Port Hacking Field Trip & Royal National Park Pt. 2 9/13

Our second field trip for The Marine Environment was to Port Hacking! It's at Cronulla, so we took the same train to Cronulla that we took to get to Royal National Park, got to the same wharf, but took a different boat.

Check out our sick ride:

It was actually pretty cramped and uncomfortable. And, the field trip was so boring. We looked at sediment samples from 6 places around the port. Here's the front page of my packet that I had to fill out:

I ended up failing this assignment because our lecturer is this really old man who has a combination of a foreign accent and an Australian accent and also mumbles monotonously instead of speaking normally. Oh well...

After 3 hours of sitting on a boat, looking at the different sizes of sand, the field trip finally ended. Ally, Emily, and I went back to Cronulla to find some lunch. To our great surprise, we found this festival going on!

When Emily and I went to RNP the first time, there was almost nobody around. It was crazy to see so many people out and about.

They even had a petting zoo! And, they also had a couple really small rides and a bunch of food stands.

We each got different food. I ordered chicken and chips (fries). Even though the options were "1/2 chicken" and "whole chicken," I really underestimated the size of this chicken and ordered a whole chicken. I never even had a chance at finishing this humongous thing. Who orders an entire chicken for lunch?! Why didn't the cashier lady question whether this skinny Asian boy could finish a whole entire chicken?! Well, I ended up wasting more than half of the chicken (and still feel terrible and embarrassed about it).

After lunch, we headed back to the wharf and took the boat to Bundeena.

Last time, we went to the Bundeena Drive to Marley Beach trail. This time, the plan was to go on the coastal walk. 

It took us about half an hour to get to the start of the trail, but it was so worth it!

Here are some funky-looking plants we saw:

It had rained the night before, so the trail was really muddy in a lot of places, and there were massive puddles in some places. But, we padded along.

Eventually, we got to the coast!! IT WAS GORGEOUS.

Me just bein' me~ (Notice my busted lip from face-planting at SkyZone)

Ally was so relaxed laying on the edge, but I was actually freaking out a bit. We were really high up. Oh, and my water bottle fell out of my backpack when I got up and ALMOST~~~ fell off the side, but Ally caught it for me. My hero!!

Ally and Emily really really wanted a jumping picture. This was the best one we could get after 5 tries... 

We walked along the coast, bumped into a few nice hikers, and eventually got back to Marley Beach! The only difference was that it was nice and sunny this time. The first one is Big Marley, which is where we stopped the first time.

This time, we still had a lot of energy, so we decided to keep going. Ally walked so fast and was having the time of her life and was clearly in much better shape than Emily and me. We just kind of tried to keep up.

On the way to Little Marley, we found this on the rocks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A DEAD PUFFERFISH!!! SO COOL!!!!!!

We got to Little Marley, and it was such a nice little beach. Emily said that Marley Beach is her favorite beach EVER because there are no people, and the scenery is so nice, and it's such a peaceful place to go. I laughed at first, but the more I've thought about it, I think I have to agree.

Emily and I climbed up this giant peak. We could see so far!!!! Ally decided to go down instead.

There were some cool fishermen down below, but I could not figure out how they got down there. How unfortunate.

We eventually headed back to Bundeena, and we went to this playground while waiting for the ferry to come pick us up. We sat and chatted for a bit on the playground, and then we went to the beach and sat some more.

When we got back to campus, those two were too cool for me and both went home for dinner, so I ate alone on Anzac Parade at this Malaysian restaurant Petaling Street. The chicken rice was pretty good, but my favorite part about this place is that they are so fast with the food, which was excellent since I was exhausted and starving. :D

SkyZone with PhotoClub 9/12

Chloe and I went to SkyZone Indoor Trampolining with PhotoClub!

We left campus with the rest of the PhotoClub and took a long bus ride, then walked a distance. By the time, we got there I was already exhausted! We had one hour reserved for us, and we got there about 30 minutes early. So, we stood outside waiting for our turn like a bunch of dorks and took some selfies.

Chloe and I got bored of waiting around, so we decided to go inside and explore the facilities, even if we weren't allowed down on them. Much to our surprise.... the place was FILLED with children. I don't really know why I expected it to be an adult place to be, but I definitely did not expect to see so many children who barely came up to my waist.

Kids jumping into the foam pit with their parents watching.

Look at that little girl in front of the hoop. That hoop is a miniature hoop. I am taller than that hoop (not really).

These little kids playing dodgeball seemed like they hadn't even learned to walk yet.

After feeling old for what felt like a considerable amount of time, we rejoined the group and eventually got our wristbands and socks.

For those who haven't gone trampolining before (everybody), you get these cool grippy socks! They have rubbery things on the bottom, I guess so that you don't slip and fall. Although, I don't think trampolines are infamous for their slippery surface. Not too sure on this one.

Always have to take a selfie.

We first started warming up on one of the big areas of many trampolines with everyone. After about 5 minutes of jumping, I remembered that jumping on a trampoline is actually extremely exhausting. EXTREMELY exhausting. I need to start working out again... So after about ten minutes of that, I decided I needed a break. We headed over to the foam pit!

We fell into line with these girls. APPARENTLY they don't know what a line is because they just kept cutting back in front of us. We thought that maybe it was just them and joined another line, and the kids tried to do the same thing! KIDS THESE DAYS. 

Eventually, we just kind of nudged our way to the front and finally got our turn!

