Outback! not like the steakhouse.

            This past weekend my housemates and I got a chance to go into the outback! Although a majority of Australia is made up of scrub and dry sclerophyll forest, rather than rainforest, it takes quite a bit of time to get out to this famous outback.  The drive from Cairns, over the Kuranda range, to Chillagoe took about two and a half hours.

            As soon as we got there we stopped at the local pub for a huge spaghetti lunch, which, although delicious, was very difficult to eat since it was about 95 degrees.  After filling up on spaghetti, salad and huge amounts of pineapple we were on the road again. 

            We drove out to the balancing rock.  Which, as it sounds, is a huge rock balanced on a smaller rock.  We also got an introduction to the awesome limestone formations that are pretty much the only things that modify the flat dry landscape of the outback.  It’s incredible to see this dry light brown landscape of dirt and grass and eucalyptus with a huge black rock jutting out of the ground suddenly without any other lumps or bumps in the landscapes for miles around.  

            We then took a drive out to the old abandoned copper smelter.  It seems so bizarre to me that a huge amount of 20^th century machinery that was known to be very dangerous and hazardous to the health of people would just be abandoned, along with the huge pile of slag created by the smelter.  But fear not, they are only keeping the pile because there are traces of gold in it and mining companies plan to process this weird melted rock in yet another dangerous process to extract that gold.  This is in addition to their other questionable mining practices.  Now that gold has been found in the areas around Chillagoe they are using planes with x-ray-type machines to scan the landscape for gold, then a company takes a core sample and if they find traces of gold they gently extract it from the ground.  By “gently extract” I mean that they blow a huge hole in the ground and bring away all the debris in trucks.  I don’t know where that debris goes but of course I didn’t read their EIR (environmental impact report) that is, assuming they even have one.

            Next we drove to a freshwater river where we were able to swim.  And considering that we were all pretty much sitting in puddles of our own sweat, this was very welcome.   After splashing around in a beautiful stream we went back to our cabins, had a little pool time and watched some lawn bowls on TV.

            Our guide made us some bizarre pre dinner drink and then we walked across the center of town, about a minute and a half, to the local pub for a huge steak dinner with garlic bread and salad.  Sadly we weren’t able to do any star gazing because a storm rolled in and clouds quickly covered the sky but we turned our AC, or air-con as they call it here, and slept well.

            The next morning we had a huge breakfast of fruit and yoghurt and rolls before setting out to the caves. 

            The Caves were perhaps the coolest thing of the entire weekend, and not only because they were a much more comfortable temperature than the outside.  We all got a light hitched onto us and into the caves we went.  Geological summary: limestone melts with water, it’s kind of bizarre to think that rock is capable of simply melting when it interacts with something that we’re made of but it does.  As a result the formations in these caves are quite amazing: stalactites and stalagmites, bizarre formations that look like a walrus, and a cat and a lit candle, just to name a few (sadly no bunch of grapes). After almost two hours we had to make our way out of the wonderfully temperate caves into the heat of the outback.

            Our guide picked us up and took us for a lunch back at the same pub of huge beef burgers and heaps of watermelon.  Before leaving town we stopped at the house of a man who had once been the only service man for Ford in this region and now has so many old Fords that his entire yard is a graveyard of old cars. 

We drove back a bit and stopped at a coffee-roasting factory.  I got one of the most amazing iced mochas of my life, mainly because of the giant scoop of ice cream on the top, and bought some coffee.  Then we were on our way back.  On the way we watched the landscape change.  The understory got more crowded trees got greener and their leaves were different shapes.  The cows disappeared when the plants got too thick that it would have been impossible for them to walk around.  And then we were over the ridge, out of the rainfall shadow and into the tropical region of far north Queensland.

Spring Break: Bali

I realize that I have been shirking my blogging responsibilities, but I have been taking a while to consider how to describe 9 days of adventure while spending all my time in the library on entomology.  For mid-semester break I traveled to Bali with two guys who I went through orientation with and are in my program (Sam and Garrison) , two girls I met through orientation that go to another school down in Townsville(Hannah and Alyssa), and two more girls that go to my school that decided to join up with us on our flight to Darwin(Natalie and Brooke).

