New Zealand

Posted on by

I’m back from New Zealand! My roommate and I were lucky enough to have a group of our friends from Canada come visit us in Melbourne for 1 week. Then all 7 of us headed to New Zealand for 2 weeks of road tripping, camping, and exploring! We spent 1 week on the North Island. This part of the country has tons of green rolling hills and is very pretty.

img_1881

One day we decided to raft over the world’s highest commercially rafted waterfall (Tutea waterfall close to Rotorua)! It was a 7 meter drop. I was terrified at first, but I love white water rafting and the experience was great! Lets do it again please?

We also saw glowworms in a cave; no pictures allowed sadly. But the worms look exactly like a night sky full of a million stars!

The funniest story from the North Island is definitely the night my friend and I camped a little too close to the river and woke up floating in the morning. Yes. Floating.

After taking the ferry to the South Island and picking up new rental cars, the adventure continued for another week!

The views on the South Island are just as impressive as the North Island; more rolling hills, but now mountains as well! We stopped at Fox glacier to see one of the only glaciers in the world that bridges temperate rain forest.

Another one of my favorites from the South Island was the day we quickly stopped in to see Split Apple rock in Abel Tasman National Park. I was a bit disappointed we didn’t get to explore this park, but most areas are only accessible by multi-day hikes or boat—so I’ll just have to come back! It was cold and windy looking at Split Apple rock from the beach… but that didn’t stop a few of us from stripping down and swimming out to it. We climbed all over the rock and stared back at the beach. The water was soooo clear! the rocks were covered in tiny little black mussels.

We spent a lot of time in Queenstown, where we explored the town and cafes and sat in the gardens. Fergburger provided us with some of the best burgers we’ve EVER had in our lives!

I enjoyed a river cruise I did in Milford Sound to see the cliffs, waterfalls, and even fur seals!

img_2055

It was a great 2 weeks of road tripping (car sickness), camping (bug bites), and exploring (memories!)

The next adventure: experiencing my first Aussie Christmas and summer!

Adelaide Trip

Posted on by

Last semester I caught the travel bug again and headed off for a few days to Adelaide. I stayed with a friend of mine in her lovely home and even managed to catch up with one of my childhood friends—who I hadn’t seen in 11 years! This is a short video of all the beautiful places I visited:

https://youtu.be/phMCv7NaQr0

  1. Grand 3 Falls Hike in Morialta Conservation Park
  2. City of Adelaide
  3. Botanical Gardens
  4. Hahndorf in Adelaide Hills
  5. Whispering Wall
  6. Jacob’s Creek Winery in Barossa Valley
  7. Glenelg Beach

 

At the end of this semester I have a trip planned to New Zealand with a bunch of friends. Then my parents will be visiting Australia and we will travel up the east coast together. And I’m even considering a quick trip to Singapore before starting my 3rd year of vet school! Any suggestions of ‘must sees?’

 

 

Wilson’s Prom

Posted on by

I have been wanting to go to Wilsons Promontory National Park for a very long time now. When our classes were cancelled this past Monday it seemed like the perfect day to brave the 100% chances of rain and head out on a road trip!

We all piled in the car and headed out in the morning. The rain held up as we entered the park and we immediately starting seeing wildlife! The first animals we saw were some roos along the side of the road. The had been tagged and were likely involved in a long running research project in the park.

WP_20160801_007

We hopped back in the car and drove around the corner—only to see a group of emus!! When I was a kid I was at a wildlife shelter holding some food. A large emu started chasing me around the communal pen and my dad had to save me. Ever since then their shifty eyes keep me on their toes—-however, these emus were nice and didn’t try to eat me for lunch.

WP_20160801_021

We did about half of the wildlife walk which was on a red dirt path, surrounded by shrubs. The ground was littered with tiny white seashells everywhere–the ocean must flood up to that point at certain times.

13935101_10155101709814502_8857994295480904925_n

As we continued our drive through the park we saw more roos, a couple of deer, parrots, kookaburra, and kept our eyes peeled for koalas.

After a quick lunch of fish and chips we ran into a rather tame wombat in the park. He had research tags on his ears as well and must have been very used to people because he hung around for a photo shoot.

At the far end of the park we did the Mt. Oberon hike, about 3.4km up one way. The rain was still holding off and it was nice cool weather for a walk. It was an easy hike up until the last bit when we realized we had actually hiked up into the clouds. It was very windy, foggy, and misty. There was stone steps that we had to climb up past some cell phone towers.  Coming around a corner you climb up over a rock and then the whole view opened up in front of our eyes. You could see the ocean and a couple of beaches and the hills all around. The clouds floated past underneath us and the wind almost knocked us off the top of the mountain!

IMG-20160803-WA0033WP_20160801_080

On the way back down the mountain it started pouring rain and we all got soaked. But we all needed to see Squeaky Beach before we headed back to the city. Squeaky Beach will sound squeaky when you walk on it in just the right way—its because of the silicon content in the sand (I think!). Its also very beautiful and there is a lot of large boulders on one side that have been smoothed out by the waves and tide.

IMG-20160803-WA0055

It was a really long day–but the best way to spend a day off class! I’ll definitely be going back to Wilson’s Prom to do more hiking.

WP_20160801_011

Back at it!

Posted on by

Its the end of first week of Semester 2!! —which means that I went through an entire semester without writing a single blog post. I guess that goes to show how busy first semester was. Goals for 2nd semester:  improve time management skills.

The first semester of my DVM2 year was quite the ride. I took 8 classes:

  1. Regional Anatomy of the Dog (RAD)
  2. Parasitology
  3.  Locomotion
  4. Haematopoeitic, Lymphatic, and Integument Systems
  5. Epidemiology
  6. Virology
  7. Immunology
  8. Microbiology

This semester looks like it will be just as busy. This week we hit the books again. In one of our classes we are studying the brain. We’ve covered the anatomy and some of the physiology.  In our practical class we got to dissect brains. I found it difficult because my group had a small cat brain and many of the structures were hard to see. However, finding the cranial nerves and vessels was much easier when studying a horse or cow brain.

I’m excited because study of the brain means we will be covering pain and how to measure the intensity of it in animals. This also means we will be discussing analgesics (painkillers) and how to appropriately use them. Fun fact from lecture today—> Opium comes from poppies; the farms that grow poppies are very tightly regulated and at certain times of the year the crops are protected by security guards to prevent trespassing!

ttyl

WP_20160521_057

Baby roo from a wildlife carers house—thats another story!