blue mountain day trip..

on saturday, the 29th, AIFS took a trip to the famous Blue Mountains. we first stoped at a wildlife park where we were able to feed kangaroos, pet koalas, and play with dingoes. (okay, we didn't play with dingoes, but it sounded like a fun idea :]] ).
after the park, we stopped at a town called "Leura," where we ate lunch and had a stop at an amazing candy shop. it was similar to what i imagine a country town in holland would look like, haha. really, i don't know if it looks anything like the netherlands, but i like to pretend it is what it would look like.

we next stopped at a place called Echo Point to see the "Three Sisters" up close.
the story behind these three rocks is: three sisters fell in love with three men from a neighbouring tribe, but since marriage was forbidden by tribal law, their father (a witch doctor) told them to run away and as they did he turned them into stone as to protect them. as he was running, his wand fell and turned him into a bird, thus preventing him from turning his daughters from stone back into humans. there's a certain bird that is commonly seen with it's beak pecking the ground, in search of his "wand."
really, the rocks were just caused by erosion. maybe acid rain. :)

after that awesome view of the sisters, we got back on the bus and headed toward the actual bushwalk in the mountains. it was a beautiful day and perfect for treking across the mountains. the mountains are known for the blue haze that is seen in the sky above the mountains.
the blue haze is created from particles in the sky scattering. the particles come from the eucalyptus that cover the mountains. the mountains were once seen as a way to keep the convicts from escaping because they were too extensive to cross. in some year in the 1900s, the mayor wanted to use the mountains as a money maker, so he sponsored two men to hike through it finding a path from one side to another. after this, the mountain was then used to coal mine.. i'm not sure how accurate i said that, but you get the point :)
we bushwalked 1,000 steps down the mountain to the "scenic view," where we could drink from the spring and see the three sisters from a different angle. the tour guide we were with gave us a "surprise" which was a ride on the skyrail back to the top of the mountains. it was a 52 degree angle going up. we were practically vertical!
it was a wonderful day and i'm glad i was able to experience it.
as for now, i'm not so glad i have a test and a paper due friday.
xoxox
dustialynn.

pelicans are HUGE in real life.

cute kangaroo!


"look dusti, it's a koala named dusty! and it's a female.." :)


girls on a rock!

my wonderful group on the mountain!

tired after the trek down 1,000 stairs!

55 out of 61 of my group. i love these people!!

cute kangaroo!

so, finally an update on the final day in cairns! i've been attempting an update every day this week but have failed due to the need to study.. imagine that, studying! psshh! :)
anyway, without further adieu, the third day.. in cairns.
the third and final day in cairns was another monumental day. it was a day full of rain forest exploration. after departing at the crack of dawn, a.k.a 7:30 in the morning, the first stop we headed to was a wildlife park where we were able to feed kangaroos and pet koalas! it was a really neat experience.
the kangaroos just came up to us like any domisticated animal would, and looked at us with cute "puppy" eyes when they wanted food. it was so much fun!
it was mating season so there were a lot of kangaroos with joies in their pouches.
i learned that females can give birth to one joey, while carrying one in their pouch, while having a joey on the outside, so basically a weird kind of staggered triplets! what a handful!
after the kangaroos, we went to a presentation of one of the koalas at the park. many of my group got pictures with him but i wanted to wait until i can hold one :) i learned that they have white bottoms for a form of camoflauge. i don't know of how that would work since they live amongst trees, but God does, haha..

after that we boarded the bus again and headed to the Daintree Rainforest for a bushwalk (hike) through the forest. i felt like Tarzan or George of the Jungle or Mowgli. it was really awesome to be walking through it since i had always wanted to but am unable to due to the location i decide to call home. as i learned, that rainforest contains 30% of frog, marsupile, and reptile species in Australia and 65% of Australia's bat and butterfly species. it has 20% of bird species in the country that can be found in this area. i can't remember the exact techinal name for the rainforest but, when i asked our tour guide, Scotty, what the difference was between a jungle and a rainforest, he told me the exact scientific term and said that if my friends and i could remember it at the end of the day, he would give us a surprise. we remembered and, the surprise:: a packet of veggiemite! awesome :X
throughout the day, when we would get back on the bus, whoever was last would have to eat a packet of veggimite. luckily, i was never one of them but, my friend scott was! it was hilarious to see him have to suffer through it.
Scotty also explained how boomarangs are made out of the roots in a certain tree in the rainforest and the tree trunks were used as "cell phones" to the aborigines.
while we were in the rainforest, we went down to the spring where we were suppose to go for a swim, but it was wayyy too cold for me so, i just try to talk with Norman. he was an aboriginal man who hung out in the rainforest frequently. it was hard to understand his english a bit but i do know he tried..

