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.