Another month has gone by, and the deadline to hop back on the plane home approaches, to my ever growing dismay. I’ve grown to love so many things about Australia; whether it’s the birds with their strange songs that wake me up in the morning (seriously, if you’ve never heard a kookaburra laugh you’re missing out), the friends I’ve made along the way, or the general Aussie laid-back way of life. I’ve yet to pick up on the accent, and quite frankly I’ve given up hope that I ever will, but I know that I’ll miss this place when I’m gone. There’s so much left to do and so little time to actually do it, but at the very least that just gives me a reason to come back and do some more exploring.
Since my last post, I’ve been to even more exciting places around Australia, although even then I’ve barely left the East coast. I started off with a weekend trip to the famous Blue Mountains, a mountain range famous for the slightly blue haze that you can see in the distance when you look out from the top.
One of the many pictures that I took throughout the day we spent hiking at the valley, around waterfalls, and up and down some very steep stairs carved into the rocks. The bulk of the time we spent there was actually pretty comfortable, as we slept at a hostel where I got to meet some more international students who were doing the trip with us. It was definitely more comfortable than my trip to Tasmania, which I visited during the mid-semester break. Despite spending the first 3 days there at an amazing hostel, myself and three other friends rented a car to drive around the state from national park to national park. For the rest of that week, we were basically living in this tiny car. Let me tell you, sleeping in a cramped car in the middle of Tasmanian winter out in the wilderness is not ideal!
However, comfort aside, Tasmania was one of the most memorable trips I’ve had yet during my time Down Under. Those were the two big trips I’ve had since September, but I’ve also had the chance to spend a few nights camping by the beach and staying at some of my Australian friend’s houses, which were incredible as well. I can’t wait to see what this last month has in store for me.