Step Off 2014 - Andrew
On Saturday 12 April, at the Dallas Brooks Centre, 9 volunteers from The Couch got to see some amazing dance performances. We all first met in the city for an early dinner. As per usual Couch operating procedures, about half the people arrived late. After a quick bite at China Bar, we hoped on the tram to get to the Step Off event in nearby East Melbourne.
We quickly located Gary from the City of Melbourne, who was kind enough to make these tickets available to us. There was a little bit of controversy at the entrance, due to my camera being confiscated as a ’35 mm camera’. After some debate over semantics, I reluctantly gave it up so we could go find our seats. We were all a bit surprised at the size of the venue, which was holding over 1,300 people!
We were fortunate enough to be sitting with members of the Jin Cheng Dance Group, who also seemed to enjoy themselves greatly. As amazing as the dance performances were, we were all a bit surprised by the sheer number of dancers, which exceeded 450.
We got to see incredibly talented dancers of all ages (there were three divisions: junior, varsity and open), and it was so delightful to see how much all the groups were cheering for each other. At various stages, some dancers were sitting behind us to watch the other performances, and we were nearly deafened by some of them screaming support for the groups onstage!
Thanks to Gary for again looking after the hardworking volunteers at The Couch.
On Sunday 13 April, about 15 people from The Couch went on a great Couch Weekend Day Trip. Planned and led with full commentary by Anna, we went to Williamstown.
After a bright and early start at 9:30am, we were led from the station to the township, firstly to see the Farmers Market. We were there for an hour sampling cheeses, scones, spiced chai and other delights.
At 11:00am, we then headed to Seaworks, there we had a guided tour of the maritime museum and then on the wharf where we saw the Sea Shepard, and went on board the Bob Barker vessel for a free tour and 2 videos of the vessel in action, saving the whales.
For lunch we ate in the rotunda at Centennial Park most of us enjoyed fish and chips, with a few opting instead for Thai cuisine.
At 2:00pm we took a bus to the Willy Beach. There we frolicked on the sand, throwing frisbees and balls to each other. However, it was a bit too windy for a dip in the sea.
At 4:30pm, we did the last item on our itinerary which was a ferry boat ride to get back to the CBD. Overall, it was an awesome day with nice weather, and we learned about Williamtown's history. We will all be very keen to attend more weekend day trips in the future.
Drummond Street Services, in partnership with the City of Melbourne and with the support of Parks Victoria, ran a couple of events to help international students get a taste of the Australian camping experience, mountain bike riding and exploring local national parks. The first was a day trip to the You Yangs National Park near Geelong. We took a couple of easy mountain bike tracks and then moved for more challenging tracks, those were extremely fun with lots of sharp turns, narrow passages between trees and huge lumps. Well, not everyone came out of the challenge untouched! Some friends fell of the bike while jumping over the hills; nothing serious though!
The second experience was even more fun. On Saturday April 12, we headed out of the town for a two day trip, including a mountain bike ride at the Otway National Park and camping in the temperate rainforests near the Great Ocean Road. We did the mountain bike ride in the evening, which was just as fun as our first trip and then went back to the camp site, raising the tents before nightfall. Just before we finished setting up the tents, rain started. Thankfully Jerome and Anoushka, our group leaders, knew how to camp on a damp day like that and lit up a fire.
They taught us some useful tips on camping in Australia. We were asked to work in groups, which made it easier to get everything done and to learn things better. After dinner we had an awesome time chatting by the fire and exploring the surroundings in the dark before going to our tents for a warm sleep in our sleeping bags on a cold night. The next morning, the forest, refreshed after the last night's rain, was just beautiful. We had a wonderful breakfast and went for a short walk around the Elizabeth Lake before packing up and heading back to Melbourne via Great Ocean Road. Nothing more to say about the beauty of the Great Ocean Road than it was just amazing!
Hopefully, there will be one more excursion coming up! I am sure it will be as fun as the previous ones, if not even more!
Thanks to Behrooz, Christy, Cong, Dan, Eve, Jelly and Paula for providing photos for this post!
No comments:
Post a Comment