Awesome Auckland

You may be wondering why it has taken me so long to post this final blog. After all, I have been home for three weeks. In all honesty, I was just avoiding it because posting it would mean that my semester abroad was really, truly over. But here it is, my journey back home through the city of Auckland, New Zealand.

A building I like in Auckland

I stayed up the entire night my last night in Cairns since I needed to get to the airport early and I didn't want to waste my last hours sleeping. When I got to the airport I was super tired but didn't want to fall asleep for fear that I would subsequently miss my flight. So I ended up spending about half an hour just wandering around the terminal to stay awake. I got on my flight to Sydney and away we went. While on the plane it occurred to me that for some reason my layover was only 40 minutes and that this might be a problem. I began to panic. When we landed in Sydney I started hurrying towards the international terminal. Unluckily, it was very far away from the gate that I was at. When I got to the gate that was printed on my ticket I discovered that my flight had changed gates, to the exact opposite end of the international terminal. All in all, I was running all over the place looking like a crazy person but I made my flight. Not long after I landed in Auckland, New Zealand. I successfully located my hostel and then went out to explore the town.

The view from the summit of Rangitoto

The next day I had a harbour cruise scheduled so I woke up early and headed down to the pier. I got on the ferry and headed out. I went to Rangitoto Island where I hiked to the summit and explored some lava tube caves with a couple I met on the ferry. The island is volcanic and has only been there for a few hundred years. On the way back we saw an orca from the ferry. Ok, so I only saw a fin because I looked too late, but other people identified it as an orca. When we got back to Auckland proper I decided to go on a quest for food and quickly found myself in a mall foodcourt where I ate some falafel. I wandered the rest of the evening and saw many many things. Luckily, Auckland seems to be the only place my entire life where I actually knew where I was. I almost always get lost.

A Mini Cooper dealership in Auckland

On Sunday I had to be out of the hostel at 10 AM but my flight wasn't until about 3. So I spent a long time in the Auckland airport. Then I got on the plane across the Pacific. 4 silly movies, several episodes of tv shows, a couple conversations with a guy on the way home from Antarctica, lots of food, and 12 hours later I landed in LA. One good thing about Qantas is that the food is fantastic. I usually avoid eating on airplanes but I happily munched through everything they tried to feed me, which was quite a bit. I slept a grand total of one hour on the flight, so I was tired. Since I had a seven hour layover in LA I decided to take a nap on the floor of the terminal with my bag under my head. It was uncomfortable so I only slept for another hour. I also got some breakfast (since it was 6 am when I landed). Oh, and just for reference, LAX is an awful airport which is difficult to navigate and has nothing to do and inadequate seating at the gates....I spent most of my seven hours there sprawled on the ground. Eventually I got on my final flight and made my way home where I was greeted by my parents and a gingerbread milkshake.

The End

Completion

I am now completely and totally and officially done with my semester abroad. I took my last final this morning, I'll get all of my results in December. I even finished packing today, which is good because I get on a plane at 5:45 tomorrow morning. I'm flying to Auckland, New Zealand on the way home so I'll probably post one last time to tell you all about that, but other than that I'm done.

My last day at the beach. The white rectangle in the ocean is the net.

There have been a lot of lasts going on. On Saturday we had our last barbie. I had my last day on the Australian beach. I swam in the ocean in Australia for the last time, which was also the first time I swam in the netted area (they just put out nets because it's jellyfish season and the box jellyfish comes into shore areas to breed and kill people). Today I ate my last package of Woolworths instant noodles. I will finish my jar of peanut butter today as well. I ate my last fresh mango yesterday, it was truly delicious. On Sunday I went to the Night Market for the last time. I also had my last scoop of mango gelato. I even took pictures of my last trip to the Smithfield Shopping Centre to buy my last bag of wholegrain penne. It took me a long time to fall asleep last night because I kept on remembering that it would be my last night sleeping here. That's right folks, I'm staying up all night tonight. In any case, I've had a pretty good time here, and while I'm super excited to go home, I'm also sad to leave tropical North Queensland. I love the plants here, especially the ones that make me think of dinosaurs because they were around when they were. I'm going to miss seeing bright blue Ulysses butterflies. I'm also going to miss finding wallabies when I go for walks and skinks darting into the undergrowth whenever I walk by. I'll miss scanning the path for venomous snakes while I run and checking for paralysis ticks afterwards. I'll even miss avoiding the edges of murky bodies of water to avoid saltwater crocodiles.

My beautiful bus ticket art

As I was packing, I was reminded that I have saved pretty much every bus ticket I bought the whole time I was here. Someone suggested that I scrapbook them, but I didn't want to take them home so I lay them out on the floor in chronological order and made them into "art." I think it says something about my experience here.

