After Travels: FRASER ISLAND!!!

Me standing at the edge of Indian Head.

Fraser Island was THE BEST experience of my life, to date.  Now, for those of you who know me, you know I am a clean/organizational freak!  Well, saying that Fraser Island was the best experience of my life is really saying something, since we had to dig a hole in the sand to go to the bathroom, and didn't shower for three whole days!  The natural beauty and the entire experience was priceless, and having absolutely no bathroom was the least of my concerns.  There was too much to see and too many experiences to soak up, to be worried about little things like that!

Beach view.

Having some fun on the beach!

Fraser Island is the worlds largest sand island.  It is important to the people of Australia to keep the island as pristine as possible, and not disturb its natural state.  There is one resort area on the island, and the rest is just nature.  Me and my group of friends spent 2 nights and 3 days on this gorgeous island, and I'll explain what we did day by day, to give the best description of this magical get-away.

-Day 1-

We arrived in Rainbow Beach around 7am to take off for Fraser.  We packed up our 4WD with our food, camping gear, and luggage, then headed off to the ferry, which took us to the island.  A 4WD car is necessary, because there are no actual roads on Fraser, only sand, sand, and more sand.

The line of cars from our tour group, waiting for the ferry.

The crew, on the ferry :)

This is what transported us from the mainland to Fraser.

Our lovely car!

Once we got to the island, we drove the long drive to our campsite, and set up camp.  Fraser is 72 kilometers, so it is much bigger than expected.  To drive through and around it, takes quite some time!  We ate lunch, and then headed to the most beautiful lake I have ever set my eyes on, Lake McKenzie.  This lake was the clearest, cleanest, and most beautiful lake I have ever had the pleasure of swimming in.  It was great to cool off and take a swim...none of us wanted to get out, even for dinner!

CAMP!

Lake McKenzie

Sandra being her happy self :)

Yippeeee :) Sooo happy and about to go swimming!

Me and lovely Sandra, enjoying the sun.

Finally, we went back for dinner...and sure enough, the dingos came around!  Fraser Island is the only place where dingos are free and wild in Australia.  All the others on the mainland are in captivity.  Dingos look much like a dog, but cannot bark.  They howl like wolves, and are considered dangerous, because they are wild and hunt their food.  If the dingos came up to us, we just kicked sand at it and yelled at it to go away, but not before taking a nice photo of it, of course! :)

Curious Dingo, wanting us to throw him some food!

Sniffing around.

It was a great first day on the island, and we all had fun and enjoyed some goon after dinner and went to bed.

- Day 2 -

We woke up early, at breakfast, and headed over to "hang-over creek".  Some of the other groups got rather silly the previous night, and drank way too much goon.  A nice float in a clean stream was a perfect solution!  We then went and at lunch, and went onto the champaign pools to have another nice swim.  The champaign pools were the only part of the ocean that we were allowed to swim in, due to the rough currents and frequent shark sightings in the ocean surrounding Fraser.  They are called the "Champaign Pools" because when the water comes over the rocks, it bubbles like champaign.  It was quite nice!

Nice view on the walk to the Champaign Pools... Indian Head in the background.

Overview of the Champaign Pools.

Sandra, Me, and Malin playing in the pools...# 1...

#2...

And # 3! 

After that, we hiked up to Indian head, which is a great lookout point on the Island.  It is called "Indian Head" because when James Cook first discovered the island, he saw people on top of this small mountain, and thought they were indians.  They were, in fact, not indians, but rather aborigines.  However, the name has stuck to this day. 

Sandra and I at the top of Indian Head.

Jumping for joy!

Taking in the beauty :)

To conclude our second day on Fraser, we drove to a famous ship wreck. Sandra was driving the 4WD for the first time, and as we were driving along the beach, she almost ran over a dingo.  Everyone was yelling, I was screaming, and she finally slowed down, and it got away.  It would have been a tragedy, but everything turned out alright.  Now, onto the ship... The ship was being transported to Japan, to use the parts to make weapons for war.  However, it was being dragged behind another boat, and the chain snapped due to a storm.  The ship drifted, and finally crashed onto the Fraser shore.  It is a magnificent sight to see, and the ship was massive!  Lots of furniture and parts were put up for auction, and many Aussies have them in their homes as decoration.

Sandra getting ready to drive for the first time.

The Dingo we almost hit.

The ship.

