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Kasey Rae's Adventure Down Under 2006
So this week is the first of our travel classrooms, aka field trips. I just thought travel classroom sounds much more intelligent. LOL
We've spent the last two days in Brisbane, Queensland, AU and then tomorrow we start camping at Lamington National Park, then Sunday we hike Mount Warning. I think you guys can guess which part is exciting me more: City or Camping? You're correct, camping! Woo Hoo! I can't wait. Yesterday we were required to go to a few Brisbane sites. The ones I chose were the Queensland Museum (Natural HIstory and Aboriginal stuff, way cool). I got to see a diprotodon skeleton, which we've been reading about so that was neat. The Australian endangered species exhibit was cool too. Next I went on the City Cat, which is a boat that travels up and down the Brisbane River. It's basically a taxiboat. We took it to Riverside and then walked to the Brisbane Botanical Gardens. It's not so much like the botanical gardens in the states, it's more like a Tropical Central Park. I really liked it. My new favorite tree is called the Bunya tree. It's the tree that was thought to have brought Buddha to enlightenment. It's sacred in India. Another tree was really amazing, the tree branches grow down and eventually become trunks. One tree like it somewhere else in the world had about 2000 trunks, craziness. I thought the Southampton 11 trunked tree was cool. The one at the garden here had about 30. It's been around for I think 25 years. I could be wrong though.
I finally saw ducks Tommy. They had a lotus pond, with really cool lilly pads and some tropical ducks and then typical ducks. I took pix, don't worry.
When we arrived at the gardens, I split from the group. It's beginning to be a bit too much group time and my "duckling" as I'm calling one of my friends (cuz he follows me around like one) was starting to ruin my time, so I split. It was nice to finally travel solo for half a day. Don't worry mom, it's a safe city.
Oh oh oh, before I go on. On the way up guess who I happened to sit by on the bus ride here. An oil rigger! How ironic-environmentalist meets oil driller. I learned a lot in that three hour period. In fact the trip didn't even feel that long because of all the stuff I learned about oil riggs. I don't believe I revealed my environmentalist nature, but I did ask questions and seemed genuinely interested. Really I just wanted the inside scoop. THe guy was a surfer which really suprised me cuz usually surfers are environmentally-minded individuals.
Anyway, back to Brisbane. After the gardens I walked through the Queensland University of Technology, Garden Point campus. It's pretty nice. They have an STA travel on the premises. That was cool. I saw their olympic sized, eight lane pool. Sweet! THe swimmers looked pretty weak though, so hopefully that wasn't the swim team. (Side note-I realized I'm in the country of olympic swimmer Ian Thorpe, "The Thorpedo". I will be finding him on my individual travel.) I then crossed the goodwill bridge to the South Bank of Brisbane where I visited the Griffith University campus. They have a really cool ärbor walk" by their campus that stretches along the entire southabk. It's really neat cuz a metal, artsy, trellace runs along the whole path with pretty pink flowers and ivy running up the side. It passes restaurants and theaters (Dirty Dancing the musical was playing at one) and a street beach that's right along the river. I hope to god it's not river water, cuz that water looked nasty. They had lifeguards an everytthing. It was cute. Then I walked over the Victoria Bridge to the Treasury. It's no longer used as a treasury though, now it's a 24 hour Casino. As I was going in the others were walking out. I skipped the Casino and went back to the hostel with them where we washed up for Dinner.
We meet up with Jess Jarrett, a former SOuthampton student, now Fulbright Scholar in Queensland UNiversity for dinner. She's doing research on coral reef bleaching and has been here since NOvember. Her voice sounds different, it's mixed with Aussie.
Then we split from her and went to the Casino again. It's mostly slots (which I found boring very quickly). I wanted to play cards, but only one table was open and it was filled with a pretty intense crowd of texam holdem players. Oh well. I got to walk to the dealer though. Man can they move their hands fast!
We then went to a bar (I only spent $4 mom, no worries) that was in another hostel. It was karaoke night. Aussies are really into Abba. HOw annoying! My friend Max and DIedre sang some songs though, so it was a good time. Then we went back and slept.
Oh also today, for lunch I ate a piece of ham! Gross. I ordered gnocchi with garlic cream sauce. THe meat looked like finally slice onions. One bite and I was pissed. I ate around the meat though. That's definitely going in my article for VegNews. Where NOT to eat!
Moving on...today I went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. It's a sanctuary for koalas, kangaroos, dingos, wombats, wallabys, freshwater crocodiles (small) and turtles, bats, sugar gliders, lots of birds (a gallah too lindsy. I took pix for you), a talking Cockatoo, and much more. THe Tazmanian Devil wasn't on exhibit today so I'll just have to wait till I get to Tazmania. I fed kangaroos by hand and walked amongst them in their huge field AND I held a koala named Bailey (just like your cat Anna). Bailey is somewhat a baby, only 2 years old. You can check out the pic at www.koala.net/photo/2302030396.htm. Such fun!
Then we came back and at at the Beach House (great fettuccine) and now I'm back at the hostel. I"m still trying to upload my pictures, but hopefully my koala pic will hold you guys over for now. I'm not going to be able to update until at least Monday. Love you all and I'm sure I'll write later about lots of leaches on my ankles and shoulders. Yay! Goodday
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