            On out first day we flew Cairns to Darwin to Denpasar (Bali).  Our driver drove us out to ‘Nick’s Hidden Cottages’ in Ubud.  It is an amazing place out in rice fields that surround the city of Ubud.  We had a lovely dinner at Café des Artistes and walked all around Ubud that night to get our bearings.  

            The next day we ventured into the famous monkey forest.  Now, all the guide books tell you not to bring food into the forest because the monkeys will take it, along with any loose sunglasses or cameras, however, they sell bundles of bananas at the gate.  It was a bit insane to watch the monkeys appear out of the trees as soon as one tourist bought bananas.  We made it out alive without anyone contracting rabies and did some initial bargaining before settling into a cute little café for lunch.  After stuffing our faces with roughly 24,000 rupiah, or 3 dollars, worth of food we ran back to a spa near our cottages to have massages.  I had a full body massage and Sea Salt scrub and then got to sit in a bathtub full of flowers looking out on the rice fields while eating fresh tropical fruit and drinking tea.  After being completely relaxed we laid by the pool and waited for everyone to be done with their massages.  We then wandered down to the markets, and at dinner on a ledge over the river.  On the way back we were convinced into going to see a Dance show.  It was great and the costumes were amazing, even if some grumpy adults didn’t appreciate us laughing at the performer’s jokes or cheering at the end.  We checked out a pit of the night seen in Ubud and strolled back to our hotel to get ready for the next day.

Our third day was a very full day.  Our driver picked us up and drove us all around the northern area of the island to see temples.  We visited Gunung Kawi (poet mountain), and then drove to the volcano and had a huge buffet lunch of Balinese food.  Next we hiked through the rice patties and made an impromptu stop at a coffee plantation.  We had the chance to try Balinese coffee, Balinese cacao, ginger tea, lemon tea, and ginseng coffee and lastly the coffee made from the beans that are ingested by a marsupial then excreted and collected by the local people, or as we affectionately called it: poop coffee.  This stuff sells for about 75$ a cup in the states, but we all split a cup for a total of about 5 bucks.  We then went to Tirta Empul, a temple that is full of fountains that generate in a spring in the temple that are said to have cleansing powers.  We got a change to walk through the pools of water with the local people while being cleansed by the water.  We made out way to the Elephant Cave  right before dark and after a long day made our way back to Ubud to have a last delicious dinner in Ubud.

The next day we made another quick trip through the monkey forest and took another run through the markets before our driver Made picked us up and took us to a typical Balinese pig roasting restaurant.  We made a quick stop at the palace before driving out to Padang Bai, a small town on the east coast.  We met up with a few of the members of our group that had left Ubud early to scuba.  We hiked out to a beach far from town and got the lay of the town, which was much smaller than what we had been used to.  We had dinner and laid around in the pool. 

The next day we had dinner and while a few of our group were out scuba diving another couple rented scooters to cruise around the town.  Those of us who preferred our feet stable and on the ground hiked to Blue Lagoon, the famous beach on the west side of town, but finding it to be too full of garbage hiked back out to our “secret spot” on the east side of town.  Other than having lunch at a shack on the beach we played in the waves and just laid on the beach all day.  We hiked back for dinner and just had a quiet night.

The next day we packed everything up and stored our stuff at the hotel while we took a hike out to our spot again and have a couple more hours hanging on the beach.  Our driver picked us up and we went to the Bat Cave temple.  While we were there a group was doing a post-cremation ceremony, which all Balinese are required to do after they cremate a family member.  Our driver Made then gave us another wonderful surprise and took us to where they make salt.  At first this sounded absurd but it was absolutely amazing.  It was on a black sand beach and the sand has been moved into giant trays where they bring in the water to dry, it is thin put through a series of sifters and put out onto elevated trays in the sun, it was so cool to see how something so basic is made.  They even let us try some!  We continued on our drive to Sanur, which is the biggest, most western-ized city we had planned on visiting.  We checked into the Big Pineapple Backpacker Lodge and made our way out to the beach (not really a wander since we had to sprint across a freeway).  We ate right on the water and went to a bar afterwards to play pool and somehow made friends with a street dog and her adorable puppy. We walked/ ran back to the lodge and tried to get settled.