Me and Sandra doing the Titanic pose :)

Inside the ship... it was forbidden to go inside and take photos, but I did it anyways, shhhhh!

After seeing the ship wreck, we went back to camp, made dinner, and had a little sing along once everything was cleaned and put away.  It was an early night, as everyone was tired from the long day of fantastic sights and adventures!

- Day 3 -

Our final day was a relatively relaxed one.  We got up, made breakfast, packed up camp, and got in our 4WD and headed to Lake Wabby.  Lake Wabby was a gorgeous lake, that, in about 50 years time, may not exist any longer.  It is a natural lake, but a sand dune is moving inward towards it, which will cause it to eventually not exist.  It is a neat lake, because you must hike about 2.5km to get there, and have to walk across a desert like terrain.  It was beautiful, and so refreshing!!

The desert treck!

At the top of the sand dune...the boys are rolling down it!

SPLASH! Into the cool water :)

After the lake, we went back and waited for the ferry to take us to the main land.  We had an amazing trip, and I can't even explain in words what a wonderful experience Fraser Island was!!  

Everyone from our car...standing at the top of the ferry for a final photo!

Now, I know this blog was rather long, but the following is a link to a video blog of Fraser that Tom put together.  Tom was an english lad in our car, and his video blog is great...please watch it, as I am a staring character!  Enjoy :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjPTV4ShMqc&feature=feedf

After Travels: Glass House Mountains

Hey Everyone!  

Well, as my travels become more and more exciting, I have less and less time to blog.  Not to mention, there is not much internet to be found, and the internet I often use to check emails and such, is extremely slow!

Me at the top of the mountain

Heading north from Brisbane, we stopped in Maloolooba, and traveled to the Australian Zoo and the Glass House Mountains.  Since I had already been to the Melbourne Zoo, I decided to venture out and try to climb an extremely steep mountain.  I thought it would be easy enough, but as we drove up to the national park I suddenly realized this would not be a walk in the park...literally!

Not so sure if climbing this thing is a good idea!

The steep adventure.

Hot and sweaty...but we made it!

The Glass House Mountains are actually left over volcanoes.  So, they are not an actual mountain range, but rather deposits of volcanic rock...really LARGE deposits!!  It took about 40 minutes up and 30 minutes down the mountain.  I really did not know how I was going to get down the mountain, once I was at the top, but it actually turned out to be easier than climbing up it.  I went down feet first, sort of like a catapillar, and looked quite silly, but it was an efficient and safe way down.  

Enjoying the beautiful view!

Climbing this was fun, good exercise, and a great accomplishment!  Now I feel I could climb anything...well almost anything!

After Travels: Brisbane

Sandra, Erika, Me, and Malin on the bridge over looking the river.

We recently went to take a tour through the city of Brisbane.  Brisbane is not too large, but it has some charm to it.  There was a cute shopping center, and some pretty sites to see.  We spent most of the day here, and had a fun time.  The weather was perfect, sunny, 80, with a nice breeze. :)

View of the river.

Sandra and Malin

Malin in a fancy Halloween mask.

The shopping area.

We had a wonderful time, but Brisbane is quite small, so one day was plenty of time to spend there! After seeing the city, we went to a looking point that overlooked the entire city.  We took a small hike, and enjoyed a popsicle at the end of the day!  It was a perfect treat!

Me looking out at Brisbane

Malin getting a view from a nice telescope.

The view

Until next time, enjoy and cheers mates!

After Travels: The Gold Coast

Riding the tram to the airport with all of our luggage.

The Gold Coast...Surfers Paradise is in the far background :)

Hello to all you lovely people reading my blog!!  I am FINALLY finished with school, and have started traveling with an amazing group of people.  After fitting everything I own into a very small suitcase, Malin, Sandra, Erika, and I headed to the Gold Coast to meet up with Malin's boyfriend Anders, and begin our adventure!

Pre-Hike

The view from the top of the mountain.

Me, Sandra, and Erika post-hike.

After a good nights rest at Ander's friends house, we set off early in the morning to explore and go on a wonderful hike, with a spectacular view! The hike took about 4.5-5 hours, but was well worth it.  We all got some nice exercise, and enjoyed the fresh outdoors.

Sandra making here way to the top.

The steep climb

The last part of the hike was more of a climb than a hike.  But just wait for the next couple blogs to witness a REAL climb...

Until then, all the best to everyone!  I love and miss you all!

