Author Archives: blh5097

From the Outback to the Islands

Hi everyone!

Recently I went on a ten-day adventure for ANU’s two week break at the beginning of October. The first morning, I caught a cab and went to the airport. Destination: Ayers Rock. Looking out the window of the plane, the ground was the stererotypical red, looking barren and dry as ever. Ayers Rock is a rather odd place. It’s completely touristy — no one who isn’t a tourist is there except for resort staff. I got the feeling that most people go there just for the sake of saying they’ve been, not necessarily for an interest in the place (particularly for the Aussies). There were people from all over the world and Australia at this one “mega-resort” catering to all budgets.

Throughout my 48 hours spent in this remote area, I saw Uluru at sunset, sunrise, and during the day, from up close to far far away. Neat, yes, but I think the most interesting part was reading the story behind the rock as told by the Aborigines. Looking in to this kind of history (which Australia is lacking compared to most countries…) is invaluable and I think more locals need to absorb the information provided to them.

One case in point — climbing Uluru. There’s one path that leads up the rock to a point on the top. It’s incredibly steep and is definitely seen as a challenge to those who desire to trek up it. However, there’s the moral issue that most people rarely consider. The path that is now open to the public to walk up was the original path for Aboriginal men to climb for sacred purposes. There is a sign at the start of the walk stating that fact, plus more information on it, and asking visitors to please respect their heritage and not climb. How many people did I see actually study that sign and turn away after doing so? None. Zip. Zero. It was quite eye-opening and left a bitter taste in my mouth. National and international visitors should be much more considerate about the ancient culture that stands behind tourist attractions.

Regardless, below are a few pictures of Uluru with the Olgas (Kata Tjuta) in the background and other pictures of the Australia Outback.

Next on my places to go was Alice Springs. As Bill Bryson implied, it’s a bit odd to see how a town in the middle of nowhere has changed to fit the desires and perceptions of tourists coming in who wish to see what life is like in the middle of nowhere. Needless to say, it’s not nearly as limited as it used to be. Can’t say it was the most exciting place, but the markets on Sunday were great! From here, I took the famed Ghan train down to Adelaide. It is roughly a twenty-hour journey but doesn’t feel nearly as long because of the overnight portion. I had the pleasure of sitting next to a Canadian on a two-month long solo exploration. It was nice to reminisce about snow and cold with someone who was also enjoying backwards change of seasons so famed in Australia. Sadly, sleeping did not come as easily as I’d hoped and I ended up befriending the night manager in the dining car while I did some homework for one of my courses.

Once in Adelaide, I had a look around and walked back a big music festival called Parklife. Seemed like a fun time and I wish I had gone! But Australia seems quite big on festivals and gigs so I’m bound to get to one pretty soon. Met up with some friends from England and drove out to Kangaroo Island. Absolutely phenomenal place. There was so much wildlife — echidnas, kangaroos, wallabies, penguins, pelicans, seals, koalas. It was incredible! The water was a Caribbean-style blue and was (barely) warm enough for a dip. Definitely put this on your list of places to go! Waking up in the morning with kangaroos and their joeys chilling out nearby won’t happen just anywhere…

Below are a few pictures of the island:

The third picture is at the Remarkable Rocks…quite remarkable indeed! The fourth is at Admiral’s Arch, also a nice area, filled with seals and a gorgeous sunset.

That’s all for now. Until next time!

Location: Ayers Rock, Australia

It’s been entirely too long…

Hello all!

Deepest apologies for not writing in ages. I’ve been quite caught up in life abroad and all too many times I’ve put blogging on the back burner.

In the past weeks, I’ve seen much of Australia: Melbourne, Wollongong, Uluru, Alice Springs, Adelaide, and Kangaroo Island. ANU has had two week break. I’ve completed countless assignments. And it’s now up to the bittersweet last few weeks of classes.

It’s been so easy to fall into the Australian lifestyle. School is much more low key, although with that, it has posed to be much harder than I was expecting. It’s all self-motivated and that can be a hard system to deal with when planning trips for the weekend or exploring the Canberra area itself. A few weeks ago, Canberra had its famous flower festival: Floriade. It had amazing displays and it was incredibly refreshing to go to. I love being taken out of student-dominated life and being reminded that there are so many more people out there. Seeing a community of people coming together as families, partners, groups of friends is heartwarming to see, especially if I’m missing home a bit.

I’m intending to keep up with this blog now, so I’ll begin posting some pictures today, and some others from my travels in subsequent posts.

