The End of the Year...

The last full weekend we had was pretty eventful I would say. I certainly enjoyed it. And the story goes like this...

     We started out by going diving on Friday at 10:45 am and it was of course...awesome! Here is a list of some of the things we saw : A beautiful loggerhead turtle, a couple lionfish, HUGE puffer fish, another leopard shark, there were a TON of wobbegongs out there, TWO MANTA RAYS, a stone fish, porcupine fish, some big cleaner shrimp, seastars, AND on the way back to shore we went somewhat around the point and we got to see some dolphins in the water! It was great to see that on my last dive, even though we didn't see any grey nurse sharks. Oh well. After that we went to the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary and did a rope course that had ziplines and that was a lot of fun (I will elaborate later, just trying to finish this). After that we headed into Murwillumbah to get dinner and then headed to the camp site near Mt. Warning. It was a lot of fun camping outside but it was very wet. Woke up at 2:30am to head out and I was barely tired, it was probably all the adrenaline of hiking up a mountain keeping me up. Along the way we say an awesome leaf-tailed gecko and there were a lot of glow in the dark fungi again! This time is was small dots rather than mushrooms. We made it to the top and unfortunately it was cloudy the entire time. We made it up in about an hour and ten minutes so we had a lot of time to kill before "sunrise." We made our way down and I ended up walking by myself and it was actually kinda nice! just to listen to nature and all that shit. At one point at a lookout sorta area (I think it was actually for helicopters) The clouds opened up and there was sun and I could see the ocean. It was beautiful. Eventually I got down, everyone else did and we took an unexpected stop to Nimbin. Yeah not many were very happy about that. But oh well it is what it is. And that was my awesome weekend from what I can remember!

     On Wednesday we took a field trip for wildlife bio. We went up to the Border Ranges National Park and it was...of course...awesome. There were leeches everywhereeee it was crazy. Never had one before and they actually fascinated me. We saw some beautiful scenery, the rainforest was so cool (and wet), saw an ancient tree called the Antarctic Tree estimated to be about 10,000 years old. They are so old they have "forgotten" how to reproduce with seeds. So however many are left, that's it. We just toured around the area and not really a whole lot of interesting things happened. Harland and Tom decided to touch the stinging tree, so that was pretty funny. OH before we got there we went to Nimbin, basically to get lunch and to..buy other things (obviously not a part of the itinerary to buy other things though). Nimbin is a..lets say...alternative lifestyle living. It was certainly an interesting town, I could never live there. And that is about  it that has happened.

     OH we also had an end of the year cookout with the professors on Friday, we had TONS of food, good dessert and an all around good time. We had a mini-tri in the morning and relays and volleyball in the afternoon as well. It was a lot of fun.

     Now we are in the Brisbane airport and it sucks so bad. It was difficult to keep it together at some points, especially when I really thought about the fact that I am leaving. We were on the beach one last time and saw the sunrise. Leaving that was hard, that was the worst thus far. But once on that plane and in the air....I think that will be the worst of it all. It's all hitting me that I am leaving this country. Next time I am online I will be in America. Would rather be visiting South Bend and coming home to Australia at some point...