Week sixteen: Scary hairy lairy Mary canary - Kirsty's 21st birthday weekend

This has been a week of contrasts. Library/nightclub. Newcastle/Sydney. 5km runs/krispy kremes. I know which part of the week I preferred... Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were library days. I hate the library, seagrass reports are boring, no-one told me I would have to do work on a year abroad... Etcetera. You get the drift.

Wednesday was Dom's birthday, so we left the library early to head to Woolies and buy some ingredients for the Epic Cake of Dreams. Devils food cake, with flake bites mixed in, sandwiched with chocolate fudge frosting and covered in caramel buttons and flake bites. Om nom nom. We headed to Church Street, where Lars was cooking, and surprised Dom with his cake, before heading over to the Great Northern for a quick drink.

MONSTER CAKE.

Thursday was Kirsty's 21st birthday. It began, as ever, in the library, feverishly finishing my report into the effects of jetty construction upon seagrass meadows in Myall Lakes National Park... Yawn. Once that was finished and submitted - my final piece of coursework for the semester(!) - we headed into town for a meal at Coco Monde, the chocolateria from heaven. We bought Kirst a birthday hazelnut hot chocolate as she was yet to experience its magic; and we bought chocolate fondue plates between us. They were AMAZING. You got a whole bowl of melted chocolate (we went for milk chocolate), and a plate of brownies, shortbread, fruit (including BANANAS!!!) and honeycomb. Mmmm. They even threw in a free plate of extra dipping bits when we ran out. We just about managed to stumble back to Anna's through our sugar haze, where we spent the evening collapsed on the sofa, watching Beauty and the Geek. Classy.

Birthday fondue!

GO-LO presents are the best presents.

On Friday morning I got up and headed to my lecture, before realising that it was actually just recapping everything I learned in Behavioural Ecology at UEA last year; so I skipped out, bumped into Nathan and headed to NUSA with him for a free cuppa and  PB&J on toast. Yum.

I packed up my stuff over lunchtime and headed with the girls to the station. It was time for the proper 21st birthday celebrations to begin! We got to Sydney at 6ish and went to check into the hostel - where the cheapest available room had been a 32-bed dorm. It would be an adventure, right?! In actual fact, Nomads managed to lose our booking, so we ended up getting a free upgrade to a three-person private room with private bathroom. Despite having 4 of us in a 3-bed room, it was definitely a better deal. Win.

We dumped our bags and got showered and dressed up, before starting on the vino. In bottles, not bags. Impressive, I know. At 8pm-ish, a voice coming out of ceiling instructed us to go down to the 1st floor for free wine and cheese (read: goon and cheddar). After a brief moment of terror ("Is that you, god?!") we located the mystery loud speaker on the ceiling and headed down to the bar. We had some drinks and caught a glimpse of a boxing kangaroo tattoo on an Irish boys bum, then headed out to Darling Harbour for some cocktails. We couldn't find the fabled Friday Night Happy Hour bar, so ended up in an extortionately overpriced joint selling cocktails for $17. Ouch. Once the other girls had their fill (I'm from Yorkshire. It is physically impossible for me to spend that amount on a cocktail, I'm just too tight with money), we went on to Scary Canary for the Red Cup Party, where we met up with some of Kirst's friends from Weeee-als.. We got very excited at the sight of proper American red solo cups - and even more excited at the prospect of a free drink, and $4 drinks thereafter. Spirits! Affordable spirits! We stayed at Scary Canary for the rest of the night, until our feet were bruised and our eyelids were heavy with vodka.

Suited and Booted.

TWENTY-FIVE LITRES OF GOON. Say what.

Liz was very excited about the red cups.

...As was Kirsty.

Screw it, we were all pretty excited.

Messy girl.

We awoke on Saturday morning feeling a little worse for wear, and so we showered and dressed and crawled across the road to Kafe Kaz (a misleadingly tacky name for a fairly nice place), where we gorged upon eggs and mushrooms on toast, and smoothies. Mmmm. Afterwards, we headed over to Paddy's Markets to find some Hallowe'en costume inspiration for Anna's party on Monday. Inspiration was thin on the ground, but I did manage to get into a heated discussion with a stall holder. What a lovely woman. Naat.

