fourteen and a half

when classes were finished for the semester, we were tired of sitting around in our residence (which to be honest was a little constricting after a while….), so we planned a trip about three hours out of the city to a place on the coast called port elliot. it was cold but sunny, and since it was the off season it was empty. we spent three days wandering around and taking pictures, relaxing by the fire in the hostel, and eating cheap steak dinners at the local bar. definitely helped us to relax!

we celebrated her birthday by going to the horse races in our fancy dresses and drinking champagne! we had a great time, and we got to see black caviar (very famous racehorse) race. she won, of course. we stayed all day and had mcdonalds (typical) for supper. probably one of my favourite days of my whole six months in australia…

cairns is a small place. we could walk from our accommodation to the waterfront in a matter of minutes, though there was never a guarantee that you’d want to, seeing as it was what felt like forty degrees celsius every day. there were barely clouds, and the sun was unbelievably strong. it rained towards the end of our trip, but it did nothing to damper our spirits. cairns is probably in my top three favourite places i’ve visited so far. what with the daintree rainforest (which is gorgeous) and the great barrier reef (top three in things i’ve done in my life), it is seriously one of the most impressive and amazing natural places to be.

i learned how to surf on a group trip to goolwa beach, which is i think two hours from adelaide. surfing itself wasn’t that hard - i can stand up on the board and stay up for a short period. but that day the waves were 5 feet tall and i could barely stand up in the sand when the water was at my waist, let alone deeper. a friend and i ended up leaving our boards on the beach and playing in the shallow water because the strength of the waves and currents anywhere deeper than that was really quite scary. it was lots of fun overall though! i’d like to try surfing another day, when the waves aren’t ridiculously big…