Tasmania

Just updating to let people know I'm alive and well, and survived the Tasmanian wilderness. If I was to fall in love with Australia, it would definitely be with Tasmania. This place is insanely gorgeous, nothing like I've ever seen before. We didn't end up doing the entire Overland Track due to logistical constraints, but it was a nice mixture between driving around different parts of Tasmania and backpacking.

It'll be a while...

I'm off to Tasmania today for the next week, first going to Port Arthur with Daisy, Yasmin, Lyra, and David before backpacking the Overland Track for 5 days with Lyra and David. No worries if I don't contact for a while!

Cairns

Cairns is fun so far. I've realized a few things I don't like about being a tourist. This town is just crazy with tourism, I bet 90% of the people I've seen on the streets are all foreign of some sort, and everyone is a little ridiculous. I shouldn't be so hard, they're on vacation and want to be a bit crazy. I have definitely realized that touring is way too easy for me, and it bothers me a lot because it feels really excessive. I'm so used to putting up with a lot of crap with every trip (i.e. Mexico (2x), Death Valley, Glasshouse Mountains), or just working hard (i.e. Puerto Rico, Brisbane). This was absolutely luxurious and I don't think I like it.

The one thing that is thwarting me right now is maybe strep throat (thanks to Ann and Alex). The good thing was that it only affected my throat (it hurts to swallow and yawn) and left my sinus system decongested for diving.

I arrived on Tuesday and walked all across the lagoon and stopped to take a couple of naps on the grass. The lagoon is ugly, tons of silt is suspended and completely clouds the water, plus the danger of crocodiles made me stay far from the edge. On either end are beautiful mangrove forests, some Avicennia sp., and for the first time I can see why some botanists are tempted to call it a rainforest. Again, I stayed far away from the edge for fear of crocodiles. I pretty much passed out afterward.

The next day I pulled together all my shit and went on a liveaboard dive trip, overnighting on the reef with 5 day dives and 1 night dive, accomodation and food included. The GBR was of course gorgeous and wonderful, the only problem being that I was completely spoiled by Heron Island. Everyone I partnered with were stoked to see green turtles and black tip and white tip reef sharks, but I was quite bored with them and looked for other cool organisms. I have to admit, I always have an eye out for nudibranchs, just because they're absolutely gorgeous. I did see several giant Giant Clams, probably 1.5m across. Tridacna gigas is what I'm guessing. We only saw Tridacna maxima at Heron Island.

Frankie the Maori Wrasse came up to us on today's dive! So incredibly friendly, he kept bumping up to us begging to be petted. I rubbed my hand on his forehead hump and it was surprisingly soft! We started swimming circles around each other just for fun.

I saw a slipper lobster, quite a few nudibranchs, sea whips (not present at Heron Island), a trevally (it was fun during the night dive because if you shined the light on a small fish, this 1m trevally would immediately eat it, it was called 'buddy kill'), some other beautiful fish, a number of green turtles, whaler sharks...yah. It was exciting. AND I finally started paying attention to navigation, I could actually lead groups of people around! Yah, I was definitely the most advanced and comfortable diver in the group and there was no divemaster, so everyone followed me.

I wouldn't particularly recommend the tour I did, although it is by far the cheapest one around with a luxurious common room and food. The people were pretty clueless about the reef organisms (except one cool ex-research diver), not very eco-friendly (they threw chunks of BREAD at fish...you think they're equipped to eat that shit? and they didn't even give a briefing on preserving the reef and all the current threats, including physical damage from snorkellers and divers!). They did have that information, if you went back to Cairns and payed a whopping $15 for a 2 hr lesson.

I did meet some interesting people, a pome, an Arizonan, a Japanese, and tons of swedes. I'm going out with them tonight but I'm utterly exhausted, we'll see how long I last. Yup, Cairns is definitely the most touristy I've ever been in my entire life (well, independently, Kroombit was pretty bad but at least I had interesting friends to distract myself with) with booking actual tours. It's been fun, but I really can't wait to be completely autonomous again in Tasmania.

