Big City Melbourne: Travel Time

Now I've talked about graduation, let's roll backwards a few days to the family trip to Melbourne. They reached the city at about 9am, while I boarded the plane from Adelaide at 9.30am. I bumped into my former classmate Haikal and his girlfriend at the airport, which was a pleasant surprise. Nick saw me off at the bus stop in Adelaide, and off I was onto my second ever solo flight. 

There were no complications at all for me; reached the airport with time to spare, checked in, got on the flight, landed in about an hour. It was a pretty shaky flight though, and I felt like puking a few times but it was bearable. I was pleasantly surprised to find that we could watch TV channels on the in-flight screens, so I wasn't bored. I caught a SkyBus from the airport into the city, which took about 20 minutes. 

My destination was supposed to be Medina Executive in South Yarra - I found the train heading there with three minutes to spare, so I sprinted across the train station, backpack and carry-on luggage in tow.  The train ride was another ten minutes, and I had to find an information counter to find out how to get to the hotel. It was further than I expected. I walked, and walked, and walked and walked, and just as I wondered if I was even going in the right direction, I found it!

At this point: Good news, I found the apartment. Bad news, the family wasn't there. I called Papa and he said they were at a place called Lord of the Fries on Chapel Street. I asked for directions. He said, turn left out of the hotel, then left at the main road, turn onto Chapel Street and walk and walk and walk until you wanna die.

I thought he was being overly dramatic. Oh, how wrong I was. 

The walk there took me about a half hour. By that time, my lousy Rubi shoes were falling apart, and I vowed never to spend more than $5 on a pair of Rubi shoes ever again. I didn't feel like dying yet - just really hungry. I hadn't had anything but two breakfast bars since I woke up. Finally, Mira and Hanna came barreling into me, signaling the end of my very long transit from Adelaide to my family. 

Lord of the Fries was really good! I had a chicken burger. It wasn't until the next day that we realised that everything there is vegetarian. Even then, Mama wouldn't believe me when I told her. Haha! This was one of the highlights of the Melbourne trip. After lunch the kids and I got Ben and Jerry's ice cream. I got the chunky monkey, banana flavoured ice cream with chopped walnuts and chocolate chunks. It was really good. Then we visited Papa's friend, Melvin's office. That was pretty cool - he designs cases and covers for phones and tablets. 

When we headed back to the apartment, I was introduced to Goldie, the fish who lives on the reception counter. He has his very own name tag. The apartment we got was really nice and cosy. I wrote about it here on WeekendNotes. 

The rest of the day wasn't very eventful. We tried to get used to the public transport, but I prefer Adelaide's much more. We went to Harbourtown but Mama got hungry, so we tried a Malaysian restaurant on Lonsdale St called Madam Kay's Platz Cafe, which was surprisingly good! I wrote about it on WeekendNotes as well. Click here to read. :3 It was the best cantonese kuey teow I've had in Australia so far.

The rest of the first day was pretty much just hanging around the apartment, watching horror movies.This post is getting kinda long, so I'll save days two and three for another post. 

Graduasi

I graduated last week. It's only been a week but it feels like a whole other century ago, as so much has happened since then. For one thing, I'm writing this back in my bedroom in Bukit Jelutong. I really had no time to blog since I flew to Melbourne last week, so I'll slowly post up updates as time goes by. 

So, gaduation day. I woke up pretty early and ate a breakfast bar, then headed straight for Lynn's house with Fyra. Lynn is something of an amazing person when it comes to making us up, haha. She did our makeup and curled my hair before working on herself. I brought my tuna pasta bake for lunch, and we shared that. Nick dropped by at around 11am, so we hung out until it was time to head back to UniLodge. We hurried out, caught a bus, dropped our stuff off in our apartments then went straight to the Adelaide Convention Centre.

Fyra, Sammie and Sha had some issues with their registration, so Nick, Eric and I went ahead to get our robes and mortarboards. We met Lynn outside, so we got some photos in our bat gowns. That was pretty fun. The whole of the day was just one big photoshoot, and we were the star attractions, haha!

I'm really happy that everyone was dressed so colourfully. We looked gorgeous, haha! I can't stop looking at photos of ourselves at graduation, is that weird? I feel like I find my group of friends very attractive. We deserve our own TV series. The nice sitcom dramas, not the backstabbing emotional ones. These photos were taken before the actual ceremony, and soon parents started to arrive and we were ferried into the hall. 

