September 13, 2015
I drove to Herberton to explore the Historic Village I’d read about in tourism brochures. I entered, bought my ticket, was given a map and stepped out into the village. It felt like I had stepped back in time. I wandered along paths people of this historic mining village from 1880 would have wandered along many years ago. I tried to imagine them in their old fashioned clothes going about their daily lives.
I wandered inside and past a lot of places: a post office, a mechanic, a bank, a dress salon, a toy store, a grocery store, a school, a cottage and a fancy white house with a beautiful verandah surrounding it. The coach house was amazing. Each building had so many fascinating objects inside, it was astounding. Statues and figures wearing costumes of the time gave us a feel of what it would have looked like with people of the time inside.

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September 3, 2015
My mum and I caught the boat to Green Island from Cairns. We had our photos taken before entering. On board we received tea and coffee. We took a seat with a table near the centre of the boat then away we went out to Green Island! The last time I’d been on Green Island was when I was about 8 years old and my parents had taken my two brothers and I four wheel driving to Cape York and back. We had stayed at a caravan park in Cairns and saw freshwater turtles! When I was 8 I remember wearing a green and purple sarong with star fish prints on it. I remember snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef and seeing clown fish, parrot fish and so on. I also remember getting startled by a moray eel peering out from behind a rock and kicked myself ferociously back into shore.
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We arrived at the jetty and disembarked the boat. On the jetty I just had to stop and marvel at the magnificent colours of the reef. It reminded me almost of the patterns on marble with the light and dark blue moulding into each other. Mum and I both gazed at the island filled with memories. We walked across the jetty and arrived on the island. We looked at a sign and started a walk around the island. There were lots of informative signs along the way. We stopped at a beach, put on our flippers, googles and snorkels and waded into the water. 




Clown fish, parrot fish and other species swam peacefully around the coral. It was such a mesmerising experience-I could have done it for ages. I looked up every now and again to check I hadn’t strayed too far from the shoreline. After snorkelling we went to a nice restaurant on the island. I had a wonderful pink cocktail with pineapple. It was such a wonderful day.
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August 15, 2015
Rachel
I’m back in Australia after my year in the UK. It’s great to be back! I actually think I experienced a bit of a culture clash from my own country which I’ve never experienced before.
My family lived on the South Island of New Zealand for a year when I was little. We were in a place called Sumner which isn’t far from Christchurch and has an esplanade, beach, “Rocky Island” (a rock near the shore which we kids pretended was our island) and a horse riding club. My brothers and I used to go there all the time and ride horses and donkeys on the beach and through the port hills. When we came back to Australia and moved to Queensland in 2002 I guess the culture and climate were different and a new adventure was beginning.
Growing up in Canberra my parents always took us out camping, bushwalking…
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July 28, 2014
Today we visited a park in Potsdam. We walked past silver birch trees and past an old red-brick wall: we were inside the park! Great fir trees stood together overlooking us as blackbirds hopped here and there on the grass and then flitted between the trees. A majestic Marble Palace (not all 100% real marble apparently) stood at one end, flanked by gardens and water fountains. A Great Lake was before us dotted with swimmers, waterbirds and a little boat. Sunbathers and bookworms flanked the shoreline, basking in the summer sun. Apparently a couple of weeks ago the grass of the park was filled with white flowers. We found an Egyptian-looking cafe’. Beside this was a garden with big black and yellow bumblebees busy collecting pollen from the kaleidoscope of flowers. We wandered along the path by the lakeside and I gazed up to the tops of the poplar trees and across the lake to the willows. I remembered such trees from living in Canberra, Australia as a child from exploring the surrounding banks of Lake Burley-Griffin. We wandered along the path further and went home.














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July 27, 2014
We had a great day doing a sightseeing tour of Potsdam. From the line of the Berlin Wall on the road which had separated East from West, what used to be Russian soldier barracks, a red-brick Dutch Quarter which is now shops and accommodation for all nationalities, gardens, parks, lakes and palaces-Potsdam has a bit of everything! The tour bus had headphones and all I had to do was plug mine into the side of the bus and select “English” as my language. We had approximately three stops on our hop-on, hop-off tour of this historic city. We wandered amongst majestic palaces, sprawling vineyards and colourful gardens. Water fountains soared above us and trees formed a leafy canopy above our heads as we walked over the cobblestones on our adventure. We took the sightseeing bus back to the city centre and had chocolate and marzipan torte’s with apple mineral water (apple juice mixed with mineral water) and a Fanta. We huddled on our bright orange cushions under the great umbrella as rain drops fell and thunder clashed above our heads. An adventurous and thrilling day in Potsdam!





































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