"Kebab vs Kebab" - At first thought, these two seem like the exact same word in the Australian accent and you would think they would be the exact same thing. But, as my mom found out the hard way, they are NOT. One is what you would normally thing of when you think "kabob;" meat and such on a stick. The other is this Middle Eastern dish that's kind of like a gyros sandwich. Think a peta bread wrap with lettuce, meat and assorted sauces. Yeah. Just a little different hey?
Well, this week was my last being the only Hoffmann I
know in Australia. It was also the last
week living with my good friend and housemate Michelle and as such we made sure
to end it with a bang! After our weekend
out on the Tablelands and all the other adventures we have had out exploring
these past couple weeks, we decided to keep it a little closer to home and
spend a little more time simply just hanging out.
On Tuesday, Shane and I took the
rather steep and windy trail up to Copperlode Dam from Crystal Cascades and I
was reminded anew just how out of shape I have gotten. I really don’t think
those three weeks at the end of term sitting at home doing nothing but sleep,
eat, and study did me much good…
 |
| The beautiful view from halfway up the hiking track |
I learned also of another lovely
Australian plant called the Wait-a-While tree, or as I like to say, the “Nope”
tree. Seeing all those thorns on that thing I can see why you would have to
wait a while after getting tangled in one of its rather lovely vines.
Since Michelle was unable to make the hike
with us up to the dam, she instead drove and met us at the top where we spent some
time exploring the lake and the dam spillway area.
Apparently the dam is the main source of
water for most of Cairns and as such is unable to be used for any sort of
recreation such as skiing or tubing.
That being said, it’s this huge, calm lake with beautiful scenery
surrounding it, and almost no one is there!
Shane and I decided to forego
the hike back down towards Crystal Cascades and instead chose to take the
scenic drive down the ever windy road with Michelle and enjoy the lovely panoramic
view of Cairns. And that we did! We also
incidentally found a rather cumbersome looking hiking/rock scrambling track we initially thought was a lookout. After about 5 minutes sliding down the almost
vertical path we decided it was not to be so and later deduced it was a track all the way down into the heart of Cairns.
I was able to catch up with
Rachael and Esther this week as well, the two of them being some of my
housemates from the lodge back in Townsville.
I got a long and lovely tour of some of the ‘rare’ Cairns cane fields
and got to see my first glimpse of the cane harvesters and cane trains in
action.
Right about now is the time the sugar
cane comes to the end of its growing time and the great expanses of cane fields
begin to slowly turn into dirt one by one.
Later that that evening was the
commencement of the long awaited Lord of the Rings marathon, in preparation of
course for my New Zealand trip coming up in the next several weeks! It was somewhere around 1:00 am before we finally
finished off the second movie and all of us being full of pizza and cake, and
some of us already asleep, decided to call it a night. But don’t worry! We
finished it off by beginning and completing the last one on the bright and “early” mark of the next morning.
There was another sleepover /
girls night thrown in there somewhere with Toni, Michelle and I where we
basically sat around, watched movies, did each other’s hair and laughed
heaps. And then it was time for my parents to fly in and check up on me after being on my "own" these past 5 months! Michelle and I spent time over the past week planning out a pretty fun packed tentative schedule for these guys and I'm super stocked to finally be able to show them a glimpse of what I've been up to and where I have been living since the beginning of this year. I just can't wait to get the adventure started for them! Welcome to Australia Mom and Dad :).
No comments:
Post a Comment