We all got front row seats; how epic is that! I sat between Eric and another girl I wasn't familiar with, while Syaza and Nick were on her other side. I was a bit surprised by how early we were in the line-up. When they declared the ceremony starting, we were among the first to get up and move backstage, where a few people helped fix our robes and tilt our hats in the right direction. My heart rate was going crazy at this point, I was so nervous. Worrying about getting something wrong, or tripping over my own feet. 

In the end, it went well! My smile is perfectly genuine by the way, I was really excited. But I forgot to turn and smile for the cameras, so oh well. I could hear Mira cheering when my name was called. Speaking of names, the announcer had a really long pause before he said Papa's name, haha. But he got it right in the end. The man awarding the parchment commented on how happy I looked; I was pleased to find out that he said something different to each graduate, and I appreciate that effort. When I got down from the stage, Fyra and Eric were ahead of me, so we all sort of ran into each other, trying to muffle our gleeful squeaking. The rest of the ceremony went by really slowly, and it was honestly kinda boring. 

Once all the formalities were over, we went out to take a million pictures! Here is an obligatory shot of us throwing our mortarboards into the air, haha. We did this a few times, didn't get any fabulous photos, but at least it was something. There were families everywhere, and I was smiling so much that my cheekbones hurt. 

I can't seem to find the photo that Sha helped take of the whole family, so here is one with just me and the kids. :D

We got a bit of a surprise a bit later - Shinta turned up with Artha! Or rather, a cardboard cutout of him. He told Fyra that he would be at our graduation, and we thought he was kidding but he wasn't! He actually made the cardboard cutout of himself just before he left for Jakarta a few weeks back so he could be in our graduation photos. Hilarious guy, I tell you. We had some fun taking pictures with him for a while before the cardboard started to disintegrate. There were ten different cameras snapping at us during this time, which is why none of us are looking at this camera.

Check us out. The entire Adelaide family, sans Nigel and including Sammie's Nick. This was taken by Matt after we returned our robes (we were only allowed to wear it for an hour after the ceremony ended). Most of the families had left by then, so it was just us taking a last bunch of photos before we would part ways. This would be the last time we were all together in one place - even during the dinner the day after, Sammie was absent. 

I'm thankful for this opportunity I had, of graduating in Australia with my nearest and dearest friends and family. It's been an amazing year, and I'm grateful to my parents for giving me the chance to go to Adelaide, and to all my friends there who are seriously the best I can ever ask for. These friends are family to me, and I can only hope that we stay in touch in the years to come. 

Pack It Up

I'm slowly packing stuff away, and my room looks like it's been turned upside down, with everything scattered all over the floor and boxes and bags everywhere. I took the picture above just before I started taking photographs down so I can pack them away to be shipped home. 

It's been a busy December, and I'm finding myself clinging to the days, willing time to stretch so that it will accommodate my reluctance to leave. Sure, I've got a lot to look forward to back in Malaysia, but for almost a year, this place has been my home. The people here are home too - I must be one of the luckiest people alive to have friends like these here with me, and they've been the best adopted family anybody could ask for. 

I just sent off my boxes this morning, so that's one thing less to worry about. The week's been eventful, but I'm sure the last of the gang here in Adelaide has met up for the last time, all of us together on our own, no parents around. Next week marks the arrival of a lot of families, and everyone will be busy with their relatives. 

I'm not counting down the days. Just taking things one day at a time.

Two Years

More than a week ago was the 2nd of December, marking mine and Nick's second anniversary together. What can I say? He's one of my best friends, and he makes me laugh all the time. We were friends for almost a year before we got together, and he knows me so well. I can be myself around him, and despite all my lame jokes and antics, he still layan me (after shooting me with the Nerf gun for my lameness though).

Getting the chance to study here in Adelaide together has been an amazing time, and I'm happy he's here with me, keeping me sane and grounded, looking after me when I'm down. The best part is always having someone willing to go on adventures with me, and we've done all kinds of stuff here, from travelling around Kangaroo Island to looking out for platypuses in Aldgate. 

We decided to visit someplace new for December the 2nd, so we chose Hallett Cove Beach. We initially wanted to go to Marino Rocks, but Fyra suggested Hallett Cove instead. So we prepared a sort of picnic lunch and took the train from Adelaide to Hallett Cove.

