Favorite Pictures

A crab on the beach in Palm Cove

An emu, deep in thought

The Sydney Opera House at night

I wish I could scratch my back like a koala

Some very friendly birds in Wilson's Promontory Nat. Park

A wombat, the closest relative of the koala

The wind was pretty strong on the ferry across Sydney Harbor

The Twelve Apostles and the sun peeking out from behind the clouds

Palm Cove

Today and tomorrow, we will just be relaxing on the beach, enjoying the last two days of our vacation. I won't be publishing a blog specific to these days, but I will be posting other interesting things, like this:

AUSTRALIAN words vs. AMERICAN words

Snag=Sausage
Barbie=Barbecue
Overtake=Pass (while driving)
Prawns=Shrimp
Morning/Afternoon Tea=Snack
Petrol=Gasoline
The Mosquitos Will Carry You Away=The Mosquitos Will Eat You Alive
Busking=Street Performing
Caravan=RV

Reef: Day 3

Lots of little fish

Me with some scissor-tailed sergeants

Me with some more scissor-tailed sergeants

Question: which way was this picture taken?
Answer: exactly the way you see it.  It was very fun to swim straight down

Can you see the parrofish?

Today was our last day snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef, but it was probably the most exiting.  We, snorkeled at three sites that we had already been to, but that didn't take away from the experience.  The highlight of the day was getting to see another obscure animal called a royal sea squirt!  Just like the giant clams, these are filter feeders with an "in" opening and an "out" opening and are hermaphrodites, meaning they can reproduce by themselves.  Royal sea squirts are about the size, if not smaller, than a fist, and can filter hundreds of liters of water a day, removing most (95%) of all bacteria!  Although the camera was working better today, we couldn't get a picture if the sea squirt, so you will need to look it up on google images.  However, we were able to get some great photos of me surrounded with small, black and white fish called scissor-tail sergeants.g

Reef: Day 2

A very small portion of the Great Barrier Reef

Looking out over the reef

Up close with some coral

Some more coral

I am the diver who is outstretched with the blue fins farthest to the right

Today was our second of three days exploring the Great Barrier Reef.  Today, however, I SCUBA dove on all three locations.  I am not certified, so I could only go down 12 meters (about 40 feet), but I didn't miss much because coral grows mostly near the surface where there is plenty of sunlight.

On the first dive, I got to see and touch a giant clam.  The flesh felt like rubber, and all I can say was that I am SO GLAD that it didn't close on my fingers!  We also saw paddletail snappers, black-spotted puffers, swarthy parrotfish, forcepfish, sailfin surgeonfish, schooling bannerfish, and many more.  We couldn't get pictures of these, so you might want to look them up on Google Images.

On our second dive, we saw many of the same fish with the addition of goatfish, which filter sand through their gills and eat the algae.  Also, just about everywhere (including the other sites) were small, multicolored, frilly things called Christmas-tree worms, which you can read about in my brother's blog (http://savathurbersblog.blogspot.com).

The third dive was again the most interesting.  The highlight was definitely getting to hold a sea cucumber (which the dive master said was okay).  I know a sea cucumber doesn't sound very interesting, but between the small suction cups and the fact that...well...it's a cucumber that lives in the ocean, it was absolutely amazing (NOTE: a sea cucumber is not an elongated, green vegetable).  After the cucumber, we swam around for a little while longer, and enjoyed the colorful scenery.

Reef: Day 1

Me, snorkeling.

The boat that took us to the reef.

Today was another early start.  We got up around 6:20 and got ready to leave the hotel.  We drove north from Palm Cove, where we are staying, to Port Douglas.  (Most diving companies, including ours, operate there.)  We boarded the boat and rode it for about an hour and a half out to the outer reef.  This means that the parts of the reef that we saw were on the edge farthest from the mainland.  The coral here is much nicer and healthier because less companies take people there.

The first place where we stopped was called the Three Sisters.  When we first put our heads in the water, we couldn't believe how clear the water was, and how many different colors of coral and fish there were.  The fish were so graceful as they darted in and out of the coral formations.   Here, and at the other two sites, we saw many parrot fish.  Parrot fish eat coral, digest the algae, and basically poop out sand.  Fun.  When I went underwater, away from the noise of the waves, I could actually hear them chew.  (Unfortunately, the waterproof bag with my dad's phone didn't behave in the salt water, so we only got a few photos.)  We snorkeled for about an hour before getting back on the boat and driving to our second of three location.

