By Amelie Harsant-Brown

One of the highlights of my exchange so far is, weirdly, the public transport in Wollongong and New South Wales. There are many different train services here that go all over New South Wales making it really easy and convenient to get around with free buses. It’s an excellent way to navigate around and explore the area. Because of it, I’ve been able to take many cool weekend trips around different places in New South Wales and a lot of the time my Halls of Residence also arranges many trips to explore and meet people. In particular, Sydney is a great place to go on a day trip with it only being about an hour ride on the train from Wollongong. Recently, I went up to Sydney for the day to go watch the Wallabies vs. All Blacks which was really cool to actually see live and it was even better when the All Blacks won. I’ve also just finished a big block of assignments and the mid-term break has finally arrived so it will be great to hopefully do some more travelling.

The Wollongong campus has also been a highlight of mine. It is really nice. It is surrounded by so much nature, ponds, and green spaces. It’s also just so amazing to see all the different bird species when walking around the campus. On my way to class, I love being able to see the variety from cockatoos to parakeets and now that it is coming into spring there are so many baby ducklings to see waddling around the campus. It Is much larger than what I am used to since I’ve come from the Tauranga campus which is just the one building, to Wollongong which has over 90 buildings. Wollongong is so much larger in comparison even though I live on campus it can take about 15 minutes to walk to class because of the size of the campus. When I first got here I used to get so lost making my way around campus. With such a big campus there is also always so much happening on campus, like weekly markets to live gigs. I’ve really enjoyed being able to go to such a vibrant campus. There are also many opportunities to engage on campus like joining a club or a sport. Personally, I have joined the Ultimate Frisbee Club after one of my friends asked me to go along with her and I never knew how fun it could be and I’m really enjoying them. In the next couple of weeks I will be going up to Sydney to play against other universities in the Rookie Cup!