Australia

I've now finished my time in Brisbane (a week early, but everyone else had left and placement is over-rated anyway!) and have set off up the coast of Queensland.
I got to see and do a lot during my time in the emergency department, as well as going out with the intensive care paramedics in their special response car. Unfortunately due to leaving early I was unable to go out with the flying doctors, but on the upside I get more time travelling and can now visit melbourne as well.
I've just got back from a 3-day canoe safari on the Noosa Everglades that was really fun but quite hard work, especially seeng as it was 33 degrees yesterday! We saw eagles, kookaburras, big lizards and lots and lots of trees and water!
I'm heading to Rainbow Beach in a few hours to go on a 3-day self-drive 4wd safari on Fraser Island. After that I have the joy of a 14 hour overnight bus trip to Airlie Beach. I'm booked onto a 3-day sailing trip around the Whitsunday Islands on Ragamuffin II, an Admirals Cup racing yacht. After that I'm going to head up to Magnetic Island for a few days (apparently there is a full moon party there on October 10th) before flying from Townsville down to Melbourne.

After a month in Vanuatu I am now back in Brisbane and have started placement.
Vanuatu was an amazing place to go and I would love to go back again some time. We went to millennium caves, which was probably one of the most fun but also most dangerous things I've ever done. We had to trek through rainforest, passing through some villages before crossing a bamboo bridge over a river and climbing down countless slippery bamboo ladders to get to the start of the caves. It was pitch black inside and there was a river running through the cave, so we had to use our torches to help us climb over all the rocks and wade through pools for about 30 minutes before getting to the end of the cave. We then had lunch before doing some canyoning down some waterfalls and over and under rocks until we were given some rubber rings to float down through a huge gorge with waterfalls flowing into it. When we got to the end we had to climb up some more bamboo ladders and up waterfalls to get back to the villages and to the truck. None of this would ever be allowed back home because there were countless places that if you lost your footing you would slip and almost definitely die!
I also did my PADI diving course in Vanuatu, which enabled me to dive on the USS President Coolidge, which is apparently the biggest diveable shipwreck in the world. It is pretty huge at 200m long and it was amazing seeing it appear as you descend. I did a dive in the cargo holds in which you had to turn your torch off and see all the flashlight fish inside that flash green in the dark, as well as dives on the promenade deck, inside the engine rooms and down to 'the lady.' I went down to 48m in the end, if I'd been diving in Australia I wouldn't be allowed past 18m on an open water certificate!
We also went to champagne beach in the North of the island which is reputed to be 'the best beach in the pacific islands' and went snorkelling with a turtle that was swimming just off the beach. There were numerous other trips including a few to the golf course, a party on a tallship, trips to Aore and also a 'kastom' dancing trip to a local village where they did traditional songs and dances for us and made stone-ground kava (lethal!).
I also did a little bit of work in the hospital.

I went down to Byron Bay for a few days after getting back to Australia, it's really nice down there and I can see why a lot of people go there and never want to leave. I cycled up to the lighthouse and saw whales and dolphins just offshore and also managed to fit in some surfing, the beaches there are beautiful and they have some beautiful sunsets. Evenings mainly consisted of drinking copious quantities of 'goon' (basically 4L of wine in a box for 5 pounds!) followed by rollerblade time trials round the hostel!

I'm now back in Brisbane and the weather is decidedly better than it was the first time I was here! Placement is failry easy going, I can turn up whenever I want and just do what I want! They also have an amazing doctors mess on the top floor called the Qantas lounge that was built last year and has free coffee machines, marble worktops and floors, lots of glass and metal, plasma screens, comfy chairs, computers, sculptures, sensory deprivation chairs for sleeping and a roof terrace! I can only imagine how little work would be done if the doctors mess was like this back home.
The trinations rugby is on this weekend which should be entertaining, otherwise I'm currently trying to go out in the helicopter with the paramedics and go out with the flying doctors (one of the other students is out at the moment). Fingers crossed!

Arrived in Brisbane on monday to a cold rainy morning, 13 degrees! Luckily this was only temporary though and since then it's been 20+ degrees every day. It does still get cold at night though, cold enough to need jeans and a top (I guess it is winter here!). I spent a few days in Brisbane looking round town and exploring, it's a nice city with paths all the way along the river and lots of parks, some things about australia have been surprising though:

- Beer and alcohol in general is really expensive, you can only buy it in off licenses and it's about 10 pounds for six bottles of beer!
- A lot of food is expensive in the supermarket (bread, meat, cheese etc.) to the point that it's actually cheaper to go out to eat than it is to cook something yourself, eating out is quite cheap though)
- if you go in a big supermarket or shop with a backpack on, they ask to look in it when you leave, to make sure you haven't taken anything - they seem to just have a cursory glance, was quite off-putting the first time though.

I also randomly met Carys and Jo from my year at Uni in my hostel which was quite strange! Anyway, after a few days I headed up to Noosa, about 2.5 hours North up the coast. It was really nice up there with some awesome beaches and beautiful scenery. I met two primary school teachers from sunderland and a crazy dutch guy and we went surfing in the morning and then for a walk round the nature reserve in the afternoon - as we walked along the beach there were loads of blue crabs that ran down to the water in front of us and buried themselves in the wet sand. At breakfast in Noosa there were loads of wild parrots that live inside a huge gumtree at the hostel that kept landing on your table and squawking, trying to get you to give them food. They got a bit annoying after a while but it's definitely an improvement on pigeons and seagulls!
I'm back in Brisbane now and I'm just getting ready to fly to Vanuatu tomorrow, can't wait for warm evenings again...