We made a few friends at the lodge and they took us to a great place on the beach for brunch.  It had the most amazing fruit juices! It literally tasted like the liquefied version of a mango or banana, but somehow better.  We made our way down to a lovely area of the beach and laid around in the sun.  We rented kayaks and paddled around the tiny bay and found amazing huge starfish.  We stayed on the beach until sunset then went back to the lodge, cleaned up and went back out for a seafood dinner.  We went back to the same place to play pool afterwards and ended up running into the third ranked pool player in Indonesia.  We went back to lodge to get ready for another lovely beach day.

We went right to the same place for lunch and went right to our same spot on the beach.  Other than a few walks down the beach we pretty much stayed in the same spot until sunset.  We had dinner and another couple rounds of pool, and went back to the lodge for a couple movies and a good nights sleep.

For our last day we drove out to a huge temple on the water with lots of monkeys, but these were monkey forest monkeys.  These monkeys were huge and very aggressive, one even stole my sandal right off of my foot and ran up in a tree and started taking chunks out of the shoe until a woman bribed it with candy to give it back and then held my shoe hostage until I paid her.  We then drove to a beautiful beach with huge boulders along the water, we had a bit of a chance to relax before moving onto one last huge temple that was built on pieces of rock that were sticking out into the ocean.  We then rushed to the airport to grab snacks and dinner before getting on a plane.  We flew to Darwin easily and back to Cairns, arriving at about 9:30 in the morning.  It was an insane trip, but well worth it.  It was my fourth continent and I’m so glad I decided to make the trip.

So, condensed version: Things I leaned in Bali:

·      There is no need to barter; simply offer one price and if they do not agree walk away.  They will chase you down the street until you agree to their price.

·      Be ready for someone to ask you for a taxi every 10 steps, even if you just said no to the guy 5 steps behind you.

·      Even if you are wearing a sarong, people will try to sell you more sarongs.

·      Be prepared for some weird smells, they have no emission standards, so it smells like gas, and they burn their garbage, rather than putting it in dumps, so there will be piles of garbage on streets.

·      Never ever try to drive.  Lines on the street have no meaning.

·      It’s a beautiful country; minus the piles of garbage and the wide spread poverty.

It was an extraordinary growing experience and I know I am a better person because of it.  If nothing else, I am confident that I can go into a country that I know barely anything about, know none of the language and still have a wonderful, if occasionally nervous, experience.

Biodiversity Field Trip

So this was the weekend of the long awaited biodiversity field trip.

Day1:  We left at 5p on Friday afternoon and drove an hour and a half to Yungaburra where we stayed at a back-pack lodge called “On the Wallaby”.  They made us an amazing BBQ dinner of steak and sausage and mashed potatoes and two types of salad.  It was a huge meal and when Jen and I went back for an extra little scoop of salad we ended up with half of another steak as well.  After dinner we drove out to Mt Hypipamee National Park to go spotlighting for possums.  The possums here are not like ours at home, they look more like lemurs are when you see one there is a high likelihood that you will want to take one home with you.  We wandered along the trail or two hours with a headlamp as our only source of lighting.  We ended up seeing two green ring-tail possums, 4 common brush possums, a Herbert River Possum with a huge pouch full of babies and a coppery brush possum that allowed us to get within a couple feet of it for pictures.  We tumbled into bed at 12:30 and set our alarms for 6a to go hunting for platypuses.

Day2: We wandered out of the lodge down to the creek early in the morning with high hopes.  Jen and I wandered along the creek for quite a while, and although we kept seeing bubbles and trails in the water we had yet to see a platypus.  Finally we decided to give up and just enjoy our walk along the creek, about 2 minutes later, as it usually happens, we saw a line of ripples and ran down to the bank.  A platypus emerged from behind a tree less than a meter from where we were standing! It saw us and quickly dove into the water only to surface a in the middle of the lake and just cruised around while we watched it.  I think we said nothing but “Oh, my God it’s a platypus” for roughly 10 minutes.  The total animal count for our morning hike was 5 platypuses, including a pair together, a wallaby, a pair of laughing kookaburras (which, if you haven’t heard their call before, you need to look up right now) and a couple other birds we have yet to identify.  We then jogged, literally, back to the lodge for a quick breakfast, to buy a t-shirt and leave for the next adventure.

