This past weekend, the Colgate group went to Jervis Bay, which is about two hours south of Wollongong. A retired professor from Sydney University led us on our trip down the coast and back. In addition to sixteen Colgate students, our professor came with us, with his wife, daughter and son. On Saturday morning at 8:00 a..m we headed off to Jervis Bay, first stopping at Kiama. There is a famous blowhole in Kiama (water that shoots up through rocks near the coast) but we didn't go there; we walked along another part of the city that had beautiful rock ledges. We walked along the cliffs for awhile and took pictures.
After leaving Kiama, we headed toward Jervis Bay. There were several campsites at the nature reserve we stayed on. We all helped to unpack the van and started setting up the tents and cooking dinner. I was on tent duty; we had two six-person tents, one three-person tent, and four two-person tents. For dinner, we had chicken shishkebabs and homemade macaroni and cheese. Eric, one of my fellow Colgate students, directed the making of all meals (he was the one who cooked the dinner at my professor's house). Everyone helped with something... whether it was getting the fire ready, cutting peppers, washing dishes, or gathering wood. We also roasted "s'mores" on our make-shift fire (they didn't allow real campfires there, so we made one with the roasting pit). I don't think they have graham crackers in Australia, so we used biscuits instead. Biscuits here are like glorified crackers--much thicker and a littler more tasty. By the time we finished eating and cleaning up dinner, it probably 7:00 p.m. or so and dark. For a long time, we all sat around the picnic table and played group games like "mafia." At night, so many nocturnal creatures came out! We saw several possums, one with a baby on its back! The next morning Eric made everyone breakfast--"eggs in a basket." He cut holes in the middle of slices of bread, put it in a pan with some butter, and cracked an egg into the middle of the hole. So good! Claire, an avid outdoor camper, made a make-shift dutch oven and cooked a few homemade cinnamon/butter/brown sugar pastries. Before leaving our campsite, several of us walked to the beach--Jervis Bay has the whitest sand in the world! It was so beautiful... white sand and blue water for as far as you could see. It was also near the beach that I had my first kangaroo sighting! We saw two just laying in the bushes, so cute. Their heads kind of look like deer heads, and the rest of their bodies are what you'd think a kangaroo looks like. Like typical tourists, we took so many photos and videos of the tourists. We also saw a wallaby, which looks very similar to a kangaroo (tail and large legs for jumping) but is darker in color and has a different looking face. The wallaby we saw was pregnant; it's joey kept sticking its head out of its mother pouch! That's Australian wildlife right there for you.
We left Jervis Bay and headed home, driving through Kangaroo Valley. We didn't actually see any kangaroos in Kangaroo Valley; we just ate lunch there. We also stopped at a small nature reserve, where we walked on several trails and saw two waterfalls.
All in all, great weekend! For some reason, this blog isn't letting me load any pictures or videos. I have literally photo and video evidence of everything I wrote about in this blog! Until I can figure this blog problem out, look for photos on my Facebook! (if you have one).
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