Anyways, I just keeping on moving along, and before I know it I'll be back in Oregon and not long after that I'll be back at PLU. So I'll see you around!

Camping Trip

I have officially finished classes and just have three finals before I end this semester entirely. The end of classes was good, especially the part where my Biodiversity of Tropical Australia went on a "field trip" to go eat native Australian foods. Nom Nom Nom! Anyways, Australian Unis have a "study break" the week before finals start. I get the impression that I was actually supposed to study during this time, but instead some friends and I went camping. We left last Saturday and got back on Wednesday. Since we didn't have a tent or sleeping bags it seemed logical to rent a campervan and try that out.

A waterfall with a rainbow that we saw along the way

Us at the top of the ridge at Undara

On the first day we drove to Lake Barrine, Lake Eacham, and Malanda. While we at Lake Barrine I walked all the way around the lake and saw a Boyd's forest dragon and what may have been a musky rat kangaroo. Very cool. Also, I head something that I highly suspect was a bunch wampoo pigeons. They are named for their characteristic sound, it really does sound like "wam-poo." We spent the night in a campground in Malanda where we made pasta (a major staple in our diet for the week) using the campstove that came with the campervan. 

The next day we drove to Undara, which you may remember is one of the places I went on my fieldtrip for Biodiversity of Tropical Australia earlier in the semester. On the way we stopped at the Curtain Fig Tree and while we were leaving it a tree kangaroo crossed the road in front of us, very cool! Unfortunately I did not have my camera out and ready for it so I didn't get a picture. This time it was much warmer at Undara so I decided to go swim with one of my friends. We actually met some interesting people at the pool, a geology class from JCU Townsville (the other campus in North Queensland) was there for a field trip so we talked to them and also to some people who were here on vacation. Then we went for a walk. The last time I was at Undara we found a pond with some birds. Since one of my friends is into birdwatching we decided to head down there at around dusk to check out the birds. After that we walked up to the ridge (which has a spectacular view by the way) where we convinced someone to take a picture of us.

The day after that we saw a ton of waterfalls. We stopped at three on our way to the Henrietta Creek Campground where we intended to spend the night. Henrietta Creek was beautiful and we decided to do some hiking. After masterfully evading the stinging trees which were growing across the path we came to a tall and spectacular waterfall with a large pool at the bottom. Naturally we spend the rest of the afternoon swimming around in this pool. It was quite nice. When we were getting close to where we had left the campervan the Cicadas started singing. They were ridiculously loud. After the fact I realized while studying that they were probably Northern Greengrocer cicadas, which only sing for about 15 minutes at dusk. We didn't know that at the time and since we were fairly certain we were suffering hearing damage (it was loud enough to be physically painful) we decided to drive back to Malanda to where we had camped before. When we got there we were starving and made dinosaur pasta. I found this very exciting because I have long harbored an undying love of dinosaurs.

A rock wallaby with its joey

The final full day we drove to Granite Gorge. We stopped on the way to see the Cathedral Fig, it was very large and looked super fun to climb on. Granite Gorge is beautiful and is clearly named after the large granite boulders that make up most of the park. We spent the afternoon clambering around on the boulders and generally being silly. Among the cooler boulders was one that looked like a whale and another that looked like a dinosaur. Granite Gorge is also known for the huge amount of rock wallabies that live there. A few of the ones we saw had little joeys peeking out of their pouches.

The camping trip was a lot of fun and we had great timing. It started raining while we were driving back on the last day. Now I am studying for my finals and preparing to come back to the states. I leave Australia in two weeks!

Weekend Whimsy

Me holding a baby crocodile

This past weekend I did a lot of fun things. On Friday my friends and I were ridiculously goofy. One of my friends from back home is doing a semester of research near here and I got to see her on Saturday. She was in Cairns for the weekend so we hung out and barbecued with my friends then went to the Night Market. The Night Market is sort of like a saturday market that's open in the evenings and has tons of stands selling everything from peanut shells painted to look like Simpsons' characters to discount Uggs to full-body massages. All in all, it's an interesting place. On Sunday I had my long awaited trip that I won during Orientation Week. I woke up bright and early to make the bus. We went to Lake Eacham, the Curtain Fig Tree, and Millaa Millaa falls. This time I swam under the falls...it's starting to get quite hot here and I don't like it. We ate lunch at the Malanda Hotel, I had a fish burger and it was delicious. I still love that they put beets on burgers, yum! In the afternoon we went to the Johnstone Crocodile Park where we got to see several very large salt water crocodiles, emus, cassowaries, kangaroos, wallabies, and dingoes. We got to feed the kangaroos and pet the dingoes. All in all, quite the day! Today it was ridiculously hot so I went to the beach and the ocean felt much better!

