After finishing my 2nd year of university on the 17th of July, I only had three days to get to the other side of the world to start a year at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia. I arrived in Townsville exhausted and stiff after spending two days sitting in airports and airplanes. I had arranged to be picked up by the university’s international welcome team who were very welcoming and helpful. The drive from the airport to my accommodation (one of the university’s halls) was nice and quick, and I got my first impression of Townsville: everything is flat and brown. Once I got to my room it was early afternoon and as much as I wanted to explore catching up with sleep was too tempting.
Orientation week started the nextday (20th of July) with a meeting at 9am 
at the university which is only a 15 minute walk from my accommodation. Unfortunately I hadn’t had time to explore the area so I got lost while trying to find the room. However I met another lost international student from the U.S and we got attempted to find it together. After walking around the whole university we found out that the building was the first one we passed, and got there just in time for the start of the meeting.
During orientation week the student association organized numerous trips to introduce us to Australian culture and Townsville. These trips included visiting the aquarium (reef HQ), touring Townsville and visiting the billabong sanctuary where the local wildlife was introduced to us. I finished orientation week by going to magnetic island (a 20min boat trip from Townsville) with some friends I had made during the week. The island has some b
eautiful beaches and is an ideal place to go scuba diving. We spent the afternoon swimming around looking at coral, lots of colourful fish and even saw a small shark and some sting rays. Orientation week passed very quickly and I had to go back to lectures and work.
I found out quickly that most students do not enrol in four subjects especially in third year. The work load for each subject is a lot more than what I had in the UK during my second year. Furthermore I had some work to do for a module back in Southampton which did not help. Unfortunately with the high work load I have not been able to travel out of Townsville. I have also found out that the cheapest and easiest way to get anywhere is by car as the public transport is not very reliable and is focused along the coast. 
The only time I’ve left Townsville is on a week end field trip to Porcupine Gorge. The field was fairly different from the ones that I went on during my time at Southampton University. To start with Porcupine Gorge is in the middle of nowhere (nearest village about 1 hour away) and the only accommodation was a campsite with no showers, sinks or any other sort of running water. The only place to wash was in the stream at the bottom of the gorge which was a very unappealing brownish green colour. However at night the sky was amazing, as was the scenery and I had a surprisingly good time (the rocks were very interesting). We were warned about snakes, scorpions and other insects which had me a bit worried however I did not see any of these. The only wildlife I saw was at night: there were 
potoroos (they look like big gerbils) and possums which kept jumping onto our tents.
After two months Townsville I have finally got use to the constant heat and the very loud birds. It feels like summer even though all the locals are saying it has been a cold winter (a part from at night temperature stays above 20°C). I am having a great time and can’t wait for the holidays to explore more of Australia.