Hi! It’s been a while, I’ve now fully recovered from my trip and gotten back to the swing of things. Everything in school is going good, I’ve had to do quite a lot of work (at least more than usual) for my maths and physics assessments in the past weeks. In biology we’re studying human physiology, in English Australian culture and stereotypes and in aquatic practice we’re doing snorkelling (in the pool for now) for this term. In international sport we’ve so far gone to the beach once and surfed which was really fun. Another thing that happened in school was the multicultural night on Wednesday the 24th of October. We had prepared food in the afternoon, each dish significant to a country, and in the evening we went back to school, set up our tent and put out the treats. Everyone’s treats sold pretty well. As a Finnish minority I didn’t get to do any typical foods but I helped everyone in the kitchen so I still got to cook some things which was nice. Later in the evening all of the internationals participated in the big show in the hall by doing the chicken dance on stage.
On the previous Saturday (the 20th) a lot of people from our school went to Fright Nights in WB Movie World. The amusement park was all Halloween-y and scary with clowns and creepy axemen. Before the night we all dressed up together, not as anything specific but there was a sort of vampire-is vibe going on. We had so much fun together, we did two rollercoasters and a scary maze.
The next Saturday we went to the Snapper Rocks in Coolangatta. The beach and the rock pools are beautiful and we had a really nice time.
On Sunday we were in Burleigh and on Monday we went to the outlets in Ashmore. I didn’t find anything to wear, but I think the trip was still successful because I spotted some Finnish chocolate and bought like three bars. (Unfortunately my stash is empty already because they were so good) The rest of the week was pretty normal, school, homework, beach and things like that. On Friday we went to Surfers Paradise for dinner. We ate at Betty’s Burgers and later had ice creams from Ben & Jerry’s. The food was delicious and later we went to the markets by the beach. Saturday and Sunday weren’t anything special or out of the ordinary.
This Tuesday we had a trip with the school. All of us internationals were going to Springbrook national park and Numinbah valley. Everyone met at the school bus bay at 9.00 in the morning and we drove about an hour to the national park. There we did two hikes, the first one was a short one to the ‘Best Of All’ look out point, where you could see all of the mountains. The weather was a bit foggy so we couldn’t see all the way to Coolangatta, but the view was still pretty amazing. On the way to the lookout point we also saw a carpet python in the wild. The second one was about a 4 kilometre long trail to see the waterfalls. We walked for about two hours through different types of rainforests and under the waterfalls.
It was a really hot day and everyone was happy to get back on the air-conditioned bus. We drove to to the environmental centre, had some afternoon tea, and then we had a look at the reptiles there. A long neck turtle and its babies, a pink tongued lizard, a snake-like lizard and a carpet python. We got to touch and hold all of the animals and get a picture taken with the python. Later we had an early dinner at the centre before our glowworm walk. The Glowworm walk was about 400 metres long through the rainforest to a cave, where most of the glowworms were. On the way there we also saw another carpet python and a firefly, which was apparently pretty rare. The glowworms in the cave were shining in different hues of blue and looked like little stars on the ceiling. The cave also had a hole on the top where a waterfall came flowing in.
We left the cave and walked up the trail to the waterfall where we could see the cave from above. Then we had to get on the bus again and drive to school, because we had to be back by 8.30. I really liked the trip despite the hot and humid weather. It was fun spending the day together with everyone from school and see the local national park.
So there, another update on some of the highlights and the things I’ve been up to during the past few weeks. Hope you enjoyed reading it!