When talking about Australia, the first thing that comes into mind is… Kangaroo! Well, yes, kangaroo, but what got me most excited before coming here was the amazing weather and nature. That was why I arrived ten days before the beginning of the first study week, and went on a road trip with my friend.

 

It was a trip along the east coast of Australia, starting from Canberra and ending in Gold Coast. We rented a car from Hertz, which seemed to be the only company leasing cars to younger drivers. Price is quite fair, and fuel in Australia is cheap. So overall, driving is a more economic (and surely more fun) way to travel than flying.

 

One of the great things about the road trip is that you get to appreciate the various landscapes of this huge continent. When we started from Canberra, the landscape was more of a dry one. Along the road was dry and yellow grassland, dotted by low, often strange shaped trees and bushes. I reckon that was because Canberra does not have coast. As we got near Sydney, the plant cover started to become denser. Above half way from Sydney to Gold Coast, landscape turned even greener. The veg cover made the sunset beautiful, like this…

 

 

 

 

We went to many famous tourist attractions during that trip and certainly saw many awesome views. The first being the famous Bondi beach in Sydney. A bit of a disappointment – it was not as nice as people say. It is a bit over-crowded: we went there on Tuesday and still, the beach was full of people. However, if you go along the beach, and turn to the cliff beside it, there was something different.

 

However, what truly amazed me was not any of these places. One night, as we drove from Sydney to Gold Coast, we pulled over to take a rest. And when we looked up to the sky, we saw the ‘milky way’. You can see the belt so clearly. There was no word to describe the scene, as human seemed so insignificant compared to those mysterious lights, which have been there for millions of centuries. I managed to take a photo, but it did even touch the true glory of what I saw in person. I wish I had a better camera. (and a tripod)

 

Gold coast certainly lived up to its name. Premium beach can be found anywhere. If you are a surfer, you do not want to miss this city. One funny thing about Gold Coast: it sits on the border between Queensland state and New South Wales state. These two states have different day light saving time systems. That means, Queensland, despite having the same longitude as NSW, it is one hour behind NSW. So don’t forget to check you phone/watch to adjust for that. Our hotel was right on the border. More specifically, the border lies between my bed and the night table. Every night I left my phone to charge on night table, it woke me up next morning at NSW time. And when I went downstairs to have breakfast, the clock on my phone jumped back one hour, showing Queensland time. I lost quite a few hours of sleep there…

This will be the first of three blogs showing you guys how beautiful Australian nature is. See you next blog.

 

— Hanqin