First Wildlife Sighting

Last night, I spotted my first true Australian wildlife outside of a zoo: the possum.

Sports Weekend

It was a pretty busy weekend of sports activities for me. Saturday there was a volleyball tournament put on by the UQ Beach Volleyball Club, and my team made it to the semi-finals. Later that night, a group of us went to an Australian Football League game. Australian rules football is a pretty entertaining sport- it's sort of like a combination between soccer and a little bit of American football played on an oval shaped field. The Brisbane Lions played the West Coast Eagles, and won 114 - 82. Sunday, my roommate and I went to a National Rugby League game with an international student group from school, QUEST. The Brisbane Broncos played the New Zealand Warriors and lost 16 - 48. It was cool to see Australian sports in person, since Australia is known to be a very sport-centered country.

At the AFL Game

At the NRL Game

CityCat

I went downtown today to get some dim sum in Chinatown. To get there, I took the CityCat ferry down the Brisbane River, which I have traveled on several times. It's super convenient and a student fare is only about $1 each way. Here are a couple pictures of Brisbane from the river:

Field Trip

For my first university field trip, I went with my heat transfer class to a BP oil refinery outside of Brisbane. We learned about the heat transfer that takes place at an oil refinery, primarily through different heat exchangers. After a short classroom session, we got to tour the refinery and see where various the processes actually take place.

The Hinterlands

Today I went with an international student group, QUEST, to Springbrook National Park in the Gold Coast Hinterlands. It was an hour and a half bus ride from Brisbane and we walked through a cave of glow worms, fed some tropical birds, and did a couple hikes to some waterfalls.

Australia Zoo

Today I went to the Australia Zoo with an international student group from school called QUEST. The zoo is pretty famous in Australia because it is owned by Steve Irwin's family and is where he worked. It featured mostly native Australian animals and was pretty cool. Highlights of the day included: playing with kangaroos, petting a koala, feeding an elephant, and watching tiger playtime.

Mt. Coot-Tha

My roommate and I went for a short hike today up Mt. Coot-Tha on the outskirts of Brisbane. It was a little rainy, but still fun and the views were great.

Waterfall at Mt. Coot-Tha

 

 

View of Brisbane from the summit

Going to the Great Barrier Reef

I booked my tickets to go to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef over spring break. Now I need to start doing some research... but I plan on getting my PADI open water certification, and going up to the rainforest.