Aussie Adventures: Full Moon Parties, Rain, and More Rain!

The past couple weeks in Australia have been really fun, and really really really wet! According to the Townsville locals, the rainy season is typically in Dec/Jan/Feb (depending on who you talk to) but this year it's late and happening right now, halfway through March! It has literally rained 24/7 for the past 6 days and is supposed to continue this way for at least another week. It seriously doesn't stop... it might stop actually raining for 10 minutes every 3 hours so but other than that it continuously comes down and even when it's not actually raining, it's cloudy. I don't think we've seen the sun in at least a week. At this point, I am honestly just amazed that there is still water in the sky! As one of my friends pointed out though, we are right next to the ocean so I guess there is an endless supply of water. It was fun at first but since I have to take the bus or walk everywhere, I am getting a bit tired of arriving at my destination soaking wet. We bought ponchos the other day and wear them even when going out on the weekend, much to the amusement of my Australian housemate, who says he actually likes the rain. He of course has a car. The park across from my house has flooded and the stream running through campus has turned into a roaring river, cutting off several paths. My taxi driver from the other night even predicted a cyclone soon... although it would be pretty cool to say I'd lived through a tropical cyclone, I would rather it stop raining! According to him, the cyclone that hit last year had winds up to 300km just north of here and 170km here in Townsville. I am not actually sure how fast that is because kilometers still don't mean much to me, but he said it in a way that seemed to imply that was very very fast and I know that cyclones can cause a lot of damage! Less worrisome than cyclones perhaps, but still important is the effect the rain has on my ability to do laundry.. dryers aren't really a thing here in Australia- I mean they exist of course, but most people hang their clothes out to dry. Butttt if it is pouring rain than it is pointless to wash your clothes because you can't hang them to dry! Despite the rain the last couple of weeks have been a lot of fun. Last weekend I finally went to stay on Magnetic Island, the island right off the coast of Townsville. Every month on the island on the night of the full moon there is a big party with a DJ on the beach so my friends and I decided to go and then spend the rest of the weekend on Magnetic Island. The party was really fun and after dancing on the beach all night it was nice to be able to crash in my hostel bed right next door, instead of having to take the ferry back like some of our friends. The next day we tried to go snorkelling but because of the stormy weather and the cloudy sky, the visibility wasn't great. I did see a couple of cool fish but it wasn't the amazing, crystal clear water and colorful coral Great Barrier Reef snorkelling I was hoping for. Luckily I will have plenty of other chances to snorkel while here! After giving up on snorkelling, we went to check out some waterfalls on the island and that was really fun. There were some crazy Australian boys there who put us to shame with their fearlessness- they were jumping off super high cliffs and doing back flips from the rope swing and when we found a spider bigger than any of us had ever seen, one of the boys claimed that it was nothing, he'd seen ones twice as big (and then began throwing rocks at it to the horror of us biology majors). I also joined a volleyball league last week which I am really excited for. The first day was just a tryout to form teams and even though I'd never played before, I managed not to completely embarrass myself and am on a team with 3 Canadian boys, an Australian girl, a Cecilia Blanc. I think it will be a lot of fun. In other news, the Hunger Games movie comes out in Australia this week and we have already bought tickets to see the midnight premier. Much to the disappointment of my little sister, it comes out here even before the it comes out in the US... I am very, very excited because I loved the books. And the next day I leave for the weekend to visit Cairns and the Daintree Rainforest, the oldest Rainforest in the world! It should be a good week :)