This mural was at the underground tunnel at the train station. It was so pretty, I couldn't help but take a picture. The walk from the train station to the beach took about five minutes, and the view was gorgeous!

We took a bench facing the ocean. There were quite a few people around as well, also having picnics. We could see people walking around on the beach below with their dogs. The dogs seemed really happy, some of them rolling around in the shallow water and chasing after gulls.

We had a pretty simple picnic. I made some potato salad with minced beef, while Nick baked a bunch of stuff like shrimp toasts and spring rolls and wrapped it up in foil to keep it warm. We even had some cheese twists and dip. It was a satisfying lunch, very peaceful. It was very windy there though, what with the breeze blowing in from the sea.

This is Ezno, a friend we made while we were there. His owner was walking him down the path in front of us, and he stopped and turned around to put his head on Nick's lap. He was really friendly, he started moving around between the both of us, trying to get more attention. He was a big boy too, and his fur was soft. Strangely camera-shy though; when I tried to take a picture, he wouldn't sit still.

Once lunch was done with, we packed our stuff and climbed down the steps to the beach. It's a nice place, and the rocks were in all kinds of colours, all sanded down reds, browns, greys and blues. There was a walking trail going up the hill in the picture above, apparently part of the Hallett Cove Conservation Park or something like that. Too bad we didn't have the time to check it out.

Check out those rocks! Beautiful beach. We spent a while just walking around the beach and taking pictures before going back up. While resting on one of the benches, Ezno and his owner came back, having made a round of the beach. He seemed happy to see us again, haha! His owner was really friendly too, we talked for a bit before we had to go to catch the train back to the city.

Back in the city, we had dinner together at Kishi Sushi, a little sushi bar on Rundle Street. Sundays are their promotion days, with all their sushi train plates going for $3, so we decided to make full use of it. I had a pretty satisfying dinner, and definitely a wonderful day. 

To Nick:

I had an amazing time, and really, discovering new places with you is one of the highlights of our time here in Adelaide. Here's to even more adventures together in the future. <3 nbsp="nbsp">

4-Day November Adventure: Ship Wrecks and Dolphins

This is the final blog post about my 4-Day November Adventure. Here are Part One, Part Two and Part Three!

I'd like to think that Nick and I were lucky that the sea kayaking tour got pushed back to meeting at 10.30am instead of 8.30am, as we were definitely conked out from the Kangaroo Island tour. I made eggs benedict for breakfast minus the English muffins, which was pretty alright. I'm pleased with how my poached eggs turned out. It was just poached eggs and sauteed mushrooms and spinach, nothing fancy. I got the hollandaise sauce from Woolies. 

Breakfast over, we went downstairs to the lobby to wait for the rest of the UniLodge people so we could head out with Tom, from Toms Tours. We met him earlier in the year when we went to Monarto Zoo. Anyway, we all piled into the van and headed off. There were about ... 13 of us? I'm not sure. 

It took us about a half hour to reach our destination: Garden Island and Port River at Port Adelaide. Here I am with Shu Mei, one of the friends I made in my very first week in Adelaide. The view here was lovely, with the water sparkling under the sun and an earlier tour group of kayakers out on the water. We waited about for a while so that the previous group could come out of the water before we could go in ourselves. 

Before going into the water, we got a quick briefing on how to use the paddles and steer the kayaks. Nick and I already knew we wanted to partner together, so we 'jus'-ed to see who would take the front and who would be in the back. I got the back seat, which meant I was in charge of the pedals that would steer us into the direction we wanted to go.

Kayak pile-up! We'd keep bumping into each other when we got to close. Within ten minutes in the water, we caught sight of two dolphins moving through the water quite a distance away from us. They didn't come closer, but we saw their dorsal fins bobbing in and out of the water surface. When they vanished, we made our way up the river to where the ship's graveyard was. 

Paddling up to the first ship wreck was super tiring. We were moving against the wind, and the current kept pushing us backwards, so we had to work doubly hard to get anywhere at all. When we stopped paddling, we'd drift slowly backwards, and we'd have to fight to move forward again. The view was nice though, and we passed a lot of mangrove trees and random birds flying past or bobbing around in the water. 

We got really close to the wreck, which looked like it had been sliced in half. It was pretty interesting. Apparently there are about 40 vessels in the area, all old vessels scuttled decades ago when they went into disrepair. We only got to see two up close. 

