By Emma Garcia
During the three
days that this blog post is about (March 27th-29th), I
was mostly in a transition period of travel and adjustment between the independent
travel week and the beginning of our week in Carnarvon Gorge. I have decided
that instead of recording all the tedious details of my travel habits, I’ll
make a list of useful things I learned during these three days, because not a
day goes by in Australia that I don’t learn something new about myself, my limits, my environment,
or my friends. Here we go.
1.
The YHA sets an unfair precedent for all
other hostels. As
someone who had never stayed in a hostel before coming on this program and whose
only hostelling experiences since have been in the YHAs in the Blue Mountains
and Brisbane, I believed that most, if not all, hostels were clean,
well-organized places with soaps
on the pillows at check-in and a free pancake breakfast on Friday mornings.
This is not the case. On the first day of our independent travel week, my travel
buddies and I stayed in a non-YHA hostel that can only be described as a
particularly dirty hovel. By the time we checked into the YHA for our last
night in Cairns, I seriously considered kissing the floor of our clean,
well-lit, air-conditioned room. In
reality all I did was tear up a bit and then raid the free bin, because nothing
is more celebratory to me than receiving free, second-hand
clothing.
2. Australian
airport security checks are easy peasy lemon squeezy. You don’t have to worry about carrying
over 3 ounces of liquids, wearing shoes, or learving random items in your
pocket. Unless you have an umbrella
in your bag, you have to scan that separately. I learned this during both the 7 am flight from Cairns to
Brisbane and the 8:30 am flight from Brisbane to Rockhampton on March 28th.
3. Lamingtons
are an Australian staple. The
ladies of the Country Women’s Association in Blackwater, Queensland, lovingly
demonstrated this to us. After our program rendezvoused in Rockhampton and set
off for Carnarvon Gorge, we stopped in to visit the local chapter of the
Country Women’s Association of Blackwater, a small mining town in central
Queensland. I was quite happy with our stop, as it involved a fair amount of
sitting, listening to stories, and eating cake, which are some of my absolute
favorite activities. Also worth noting is that while Lamington—angel food cake covered in icing and
coconut—is an Australian staple, it seems to have become quite popular under
other names in different countries. I mean, come on, cake dipped in chocolate
covered in coconut bits was bound to catch on.
4. Australian gliders are the
cutest things. The night of the
29th,
our tutor, Simon, took us on a night walk through the forest of Carnarvon Gorge
to spotlight gliders, nocturnal marsupials
that glide across the forest canopy. We found a few greater gliders as well as
some yellow-bellied gliders, and I swear, when they spread their tiny arm
membranes and leapt from the trees, my soul flew with them. Or should I say,
glided with them.
5. Except
for echidnas, which are actually the cutest. I don’t think this actually needs much explanation; we
found two echidnas during our walk, and I fell in love. It really is that
simple.
-Emma
 |
| A Very Wet Independent Travel Week |
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