I did a flip!!! And Emily (from PhotoClub) and Chloe both did a couple jumps, and then we decided we had had enough of waiting in lines with those particular children.

So, we went to the basketball area. And, I was basically Shaq (except I missed my first attempt).

After a few shots, we went back to the normal trampolines, and I took some panoramas because that's what I like to do.

I watched a few of the other people in PhotoClub start doing crazy flips. They made it look so easy! And since I had just done my flip into the foam pit, I had this self-confidence that I will definitely never ever feel ever again. I tried to do a flip, turned halfway in the air, then face-planted into the trampoline. I even cut up my lip on the trampoline (ew, so many people's feet!). It was a traumatic experience, but I definitely learned my lesson: never try that again without a helmet!

After a few more minutes of jumping around, I got so exhausted (and just plain embarrassed), so I went back upstairs to have a drink. And with only 10 minutes left, I decided I had had enough trampoline merriment for the night.

After trampolining, we went to Rocks Brewing Co. around the corner for some food.

Look at this burger... It is Glorious. The Big Stopper Burger (beef, bacon, portobello, onion, cheese, lettuce, smoked tomato relish, and Rocks BBQ sauce). It was delicious. The only problem was: I'm pretty sure if you combined two people's mouths together, they still would not be able to take a proper bite out of this burger... It was so huge that it just started falling apart as I picked it up. I ate 3/4 of the burger with fork&knife or just by picking up random pieces with my fingers.

And so, with a sore legs, a bloody lip, and an exploding stomach, I returned home to my humble abode.

Dinner with Chloe 9/8

Chloe always picks good restaurants. This is a short blog post. Here are some food pictures.

Chloe let me pick anything from the menu, and I chose the spicy intestines obviously!

We also got some potatoes.

And some fish that was supposedly "Sichuan flavor" but was not spicy and was kind of sweet. Needless to say, I was not a fan.

Then, we got froyo! And this place had cool swings instead of normal, lame benches.

Taro and mango.

Royal National Park! 9/7

Emily and I finally got to go to Royal National Park!!!

We left really early in the morning, took a bus to Central, then took a train to Cronulla, then took a ferry to Bundeena.

This was on the ferry ride:

The houses around there look so pleasant.

After we got off the boat, we had to walk like 20 minutes up a GIANT hill along a road just to get to the start of the trail. And, when we got to the start of the trail, there was no sign or anything with the name of the trail. The trail we were doing was Bundeena Drive to Marley Beach. 

When we got to the start of the trail, we had no clue whether or not it was really the start of the trail. It just looked like this sandy road. And in/around the national park, there's no cell phone service. Coincidentally, this truck driver stopped at the entrance to the trail when we got there; he had to unlock the gate or something. We asked him if it was the trail to Marley Beach. He thought for a solid minute looking clueless or confused, then he responded confidently that yes, if you go straight, you go to Marley and if you turn left you go to some other place (I don't remember).

Anyway, I was like wow! thanks for the advice mister stranger! and believed him wholeheartedly. Emily was very skeptical and wouldn't stop telling me how we made a mistake and how she didn't trust this guy. But we still walked down this trail. The view didn't change for a while.

A lot of bush.

Finally, we saw the ocean! Well, actually, Emily saw the ocean. For some reason I thought the blue ocean was forest. I think because the trees also have a blue haze over them. I should probably get my eyes checked..

It started raining a little bit, but it wasn't too bad. And it stopped pretty soon after.

Basically, we walked down to the beach.

Marley Beach!

In order to get to the beach, we had to cross this giant creek/river!

But before that, we totally geeked out and tried to be marine scientists.

This is a terrible picture, but we found these weird looking things that seemed inflated. They actually looked a lot like bluebottles/Portuguese man-of-wars just without the long tail; these are super deadly jellyfish.

Anyway, I stepped on a bunch and enjoyed hearing them pop.

I also studied some green algae. Learned about that in class!!! Getting some quality field work in!!!

Finally, we crossed the river. Well, I managed to jump across without getting my shoes wet.

Then, Emily waited around, searching for a good spot to cross. And eventually, tried to cross but just got her shoes soaked.

We went on a dune and ate our lunches! And then we climbed this giant dune.

This was the view from the top of this particular dune:

For some reason, Emily really wanted to roll down a hill. So, she did that, and I took a video of it on her gopro for her. She rolled so slowly HAHA.

Then, we explored some more dunes and climbed another one.

Then, she took a video of me rolling down this giant hill. Mine was much cooler than hers, I assure you.

She also made sand angels.

We wanted to go sand sledding, but without a sled, we were just sad.

Oh, also when we were walking around the river, trying to head back, Emily stepped in quicksand and almost died. Well, she started sinking but somehow managed to get out of it. It was frightening!!

Anyway, without anymore sand activities, we decided to head back.

Cool rocks!

We waited on the beach in Bundeena for the ferry for around 20 minutes. We watched this drug deal go down on this little bridge there. This old guy was drinking coffee, then he put his paper coffee cup on the ground on the bridge, then this guy that looked kind of like Jesse Pinkman came on the bridge, and they didn't talk to each other or look at each other.

Ok, it wasn't an actual drug deal, the old guy was just hanging out with his granddaughter. But the two of us agreed, it could've totally been a scene out of Breaking Bad.

After we crossed back to Cronulla, we stopped by McDonald's. I got a frozen Coke float and some small fries :D