The second stop was called Phil's, and we all agreed that it was more colorful than the first.  There was a  more colorful variety of fish and coral.  This site looked mostly like a giant plateau covered in bright patches of color, and the careful movement of fish around the coral.  This dive was the shortest of the three, and before we knew it, it was time to leave.

The third dive was called Barracuda Bombie, and was by far the best of the three.  There were schools of barracudas swimming amung other large silver fish which we couldn't identify.  On all three dives, but especially this one, there were tons of giant clams hidden in the coral.  These look like normal, round clams, but with iridescent, blue dots that speckle the dog-sized animal!  They hide in the rock surrounded by coral, so we really needed to look carefully to spot them.  Again, this dive ended too soon, and we needed to start heading towards the mainland.  Tomorrow, we will snorkel again, and I may take an introductory SCUBA class.

Rain Forest and Cairns

Yep, this is a fern

A 500+ year of clohesy fig tree

Today, we woke up early again to take a ride into the dense rain forest of Northeastern Queensland.  This rain forest is the oldest continuously surviving rain forest in the world.  It dates back to the days of Pangaea, when most of Gondwana (the southern part of Pangaea consisting of modern day, South America, Africa, Antarctica, and Australia) was covered in rain forest.  As Gondwana drifted south, separating from the rest of Pangaea, Australia slowly ripped away from Antarctica and started moving north.  Even though the land which the rain forest is currently on was under water during Pangaea, the plants are still very similar to the original rain forest.  When we first drove in, we were surprised at how big and exaggerated all the plants were.  The highlights included king ferns (ferns that are almost as tall as a small house) and fig trees (these trees start off growing around other trees, and sends roots down to the ground.  Once it takes root, it starts competing for sunlight and soil nutrients with the original tree.  Most of the time, the fig tree wins, and kills the other tree.  The result is a colossal tree supported by it's roots.  The root system creates little rooms under the tree where the original tree used to be (big enough to fit a small classroom!).  We also saw termite mounds, tropical birds, and lots of other cool plants.

After the rain forest, we drove back to Cairns and walked around for a while.  We saw lots of small gift shops and souvenir outlets, and it reminded all of us of Hampton Beach (on the coast of New Hampshire).  We had lunch at an Italian restaurant right next to the water, and enjoyed shopping for a while.  We also stopped at a grocery store to buy steaks which we will barbecue tonight.  Tomorrow, will be our first of three days snorkeling out on the reef!

Kuranda

A Major Mitchell's Cockatoo 

A cassowary in Bird World

Today, we woke up almost as early as I would have had to to go to school, to catch a train up a mountain to visit a shopping area called Kuranda.  The train was slightly delayed, but mot so much ass the train in Berlin!  We stopped a few times on the one and a half hour ride, including at Barron Falls, a waterfall running down a cliff out of a dam generating hydroelectric power for much of Cairns.  When we arrived at the top of the mountain (located on the Great Dividing Range, West of Cairns and running up and down the East cost) we started to shop right away.  There were shops selling souvenirs, clothing, jewelry (especially opal), and Aboriginal art.  We stopped for a while at one store that sold didgeridoos (dijereedus).  (A didgeridoo is a long, hollow piece of wood, carved out by termites used by the Aboriginal people.  The didgeridoo is one of the oldest instruments in the world, first being produced 25 or 30 thousand years ago!)  We eventually bought one, made of iron bark eucalyptus wood.  Iron bark eucalyptus is one of the densest types of eucalyptus, so it makes a very warm, full sound.


We walked around the markets for a little bit longer, saw a bird exhibit called Bird World, and it was already time to leave.  On our way down the mountain, we basically rode on a giant ski lift, and got to look from above the canopy at the dense rain forest below.  Tomorrow, we will be taking a ride into the rain forest to see it up close.

Goodbye Caravan

We woke up today in an caravan park near Cairns.  We drove to a car rental place, where we picked up an Australian car called a Holden.  My mom followed the caravan in the car as we drove to Apollo, the caravan rental company.  We said goodbye to the RV, and drove away in the Holden.  We checked into our hotel in a suburb called Palm Cove, and (because it was the end of the day already) just stayed in the hotel and swam for a while in the pool.  Tomorrow, we will take a train up a mountain to see the views and do some shopping at the old market called Kuranda.

Mt. Saint Bernard College

My brother and I with three of the Aboriginal boys at MSB.