This is the other side of the ship. It's all rusted through here. It took us quite a while to move around the ship, with the current pushing us back. My arms were getting tired, and my legs ached from working the pedals. We were also covered in salt, from the sea water evaporating in the sunlight, leaving our arms speckled with the stuff.

We followed Tom further up the river to find another ship wreck, though this one was pretty much sunk to the top. What's left of it is just barely jutting out of the water, the deck covered in sand and some trees. We turned around after this wreck, as it was about time for us to return the kayaks. It was much easier going back, simply because the current was in our favour. We pretty much just drifted gently along the river. 

Suddenly, one of the girls, Anne called out, pointing further ahead of us. There in the distance were a couple of grey dorsal fins disappearing into the water. We immediately stopped kayaking, and I reached for my camera. Check out the video I took below!

Sorry for the terrible quality. My camera's not that great and my hand was shaking from the waves lapping against the kayak. It was a pretty cool experience, seeing the dolphins moving past us like that. Curious creatures.

Once that excitement was over, nothing much happened. We made our way back to the shore and stashed the kayaks away, not before washing the salt off our arms and legs. Then it was off to Largs Bay for lunch!

Tom went to get us fish and chips while we went off to explore the beach. We saw these people on surfboards holding onto a parasail that took them zooming through the water. A few times, I saw them lift right off the ground, their boards suspended in air for almost half a minute before splashing back onto the waves. It looked like fun! There were quite a few of them too, zipping back and forth from the beach.

Lunch itself was delicious, probably made even more so by how hungry we were. It was very simple though. Tom just bought a big box of battered fish and a whole lot of chips, which we all shared. We each got a piece of fish, which were reasonably sized and tasty. 

After that was over, Nick and I went to get some ice-cream. I got myself a double scoop cone, with cookies and cream and macadamia flavours. It was really good! A great way to end the day. Tom took the scenic route back to the city, passing by lots more white sandy beaches and beautiful beach houses. It was a really nice drive, and I napped for a little while because I was so tired. I can't even remember what we did when we got back home, but I'm pretty sure we all had a good rest! 

All in all, I enjoyed my 4-Day November Adventure immensely. Not only was it a fantastic experience, it helped me fix my sleeping times too, so I wake up earlier now than I did before I started volunteering. So that's good, haha! I'm glad I had the chance to do all these things, Alhamdulillah.

4-Day November Adventure: More Australian Wildlife

This is a continuation of my 4-Day November Adventure blog post series! Here is Part One and Part Two. 

Following the mournful loss of my glasses, we headed off to Parndana Wildlife Park, where we got to see more Australian wildlife (again). I've said this before and I'll say it again: I've petted more kangaroos than I've seen cats here. And I also remember Azhar asking why are we constantly going out and looking at animals here before on one of my Facebook albums, haha. Anyway, the wildlife park here was pretty tiny compared to the others I've been to. The first thing we noticed were the peacocks strutting about in front of us. As we got nearer, they went berserk and flew up onto the roof of the koala enclosure, shrieking awfully at us. I swear, the way the noise they were making sounded a lot like "HELP!"

We found this little creature - a bush-tailed possum - curled up in a box at the front of its enclosure. I feel like it was scared stiff of us, though I'm not sure why it didn't hide in the back where there was so many more sheltered hollows for it to huddle into. I wish I could have cuddled it all better.

In comparison, this fellow was ridiculously happy to have our attention. I love how he always looked like he was beaming up at us. Beautiful dog, although it was kind of dusty looking. I'm not surprised though, with the amount of sand and dust swirling around in the dry heat. We stayed around keeping it company for a while before we followed the rest of the tour group, who were feeding kangaroos.

Speaking of kangaroos, we found some albino ones at the park! I've never seen an albino kangaroo in real life before this ... I used to read about one when I was little, and I never thought I would ever see a living, breathing one. This one was hopping around the enclosure, being followed by the large male right behind it. Ahem. She wasn't the only albino; there were about two more, lazing around in the shade of the trees though I couldn't get a picture of them. This picture is a screencap from Nick's video camera.

So we went to feed some kangaroos. This must be my fifth time doing so since I started studying in Adelaide, haha. The kangaroos on Kangaroo Island are different though. Compared to normal Grey Kangaroos on the mainland, their fur is darker, and the base of their tails is thicker than their mainland cousins. I was only feeding one of these guys to begin with, before the other two came over hoping for some snacks as well. I didn't even intend to feed them (too much trouble to go find a place to wash off the roo saliva) but the handler gave me some feed and I couldn't just leave them hanging, haha.

