an area where there is thermal activity and a lot of cultural things happening !

I saw the Pohutu geyser erupt. It is the biggest geyser in the Southern Hemisphere.

Then I watched a maori cultural performance and ate traditional hangi, which is a lot of steamed food !

Onwards to Auckland!