Australia Study Abroad

Autumn in Australia

Fall has finally struck us in Fremantle. When we were packing to come to Australia, I don’t think any of us had anything in mind besides coming to the warm summer weather. Therefore, I don’t think that we really have the right kind of clothing for the upcoming month and our travels. Now I may make it sounds like it is bit more cold than it actually is here. We have been spoiled by the gorgeous weather for the last few months and wanted it to stay that way. Autumn is actually really nice in here, it is still warmer than our version of Fall just without the apple picking and fall festivals. Which are clearly the best part of Fall at home. We still spend a lot of our time outside but it isn’t exactly beach weather.

It is hard to believe that the semester here is almost over. It is weird that everyone at home is already done with school and Sacred Heart’s graduation was weeks ago. We like to think that even though all of our friends at home are done with school and are seniors, since we haven’t finished our semester here, we can’t consider ourselves officially seniors yet, so we don’t have to face that reality until we get home!

Last weekend was our first SHU girl’s birthday, and this weekend was my 21^st, and next week is another one! May is a big birthday month for all of us. It was a bit strange turning 21 in Australia, because it doesn’t have the same meaning here, but we had a great time both weekends and are planning another one!

This is our last week of classes so we are starting to review for exams. But then we get a week off from class called “Study Week.” Most of us are taking advantage of the time off from classes to travel. Some of the SHU girls are going to New Zealand and Sydney. I am going to Adelaide, Canberra, and Melbourne with a few of my friends from Notre Dame in the US.  We are all excited for our travel plans, but most Australians are staying here to prepare for exams. I guess we will just have to study on the flights!

Margaret River

This past weekend we decided to take a trip to the south to one of the finest wine producing regions in Australia - Margaret's River. The same group as last week minus Bianca took the bus down after class on Friday, and it took about five hours to get there. Along the way there was a great movie, and we just kind of relaxed after a stressful week between our vacations! By the time we got there it was night and we found our hostel in the dark.

Saturday we got up early and our rental car was delivered to the hostel. We had to drive to drop the guy off, and when we reached his house he asked us if we liked kangaroos. He had about 40 wild kangaroos in his yard! He said they just came there because they would eat food around his property. Our first wild kangaroos, but they wouldn’t be our last!

We started our trip by heading north about an hour to Bussleton. It is the home of the longest jetty in the southern hemisphere at over 2km long. As we continued to head south, we stopped at a couple of wineries. The two notable names were Clairault and Moss Brothers. Clairault was a giant estate and very very nice. They had a nice tasting area and some quality wines. Moss Brothers was much smaller and not as nice, but the wine was great and they were very friendly. We bought wine at both of the vineyards and I would have loved to keep going, but Tom (our skipper) was ready to move on.

The region is also known for it’s caves, we decided to save money by just picking one to take a tour of. We went to Mamouth Cave and climbed through it. It is very large and the formations and colours inside are very impressive. It was a bit chilly and at the end we had to climb back up a zillion stairs to get out!

At the southernmost portion of that part of the continent is Cape Leeuwin, just past Augusta. This was my favourite thing we saw all day. It is home to the tallest lighthouse on the mainland of Australia. The lighthouse is the dividing point between the Indian Ocean and the Southern Ocean. There were tons of lookouts and the views were spectacular.

We went to Hamelin Bay Beach to watch the sunset, and the colours were very nice and relaxing. As we headed back towards Margaret's River, we were taking a road through some of the impressive and large forests, when standing in the middle of the road as we came around a corner was the biggest kangaroo I have seen yet. This is very common, much like deer back at home, but not something you still expect to see. Luckily we very nearly missed it but it was a scary moment. It adds adventure to the story but it took us a little while to calm back down after it happened.

The next day we turned the car in and wandered around MR for the day. We went in all of the shops and went to a nice cafe for awhile. We spent some time in the Visitors Centre/ Vineyard Museum, and relaxed enjoying a weekend market. We then headed back to the bus for another long right with plenty of work waiting for us when we got home. It was a great weekend and I am glad that we did it the way we did because it was at our own pace and we got to see what we wanted to see. My only wish was that we did these trips at the beginning of the semester when I had much less work, but it did give us more time to plan them. 

Albany Region

The next weekend was a holiday weekend for Australia. In the same way that Labor Day unofficially ends summer for the US, ANZAC (Australia New Zealand Army Corps) Day does the same for Australia. It is essentially the same as our Memorial Day.

One of our Australian friends, Bianca, lives down south and offered to drive Keaton, Tom, Kevin and I home with her for the long weekend. We arrived in Albany that night after classes on Friday, and we walked around the town at night and ate a delicious dinner. We saw a few of the sites in the dark, and then headed to our hostel by the beach after a long day of driving. The next day we got up early and saw some more of Albany and then we headed 2 hours west to see the Tree Top Walk. The walk is actually suspended high up in the trees so you are walking though the forest from a very different perspective.

