I'm writing this entry sat on my bare mattress, surrounded by bags and the worlds largest suitcase, with the detritus of my year abroad littering the room around me. I am frantically packing up my room on my last day here on Church Street. It has been a hectic, emotional and busy week, as I've rushed around to tick off final bucket list items, say my goodbyes and organise my life.
Last week, we travelled to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. It was a place we've all been meaning to visit for the whole year, but it was always eclipsed by more exotic, far-flung destinations. The Blue Mountains are so close, they were always shelved and postponed. They weren't going anywhere! In the last few weeks though, we've realised we really need to get a shimmy on and go there if we're going to, so we booked a hostel and endured WAY too many hours of CityRail's abysmal service.
We stopped off in Sydney the night before, to watch the VIVID light festival at Circular Quay. I'd heard a lot about it and I was pretty excited. The projection on the Customs House was incredible - a shifting, interactive video game-scenario, projected onto the front. The Opera House had an equally impressive but somewhat bizarre projection of a dancer writhing on the roof. Whilst it looked beautiful, it was a little.. odd.
Customs House. (Cafe Sydney!)
The Opera House.
The next day, we spent a few hours end-of-year souvenir shopping at Paddy's markets, and sunbaking at Darling Harbour. Then we hopped on a train to Katoomba. At first glance the town was adorable, with lots of cute little shops and cafes. We found our hostel, which was perfect! It was just a little bungalow, with a snuggly living room, and only three dorms. We had booked out one of them, and the other two were unoccupied. Essentially, we had our own little holiday cottage in the mountains! It was very, very cold (and we were still suffering a little from the previous night in Sydney), so we spent the evening snuggled up on the sofa, watching atrocious chick flicks and eating copious amounts of junk food.
The next morning we set out to see the sights. We took the glass-bottom cable car across the canyon, where the views were amazing. The clouds were miles below us, down in the valley, and the sky was bright blue. At the end of the cable car, we walked down to Katoomba cascades and along to Katoomba falls, which - at 221 feet - were spectacular. We also found an adorable little chocolate shop, where we helped ourselves to ridiculous amounts of free samples. We bought beautiful D-I-Y hot chocolates, where you add chocolate buttons to hot milk over a candle flame :)
Mount Solitary
Katoomba Cascades
Yummy hot chocolate!
Frieeeends.
In the afternoon, we took the world's steepest railway (52 degrees!) to the valley floor, and walked through the rainforest. We also followed the clues left in the hostel by Marty (who had visited earlier in the week), and walked down exactly 72 of the iron steps which make up the Giants Stairway at the Three Sisters, to find where 'X' marked the spot. There, buried in the ground beneath the step, was a little bag containing a woven bracelet for each of us. It was amazing! We watched the sun set over Echo Point and the Three Sisters. In the evening, we headed out for a meal in town.
Scary!
Beautiful view from Echo Point, over the Three Sisters.
They call them Blue for a reason!
The next day, we awoke at 6am in an attempt to watch the sunrise from Echo Point. The pre-dawn mist swirling over the mountains was beautiful, but the sunrise was nowhere to be seen. After a while, cold and tired, we headed back to the hostel to pack our stuff before commencing the 5-hour journey back to Newy. The journey was long, but the trip was so worth it. The Blue Mountains were so beautiful!
Pre-dawn at the Three Sisters.
Eerie!
Since then, I have had my last exam (statistics), which was surprisingly painless. We've had cyclonic storms hitting the whole of the east coast, with 23ft swells and 70mph winds battering Newy. The entire length of Newcastle beach has been obliterated, with the waves carrying huge sandbanks onto the pavements, and tonnes of oceanic litter coating the beach. Roseanna and I ventured out at night, in the midst of the storm, and battled the winds all the way to the ocean baths. The waves were breaking way over the walls, which were a good 15ft above the sea level. Crazy.
Newy beach DESTROYED by the storm!
Bye bye volleyball nets :(
Yesterday was our unofficial Autonomy Day II. Last Auto day was SO much fun, but the next one falls in August, after we have left! Therefore, we decided to throw our own! We held a sleepover in Kirst's room, and set alarms for 3am. We got up and the drinking began... At 6.30am we walked up to Fort Shepherd in King Edward's Park, to watch the most incredible sunrise I have ever seen. The sky was stained bright red, pink and gold. Unbelievable.
Incredible.
We ventured back to the house for pancakes topped with EVERYTHING. The theme of our food that day was, apparently, 'carbs topped with stuff': porridge with nutella, pancakes with everything, wedges with dip, waffles with ice cream... Healthy as.
Over breakfast, I was presented with an early birthday present of a bottle of Hendricks Gin from my housemates! I was completely surprised, and it was so sweet of them! It's my favourite gin and it's so, so expensive here! I had to have a breakfast G&T, just to celebrate!
!!
