Apollo Bay

So for the IES Abroad orientation, they took us on the Great Ocean Road. We headed out and stopped in Bells Beach for a picture opportunity, then continued on to Lorne where we stopped for lunch. It was a cute little beach town, which are my favorite! I found it cute/funny that they say rubbish instead of trash and call the pharmacy the chemist. My friend Ali, who's also from Ithaca College, and I stopped to get sandwiches at Kaos Kafe. Sandwiches were about $15 or so, and a bottle of water was $3. In Lorne we also saw public trampolines - so cool! In the US if we were to have that, we'd have to sign a waiver and wear a helmet and have supervision and all that jazz before even being able to step onto a public trampoline!

We continued on the Great Ocean Road to Koala Cove, where we stopped and got to see, you guessed it, KOALAS! They were pretty lazy, just chilling in the trees and not paying attention to us crazy tourists trying to get a better look at them.

The driver was quite crazy and frightening at times, especially with the windy curvy roads next to a huge drop off into the sea, and especially since I'd just had a BLAT (bacon, lettuce, avocado, and tomato) sandwich for lunch (so I was feeling a bit queasy which is no fun). However, we managed to successfully make it to Apollo Bay in one piece, and immediately jumped into our surf lessons.

The surf lesson was great! The waves weren't that big and we had surfboards with foam on top, so it was easy to stand up and get the hang of catching a wave and immediately standing up afterward. I did get run over by a couple of people though, which was no fun. The water was pretty cold, but we had full body wetsuits so it was comfortable. One of the IES Abroad leaders was taking pictures of us surfing and he said that he'd put the pictures up on a website for us to have, so hopefully I can get those soon.

We then headed back to the hostel; there's a group of hostels known as YHA that are all over Australia. It was actually a very nice hostel. I shared a room with my friend, there was a tv room, a computer room, several lounge rooms, and two kitchens, as well as a laundry and porches and balconies. We showered and set off for dinner at a restaurant, where I had fish and chips (which I have to say was a little disappointing). I also learned the rules of cricket! I will not explain them here though, as it will be confusing and long-winded haha. After dinner, we walked around the little town and had gelato; I had chocolate hazelnut, yum!

The next day we woke up and set off to another little cove area and went on a kayaking trip. We wore wetsuits and life jackets and helmets and were in two person ocean kayaks. We took the kayaks out to a set of rocks about 200-300 meters (not that far from the beach) away where there was a colony of Australian fur seals. We were then able to stay there and watch them come into the water and swim around us; it was so cool! Our group leader had a pair of goggles he had brought and he got in the water and was able to see some swimming right under him! I attempted to do the same, but by then it was time to leave and so I got out of the water and, of course, the seals jumped in the water as soon as I got out! Ah! We then got to ride some waves back into shore, which was quite fun! Numerous people capsized (not Ali and I though!) which was very amusing to watch.

After showers and a brief orientation, we got pizza and ate it at the park nearby, loaded up into the bus and set off for Melbourne again. Once in Melbourne, several of us ventured downtown and found phones at a place called "Crazy John's." I got the cheapest phone at $30, with a pre-paid amount of $15 on it. It's no iPhone, but it does the job!