Spring Break

A White Lipped Tree Frog

A Warning Sign on the train

Since I'm in Australia where it has been "winter" while my friends back home were having summer, I get to have a spring break, which was this week. I had no idea what I was going to do with it, all of my plans seemed to fall through, but then my brother decided to come visit me so we went off on a crazy adventure! I showed him around Cairns including the Botanical Gardens where we found a white lipped tree frog and some very strange looking spiders. We went to Rusty's Market and then had a barbecue. We ate ridiculous quantities of gelato because it is delicious! My roommate's birthday was this week so we went out to dinner to celebrate it.

On Sunday we decided to check out the oft mentioned Kuranda Scenic Railway and Sky Rail. The railway was built completely by hand in the late 1800s and has several tunnels. All in all, it must have been a lot of work. From the train you can see the Barron Falls. Unfortunately it is still the dry season here so there was relatively little water going over the falls, it's supposed to be incredible at full flow. The train goes up to Kuranda "the village in the rainforest." Unfortunately it's become a bit of a tourist trap. We went back down on the Sky Rail so we could see over the rainforest. It was definitely more scenic than the train.

The Sky Rail

Monday we went out to Fitzroy Island and sea kayaked. That was a lot of fun. It was possible to see coral below as we paddled and occasionally small (supposedly non-stinging) jellyfish. We paddled out to the small neighbouring island of Little Fitzroy. Readers of my blog will remember that there is a lighthouse on Fitzroy Island that is no longer in use; Now there is a beacon on Little Fitzroy that replaced it. We climbed up to the beacon, quite the adventure! There isn't a clearly defined path but getting there requires a fair bit of climbing over giant rocks and pulling yourself up by grabbing onto branches and bushes. Getting down requires repelling with a rope down a rock face and then climbing down a rusting metal ladder. Still, it was quite the view and I actually kind of enjoyed getting a chance to climb around. In the afternoon my brother and I went snorkeling in the shallows near the island. Unfortunately the water was not very clear that day so we didn't see much. It was quite sunny and not very windy, a great day to go kayaking!

Millaa Millaa Falls

Paronella Park

The next day we did a waterfall tour. We started off by going to Lake Barrine where we had tea and scones and took a boat tour around the lake. There were a ton of ducks following the boat because the driver always throws some bread to them. After that we went to Millaa Millaa Falls, which has apparently been used in a few movies but I couldn't find a list of them anywhere. Next we went to the Curtain Fig Tree. We had lunch at Mungali Falls. In the afternoon we went to Paronella Park, a place that I had never heard of but greatly enjoyed. This guy, Jose Paronella bought a chunk of land because it has a beautiful waterfall and then built a castle by hand from simple materials. All of the structures are arranged in such a way that they give a view of the waterfall. He built the whole thing by hand by himself. It's really quite incredible. In addition to having a waterfall and castle, the park has some cool animals around. The small lake has dozens of turtles and an eel in addition to many fish. In one section there were dozens of Spectacle Flying Foxes ( a very large fruit bat which is endangered but that I've enjoyed seeing a lot of around Cairns) sleeping in trees. There is a tunnel in the park where Paronella had dug up clay for his constructions which has a few hundred microbats living in it. They're quite cute. I really liked it there and am glad that I rather inadvertently ended up there.

On Wednesday we did what everyone who goes to Cairns should do, we went out to the Great Barrier Reef. This time I tried scuba diving; I'm not very good at equalizing. Still we saw lots of fish which came over to check us out. We went snorkeling and saw a sea turtle! I used up all the pictures on my disposable waterproof camera and I'm hoping that the sea turtle picture comes out well. It was quite exciting! Also, this time I managed to not get sunburned, yay! I also didn't get stung by any coral, I was quite careful! I saw some absolutely beautiful giant clams with very vivid colors, some large Wrasse, lots of colorful parrotfish, and several angelfish. All in all, a great day out at the reef!





Yesterday was my brother's last day here so we had a more mellow day and explored Cairns a bit further. We walked around on the Esplanade and climbed around on the bouldering place. I think that Cairns would be a great place to be a kid, there's a great swimming pool (the Lagoon), a giant playground, a skatepark, and a bouldering place all on the Esplanade. After one last day of fun I had to say goodbye to my brother. He should be on a plane on the way back home right now.

Fantastical Fieldtrip of Flora and Fauna!

