Week Ten

The infamous dingo

Echidna



Cassowary

 

 

Hello again ladies and gentlemen! This week's post is fortunately going to be online early in the week, unlike last week's post. Much like last week, there isn't a whole lot going on, so this post won't be terribly long. Before getting into the meat of the post, I'll give the customary explanation of the pictures included in this entry. The legendary dingo of Australian lore is pictured in the upper left-hand corner. Once again, I apologize for the blurry quality of these photos, most of them were taken at a substantial distance as the animals were in caged expanses. To the right of the dingo is the echidna, a peculiar, furry pig-like creature that I'd never even heard of prior to my visit to Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. Below both of these pictures, is the cassowary, which holds the distinction of being the world's most dangerous bird.

 

Because not much is going on this week, I suppose I should shed some light on the town in which I'm studying. Wagga Wagga is an Aboriginal term meaning "place of many crows", and believe me it is an apt description. The crows and their loud braying-like birdcall can be heard at just about any time of the day. Wagga Wagga (or simply Wagga as the locals call it) is a town more or less the same size as my hometown of Joplin, Missouri. I think the population hovers somewhere around 60,000 making it the largest inland city in all of New South Wales. In Australia, nearly all of the major population centers are located on the coast, so a town with such a population to be five hours from the nearest beach is quite rare.

 

While Wagga may not be as big as Sydney, Melbourne or the other more well-known cities in Australia, I'd have to say I am very satisfied with being able to study here rather than in any of those places. Having grown up in Joplin, I'm not much of a big city guy in the first place; and I have to admit I was a little intimidated by the sheer size of Sydney. Wagga, being much smaller in size, definitely feels much more like home; and the CSU campus is located about 10 kilometres (6 miles) north of the city centre, which gives the campus a delightful country vibe with lots of greenery and beautiful scenery. And while Wagga may seem lacking in size when compared to Sydney, it is big enough to have everything I need (there are plenty of shops and stores along the city's main street, although, getting into town can be a bit of a hassle).

 

So, I guess Wagga's perfect size makes me feel right at home. Because it's not too big, I don't feel intimidated or uncomfortable; and because it's not too small I don't feel isolated or bored. I wasn't really aware of how at home I felt in Wagga (after all it's about 10,000 miles from my true home) until I visited Sydney and the Gold Coast. After finishing my vacation, I actually felt a sense of comfort and relief upon returning to my (temporary) home.

 

 

 

 

 

Week Nine

A Wild Wallaby

Main Beach

Q1 Building

Surfers Paradise

Hey all! Welcome back to my blog! I would just like to start off by apologizing for the delay in Week Nine's entry being posted. I've been a bit busy this week, and to be honest, I seem to keep forgetting.
There isn't much to discuss in this week's post as my first week back after break has been pretty monotonous, so this week's post will be a bit short.

As I've spent the past two entries discussing the two highlights of my trip to the Gold Coast (the rainforest tour and Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary) I suppose I should talk a bit about some of the other things I did during my five day stay there.

Outside of my visits to the hinterlands and the wildlife sanctuary, I'd have to say my favorite thing in the Gold Coast was the beach. As the city's name would suggest, Gold Coast is very much a beach town. There were several very popular beaches in the area, but Main Beach was the one that I chose to visit, as it was very close and easily accessible from the hostel I was staying at. While the weather wasn't exactly hot on the days I visited, it was pleasant and sunny and the water wasn't too freezing.

The place I stayed in was a very nice and pleasant hostel called Gold Coast Backpackers. Having always stayed at hotels during my vacations, the concept of a hostel was very foreign to me. For those of you unfamiliar with what exactly a hostel is, it is basically very affordable accommodation where you share bedrooms with strangers. I would probably prefer to stay at a hotel, but very fortunately, everyone I have stayed with so far has been very nice and courteous. In fact of the four nights I stayed at this hostel, I only had to share my room once.

The hostel was located in a place called Surfers Paradise, which is the main commercial district in the Gold Coast. It was very tourist-oriented, there was a very convenient tram system that actually stopped right outside my hostel. In fact, Surfers Paradise was so tourist-oriented that it really seemed to me like an Australian approximation of Los Angeles, with the way the buildings looked and they manner in which they were arranged. Regardless, however, it was a very nice area to stay in.

