Monika Simeonova's Blog

Grampians National Park Day Trip

When most people think of Australia, the first thing they think of is a kangaroo. And if you are like me and most of my friends, you don’t really think about it too much and you just assume that kangaroos are hopping all around. Well, to be very honest, we are not that far from the truth. Not that you have to wait for a bunch of roos when you are crossing the street, don’t imagine it like that :P But what I mean is that they are all over, when one steps outside of the big city. Australia does a very good job in preserving their wildlife in the wild, where you can actually see them in nature, doing their thing. I think that’s pretty cool!

I am saying this because I thought about animals in Bulgaria or the USA and then I realized that you’d be able to see wild animals like that mostly in the zoo.

Being so fascinated by this fact, I keep taking pictures of kangaroos whenever I see them. And it is super exciting to see them hop around, untroubled by anything and anyone.

This one has a little baby peeking out of the pouch and checking us out :) Isn’t that the cutest thing???

And I like taking pictures with them :) I never got tired of it!

Another thing about Australia that always cracks me up are their signs. I have been traveling quite a lot in the wild and visiting nature sights and these signs just keep appearing everywhere (and at some point, you dying just becomes a very normal warning). This one I saw at the Grampians:

I’ll try to find a couple of more, just to illustrate my point.

Snakes at the 12 Apostles:

Shani being happy to know she can DIE at the 12 Apostles:

A full list of warning signs at Great Ocean Road:

Stuff falling on your head at Great Ocean Road:

Stuff can happen to you in the city too (Melbourne):

Some more snakes in Tasmania:

Falling in rainforests:

Running into a cow and killing both you and the cow in Carins, Queensland:

Humans not allowed past this point in Grampians National Park:

So this is a short list of the signs I have seen (and was able to find now). But imagine the feeling of being constantly warned that the worst can happen to you anywhere you go (as long as you’re in Australia) :) They even have a very cute song for it (that also warns you of all the things that can happen to you here) :)

So continuing on, there were breathtaking views:

…which inspired us to sink deeply into thoughts (you know those pictures where someone stares into the nature and “thinks” – that’s what we are doing here):

And then this is the place where humans were not allowed past that sign I showed you:

I did want to take a nice picture on the edge of the cliff but when I was weighing the importance of my life or the nice picture, I picked my life. Kind of more important, you know? :)

We then saw some waterfalls, which was nice but it was raining so we didn’t stay long. This Australian weather really did show me that there can be four seasons in a day. Literally.

On our way home I saw those and I thought it is the coolest thing (although no one else was very intrigued).

So there are rocks. And that’s not the exciting part, I know. But look closer. What fascinated me was the fact that someone actually took the time to put those rocks in order and on top of each other, ordering  them by size. I think it is something religious and spiritual. But all the rocks you see were there for a very specific reason. Crazy, right?

I know that the natives are very spiritual and their beliefs are derived from a sense of belonging to their land. In the museum I visited in Sydney, I read the following: “It’s all linked up with people, land, religion, it’s just one big circle.”

Not that it explains the rocks but it makes sense.

Yarra Valley Wineries Day

Hello, hello :) Today I will tell you about this wonderful, drunky day I spent with my friends in the beautiful Yarra Valley Wineries. It is a gorgeous valley near Melbourne where all the wineries are squished near each other. We visited only four that day :P (only!).

So our day began not with wine tasting at 9am but with chocolate tasting. It would have been weird if we drank at 9am, right? That’s why we pushed it to 10am. Meanwhile, we indulged in the world of chocolate…

The giant bowls with the three different chocolate chips were there to try and we could get as much as we wanted (and of course I did) :) There were also chocolate fountains…

And 1 metre long chocolates…

But I decided to reward myself with ice cream and cover it with some free white chocolate chip awesomeness.

After our very nutritious and delicious breakfast, we headed to our first stop and admired some of the beauty of Yarra Valley.

Our team of enthusiastic drinkers was ready for action :) There was some big cork popping…

Some delicious lunch for our hungry souls (with included wine of course)…

Some more wine tasting where I learned that the best word to describe good wine is the word “balanced”. If you don’t really know what’s wrong with the goon you are drinking (the way Aussies call the cheap, boxed wine, consumed mainly by college students), you can always say that it is just not balanced. Or if you like the wine you are drinking but you have no idea how to sound sophisticated and to impress your company, just say that the flavors and the scent of the wine are balanced. You will sound like an expert! :P (and never mention that you have drank goon, ever!) :P

By the end of our wine tasting day we were drunk and happy and ready to go home. It is the one day when I forgave myself for starting to drink at 10am. After all, it was 5 o’clock somewhere, right?

Wilson’s Promontory (National Park near Melbourne)

Hey, guys! I have only five days left in Australia and I can’t believe it. I still haven’t realized I am here and I will probably do so when I go back to the US.

I have had an amazing couple of months here and although I haven’t shared all of them with you, I will try to give you an idea what I have done and the little trips I have undertaken while here. For the limited amount of time I was here I did quite some traveling so I am very proud of myself :) I somehow managed to squeeze in a lot of good times while being a somewhat responsible student. Now, after I am done with all my exams, I can say that I have done a pretty good job in balancing. I will write a single post for each trip/experience because otherwise it is too much traveling and too much info all at once :)

We went on a trip to Wilson’s Promontory very soon after we came back from New Zealand. Now everything that I saw after New Zealand was great but I have had so much natural beauty during my spring break that I think I couldn’t process it adequately any more.

Our first stop was a beach called “Squeaky Beach” because guess what… It squeaks!

It was one of the cutest things on earth and I found the name of it to be especially cute :) Here is how it looked and sounded:

http://youtu.be/ecFLb5AwyRc

The other awesome thing we did in Wilson’s Promontory was climbing a mountain. I am not sure if I have ever done it (although I think I have, in Bulgaria but I was too little and it doesn’t count). So I climbed a mountain for the first time in my conscious life and it was amazing! Now I know why Australians are so fit and healthy – they only hike and climb stuff.

After the exhausting process of climbing this crazy mountain, the view was very rewarding…

(as well as the accompanying wind) :)

It felt as if I worked very hard for the view I got and it was my reward. I was happy :) And exhausted…

The best thing about this national park was (beware! random fact follows) the fact that we had to go to the bathroom in the bushes :P Even the sign was saying so:

So this is how my exploring of Australia and Melbourne’s surroundings began. I realized that there was more typical Australia to see outside of the cities and this is why we constantly undertook mini, one day adventures all around. More about the rest will follow soon :)