Australia Exchange: Alice Springs Road Trip

Posted on March 16, 2014 by admin

I can’t believe that my time here in Australia has flown by so quickly. Today is the 13^th of March, 2014 meaning, I have so far completed 4.5 weeks of my seven-week exchange. This experience has been amazing and surely, I will never forget it. Going on exchange is probably one of the boldest, yet smartest things I have ever committed to and followed through with. Before coming to Ballarat, I had never been away from my mother or father for more than a period of five days, making the decision to leave home for a long 49 days was a difficult decision to reason with, prompting hours of thought and second guessing. I never viewed myself as a particularly adventurous and independent person until now. It is safe to say that this experience has matured me, making me more confident, independent and self-aware.

Last week Matt, his father and I embarked on a five-day journey, visiting King’s Canyon, Uluru and the city of Alice Springs. This trip was amazing. Other then seeing wild kangaroos with my own eyes, I also got to catch a glimpse of wild camels and horses all located within the barren, sandy Australian Outback. We began our journey by flying out to Uluru. Uluru is located in the small, tourist industry driven town of Yulara. Yulara is located essentially directly in the centre of Australia. Uluru is a sacred rock formation created millions of years ago. The rock, is sacred to the aboriginal community who has inhabited the region for thousands of years. The rock is known for changing colours during mid day, sunrise and sunset. Getting the chance to experience the variation of colour first hand was fantastic. While in Yulara, we decided to challenge ourselves, by fully walking around the massive rock. In the past, people used to climb all the way up Uluru, today, it is highly frowned upon as the rock is sacred to the aboriginals of the area and climbing it is seen as very disrespectful. The walk around Uluru was a whopping 14 km. It took us roughly four hours to complete and we had to start quite early at 5 am due to the fact that the weather in Central Australia is BLAZING HOT. If we were to start the walk around mid day, we would have probably walked in around 38-40 degrees celcius heat versus a hot, but much cooler 25-30 prior to noon.

After spending two days in Yulara, we drove to King’s Canyon. King’s Canyon is a beautiful canyon in the middle of the desert. The canyon is quite large in height and very long. While visiting the area we partook in a 6 km walk, which highlighted the scenic views to be seen within the range. I enjoyed this a fair bit more then the Uluru trek, due the fact that we had more leeway to explore and do as we pleased as the burden of upsetting or being disrespectful toward the aboriginal community was nonexistent. After completing the trek, I decided to take a helicopter ride to get a better view the area. Riding in a helicopter for the first time was so much fun, and the views I got of the area were breathtaking.

The last two days of the trip were spent relaxing after much walking in Alice Springs. Alice Springs is a very nice town home to approximately 32,000 inhabitants. While in the area, we took part in site seeing, visiting the School of the Air, a reptile museum and the Doctors of the Air information centre and museum.

The School of the Air is a school much like LCC with the exception that its students live hundreds of kilometres from each other. The School of the Air is a government-funded school providing students from far and wide across Australia who live in remote areas access to education. Through software much like Skype, students participate in class though video chat. The school is now over 50 years old, prior to 21^st century technology; the school relied on radio to conduct its lessons.

The Reptile museum we visited was very interesting. I got to take an up-close look at some of the most venomous snakes on the planet! Luckily, a glass window separated me from the reptiles.

The doctors of the Air are an amazing organization providing medical aid to remote areas across Australia. As the name suggests, the Doctors fly to places throughout Australia to help people who do not have access to the luxury of medical facilities in a close enough proximity. Visiting this museum was very cool; we even got to see a live map feed of all the flying doctors current flight locations! –Ryan Hawa ’16

Student Exchange @ Ballarat: Awesome Water and Rainforest

Posted on March 12, 2014 by admin

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 2^nd 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

Student Exchange Australia: Transformational

Posted on March 12, 2014 by admin

My stay here is soon coming to an end. My adventure “down under” has been one filled with happiness and heaps of fun. I’ve learned what seems like a whole different language and made a bunch of friends that I hope to keep in touch with. It makes me sad to think that tomorrow morning I’ll be leaving on a very long flight home, but I’m happy that I will get to see my family and friends.

Over the past few weeks I’ve had so many great new experiences. I’ve had a jam-packed trip; from the zoo, to the aquarium and even the outback. This passed weekend we even went to Sydney, where I got to see the Opera House and Harbour Bridge and spend some time at the beach.

