Mangroves stink... literally

Well lets see here ah yes Sunday… it began with us getting up early and heading into town because we were going to work at the Australian doorknock. Essentially what the doorknock boils down to is raising money for the local rescue helicopter service by going around different neighbor hoods around Lennox and knocking on there door and asking for money (thus its named doorknock... creative right). I was not initially excited for this event but in the end it didn’t turn out to be that bad. Rusty and I ended up walking around for about three hours or so (probably more) knocking on doors. I had one or two long conversations with people in our designated neighborhood about why there were a bunch of Americans collecting money for an Australian helicopter service, but besides that nothing really exciting happening. I had one house where I saw a lady in the front door , but she saw me coming and sort of briskly moved around the corner. I still went up to knock anyway and got no response the first knock or the second. At this point I was determined to at least get her to respond because I knew that she was probably 5 feet away from me in the other room. So I pounded the third time on her screen door (her front door was open which would have made it impossible not to hear me which increased the determination), then from around the corner came and I quote “GO AWAY!” from a middle aged woman. Getting what I wanted I briskly walked away from the house. After the doorknock I can’t really remember if anything exciting happened so probably nothing did. Oh ya one thing did happen… I shaved my head. So here is essentially what happened I was hanging out with people playing games and what not. Then Rusty and Carl busted into the room and were both bald. I talked with them for a while and then they left and went off to who knows where. Later I went back to my cabin and Rusty, Jon, and Carl were all in the cabin talking about their new hairstyles. Jon asked me twice if he could shave my head and I agreed with some reluctance the second time. It wasn’t a big deal for me since 75 percent of my life I have shaved my head but it still is always a little sad to see it go. The news spread quickly and started a big commotion around camp. So about twenty people crammed into our living room to watch the event. Well it turns out that the razor ran out of juice before they could finish so I went to bed looking absolutely ridiculous that night… But rest assured that it was fixed the next morning before class started.

Monday we went to Southern Cross University (which is a college about a half an hour away from Lennox head) for our Australia life and Culture Class. This was one of the longest field trip of my life. The entire time we were there, we had an aboriginal tell us about aboriginal history. Don’t get me wrong I have nothing wrong with learning about aboriginal history but the guy was a very dry speaker that really liked to go off on tangents. This made it very difficult to pay attention to the guy for longer than 5 minutes. My mind already has enough trouble focusing and dry speakers make it that much worse. It was a long three hours but nothing can last forever and eventually he drew it to a close. Nothing spectacular happened that Tuesday, but I do think that was the night that I went with Eleanor and Lauren to Subway and we rented Tarzan, which was fun.

Wednesday I had the terrorism class for the first time (since I decided to add it to avoid an online class). This class is probably currently by far my favorite class offered. I find it very intriguing to learn about all of the different terrorist groups and the types of weapons and tactics they could possibly deploy (scary but interesting). If I remember correctly that day all I did was play on the beach and really nothing else extravagant happened. Thursday was a fun day. We got to go and visit a Mangrove and Estuary for Marine Biology. If you don’t know what a mangrove is it is essentially a very salty swamp with very interesting plant and wildlife. Pictures speak a thousand words so once I get pictures up on here you will have a better understanding. We spent most of the day there exploring. We also got to cross a river on a Ferry, which was a new experience. We also played with these sucker tools on the beach that you stick in the sand and pull up animals in the sand, which was super fun. We also walked on a beach that literally thousands of holes from a type of crab called solider crabs. Our prof said that there is a time of days that all of them will come out of their holes and march around the beach (thus the creative name again). Unfortunately we were not there at the right time but we still got to see a couple of them who were still wandering around. After the trip we came back to the camp and shillaxed after a long day.

