Some of the best experiences I’ve had the opportunity to experience happened in Australia, and not just in Melbourne, Victoria where I lived from January 6th, 2001 until December 12th, 2004. While living in Australia, I had the opportunity to travel all over Australia and even to countries surrounding Australia with my family. Some of the places I’ve travelled to include Melbourne, Sydney, Cairns, Hamilton Island, Cradle Mountain, some places in New Zealand, Port Douglas, and many more. I’m at a point now where I forget all the places we travelled to as a family.

While living in Australia, travelling was the main thing we did. We travelled at every opportunity, which was easy because we had three to four weeks off every couple of months because we were on terms rather than semesters. The only continuity in travelling was we’d travel back to Florida and Greenville for Christmas and to Bay View, Michigan to our summer home in July. We continued this routine the entire time we lived there, except for the one vacation in June through July where family visited us and my brothers and I told my parents it was fun, but never again.

The place that sticks out most to me I had the opportunity to travel to is Hamilton Island, located in the ocean in some of the Great Barrier Reef near Queensland. The island is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen with the bluest water imaginable. We loved and had such a great time at Hamilton Island we re-visited and told anyone who visited us they had to go.

Hamilton Island is an island where golf carts are used to get around instead of cars, plenty of boat trips and speed boat rentals are offered to travel to other islands close by. We took advantage of these things. The first time we went, we took a boat out to Whitehaven Beach, a beach with white sand so fine it felt like silk. The water there was unbelievable and was such a blue I couldn’t even begin to describe the blue. It was a kind of blue you would have to see to believe. We also took a speedboat the second time so we could visit another beach, Chaulkie’s Beach and also Whitehaven Beach.

The culture in Australia was very different, due to the values and different ethnical backgrounds who lived in Melbourne. In Melbourne, I had friends from different countries, including America, England, Japan, India, and other parts of Asia. There are the many different cultures in Australia because the people are welcoming to people fro other countries and while driving down streets, different types of foods is present everywhere you look. They included Thai, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, and many others.

My one wish is to be able to go back to Melbourne, again, and visit friends who I haven’t seen in a very long time. I really enjoyed my time there and a part of me will always be in Australia. The experiences and memories I had in Australia will never be replaced, but I will have new experiences and memories added onto the old ones. Some of these experiences will be great as well, but none will completely replace the ones I had in Australia.