Today, we spent the day at Mount Saint Bernard College (a boarding school in Queensland) and learned some about the school.  It was founded about 100 years ago by Irish nuns who wanted to educate the growing population of miners' children.  Originally, it was only a school for European children, but it now educates mostly Aboriginal and Torres Strait children.  While my dad did more professional development workshops, my brother and I did some school work and visited a few classes.  Some of the Indigenous boys gave us a lesson on the didgeridoo and we played our violins for them.  It was really interesting to see the differences between these styles of music.  One thing we had in common was smiles!

After my dad's presentations finished, we took a tour of the school.  We got to see some of the dorms, and my brother and I taught a few Aboriginal kids how to play Frisbee.  After our tour, we said good-bye and started our drive to Cairns (this was only about two hours, thank goodness).  We arrived at a caravan park near Cairns around 8:00pm and went right to bed.  Tomorrow, we will drop off the caravan and move into a hotel.

More Driving

The silhouettes of some fish

A puffer fish

A hammerhead shark

Today was another big day of driving.  We woke up in a caravan park in Townsville and started our drive to Mount St. Bernard College in Herberton.  On the way, we stopped at an aquarium called Reef HQ.  This educational aquarium is all about the Great Barrier Reef.  We saw three different kinds of sharks, got to touch some starfish and look at them under a microscope, and viewed hundreds of species of fish from inside an acrylic tunnel.  I hope I remember some of the species' names because these are he same fish that we will see when we snorkel the Great Barrier Reef.  After a quick lunch of sandwiches in the RV, we got back on the road, and ended up in Herberton by the end of the day. Whew!

Rockhampton: Day 2

Today, we woke up at the Rockhampton Grammar School and enjoyed a delicious breakfast in the dining hall.  (This included local bananas.)  After breakfast, my dad got set up for his professional development workshops (this was the reason we came here) and my mom, brother, and I went to... wait for it, wait for it... A ZOO!!!!!!  Some of the habitats were damaged because just six weeks ago, a cyclone (a hurricane in the Southern Hemisphere) hit the area.  Apart from that, the zoo was beautiful, and before we knew it, it was time to head back.  When we met up with my dad, he was done with his presentation, and was ready to go.  We enjoyed a lunch of prawn and avocado sandwiches, said goodbye to our hosts, Stewart and Tania Norford, and packed up the RV.  We drove about eight hours today and tomorrow we will continue our drive and end up at Mount St. Bernard Colllege in Herberton.

A wombat at the zoo.  The wombat's closest relative is the koala.

Rockhampton: Day 1

Us having fillets and snags on the barbie

Today, we woke up in a rest stop where we slept for the night, had a quick breakfast, and got driving again.  We arrived in Rockhampton around noon, and our first stop was Emu Beach.  When we asked which beach to visit, Emu Beach was recommended with the warning that the water might be a bit chilly now, in the fall, but to us, the water was warmer than most pools in New England (Rockhampton is on the Tropic of Capricorn, so technically, this was a tropical ocean).  This was the first time that we had swam in the Coral Sea, but we will soon be swimming in an even warmer part of the sea when we are in Cairns (pronounced: cans).  After the beach, we drove to the Rockhampton Grammar School where we will be spending the night, and my dad will be doing staff training in the morning.  We had a fabulous, traditional barbecue dinner with lamb sausages and steak (Rockhampton is the steak capital of Australia), as well as grilled vegetables.  However, in Australian English, we had fillets and snags on the barbie.

Tomorrow, we will wake up, have breakfast, and while my dad is doing a workshop, my mom, brother, and I will explore the city.  After my dad is done, we will hit the road again and drive halfway to Cairns.  We have to get there in two days for another workshop that my dad is doing, but then we will drive to a suburb called Palm Springs, where we will be snorkeling around the Great Barrier Reef!

Yet Another Zoo, But a Great One

A lava plug

A jovial lemur

Me with a koala

Today we started our drive to Rockhampton from Brisbane.  On the drive we stopped a few times.  First, we stopped to see the Glass House Mountains, which are a series of volcano plugs.  Volcano plugs are the igneous rock interiors of volcanoes after magma inside the cone had filled up the cavity and solidified.  When the outside of the volcano (sandstone) eroded, the more durable igneous rock remained.  These mountains were first discovered by captain Cook, who mapped much of the east coast of Australia around the time of the American Revolution (around 1770s).  Cook named the plugs the "Glass House Mountains" because they reminded him of the furnaces used to create glass (in particular, the chimneys) in his hometown in Great Britain.