I can't believe I'm going home so soon! How sad! I absolutely love Australia, I'm not quite ready to leave. It struck me that it's only in 2 weeks that I'm back in the states. Damn. It'll be pleasant to go back home, but I wouldn't mind sticking here for a while longer.

Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving!

Tweed Valley

The last night the group was together, we ended up going out to the Port Office, a club downtown. Unfortunately I was utterly exhausted and pretty cranky, but I felt obliged because it was the last time. I woke up insanely early and got packed, ran few errands, had breakfast with Lindsay, Phil, Allison, Cristal, and Amelia, then met up with Lyra to catch the coach to Muwillumbah.

Tweed Valley lies at the foot of Mount Warning in the volcanic caldera on the New South Wales side. It used to be a massive stretch of subtropical rainforest called The Big Scrub, almost all of which has been completely decimated by agriculture and ranches because of the rich basalt soils. Murwillumbah is the biggest town in Tweed Valley, as far as I know. It's a really cute countryside with a ton of farms and tons of fruit stands. I say this as I am currently munching down on the most delicious organic mango I've ever had. I came here because Rob, our tutor from Lamington, left an open invitation for a 'rainforest experience.' How could I resist?

Rob and his mother picked us up from the train station and drove us back to their home which is actually located in Crystal Creek, 15km out of Murwillumbah. Their house is absolutely gorgeous, a large wooden veranda with a comfy couch and table set, overlooking a couple rolling hills of grass and a few native and exotic trees. Rob is this crazy botanist nerd whose goal is to restore his mother's property and the adjacent creek to native rainforest flora. Rob and his mother just moved in a few months ago, so the property is in its early restoration phase, but it's still very beautiful. There were just so many birds, insects, a few wallabies. Oh! The first night we were there we made a small fire outside (fire to kill the grass and leave space for rainforest plants, and something cozy to sit by) and a tawny frogmouth (owl-like bird) few right above us and landed on a eucalypt right in front of us. It was quite funny to watch Rob interact with his mother, a loving but nagging relationship on both their parts.

The next day we went exploring on the property, going down a few creeks, swam in this huge water hole, picked up a bunch of fruit along the stands, and met his friends Irwin and Adrienne, an environmental architect and an artist, respectively. Their son is Rob's best friend Louis, the complete complement because of their obsession for identifying plant species and their mission to create an interactive rainforest species cd-rom. Irwin gave us a big schpeel about his travels, how he's saving the world, and how humanity should save the world. Oh, and on the drive we saw a very large carpet python hanging out on the rocks next to the freeway. We also saw the "uncommon" regent mudskipper butterfly, but we ended up seeing 2 more the following day so I think that's sort of a wrong description. It's a really cool insect though, the missing link between a moth and a butterfly. Males would be considered butterflies but females moths...or vice versa.

The next day we drove up to the Nightcap Range, one of the volcanic ridges, and met Louis. Let me tell you...hours of driving and stopping every few feet to discuss this or that plant...interesting but after 3 hours really tiring. It was quite cute watching Rob and Louis crouching down at plant after plant, chatting merrily away and taking pictures. Finally we went to a waterfall outlook and met two more of Rob's acquaintances, crazy sarcastic hippy-esque guys with whom I had a lot of fun joking with. We dropped into more of Rob's friends home, a house full of the ultimate hippies with a 6-month old baby. They were so sweet and you just had to admire how happy and excited they seemed. Joey and Joselyn with their baby met us up at the campsite later in the night and we had a good chat around the fire. Lyra and I fell asleep around the fire, but I didn't sleep very well because although there were no mosquitos, I could swear something was biting me. I started to realize I was peeling small leeches of my face. I tried to ignore them but they were incredibly persistent, so I sat up. Immediately I felt something large and squishy on my stomach and I pulled out a 2 inch very fat leech from under my shirt. I got grossed out and woke up Lyra, who immediately jumped out and wiped all the leeches off herself. I took off my shirt to check myself and I realized the back of it was completely wet. Turns out that fat leech had already drunk my blood on the back of my neck and because of their anticoagulates, I was bleeding profusely down my neck. Needless to say, I opted to sleep in the car.