Deakin University Marketing Internship

Sorry to everyone who follows my blog!  If you have wondered where I have been for the past couple of weeks, wonder no more.  During my time abroad in Australia, I was enrolled in a Deakin University course, which required me to attain work experience as an intern.  I ended up doing a two-part internship.  The second part of my internship, was with Deakin University Marketing.  

Here I am...Hard at work, doing some video editing.

During my time working for the marketing department at Deakin, I was able to experience a wide range of marketing tasks, as I was placed with different departments each day.  For two days I worked with the E-Marketing Division of Deakin Marketing.  I went through, and watched, over 200 videos that were to be posted on the Deakin site, for future and current Deakin students to easily access.  There were multiple types of videos that first, needed to be viewed to make sure they were suitable for use, and then, needed to be edited.  This task was given to me.  I went through a plethora of campus tour videos, along with informational videos.  Deakin has four campuses, all of which a student ambassador guided a filmed tour through.  To make it easier, for current and future students at Deakin, to look up information concerning changing preferences, on-campus accommodation, scholarships, etc., a compilation of videos were created and posted on the Deakin website.  I looked through all of these videos, and created a Microsoft Excel document which explained if the video was Usable/Not Usable, gave a short description of the video, and computed the at which time the videos needed to be cut or edited.  This made is easier for my supervisor to pick the videos to post on the website.  The following is a video I looked through, that made it onto the Deakin Website:

This, along with many other videos I edited, can be viewed on the same Deakin YouTube page as this video is located.

Moving on to another important part of my work experience at Deakin...Deakin hosts a range of events to help prepare their students for the future.  I was fortunate enough to help run one of these events.  The Post Graduate Informational Event is hosted by Deakin Marketing Department of Post Graduate Recruitment.  These events are held multiple times throughout the year, and are geared to help students decide their post graduate direction.  The event provides many lecture sessions describing different graduate degrees and specific subjects of study, that Deakin offers.  Along with the lecture sessions, this event offers a bit of a career fair, which includes different tables set up for each graduate study department that Deakin has.  The event allows for students to speak with professionals in their desired field of work, and gain more insight to the possibilities of studying at Deakin, at a graduate level.  The following is the link that describes the actual event:

http://www.deakin.edu.au/future-students/postgrad/events.php

Going along with events, Deakin University holds an Open Day event each year, for all of its four campuses.  A lot of planning goes into any event, whether it be the Post Graduate event or the Open Day event.  However, the Open Day event requires a vast amount of endless work from many different departments at Deakin.

This program is an extensive event that provides information and guides students for their future studies at Deakin University.  A link to describe this event in more detail is as follows: http://www.deakin.edu.au/arts-ed/future-students/open-day.php

Now, you may be asking, what I did for this event; and I will tell you.  Open Day 2011 has already occurred, and was hosted in August of 2011.  A great deal of planning went into the event.  After all four of the Deakin Open Day events were over, a major part of the project was yet to be done.  Most people do not even think about this part of an event, but after a major event, such as Open Day, is over, there needs to be and evaluation, which provides recommendations for the next event, in this case the 2012 Open Day.  

This report consists of information from documents concerning planning, budgeting, how the actual event went, etc.  What I did to help out with this process, was to organize all the files that were put together before, during, and after the event.  Since I love organization, this was actually a fun task for me.  Not only was I able to organize, but I was also able to read through each document.  You might be thinking, what a boring task...WRONG.  These are the documents that I might have to put together in the future.  Therefore, being able to look through and read actual professional documents of this nature, will only benefit me for my future career.  

There were countless amounts of documentation that needed to be sifted through, as they were simply floating through the 'My Documents' folder.  Each needed to be put into major categories, and then into subcategories.  I was able to create 9 major categories to put the documents in.  To give you an idea of the different categories I made, and the types of documentation that went into each, the 9 categories are as follows:

1) Open Day 2011 Report

2) Open Day 2011 Planning Docs

3) Open Day 2011 Budget Docs

4) Open Day 2011 Collateral Docs

5) Open Day 2011 Logistics

6) Open Day 2011 Proposals

7) Signage and Flags

8) Stall Holders

9) Student Ambassadors

A couple days after that, I did one more task for the Deakin

This is a photo taken outside the Deakin library at the Burwood Campus (where I attend).

