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!

when it rain and rains

I have been pretty busy with the whole school thing lately. Assignments are starting to attempt to sneak up on me but I am too clever for them. This weekend I decided that I ought not sit in my room doing homework all day so I packed up my anthropology text book and went to the beach. Just as I got there the clouds that had been looming all week descended en masse onto the beach. It was windy and grey. I also somehow managed to end up with about a pound of sand in my swimsuit which went all over the bathroom floor when I took it off. On Sunday we had planned a barbie so I went to get some supplies at the shopping centre half an hours walk away from where we all live, the Student Lodge. As a friend and I collected the necessary items for barbecuing, it began to rain. It rained on us the entire walk back. It was still kind of raining when we went to barbecue but luckily the public barbecues are under covers. I successfully cooked meat for the first time (it's not like I don't cook, I just never cook meat) and it was pretty tasty. We also grilled some zucchini and portobello mushrooms, so good! We walked around on the beach in the dark and then went back to the lodge where I changed out of ridiculously wet clothes for the second time that day. It was a fairly laid back weekend but still pretty fun. I plan to hike the Pyramid next weekend.