With a week left of school, I'm wrapping up final projects and already studying for finals. I've been very, very busy with school: spending Monday-Thursday on campus from 10am to 7pm, if not later. I would never do that at home. Needless to say, I am ready to be done with my classes! I have 3 exams in June and then about 10 days in Sydney to enjoy my last days in Australia :(.
I've had two incredible trips this month: the Great Barrier Reef and Tasmania! Polar opposites of each other but both phenomenal.
We were in Cairns (produced cannes) from May 11-15. When we first got there, my friend Chandler and I dropped our stuff off at the hostel and asked the front desk which beach to go to. The guy told us it was about an hour away?! We were so confused because we were right on the ocean. I asked, "Can't we just go to the beach right here?” (We could see the water from the hostel). He got a good laugh out of that and informed us that Cairns is home to 10 of the world's deadliest animals. He said that you will immediately get killed if you try to swim in water that isn't netted off. Some of those animals include sharks, marine stingers, crocodiles, etc. Alas, we took a cab to a beach 45 minutes away...
We took a boat tour one day and went snorkeling in the GBR! It's considered 1 of the 7 Wonders of the World. It was so cool to swim with schools of fish and see the bright colors of the reef. On top of that, being on a boat for a full day, with 78 degree weather, was perfect.
The next day, we went on a hike in a rainforest about an hour outside of Cairns, which was amazing. We swam under waterfalls, slid down natural water slides and even went to a lake made from a volcano crater! It was a perfect weekend.
This past weekend, I was in Tasmania, which is an island on the southeast coast of Australia. Although Sydney is getting colder, Tasmania was freezing! Something that I am not used to here in the Land Down Under.
Over the three days, we hiked Wineglass Bay, saw the Bay of Fires and went to a lavender farm. We had the best time road tripping all around the island, eating candy and telling funny stories in the car. Tasmania is considered Australia's countryside: very rustic with small beach towns on the water, every 100 miles.
The main highlight of the trip was seeing the southern lights. Here is an explanation of what they are:
"The Aurora Australis, or Southern Lights, happens when the sun releases a massive burst of solar wind and magnetic fields into space, also known as CME (coronal mass ejections). These solar winds carry particles which interact with earth’s magnetic field, colliding to produce energy releases in the form of auroras. “Auroras are more frequent and brighter during the intense phase of the solar cycle when coronal mass ejections increase the intensity of the solar wind,” says Margaret Sonnemann, author of The Aurora Chaser’s Handbook.” (AustralianTraveller.com)
Since Tasmania is the closest mass of land to the South Pole, it is one of the best places to see the southern lights. On our last night there, we were spending the night in Hobart, which was the most southern part of the territory we would go. We walked to Ralph’s Bay and saw the beams in the sky. It was incredible. You can’t really see that much with the naked eye, but what we could see was still breathtaking.
Our Australian friend on the trip, Eddie, and I were freezing so we went to get the car while the other girls were trying to figure out how to take a picture of it. Eddie and I ended up running into this Tassie man who was photographing the aurora. He was able to fix the settings on a friend's camera and we were able to capture the purple and green sky!! We were so excited (picture above). I feel so blessed to be able to say that I have seen the southern lights. Australia keeps getting cooler.
I leave for Bali in 10 days and am SO excited. It's a province of Indonesia and I will spend 6 days there. We have a full itinerary planned but until then, I will spend every single day studying. I am really nervous that I won’t receive credit for some of my classes. They grade very harshly here. In my class today, our professor gave us feedback about our final reports we turned in last week. She said the average score was a 65 and my group got a 72… The minimum grade I can receive to get credit is a 65…I am barely scraping by! I will be so thrilled to be done with the semester and then finally be a senior! Time is flying.
xxx, Em