Whale!

8.8.10

Well,

Week two is finally done. I am getting ready to start tutorials. My first one will be in World Religions on Monday.

Over the weekend, I was fairly busy. I ventured again to the Indooroopilly mall in search of a few things. I was successful in buying another outlet converter and some waterproof disposable cameras. I was there for like 2-3 hours just finding m way around and getting used to what was there. They have inclined moving walkways called travelators. I really like them.

On Saturday I headed down to Byron Bay with Kirsten to go whale watching. The bus left the city at 8am and arrived at Byron bay at 10am. This gave us around an hour and a half to walk around and check out the area before meeting at the whale watching place. There were tons of little shops and restaurants for about a four block stretch leading out to Byron Bay. We stopped at the beach and watched the ocean for a little bit. This was the first time I saw the ocean after landing in Australia. At 11:30am we got to the whale watching place, called Byron Bay Whale Watching. After getting fitted with spray coats and lockers for valuables, we headed out to the bay. Once there, our group of about 12 people boarded a small boat and we headed to find some whales. About 10 minutes in, our guide Rob, spotted a blow and we headed towards it. Unfortunately we lost that whale but found another and followed it for a little bit. We ended up fairly far from the beach and since the East Australian Current (EAC) was fairly strong, the waters were fairly choppy and rough. Fortunately, I took some motion sickness pills before headed onto the water so I wasn’t getting very sick. Then we managed to pass a couple more whales and saw a few up close blows and tails. Then we headed back towards Julian Rock. Here we saw a lot of birds on the rock and a few turtles (YAY!) swimming around. After that we headed back to be let off so another group could board and find some whales. On the way back we saw a fairly large jelly fish. Once we finally got back to the shop we gave back the coats and were off. It was about 3pm and we had about an hour before we had to grab the bus back to Brisbane. We grabbed some subway and walked around a little more before getting on the bus. We left Byron Bay at 4pm and got back to Brisbane at 6pm and both of us slept basically the entire ride back. Once we got back to campus, we parted ways and I got dinner at a sushi restaurant in the Vil. It was tasty and will probably being going back there to get more.

Now it’s time to get ready for week 3.