Wollongong Bike Tour

Sunday morning I woke up to a beautiful blue sky and warm weather. Part of my study abroad program includes various events that the program plans for us. As an introduction to the city, our program planned a guided bike tour. After the hiking incident, the guide was pre-warned to watch out for me. No worries, she had a kit for the "special" riders. We started off biking to uni for a closer look at the campus as none of us really know where we are going except for how to get to our classes. It sure made me wish I had a bike here instead of the 45 minute walk! After that we headed to a location just adjacent to uni called the botanical gardens. It was a beautiful park full of birds eager to share in the picnic lunch that we stopped to have. Just shortly into the ride after lunch someone behind me yells "uhh, Matt, I think you forgot to put your kickstand back up." Rookie mistake. It was embarrassing that I actually lived up to their taunting after ensuring the guide I would not be problematic. We then road through the heart of the city which is a combination indoor and outdoor mall. Don't worry, we only road through the outdoor part. :) Even though I'm not one to shop much, it was nice to see all the little shops available to us. After that we made our way up to the Wollongong Stadium which hosts rugby, soccer, Aussie Rules Footy etc. FINALLY, sports back in my life! Next on the trip was a path along the beach. Right as we got to the destination point of this part (the lighthouses) it started to sprinkle. No worries, though the clouds had an ominous color. It slowly starts to rain a little harder and we decide it's time to get back. On the way back we passed fellow bikers who yelled "you're going the wrong way!" And right they were! We headed right into a hailstorm! Unfortunately it was unavoidable as we had to get back home and this was our only path. It's a good thing it's mandatory to wear helmets in Australia when you bike ride!

Mt. Keira

Well, today my friends Nick, Nolan, Mera and I decided to tackle the largest mountain in NSW, Mt. Keira. We had heard (though we never verified) that a trail existed from the back of our campus up the mountain. We set out for "uni" after breakfast and walked all around the back side looking for this path. We ended up calling a friend who stayed behind and asked him to find us directions. He told us to head about 40 minutes away from where we were. Disgruntled at being misinformed and upset with ourselves for not looking it up ourselves, we headed in the opposite direction looking for Mt. Keira. The two guys I was with (the same free-spirited ones who thought it would be fun not to ask for directions before we left on how to get there) decided to veer off from our friend's instructions in search of a short cut. We ended up at a dead end on some random person's driveway who happened to be watching us trespass on their property. Only that person happened to be not so random when we explained we were sorely lost and needed directions again. They felt so bad about how far away we were that this women and her daughter offered to drive us to where we needed to go! It turns out we had walked past the pathway not once, but twice!
Already 1.5 hours into the adventure, we were ready for some hiking. Let me tell you, though, I immediately learned what I was in for as we had about a 60 degree ascent right away that lasted for a good five minutes. That was only the beginning. Still without any form of map or direction, we thought the trails would lead us in the right direction. About half an hour later we came to our first fork in the road. And we chose wrong. We began gradually descending the mountain. It took us a while, but we decided that down likely was not leading us to the top of the mountain, and thus it was time to turn around and hike back to the fork. We followed the path the other direction for about another 45 minutes, huffing and puffing through more incredibly strenuous trails. Well, I was huffing and puffing at least. My friends happen to be avid mountain climbers as well as collegiate athletes. After 3 hours, we finally reached a resting point for some much needed lunch. Then we trekked on, conquering more stairs from hell. We soon found ourselves in a bit of a predicament, though, when we failed to see where the trail led next. All we knew was we had to go up, so up we went. Bad choice. What we found ourselves climbing up was a dry riverbed full of boulders. Not rocks, but boulders. We reached a point where it was more scary to attempt climbing back down, though, so onward we had to go. The trail did not get any easier. We made our way up this sucker only to be faced with a vertical cliff. After numerous attempts around it, we found ourselves at a standstill. Finally the decision was to head back down some "paths" and look for a new way. Today was not a good day for these paths, considering it had been raining and all the dirt had turned muddy and the leaves covering the ground slick. On the way down, I slipped, sliding down the side of this mountain. Luckily at the last second I grabbed a tree and spun around the trunk back onto the edge. Talk about a heart pounding experience. The unfortunate part was that the hike back down had merely just begun. We all took our tumbles, nothing serious, and finally found a path out. Or so we thought. We walked down the paved road to a dead end. Yikes. Being the daring hikers that we were now, we decided to hike down the brush of this dead end as it lead in the direction of town. Well we made it...all the way to the freeway! We were lost. With nightfall upon us and no path along the freeway to walk, we decided to scale a brick wall along the freeway and see where the other side lead us. After some boosts we made it to the other side, which as luck would have it, was a fenced in estate! Not just fenced in, but barbwire and security cameras and the whole shebang. Trapped, our only option was to climb the new fence. Once safely on the other side, we found ourselves in a familiar area. The neighborhood where we had wondered when we needed to ask for directions. Thankful we knew where we were, we headed back to uni for a much needed happy hour at the campus pub. Total time hiking: 6 hours. It's time for bed. Can't wait to see what I feel like when I wake up!

