Yesterday morning Paddy took us on bush walk down to Bantry Bay. We didn’t see any new animals, but it was cool walking through different looking bushes and trees. The walk was almost all downhill to the bay, which meant the hike back was a serious climb. Later that day she took us to Fairlight Beach, a cute little beach with a salt-water pool off to the side. There was a nearby reef, so I borrowed a snorkel and mask and swam around a little bit. I saw a few new-to-me fish which was pretty cool!! We had a BBQ at night for dinner, and I was put in charge of the grill. I had no idea what I was doing, but somehow the lamb steaks, pork chops and corn on the cob turned out all good.
Today Kara and I got a ride from Owen (Paddy’s flatmate) down to the UNSW campus. The campus is pretty compact, and I was afraid at first that it’d be reminiscent of PSU. But there turned out to be plenty of green areas and pleasant open spaces. There are a lot of cool looking buildings too, so overall it's a pretty neat looking campus. While there, we opened a bank account, I got my student ID card, and we ate our packed lunch at a picnic table. Then we walked east off campus through the Coogee suburb. The road we followed eventually ran into the shoreline at Coogee Beach, so we turned north and followed a pedestrian path along the coast. We ended up following the path (which is called the Eastern Beaches Coastal Walk) for 6 km all the way to Bondi Beach. The walk took us past places like Gordons Bay, Clovelly, Waverley Cemetery, Bronte Beach, Tamarama Beach, and finally Bondi Beach. Once at Bondi, we caught a bus back to Circular Quay and then rode the ferry back to Manly. We didn’t end up getting back to Paddy’s until 6:30pm or so and we were worn out from the giant walk!
Tomorrow we’re going back to campus for the ‘Arriving and Surviving’ orientation class that all international students must take. Should be helpful…
For some reason I had your time zone flipped, so I was thinking that you should be eating dinner now (while I'm contemplating lunch). But it's the opposite. Can't you just wake/sleep as if you're in my time zone? It'd be so much more convenient for everyone.
Hey, I'm completely jealous that you're going to live/school down there. And I can appreciate these posts more than the Europe ones because we just saw a lot of those things! And not even the obvious things like around Circular Quay. We walked from Manly to Shelly beach, and down the coast from Bondi (but only to the cemetary). It's really gorgeous. Almost like it's not fair that there's a real honest-to-goodness world-class city there.