I'm About to Attempt the Impossible: My Past 2 Months in a Nutshell

I have obviously and unfortunately become terribly awful at keeping up with this blog. I did pretty well at first, but I could only keep the self discipline for so long. However, I have kept a journal of my entire time in Australia and write in it every day, so in that sense, I am doing wonderful. The only thing is....you can't read that journal. So I will fill you in on the past two months of my life...... Ready? Ok.

PORT MACQUARIE
I took a short flight up the coast to visit family in Port Macquarie for a weekend in March. It was lots of fun and nice to relax and have great home-cooked meals. I played with my little kindergarten and 18-month old cousins and enjoyed seeing a new city with family I haven't seen in a while. While there, I hiked through rainforests, visited (yet another) beach - it never gets old, and got to pet and feed koalas, kangaroos and wallabies!!!

MELBOURNE
The very next weekend I flew to Melbourne and visited the "hipster" city of Australia. I loved the city art, Southbank, skyline, and of course the night life. I took a tour of the Great Ocean Road, which was absolutely amazing and my favourite thing we did in Melbourne (although it's technically not even in Melbourne...). The Twelve Apostles and Loch Ard Gorge were beautiful, and I got to feed birds in the wild that landed on my head. We got to go up in a lighthouse and also see koalas in the wild! It was a fantastic day trip. That night we still somehow had energy to go to a Melbourne footy game, where we watched the Mighty Fighting Hawks in the city where AFL (Australian Football) all started. Melbourne's a cool city; I wish I could go back once more before returning home to the states, but I don't think I'll have the time.

Two of the Twelve Apostles, Port Campbell Ntl. Park

NEW ZEALAND
The next thing is a biggie....mid-semester break in New Zealand. I don't know how I can possibly put our 12 adventure-filled days in the country in an abbreviated blog post, but I will attempt it. Let me preface it by saying: NZ is my favourite place I've EVER traveled to!!!!! And we only went around the South Island! (Didn't have time to sufficiently see the North.) However, if you ever have the opportunity to go to NZ - GO!! It's absolutely beautiful/incredible/amazing/breathtaking/and on and on and on..... I digress.

Lake Wakatipu, Queenstown

We flew into Christchurch and didn't do much there because we only stayed one night, and there's not much to do in Christchurch in general, as much of the city is still being rebuilt from a terrible earthquake they experienced a few years ago. Anyway, once we got to Queenstown, I fell in love. It's such a cute and unique town, and completely run by tourism. We did a tour of glow worm caves in Te Anau where we rode in a canoe through a cave under the glistening glow and sparkles of glow worms! On Saturday we went horseback riding through the New Zealand landscape, doing one scenic ride and one Lord of the Rings ride! We visited filming spots from various Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lovely Bones, and X-Men Wolverine movies. It was awesome, to say the least. The next day we did a jetboat ride on the freezing Lake Wakatipu in Queenstown. It was a fun (and frigid) hour ride full of 360-degree turns and getting sprayed with water. Later that day, some friends and I hiked The Remarkables, one of only two mountain ranges in the world that run directly north to south. I was apparently not dressed properly, despite my knit headband, fleece gloves, tights, and jacket, because I was FREEZING the entire time...but it offered a pretty 'remarkable' sight of the landscape, lake, and town. The following day, we took a cruise on Milford Sound through the beautiful fjords. Milford Sound is actually considered an 8th natural wonder of the world, and is a "must do" if you visit New Zealand. We got a glacial facial as the captain drove the cruise ship under a huge waterfall. The next few days, we rented a car and drove to glacier country to hike Fox Glacier. It was an experience getting to drive on the opposite side of the road AND opposite side of the vehicle! Something new to add to my resume.... We spent our last day back in Queenstown, relaxing and bidding farewell to my favourite city. There's a great burger place called Fergburger in town, where the wait is easily an hour for a burger and fries, and an incredible cookie place called Cookie Time with 2 cookies for the price of 1 during happy hour. We got our fill on the local hot spots and bused 8 hours back to Christchurch the next day to fly out to Sydney. It was a truly unbelievable vacation that I will never forget, and will definitely have to go back and re-live a couple times in my lifetime.

Milford Sound

SYDNEY WITH THE BOYFRIEND
The most recent activity is the past two weeks, when my boyfriend flew from Texas to Sydney to spend two weeks of his summer with me! That too, was an amazing experience, as we had action-packed days one after the other for his entire visit. Scott thoroughly saw Sydney, and fell in love with the city almost as much as I have ;) We started his trip off with a bang by CLIMBING THE SYDNEY HARBOUR BRIDGE!!!! It was breathtaking seeing the city, harbour, skyline, Opera House, EVERYTHING from that view atop the bridge! We did a twilight hike so we climbed up the bridge in the sunlight, watched the sun set at the top, and climbed down the other side in the dark! That's another experience I'll never forget.... We visited a solid 8 different beaches while Scott was here, so I got to show him a little bit of my lifestyle;) We went to a show at the Opera House, where I got called up on stage to assist Raymond Crowe with a magic trick! He's performed for Queen Elizabeth and was a finalist on Australia's Got Talent, so it was definitely a treat. We also did the walking tour of Sydney, watched fireworks at Darling Harbour, went out a couple nights to show Scott how we party here in Sydney, had multiple beach and park picnics, visited the Blue Mountains and did a couple hikes, including the Three Sisters, took a ferry over to Taronga Zoo (SUCH an awesome zoo!!! And right on the harbour), ate kangaroo, snorkelled *aside sharks and jellyfish* and ended the trip with another bang - the Vivid Sydney festival, where we got to see the sails of the Opera House lit up and all kinds of creative projections on other popular buildings around Sydney.

Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb

Sydney Opera House lit up for Vivid

And that all brings me to today. I have 3 more days of classes here at uni, and then it's final examination period. The semester has gone by in the blink of an eye, but as you can see I've definitely kept myself busy and tried to make the most of my time here. I am excited to see all my family, friends, and good ol' Austin, TX when I'm back in the states, but returning home will definitely be bittersweet... BUT, we'll leave that for six weeks' time. For now I still have quite a bit of traveling left :) Still on the agenda: the outback, the east coast, and Tassie (Tasmania).

Cheers and thanks for reading!