Balancing Class, Hockey and on Rocks

Today started out a little different than usual. I couldn't fall asleep because my hand was in so much pain from hanging on a rock ledge yesterday. I was constantly waking up to needles jabbing in my palm. I woke up at 3am to eat a piece of bread, take a few Advil and slapped a bag of ice on it and slept with it under my pillow.

Adelle and I woke up at 6am for the 6:15am spin class at our gym down the block and it was like no other either of us had been to before. The lights were turned off except for the one on the instructor and we were glowing from the blacklights shinning on us and the whites of our clothing popping. The class was great and we joined desiree to lift for a bit after.

Today was our first day of summer class at 9am and here are the FUN FACTS about AUSSIE:

22million people in the country but there is 140 million sheep, 40 million kangaroos and 24 million cattle
In the 80's tourism went through the roof with the Crocodile Dundee Movies
The term "Shrimp on the Barby" is complete B.S. and they don't do that
Longest straight stretch of railway (478km) and longest fence (5,500km)
1965 they invented wine in a box

Double Bay Beach

When 10,000 Aussies were polled on what they felt were Australian Icons this was the order they listed.

1. Vegemite- a pasty type jelly initially for babies that people spread on toast.
2. Acoobra hat- kinda like a cowboy hat that takes 10 rabbits to make it.
3.Meat Pie- like hot dogs for us.
4. Surf and Lifesaver cap- resembles all the lifeguards on duty at every beach and being a member of the club.

The harbour wasn't mentioned until #6 and Kangaroos #15

Double Bay

Watson's Bay

After class we took the train to Double Bay Beach where we then took a ferry to Watson's Bay where we got off to hike up the Sydney Harbour National Park Gap Bluff.

Gap Bluff

The bluff is actually notorious for people jumping off of it during the Great Depression to commit suicide and today they have a huge fence and a help-line if you have any ill feelings.

After hiking up the bluff and learning about Captain Cook, how Bondi beach was named and more, our field trip was over and a few of us split up and went in different directions.

rocks alex and I climbed

wood plank

A group of us went down to Camp Cove beach and instead of walking up the path to another beach lookout, I opted to walk along the rocks below the cliff and climbed up some pretty steep rocks. First I had to walk in thigh high water over what seemed to be ruins of something in the water from years ago and then I had to walk across this wood plank to get to the shallow rocks before the enormous ones. It was a little tougher than the day before and a littler bit different because I didn't have anyone with me and nobody could see me too well from the beach. I noticed this one steep rock that had divets where I could put my hands and feet as if it were made to climb.

The difficulty was hoisting myself up there with a backpack on and not slipping on any of the moss covering the rocks being hit by water that I was standing on at the moment. I climbed up the rocks and made home on top of the HUGE rock because the highest rock was too steep from the only place I could reach to  get up it.

diveted rock

 I sat up on top of the rock and took in the amazing view of Sydney Harbour.  As I was climbing down the rock, Alex, a surfer in our group wanted a little more of an adventure and decided he wanted to climb the rocks too. I showed him where we went and we found this cool cave. The rest of the group was back from their hike so we carefully climbed down from the rocks and caught the last ferry leaving for Darling Harbour with them. As we were on our way, I took a picture of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, that Desiree and I are planning on walking up this coming Sunday.


After dinner and walking around the city, I have to get to some reading for tomorrow and be ready for our FIRST DAY OF FIELD HOCKEY. We have practice on Tuesday and Thursday at 3pm and on Thursday we stay a bit longer to practice with our coach's club team. We will take a 40min. train ride to the field where we'll meet the coach who is from South Africa and I'm assuming we'll play a bit. I'll let you know how it goes. Have a wonderful day!

Love,

ME