Our next stop was the Australia Zoo, founded by Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter.  Again, we saw many Australian animals, and at this zoo, we even got to hold a koala.  Up close, we got to look at its paws, which differ from most five-fingered animals.  Their hands have two opposing thumbs and three other fingers to help them climb.  Their feet have five toes, but two are fused together and have two claws used for grooming.  Surprisingly, koalas even smell like eucalyptus!  Also at the zoo, we saw lots of crocodiles, giraffes, rhinoceroses, a few red pandas, tigers, and lemurs.  We also saw an animal that I had never heard of, called a binturong.  They look like big black cats that walk around the canopy searching for food.  They mostly eat fruit, but can also eat small mammals, birds, and even fish.  They are native to Southeast Asia.

After the zoo, we had sandwiches, and continued on our drive.  Today, we are hoping to make it more than half way to Rockhampton.

Brisbane

The Story Bridge from the ferry

The Story Bridge and Brisbane

Last night, we slept in a caravan park just north of Brisbane.  When we woke up this morning, I made pancakes, and we enjoyed a nice calm breakfast.  After that, my brother and I got busy making recordings for our orchestral auditions.  When we were done, we had a late lunch and drove into Brisbane.  Our first stop was a Ferrari dealership just down the street from where we parked, and now I want the 2015 458 Italia even more.  The only problem is the half million dollar price tag.

After that, we walked to the Story Bridge, which is one of the most recognizable landmarks in Brisbane.  It is the largest steel cantilever bridge in Australia,  stretching over the Brisbane River.  We walked about half way across the bridge and then tuned back and walked along the bank of the river.  We saw lots of restaurants similar to the bank of the Yarra River in Melbourne.  We caught a free ferry and rode it for about half an hour on the river.  We saw the bridge and the city lit up at night (the sun is setting earlier and earlier every day, because in the Southern Hemisphere the seasons are opposite.)  After we got off the ferry, we had dinner at a restaurant right on the river bank.  Afterwards, we walked around down town Brisbane.  We walked on a pedestrian street called Queen's Mall, and saw lots of little shops.  Because it was Sunday night, most of them were closed, but it was still fun to walk around.

We will spend the night in Brisbane, and start driving north again tomorrow.  We are hoping to make it to Rockhampton by Tuesday.

The Australian Reptile Park

A Tasmanian devil

The kangaroo who realized all the food was coming from the bag.

An echidna

Today, we woke up early, and started our next long stretch of driving.  We are hoping to make a very quick stop in Brisbane in the next few days.  On the drive, we stopped in another zoo, called the Australian Reptile Park, to see more native fauna.

Some things that we saw were: a platypus (it and the echidna are the only remaining monotremes left in the world; that means that they are the only mammals that lay eggs), another echidna, Tasmanian devils (as well as in Tasmania, these used to thrive in mainland Australia, but dingos (wild dogs) competed with them for water, food, and land; the dingos won, and now the devils only live in some parts of mainland Australia where there are no dingos;), dingos, a Galapagos tortoise (obviously not from Australia, but amazing nevertheless), a cane toad (an invasive species introduced by Europeans), lots of spiders, lizards, snakes, and a few birds.

We also got to feed and touch kangaroos, who were wandering around the park looking for guests who had bought a small brown bag of kangaroo food.  One of the smart kangaroos even took the bag from us and started eating right out of it.

After the zoo, my brother and I practiced our violins for an upcoming orchestra audition, and later, we continued driving.  We have a few long drives ahead of us, but we are enjoying observing the beautiful scenery.

Sydney: Day 2

A cassowary that we saw at the zoo.

A koala that we saw at the zoo.

Today was our second and final day in Sydney.  When we woke up in the RV park, we took the subway again into the center of the city.  Our first stop was in the town hall for my brother and me to get busking permits.  (Busking is the Australian word for street performing.)  My brother and I always look forward to playing our violins whichever city we're in.  We've played in Paris, London, Boston, Belgrade, Hobart, Prague, Portsmouth, Leipzig, San Diego, and as of today, Sydney.