Visit to Sydney

Today we woke up early to take the train to Sydney. It's about 1.5 hour train ride. And a lot cheaper than I expected. We walked around Sydney Harbor for a couple of hours and then went up to the Sydney Harbor bridge and trekked across that for an amazing view of the city. Then it was time to settle in for the Pope's arrival. It was a little less anti-climatic than I anticipated as he sailed in to the Harbor a mere 150 ft away from us or so. Nevertheless, I saw the Pope. How many people get to say that? It was pretty neat to be in the city with roughly 300,000 other people from ALL over the world. Unfortunately, I was the only registered pilgrim of the group so we couldn't attend all of the festivities. Afterwards we wandered aimlessly around town browsing shops and just enjoying Sydney freaking Australia. We found a nice restaurant for dinner and then stopped in at a 4 story pub for happy hour before spending a little more time on the Sydney Harbor admiring the city in it's evening splendor. It was a good introduction to Sydney, and I'm eager to go back in just 2 weeks!

Australia: A Way of Life

It's been a whirlwind this past week. I flew out of Peoria last Tuesday and caught a connecting flight from Chicago to LA. From LA we took a 16 hour flight to Melbourne. Having my luck, there was a power outage while waiting to re-check my luggage in Melbourne after customs. The lovely lady at the desk told me to place my luggage under the paper 612 (our flight number) sign in order to speed up the process once power was returned. Once all was back up and running, I presented my boarding pass and the lady told me the plane was about to leave. So, she called ahead and had them hold the plane for me and then I had a personal escort through the airport so I could catch the plane. I was feeling like my luck with traveling had changed at this point. Until we landed. No luggage. I should have known not to trust a paper sign.
We then took a bus 2 hours north of Brisbane to Noosa for orientation at a resort. It was pretty neat to step off the bus and walk through a herd of kangaroos! We had orientation meetings that day much to my chagrin as I desperately wanted to curl up and sleep thanks to the jet lag. The next day we had surfing lessons. I have some pretty cool pictures to prove that I indeed was able to catch some waves! We then had an aboriginal group come and perform for us. They even taught us a war dance and then had us perform. The next day we went to Fraser Island, the largest all sand island in the world. We spent the afternoon swimming at Lake McKenzie, voted one of the top 10 places in the WORLD to swim. It was incredible. Even 100 yards off the sandy white beach I could still see the bottom of the lake! I tried to swim down and touch it only to realize what an optical illusion it was. That night we had a wildlife man come show us a bunch of different animals, including poisonous snakes and a wombat, the Koala's cousin. He must have done something to my inner animal because that night I was chased by a kangaroo!
That concluded our orientation. The next day we took a bus back to Brisbane, flew to Sydney, and then took another bus to Wollongong. It's been a crazy few days here full of activities. Last night we had a campus sponsored pub crawl. It was a little intense going to a pub at 5 pm! Tonight we're going to see the new Batman movie and then head over to the Glass House, the best club in Wollongong. Then tomorrow we're taking a train to Sydney for World Youth Day to see the Pope arrive! Now that I have internet I'll try to make these more frequent so they aren't so long. Hope everyone is doing well and I miss you all.

Last Week in the States

After over a year of planning, it's hard to believe I'm down to five days until the adventure of a lifetime begins. I got an email a few days ago that our flight from Los Angeles to Brisbane had been canceled. They re-booked us and I now have 50 hours of fun between the time I depart Bloomington and arrive in Brisbane. Anybody who has ever flown with me knows I don't have the best of luck, so it will be interesting to see how my luggage handles 4 plane transfers and my body handles over 2 full days of travel. At least I'll be racking up the airline miles as it's 18,000 round trip. I'm eager to begin my time in a country so similar to ours but a culture so different. I'm still not sure of my internet situation so I don't know how often this will be updated, but I'll do my best share the stories. Cheers!