As you can tell, while I enjoyed my tour of the Queensland Hinterlands and the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary the most, I thoroughly enjoyed my entire stay in the Gold Coast. Just for the clarification, the building pictured above labeled "Q1 building" is the Queensland One building, the tallest building in Australia and the entire Southern Hemisphere. It was formally the tallest residential building in the world until just recently.

That's it for this week guys! You'll all hear from me again next week, and I'll try and publish my post a bit earlier in the week. Thanks for bearing with me!

Week Eight

Waterfall

Springbrook Rainforest

Me and the parrots

Tambourine Mountain

Hello again everyone and welcome back to JayceDownUnder! Well, it's Week Eight now, which means that I'm  officially halfway through my time here in Australia. This is beginning of the second week of the mid-term break, and after this week there will be six more full weeks of class followed by two weeks of final exams. After that, I'll be back home. Now that I have returned home from my short vacation up to the Gold Coast I plan to spend the remainder of my break relaxing and completing some pretty big assignments due in the near future. As there's not much other than that going on at the moment, I'm going to spend this post discusing the all-day tour of the Gold Coast "hinterlands" I took last week.

On Monday, the day after my visit to the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, I embarked on a Southern Cross 4WD all-day tour. After being picked up from my hotel, we headed up to Tambourine Mountain, pictured above. I have to say Tambourine Mountain was probably one of the most uniquely Australian I've been to so far in. For those of you that don't know, wilderness in Australia is commonly referred to as the "bush". Therefore, the term hiking is not used down under; instead it is called "bushwalking". Tambourine Mountain is considered bushland and is considered to be distinctive from the rainforest. As you can tell from the picture above, it is full of eucalyptus and gum trees and is a fascinating place.

While on Tambourine Mountain, we stopped for morning tea at a lovely place called the Old Church. After that, we continued on to Tambourine Rainforest. As if the bushland on Tambourine Mountain wasn't fascinating enough, the rainforest was one of the most naturally beautiful places I've ever laid my eyes on. Having never seen a rainforest with my own eyes, but having viewed many photos,  I kind of had an idea of what it would look like but I was still absolutely blown away. True to form, the rainforest was noticeably colder than the rest of the mountain, due mainly to the fact that the forest was so thick and dense there was barely any sunlight shining through the canopy. Inside the Tambourine Rainforest, there was a beautiful waterfall and a picturesque creek on the forest floor.

After we were done walking through Tambourine Rainforest, we stopped for lunch after a half-hour drive through the Queensland "hinterlands". After lunch, I tried having a go with a boomerang and managed to get it to more or less return to me a couple times (the other throws were complete disasters however). After we were done, we took another 45 minute drive through the mountains up some very steep and windy roads, some of which were more than a little nerve-wracking. Upon completion of our drive, we arrived at Springbrook National Park, another mountainous rainforest filled with strangler trees, Wonga vines, and Australian birds. Australian birds are not only more exotic and more colorful than North American birds, they are also much louder. As I walked through Springbrook Rainforest, the air was filled with all kinds of exotic birdsongs. There is a bird native to the Gold Coast area called the Queensland Albert Liar bird, which is incredibly unique in that it can imitate almost any sound from a camera snap to a running chainsaw.

The Springbrook Rainforest trail eventually gave way to the rainforest skywalk which consisted of rickety bridges several meters above the rainforest floor. The last thing we did on the tour was bird feeding just outside the entrance to the rainforest trail. The moment I was handed the feed tray, I was swarmed by beautifully colored birds. While the parrots were absolutely gorgeous, I could only hold the feed tray for a few mintues at a time as it was quite painful to have all their talons dug into me. It was also a bit frightening the way they would come to you, swarming right at your face and landing atop your head. But overall, it was an immensely enjoyable experience and I'm very glad I did it.

Well, that concludes this week's blog post. See you all next week!



