I realize that I haven’t been posting much lately (eek!); so I’ll give some quick life updates.
My semester here is quickly wrapping up and I head home very soon. My dad is out here visiting me and we’re taking a mini whirlwind tour of Australia, at the moment we’re up in Queensland.
Several weeks ago, I decided I would go skiing. After much investigation I decided the best place to ski (and heli-ski!) is New Zealand, I started to look at flights and how to get around. Eventually I decided it would be difficult to manage and plan the trip without a definite, interested group. I started looking around Victoria for the best local skiing and decided Mt. Buller provided a good compromise of skiing/convenience. Unfortunately skiing in Australia is quite expensive (shared rooms are $60+, lift tickets are $96 or 77 for students, Rental is ~$40, food is at generally resort prices, and transportation is made more expensive by a resort “entrance fee” – a way of collecting even more money). That aside, I had my heart set on skiing and so I decided to pretty much just spur of the moment go for it.
With my reservations made a day before I left for my overnight trip, I packed my bags, grabbed some food and was ready for a fun trip. I made it up to the mountain in the mid afternoon, I explored the resort for the afternoon and got ready for a good, full day of skiing the next. I wake up early (read: 830AM) and get ready to go. SNOW :) It was great to be back on it, I took my series of chairlifts to the top and proceeded to ski as much of the mountain as I possibly could — it was only about half open. The skiing wasn’t fantastic, I’ll be honest, but it was great to be skiing especially in late June. A long day of skiing was a nice change, and I quickly found myself back on the way to Melbourne.
By now, many of my friends from the semester had started to leave, nearly every night was saying goodbye to one of my new friends. It’s kind of a sad time, but at the same time we all know what a fantastic time we had this semester.
G and I had tentatively planned on visiting one of our friends Tim out in “the country” (a term in Australia meaning everything except one of the few major cities) — specifically a small town called Port Fairy. We hitched a ride with Tim and Flynn and were on our way. It was a great feeling to be back in someones home — pets! home cooked meals! siblings! Living in student apartments often means some simple things in life are missed out on. Port Fairy was a great little town, it’s known as a vacation town mostly, a summer-time retreat for Melbournians. Visiting in the winter, the town wasn’t overloaded, but was still a great time. We went fishing (yes, I caught a fish! It was enormous — ok, not at all), learned some new games, played beach cricket, and saw a different view of Australian life. It was a great way to spend a little time (though we might have stayed a bit longer without time constraints), I’m really glad I went.
Skiing Overnight trip to Mount Buller in Victoria, Australia
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