Anna got the morning train to Sydney and joined us at the markets, before we strolled off in the direction of Westfield. Liz and I slipped away from the rest, and went to buy Kirst's birthday present - a silver bracelet from Thomas Sabo - under the pretence of buying my Dad a book. Sorry to break it to you Dad, there is no book.

In the afternoon, we perused the Sydney Food and Wine Festival in Hyde Park, and found a disappointing lack of freebies. We did, however, find a large gathering of the undead, due to the Hallowe'en Zombie Walk taking place. It was a fairly impressive sight - watching the zombies gather, natter amongst themselves and nibble on McFlurries - hardly an authentically zombie food source, but it was hot so I presume brains didn't appeal.

We spent a while sitting in Hyde Park, watching the performers, erm, perform, and splashing in the fountain to cool down. Afterwards, we headed back to Darling Harbour for a dinner of Greek salads and roast veggie turkish toasties. Mmm.

My bargain $1 charity bracelets.

Splish splash.

Darling Harbour baby!

The boys were scheduled to get in from Fiji, where they've spent the past week, at 7pm ish; so after our early dinner we headed back to the hostel to get showered and changed. The boys got to the hostel at half 7ish, where we had some wine and fijian rum (bleurghhhh) and a catch up. We also gave Kirsty her present, which she loved. Yay :) There were fireworks at Darling Harbour on Saturday night, so we went along to watch them. They were gorgeous, if a little short-lived.

Darling Harbour by night.

Once the last whizzes and bangs had died away, we chanced upon a cocktail bar with a 2-for-1 happy hour on. The drinks were gorgeous - raspberry mojitos were my favourite - and pretty potent. After a few hours our purses and our heads were much lighter...

Strawberry daiquiri!

Mmmmm raspberry mojito! <3

After an unsuccessful quest to find Scary Canary again, we stumbled upon a Cuban salsa bar. It had such a good atmosphere - the live band was amazing, and the lead singer gave us salsa lessons when our own attempts failed. The walls were all covered in quotes and messages, such as "Life may not always be the party you expected, but while we're here we may as well dance!" It was so much fun, and as Kirsty told me, "It sounds like Nandos! You can't dance here, you're vegetarian."

...Quite.

Our new cuban friend.

Shake yo' maracas Anna!

Once I finished my appalling attempts at Spanish, and Kirst gave up on teaching the uninterested barman Welsh, we headed on to the Three Wise Monkeys, where we were treated to more free drinks thanks to a Bundy rum promotion. Oh dear. Things got messier from there, as Roseanna fell in a fountain and we lost Liz and Anna. We all ended up back at the hostel, exhausted and drunk and in fits of apparently meaningless laughter.

Sunday morning called for another trip to Kafe Kaz, where I stuck my face into a large pile of blueberry pancakes. The rest of the guys did similar things to nutella croissants/beans on toast/bacon sandwiches etc. Mmmmm.

Mmmmm perfection.

After breakfast, Josh headed back up to Newy to finish off his Seagrasses report, whilst the rest of us had a girls day in Sydney. We didn't really do much.... We sunbathed by the opera house. We browsed a market and stole as many free nibbles as we could. We grabbed lunch by Circular Quay. Kirsty had a face-off with a hungry ibis in the Botanical Gardens (the ibis won). We had a nap in the Botanical Gardens. I finally had the Krispy Kreme I had been lusting after all weekend.... It was a fun, chilled way to end a fairly hectic and amazing weekend.

The girls :)

<3

I have now officially handed in all work for this semester. I have one pre-exam lecture left. Where has all the time gone?! I'm almost a third of the way through my year abroad. WOAH, WOAH, WOAH, SLOW DOWN! I'm not ready to leave quite yet. There is so much left to see.

Week fifteen: Luckiest girl in the world

Fifteen weeks! I cannot even comprehend how time is passing so quickly. This week it has truly started to dawn on me how lucky I am to be here. To be living in Australia. To have found such an amazing group of friends. To have the whole summer off to travel. I am literally one of the luckiest people in the world.

Monday was - of course! - a library day, made slightly more bearable by the appearance of a free BBQ and milkshakes in the courtyard outside the Auchmuty library. I'm still not entirely sure why it was all there - the milkshakes were some sort of promotion, but the BBQ I have no idea... Still, I'm not one to look a free BBQ in the mouth!