after the rainforest, our final stop was Cape Tribulation.
Captain Cook arrived in 1770, after coming in from an exploration voyage up the north Queensland coast. when his ship the “Endeavour” went aground on a reef, it was the beginning of his tribulant times and he named the reef "Endeavour Reef," as a reminder of his wreck. he named the rock behind the reef "Mount of Sorrow," and the cape "Tribulation," because it was not one of his most enjoyable voyages..
it was an absolute beautiful, sunny day and i wish we could've swam in the oceanand that is extremely dangerous since there are an excessive amount of Box Jelly that migrate to the shore..

after that, we were all extremely tired and ready to go back to Cairns where that night we were to watch our skydiving videos. i'm really glad i decided to take this trip. it was one of the most amazing weekends of my life and i am truly blessed to have been able to go.

here are some pictures for you:
xoxox
dusti alynn.


the cassowry eating a ridiculously huge bowl of fruit..

feeding the roos!!

this is actually really gross in real life..


megan, lexi, katie, and i with norman, the aborigional man in the rainforest!!

me, lexi, and kayla at the end of the day and Cape Tribulation!

cairns number 3

21 and invicible

i will post another entry about cairns later.. but, for now..





i'm 21!!!




happy birddayyy to meeee!! it's the 22nd here in sydney but the 21st back home so i got 2 birthdays this year! :D
birthday night (20th)..

me on my birthday(21st) in The Rocks, NSW

cairns continued

so, the next day in cairns was another dream come true.
i skydived!!!
it was the best thing i've ever done in. my. life.
we fell 14,000 feet from the sky. 10, 000 of that was free falling which was only 60 seconds long. the rest was a lot smoother of a ride. when the parachute was pulled, he gave me the handles and i steered us in circles around Mission Beach. it was so gorgeous and i'm so blessed to say that i was able to sky dive. skydiving for my 21st birthday was on my bucket list and, although it was a week prior to my actually birthday, i still consider it my present to myself.

i dove with a man named Jean from South Africa. he was really awesome and helped me feel 100% at ease. as we were acending into the air, i was grabbing on to his ankles and i could feel my palms getting sweaty. he was perfectly okay with it and kept asking if i was okay. not only 2 hours before did he dive with my friend, Will, and fall out of the plane.. backwards!! he was a very versatile diver and i'm very glad i got him. i feel like all of the divers would have been the same way. i felt at complete ease and they really love their jobs and it showed. Jean also told me that he has dived with famous people. one of them being Prince Harry!!! he's my favorite prince so when he told me, i was like "i've just touched Prince Harry!" :)

the free fall was unreal. i can't even begin to try to explain it. if you could have the feeling of not feeling anything, that is it. i felt the feeling of nothing. i wasn't scared or worried that my parachute wouldn't deploy, i just couldn't help but smile. there are no words to give it justice but, i felt like a bird looking down on the earth. when i close my eyes i can still see the view. beautiful doesn't give the experience justice but it was beautiful. i was awe stricken.

when i was in the sky it felt like eternity. when i landed it felt like 2 seconds had gone by. the whole thing, from free fall to landing, took a total of 6 minutes. i will definitely be investing in that adventure again.

i got a video to go along with it, so if you'd like to watch it, just ask.
for now, enjoy the pictures :)
xoxox
dustialynn

great barrier reef pt. 1

so, this weekend was the weekend of. my. life.
absolutely, breathtakingly, amazing.
i went to the great barrier reef!! it was beyond words. it's pathetic even trying to put this down on "paper."
i will need to post a couple of entries because there is so so much to tell.
we left on thursday afternoon and arrived in the gorgeous, tropical city that night. we didn't have anything planned so we just hung out and some friends and i went to dinner. it was the most fun i've had in a long time. we ate dinner and talked for about 3 hours, then found a water park nearby where we splashed in a "lagoon" by the ocean. it was a lot of fun. a fun that can only be discribed as what you would've done in high school on a friday night when you were still a minor and participated in wholesome activities :) so. fun.

friday was the actual trip to the great barrier reef.
i can't even begin to put this is to words to do this experience justice. it's like nothing i've ever experienced before. i was in complete awe all day. looking out from the boat at the dark blue water which expanded infinitely in all directions, meeting up with the mountains of trees somewhere far off in the distance which expanded themselves into places beyond view. we rode to the reef where we would have an introduction scuba diving class. that's right, i scuba dived. never, ever in my life would i have pictured myself scuba diving. 1. because, before this trip i HATED the idea of getting in an ocean full of dangerous animals. 2. because, before this trip, i didn't realize i could scuba dive. i didn't know it was in me. well, it was and it was an awesome awesome awesome experience. i fed a sea turtle, i petted another one. i swim right next to a few schools of fishes.. it was breath taking. well, i couldn't stop breathing because if i did, my lungs would explode but, sometimes i forgot to breathe due to my breath being taken from me..
the coral was GORGEOUS and i was in absolute amazement of all the different kinds of coral that i was looking at from a bird's eye perspective.
i took a ton of pictures under water but i must get them developed. until then, watch Finding Nemo and know that i was there this weekend swimming with Nemo, Dory, and Crush. :)
pictures to come asap.
xoxox
dustialynn

