Spring Break Oh Eight

Hey Everyone!! I've been back from spring break for a little over a week now trying to stay caught up with Uni and catch up on sleep. Break was absolutely amazing! There were a few goof ups from STA but overall it was worth every penny. I got to see and experience the most incredible things. I did things I never thought I would do in a lifetime and I am very fortunate that I got to go on this trip. I will start with the beginning. We were supposed to meet at the Brewery at 7pm Friday night so my roommates and I all got our things packed up and out in the kitchen area. At 5:30 we started a power hour. For those of you who don't know what that is, it is when you take a shot (or in the girls case a small drink) of beer every minute for 60 minutes. We all had our beer and sat out on the balcony to watch the sunset. It was beautiful by the way. We listened to a power hour mix, one that switches songs every 60 seconds so you know when to take a drink. Needless to say, we were all "ready to go" at 6:30 when we made our way to the brewery with our luggage.

We got the Brewery and had a couple more beers only to find out later that the Greyhound bus we were supposed to get on was 5 hours late. We were supposed to leave at 9pm. We ended up leaving around 2am. There were 31 of us on the trip all together. 29 Americans, 1 guy from belgium and 1 girl from sweden. We ended up getting our own bus and somehow still got to Byron Bay on time in the morning. Byron Bay was absolutely amazing!! It is the cutest little hippie town in AUS. The beach was gorgeous and the little shops were so fun to check out. I learned how to surf while I was there with MojoSurf. I actually got up and rode the wave a few times. It was a blast and I cant wait to try it back here in Newy. Our first night in Byron was a blast. We got $5 meals at Cheeky Monkeys. This bar was awesome. MojoSurf actually messed up some times so they bought all 31 of us free jugs of beer for most of the night. That night happened to be Ladies Night. There were 5 guys picked from the crowd to go up and strip to the underwear and dance on the tables. Nate (my roommate) was not one of the chosen ones but he decided to join them anyways. Haha he got disqualified i guess because one of the girls from our group pulled his boxers off. Thank you Lord I wasn't looking then. I would have been scarred for life. Needless to say, it was a good time in Byron.

Then we got on a bus for a full day and headed up to Hervey Bay for a night. Then we packed small bags and headed to Fraser Island (the biggest sand island in the world) for 2 nights and 3 days. It was so pretty. There were 11 of us in my vehicle and 10 in the other two. We got to drive around the island the whole time. Mostly we were on the beach driving along side the ocean. We got to stop at Indian Head. It was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen in my life. Maybe if you look up images on google you will be able to see for yourself. Otherwise I’ll be bringing pictures and postcards home. We also stopped and swam in Lake Mackenzie. It is the largest fresh water lake on a sand island in the world. It was so refreshing to go in freshwater as opposed to always swimming in the ocean. The lake was an amazing color blue too.. about 4 different shades. Same thing with looking it up on google images. While camping there we got to pitch tents and all hang out and have a few drinks on the beach. It was awesome. The day we got back to Hervey Bay we hopped on an overnight greyhound bus to Airlie Beach. This town was so fun. They had a lagoon and a bunch of souvenir shops. This is where we took off on our sailboat, The Matador.

I’ve never been sailing before but it was so much fun!! The ocean was gorgeous and the islands were even more so. We sailed “the Whitsunday’s.” This is where we all got to work on our tans. We woke up about 6am both mornings and laid on the boat deck until the sun went down. The middle day we stopped in a bay and went snorkeling. That was the first time I’ve ever done that too. I’ve never seen so many colored fish in my life. It was so so much fun. I went twice that day haha. Other than that, like I said we soaked up the sun. It was gorgeous every day too. We got really lucky. At night we threw parties, it was a blast.

After we got back to Airlie beach we hopped on one more overnight bus all the way to Cairns. We arrived on my birthday. I slept approximately 30 minutes on that awful bus so I was exhausted. I never got a chance to take a nap. I called everyone from home and then went shopping with the girls. I didn’t buy anything but towards the mid afternoon I needed to get in some a/c and/or shade. Nicole and I went back to our hostel and just hung out until it was time to get ready to go out to dinner. The entire spring break group plus some of our other friends that happened to show up in Cairns that day (about 40 of us) went to a Mexican restaurant. It was s blast! A couple people bought me drinks and then everyone pitched in at the end of the meal to get a shot of tequila for everyone. Haha needless to say it was a good night. We all went back to the bar in the hostel because they had $2 drinks (which is a VERY rare occasion in Australia) so people didn’t feel bad about buying me a drink here and there with that deal. Haha.

The next day we went to the outer great barrier reef to go snorkeling. It was sunny out so everything out there was so bright. That was a lot of fun! Again when not snorkeling we just got to hang out in the sun on the boat. Then the day after that was the Cape Trib tour. That was more of a relaxing day compared to the rest of break. We were in a bus most of the time. Cape Trib is one of the Rainforests in Aus. There is one part of it where we ate lunch that was beautiful. It was a beach with the rainforest on the edge and then the water was part of the Great Barrier Reef. 2 of the great landmarks or something like that come together only at that point on earth. I don’t quite remember how they explained it. It was cool tho!

The next two days were the best! We went whitewater rafting down the Tully River! I could go on for an entire day about how it was. Needless to say it was absolutely amazing. It’s a grade 4 river out of 6. We almost flipped a couple times but it only made it that much better. The tour I had made the trip so much better. Then the next day was the last day of wild adventures. I went skydiving for the first time! I was SOOO nervous!! Haha But whats really amazing is that my parents let me get a video of it so I will always remember what it was like! Its so funny haha I can’t even count how many times I screamed “Oh My God!!” haha. It was one of the most amazing things I have ever done. I would do it again in a heartbeat. I jumped 14,000 feet which was a 60 second free fall. Then once the parachute opened everything went calm. At first the wind was deafening then it was completely peaceful. So crazy! I cant wait to show people the video! Haha mom and grandma are going to freak out.

After that we just finished up some souvenir shopping and came back to Newy. School started back up and I’ve been busy with that ever since. This is the last week of classes and then theres 3 weeks of finals. I am here for 27 more days and then I hop on the 20 hour flight home. Yuck haha but I’m super excited to come home and share with everyone my stories. I have some awesome adventures ahead of me still. Thursday my roomies and I are going to the Hunter Valley Vineyards to do a wine tasting (mom I bet you’re jealous haha) and then Friday I am going to a little farm where we get to hold koalas!! Yes hold them!!! And pet kangaroos! Haha then heading up to Nelson Bay to go on a Dolphin Watch tour on the ocean. Then Sunday I am going to Catherines (I’ve mentioned her before) house and swimming in her pool maybe having a bbq and going for a walk to look over all of Newcastle. Its going to be a blast and make the time here fly by!!