This one seemed to appreciate me sticking around very much. Hahaha.

After walking around the park, we went to the gift shop. I think my eyes popped out when I saw everybody crowding around a person cradling a little fuzzy joey in her arms. Everybody was allowed a turn in carrying her, and I was so amazingly happy when I got to hold her. The joey is eight months old, orphaned and bottle fed four times a day. Her name is Molly, and she's absolutely adorable. She seemed bored by everybody though - while I was holding her, she went and started licking her itty bitty paws, like she felt she had better things to do than be carried around. Ahhhh, what a high. 

Our last stop for the day was KI Spirits, a quaint little brewery on the way back to Penneshaw. Of course, I didn't sample any of their wares but I took a quick sniff of the flavours that Sammie tried out, and it's all pretty interesting. They had flavours like honey and walnut, as well as strawberries and vanilla. It was a nice little place right in the middle of nowhere. Surrounded by dry, scrubby grass and eucalyptus trees.

For dinner, we went back to Penneshaw and the hosts got us a whole lot of pizza. We sat around on the grass, watching blue wrens and fairy wrens flitting about. The gulls were kind of a given, hanging around and watching us hungrily, squabbling amongst each other over their 'territories' around where we were on the grass. When we accidentally dropped morsels off our pizzas, they came up hesitantly, snatching up the food when they felt that we weren't paying attention. 

They started to fight over a piece of dropped pizza, and some magpies swooped in and chased them off, grabbing the pizza for themselves. Tyson managed to rip up some of the pizza pieces, as it was too big for them. Even then, one of the gulls swallowed a large chunk whole, and there was a noticeable bulge in its throat. It was kind of worrying, haha.

We got on the ferry pretty satisfied with our day. We were tired and literally covered in sand. I had sand in my ears, and when we sneezed, sand would come out of our noses. Nick and I went onto the back deck of the ferry to take some last photos of the island. What a beautiful place, but also incredibly dry and empty. I loved how we could see right to the sand bed when I looked down into the water, a perfect shade of transparent teal. We didn't stay too long outside though. It was starting to get cold, and I could feel the wind nipping at my cardigan.

And even then the day wasn't quite over yet! I feel like God had one last thing up His sleeve for us, a perfect way to end the day - the cherry on our Kangaroo Island sundae.

Yes.

We were seated by the windows, Nick and I facing the back while Sammie faced the front because she had motion sickness. I had taken off my shades, so I was pretty much half-blind. Suddenly, mid-conversation, Sammie literally threw herself against the window and squealed, "DOLPHINS!"

Immediately, everyone turned to look out the window, and there it was, leaping through the waves right beside us. I think we were thrown into a frenzy; Nick reaching for his video camera and me reaching for my powered shades. By the time he had the camera out, the dolphin was gone, but we really couldn't give up hope. All three of us were as close to the window as we could get, and I think mine and Sammie's voices were two octaves higher than usual. And then it appeared again, shooting out of the water, once, twice, and it was gone.

Seriously, what a beautiful way to end the trip, Alhamdulillah. In that moment, I just felt so much happiness. The one day trip was perfect for us to see Kangaroo Island, even though we didn't get to see the Remarkable Rocks on the Western end of the island. We got to see so many beautiful things, and really I couldn't ask for anything more of the trip. 

4-Day November Adventure: Sights, Sea, Seals and Sand

I got about five hours of sleep after my last day of volunteering before I was up again to prepare for the Kangaroo Island day tour. We got really lucky with this one; the tour is the first of its kind, cheaper than the usual day tour prices in order to cater for the student crowd. Nick and I met Sammie at the Adelaide Central Bus Station at about 6.30 am so we could get on the bus headed for Cape Jervis, where we would take the ferry across the Backstairs Passage to Penneshaw on Kangaroo Island. 

The view on the way there was beautiful, just miles and miles of rolling hills, yellow-tinged grass and trees. We spotted a couple of wild kangaroos on the way there too, grazing in some long grass. We passed a couple of small towns, and there were loads of cows to be seen like little blobs on the landscape. We reached Cape Jervis after two hours in the bus, and the weather was pretty good. Not too sunny, with some cloud cover and a slight breeze.