As we drove back towards Albany, we stopped in Denmark (where the forests meet the sea) and also home to the Guiness Book of World Records Largest Barometer (three stories tall) but we have been told that you had to be there for it to be as cool as we found it.

Back in Albany, we headed out to two of the most known geographic landmarks of Western Australia-The Gap, and the Natural Bridge. We grabbed some lunch and then drove another 2.5 hours east to Jerramungup where Bianca lives.

"Jerry" has only 600 people. We spent the Saturday night at the Jerry Athletic club where we watched the footy games on TV and had a bar. It was real small town Australia.

Bianca's family was amazing and they made us a ton of great food. That next day we headed south to Bremmer Bay and saw the Main Beach and Fisheries Beach. They were really nice and had pure white very soft sand. We only wished it had been a bit warmer so we really could have enjoyed them more. That night the boys were so excited to have ESPN that they spent quality time watching sports with Bianca’s dad, while Keaton and I introduced the Australians to s'mores and had a girl’s night with Bianca. Later on we all went outside and watched the stars. It was so clear there because we were out in the middle of nowhere, the milky way was the most vibrant I have ever seen it, which is a lot to say especially right after Broome.

On Monday, we went back to the club and played the sport of Lawn Bowls. It is somewhat like Bocce Ball on a large field, but the balls are curved and weighted and the field long. In a surprise turn of events I was a great lawn bowler! Which made Tom a little bitter.  Keaton and I beat the boys with a bit of coaching from Bianca’s dad.

It was a great trip, and a very different tone than the last set of trips. We started the long trip home with lots of studying to do as we entered week 9 of the semester!  

Fall Break

The lack of entries from April is due to the fact that I spent the majority of it traveling. Fall break was encompassed by our trip for Australian history to the Kimberly region, and our vacation to Bali.

Sorry I can’t really say much about my experience in Broome here because if future participants are reading this, I don’t want to ruin anything for you guys!

I will say that it was a great experience and I really loved it!

Also, this semester Sacred Heart was lucky because we got placed on the trip with the girls from Cleopatra’s Hotel  (another dorm) and we had the first trip. This meant that we missed a week of classes instead of going during part of our Fall break like everyone else. Unfortunately, it also meant we had the hottest weather, because as we are heading into cooler weather, it was actually better to go later. It is weird to think about when I hear from home how the weather is getting warmer there.

Anyway, when we got back from Broome, firstly we all took a long shower (after camping for a week), and then we celebrated Easter in the house before taking off on our next adventure. Because we were the only people in our house that had the earlier Broome trip we had planned a Sacred Heart girl’s trip to Bali for the rest of the break. The seven of us had so much fun! We stayed at a resort and spent our days white water rafting, jet skiing, parasailing, seeing the sights of the city, and travelling to the outskirts to see communities and temple, and our nights out exploring the night life. (Bintang!) We did alot of shopping from the street vendors, but the bargaining was fun and got a bit intense at times. The only down side to our trip was “Bali Belly” that is what they call it when tourist get sick after being in the country for a few days and can’t adjust to the food. A few of us had a mild case of this, and I had it for a few days. It wasn’t that bad but I was glad to get back to Australia!

It was a really fun week with the SHU girls and we all bonded after spending that much time together. It was a pretty long vacation to have two weeks off in the middle of the semester and I didn’t feel much like going back to classes when we got back!

Rotto

On Friday, the class that all of the Americans take together was composed of a historical walking tour of the area, and got out early. This left us with some extra time, and almost our entire dorm decided to check out a new beach. It is only one train stop away from us, but it is across of the opening of the Swan River.

North Fremantle Beach was amazing. The sand was pure white and soft, and the dunes were open and spacious, along with the fact that there were very few people. It did not have the commercialization and buildup of pubs or cafes as some of the other cool beaches, but it did have a snack shop.

We all enjoyed this beach alot, especially the much larger and more heavily crashing waves that take place at this beach. Body surfing was great, and the waves pounded you (specifically me) into the shore.

It was so much fun that we decided to stay for about 6 or 7 hours before coming back, and with temperatures of around 92 degrees, it was a great lazy day at the beach.

The next day six of us decided to get up early take the ferry to Rottnest Island, or "Rotto" as it is known to the locals. It is about a half hour ferry ride off the coast of Fremantle and a very popular tourist destination.

Now, the most popular form of transportation on the island is biking, however, since I never learned how to ride a bike, I decided that was probably not the best time to try and learn, so I took the public transportation. My bus pass was cheaper than the bike rental, and much less hard work. I met lots of people on the bus and even laughed with them when we passed my group of friends when one of their chains broke. I met up with my friends throughout different parts of the island, but mostly it was just relaxing!

