Submitted by Thomas Celenza on the 2017 winter session program in Australia sponsored by the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering…
So, we have just arrived back in Melbourne from a 4 day excursion in Tasmania. The experience was unlike no other. The natural beauty of the area blows away anything I’ve ever seen before. Mountain ranges stretch for miles on end and we got to hike up one. In the United States, you’d never be able to do what we did. We were able to hike numerous trails until arriving at the top where we scaled vertical rock walls to the summit where you could see for what seemed like forever as shown in the pictures. It was remarkable and I wish I could do it 100 more times. We got to feed kangaroos here too, which is something I’d never thought I’d be able to do. Unlike U.S. petting zoos, we were let right into an enclosure with 50 plus kangaroos and interacted directly with them. Tasmania, overall, was something I couldn’t have imagined doing and I’m glad we crammed so many different adventures into it including a brewery tour, a navy ship simulator and more. The hike and kangaroos were definitely the highlight.