The Whitsundays and Whitehaven Beach

These next videos are mostly of our boat ride around the Whitsunday Islands. You can see it's low visibility because a ton of dust was in the air, but it was still absolutely gorgeous! I've never been on islands like this before! The definition of tropical paradise, i think. It's really windy so you can't hear a lot of my commentary (shucks!) but at least



The next two clips show us arriving at our island stay for 3 days, South Molle Island. All of the Whitsundays are national parks except for a few, which have hostels/resorts for tourists like me. Over half of South Molle was national park so I still took a bunch of short fun hikes to see the place.


Sorry, again, that you can't really hear much. I think I said something like, "this video only captures some of the beauty I'm seeing, and a tiny fraction of the fun."


Here's a shot of us before we arrive at Whitehaven beach. It's a massive beach with shallow warm water stretching out for a really long distance. Definitely one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in the world!


And this is when my battery dies............ so sad! I was an idiot and left my battery charger on the mainland for these 3 days. Thankfully, I was able to borrow a friend's iPhone to take some video over the next couple days. Unfortunately, though, these are the only two vids I got at Whitehaven. Next time I won't use all the battery while I'm on the boat!

Lake McKenzie and other clips of Fraser Island

Wow! This place was paradise! I have never visited a place as beautiful as this lake, and feel so lucky to have spent an afternoon enjoying the sun, water, and sand. This was the softest sand I have ever felt! We rubbed it all over our skin and in our hair and it felt amazing. NASA used sand from this island for a telescope lens or something because the sand has some of the highest percentage of silica in the world - or something like that haha. I learned there are nearly a hundred other lakes comparable to Lake McKenzie on Fraser Island, so next time I travel to Queensland I want to camp at least a few days on the island to check out the other cool locations.



One more clip of Lake McKenzie:


The view at Mohino Beach, at the SS Mohino crash site:


A shot of the wooded area covering most of Fraser Island:

Bus rides on Fraser Island

Once we disembarked our ferry on Fraser island, we immediately loaded up into this giant 4x4 elevated bus. Fraser island is made up entirely of sand, so all of the roads that go around the island are made out of soft sand. The island was originally inhabited only for logging, so big logging trucks cleared out these roads just big enough for the buses to squeeze through. It was pretty terrifying at first to see how fast and close the driver brought us to big trees and branches that could have knocked us over. The bus was made especially for this terrain, though, and it had the incredible capability to twist, rock, and bounce through the rough landscape.





The driver kept us entertained the entire ride. He was really funny and had loads of interesting facts to share as we drove through the island next to treacherous drop-offs and on the beach.



Here we are cruising along the beach. You can hear the driver explain why we drive next to the tide rather than on the soft sand like on the roads. He was flying!



Last clip of the insane bus ride, as we slowly make our way over uneven rocks. The camera doesn't capture the reality of this wild ride, but you get a general idea.

Hervey Bay beach and ferry to Fraser Island

Sunset at Hervey Bay (pronounced Harvey):


Ferry ride to Fraser Island:

Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo

Here are a bunch of vids from my day at the Australia Zoo. It was really fun because I visited here about two years ago with the OGC (choir). I didn't notice any changes since then, especially in the crocodile feeding show. I had a great time! Australian animals rule.

Sleepy Koalas:


Roos:


Petting a roo:


They are nocturnal, after all. Lazy roos:



They look cuddly but they are ferocious!


Birds:


More birds:



This croc could snap us in half. Steve Irwin's wife was really excited, 3 death rolls!


Here's a Tasmanian Devil, they're actually a lot smaller and cuter than most people expect-


I also love cassowaries but didn't take any video of them. Later I'll add a pic. They look like a hybrid between a turkey and an emu.

Ormond Basketball Grand Final

Here are a few clips from the Intercollegiate basketball grand final (aka in America: championship) between Ormond and University College. There were 12 teams in the tournament, and we were seeded no. 1 in our pool after winning the league games. We crushed every team that opposed us (by a lot). This game was the closest game of the whole competition and we still won by 12! I was one of four US-born guys on the team, and we had a couple other guys who played a lot of ball when they were younger. Aussie's usually grow up playing footy instead of basketball so having a 6 men with solid fundamentals definitely gave us an edge against the other colleges.

I'm wearing my lucky number 32 and you can see me score an easy basket as I'm fouled in this clip right after the camera zooms away from the scoreboard. I brick the 3-point play free-throw :-( but at least forced a steal right after the rebound! And even though the 3-point line is a few inches farther back than in the states, I still got the touch and dropped one from downtown in the second half :-)



Next clip shows the end of the game and you can hear someone shout "where's 32?!"



This last clip captures Ormond fans and players gathering after to sing our college's anthem and cheer. This was a really exciting experience! Go Ormond!



I accidentally put the clip on twice when I compressed the video file to fit on the blog. If it's not already obvious, the second half is the same as the first half!

PS. Thanks Kaitlyn for shooting video and taking pics during the game!

Update

Hi everyone!

Sorry it has been forever since I have posted anything. I was gone on a dream vacation through Queensland for the past 2 weeks and have more video than I know what to do with! I literally shot over 3 clips per day..........

They will all be up very soon! Thanks for your patience