The last beach that we had chosen to meet up at was spectacular. Almost the entire island is amazing Indian Ocean beaches, however, this in particular was a little hidden away beach with its own cove. The sand was great, there were great big sand dunes, and the snorkeling and swimming were tremendous. We spent a lot of the day there, partially napping.

When I woke up from my nap I realized I had missed the bus I was intending on taking so the next one wouldn’t be there for another hour, so I met up with some students from the University of Western Australia that were there doing research on the island for a class, and walked back into town with them.

 

 

Study break: Sea Kayaking

School work has definitely picked up by this point in the semester. The biggest challenge has to have been our research paper for the Australian History and Society class that is required for all American students studying at the university. It was extra stressful because we had already been told about how competitive grading is in Australia, how different expectations are, and the added stress of all working on it at the same time. I did my paper on one of the less popular topics, Australia’s Pioneer Heritage, but I found it interesting, and how could I not being a SHU pioneer!?!

Anyways, we found time to take a break from our papers Sunday to go Sea Kayaking! it was a great experience.

Our itinerary was to kayak to Seal Island, an island where people are not allowed to go, and pull up just short of the shore. Sea lions and seals naturally live there, and are right in front of your face. There were a few in the water just in front of our boat, much closer than you could get to tame ones in a zoo. It was amazing! I let my partner keep back paddling so we wouldn’t get sucked in by the current while I snapped all of the photos!

From there we kayaked to the next place- Penguin Island. It is an island that is home to a natural penguin population. This island we got to walk around. There are some great beaches there, and we also got to snorkel around some reefs off of the side of the place. I had never snorkeled yet, so I struggled with it a bit, but eventually I got used to breathing underwater.

Afterwards there is a penguin building where they take care of injured and abandoned penguins. We got to see them swim around and be fed, which was pretty neat. The kayaking was a blast, a little painful by the end of it, but great. In total we went about 5 km, sometimes into ocean currents, but I had a great time and got a lot of color!

AQWA

The next weekend we went on a school sponsored trip to The Aquarium of Western Australia, which was nice because it meant most of the international students were all going together.
The crown jewel of AQWA is the giant shark and sting ray tank. You step onto a moving sidewalk and ride around this giant tube of aquarium. The tube is all glass, so that you can see the marine life on all four sides and feel like you are underwater with them. One shark swam directly at us, and seriously looked like he was going to eat us.
There was also a touch pool where you can pet rays, starfish, fish, and tiger sharks. We were all a bit nervous to stick our hands in at first but eventually built up the courage and were touching everything!

There is also a big shopping area completely built over the water in a little bay called Hillary's right next to AQWA. There are some fun shops as well as places to eat and we spent some time there wandering around before we headed home.

The other big thing going on at this time was that they finally announced the dates of our field trip to the Kimberly. Our class is broken up into three groups for the trip, so we have been waiting to find out the days we will be going so that we can make plans for our spring break which falls right in the middle of the dates that we could have been going to Broome. Sacred Heart is traveling to Broome in the first group with all of the girls from Cleopatra’s. (another study abroad dorm) It should be interesting to get to know them better, but even more importantly we are the only group not missing out on any of our Spring break vacation time. So, as soon as we had our information we started planning, and after much debate and research the SHU girls planned our spring break trip to Bali for a week! We are very excited, but it is going to mean that two weeks of our semester are going to fly by with traveling!

"Let's go to the desert!"

The first weekend in March a group of people I live with and I booked a tour of the Pinnacles desert. Now, that may not seem like the best idea, on one of the hottest days of the year in Australia to go to the desert, but we were pretty determined.

Our tour started right outside our dorm at 7 am. We traveled from Perth north east to the monastic town of New Norcia. New Norcia is the only monastic town in all of Australia. It is in such a remote and desolate area, however, that with the empty buildings and lack of life around it, it seems like a ghost town although beautiful.

The next stop that we made as at the Western Wildflower Farm. We received a tour of the facilities, as well as lunch. The farm ships wildflowers all across the world, and is a very profitable enterprise. The only downside to it is the utter remoteness of the location- I was beginning to notice a pattern here, all of Western Australia is remote.

Our next stop was the rock lobster fishing town of Cervantes. It is certainly not a big town, and is almost only populated by fisherman during the summer months when they are doing their fishing. They have a nice white-sands beach and dunes there, and the water of the Indian Ocean glitters and shines. This is due to it being filled with the organisms that make coral, but the moving water prevents the coral from actually combining and forming, which just makes the water extra sparkly!

Finally, our last stop was the Pinnacles Desert. The desert is a place that is completely unique and is the only place in the entire world like it. It is currently in the process of being recognized as one of the Natural Wonders of the World.

