Byron Bay

Day 1
After arriving in Australia I had to go through customs and meet up with my program group. That was pretty boring. I think the most difficult part for me was figuring out which belt/band thing my luggage was coming out on. I couldn't find it! I was walking in a circle trying to figure it out. I would go to one with a bunch of people around it try and see if I recognized anybody that was on my plane (which didn't help) look at the screen realize it wasn't mine, turn around and then repeat the process until I finally found it. Then I had been told to go to the bathroom before going to customs because it was supposed to take a while so I took my huge luggage and walked past a desk with some man staring at me as I struggle in and out of the bathroom. I finally go to customs and they have a wonderful dog walking through the line sniffing everyone's bag and I make it through customs just fine.

After that I have to find the place that I'm supposed to meet all the other people in my program. I had read the instructions on the plane so I knew what I was supposed to do. Basically turn left. So I was thinking in the hall okay turn left. Go to the left. Guess which direction I went. I turned right... way to go me. Well after turning right I quickly come across the store that meant I had gone the wrong way (they also mentioned this in the instructions) and turned around. I went to a meeting area and sat down for a bit and took off my coat because it was freaking hot and humid and I was melting. After a while I decided I would try walking around again because I was pretty sure I was in the right area but I didn't see anyone. Eventually I saw two guys with a bunch of luggage too that were talking to a lady and thought I would ask them if they were in the same program. Lucky for me they were and eventually the lady I was supposed to see when I first walked out came back and we met. I think I arrived earlier than everybody else so I was the first one there. I can't say for sure whether the lady was there or not because I was so focused on turning left that I didn't look at the people greeting people and could have missed the lady with her sign that I should have easily seen.

One of the lizards chilling at the hostel.

Anyway once we got all our people we got on a bus and started to go to our final destination. It took us a couple of hours and I feel like I was definitely falling asleep on the bus ride. Eventually we arrived at the hostel we would be staying at for the next three nights. It was pretty interesting! Apparently it was opened in the 1970s for hippies by hippies and that culture and lifestyle was definitely evident. The people were really nice though and the surroundings were also really beautiful. There were tons of lizards and bush turkeys roaming around too! It was really weird to see turkeys in the trees above us and I'm pretty sure I counted 12 lizards in one very short walk to somebody's cabin thing.

After getting settled and putting all our stuff away at the hostel we went to one of our three sessions of information that we would need to know. This one was really informative and not very exciting.

Once the session was done we got on a bus and went on a quick bus ride to see a lighthouse and too the most easterly point of Australia. The views were gorgeous and the wind very strong. Not to mention the wind was having a blast too.

View from the lighthouse hill.

The most easterly point of Australia and view.

After that we went to dinner and had hamburgers and had an Aboriginal cultures performance. Basically there was a man that played the didgeridoo and another man that did a cool dance. He would kind of do imitations of animals but without sound but the dances looked super similar to the animals and it was really cool. The main guy was the one that was dancing and he had painted his whole face and had even put some paint on his dog (it's fine it isn't toxic and comes out super easily). He started talking about beauty and then had us come up and put some paint on our faces too explaining how the paint increased beauty (I can't really remember what he said because it's been a bit since that day). Basically he put white dots of face around our eyes bit it was still super fun. Once he was done with this he had the guys in our group come up and do a dance with him (all the guys had to go because there weren't very many of them). I think there dance was an imitation of a bird. After that he had some girls come up to join him for a dance and in this dance they were picking plants that their families would be eating. He wanted them to get super into it and watch there hand as they picked it because it makes the dance better but I don't think very many did that because they felt awkward. Once the dancing was finished he started to show us how to make fire with just wood. It take a lot of time and effort because you need to get the temperature up to 300 something degrees in order for it to work. We didn't actually get it to work because the stick we were spinning kept getting dislodged from the one it was rubbing against and it just didn't happen but a couple of times I could smell wood burning so that was a good sign.

Then it was free time but we were all pretty exhausted since we landed that day and the flight was ridiculously long and apparently the people who were on the flight from Dallas to Sydney were on the second longest flight (in terms of time) in the world. There flight was 17 hours! I think our original plan was to go to bed but the hostel we were staying at had a talent show going on so we watched that for a while and then went to bed. There were some pretty talented people too. Somehow one of the guys in my program found a way to participate in it. He was obviously much more observant about what was happening at the hostel than I was. The guy that was running it pretty awesome too. His name was Cockatoo Paul (there will be more about him later) and he kept pressuring people who were originally only going to do one song into doing another one even if they weren't prepared or didn't know how to do a full song. Oh! Cockatoo Paul also helped out at the aboriginal dance thing earlier that evening so they had to postpone the talent show because of us. Heehee.

