I figure that since I have the opportunity of living in Australia for 8 months, I need to make the most of my stay and experience as much of the country as possible. My first priority for being here is soccer but our schedule leaves us some flexibility to experience other things as well. I hope to take advantage of this and decided it would be a good idea to make a bucket list for my time in Australia to make sure that I am making the most of the opportunity. In the list that follows there is a mix of adventures I would like to go on also includes goals that I have for the team and myself in our upcoming season.
1. Snorkel in the Great Barrier Reef
2. Skydive (on the sunshine coast, landing on a beach)
3. Travel to Sydney
4. Watch 1 sunrise and 1 sunset per week
5. See a Koala bear and Kangaroo in the wild, not just a zoo
6. Surf
7. Win the Brisbane Premier League
8. See at least 3 different waterfalls (1/3 done)
9. Do the Tamborine Rainforest Skywalk
10. Hike on Mt. Nebo
11. Win the Grand Finale
12. Have at least 1 A-league tryout
13. See the Brisbane Botanic Gardens (complete)
14. Work on a winery
15. Take a water taxi down the Brisbane river
I hope to complete all of these in my time down here. (although the trip to Sydney may prove difficult)
Moving on from what I hope to accomplish to what I have done in the past week….
I went on a day trip up to Mt. Coot-tha, which is 4 km west of Brisbane and visited the Brisbane Botanic Gardens and viewed the city from a few of the lookouts on the mountain. I took a bunch of pictures during this trip so I’ll shoot them out to my parents for them to distribute for those of you who can’t see them on my Facebook. The gardens were very cool. They were split up into the different types of climates they have in Australia so you could see all of the vegetation that can be found in Australia. The rainforest section was my favorite because I have never seen rainforest in person. After walking around in the gardens for a few hours I made my way up to the top of the mountain and took in the city from the lookout. It was a great view and the pictures I took can’t do it justice. Although I enjoyed that trip I was a little bit disappointed by the hiking on some of the trails I tried. It wasn’t what I was looking for, but I am planning on taking a trip out to Mt. Nebo (12 km Northwest of the city) on Sunday, which is supposed to provide better hiking and should yield even more great pictures.
The other adventure I went on this week was a trip south down the coast to the Gold Coast. Drew’s girlfriend organized a group of about 10 people who work at the cinema to make a trip to a national park there and see some glow-worms in a cave. This was a very unique experience. Getting to the cave was an adventure in itself. I don’t feel like explaining all of the details but setting out on this journey without an exact address and having the leader only vaguely remember what the parking lot looks like from her childhood is not the best way to find a cave on a mountain at 10 PM. However, it turned out really well because by the time we got there all of the other tourists were leaving and we had the place to ourselves. I had no idea what to expect once we arrived and I couldn’t take any pictures during the hike but I’ll try to explain the scene.
You start the short hike from the parking lot with nothing but torches to help you find your way through the pitch-black rainforest. I wish they were real torches but in Australia that’s what they call a flashlight. So you start making the hike down the path and you can hear a waterfall thundering in the darkness but you can’t see it until a few more minutes down the trail. After finally catching a glimpse of the waterfall you make your way down the side to a cave that is under the waterfall. After you get into the cave, and you turn off the flashlights you can see all these blue specks on the walls and ceiling of the cave. (Imagine those little glow in the dark stars you can put on your ceiling in your room, except blue not yellow). I was completely awestruck by the setting, being in the cave under a waterfall with the glow-worms all around. Not something we get to do in Chicago very often.
I’m glad I was able to make both of these trips and hope to have many more of them soon.
We have our last exhibition game on Saturday, I’m planning to make a trek to Mt. Nebo Sunday, I’ll have a room mate Monday morning (another American who I train with, Pat McMahon), and we start the season up next Saturday! Can’t even explain how excited I am to get the season started and pull the squad together, with our last few pieces arriving (Pat and Steffen Vroom) and a few other starters coming back from injury. We have high expectations for the season after beating Rochedale in the Silver Boot final when we were missing about 5 key players and they had their full squad available to them.
The new site for our league is up and you can catch all the news and highlights right all from here.
http://thewashingline.footballbrisbane.com.au/
No comments:
Post a Comment