Week Seven

Me and Yanni

The elusive tree kangaroo

A not so manic Tasmanian Devil

A very friendly kangaroo

Hello again and welcome to Week Seven! Once again, I hope everyone is doing alright and that the transition back into school has gone smoothly. Sorry for the delay in this week's post, but as I mentioned last week, I have been away for a few days and without access to a good internet connection. And the reason why I have been away will be the subject of this week's post, and I think it will be the subject of next week's post as well. 

As I mentioned last time, I took a trip up to the Gold Coast in southern Queensland; which for those of us not well-versed in Australian geography is still on the east coast, although significantly further north of where I'm studying in Wagga. A quick fun fact for you: as Australia is in the southern hemisphere, it actually gets hotter as you journey further north and get closer to the equator. Conversely, traveling south brings you closer to Antarctica and cooler weather (although not miserably cold weather like you get in Missouri winters).So, as a result, I was able to spend a few days in a very pleasant sub-tropical climate. When I first arrived at the Gold Coast it was cloudy and rainy, and I was also very tired from traveling, so the first day was quite uneventful. The second day, however, was, to borrow an Australian expression- "heaps" of fun. And that will be the topic of this week's blog entry.

On Sunday August 24th, I paid a visit to Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary in the Gold Coast. It is a very large zoo-like place that has a bit more of an open natural feel to it: hence the name "wildlife sanctuary". However, I can confidently say that, in my experience, it is the best zoo I've ever visited. It has come to my attention that in my previous posts I have not been very good about posting pictures of myself. So hopefully these next two weeks will make up for that. Not only was Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary the best zoo I've ever been to, it was also the most interactive. The first photograph, quite obviously, is me holding a six year old koala named Yanni. I had to pay a bit extra to get to hold her, but it was well worth it. The second picture is, you guessed it, me fulfilling a life goal of petting a kangaroo. At one point in the wildlife sanctuary, there was a delightful open enclosure with several kangaroos bathing lazily in the sun. I was taken aback by how friendly these kangaroos were, they literally rolled over like dogs when you started to pet them. 

In addition to the cute and cuddly kangaroos and koalas, there were of course many other fascinating animals at Currumbin. There was a crocodile feeding show which I attended, which you can find photographic evidence of on my Facebook page, and all sorts of native Australian wildlife. I'd have to say that out of all the animals there, my favorite would probably have to be the bashful tree kangaroo. I didn't even know this creature existed prior to my visit to Currumbin, but after seeing it, I immediately loved it. As you can see, it's a bit smaller than the average kangaroo, and it has a very fox-like color to its fur. I was kind of disappointed that I didn't get to see it up close, but as it makes its home in the trees, it's not one for petting. Other than the tree kangaroo, I also particularly enjoyed the Tasmanian devils and the dingoes in addition to my aforementioned furry friends.

Well, I think that's about it for this week. Next week, I will discuss the other highlight of my trip: my full day tour of the rainforest and the Gold Coast "hinterlands". See you then!

Week Six

Hello and welcome back to my humble blog! I hope everyone is doing well and I'd like to let everyone know that I am still alive, still healthy, and still having a great time here in Australia. It's hard to believe this is already my sixth week of blogging. At the completion of this week, my semester will officially be halfway over. Wow! I've said this before, but I am really amazed at how incredibly quickly the time has gone by. Before I get started talking about this week's topic (Australian academics) I would just like to clarify something about the photographs in this week's entry. They are not in any way relevant to the topic, I simply haven't had many phot-ops (or at least haven't thinking about taking photos) so I just decided to include some pictures I thought were appealing (even thought I am still very much a novice photographer). These four photos were all taken during my trip to Sydney three weeks ago at the Royal Botanic Gardens. They're not important landmarks of any kind, they just look very lovely.

So, as you can guess, being six weeks into the semester means my workload has begun to pick up significantly. I must admit the stress I'm accustomed to feeling normally at the end of a semester has already hit me so far. Luckily, all the due dates have been outlined in the syllabi, so I am able to plan and manage my time around them. I have just recently completed a 2500 word essay and am currently halfway through another. One of the difficulties of going to school in a place like Australia, is that I often forget that I'm not simply on vacation and am actually going to school. But no worries, as I continue to take my studies seriously. In fact, I find I am able to devote even more time to my homework as I do not have the struggle of balancing my jobs on top of my assignments.