We next made a stop at the curtain fig tree, yes, I have been here before on another trip, you have been paying very close attention.  Our professor gave a talk on wasp-fig mutualism; and trust me, if I explained it to you, you may never eat a fig-Newton again.  The highlight of the trip was that Jen and I spotted and identified the only bird in the area, which just so happened to making a very loud piercing call, as a chowchilla.  We jumped back in the vans to drive to forty-mile scrub (yes, I also think it’s odd that they use metrics but the names of things use miles).  We had lunch and did a transect of the forest and then started turning over rocks in search of reptiles and insects.  We found several large huntsman spiders, heaps of gorgeous butterflies and lots of other bugs.  Again we were on our way in the vans; off to Undara.

Along the way we made another quick stop to look at the forest type and to hunt for reptiles but only managed to find one millipede.  We finally made it to Undara.  We went on another hike, which was mildly more successful with the spotting of a couple skinks, Jen and I found a dragon that we thought was a skink and a few weird bugs.  We watched the sunset and were just relaxing when our professor informed us that part of our assessment was that we would have to form groups and present what we learned that day in a creative manner.  So we walked back down to the camp and made our cup of noodles and began brainstorming.  Eventually we gave up and went to just sit around the fire and wait for this dreaded presentation to begin. We were visited by a bettong, which looks a lot like a kangaroo but is about 18 inches tall when it stands up, in other words, it is ridiculously cute.  Eventually our professors showed up and each group presented, One group had some one read a poem he had written describing the whole day while the rest of the acted it out in the background.  We did a jeopardy show with 2 commercial breaks, one for improved veggie mite and another that was a pretty cool rap about the ecosystems we saw.  And the last groups acted out each ecosystem.  And our mildly inebriated teachers voted our group the winner! We all were in bed at about 10:30, tired and thankful that we were going to be able to have more than 6 hours of sleep.

Day3:  We had a lazy morning and slowly meandered onto a hike to look for mammals and marsupials.  This was way more successful than other hikes.  We saw a dragon, which I got to hold, along with two mobs of gray kangaroos, a pair of pretty-faced wallabies, pale-cheeked rosellas, rainbow lorikeets, pygmy ducks, lots of bugs and various water birds.  After recording our whole day and packing up we piled in the vans for the long drive home.  We made a pit stop for lunch and at a place called the coffee-works, which is an artsy coffee and chocolate store which was pretty nice.  We arrived home a bit before dinner time dirty, smelly, with more bug bites than we started with, but overall: very pleased.

Cape Tribulation:Bug Hunting

Today we took a trip to Cape Tribulation for entomology class to collect insects.  We left the school at 8am for the two-hour drive.  The drive up was along the coast past Port Douglas all the way north on a road that requires four wheel drive.  Once we arrived we had a safety briefing and were then given a tour around the area of the canopy crane.  While waiting we were set loose to dig around in the dirt and collect invertebrates.  My lab partner, Ella and I found a few crickets and other things that I doubt anyone but an entomologist student would find exciting until we happened upon our first huntsman spider (if you don’t know what that is Google it and you will probably agree with me that it’s something that you are more likely to be running away from than running towards).  We chased the medium spider until it ran under a leaf and picked up the leaf and scooped it up.  At this point we noticed that this spider we captured was much bigger than the one we were chasing, we then realized that when the small spider ran under the leaf it was captured by a larger huntsman and we now had two spiders for our collection.   We also witnessed out professor find what could be a new species of amblypygi.

We had a lunch break and then it was Ella and my turn to go up in the canopy crane.  It was one of the coolest experiences I’ve had here.  There are two ways a human usually sees the rainforest: from below or from above, but it was an amazing experience to move through all the layers of the canopy.  The only thing I can equate the movement to is swimming, because of the three-dimensional movement that was possible.  We didn’t catch any special canopy insects but it was so enjoyable we couldn’t really be bothered.  After they brought us down we went and sat by the stream while everyone searched for aquatic insects.  We all made our way back to the van and I finally caught a grasshopper that small enough that I don’t have to remove its guts.