Day 2
Sleeping in was both impossible because we had to get up in the morning and difficult because of jet lag. Hurray for jet lag!! Not really. Well we woke up around 6:40 a.m. but I'm pretty sure the majority of us woke up multiple times in the night and got up before our alarms actually went off. By "we" I mean the people I was sharing a room with which were also in my program. I was sharing a room with two other girls. There was supposed to be another girl with us but she disappeared and stayed in another groups room I'm assuming. A couple of the rooms were really big and could hold like 10 people but we only had six staying in them so I'm sure she found a room in one of those with her friend or something. We got ditched before we could even learn each others name but oh well that just meant we had an extra towel and pillow and bed and room. Although I switched my pillow out with the other one because mine was literally a brick of foam. I kid you not, it was a brick of foam in a pillowcase. Not all the pillows were that way just mine so that's why I traded mine for a pillow that wasn't foam.

We went and had breakfast and then off to learn how to surf! It was so difficult and kind of reaffirmed to me that I'm not much of a water person. Our instructor was super cool. They gave us a bunch of sunscreen because the sun in Australia is super powerful because there's a whole in the ozone layer so a bunch more UV radiation attacks you when you are outside. It made me kinda sad when I learned this fact because I brought sunscreen with me thinking I was super cool and then found out that the sunscreen from the States is pretty much useless and that the sunscreen in Australia is so much better because SPF 30 in Australia is equivalent to SPF 100 in America. So I bought SPF 50 sunscreen in Australia. Anyway our instructor wasn't even wearing normal sunscreen he was wearing this zinc stuff that made his face super white and my first thought after seeing him was that he was going to do an aboriginal dance like the guy the other night because his face was so white. He didn't. He did tell us that 40 people in the U.S. die from falling out of their bed every year in an attempt to make us less afraid of being attacked in the ocean. That's a pretty fun fact, didn't really help if you were afraid of being dragged out into the ocean though. We were out surfing for a while. A lot of people were constantly in the water but I just couldn't do. The current was really strong and the weak little me had no hope of fighting the waves. I did manage to stand up a couple of times though which was exciting. Granted I did fall shortly after stand but that's not the point. According to our instructor surfing is the hardest sport in the world. And let me just tell you. After trying it out I would have to agree. It was so hard! I was so sore the next day! My forearms got a massive work out too just from carrying the board from one place to the other. My hand was shaking afterword from how much I was using my gripping muscles! It wasn't the best.

Right after surfing while the instructors put the surfboards back on their trailer (which the trailer actually fell off on our way there and they had to stop in the middle of the road and get the strong guys to help lift the bus while the put the trailer back on) there was a lake that we would clean off in. The lake was this golden brownish color. The trees surrounding the lake were Tea Trees so the oils would go into the lake and make it that color but the oils are supposed to be super good for your skin so we soaked in that and it felt really nice.

After playing around in the waves with a humongous foam board (we had to go over the waves because we couldn't take our boards through the waves) we went back to lodge to get lunch and shower and whatever else in the hour that we had. Then we had another session the beginning talked about extra excursions which all seemed super fun and then other important information that wasn't as exciting. We had a break in the middle of our session and me and this other girl I met wanted to go to the bathroom. Boy was that an adventure. 1) It was raining pretty hard at that moment 2) the public bathrooms were so interesting! The reminded me a bit of an elevator. You hit a button to go in and the door opens for you and you push the button to close the door. Then this Australian male voice speaks to you saying "Maximum time 10 minutes." They had a limit on how long you could be in the toilet! We aren't sure what happens after those 10 minutes because we had to be back before that but we were seriously wondering what would happen if you stayed in there for more that 10 minutes. Besides having a time limit you also had to push a button to dispense toilet paper. Everything was either automatically operated (like the soap, water, and hand drier) or you had to push a button to get what you wanted!

Once our session was over we went on a walk with Cockatoo Paul. It was kinda rushed at first because it was raining on us but after a while we decided that we were already soaked so why not get more wet. This walk was super interesting and he talked about what plants to use and eat and showed us a plant that he uses as a toothbrush and floss. He showed us how to make string and a basket while talking about what we would do if the electricity was shut off for good. Apparently he lives completely off the land and actually makes string and uses plants as toothbrushes. It was super interesting and he holds a camp every once in a while to teach you how to do all sorts of stuff to survive in the wilderness. He kept walking into other peoples yards, grabbing a plant, and then feed it to someone. At one point he took like 3 different plants from someone's front yard and said something along the lines of "They have a freaking first class garden in their front yard!". He was a pretty funny fellow.