In the great expanse of the desert, large rock pinnacles protrude from the sands in every direction the eye can see. They completely cover the landscape- much in the way that stalagmites come from the floor of a cave.
It is amazing to me that such a dry and hot desert can be located so close to the great expanse of the ocean. From the higher elevations of the great expanse of desert, the ocean is clearly visable.

The area is very taboo for Aboriginals, and they did not and do not journey to the place. It was very very hot, just under 110 in the desert and there were lots of flies. There was very little wind, but what wind there was had a very warm feel to it.

The welcome center was great relief to us after we explored for about an hour, as it had air con and sold ice cold water. We were all a little dehydrated and relished the opportunity for a cold drink.

After the desert, we got back on the bus and prepared for our 300km trip back to Fremantle. It was definitely a long day but worth the exhaustion to see part of Australia that not that many people ever get to.  

A fairly perfect day in Australia

This Saturday was just about the most perfect day you could imagine in Australia. In the morning we got up early and took a bus about 45 minutes away to a wildlife park. We got to feed and pet kangaroos see emus, wombats, crocodiles, many more- of course koalas. Even though I had already seen most of them with my sister, I love them! Finally, we got to ride on camels- you may say they are not in Australia, but they are actually used extensively in the arid Outback.

After that, we stopped at a chocolate factory on the way home in Margaret River. It was the same one that my sister and I had stopped at on our wine tour and so I knew exactly what I wanted. I quickly bought some more of the Rum Rebellion truffles that I had sampled last time.

When we got home it was the middle of the afternoon, 99 degrees out and beautiful, so naturally we headed right to the beach. Then popped back home for dinner, and back out to the beach for sunset.

We finished the night by heading in to the city of Perth on the train. Public transportation to and around the city is great. We headed to some cool bars and clubs in Northridge where we met some fun Australians.

Kangaroos and Koalas in the morning, beach in the afternoon, and out in the city at night. All in all, not too shabby of a Saturday.

My friend just made this video of the area surrounding our dorm. Click on this provided link below to watch a video clip showing the walk from the dorm to the beach, the marina, and the harbor. It is his voice in the video, but I thought it might be nice to attach here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jorl3vkO_CU

(the link wasn't working for a while but it should be fixed now - let me know)

First week of class

After our first week of getting acclimated it was suddenly time to start classes. Needless to say no one was excited about this prospect. We have become accustomed to short days of orientation and spending the rest of the day at the beach or going out at night. Not to mention the fact that none of us have been in school since the beginning of December. I think it will take some time to get back into a schedule of going to class and getting work done.

The first day of classes was this last Monday, and I of course started my awesome Australian school schedule with an 8:30 AM class. The way that classes are broken up in Australia is that you have a two hour lecture once a week as well as a one hour tutorial. This week wasn’t too bad overall because most of the classes were spent going over the expectations for the rest of the semester. It seems to me like they really love assigning papers with A LOT of research involved. I think some of my beach time is going to have to be redirected to the library.

One day after class a group of us decided to explore in a new direction. We ended up discovering the West Australia War Memorial. Fremantle is the main port on the west coast of Australia. From their ports, war ships left for all of the major wars since Australia's independence.We came back and went to the beach for a few hours before another community dinner. Gary, our chef, made us another delicious dinner.

I think my most interesting class has to be my Friday morning (8:30 AM again) Australian History and Society course. It is specifically reserved for US study abroad students and we all are required to take it. It is pretty much a cruel joke that all of the American students have an 8:30 AM on Fridays but I think we will all suffer though getting there together. The class should be interesting because I don’t think any of us really have a strong knowledge of Australian history. It isn’t exactly a topic you cover in general education in the US.

We had our first jellyfish sting in our group. A poor girl had one latch on her arm. I happened to be in the kitchen when her group of friends brought her back in. This being the case, I ran told my other friend to go google what we should do while I whipped out the first aid kit. She is fine, but I am now thought of the jellyfish expert because I quickly absorbed the steps and helped her out. It doesn't look like a lot of fun, but it’s just some pain and it will subside, and now we know what to do if it happens again.

One thing I really love is going to the beach after dinner around 8pm and watching the sun set in the west over the Indian Ocean. They are beautiful sunsets here, and very peaceful. I also love going to the beach after the bar around 2 in the morning. I love just listening to the ocean, and could easily see myself living near an ocean later in life. I have only gone in the ocean one night, it was bit chilly, but still very nice to stand in the water and watch the stars.

Solo Soda is awesome! It is my favorite Australian product. I could drink this stuff nonstop every day. It is sort of like lemonade soda- but way better. It has some real lemon in it. They also make an equally good lime soda that is tremendous. They are great because they are not too sweet and actually taste like the fruit they are supposed to be flavored like.

Runner up- TimTams. They are a delicious chocolate fudge cookie that is amazing. Anyone who has ever been to Australia knows TimTams and Solo. These need to be exported to the States ASAP.