The ferry ride was uneventful. We explored the decks and waited around hoping to see some dolphins. The guy who arranged the tour, Tyson said that there are usually some who follow the ferry as it moves through the water. No luck though, so we headed indoors to find some seats and buy something to snack on. The ride took about 45 minutes, and there was no reception to be had on our phones. Vodafone apparently has no coverage on the island, but Telstra and Optus do apparently. Kind of ridiculous, but oh well.

Once at our destination, we piled into a tour bus and set off with our driver, Glen giving us occasional snatches of information about the island. There used to be aborigines who lived there when it was connected to the mainland, but when the sea level rose about 2,000 years ago they moved away, leaving the island uninhabited until Matthew Flinders landed there in 1802. Now there's only about 4,500 people living there, and this place is way bigger than Singapore! 

Our first stop was Prospect Hill, which is the highest point of the island. We had to climb up a whole lot of steps to reach the top. It wasn't so bad even with the heat, but it was the sudden onslaught of crazy flies that kind of threw off our groove. I can't believe I just typed that. Moving on. The view from the top was spectacular! I could see green-blue seas in the distance, and we pretty much had a 360 degree view of the island. 

If you look closely at the picture above, you'll be able to just see our bus at the bottom right. Looks tiny from up there. After about five minutes admiring the view and battling the flies, we made our way back down the steps. The air-conditioning within the bus was a welcome relief to the dry heat outside. Once we were all settled in, we headed off on an hour's journey to the Seal Bay Conservation Park, famous for its basking Australian Sea Lions.

When we started our guided walk of the beach, Sammie, Nick and I stuck close to the guide so we could hear as much information as possible. We walked down this hill from the main entrance of the park, and it wasn't until we reached the platform leading to the beach that we saw all the sea lions scattered across the sand. We arrived just in time to watch as a sea lion swam right up to shore and dragged itself out of the water. I was so amazed by how close we were to these creatures, it was amazing. 

Suddenly, from behind us we heard this loud noise like a small, long drawn out horn. We turned around to see THE MOST ADORABLE LITTLE BABY IN THE UNIVERSE come waddling out towards us. We moved around to give it clear passage to the beach, as it had come right from underneath the wooden steps we had gone down earlier. It was so cute oh my god I was squeaking with happiness. 

The guide said that the baby was looking for its mother, and that would be why it kept making that strange honking noise (unglamorous way of describing it, but yeah). In that moment, as I watched the baby continue its awkward way down the sand, I knew that this trip was worth every single cent spent. Alhamdulillah, we were so lucky to have gotten the chance to see these creatures.

This fella was asleep underneath the platform when we headed back up to the main entrance. This is definitely the closest I will ever get to an Australian Sea Lion, and I'm happy I got a good shot of it snoozing away below us. It looks so cuddly.

After that, we headed straight for lunch at Vivonne Bay. The trip was kind of uninspiring, like the one to Seal Bay - nothing but scrubby bush, dry looking trees and lots of sand. I expected to have our meal by the seaside or something, but it was a sort of small resort place instead. The eating area was quite nice, and we all had DIY kebabs. It was quite tasty, and they served fruits as well, which was really nice. 

After lunch, we headed for Little Sahara, which is a series of sand dunes somewhere north of Vivonne Bay. The main tourist activity there? Sandboarding! We trudged up two hills of fine sand to reach a mammoth of a hill, where a mini sandstorm was swirling at the top. We had a bunch of boards to share between us, so we took it turns to climb to the top of the hill and sliding down. The climb was ridiculously difficult. Not only was it steep, but the wind was blowing like crazy, and sand was whipping straight into our faces. 

I waited at the bottom while Nick and Sammie went first. When Sammie arrived back at the bottom where I was, her entire face was dusted with sand, and her teeth and lips looked like she had been dipped into the stuff. First tip learnt that day; keep your lips pursed shut on the way down.

I went down twice, and both times it felt like agony getting to the top. Sliding down was fun, even though I didn't go as far as I hoped I would. By the end of the session, I was covered in sand. I'd scratch my head and it would snow around my shoulders, like very fine dandruff. I'm also sad to say that I lost my glasses somewhere around the dunes. I had hooked them to the front of my top, and when I got into the bus, they were gone. I was depressed for a while, but there was really nothing I could do but wait till I got back and put on the horrible old pair I wore here to Adelaide. Good thing it was sunny all day, so I could wear my powered shades without a problem.

That concludes part one of the Kangaroo Island tour! Stay tuned for part two. :)