Around lunchtime - and completely out of the blue - Josh got a call from the landlord announcing that we're all being evicted! The landlord is going to Europe for a month today, and has been very stressy about the details of our moving out. We made one wrong move - forgetting to empty the bins in the kitchen on Autoday - and he flipped his lid. Legally, he had no right, as he should have given us 14 days written notice, but we figured we're better off cutting our losses, grabbing our bonds back, and running for the hills! Therefore, we're moving in with Perry, Liz's boyfriend, until we leave. He has been super generous and offered us all a place to stay :)
The rest of the day was a little less stressful, with an afternoon of drinking in Josh's room and a party at Erin's house in the evening. It was a ridiculous day, with way more drama than expected, but it was so much fun! By the time I got to bed, I had been up and drinking for 21 hours! Ouch.
It's so strange to think that this is my 341st night in Australia, out of 343. In two days, I will get the train to Sydney, complete with my unbelievably heavy suitcase, rucksack, laptop and handbag. I will check in, deposit my luggage, and start the first leg of my marathon 24-hr journey encompassing two hemispheres and three continents.
This year has been the most incredible, exhilarating year of my life. I have laughed more, taken more risks, met more people and seen more sunrises than I could ever have imagined. I have jumped out of airplanes, stroked the shells of seaturtles browsing the reef, jumped from waterfalls in underground caves. I have made incredible new friends, from all over the world. I have come to realise that a year abroad has absolutely nothing to do with studying. In 10 years, I will have no recollection of my module choices. I will, however, remember forcing myself out of bed to watch the sun stain the sky gold and pink. I'll remember watching the stars swirling in the sky on new years eve, from a desert island. I will remember the metallic tang of goon, the sunsets from the Obelisk and the feeling of running barefoot alongside the wave-skipping dolphins at Nobby's beach.
Before I left, I had no idea what to expect. I contemplated dropping out of the year abroad scheme, scared of missing people, running out of money or missing out on graduating with my friends. Looking back, those excuses seem so ridiculous. Moving to the other side of the world for a year has been the most terrifying, challenging and amazing experience of my life. I will miss this year, this place and these people more than I can even comprehend.
Ahhh, the bucket list. The quick scribble of last-minute Australian experiences, noted down in a post-feasting haze, has taken on a life of its own. At the time of writing, it consists of upwards of 25 items, ranging from brunches to skinny dips.
In the past week alone, we have ticked off several. We have visited Newy Museum and Art Gallery (#1 and #2, respectively). We've popped to Jordans Bakery Cafe for beautiful bluebird hot chocolates, which come in the form of a huge honeycomb-chocolate chunk, stirred into hot milk (#10). We've (sorry, Dad) gone skinny dipping in the ocean baths (#6) - it had to be done! We've spent an incredible day sampling the Hunter Valley's most famous produce on a wine tour (#4). We've finally, FINALLY made it to Paymasters Cafe for the most incredible breakfast (#5) - we actually managed five breakfasts between the four of us, much to the astonishment of the waiters! We also spent a very soggy day down on the Central Coast, visiting Terrigal (#18). It's been an adventure!
#10: Bluebird hot chocolate, yum!
#4: Hunter Valley wine tour!
#4 continued...
#4 continued - a vineyard in winter.
Two weeks ago, the surf was HUGE, and the waves at Newcastle beach were topping 10ft. The entire ocean baths was under water - it was a pretty amazing sight. The waves on Wednesday are supposedly going to dwarf those though - with swells of 15ft expected. I'm pretty excited to get down there and see it!
The kids baths, overflowing.
The entire ocean baths complex was underwater!
My second semester of Aussie uni has come to a close, and I've been very busy finishing off assignments and tying up loose ends. Now all that remains is two exams, before I bid adieu to the University of Newcastle, Australia FOREVER. What a strange thought.
I've also finished my job at the Merewether Surfhouse (thankfully)! I am not going to miss being a dishy - or walking the 5km back home in the dead of night! I will miss the wages though - it will be a shock to the system going home and getting a job paying only £6 or £7 an hour. Here, the minimum wage is $15, and most jobs pay upwards of $20 - which is about £12!
The past three weeks have flown by! Each weekend I mean to sit down and write a new blog, but each time I've been distracted by this or that. It's completely mental how fast time is going now. In exactly 16 days - just 16! - I will have transformed into the Crazy Crying Plane Girl, cruising over Northern Australia at 33,00ft. Waaaah :(
:)
Newcastle, we love you!
This week, I have an exam on Wednesday afternoon, before we all up sticks and head to Sydney for the Vivid lights festival, then onto the Blue Mountains for the weekend (Bucket list #3). I'm so excited!
With all the comings and goings of my last few weeks here, it's likely that my next blog entry will be my last from Australia. That feels so wrong! I am definitely excited to escape the cockroaches and be reunited with Aussie hair products (which, funnily enough, they don't sell here), crunch creams and my nearest and dearest. I still can't quite get my head around it, though. It is going to feel WEIRD.
For now though, I am way too busy to spend too long thinking about it! I have countless coffees to drink, sights to see, goonbags to regret, cupcakes to nibble and experiences to have! The bucket list continues...
