It's our logo: We ♥ the Gong

Australia’s map can be deceiving sometimes. Wollongong doesn’t look that far away from Sydney but really it’s an hour and a half train ride away! Really we were just excited that we could take a train there though since we were getting out of the city for a weekend and trying out our first ever couchsurfing host. For those that may not know, couchsurfing is a website where you can look up a place you want to go and then find locals that live there and are willing to have you stay at their place, so essentially its free lodging! I had found a girl named Julie on the site and had been talking to her for a little over a week to plan our getaway. So we arrive at Wollongong on Friday afternoon and it immediately reminded us of a small town in the country, kinda similar to Mulberry in North Carolina. I know that I absolutely love small towns so I was very excited, same with Riley. The train ride had given us a little idea that it would be a smaller town since we passed through a lot of suburban areas, but we knew that Wollongong was the third largest city in New South Wales so we didn’t know what to expect. We easily found Julie’s house and since she had to go to work early she left the keys for us. Kinda surprising to us considering she hadn’t even met us yet and she was letting us into her apartment but we were grateful for her trust in us. We were able to drop off our bags in the tidy, perfectly sized apartment before we headed out to explore city of Wollongong! We figured that our first stop would be the visitor’s centre to see what kinda adventures we could plan around the city; however the beach got the best of us! We rode our penny boards down to the shore and were confronted by our first ever lighthouse! This was definitely a highlight for us since it’s an experience that we were able to share together and not to mention the scenery was beautiful. On either side of Flagstaff Point were beaches with a few surfers trying out the waves.

       

And you how Riley is, he couldn't resist taking a couple pictures of the birds that were hangin' around! 

There were also little plaques that displayed the history for us, so we took our time going through everything. There were cannons that were built when New Zealand was trying to invade Australia along with a hole in the ground similar to a bunker. 

Over to the left was another smaller lighthouse which was also beautiful and close to the bay. We came across our second wedding party and were starting to get the feeling that either a lot of people get married here or a lot of people come to Wollongong to get married. The winds were a little strong and chilly so we knew that we should probably head inland before the sun went down. We were able to find the visitor’s centre, pick up a map and spot a few ‘We ♥ the Gong’ pins. Riley has taken to decorating his Nalogen bottle with stickers from Australia and really wanted a Gong sticker. (That’s what the locals call Wollongong since Australians like to shorten all their words) We wandered further down the street to check out the mall, which turned out to be an outside mall with some really neat shops. We came across a bookstore that had books for $5, really though all the books were $5 unless otherwise marked. We had seen in the apartment that Julie had a 3,4,5 ingredient book and hoped that maybe we could find it there. Great news – we did! I know that Riley’s mom has a whole collection of the 5 ingredient books, along with myself having one so Riley often makes fun of us for looking through cookbooks for our enjoyment. However, I think that Riley has been properly initiated into our cookbook club since he has a cookbook with 3 ingredient recipes! Doesn’t get any better than that! We were excited to try out a recipe for dinner and headed off to Woolworth’s grocery store with some type of beef stir fry in mind. In the produce department a girl was making samples of what we were planning to make but with this delicious sauce so I told Riley we had to make that! Thankfully he agreed, and after picking up a few more things for lunch and dessert we were making our way back to the apartment. Julie didn’t get off work til later in the night so we basically had to fend for ourselves and essentially make ourselves at home. We felt a little strange being in someone’s nice home without having met them first but we knew she had to be a pretty cool person to let people do that. She is also a huge collector of DVDs and TV series so for the first time since we’ve been here we were able to pop in the DVDs for Big Bang Theory and laugh away while making dinner. Completely exhausted from all the exploring,  we chowed down our food, watched Toy Story 3 (the only DVD that neither of us had seen) and waited for Julie’s arrival. We got a little nervous whenever we would hear someone on the stairs, but we knew we shouldn’t be. Finally the hour came though and in walked Julie! She was so nice and sweet, giving us a brief tour of the place although she had assumed we knew where everything was already. After she changed and settled in she gave us an overview on what she had planned for us. Considering she was a local of the Gong she knew exactly where to take us. I had looked through the visitors’ pamphlet to see what activities there were to do and really wanted to see two things – Sea Cliff Bridge and a Blowhole. Without me even mentioning this she suggested that we go see those two things and also said she would take us there! This was like a dream come true. She had work the next day but said if the weather was nice we could take a ride down to the Sea Cliff Bridge afterwards! She even said she would lend us her car if we wanted to explore more, but we knew we had to decline since we haven’t driven in Australia and are a little scared to. We were blown away by the friendliness and willingness to take us places and lend us things that Julie was offering. This was our first couchsurfing host so we were beyond excited and giddy to see how the rest of the trip was going to play out.