I cannot believe I only have a month left in Australia; it has gone by so fast! I have loved it so much that I even extended my flight back a week and a half so I could have more time here. There is still much to see and do I probably won’t be able to fit it in, but at least that means I have a reason to come back J
Over the break I traveled to New Zealand for a few days, before I had to be back early for a field study. It was amazing! I stayed with other Rollins girls for part of the trip in Otago, but while they were in class I took a bus to Queenstown on my own. I loved seeing traveling the town on my own. The views from the Gondolas were amazing. I also went to Milford Sound and there was no other way to describe it other than breathtaking. I met some really fascinating people in my hostel, as well- one girl’s mom was an Olympic gold medal swimmer! Once I returned to Otago we traveled south to the southernmost point of New Zealand, called Slope Point. We then went and hiked some waterfalls and saw Nugget Point, which was quite windy! I was very sad my trip was so short but it was definitely worth it to see and travel another country while I had the chance.
Coming back to a week of classes for my Ecology field study was quiet annoying. Everyone else was on break still so I was mostly on campus alone. The field study wasn’t to hard though. One of the days we had to wake up semi-early for low tide rock pools to count species. While I was very annoyed at how early it was, it was totally worth it since we say dolphins swimming by in the morning. By the end of the week most of my Australian friends were returning to campus and there was finally a heat wave that came through! Yay, no more cold! So for the rest of the break we went to the beach almost everyday and watched the boys surf as well as swam in the bathing pools. On the last day of break we all went to the Stockton sand dunes at night and built a fire and watched the storms rolling across the ocean- I wanted to stay in that moment forever. But then it was back to classes again the next day.