I typed for about an hour straight so that’s all I am going to do tonight I think. There should be more tomorrow depending on the number of distraction. OHHHH and I realized that I forgot to thank another two very important people for giving this opportunity…. My Loving Parents. I am so thankful that they were willing to fund this trip for me and give me the ability and support to go. I know that it was hard to send their second favorite child (this is totally not true I am definitely the least favorite haha…. But seriously when Hope had a kid it moved me down to number three and Corrie will always be number one by light years) way across the sea since they already have had the favorite gone for two years in Scotland and another about to leave for the missions field in South America in a couple years. I love you parents and I will never be able to repay you for everything that you have done for me and I love you and miss you. And dad hurry up and get to Scotland so we can Skype fool… But seriously love you XOxOxoXo

Already out of Blog titles... DOG ATTACK sounds good

Well Well Well, here you are once again at my blog... checkin up on me. Well I have been pretty busy lately with school and messing around, and it has been hard to make time to just sit down and write on my blog. My hatred for typing is also a very large factor right now as well, but I have an hour though because I am staying up to talk to the other half of my family so I am going to use the hour wisely. I think that I have decided that I will update this thing weekly so I don’t spend all my time in Australia talking about the time I have spent in Australia. So lets see where was I aw yes Tuesday of two weeks ago. Well Tuesday and Wednesday all I pretty much did was play on the beach and hang out with people and nothing absolutely fantastic or interesting happened. Thursday was the first day of Marine Biology. The class was really boring because all we did was talk about currents and different types of beaches for about 4 hours straight. After the long lecture though, we did go for a walk on the beach. That was still pretty boring to because the professor rambled on about nothing for an hour and showed us some random stuff. It wasn’t all bad though because we did get to see a couple of different types of crabs. But on the way back the bonus was that I finally got to meet or at least see the infamous Phil. He is an odd looking, awkward fellow but knows more about the Australian wildlife and plantlife than anyone else on this green earth. Nothing significant really happened that night that I can recall, I probably watched a movie or something like that. Friday I went with a large group of people to Byron. Bryon is a pretty cool touristy town with a lot of shops and a lot of places to eat about a half an hour bus ride from Lennox. I walked around with people for a couple of hours and didn’t end up buying anything but there are some prospects for the future. They include an Australian hat, boomerang, and didgeridoo. But after aimless wandering we ended up heading home and watching the little mermaid that night which was super fun.

Saturday had a one major interesting thing happen… We found a camp dog… She didn’t stay long but still amazing right??? The day started out with Kurtis, Jordan, and I waiting for low tide so that we could go snorkel at the lagoon because everyone else was gone in scuba diving class. We waited around till about 4 o’clock when we thought it was going to be low tide. Well when we got to the beach we realized that we had gotten the tide backwards…. It was pretty much the highest tide that I had seen yet. Well we had the brilliant thought that the tide would go down by the time we arrived at lagoon, which was about a mile and a half away. This would not be the case. On the way this dog ran up in and started to walk in front of us. She would never let us get close enough to pet her for some reason. We eventually realized that this was a stray dog because no one was claiming it around us and she just kept on following us. Kurtis eventually got a stick and we started throwing it for the dog. Let me just say this dog was in the best shape that I have ever seen any dog, not to mention the fastest. The 3 mile walk from our camp to the lagoon and back the dog was continuously sprinting and bringing back the stick the entire time without getting winded. It was pretty much the third coolest dog ever (next to Pipp and Choochers (RIP), Bubba was a close fourth and I always hated Luke). Well anyway we ended up making it to the lagoon, but the tide didn’t go down at all which made getting to the lagoon impossible. Not to mention the visibility was terrible because it was a gloomy day. We still tried though which was a large mistake. The water was freezing and when stood up there was a strong wind, which made matters worse. I saw three fish in the 30-minute failed attempt, it was miserable. The whole time we were in the water the dog (later named Sophie) sat on the beach and waited for us. Well since she committed to us we committed to her. We took her into the camp and fed and bathed her. Kurtis even let her sleep in his bed that night. Her stay was short lived though, because that next morning on the way to the doorknock (described in next blog) some friends of the owner recognized the dog and said that they would take the dog back to its rightful owner. It was a sad goodbye but it would have been hard for us to keep up with the dog. Hard not impossible….

Oh Ya one of the morning I woke up super early to watch the sunrise and it was amazing. There are pictures so that you can understand what I mean.

To avoid super long posts I am going to end this one here but there will be another one up shortly maybe its late here and my family should be online soon so probably not but we will see… Oh and the reason why there are no pictures so yet it because it sucks to try and upload them, but I will still try throughout the months.