Location: Canberra, Australia

Bush Week and beyond

“How ya goin?” That’s one of the top said phrases over here. Just a simple combo between how’s it going and how ya doing. Pretty streamlined! Australians tend to shorten as much as they can. Not with acronyms or anything like the U.S., but with normal daily words. Sunglasses, for example, are sunnies. It’s fun!

So Bush Week was last week and was quite the scene. We had cultural coffee night, Aussie-style barbeque, trivia night, Christmas in July party, and a big welcome dinner for all the new students. The highlight of Bush Week, however, was Drag Night. There were so many participants who went all out for it!! I don’t think this would happen in America. The acceptance of cross-dressing, at least on the college level, is much greater than I expected. There were at least one hundred or so students who dressed in the opposite gender’s attire and had a ball! The guys especially really seemed to love their new found freedom… Everyone got very into it!

Classes are going well so far. For each class, I have one or two lectures per week, and a one or two hour tutorial. The tutorials are small break out classes designed to ensure we understand the material that we covered in lecture. It’s a good system, but different from what I’ve had at Penn State. Thanks to a small campus in Erie, I’ve grown used to classes averaging around forty people. The tutorials are like this, but the lectures are almost two hundred people sometimes. At University Park, students are used to that, but it’s still a change for me!

One good thing over here though is the textbook situation. Never have I ever had a professor not assign a book because he doesn’t have the damage to the environment from book production on his conscience. Unlike the usual $600-800 on books per semester, I finally spent less than $200. It’s great! The United States should pick this idea up quickly…

This coming week, the Bollywood Dance class that I signed up for starts. That will certainly be an experience! The most I’ve done is a bellydancing class once, so this should be an expansion of that for sure!

This coming weekend I’m going to Melbourne. I promise I’ll have pictures up for that trip! I’m taking an overnight bus down on Friday, staying at the Melbourne Central YHA for three nights, then coming back up Tuesday morning with Virgin Blue. While I’m there, I plan to go to the Melbourne Crickets Grounds to see an AFL game on Saturday night. I might also learn how to kite board! I’ll blog all about it once I get back.

Catch ya!

Location: Canberra, Australia

Canberra and the ANU

G’day all!

This past week has been spent meeting an immense amount of people and exploring my new city. What a place! Most of the Australians I have talked to are quite bored with the little city, made up of about 350,000 people or so. But to all of us international students, it seems quite exciting! The city centre is called the Civic. It is a huge building, spanning 3 or so blocks, that houses hundreds of shops and cafes. It’s a great place to go when you need anything!

On Tuesday, the exchange students over here took a bus tour around Canberra to see everything not within walking distance. We drove up to Mt. Ainslie and got a beautiful panoramic view of the entire city. I need to stop forgetting my camera! From there, we could see how planned the city really is. All of the politically important places line right up, including the Australian War Memorial, ANZAC Parade, Lake Burley Griffin, the Museum of Australian Democracy (Old Parliament House), and new Parliament House. The south side of Canberra is where all the politicians do their business, while the north side is mainly city and residential. We drove past some of the embassies as well. I didn’t catch a glimpse of the supposed fortress of America, but I’d like to go see it another time.

Australians seem to be very big on their markets. There are so many spread out through the suburbs of Canberra that it will take some time figuring out which one has the best prices! Certainly, everything is much more expensive over here, so I will NEED to figure that out rather soon.

We enrolled in classes earlier this week as well and became official students at the ANU. The campus is made up of about 10,000 students, so it’s not too big, but not too small. They have everything they need on campus too: a salon, optometrist, pharmacy, restaurants, bookstore, gym, pub… The list goes on and on. It’s a beautiful place, and once it warms up it should be even better! It’s usually been in the 50s here, but compared to leaving the States when it was 80, it’s quite the change.

It’s Bush Week here this week, meaning there are activities planned for every night to get students to mix and mingle with each other within Fenner Hall. I’ll write another entry about that, and hopefully I’ll have pictures this time too!

Catch ya later!

Location: Canberra, ACT, Australia

Sydney to Brisbane to Canberra!

Hello everyone! It’s been quite the two weeks…

My sister and I arrived in Sydney after a terribly long 14 hour flight at 7:30 a.m. with a full day ahead of us! We arrived to where we were staying and immediately walked down to the Rocks and the Opera House. It was amazing! It’s so much more interesting up close and in person! The Sydney Harbour Bridge was also quite magnificent. We were hoping to do the Bridge Climb but decided to save our money and go on a cruise around the harbour instead. All the houses on the water are beautiful! There were so many sailboats and yachts everywhere…we even saw a few dolphins by the boat! On the cruise, we also had our first introduction to Australian bikkies. Lamingtons are very tasty! Then again, I love coconut.

