Murwillumbah; an ancient volcano?!

Here are finally all the "ins" on my past week; school photos, art galleries and volcanoes. Quite a interesting week, don't you think.

Photo shoot.
Tuesday morning, there were school photo's. At our school, everyone puts on their best clothes, make-up, hair etc. Here everyone ironed their uniform and put their hair in the prettiest braid, pony tail or pig tails. When everyone lined up for their individual photo, Mrs Brodar (head of senior school) said sarcastically: "Wow, look at that extra layer of make-up on your faces." Ofcourse no one was allowed to wear make-up, so all the girls started giggling. After the individual photos, there was a group photo with all the year-11s. In total that are 135 girls, and to fit them all in front of the camera is quite a hard job! All squeezed together though, it eventually worked, and it looked great.

Murwillumbah's Art Gallery.
During the weekend, I went to the nearest town to Naoka's dad's (Walter) home. They got 5 new goats last week so they needed supplies for them. After we got all the "goat stuff", we went to the among Australians well-known art gallery of Murwillumbah. It was beautiful, the artworks were incredibly good! Unfortunately you weren't allowed to take any pictures. Also, when you entered the building, you could immediately see the amazing view of the valley.

Something I did not know, was that the valley used to be the top of a volcano! It is surrounded by a mountain range, which used to be the sides of that volcano. It is one of the two largest volcanoes on earth that have ever existed. The mountain range is about a kilometer high, imagine another 2k higher, and you have the height of the original volcano. And, then we haven't talked about the fact that it erupted every now and then, spilling lava all the way up to Southport (which is an hour and a half away from Murwillumbah). The lava has been a great fertile soil for the area, so now the place is filled with farms, where they grow crops such as sugar cane, tea, and a lot of other fruits and vegetables. Also, there are many farms where they hold cows and goats.

Multitasking.
Sunday, it was great whether! The sun was shining with an occasional breeze, just perfect. There weren't any activities planned for the day, so I decided to catch up on homework, while sunbathing (multitasking all the way!:). When I finished my homework, I went for a run. I had already seen spiders as big as twice the size of my hand, and as if that wasn't enough, I saw a snake about 7 to 10 cm thick, and at least a meter or so long! It definitely was a stimulus for me to run faster.... When I got back at the house, Nerida told me it was probably a very dangerous snake too 0.0

Right now I am back at school (Monday mornings are the best....), and I CANNOT wait for next weekend because I am going to Sydney!!! So that will definitely be a very very long blogpost you can enjoy :)

Loulotte