After we got the permits, we headed straight to the Sydney Opera (where there were lots of people) to find a place on the street to play.  Then we caught a ferry to Watson Bay in Sydney Harbor.  We had lunch at a seafood restaurant called Doyle's.  After that, we caught a returning ferry, and when we were back in downtown, we went to the Sydney zoo.  We were able to see many native Australian species such as echidnas, kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, Tasmanian devils, many colorful birds including cassowaries, and lots of reptiles.  We even got to take pictures up close with a koala (this was especially extraordinary because in the wild, most of the time they are asleep high up in eucalyptus trees.)

After the zoo, we walked to the Lindt Café, the café where the terrorist attacks occurred last year.  We had a slice of cake, and started walking around a pedestrian street called Martin Place.  We walked into an arcade (similar to the ones in Melbourne), and looked in a lot of small shops, including a hat store where you could find basically every type of hat under the sun.

When we left the arcade, it was already time to start heading towards the train station to catch a ride back to the caravan park.  However, as we walked down into the subway station, we saw so many people, that my brother and I wanted to play our violins again.  We played some more, and then decided to call it quits for the night.  We hopped on a train and got off at the park, where we slept another peaceful (but cramped) night in the caravan.

Sydney: Day 1

The tiles of the Sydney Opera House

The Opera House from across the water

The Sydney Opera House at night

Today was our first day in Sydney, the Capitol of New South Whales.  We took a train into the city early in the morning and of course, our first stop was the Sydney Opera House.

The Sydney Opera House was the result of a worldwide design competition around 1950.  The winner of the competition was a Danish man named Jørn Utzon.  The project was expected to last three years and cost 7 million dollars, but in the end took almost 15 years and cost 102 million dollars.  The construction ended in 1973.  Half way through the protect, Utzon was fired because of his extreme underestimation, and he returned to Denmark.  However, the construction continued, and the interior was designed by Australian architects.  After some time, Utzon was rehired, and led the operation from his home in Denmark.  He never returned to see the Opera House completed.  The iconic white shells of the Sydney Opera House are actually covered in white and beige tiles so as not the make the building to blinding in the bright light.  In fact, architect Louis Kahn, who designed the Phillips Exeter Library, said, "The sun didn't know how beautiful its rays were until they were reflected off this building."

The Sydney Opera House is actually three separate structures, one small building being renovated into a restaurant, and two larger structures.  The biggest of those two contains the largest hall in the House, seating about 2500 people, and three smaller performance spaces.  The second large structure contains a hall about half the size of the largest one.

After a tour of the Opera House, we walked along the Sydney Harbor Bridge, the second largest single span bridge in the world.  We walked about halfway across the bridge, took pictures from a new angle of the Opera House, and walked back.  We had dinner on the roof of a building with another view of the Sydney Opera House, and then walked to the Lindt Café where there was a terrorist attack last year.  We were hoping to get dessert there, but they were closed, so we will try to return tomorrow.

Jaorga Vineyard

Today on our drive to Sydney, we stopped at a winery and vineyard outside a town called Mittagong.  We first walked around the vineyard, which is a field of grapes used for making wine.  There were acres of grape vines, but not one of them had grapes because in the Southern Hemisphere, the seasons are opposite, and in Australia, it is currently fall.  After the vineyard, we walked around the winery, which is the space used to turn the grapes into wine.  First, the grapes are mashed and seeded (in the case of red grapes being used for a white wine, the skins are also removed).  After that, red wine grapes go straight into kegs or giant stainless steel containers warmed up and with yeast for fermentation and the white wine grapes sit for thirty days to ferment cold before being transferred to kegs or stainless steel containers to ferment more.  After the fermentation (the sugars from the grapes and the yeast creates ethanol, an edible alcohol), the wine is aged and filtered, and is ready for bottling.
After the vineyard and winery, we drove the rest of the way to Sydney where we stayed the night.

Canberra

An original copy of the Magna Carta

An Aboriginal ax head from about 20,000 years ago.

The Australian Parliament House

Two days ago, we drove from Walhalla to Canberra and stayed the night in an RV park.  This morning, we woke up and drove a few kilometers into the center of the city.  Canberra is a planned city (like Washington D.C.), which means that when it was built, people planned out the whole thing instead of slowly adding on buildings and roads to the existing city.  Canberra was designed to be fairly symmetrical and well organized, which I think it is.

