Getting Busy! - August

Hi Everyone!

I cannot believe that I've been here nearly two months...time is flying by! The beginning of the month was filled with more fun and adventures but sadly that is grinding to a halt as the amount of assignments I have due in is starting to pile up!

Its so weird being in a holiday destination with gorgeous weather every day and yet I have to study...also never in my life have I had to study in August so I really have to kick my brain into gear!

I feel like I am pretty much settled in now - I have a routine and I'm more comfortable with the shops and lectures and the city feels much more familiar to me now. 

I also had the great pleasure of seeing someone from back home! My boss's wife flew over from England (shes from Queensland!) and brought with her some very missed items! I never knew how much I truly loved Marmite until I was deprived (and the Marmite from New Zealand is very much not the same!!). I got to spend some time with her and her daughter and it was just really lovely to spend time with familiar people...its definitely tiring always being around new people, and its comforting talking about things from back home when the other person actually understands what on earth I'm talking about!

Having said that, I am making some great friends. It's super cool to meet people from all over the world and everyone has different interests so I'm getting to experience a lot of new things! My amazing accommodation has a lot of free events including weekly pancakes, breakfast on Friday mornings and walking tours of the city! It's really lovely to go to the events because typically people with the same interests as me go to them and often the same people turn up to all the events so I'm getting to meet some lovely people that I never would have met otherwise!

Noosa

I went to Noosa right at the beginning of August with Exchange Buddies, a great group at university who arrange trips every week for international students. We first went to the Eumundi Market which was just gorgeous, there were so many stalls selling things I've never seen in England and the Asian influence in Australia provided many incredible food stalls! There was also a lot of live music!

Then we headed to the beach! I feel like I repeat myself a lot but every beach I've been to so far really has been like a paradise! 

Noosa is on the Sunshine Coast, which is north of Brisbane whereas the Gold Coast where I went in July is south of Brisbane. The Gold Coast is known for it's beaches of course but also the party scene! Noosa and the rest of the Sunshine Coast in contrast is known to be much more relaxed. I have to say I totally agree with that, and I personally prefer the Sunshine Coast, Noosa was just a quiet seaside town with stunning beaches. I will definitely go back!

The beach we found was practically empty - in England a beach this beautiful would be packed!

 We went on a long hike around Noosa National Park which was just stunning. Gorgeous coast on one side of us and a forest on the other. We tried to look out for koalas which are often seen here in the wild but sadly we didn't see any! It was a gorgeous temperature (as usual!) but it was so windy!! I am still finding sand everywhere almost a month after the trip! It even managed to get behind my ears and in my eyebrows!

Ekka

Ekka was just fun! It's the big agricultural show of Queensland that occurs once a year and is actually a public holiday in Brisbane! It's somewhere that most people from Queensland seem to have gone to as a child and is very child oriented, I definitely would have loved it then! There were countless rides, food stalls, arcade games and of course live animals! I did feel slightly like I was back in Somerset at the Bath and West show! Even though I'm not a child anymore I still thoroughly enjoyed the experience, as did anyone else I met who went. Us international students just seemed to be amazed by it all!

This is the famous Ekka strawberry sundae! It was absolutely delicious...the inside was filled with strawberries and it was definitely the best strawberry ice cream I have ever tasted.

It was really cool to see a different part of Queensland come to the city...some of the accents of the farmers were so strong I could barely understand them! Overall it was lovely to have a day off of studying and I am so glad I went.

Byron Bay

By far the best place I have been since arriving in Australia. I went on a three day surf trip to Byron Bay and oh my god it was incredible. It was certainly very tiring...we had an incredibly busy schedule! The two nights we stayed there we went to parties in some clubs and then on two of the days we spent 4 hours surfing! We also went hiking up to Cape Byron Lighthouse which was incredible because we got to see whales and dolphins!  The only sadness was that we failed to see the Hemsworths, although we did drive past where they live...

The Paint Party!

The most beautiful view so far...watching whales and dolphins with a mountain range in the back!

It was by far the most hippy place I have ever been to. It's a very expensive area to live and yet the residents are all barefoot, blonde dread-locked beach goers. We were asked not to do drugs at the hostel but if we wanted to do drugs go and join people on the beach..it was that sort of place! But it was so laid back and everyone was lovely. The only requirement for getting into the clubs was that we wore shoes, a requirement I thought would be quite obvious until we saw everyone in Byron!

Surfing was great fun...although extremely tiring! I now see why everyone in Byron Bay was so fit. It was really fun to try something new with people and we were all in the same boat. But I am glad that I got to go surfing in one of the top surf spots in the world! The surf instructors were the most typical Australians I have ever met in my life but it make me laugh that one of them was Scottish! He definitely fitted the Bryon look though...

Despite all the adventures one of my favourite parts of the whole trip was where myself and a few friends had a couple of hours off and we just lay on the beach and then got sushi and ate sushi on the beach listening to an amazing acoustic guitarist who was playing live. It was so nice just to chill out and relax.

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September should be another exciting month! I am going to Sydney next week for 4 days, we have a mid-semester break coming up right at the end of the month and of course it's my birthday! Yesterday was the last day of winter so I am also expecting it to start getting much hotter!

Sending everyone my love,

M xxx