S&B NEWS
TRAVEL
Santa Monica is a core part to LA. It's home to the great Santa Monica pier. The pier is over 100 years old and contains Pacific Park. Pacific Park is a family amusement park with its one of a kind, solar powered Ferris wheel. Santa Monica also has tons of shopping to do at the third street promenade and Santa Monica Place. Many tv shows and movies are made in or around the Santa Monica Pier like Baywatch, Forrest Gump, Titanic and lots more. The pier can be pretty iconic in popular culture. Santa Monica has plenty of restaurants to eat at, you could eat at a new place every night if you wanted.
The Santa Monica beach is a wide and gentle beach that is great to surf at. There is also a nice bike and roller path and a space for bodybuilders. The beach is an ideal spot for a lazy afternoon.
Overall Santa Monica, is one of the best spots to be at in LA, its impossible to be bored in Santa Monica. I give it 4.5 stars.
Santa Monica Trip; Blake
South Africa Trip; Boston
After my trip to South Africa I just cannot find the words to convey how fantastic the whole experience was. Unbelievable, sublime, wonderful, fantastic. Overall it was a trip in a lifetime that I will never forget. There were 17 of us and I don't think that there was one complaint for the whole trip.
We all stayed at Royal Malewane in Kruger National Park an hour and a half flight away from Johannesburg. 13 of us stayed in Africa house and the oldies stayed in the Royal suite at the Lodge. The safari and experience was world-class. Being 17 of us, it was necessary to have 3 vehicles for the safari. Lucky for us, when we went on the safaris we got to see the best of the best. All the drivers and spotters we had were great and, without them, the trip wouldn’t have been as good as it was. They all offered different experiences. In one car there was Piet and Patrick who gave us an experience that the kids called “Bush Bashing”. This involved going through trees, bushes and tons of branches. Then you had Nick and Ian who actually let us get off out of the car and walk around in the wild. Last but not least you had Riaan & Shamrock who had us up close & personal with the animals.
They all offered the same job, seeing the animals, but they all had a different approach, which made each car special. We got to see everything the safari offered and because of that, we got amazing photos, which we can keep, forever in which to remember these amazing experiencesStaying in Africa House was sensational. It was a wonderful experience in which Ashel, Peggy & Vhasi made sure our every whim was catered for. They were absolutely fantastic! Oriel & Johann, the chefs of the house, mad wonderful meals for the whole week and (lucky for us) presented us with these marvelous meals every day. Seeing all the animals we saw was wonderful and it exceeded my expectations. But one of the most memorable parts of the trip was going to the kindergarten just down the road from the entrance of the national park. It was great seeing the little kids in school playing around, but it did teach me to be grateful for what I have. Not everyone gets to be as lucky as me and my friends in Australia and this experience reminded me that I must cherish that. My trip to South Africa is a trip that I will never forget. Everything was phenomenal which made the trip the best it could be. I highly recommend it if you get the chance. It is an experience of a lifetime, which you will cherish for the rest of your life.
Lurdaderg Hike Extreame; MC nathan
In hindsight maybe the day we decided to go hiking wasnt the best of desitions. My Stepdad and I both have a fair amount of experience in hiking and what not so we both thought that this trip was going to be fairly easy. It was a 7 km walk as the crow flys. The terrain was intermediate and extreamly rough at some points. The trip was completely hikedalong the edge of lerdaderg river.
After a quick stop at Maccas we arrived at lerdaderg and got our gear ready. The mornig was fairly cold and it had rained a little overnight. The park is absolutly beautiful, lerdaderg is one of the most well kept nation parks in victoria. We were about to find out why it was so untouched. After stopping for a quick lunch break we were on the second half of the walk, when we came upon a stretch of deforestated land next to the river.
But theses trees handnt been destroyed by humans. Storms had ripped aprt a gathering of trees and had created a mound of wood and sticks that raised us above the ground to nearly a meter. This stretch of rotting wood stretched for about 20 meters. The joke was made that this was like the forshadwoing for a horror movie. That, that night the main protagonists would encounter the killer. Anyway, we trudged up hills and through overgorwn vegetation untill we reached a campsite that was perfect to set up in. I checked the map to see where we set up and found that we had set up next to an abonded mine. The mine had been running in the early 19 hundreds but was closed because of the national park. A fire was lit and we started cooking dinner.
Everything was going perfect untill some light rain started pattering down, so we put on some jackets. The its started to rain alittle harder, so we started packing up for bed. That night the rain was relentless. The storm was so heavy that the rain drowned out all other noises. The morning came and it had stopped raining. Actually the morning was great. We made some pancakes and there was baked beans. As we were taking down our tent it started to rain again. And didnt stop. We were hiking for 15 minutes when its began to rain heavily. This rain didnt go away and it came in at all angles. All we could do was cover our body in whatever rain resistant things we had. Not 30 minutes into the hike and we were already emptying pools of water out of our hiking boots. The rain made us move slower, and i made the terrain harder to move across. In the end it had taken us 3 more hours to get back than before. It was so cold that neither me nor my stepdad spoke at all untill we were at the car. Once we got to the car we checked the forecast. The forcast said that last night was the coldest, stormy night this year. The temperature got down to 0.3 degrees celsius.
