My Insignificant Corner of the Universe {a guest post by HannahLouise}

I have just figured out that thanks to an 18 hour time difference, I'm writing this on Wednesday night but for most of you readers, I'm guessing it's still Tuesday afternoon. Blame the time difference.

Where was I ..... ? Oh yes, the time difference - I'll explain that now.

It is already Wednesday where I live. Actually, it's Wednesday night. So where do I live exactly? Well......

A few hints?

The largest coral reef in the world is off the coast of my country.

Rainforests and deserts, snow and salt lakes, rivers that only run in the wet season, wet season equals flooding.

The mighty Burdekin River. This photo was taken in Jan 2009 and the water was
up to the bottom of the top half of the sign. It hit 20.75 metres and the bridge is
about 13 metres high.

In some parts of my country, they have hot, dry summers and cold, wet winters. Some parts even get snow. Other parts have hot, wet summers and cold, dry winters.

Any guesses?

The Southern Cross watches over my country.

Cricket is a favourite sport.

Well, if you haven't worked it out, I'll tell you.

Australia! Yes, I am Australian by birth and have lived here all my life. Actually, I live in the northeastern parts of Queensland - The Sunshine State!

So my country. We're not that much different than the rest of the world. Generally, Australians are pretty laid back, easy-going, & friendly if you know what I mean.

Now our termanology well, for a tourist from overseas you may end up finding that a bit confusing. We tend to use the word 'bloody' a lot, as in 'that's bloody terrific' or 'he's a bloody idiot'. In both cases 'bloody' is used as a substitute for 'really' or 'real'. We also tend to use the word 'mate' a lot if we don't know someone's name. As in 'she'll be right, mate'. And we tend to use the femimine pronoun 'she' a lot too. Example: "Don't worry about that, mate, she's right."

So yes, that's one way we're unique.

Don't ever call a koala a 'koala bear' because really, they aren't a bear so just call them a 'koala'. And, never try to pet one in the wild because that's just not common sense.

Down here we use the metric system for measuring so that's metres, grams, litres etc. In my way of thinking (remember, I've been brought up on this) it's a lot easier to calculate conversions from metres to kilometres. It's based on 10, so it's super easy to convert to larger units.

Oh yeah - our seasons are all round about too. Here it's Dec - Feb is summer, Mar - May autumn, Jun - Aug winter and Sep -Nov spring. But, where I live in northern QLD, we work things by dry and wet. Wet usually is our Nov - Apr, dry is the rest of the year. If we get a really decent wet season, we end up having almost all of north & central QLD under water. Yeah - I'm not joking. It happened this last summer, the year before in '10, and in '09. I'm serious people!
Then there's the menace from Dec - Apr in northern Aus. It's another major weather system. You Americans call them hurricanes, but here they're called cyclones and they're nasty. In Apr '05, Tropical Cyclone Larry wiped out all our bananas. And this year in Feb, TC Yasi wiped out all our bananas again plus gave us a serious fright!

The three photos above is what Yasi did to us. Thankfully, no roof came off but it seriously felt like it would!

Well where was I? Oh yes.

Down here we also have a mixed up school year. Yeah. But, it is very practical and straightforward. We start the new school year at then end of January. When Easter comes around, we get two weeks off. Then at the end of June we get another two weeks off. Another two weeks off at the end of September, and then the school year wraps up in the second year of December! Mind you, all the states & territories have their own school calender with different holiday dates, so what I put up is the QLD timetable. We also don't go on vacation, we go on holiday ;)

The beach at Bundaberg

Sorghum at Dalby

The Mitchellgrass downs country in Western QLD

That wraps up my little spiel on Australia. I hope you found it interesting.

Oh - do not go swimming in the northern beaches unless it's in a stinger net during the summer because you don't want to have a run in with a jellyfish cos they're nasty.
Don't swim in the northern waterholes and rivers because they're inhabited by 3 metre man eating crocs - no lie!

I hope this has been educational. For me at the end of a long day - it's just been my rambling thoughts with a few pictures.

And thank you for Lucia for letting me guest post!

God bless & Good night!

Who am I? Well I'm glad you asked! I'm HannahLouise. Almost 16. Homeschooled and doing year 11. Seven siblings, one neice. Aussie bred and born! Doing a Cert 3 in Aged Care with TAFE as the first step to nursing. God-lover. Ameture pianist, author and seamstress. Love reading. Fav authors are Janette Oke, CS Lewis and Beverly Lewis. Love music. Fav artists are Rebecca St James, Britt Nicole, Michelle Tumes & a bunch more. Hoping to become a nurse. Got some major dreams and am trusting in God to hopefully fulfill some! My blog is a private blog, otherwise I would stick a link up here!