Australia Week Two

I cannot believe that I have been here for two weeks already! Only 12 more to go now!

On Friday, I went to the beach with Rebecca and four of her friends, which was so good – they’re all really lovely and we got on well. We stayed in the sea until Bronte felt a jellyfish, and then we went and got lunch at a café, where I had an iced tea – I have been missing those! On Saturday I went into town in the morning and bought a rug – I know, why did I do that? – but it is so beautiful! And the best part is, it was only $2.99?! I nearly bought a coat yesterday from a charity shop – at this rate I’m going to have to invest in another suitcase to come home! Mandy and I drove to Donnybrook in the afternoon for the Food and Wine festival there. She tried to educate me on wine, as when asked what I usually drank in England, I said “Whatever’s cheapest”, which is apparently not the right answer. I tried Port, too, which was disgusting. I’ve been teaching Rebecca and Andrew some card games (they said it sounded awesome at my college, which is where I picked a lot of them up), but I did refuse to teach them any drinking games, despite their persistent begging! I went back to the same church on Sunday morning, and spoke to a lot of people there. Their youth group works very differently to Fusion, in that they have people from the ages of 12 up to 25. I suppose with a smaller church, they don’t have enough youth to support two groups. I cycled back from church and had a horrible experience where I nearly passed out – I’m guessing from the heat. I just collapsed underneath this tree and my ears had this really heavy pressure on them, and my vision was all blurry. After a while I felt okay again, but it wasn’t very fun!

I headed to the beach on Tuesday, and felt like I was breaking every rule I’ve ever been taught about swimming in the sea. I was on my own, there was nobody around – I could have been swept out or eaten by a shark and nobody would ever know! The waves here are crazy – it’s less swimming, more just trying to stay afloat. When I got out of the sea, a woman had appeared on the beach, so I said Hi, and she replied with “Je ne parle pas Anglais!” I was like, “Je parle un peu de francais!” – and it went from there! Turns out she can’t speak any English at all, which meant all the pressure was on me to keep up my French so we could have a conversation! I explained that I hadn’t used my French since college, but she said it was really good, and it did all come flooding back. We spoke for a few hours – it was such a bizarre experience – fancy my A-Level French coming in useful in Australia!

Beach with Bec's friends

Yesterday I walked into town (around an hour and a half’s walk) and exploited Rebecca’s library card. When I got home I had letters from my parents and Josh, and I skyped Dad, too. Also, I booked my flights to Sydney tonight! I’m flying overnight on the 31^st March, and am going to be there until the 10^th of April – I’m so excited! At the moment it looks like I’m going to be hostel-ing it, although you never know…

Spending the day today replying to letters, and filling out my application to start volunteering at the Dolphin Discovery Centre here in Bunbury.

Thanks for reading! Love, Beth