First, we saw the National Museum of Australia.  In the museum, we saw artifacts from the early colonization of Australia.  Colonization of Australia started in the late 1700s by Dutch and English settlers who arrived because of the copious resources.  Also in the museum, we saw a collection of Aboriginal tools.  (The Aboriginal people came to Australia 40,000+ years ago from Malaysia and are the oldest continuous culture in the world.)  They used tools crafted from wood, stone, bone, tree resin, string (made from grass), and, more recently, metal.  For example, fishing spears usually had a wooden shaft with a stone head fastened on with string.  When European people came to Australia, the Aboriginal people were treated very poorly and were forced out of parts of their land.  In the museum, we saw a video from 2008 of the prime minister of Australia apologizing to the Aboriginal people for how the government had treated them.

After the museum, we drove to the Parliament House, and saw the meeting place for the Australian House of Representatives.  (Australian government is set up similar to the US with three branches: the legislative, judicial, and executive.  However, instead of a president, Australia has a prime minister like Great Brittain.)  Also in the Parliament House, we saw an original copy of the Magna Carta from the century.  The Magna Carta is a document written in Latin which describes the idea of democracy, where power is in the hands of the people.
Tonight we will again sleep in Canberra, and tomorrow, we are hoping to drive the rest of the way to Sydney.

Lots and Lots of Gold

A part of the quartz reef (the white stripe from the top left to the bottom right)

A view of one of the horizontal tunnels in the mine

Today, we drove inland a little to visit a decommissioned gold mine in a town called Walhalla, slightly east of Melbourne.  The Australian gold rush happened in the 1860s when some prospectors found large amounts of alluvial gold in streams and rivers running through the area, which wasn't populated yet.  Alluvial gold is made up of gold atoms, but instead of being in the form of nuggets, it is found as flakes.  The prospectors knew that there had to be a quartz reef nearby because of all the gold.  (Alluvial gold is often connected to the presence of a quartz reef.  Through cracks in the lithosphere, molten iron and a little bit of molten gold seep up from the mantle.  Through the movement of tectonic plates, the iron and gold get pushed closer to Earth's surface.  At the same time, water with a high silica content from the crust seeps down those cracks.  Over time, the silica crystallizes to form quartz around the existing iron and gold.  When miners are looking for a quartz reef, they are looking for "dirty quartz", which looks dirty because of the iron and gold.  If a miner comes across "clean quartz", they know there is no gold in it because there are no iron deposits in it.)  Somebody found the tip of the quartz reef sticking out of a mountain, and pretty soon, the Hercules Mining Company started mining and after years of digging, found the reef.  However, unbeknownst to them, after they found the reef, they began digging in a direction where there was very little gold.  They weren't finding enough gold and hence making enough money to continue digging, and the mine was bought by the Long Tunnel Extended mining company.  They started digging in the opposite direction, and found so much gold that the mine became one of Victoria's richest gold mine, unearthing about 13 metric tons of gold.  (The town of Walhalla grew to about 4,000 people.  Walhalla was the second town in Victoria to get electricity, because they had enough power from the mine's boilers.)  The mine required three huge boilers to produce enough power to run the mining hammers and the water pumps.  Water pumps were needed because the mine extended almost a kilometer down into the earth, way below the water table.  When the mine shut down in around 1910, it wasn't because they weren't finding enough gold, it was because it was too expensive to import wood for the boilers (coal didn't burn hot enough).  All trees within a 13 kilometer radius of Walhalla had been cut down.  Because the mining stopped, the town's residents moved away, and Walhalla lost it's electricity.  The town today has less then 15 residents, and in 1998 was the last town in Victoria (and the second) to receive power.
We will be spending the night in a caravan park just north of Melbourne, and continue on an inland rout to Sydney, stopping in the Australian capital, Canberra.

Wilsons Promontory National Park: Day 2

A Kookaburra that we saw on the trail

A very unhappy seagull

Waves crashing onto a rock near Squeaky Beach 

This morning, we woke up in Wilsons Promontory National Park to the surprisingly loud noise of birds chirping.  We had some breakfast, and went on a hike through the rainforest and out to the coast of what Australians call the Southern Ocean, but what the rest of the world calls the Indian Ocean.  When we got to the beach at the end of the trail, we where amazed by the beautiful views.  There were mountains covered with dark green vegetation next to the turquoise water.  The beach itself was called Squeaky Beach, because when you walked on the sand, it made a squeezing noise.  This was caused by the rounded quartz crystals in the sand.  We waded into the water and, despite the inviting color and beauty of the ocean, it was chilly, so we promptly got out.  We walked back along the trail and had sandwiches for lunch in our RV.  Then, my brother and I practiced our violins for a few hours before hitting the road again.