After the cruise, we continued to wander around and made it to the Royal Botanic Gardens. Another beautiful place! Australia has very different flora and fauna than the U.S., that’s for sure! We ducked into small shops the rest of the day and immediately noticed how expensive everything is compared to the U.S. Some of the touristy stuff was really cheap because it was made in China, but even a small sandwich is at least ten dollars over here! Also, the accents took me quite a while to get used to. Everyone we met was very chatty and helpful, but they talk so quickly that it was difficult to understand at first, even though it was English!

We spent another few days in Sydney and Glebe, just learning how the Australian’s do things and getting rid of our jet lag. Everyone seems to be very fashion-forward and dressed up all the time too! That’ll take some getting used to…no more sweatpants for me!

Next, we headed to the Blue Mountains, about an hour and a half away from Sydney. What a beautiful place! We stayed at the YHA there which resembled the typical ski lodge nestled in the Rocky Mountains. It was about 15 degrees F cooler there than in Sydney. We climbed down the Great Staircase and saw the Three Sisters. We saw waterfalls and wildlife and saw the wild cockatoos that live everywhere here! It was very much like a rainforest.

The next day, we wandered around the Blue Mountains more, then headed up to Brisbane on the night train via Sydney. That was another experience! I’ve never been on a train like that so it was pretty exciting. It gets dark around 5 p.m. here so we missed a lot of scenery on our trip. Arrived in Brisbane, found the YHA there (AWESOME place!!), then took a bus to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. We got to pet kangaroos and walk around with them! And best of all, we got to cuddle koalas!!! They are so sweet! But heavier than you’d expect. We saw a bunch of other native animals, like Tazmanian Devils, platapuses (platapi?), emus, dingos, and lots of snakes and birds. This place is a must if you are heading to Brisbane!

The next few days, we went to Moreton Island. It’s the third largest sand island in the world, and it’s so cool! We took a big ferry across the ocean and as soon as we were on the beach, we saw tons of starfish! There’s a big resort out there, as well as primitive camping sites in a few places along the shore. In the middle of the island, there was “The Desert” which was literally that, a vast expanse of sand dunes. We tried out sandboarding…quite the rush! You can either sit or lay down on these curved boards, then slide down these huge and steep dunes! Crashing was bad though…you get covered in sand! But what an experience! We also went snorkeling and 4WD-ing through the sand roads. Saw some whales too!

Went back to Sydney, my sister flew back to the States, and I took a train to Canberra. I’m here now and I’ll blog all about it another time! I think this post has been sufficiently long enough… Until next time…

Location: Sydney, Australia; Brisbane, Australia

The Pre-departure Plan

Somehow, summer flew by and now I’m finally able to focus on leaving the country. Two more days before I head off to Australia! The biggest challenge so far has been packing. It’s so hard to figure out what I will need or want for the next 5 months! Here’s the plan for the start of my trip:

My sister and I will be flying from State College to Sydney on Tuesday. We’ll get there on Thursday morning (this time change thing is realllly going to mess with me), and then the real adventure starts. We’re going to be staying in hostels in Sydney for a few days so we can explore the city, then we’re hoping to travel up north along the coast to the Gold Coast area (where a lot of surfing happens), and eventually the Great Barrier Reef. Hopefully it won’t be too cold to snorkel, dive, or surf! We’ll also be heading to the Blue Mountains to see that spectacular area. Then, 11 days later, I’ll be hopping a bus for Canberra and become a true student at ANU!!

Check back in a couple weeks to hear about the first leg of my adventure. I’m hoping to have pictures up too!

Until next time…

Location: State College, PA

Before I Go Down Under

Hello everyone! My name is Beth Hendershot, I’ll be a senior in the fall, and I’m going to Canberra, Australia at the end of June for five months! I’m double majoring in International Business and Business Economics and can’t wait to see the world outside of the U.S. I’ve done a lot of travelling within the country and Canada, but it’s time for me to expand my horizons and experience another part of the world.

So why Australia? I feel like this is one of the harder places to reach for travellers. When I think of travelling in my future or in my career, I think of Europe, Asia, and possibly South America. That just seems much more typical than Aussie. Also, I want a change of pace from the U.S., but I don’t want it to be so overwhelmingly different that it could negatively affect my feelings towards the place/culture. I feel like Australia will be just the thing!

I’ll blog one more time before I actually head overseas with more details about the program and the journey over there probably sometime in late June.

Goodbye mates!

Location: State College, PA, USA

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