Tuesday was a fairly routine library day. In the evening, Liz cooked noodles at Church Street and then we headed out to the Great Northern to watch Anna sing at Open Mic night - there is nothing this girl cannot do! Unfortunately her set was quite late and Kirst and I had to rush off for the bus two songs in, but hopefully she will do it again soon :)

Wednesday was another library day, yaaaawn. At lunchtime we all congregated in the courtyard for a natter and some food. A photographer popped over and asked to take our photos for the prospectus - right as I was half way through my subway. The group snaps he took inevitably contained many uber attractive shots of me stuffing my face. Fit. He moved onto individual shots, by which time I had finished my sub, so I was safe. Smiley smile snap snap snap. Lots of photos. It was only once I got home that afternoon that I found the poppy seed sitting front and centre in my teeth. "Hey school kids! Come to Newcastle! We even let retards with food in their teeth study here!" FML.

In the evening we headed to Church Street and cracked out the goon for the first time since spring break. A few weeks off the stuff had weakened my goon-immunity, and the night was a messy one for all involved! We headed to Bar Beach for a 19th birthday party - I feel so old!

Drunken love for Julian the coconut.

Thursday morning  was my Aboriginal studies tute - another two hours of my life which I will never get back. The free NUSA BBQ soothed my pain a little. You can tell the international students a mile off - we are all completely skint, and therefore seem to always congregate at NUSA, where there is free tea and coffee, cereal, toast and BBQs. Why does UEA not have anything like this. I love free stuff. Especially food. In the afternoon we went shopping to Charlestown Square, then had an incredibly healthy dinner of chips and cookies by the harbour, before heading up to Anna's incredible balcony for a natter.

Chips and sunset over the harbour.

This week has been my turn to cook Block Dinner, with Myles. Seeing as we seem to have something to do every night, we agreed to cook block breakfast instead, and so whipped up some pancakes for the flat. Afterwards, I nipped to town to get to my job interview for Greenpeace! It seemed to go fairly well, so fingers crossed that I will soon be pestering Aussies on the street and persuading them to donate to Greenpeace. Yay hippy money! Post-interview, I headed to the beach and spent the rest of the day chilling, eventually joined by Kirsty and Liz. In the evening, we headed on the long (and very hot) walk up to see a flat at the top of a practically vertical hill between Newcastle beach and Bar beach. The apartment was beautiful and the view was amazing, but it's very expensive, and - despite its proximity to Darby street and its cafe culture - very far from the train station and town centre. We nipped to Coco Monde for hazelnut hot chocolate, yummmm. Lars cooked dinner for us, and we stayed at Church Street and got an early night due our verrrrrry early start on Saturday morning...

The incredible view from the flat.

Coco Monde hazelnut hot chocolate is so good!

Beautiful Newcastle city hall :)

The first alarm went at 5am. The next went at 5.15am. Time to get up. In a daze, we got dressed and grabbed our towels and my camera, before heading off to Bogey Hole. It was pretty chilly and very windy, and the streets were deserted other than the odd nutter runner starting off in the pre-dawn darkness. Once we got to Bogey Hole we settled down on the rock cliff and watched the sunrise and took photos. The actual sunrise was so quick, it took literally a minute! It was beautiful. Once the sun was in the sky, we thought we may as well go for an early morning dip! Bogey Hole was freezing, but it was such a fun way to start the day! Nothing wakes you up better than a hypothermic swim at sunrise!

Beautiful!

Sunrise over the South Pacific.

Bogey Hole time!

Freezing and beautiful.

Yay!

Love these guys.

We dashed back to Church Street afterwards, wrapped up in towels, and all headed for showers to warm up. Nathan cooked up some amazing pancakes for breakfast, which were accompanied with peanut butter and jam, watermelon and coffee. Nom nom nom. We met up with the other girls from Anna's end of Church Street and got the bus to Anna Bay, meeting Jack and Kirst en-route. Once at Anna Bay, we got a lift to the sand dunes, where we were equipped with sandboards. Stockton sand dunes - the largest moving sand mass in the world - were huge, and going down the you go so fast! We even managed to sandboard down standing up - like snowboarding, but without bindings (and snow)! We all, inevitably, wiped out at the end, but it was so much  fun! After an hour or so, we were boiling, sweaty and sandy - mmmmm so attractive! We got the shuttle back to the beach and spent the afternoon sunbathing, diving through the waves, climbing up the rocks, and burying Nathan in the sand. We ended the day back in Newy, with an amazing BBQ on the harbourside, listening to the music floating over from the Fat As Butter festival on Nobbys Foreshore.

