Goodbye Cairns, Hello Bendigo

Now its off to the next adventure on my amazing trip. Next stop: Bendigo! We all, all 80 of us, arrived at Cairns airport at roughly 10:30 am to make sure everyone made their final flights on time. I think their were a few different groups with earlier flights which is why we had to arrive so early. My group, students attending La Trobe University, had a flight out at 1:30pm to Melbourne, Australia. This flight was about 3 hours so just enough time for a meal, a movie and some rest time! It was a quick flight!

When we arrived, we hearded straight toward the baggage claim conveyer belt which was hard to get to and had rows of people trying to peer over the person in front of them and catch a glimpse of their bag. This didn't bother any of us American kids, since we were Super-excited to be arriving at our final destination after almost a week of traveling!! When we found the driver, there was one for La Trobe University and another one for Mandi Stevens. It was really funny, but it was because I was the only student attending La Trobe University in Bendigo as the others were all going to La Trobe University in Bundoora.

When I finally got my baggage, my bus driver (Alf) and myself walked out to his car and loaded the baggage. As I was heading to get in, Alf reminded me that I needed to get into the left side as that was the passenger side in this country. I got in and from there we had a 2 hour car ride to the campus- so I sat back and relaxed until we reached the town of Bendigo!!! It was a small little town but nothing I wasnt already used to at Western. I was so excited to see everything as we neared the town, things were so pretty and building were shaping in interesting ways that grabbed my attention.

When we got to campus Alf dropped me off at my dorm, Mills Hall room number 10. They had a grocery bags full of grocerys and linens and sheets waiting for my arrival. They told me that the dinning hall wasnt open and that they hoped what they supplied would be ok for dinner for the night! I immediately thanked them and of course they replied with "no worries mate". I knew I was in Australia to stay!