Finally, a university is nothing without it's students.  For this reason, the Deakin Marketing Department of Undergraduate Recruitment is constantly hard at work.  The final noteworthy task that I worked on during my internship with Deakin Marketing, was creating a list of students from different high schools, who attend Deakin University.  The list was sorted from the greatest amount to the least amount of students, per year and per high school, enrolling at Deakin.  This was a very tedious task, but it was of most importance.  In order to better understand the markets an organization is trying to reach, research of this nature is extremely necessary. 

I created an excel spread sheet which indicated the name of the high school, the number of students from that high school enrolled in Deakin from the years of 2009, 2010 and 2011, and finally gave a total amount of students from each high school, combining the enrollment numbers from 2009 to 2011.

Word to the wise...if you don't know how to use Microsoft Excel, learn, IMMEDIATELY.  If your skills using Microsoft Excel are not the best, get better, IMMEDIATELY!  In my experience, marketing, public relations and any business, for that matter, uses Microsoft Excel on a daily basis.  My skills have improved drastically while interning this trimester.  I plan to continue to use Excel documents, because 'Practice Makes Perfect'.

'Two Thumbs Up'

I give this internship experience a 'two thumbs up'.  I thoroughly enjoyed my experience working for Deakin Marketing.  Even though I am majoring in Public Relations, I gained a lot of useful insight and experience in marketing that can be used towards public relations, as well.  I may even want to attain a job in Marketing in the future.  I think I learned and grew as a person during my time interning, and will take that knowledge and those lessons with me in the future.  A great lesson learned, is even if a job is not exactly what you are looking for, go for it anyway!  It might surprise you, and you might actually end up loving it.  I originally wanted to intern in public relations, but this great marketing opportunity was offered to me instead.  I cannot thank the people I worked with enough, and I describe in words how grateful and appreciative I am to have been able to participate in this internship experience.

  

Part 2 of Holiday: Surfers Paradise

The second part of our trip, we went to Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast.  Surfers is a big tourist attraction in Australia, and there is lots to do and see there!  Sometimes it gets a bad name by native Aussie's, because of it's tourist appeal; but if you are a tourist in OZ...you definitely need to check out Surfers Paradise!  It has a cool feel, the weather is perfection, and it is up-beat and never boring!

The Gals and I getting at the entrance.

A little bit of a view from a different ride.

Believe it or not, crocodiles here actually get that big!

The snake just slithering along...

Me and the lovely group of gals I traveled with on this trip decided to head to an amusement park one day.  The amusement park was called 'Dream World'.  It was not as thrilling as Six Flags Great America, or Cedar Point in Ohio, but it was fun for the day!  There are lots of places to go like this, such as a huge water park and a movie themed park, sort of like Universal Studios in Orlando.  Australia's theme parks may not be as grand as the ones in the U.S., however, you may get to see Aussie wild life roaming around...as we saw a wild (and vennemous) snake slithering along in Dream World!

The beach, and city in the background.

The small town area with all the shops.

Me and Veronica in a nice chair, in the middle of the shopping area.

Neat benches along the beach walk.

For the rest of the time, we enjoyed relaxing and lying out on the beach and at the pool.  The hostel we stayed in was actually pretty nice.  It was attached to a hotel, and was the old part of the hotel that they turned into a hostel.  There was a nice pool and spa area, along with a bar and game area.  It was quite nice, and we enjoyed the pool and hot tub almost everyday/night.  The beach was lovely, and the weather was perfect the entire time we were in Surfers.  Right off the beach, was the main tourist attraction, with shops, cafes, bars, and nightclubs.  It was the main place to walk around, get souvenirs, and have a nice, refreshing, cocktail.  

Jumping for joy...because I was in PARADISE!

Me and the gals posing of a nice photo on the beach :)

Me and Jodi, on the beach walk while the sun was going down.

This trip was phenomenal, and I could not have asked for a better spring break.  Almost every morning my and my friend Laura woke up and took a nice long run along the beach walk, which stretched as far as the eye could see, along the beach.  It was so quiet and lovely in the morning, and I will never forget those moments.  Taking it all in while running along the beach with a good friend, was definitely a high point in the trip.  Also, I got a pretty nice tan, so that never hurts!  

For now, I am just finishing up with school, then I will bet getting out of Melbourne, for about a month and a half of traveling adventures through Australia.  I cannot wait to be finished with school!!  Going on a short trip, has made me catch the travel bug, and I cannot wait to see what's out there in Australia!  

But for now...On to studying for final exams.