A platypus in Yungaburra

This weekend my Biodiversity of Tropical Australia class went on a field trip to Yungaburra and Undara. We left Friday night and drove to Yungaburra where we stayed the night at a cute hostel called On The Wallaby. We spotlighted for possums. All of the American students were quite shocked to find that Australian Possums are quite cute and not anywhere near as creepy as American Opossums. Unfortunately it was incredibly difficult to get a good picture of them in the dark. The next morning I woke up bright and early to go look for Platypii (or is it Platipodes? ;) ). Despite going the wrong way to get to the "good" place to see them we saw two! They swam right under the bridge that we were standing on and were so kind as to come to the surface right beneath me so that I could take a picture. I was surprised how small they were, I had envisioned them being maybe twice as big as they actually are for some reason.

The Curtain Fig

Next we went to the Curtain Fig Tree, a very famous strangler fig. We went there to observe a vegetation type of North Queensland called Mabi Forest. The Mabi is the preferred habitat for tree kangaroos but unfortunately we didn't see any. I learned that figs are fertilized inside the fruit by small wasps that go inside the fruit to mate and lay their eggs. mmm....insects, now we know what makes figs so crunchy :P. Our next stop was a park called Forty-Mile Scrub where we observed deciduous vine thicket. After that we continued on to our final destination, Undara.

A Dragon!

A herd of Kangaroos

Undara is in Tropical Savannah, a vegetation type characterized by bush fires, low rainfall, grass and few eucalyptus trees. While there we clambered about on rocks and looked for interesting animals. We saw a few skinks. When it got dark we looked at the stars and found a bunch of spiders, their eyes glow at night. We also saw a bettong, a cute little marsupial that's related to wallabies and kangaroos. We indulged the professor by "showing what we'd learned" through such means as skits, raps, and interpretative dance before going to bed. In the morning we walked around in the bush some more and found a ton of kangaroos and a dragon! I was very pleased because I love reptiles and really wanted to see a dragon. The one we found was a two-lined dragon (Diporiphora bilineata) and I got to hold it. He or she (I'm not sure which) was quite mellow and let us take several pictures.

On the way back we stopped for food and coffee. I had my first latte since I've been here and it was delicious. I also had a sandwich with bacon (Aussie bacon is much different than American bacon, it's really more like ham) and egg which also had a big slice of beet in it. I was pretty excited about that. I've noticed that Australians seem to like beets more than Americans do, they put them on burgers in place of pickles pretty often. I love beets so I can't complain.

All in all it was a quite busy weekend and now I really need to work on homework, but it was well worth the trip!

Kayak-a-Barbie

On Saturday I went on a kayaking adventure. We went to Lake Placid on the Barron River and paddled around. There's some small rapids there and we got to swim down them. That was pretty fun. Also, the river was much warmer than I expected, it was actually pleasant to swim in. While we were kayaking we saw four turtles "sunbaking" on a log. Sunbaking is the Australian term for sunbathing and I think it is far more descriptive. There were many ducks on the lake and some other water fowl. Apparently there are sometimes snakes resting on the branches of the trees that go over the water and if you're paddling near them they freak out and drop into the water. Unfortunately I did not get to witness this event. Though speaking of snakes, I have been seeing more snakes while running lately. You should all be pleased to here that I have so far avoided being bitten by any, probably a good idea since the snakes around here are highly venomous and include the Coastal Taipan (the 3rd most venomous snake in the world and close relative of the most venomous snake, the Inland Taipan) and the Death Adder. I also learned that there are paralysis ticks here. So far I've avoided them but I need to remember to keep checking because they sometimes go unnoticed until you become paralyzed, which is something I intend to avoid.

Yesterday my friends and I had yet another barbie, a wonderful idea considering it's one of the only times I eat meat here since I don't have a good way to cook it besides that. I have decided that I really like that many public areas here have public barbecues which are very simple to use. While we were waiting for the bus to head back to the Lodge we played frisbee and attempted handstands. I learned some new frisbee throws since the only one I knew how to do I'm awful at. I discovered that I'm actually remarkably better when I throw the frisbee side-arm under my leg. Of course, remarkably better in this case is still fairly awful...but I intend to imrove!

In other news, my PLU friends have gone back to school and my brother is coming to visit me. PLU just had the first week of classes for the fall term. It's pretty strange to realize that I am halfway through the semester while most of my friends back home are just starting a new semester. I found out on Friday that my brother is going to be here one week from tomorrow. I am super excited as I love hanging out with my brother and I will now be somewhat less alone for my spring break. Most of my ideas for what to do over the break fell through because nearly all of my friends have a field trip for one of their classes that goes for most of the break. Anyways, it should be fun to have him here and I wish all of my friends back home good luck with all of their classes this semester!