this blog is mostly for me but welcome to anyone who wants to read..
School is stressing me out. i'm leaving for the Great Barrier Reef tomorrow and that means i'm missing a stupid tutorial and so when i emailed my professor he told me i should have gone to one last week if i knew i was going to be gone. well, how was i suppose to know!?!?! this tutorial thing is stupid and just makes school THAT much harder. and, if the schedule wasn't every "fortnight" and i knew what times the other tutorials were!!! alsdjfa;lsdfjkasd. aaahhhh! so so frustrating! that means i can only miss 1 more and i'm not too happy about that. i also missed one history tutorial because i didn't know when it was. screw this tutorial thing!! just let me have lectures, i'll learn that way. sheesh.
anyway, i'm suppose to be going to the museum with a friend, but she hasn't called. surprise surprise..
this weekend will be amazing! you are in for a treat! :D

anyway, that felt good to vent. i hope all is well to anyone who read this.
talk to you all soon soon soon.
xoxox
dustialynn

just hello

g'day everyone..
i'm just here to drop a line & let everyone know that i'm a bit upset that t.o. was cut after his third (?) season and after a 4 year contract had just been signed! but, i hope roy williams will prove to be a good replacement. i also have my bets on the dolphins or the chiefs to draft him :)
if the dolphins take him, they'll come back up from the shadows that they have retreated to..
also, i think tony romo is a little girl & cried to jerry jones because he couldn't handle t.o.
all in all though, the only one that matters is miriam barber & we all know that. :)
anyway, that is my opinion on these matters.
tomorrow is mardi gras. i canNOT wait.
i hope all is well.
cheers mates
xoxox
dustialynn.

all suited up & ready to surf..
me, katie, maxium, & kailyn LOVE to surf.

this past weekend a group of about 32 of us went to a surf camp out in the middle of now where. it was unreal and absolutely amazing. i finally conquered my fear of the ocean, and sharks, anddd crossed another thing off my bucket list: i learned to surf!! we were suppose to leave campus at 7:30 on friday but, we didn't end up leaving until around 8:30ish. this was to mark the beginning of a veryyy interesting weekend. because we had too many people. there were to be two buses. however, the second bus, which was driven by the owner of the camp and contained an additional 60 passengers, was wayyy late so we had to wait for him to get there. after we finally set off on our journey, driving for about an hour, we stop at a truck stop to get food. this takes about 45 minutes due to the large number of people. we finally get on the road again and drove for about 2 hours until we arrived at camp. we get settled in our bunks after a long journey.. we were greeted by an "opossum" (not so sure that's what it was) outside our window. it intrigued my roommates and i so much we actually sat still and watched the animal for like 20 minutes. :) the next morning we all head out to our different beaches. our group is lead by joel, rhys, and marty. we were also joined by a camp helper from norway. her name was tuna and she was on holiday from her job at a psych ward (she's passing the time between work & her doctorate.) we drove for about 3o minutes to the beaches and then joel, marty, rhys, and tuna had to check out the waves to make sure there was surf on the beach. the first beach we stopped at didn't have surf but there was a pack of dolphins swimming! too far away to get pictures but i still got to see their fins bobbing in and out of the water :) after that excitement, we drove to our final destination, Elizabeth "Lizzy," beach. it was beyond words beautiful. it was perfect for learning on, i decided. not too heavy of waves. we have a lesson for about 20 minutes about the different parts of the board and how to stand and then, it's off into the water. i conquered my fear! it was so awesome. when i got in the water i was not overcome by fear like i normally am. i was one with the ocean and it was overwhelming. the warm water splashed me in my face, carrying me with the current over a thousand times and i felt what it was like to live in God's greatest masterpeice. i was a helpless jellyfish being thrown on the shore with the whitewash of the waves and i didn't care. i got up, grabbed my board, and went in for it again. i'm no where near amazing but i will definitely be picking this up as a hobbie. i have never been interested in board sports, i hate skateboarding, snowboarding was scary, wakeboarding is not my thing but surfing is AWESOME! when i come back to the states, i just might move to cali! it truly was an amazing experience being in the water and getting lost in the waves. it might sound out there, but it's a feeling you will not understand unless you experience it yourself. it is out-of-this-world, priceless to be one with God's beautiful, frightening creation.
seals rock, nsw