I made a new friend.

Reppin' UEA.

Yum!

Sunday was chilled, and suitably unproductive. In the evening I headed down to Honeysuckle with Kirst and Jack to watch the rugby world cup final, where we were joined by Liz, Anna, Nathan, Dom and his girlfriend. The kiwis sat behind us we understandably jubilant when they just managed to beat the frogs. Afterwards, we waited for 40 minutes for the bus - hate Sunday timetables! - and had an early night. Yay lameness.

This week has been a lot of fun. Sure, I have continued to develop a deep and lasting loathing for the Auchmuty library and its cavernous dungeon of computers; but I have really started to appreciate how insanely lucky I am to be here. I have started going on 7am runs - I know, who are you and what have you done with Livvy!? The weather has finally turned, it is currently beautiful, sunny and warm at 9.30am. I have watched the sun rise, I have gone for a 6am swim in the oldest ocean baths in Australia. I have sandboarded. I have finally gone swimming in the sea without thinking DEAR GOD THIS IS SO COLD!

Australia is beautiful. The sky here is bluer; the mornings smell like apricot jam (I have no idea why, but it's amazing!); the birds are beautiful and blumming noisy; the sea is rough and wavy and completely clear; the animals are strange and incredible; everything comes with a side of avocado; the BBQs are omnipresent an plentiful.... I love it here. Taking a year abroad was the best decision I have ever made. I am the luckiest girl in the world. My life is amazing.

:)

Week fourteen: Bogeys and Bogans

This week has been a shock to the system after a relaxing fortnight of no work. I had an essay and a commentary due in on the Monday, neither of which had been started. Therefore the week started off with a fairly horrific (if impressive) 2,730-word essayathon in the library. It was horrible, but so worth it for the previous two weeks of no work in Queensland :) I recovered from the shock with mushroom pasta at Church st courtesy of Joshwaa!


Tuesday is the day upon which I traditionally aim to do work and entirely forget that I have two lectures to attend... This was another of those days. I went for a wander with Kirst and Roseanna from Mayfield to the city via Honeysuckle, which is absolutely gorgeous! We headed to Darby street, and had lunch at Goldbergs. I had a tofu and lentil burger (yes, I know, hippy food!) with some AMAZING chutney, it was yummy! In a carb-fuelled haze we headed to Marketown and then back home, when I realised that I had indeed forgotten about my two lectures today. Whoops. 


Wednesday was a library day, blah blah blah. I cut Roseanna and Kirsty's hair in the courtyard outside the library, which definitely earned us some odd looks! Clearly just jealous of my mad hairdressing skillz. We decided to forgo the usual Goon-Games-Brewery routine of a Wednesday night, and head to our newly discovered Honeysuckle Boardwalk, which is awash with beautiful cafes, classy bars and a view to boot. We all got dressed up (you really can't go for cocktails in jeans!) and headed to Dockyards bar, home to the cocktail happy hour and $7 bellinis... Yum. Needless to say, the combination of wine and cocktails was a deadly one, and the night may have ended up a little more rowdy and less classy than intended... It was SO fun though!

Hey, we looked classy at the start!

...And perhaps a little merry by the end!

Thursday was another work day, albeit a fair less stressful one than Monday! Anna and I escaped our Aboriginal studies tutorial to descend upon the NUSA free BBQ with the boys. So much love for free food. I got my work done, then headed to Church street for a yummy curry made by Domi. 


On Friday I had yet more work to do, sighhh. In the evening we had a film night and watched Lost in Translation, which is really good... I think. It's a bit odd. 


Saturday was going to be a productive day! I headed into town with Roseanna and met up with Kirst and Liz to go to a house viewing. The house was BEAUTIFUL, absolutely perfect, but unfurnished and didn't include bills. Alas, it was not to be! The search continues. The drowned our sorrows (but thankfully not ourselves) at Bogey Hole afterwards. Bogey Hole is a sort of swimming pool cut into the rock at the base of the cliffs past Newcastle Beach. It was excavated by the convicts who first settled here, making it the oldest ocean baths in Australia! Basically, it is a big, freezing cold saltwater pool. Did I mention how cold it is?! The waves crash over the sides, which looks amazing but gets a bit scary when the swells pull you out towards the ocean!

