Wow, this has been a fun-filled and exciting past week for me. I’ll try to sum everything up without having this get too lengthy. I spent the weekend camping and hiking in the Prom (Wilson’s Promontory), a national park a couple hours southeast of Melbourne that’s situated on a peninsula that also happens to be the southernmost point of land on the Australian mainland. The scenery of rural Gippsland (the region of Victoria that’s east of Melbourne) on the way to the Prom was really pretty, lots of rolling hills and paddocks. It actually reminded me of southern Wisconsin, only Gippsland was a bit more hilly.
At Wilson’s Prom itself, my group spent the first night (Friday) camping at a place called Tidal River, on the western coast of the park. After having wombats shred their way into a few people’s tents in search of food (fortunately ours was spared), we packed up Saturday morning and hiked south to Oberon Bay, and then went straight across to Little Waterloo Bay on the eastern coast of the Prom. That was a long hike actually, 17 km. Friday and Saturday were kinda miserable days, it was cold, windy, cloudy, and raining/spitting on and off. Fortunately after a rainstorm Friday night it cleared out, because Saturday morning I got up early (5:30am) to go watch the sunrise over Little Waterloo Bay, it was absolutely beautiful, probably the highlight of my weekend. The beach was sandy white, and had clusters of big boulders basically bookending the beach, so for the sunrise I climbed up one and just sat there, enjoying the solitude and taking photos, for well over an hour. Then we broke camp again, and had a very tough, up-and-down hike of 15 km, past North Waterloo Bay, up to Kersop Peak (from where we could see the lighthouse at the southernmost tip of the Prom and of all of Australia), past Refuge Cove and onto Sealers Cove where we made camp for the final night. I woke up for the sunrise again, but unfortunately the cove wasn’t oriented the right way to see it, which was a bit of a bummer. For the last day we had a shorter hike of 11 km inland to Telegraph Saddle, where we were picked up in a bus and driven back to Tidal River before heading back to Melbourne (we got back to Monash around 6:30pm). Despite getting a bit tired and sore from all that hiking with a heavy pack, it was an amazing weekend. Sunday and Monday were absolutely gorgeous days, sunny and warm (upper 60s), which lifted our spirits a ton. I’ll never get tired of the ocean, and I was constantly in awe of all the beaches, bays and coves we constantly saw, and with how blue, green and turquoise the water always was. And then inland we’d hike through some areas that had mostly scrub brush for vegetation, some impressive eucalypt forests where all the trees were at least 150-200 feet tall, some very mossy forests where the very air would seem to be tinted a verdant green, and some small rainforests too, there was an amazing amount of variety. I’d definitely like to go back to Wilson’s Prom sometime again if I could, and maybe this time hike down Telegraph Track to the lighthouse and the southern tip of the continent.
Tuesday morning I headed into the city to catch the Vikings-Eagles game at a sports bar downtown at Southgate. I had a craving for seeing some American football, and even though the Vikings lost, I still loved getting the chance to see a game finally. It was just a bit weird watching a “Monday Night Football” game starting at 11am on a Tuesday morning, hehe. After that I just wandered around the city for awhile, soaking in the wonderfully sunny and warm day (upper 70s). My feet didn’t exactly appreciate all the walking I did on Tuesday though, at least not after all the hiking over the weekend. On Wednesday a couple of my friends from GAC wished me happy birthday, mistakenly thinking that it was my birthday. I very much appreciated the sentiment, but my 21st birthday isn’t until this coming Monday (the 27th), hehe. Wednesday night I went to the Strike Bowling Bar on Chapel Street over in Prahran for the MWACS Bowling Night (MWACS stands for Monash Weather and Climate Society). It was the coolest bowling alley I’ve ever been in, and for just $5 we got to bowl two games, have a go at sumo wrestling, and use the karaoke machine as much as we wanted. MWACS basically had the run of the place for the night, it was pretty cool. It was a very fun way to spend a Wednesday evening as well, I had a good time.
This afternoon after class I went back into the city to see “The Impressionists” exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), before the exhibit closes on Sunday. Regular admission was $20, but I got in for an after-dark student discount for just $10, woohoo! The exhibit is basically 91 paintings, almost all of which are on loan from the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, including works by Manet, Monet, van Gogh, Renoir, Cezanne, Degas, Pissarro, Sisley and others. It was awesome getting to see so many fantastic and famous paintings. I really liked the ones by Monet and Pissarro in particular, but my favourite was definitely “Starry Night Over the Rhone” by van Gogh, I was just captivated by it. Last year I bought a poster of that for my dorm room back at GAC, so I was thrilled to get the chance to see the real thing in person. Starting 12th October, the NGV will have an exhibition featuring the works of Edvard Munch, which could also be interesting to attend. After wandering around the Impressionist paintings for almost three hours, I managed to get some really cool photos of the city at night, before I came back to Monash.
We have just one day of class left before spring break. It feels kinda weird saying that in late September. I doubt that I’ll have a blog post next week, as I’m gonna be spending Sunday-Wednesday night or Thursday morning at the Whitsunday Islands, and then on Thursday renting a car and driving up to Cairns, before flying back from Cairns on Saturday morning. I’ll be going around with my friend Rich from high school, who’s studying abroad this semester at Southern Cross Uni in Lismore, a couple hours south of Brisbane.
I’m really looking forward to getting the chance to see the Great Barrier Reef, it’s one of my “must-sees” while I’m down here. And then when I get back I’ll have to finish up a big research paper that’s due on Monday the 4th for my Climate Change class (I’ve done most of the research for it, just none of the actual writing so far), among some other assignments, so I’ll be rather busy. But I’m really excited to finally see some things outside of Victoria, considering I haven’t left the state since I landed back on 6th July. Well, I should get some sleep now. Next time I post on this blog I’ll be 21!!