We then drove up farther north to a boardwalk along the beach to find peppermint stick insects.  These are arthropods that hide in the grooves of a pandanus plant and spray a peppermint smelling substance.  It was seriously cool to see these insects that had been raved about in both of my biology classes.  We stopped back along the drive home to see if we could find any of these insects that weren’t in a national park so that we could collect them, but instead we found crickets that mimic them and I found a walking stick bug.  On the drive home we took one more quick break so that our professor could be phoned into a radio show, because he has a show he’s featured on every Sunday, a national radio station I might mention.  We made good time coming home and got home at 8:30 instead of 10 so that I was able to enjoy the kabobs, spring rolls and damper bread that my housemates had made.  It was a pretty wonderful, if exhausting day.

 The view from the canopy crane.

 A full grown female peppermint stick insect.

Scuba Snorkel and Spa on the Great Barrier Reef

Yesterday we finally made it out to the Great Barrier Reef!  We took the boat out to Michaelmas Cay.  It was almost a 2-hour boat ride but it was totally worth it.  Unfortunately I was not allowed to do an intro dive because I have asthma but I was still able to do some amazing snorkeling.  The cool thing about Michaelmas Cay is that there is a small island that a boat can take you to so, although you are in the middle of an ocean, you still get to snorkel right off the beach.

As soon as we got on the boat we picked up our free glass of tea and cookies and got settled on the front deck waiting for out lovely boat ride out to the reef.  The only problem is that it gets rather windy on the front deck and the waves come up through the grate in the floor and you get pretty soaked so after a bit we moved inside where is was better, as long as you ignored the air conditioning.  When we got to the reef there was a little fish feeding so we got to see the giant fish that live here before we even got in the water which was pretty cool.  I got to wait around and have about 4 runs to the super delicious complimentary lunch buffet while I waited for my friends to finish scuba diving.  12 pieces of watermelon, a kiwi, loads of bread and cheese, teriyaki chicken, fried fish and a couple pieces of pineapple later we grabbed our masks and fins and took the little boat to the island.  It was so awesome!!!

There were schools of parrotfish and Jennifer followed a Maori wrasse and there were giant clams and butterfly fish and Christmas tree worms! We did have to fight the waves because of the high winds but it was so awesome.  There were tiny colorful fish and so many types of parrotfish, I will have to look some up so I can give you their official names but they were all so beautiful.  We just kept going in circles around the reef for an hour so see all the fish!  We dragged our selves out of the water to take the last ferry back to our boat and get ready to set off.  We had another complimentary cup of tea, with milk, and a slice of cake. 

The trip was only slightly marred by the fact that the fact that the trip back to Cairns was extremely rough.  I no longer feel any need to go on a roller coaster in the next year, and especially not one that lasts over an hour.  However, our friend Sam, who came to visit us from Townsville, and I had a marvelous time listing off the spa treatments we had that day: a sea salt scrub, courtesy of the mist and waves, a fruit acid skin peal, thanks to the water melon that I managed to get all over my face, a herbal infused steam, from our free cups of tea and lastly a sand exfoliation process from the glorious sharp bits of sand that were hurled into us while we got ready to get in the water.  Although the ride back was, shall we say les than perfect, none of us joined the masses on the rear deck “taking care of business” and we all arrived safely back home on solid ground and got the chance to look through our pictures of such a great day.

catch up on week 4 and 5

So I realize I haven’t updated the blog in a while and I sincerely apologize for keeping you all in the dark, so here goes. 

            The only real exciting part of this past week was not that exciting, except we did try kangaroo on Friday.  I don’t know if it’s just because of the way we cooked it, but it kind of just tasted like beef and it was super lean but still very soft, definitely something you have to try once in your life.  As soon as we finished dinner our neighbor came over and asked if we wanted to donate our empty garage to help her throw a party for her friends, so we now have a ping-pong table because the adults didn’t want to take the full effort to empty our garage after their party.  We got a relatively early night because the past weekend was “open day” as well as the Cairns vs Townsville cup. 

            On Saturday Jen went to the first day of her archeological dig to recover a saltwater crocodile that the university buried about 10 years ago.  Chue and I went and watched the basketball and netball game, which just made me miss UPS basketball, even if the play level here was... not exactly college level.  Another fun fact about the CNS vs TSV competition is that three days before the competition, that had been months in the planning, the people from James Cook: Townsville decided that they weren’t going to show up; so every game was Cairns students against people that had showed up to represent Cairns in another event. 