One huge and very obvious difference between Australian and American academics is the grading scale. In Australia, the highest attainable grade is a High Distinction or HD. The next highest is a Distinction, after that a Credit, a Pass, and finally a Fail. Getting As is something I strive for in America, and normally achieve after putting in the necessary amount of work. However, in Australia, an HD is almost like an A+ with extra credit, they are very rarely handed out, and only in honor of truly outstanding work. I did not receive an HD on my first assignment (a very small and short essay) but I hope to get one on every assessment from this point forward.

Another huge difference between the Australian and American university experience is the way in which students interact with their instructors. Australian culture seems to be slightly less formal than American culture. Students commonly refer to their lecturers by their first name, and there is a very level playing field between student and teacher, which I find very nice for facilitating discussion. However, I must admit I am a little uncomfortable calling my professors by his or her first name. I still from time to time refer to my lecturers as Doctor (insert last name) simply because that's what I'm used to, and it just feels right to me for some reason.

Well, that's all I've got for this week. The weather seems to be getting nicer and nicer each day in Wagga, and we've had a string of gorgeous days as of late. The majority of my days have been spent in front of a computer at the library, but I am taking a trip to the Gold Coast in Queensland next week so I'm quite excited for that. Because of this, next week's blog post will be later in the week as I won't have access to a computer during the first few days. But I can assure that there will be new and very interesting pictures to supplement my next few posts.

Week Five




St. Mary's Cathedral

 






World War I memorial in Parramatta Park

    



Hey all! Hello again and welcome back to what will be my fifth week's post so far! Wow! It's hard to believe I've been in Australia for five weeks already! In fact, last week on August 5th marked my one month anniversary of being in Australia! Time flies I guess. Anyways, this week's post will function as a brief  update on my day-to-day dealings as well as some extra tidbits on some of the historical stuff I saw while I was in Sydney that I forgot to mention in my last post.

As I said already, it has already been five weeks since I arrived in Wagga Wagga on July 8th, and I'm nearly halfway finished with the semester. As you would expect, my workload is starting to pick up a bit and my schedule is filling up more and more. Luckily, my assigments are spread out just enough to where I can manage my time effectively around them. I've worked and went to school at the same time consistently since I was a senior in high school, so I must admit I feel as if I have a lot more free time to do things and get work done. However, it is a solid 15 minute walk from my dorm to the nearest computer lab so it does feel like a bit of a hassle if I need to do work on the computer. Nevertheless, I do enjoy staying busy. It is a bit tough to be 10,000 miles away from one's family and to be alone without any sort of friends and support beforehand, so staying busy with school work and the like prevents me from getting too homesick.

Which brings me to some more good news. As I've mentioned in my earlier posts, Australians seem to be by default nicer and friendlier than most Americans, so I've had no trouble making new friends. I've also joined a church recently which has given me a strong sense of community and spiritual support doing much to sort of stabilize my time here. Charles Sturt University is not much larger than Missouri Southern, so living on campus has allowed me to part of a very close-knit university community. Having friends and nice people to talk to might just be the number one thing in staving off loneliness and homesickness.

My classes here at CSU have been progressing quite nicely. I've only had a couple of assignments that have actually been due so far, so I have yet to recieve a grade back yet, but I am quite confident I have done well. There is a two week break approaching in just two weeks that I look forward to immensely, as it gives me the opportunity to travel and see more of Australia. After that, if the first half of the semester is any evidence, the weeks will only pass more quickly as the semester continues.

To conclude this week's post, I will take a moment to shed some light on the pictures included in this particular blog entry. The two photographs above (taken by yours truly) are of St. Mary's Cathedral in Sydney, and of the Parramatta Park World War I Memorial. As I said last week, St. Mary's Cathedral had to be one of the most beautiful churches I've ever seen and I also mentioned how incredibly lovely Parramatta Park was. As for the two photos below, the top one is of the Government House in the Royal Botanic Gardens which I was unable to go inside of as it was hosting an official function on that day. The bottom photograph depicts Hambledon Cottage in Parramatta, the oldest still standing colonial building in all of Australia. Pretty cool stuff! Well, that's all for this week so you'll all hear from me again next week!