Bogey Hole is gorgeous!

Crazy girl.

The waves all crash over the side of the pool!

...Lots of waves!

:)

We recovered from our Bogey Hole adventures on Newcastle beach, where we bumped into Anna and Levon. We chilled and sunbathed for a while before heading to Go-Lo for sweets and snacks, and then onto Darby street for lunch. We went to Zinc cafe for a (very late) brunch, complete with some INCREDIBLE drinks - snickers milkshake anyone? It was amazing. We continued our adventuring with a walk to Bar Beach, where we ran away from the seagulls (rats of the sky!) and lusted after the beautiful houses along the sea front. Apparently it is obligatory to have floor-to-ceiling windows, with a baby grand piano prominently displayed. We headed back to church street and on towards Honeysuckle to watch the Wales vs France rugby match. I do not know what has happened to me but I have actually started watching - and enjoying - rugby! Don't get me wrong, it will never be as good as football, but it no longer makes me want to die of boredom.... Plus the amazing wedges at The Grand - burning hot and crispy, with mountains of sweet chilli and sour cream - help! Wales lost, which was sad for us and heartbreaking for The Welsh One, but we were cheered up by a serenading from our favourite Trivia man/singer :) Back at Church street, I accidentally spilt a glass of water over my bag, and made the ridiculous oversight of deciding to dry it on liz's halogen heater. How they let me study science at uni, I will never know. Needless to say, the bag went up in flames and Church st smelt of burning canvas for the rest of the evening. Whoops.

Girlies :)

Oh beaut snickers milkshake, HELLO.

Sunday was beautiful weather, so I headed to the beach and spent the afternoon relaxing on the sand, variously with Kirsty, Levon, Anna and Nathan. Kirst and I headed to Kiwi when we got peckish. It serves lots of yummy-looking ice creams with homemade waffles, mm. I got boysenberry swirl ice cream, and mango and passionfruit frozen yoghurt, all smooshed up with frozen mixed berries - it was so good! Once we tired of the beach, we got changed and headed once again to Honeysuckle, where we bagged a seat on the balcony to watch The Big Game: the Wallabies vs the All Blacks. The bar was utterly packed and the atmosphere was amazing. Australia lost, which certainly pleased the few Kiwis dotted around the bar, but it was a good game. Being a Pom, I have little problem with switching my allegiance - England lost, so we went for Wales. When Wales lost, we went for Australia, as it's our adopted country now. Now they've lost? Pff. We never wanted them to win anyways. Go Kiwis! 

YUM!

This week has, as is the fashion with time at the moment, passed in a flash. I cannot comprehend where all of the time has gone! Two weeks until the girlie trip to Sydney for Kirst's 21st. Three more weeks of lectures. Four weeks until my last exam. Madness. 

Weeks Twelve and Thirteen: Spring break in Brisbane with Mum

I wrote my last blog entry two weeks ago, sitting in Newcastle airport awaiting my flight to Brisbane. As I start this entry, I am once again setting up camp in Newcastle airport awaiting my bus back to town. The past two weeks have been spent around Brisbane, Moreton Bay and Gold Coast, having a lovely time.

Two weeks ago, I flew to Brisbane, where my Uncle found me and we waited for Mum's flight from Brunei to arrive. We headed to Brookwater, a suburb between Brisbane and Ipswich, where my Uncle and Auntie live. Their house is amazing, overlooking the golf course, and my room had a pool view! We had a catch up and several glasses of wine before bed.

Monday was going to be a chill day. We had breakfast by the pool, and then lazed around in bikinis and soaked up some rays until the sun disappeared in early afternoon. Rather than sit around all day, we decided to be productive and explore the nature trail around the golf course. The trail had clearly been neglected for several years, and any path had long ago been surrendered to the tangles of vegetation and spiders webs. We persevered  attempting to follow any worn, flattened or disturbed areas of forest, presuming the path must return to its source somehow.... Approximately an hour later, we realised we were very lost, but decided to keep going, in the naive hope that somehow we would end up back at the house. After a long uphill climb, with several backtracks and directional disagreements along the way, we stumbled upon Civilisation. We asked the first passer-by for directions; her startled expression was not a good omen. We were 10km away, walking in the wrong direction.... Undeterred, we started along the road, stopping several times en route to check that we were indeed heading in the right direction. Every person we asked gave us the same look, evidently questioning our mental stability. When darkness fell, a bus driver took pity on us and offered us a ride - for free, when we realised we had no money on us. Once safely within Brookwater, we still managed to get lost, and ended up calling Uncle Julian for a lift home. To say it was a failed stroll would be an understatement.

