Travel Blog and Rotary

Brisbane

One of the perks of being a Rotary Scholar is having the opportunity to travel around my host country. Since I last blogged a lot has happened! My parents flew over and spent two weeks traveling with me. Our adventure started in Brisbane where I first took them to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. It was fun hanging out with the kangaroo's and holding a koala.

 

Just kidding. But this was really the first Kangaroo I saw in Australia after 5 months.

A group of kangaroo's is called a mob and they can run (hop) up to 35 mph. The roo's at Lone Pine lay around like this all day as the visitors bring the food to them. They are very lazy but I'm sure there not complaining.

Yeah, my parents did 'that' picture.

Koala's spend as much as nineteen hours of everyday sleeping. They are so cute. I joked with my sister that she has officially lost her spot on the family Christmas card this year. 

Sydney

We left Brisbane and flew to Sydney for three days where we first did the Sydney Harbor Bridge climb. This climb took three hours to complete and gave us an excellent view of the entire city and Harbor area. My mom did not join.

We also took a ferry ride in the Harbor, toured the Opera House (my mom kept calling it the Oprah House) and got a surprise at Darling Harbor the last night with some incredible fireworks.

The Opera House took 14 years to complete. The budget at the beginning was slated at 7 million but after completion  totaled 102 million.  Over budget by a little bit. Another interesting fact: The architect, Jorn Utzon, left the country before the completion of the project because the government cut his funding, as he was over budget and it was taking so long to finish. They eventually finished but Utzon never returned to Sydney to see his masterpiece complete. He died in 2008.

This was on July 3rd so we pretended these were our Fourth of July fireworks.

We left Sydney and took a four hour plane ride back to the state of Queensland to a city called Cairns. 

Cairns (pronounced Cans)

Cairns is located in the North Eastern part of Australia. Most people travel to Cairns to experience the Great Barrier Reef and the tropical rain forests.

Once we arrived in Cairns we woke up the next morning to head out to the Great Barrier Reef to snorkel and scuba dive. This was my favorite part of the trip. I thought that scuba diving was going to be easy but I was quite surprised at the difficulty of it. This was my first time so it took a little while to get used to the breathing. After getting the hang of it, my dad and I swam down with the instructor to the reef and spotted many fish, including the clown fish (Nemo) in his anemone home. It was so cool! 

I didn't have an underwater camera so this is from Google images.

This is what it pretty much looked like under the water.

Mom didn't scuba dive but she became a pro at snorkeling!

No matter how hard you try no one looks good in snorkel goggles. 

Whitsundays

After Cairns my parents and I took a train down the coast to Brisbane but I got off at a place called Whitsundays to meet up with some friends and go on a sailing trip to conclude my travels. This was a really fun experience and the weather was perfect!

One of the highlights of this trip was going to a world famous beach  known as White Haven beach. The beach stretches seven miles and consists of sand that is 98% pure silica. The sand was used by NASA to make the Hubble telescope mirrors. Pretty cool.

Some friends of mine from Uni

Rotary 

I spoke to the the Rotary Club of Samford Valley before I left for my travels and have another eight sceduled talks to do over the next two months. I am really looking forward to them.

Rotary Club of Samford Valley

Helped out with another Shelter Box display with Greville Estes. He is the Queensland ShelterBox coordinator.

My parents came along to my host club's Change over Dinner. It was great and they got  to meet all my friends in Rotary.

The end of one semester and the beginning of another
I feel good about this next semester as I feel more acquainted to my surroundings, school and really just sort of feel at home in a way. Not real home, just temporary home. After all my travels it was nice to be back in Brisbane, back in my bed and back in an area I know. I am looking forward to the next semester and what it holds for me.

On a lighter note, Seagulls would not make good Rotarian's. They are so selfish.

G'day Mate!

Crikey!