{"id":4635,"date":"2016-06-13T21:36:13","date_gmt":"2016-06-13T21:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auip.com\/?p=4635"},"modified":"2016-06-13T22:20:21","modified_gmt":"2016-06-13T22:20:21","slug":"weekofwows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/weekofwows\/","title":{"rendered":"Student Perspective: Week of wows on Magnetic Island"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Mariah DeLosSantos, the <a href=\"http:\/\/bearsabroad.baylor.edu\/\">Baylor University<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/auip.com\/programs\/australia\/sustainability\/\">Sustainability in North Queensland<\/a> student blogger, writes:<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/p1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-4636 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/p1-300x215.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"215\" srcset=\"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/p1-300x215.jpg 300w, https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/p1-1024x735.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/p1.jpg 1987w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>All I can say is wow. I have only been down under for a week and I&#8217;ve already had so many adventures and made so many memories. I get to hang with the coolest group of people every day and explore <a href=\"http:\/\/www.australia.com\/en-nz\" target=\"_blank\">Australia<\/a> with them. It&#8217;s never a bad time when you&#8217;re surrounded by such down to earth, spontaneous people.\u00a0<span style=\"line-height: 1.5;\">As soon as we made it to our first location, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.magneticislandtourism.com\" target=\"_blank\">Magnetic Island<\/a>, where we stayed at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bungalowbay.com.au\/\" target=\"_blank\">Bungalow Bay Koala Village<\/a>, all 30 of us bonded so quickly. There, we got to hang out with lizards, birds, crocodiles, and even some creepy spiders!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/p3.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-1\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-4638 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/p3-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"p3\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/p3-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/p3-1024x683.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>While on the island we went on intense hikes including Hawkings Point and the Forts Walk where we spotted a few koalas and watched the sunset at the top of the hill. Although I felt like my legs might fall off during the hike, once we made it to the end, the views were absolutely breathtaking! A really great thing about Australia is the amount of places where the forest meets the ocean, so after a long hard hike, you can turn a corner and end up at a beautiful beach to swim, relax, and take in the sun.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/p6.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-2\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-4641 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/p6-300x172.jpg\" alt=\"p6\" width=\"300\" height=\"172\" srcset=\"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/p6-300x172.jpg 300w, https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/p6-1024x586.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/p6.jpg 1119w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>After Magnetic Island, we went into <a href=\"https:\/\/www.townsvillenorthqueensland.com.au\/\" target=\"_blank\">Townsville <\/a>to stay at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reefhq.com.au\/\" target=\"_blank\">Reef HQ<\/a> and learn about the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gbrmpa.gov.au\" target=\"_blank\">Great Barrier Reef <\/a>and snorkel in their awesome aquarium! It was pretty cool seeing tourists on the other side of the tank while we swam with the fishes in our trendy wet suits.<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/p4.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-3\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-4639 size-medium alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/p4-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Processed with VSCO with c1 preset\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/p4-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/p4-1024x683.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div>Our next stop was <a href=\"http:\/\/hiddenvalleycabins.com.au\/\" target=\"_blank\">Hidden Valley Cabins<\/a> where we were out in the\u00a0outback and got to walk through an amazing rain forest. The best part was hiking down to the Running River Gorge and cliff jumping into the water hole! I definitely conquered my fear of heights doing that, and it was so worth it. Overall it&#8217;s been an exciting week and I can&#8217;t wait to see what comes next!<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mariah DeLosSantos, the Baylor University Sustainability in North Queensland student blogger, writes: All I can say is wow. I have only been down under for a week and I&#8217;ve already had so many adventures and made so many memories. I get to hang with the coolest group of people every day and explore Australia with them. It&#8217;s never a bad&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,5,23,19,16,25,34],"tags":[98,108,188,44,107,189,146,84,89,186,187,190,48,50,145],"class_list":["post-4635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-student-blogs","category-australia","category-australia-north-queensland","category-field-notes","category-postcard","category-snapshot","category-student-perspective","tag-australia","tag-baylor-university","tag-beach","tag-great-barrier-reef","tag-international-education","tag-koala","tag-magnetic-island","tag-north-queensland","tag-rainforest","tag-reef","tag-reef-hq","tag-snorkel","tag-study-abroad","tag-sustainability","tag-townsville"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4635"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4658,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4635\/revisions\/4658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}