So at the end of the day when my housemates and I showed up to played for the Cairns soccer team (who we have been practicing with for about 2 weeks) we ended up competing in the newspaper toss and playing against a team of 12 made up of the Australian Football players, sprinters, general athletic people and other folks that were just hanging around the event.  The final score was 5-4, with us losing, however, I scored 3 of the goals and the last was scored off a header on a ball that I crossed.  It was very fun to play finally play in a game that was at least a bit competitive and have a reason to go 100%. 

We met up with all of the athletes at a local club downtown for free drinks and pizza and I was presented with the MVP medal, so I at least have one pretty individual souvenir of my time here.  We made friends with a couple Australians that live several doors down with them and have had a pictionary night with them; and we now have a pictionary set at our house.  It’s hard to believe how fast the weekdays go but this week I learned how to identify scorpion species, how to use the basics in photoshop and that I really like surrealism photography. We went to the botanical gardens for a field trip for “Biodiversity of Tropical Australia”, where we saw a laughing kookaburra, and I have three more hours of class on Friday til our beach filled weekend.

Also, shout-out to my younger sister who will either read this right before leaving on a plane to college or when she’s already all the way across the country.

Walkabout club adventure 2

So this weekend my housemates and I went on another adventure with the walkabout club.  It started out with a drive up to Crystal Cascades, which is a progression of water holes up in the rainforest connected by a very small river, and it just so happens to be one of the only places with water where there has never been a crocodile spotting.  Our guide Tony taught us how to make “damper”, or bush bread.  It’s one cup of flower, three pinches of salt, three pinches of sugar and a third of a cup or water or beer, and then you can throw whatever else you want in it.  Then you wrap it in foil that has been sprayed on the inside with Pam and wrap it up with an “s-curve” and throw it on a barbeque or in an oven and turn it every couple minutes.  It was so delicious!  We put butter and jam on it and it’s definitely going to be a staple in our house now.  Then we drove up to Kurunda, where we had been before on the skyrail, but this time we made sure to wander off the main street.  We went to the old markets and the Heritage markets and stopped in the candy store to watch demonstrations for about 20 minutes.  Finally we stopped quickly at our favorite Coles to grab stuff for the BBQ and drive up to Ellis Beach.  We had about an hour of wandering around on the beach before we had to make dinner.  We made chicken thighs and put them in buns with a bunch of salad.  For the first time we got to experience the public barbeques in Australia.  They are great but at dinner it gets really crowded and everyone is a bit hungry and grumpy but somehow it all remained civil.  We ate out dinner out on the beach by moonlight.  We went to bed early to make sure we could get up early to see the sunrise.

We woke up the next morning after a rather uncomfortable night on the ground to see the sunrise.  It was extremely beautiful.  They drove us to Trinity Beach to spot dolphins and eat breakfast.  We didn’t see any until after a breakfast of eggs and bacon and bread and nutella.  We then packed up and drove to Port Douglas.  We wandered through the Sunday Markets and made our way to Four Mile Beach, picking up an ice cream along the way of course.  Four Mile Beach is an amazingly flat beach of white sand, and although it was very crowded we were able to find our own little area to lie out.  The water was wonderful and we ventured over some rocks and found some very cool tide pools.  We had about three hours of hanging around the beach before we jumped in the van for the drive back.  On the drive we saw wallabies in the wild, because their habitat has been taken away by housing complexes they now graze on grass in horse pastures, which is pretty cute.  Then, just as we thought it was going to be a rather uneventful weekend in the aviary category, we saw a kookaburra! It had bright blue wings and a rusty tail, which means it was a female.  And just when we thought it couldn’t get any more “wild kingdom” our guide George informed us that if it was low tide we may just see a crocodile.  Considering that this was the man that told me to stop eating nutella or I would become as dark as him, I didn’t exactly believe him, but as we drove over a bridge there they were! Three rather large “salties” were sunning themselves on the bank of the river.  It was a pretty exciting weekend, even thought it was a bit exhausting.  We got home in the late afternoon and made dinner and tried to comprehend that we had a full day of school the next day. 

 Yoga at sunrise, good way to try to fix your back after a night on the ground.