On Tuesday morning we headed off, bright and early, to Brisbane. We walked to Riverside where we boarded the CityCat for an explore of the city via the river. Once back on dry land, we walked to Southbank, where we discovered where the entire primary school-age population of South-east Queensland spends the holidays... We escaped the hoardes and found a lovely little Greek cafe for lunch, where I had a yummy Halloumi and tzatziki salad wrap :) Nom. We also descended upon an amazing ice cream place for pecan praline icecream, mmm. We went for a wander around Southbank and the city, before getting the train back to Brookwater for the evening.

Story Bridge

A ridiculously overcrowded Street's Beach

:)

The Arbour, Southbank

Wednesday had a very early start, as we got the train to Roma St, then a Bus to Holt St wharf, to meet the catamaran to Moreton Island for our stay at Tangalooma Wild Dolphin Resort. The sky clouded over, making the crossing pretty chilly. The Island was beautiful, but the resort itself wasn't so great. We once again escaped the masses by going on a long walk to a distant beach, which was unbelievably beautiful. Dining options were very limited, so we ended up at an overpriced and unimpressive buffet... We got our moneys worth though: the mini-muffins and fruit made an excellent breakfast!

ENDLESS beaches!

Random fact: Moreton Island is the 3rd largest sand island in the world, after Fraser and North Stradbroke!

Thursday was fairly miserable weather, so we trekked up to the Tangalooma desert. Just as we made it back to the hotel, the heavens opened, so we sought shelter in the room and made an afternoon tea of passionfruit and strawberries, sandwiches, orange and almond cake and lots of tea. Once the skies cleared, the sunset over Moreton Bay was incredible.

Making sand angels!

Afternoon tea on the balcony :)

Sunset!

The rain of the previous day had cleared the skies, so Friday was beautiful weather. We wasted no time in heading along the forest track to the deserted stretch of beach beyond the resort. The sand was white, the water was warm, turquoise and crystal clear. Perfect. In the evening we headed down to the jetty, where you can wade into the water and feed fish to the wild dolphins which visit most evenings. Amazing :)

The view from the lookout over Tangalooma

:)

Saturday was spent in much the same fashion, until the wind suddenly picked up with gusto at 3pm. We packed up from the beach and gathered our belongings for the catamaran crossing back to the mainland, where loading the passengers took almost an hour as the wind had stirred up the sea to such an extent that the gangway kept detaching from the jetty... The crossing itself was horrific. Upstairs was freezing cold, particularly once the sun had set. The entire downstairs was occupied by people painted a delicate shade of olive, with sick bags clamped to their jaws and children crying. We chose the cold.

Sunday was beautiful sunshine, so we spent the day chilling and reading in the garden, before having a BBQ Sunday dinner :)

We got up bright and early on Monday morning to drive down to the Gold Coast to go whale watching. Humpback Whales migrate down the East coast of Australia every spring, and we saw a few of them. Unfortunately the new charger for my DSLR camera had not arrived at this point so my photos of the far-off whales are a bit rubbish, but it was amazing to watch. They plied us with muffins and tea, and in the afternoon the boat headed out to South Stradbroke Island, where we had a lovely BBQ lunch surrounded by inquisitive Golden Wallabies (to whom much of my salad was donated... they were just so cute!) We stayed in Surfers Paradise that night, and went for an explore before dinner. We found an incredible Japanese bakery selling bizarre and wonderful treats such as rum and raisin brioche (yum), green tea playtpus' (yum?) and coconut hotdog pastries (not so yum).

Oh hey Mr Humpback!

Splish splash

Om nom

Tuesday morning heralded glorious sunshine and a brisk breeze, so we decided to stay by the pool (thankfully protected by a big windbreaking wall). In the afternoon we headed down to the other beach - Surfers Paradise is on a spit of land, surrounded on both sides by water, so we went to the sheltered landward beach. We went to Bumbles Cafe for some gorgeous cakes before hopping in the car for the drive back up to Brookwater.