After the tour we had dinner and then played trivia which I don't think we did that bad there were 20 questions and we got 11 right and almost got 12 right and I think the winning team got 14 right so we did pretty well. I was super excited because one of the questions I learned the answer to last semester in a class that I greatly disliked was asked. Do you know the answer? Let's find out. The question was "Where do plants get most of their mass from? A. Water B. Air C. Soil. (I will have the answer at the bottom of this post so go look if you're curious and think you know the answer). We were going to explore the town some more but we were pretty tired after that so we went to bed shortly after that.

Day 3
Once again woke up early and had breakfast. The majority of your group got ready to do some sea kayaking which seemed super fun and awesome but I was too slow in saying what I wanted to do that I got my second choice which was another surf lesson. Apparently the sea kayaking was much more extreme than I thought it was going to be because they actually went through the huge waves that were surfing and some people got sea sick. I however was once again bullied by the waves. I got to stand a couple of times again but the current was stronger than it was the day before so I struggled even more than yesterday. It was still fun though which is really all that matters. We had a different instructor this time and they had it set up a little differently for how experienced you are and I feel like I should have stayed at a lower level because our instructor started talking about turning and stuff and I was still trying to stand in the right place on the board.

After that we had a bit of free time until the kayakers came back (they left later than the surfers). We went to town and grabbed some lunch and I got my super powerful Aussie sunscreen! Once everyone was back and fed we had another session that was more fun talking about slang and whatnot. Australians really like to abbreviate something and talk kinda fast so I may be lost for a little while.

Then we walked to the beach to hang out for a bit. Originally there was supposed to be some beach volleyball but we didn't have a net so that didn't happen. We waded in the water a bit and one guy made a sand drip castle which looked pretty cool (PICTURE). The life guard people for the beach were training too and they were like swimming in the waves for a distance and then running on the beach for a distance and doing a bunch of laps! That's so much exercise I can't even believe how good of shape they must be in. Eventually everyone dispersed to explore the town more and we ate dinner and ended up going to a bar for backpackers because this traveling agency store place organized an event where you could drink for free for an hour. So we went to that.

In order to get into the bar we had to show our IDs to prove we were of age to drink to the ridiculously large security guard at the front (as one does). When I got up there and showed him my ID he looked at it real quick looked at me and the says "Man! You're tiny aren't you!" ... I just kinda laughed and was like "yeah I know". I know I'm tiny and I don't really care but the fact that the security guard was so huge probably didn't help the situation. I should have gotten a picture with him! That would have been hilarious. I wonder if he would have gone along with it or not. Well I got into the bar no problem and since it was free decided I might as well get something (mind you I'm a good child and haven't had any alcohol in life yet). I got a cider. It was alright. It was very bubbly. I only drank like an eighth of my glass while a couple of the girls that came with us had at least four glasses. I already figured I would be a drinking person but I just don't understand what is so exciting about it. Oh well I went for the experience. The bar had a couple of events like throwing a football through a target to get a prize. They also had an auction for a couple of trips that are normally on sale and it was ridiculously intense. Originally the purpose was to sell it for a lot less than the original price but the second one only ended up being like 50 dollars less than the original price which is still good but I'm pretty sure the people who were bidding on it were friends just playing around with each other to make the price more expensive. Well once we were finished with the bar we went to get gelato and then headed back to the hostel and then off to bed. We did so much walking that day! My feet still hate me.

Day 4
Woke up, had breakfast, checked out of the hostel, and off to a Wildlife Sanctuary! Finally the fated day has arrived. The day which everyone must do whilst in Australia. The day to hold a koala.

Check out this cool guy.

Well first we had to take an hour bus ride there but then we got to hold a koala! That was the first thing we did in order to make sure that we got our pictures before we had to leave in the next two and a half hours. The wildlife sanctuary was really cool. Before we even got inside they had this wheel for the birds with nectar or water in it (not really sure) and the birds would land and make the wheel move. It was a similar concept as a water mill only powered by birds. We walked around for a while and saw lots of cool animals including wallabies, baby koalas, Tasmanian devils, and many more. They had a large open area with a bunch of kangaroos in it that you could pet and take pictures. I don't recommend doing this with wild kangaroos or really any kangaroos unless a professional says its okay. We could have fed them as well but we didn't see where we could find food until we were leaving but it didn't make much of a difference because they were still super friendly with us and would sometimes assume we had food. There were so many and they were so fascinating! Probably my favorite part but maybe I'm biased since I'm a wildlife major.

This is a wallaby :)

A koala family included little koala joeys. 

Then we had to leave the wonderful sanctuary and get on our planes going to all of our different campuses. The plane ride wasn't too bad but I'm going to end the post here since it's already super long.

Trivia Question Answer: B. Air

Here's a video of some of the scenery and animals I saw!