Government House





Hambledon Cottage

 

Week Four

Mrs. Macquarie's Point

Old Government House

Sydney Opera House

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Well, it's about that time again! As I mentioned in last week's blog post, I will be discussing my recent trip to Sydney over this past weekend. I will be talking about some of the iconic landmarks I saw while there, as well as some places slightly off the beaten path that I found very charming.

 

The first thing that comes to mind when an American (or at least most Americans) think of Australia is probably the kangaroo. To us, Australia is the "Land Down Under" a strange, exotic place full of deadly spiders, snakes, koalas, and wallabys with a rugged terrain personified by its most famous landmark, Ayers Rock (or Uluru as it has been traditionally called by Aboriginal Australians). This was more or less the concept of Australia I had prior to doing more research and actually visiting the country. Australia is actually much more of an urban and suburban country, perhaps maybe more so than the United States. While it is certainly true that practically the entire middle portion of the continent is a remote, inhospitable desert (the "Outback") the vast majority of Australia's population live along the coast, particularly the southeast coast, or just slightly inland (like Wagga Wagga). While in Sydney, I witnessed vast suburban sprawls with houses that were closer together and had smaller yards (or gardens as the Aussie terminology goes) than most American suburban dwellings.

 

Nevertheless, for those of us that are aware of the fact that there are cities in Australia and that children don't ride kangaroos to school or carry boomerangs with them everywhere, the most popular image that comes to mind has got to be the Sydney Opera House. Needless to say, that was probably the thing I was most excited to see in Sydney, and it definitely failed to disappoint. It was a very vast, remarkable piece of architecture and I was quite surprised at how long it took to get around all of it. In most photographs you see of the Opera House, the most common backdrop is probably the lovely Sydney Harbour Bridge. While it is less commonly known than the Opera House (I didn't know the name until shortly prior to arriving in Sydney) it is certainly one of Sydney's iconic landmarks, sort of like their Golden Gate Bridge. The Bridge extends from one side of the harbour to the other leading to a lovely arrangement of buildings on hills on the eastern side. While I was in the area, I also paid a visit to the Australian Museum of Contemporary Art which contained some fascinating exhibits, my favorite of which were the installations by French artist Annette Messager.  

 

After I was done at the harbour, or Circular Quay (pronounced "key") I continued on to the Royal Botanic Gardens, which consisted of a lovely stroll through one of the most beautiful parks I've ever been to. A main attraction in the Gardens is Mrs. Macquarie's Point (named for the wife of Lachlan Macquarie, an early Governor-General of New South Wales) of which I have provided a photo above.

 

On Sunday, my second full day in Sydney, I spent most of the day in the western suburb of Parramatta, which I found to be a pleasant departure from Sydney's Central Business District. I have often heard Sydney described as Australia's New York, in that it is very large, somewhat difficult to get around in, and very busy and crowded. I have heard Melbourne, the second largest city, is more like Los Angeles in that it is very planned, very easy to get around in, and much more of a relaxed environment.  But anyways, it was in Parramatta that I found what turned out to be my favorite place in the entire Sydney metropolitan area. I had heard about Old Government House, one of the oldest buildings in Australia dating back to the late 18th century, from the lecturer in my Local History class. It was a very quaint building with a shingled roof (indeed a true rarity in Australia) and is in the middle of Parramatta Park, a very pleasant, European feeling park that I was fortunate enough to visit at sunset.

 

By the time I had finished in Parramatta, it was time to catch my departing train back to Wagga. The train was delayed a good 40 minutes, meaning that I didn't get home until 4 in the morning, which was not the most pleasant experience I had over the weekend. But overall, I had a wonderful time in Sydney and I'm incredibly glad I went and got to see things I've only ever seen before in pictures. For the sake of space, I've only included four pictures in this post, however more photos of my exploits in Sydney can be found on my Facebook page. Thanks again and you'll hear from me again next week!