The last week and a half has been nothing less than extraordinary. About a week and a half ago, we visited a region of Victoria called “The Great Ocean Road.” The Great Ocean Road was beautiful. The long 91KM stretch connects multiple beach towns including Lorne Beach and Wye River. The region is also home to the 12 Apostles at the very end of the road. The 12 apostles are 12, mysterious rocks left oddly placed in the ocean near the shoreline. Because of erosion and strong winds, 6 of the Twelve Apostles have collapsed leaving only six still standing today. My exchange family and I stayed in this region for three days. I was extremely fascinated by this area because only 20 minutes away from the beautiful sunny beach is a rainforest, home to an incredible number of hundred-year-old, 100 ft+ tall trees. Seeing this was personally fascinating. I was amazed that a rainforest could be so close to an ocean. Swimming in the ocean was great. The feeling of a hot sun is wonderful, but the hot sun combined with the ocean is amazing! Luckily, we also got the chance to see koalas in the wild up close! It was wonderful!
This week, Matt (my exchange) has been training hard for his rowing tournament called “Head of the Lake.” Rowing is taken very seriously here and is extremely popular. Yesterday the “Head of the Lake” tournament took place. Most of the high schools in Ballarat attended. I would estimate that there were about 3,500 people there! The event was amazing. “Lake Wendouree,” the location of the event, is about a five-minute walk from Ballarat Grammar. “Lake Wendouree” is actually quite a significant lake as it was home to the rowing events in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. Matt’s crew came 2nd in the event, which is definitely something to be proud of. I had a great time watching the event with Clara Macintosh as well as the other exchange kids. — Ryan Hawa ’16