Exchange has exceeded my expectations. I thought Melbourne would be like the countryside and that there would be kangaroos jumping around backyards. Melbourne is a lot more like Montreal than I thought it would be and even though there aren’t kangaroos in people’s backyards, the suburbs are still filled with beautiful birds and other wildlife.

The past seven weeks have been a wonderful experience that I will never forget. I have become more independent and had the opportunity to learn so much about Australian culture and the country in general. I “reckon” that I don’t want this wonderful experience to come to an end; I will really miss Carey and all of the people I have met from here. Farewell Australia, I hope to come back again someday! –Aiyana Kaplan ’16

Student Exchange: Aussie Wildlife

Posted on February 26, 2014 by admin

Over the weekend, Brandon took me to his farm near Pinnaroo, a small town right on the South Australia/Victoria Border. On the first night, we ate at a nice little pub. The following day, we drove to a town called Loxton, which was about an hour away, where we met up with some of the Blacksell’s family friends on the Murray River. We spent the entire day wake boarding, waterskiing, tubing, and just relaxing by the water. Overall, it was a perfect day! After devouring a few Australian style pizzas, we headed back to the farm.

On the way home, before even being able to finish my sentence about how I was disappointed that I still haven’t seen any traditional Aussie wildlife, we saw a young kangaroo bounding across the road! I found this really impressive, but even more so when about ten seconds later I saw the rare Malleefowl, a ground-dwelling bird about the size of a chicken. It all happened so fast, but I realized that I had just experienced traditional Aussie wildlife within the span of 15 seconds!

That night, I stayed up watching with pride as Canada beat Sweden in the men’s hockey finals. The next day, we headed back for Adelaide, but took a detour in order for Mr. Blacksell to show me a dairy farm. It was interesting but challenging to be at a place where you’re knee deep in cow manure while being attacked by thousands of flies who make it their life-long mission to find a way to get up your nostrils.

I was happy to have had that experience, as I know I will never be a dairy farmer. I guess I’m just too much of a “city boy”! – Charlie Joy ’14

Student Exchange Australia: Challenging Experiences

Posted on February 25, 2014 by admin

The first two weeks in Australia have been amazing and I am already enjoying myself. After a long 20-hour flight via Vancouver, I was really excited to finally arrive in Australia. The weather has been amazing; it has been sunny every single day. Everyone was very welcoming when I got here and they all tried to make me feel included. I have made some new friends that are very nice and caring.

The family I am staying with is one of the nicest and funniest families I have ever met. Dinner is something I look forward to during the day because I know it will be filled with laughter and enjoyment. My exchange partner Clare, has a little brother Angus, who is 11 years old and is very energetic and has a passion for the Olympics, so he has been keeping me updated on how Canada is doing and I even watch some of it with him. Clare also has an older brother named Jack who is very kind and intelligent. Both parents are extremely nice and welcoming.

My exchange family lives in Ballarat, Victoria that is a small town about an hour and half from Melbourne. Every day we pack our own lunch and either bike to school or Clare’s mom drives us. It’s about a 3-minute drive and an 8-minute bike ride. Right in front of Clare’s house, across the street, is a beautiful lake. There is a nice pathway that goes all around the lake that is about six-kilometres long. I sometimes take this route to get to school.

My first weekend in Victoria, we drove down to Clare’s beach house in Anglesea. The beach was beautiful and different from any other beach I have been to. Her house was a street away from Great Ocean Road, a famous road along the coast of Southern Australia, which has a beautiful view of all the different beaches. We spent the first day at the beach relaxing, tanning, swimming and boogie boarding. On Sunday, we had a surfing lesson in the morning, which was a blast. Even though I was probably the worst in the group I still had tons of fun. It was a tough and challenging experience especially since everyone was better than me and it was sometimes embarrassing but you will never succeed if you don’t try new things and I can’t wait to go surfing next weekend!

This past weekend we went to the Ballarat Wildlife Park. I saw so many different animals I such as kangaroos, koalas, Tasmanian devils, wombats, echidnas and emus. It was so cool to see all these different animals. On Sunday, we went to Sovereign Hill, which is an open-air museum and a historical park. We travelled in a small train underground into a mine and learned how the miners back in the day worked. There is a street with many small stores, which makes you feel as if you have just stepped into the 1850s. It was very interesting and fun to learn about Australian history.

My first few weeks here have been great and I am looking forward to spending the next couple of weeks in this wonderful place. – Clara MacIntosh ’14 (LCC Exchange Student @ Ballarat Grammar in Melbourne, Australia)