Chrissy's Trip to Australia -- Part Three

We got back from Whitsundays on Wednesday, and left Friday to head up to Gladstone, which is 6 hours north of Brisbane. Mikey’s mom was having a 50^th birthday party on Saturday, and he invited Vince, Chrissy and I to go with him. We left Friday afternoon and didn’t arrive until late Friday evening. Mikey’s mom had made us dinner and then we just hung around his house. His house is really cool, because it’s off the ground, and is two houses connected… nothing like any houses in the states. His younger brother had just bought a husky puppy who only a few weeks old, which was a big source of our entertainment all weekend. The next morning we helped set up for the party and ran a few errands. We stopped at Mikey’s older brothers house to see his little nieces, Ella and Charlotte. People started showing up for the party around 4. They were doing finger food rather than a big meal, so people came around all evening with platters of food for us to eat. The party turned out to be really great, quite a few people showed up, we ate a lot, drank a lot and had a really fun time. We all slept pretty late Sunday, and then had bacon and eggs for brunch before heading back to Brisbane.

On Monday, Chrissy and I went to a night tour at the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary in Gold Coast. We took a train and then a bus, which dropped us off right outside of the Sanctuary. When we arrived, there were only about 17 of us doing the tour, so it was a smaller group. There was an amazing buffet dinner waiting for us, with steak and pasta and a bunch of great food. We started out by the koalas and took a train around the sanctuary, stopping off at different animals. We were able to feed and pet the kangaroos, see one of the world’s largest breed of crocodiles, and I saw my first ever wombat. We took pictures with a baby crocodile and a snake, and saw Tasmanian devils. We spent a majority of our time outside and it was absolutely freezing, but it was definitely a good thing to do while Chrissy was here!

On Tuesday, Geoff, Mikey, Aliey, Chrissy and I went to Dreamworld which is a theme park in Gold Coast. Dreamworld is supposedly Australia’s biggest theme park, but it was actually really small. I was surprised after hearing so many people suggest that I go there at how small it really was. We were able to go on a week day, so the lines were pretty non existent, which was really nice. We spent the day going on rides, and then ate our packed lunches. Dreamworld is home to quite a few tigers as well, so we watched a tiger show in the afternoon. The tigers were trained to jump, stand on two legs, and climb a pole. Animal behavior is something I am really interested in, so it was definitely my favorite part of Dreamworld. Although the park was small and aliey went on a whole THREE rides (she is afraid of rides that go upside down, spin, or basically rides that move in general :-P), it was a really great day! After Dreamworld, Mikey’s cousin Bec picked up Chrissy from the park. I had final exams coming up and really needed to study and Chrissy wanted to go out, so Bec offered to have Chrissy stay the night in Gold Coast and go out with her, which gave me the opportunity to study the rest of Tuesday night.

Wednesday I spent the day studying, and Chrissy arrived back at the apartments in the late afternoon. She worked on packing up her stuff while I did some more studying, and Thursday morning, Mikey and I dropped her off at the airport.

My trip with Chrissy went incredibly fast, but I saw some of the most amazing things while she was here.

Christina Rae- it means the world to me that you spent your own money to come visit me J I am so glad I was able to share some of my experiences with you, and you were able to meet all of my friends! I love you!