Cakey goodness

Wednesday morning saw another early start, as we got the 7am train to Central in order to get to Cleveland in time for the ferry to North Stradbroke Island. I had heard of a lovely walk through the island to Blue Lake National Park, and the Blue Lake itself. It was 11km each way - not so bad, until you consider the hills... We had a picnic at the Lake, which was pretty but maybe not worth the trek...

After the exertion of our trek on Wednesday, Mum and I opted for a lie-in on Thursday morning - which was just as well, as the weather made a definitive turn for the worse. Whilst the rain persisted, we headed to Orion shopping centre for a quick browse (read shopping spree) and a coffee. Once the rain eased off, we made the trip to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. The Koalas were adorable and numerous, and - in contrast to all the others I had seen - actually moving around! Mum was definitely taken, but I was more interested with the enclosure next door - filled with enormous numbers of Kangaroos and Wallabies! We found quite a few mummy Roos with Joeys in their pouches - many of whom had slightly outgrown their pouches, and were therefore rammed in with their ankles - literally - by their ears!

Hey there Mr Koala

Mum makes a new friend

...as do I.

Kangaroo fight!

!

BABY JOEY!!

Lick. Lick. Lick.

Adorable little joey.

Sleepy old man.

On Friday we headed into Brisbane again. The weather was more agreeable this time round, so we wandered around the beautiful Botanical Gardens, before heading to Southbank for Brunch at Max Brenners chocolate restaurant! We split an INCREDIBLE chocolate brownie and icecream, and a chocolate babka. Mum got a dark chocolate mocha and I had a wonderful hot milk chocolate with crunchy waffle balls, mmmm. The drinks all come in a 'hug mug', which is cute. We walked off the presumably colossal calorie intake in the shops and stalls of Queen Street mall, before getting shoppers fatigue (and a mean sugar hangover) and heading off for a greek salad back at Southbank. I was sad to leave Brisbane, especially Southbank! It's such a gorgeous city, with (usually) lovely weather - plus I love getting around by boat! In the evening Uncle Julian and Auntie Clare took us out on the golf buggies to the clubhouse, where we had far too many gin and tonics, and a lovely posh meal. Driving a golf buggy along an unlit and cane toad-infested golf course, whilst inebriated is a thrilling experience... There were lots of squished froggies. Oops.

Brenner's brownies mmmm

Hug mug! Hot chocolate with crunchy waffle balls :)

Streets beach

Brisbane!

:)

I was awoken on Saturday morning by the sound of thunder, and torrential rain splashing into the pool. The tropical weather had arrived, and our day of sunbathing by the pool was out of the window. Instead, we headed back to the shopping centre, bought some last-minute gifts (and shoes, as my pumps had not fared so well on the 20km North Stradbroke trek...), before settling down outside Coffee Club once the sun started shining. We had sushi, smoothies, and pecan pie :). In the evening, we headed to the local Thai restaurant - an unremarkable-looking affair overlooking the main road. I was blown away - it was one of the best meals I have ever had - helped along by the free 'Jimmy's Special' cocktails, which - we were reliably informed - contained gin, vodka AND rum (as well as a little splash of tonic...). On their own, they were bad; mixed with wine, they were lethal! We squashed a few more cane toads on the buggy ride back to the house, where we had a gin and tonic nightcap... I did not expect to wake up with a hangover whilst staying with my Uncle, Auntie and Mum!

Sunday was leaving day, and the weather was suitably incredible. Uncle Julian drove us to the airport, where mum had to repack her suitcase - Royal Brunei actually care about luggage weight. Amazingly, my bag weighed only a kilo less than mums - despite having only half the luggage allowance - and JetStar didn't bat an eyelid! We said our goodbyes and I got the AirTrain to the domestic terminal, before jetting back down to Newcastle. The horrendously unreliable bus service meant that I had to wait over two hours for the bus back from my one hour flight, but I eventually made it back, exhausted but happy after a lovely two week break.

The holiday is over now, and I am faced with the prospect of a towering monolith of work to complete tomorrow, and in the following weeks, before exams and the inevitable nervous breakdown. It is so strange to think that I have now been here for three months! Everything that I have been planning, seemingly in the distant future, is now happening - or in the case of Spring Break - has already happened! I am not looking forwards to doing all this work and then exams, but if it all keeps going this fast, before I know it I will be jetting off to Melbourne with the girls - and then two weeks later, heading back up the east coast with my favourite boy! Time is going so, so fast - and I am determined to make the most of it.