We got up, said goodbye to Joe and Joselyn, and went to Hastings Beach to check out the tidepools. It was really gorgeous, with clear waters and beautiful breaks. Unfortunately it was really windy (therefore dangerous waves) and a high tide, so we just admired the view. Afterward, we had to drop Lyra off at the Coolangatta Airport (she's going to the Blue Mountains to do some rockclimbing before meeting up with me in Tasmania) and we returned to Rob's home. A few hours later they dropped me off at Murwillumbah to catch the bus back to Brisbane, where I'm back with my homestay family for the night. I leave for Cairns tomorrow morning.

I really admire all the people I met. For once I met some environmentalists with a scientific approach, something I can relate to much more. It made me think a lot about how I used to be when I first entered college, inspired and eager to save the world. I got severely disillusioned because of the mentality of some that I met, and then I got very busy with my own issues. There's just something so peaceful yet outraged in all of them, it's such a bizarre dichotomy. Rob went on many rants, but he is the most laidback person I've ever met. I did spend most of time listening to different species of plants and about what's wrong with the world and the states. Though for some reason it didn't bother me. Maybe I've gotten out of my selfish rut finally? Although I obviously didn't fit very well into their life, we still got along quite well and something about the whole trip was very noble without being moral.

Anyway, I'm off to Cairns tomorrow! It might be another few days before I'll get a chance to use the internet.

Goodbye Brisbane

My last final, our farewell lunch...there's nothing left. Oh so sad...

Leaving yet another community to start another set of adventures. It's always a bit rough to say goodbye.

Reflection

I turned in my two papers yesterday, took my Human and Terrestrial Ecology final this morning (and somehow was able to put down the right answers...even though I had no idea). I only have marine biology to study for, but I'm having a hard time getting myself motivated. 85% of the course is done, and I almost feel like I'm done. I ditched seeing a movie so that I could plan my Cairns trip, but now that that's done, I want to take some more time off before I go into study-mode again. Since I can't really do anything, I'm just updating my blog.

I really enjoyed this program. I initially had my doubts because there wasn't a lot of room for independence, I'd be stuck with the same people for 3 months, and we were herded like cattle from field trip to field trip, but it actually turned out to be one of best experiences I could have hoped for. They say studying abroad changes you and I believe it. It's going to be sad to part ways this Thursday. It was a relatively good group, and I have the feeling that I'm going to lose touch with most of them. Every time I meet someone cool, I have a hard time with the idea that now they're going to be out of my life forever, but I'm also not one to be able to keep up with everyone. I also think that I'm just so frantically busy with travelling all the time and meeting a ton of people, it's hard to actually think about it too much.

I'm also glad I chose this program instead of a normal semester program. I got close to many people, I travelled a hell of a lot, got to know the professors, and learned so much about the biology and ecology of Australia. I don't think undergraduate studying and travelling goes well together for me. I'd be itching to travel a lot and blow off school since I would be a foreign country, but I know I would be studying like crazy because I'm so worried about my grades. This program was a nice melding of the two. If I'm going to have to take a course abroad, at least the structure was like so. Honestly, I really don't care too much that I didn't meet many Australians.

I have to admit that all-in-all I was not impressed with Brisbane. It's probably because every time I'm in Brisbane I'm always either at home or on campus and I don't explore anything. But the bus system and time constraints makes it difficult to experience a normal life here. I don't think I'll ever come back to Brisbane, there just isn't anything in particular that I would come back here for. It feels like a normal city, maybe even more like a bunch of suburbs crammed together.

I think I've finally acclimated to this transient lifestyle. At first I got homesick in Puerto Rico and a little bit in Australia, I got tired of being shuffled around like and not having a daily life...but now I'm really enjoying it. To take crazy trips every other week, to come back and study and learn. And I actually LIKE reading papers.

Ok...this is weird. I didn't even know the 4th movie of Harry Potter was even coming out! How out of touch am I? I have not paid attention to anything at all since I've been travelling. Wow...

The Profs

The two professors on this trip are very cool, and really get to know you personally. Prof Ian Tibbetts is possibly the funniest man alive, but carries the normal professor aura where you admire them from a distance, but definitely don't regard as an equal. He's got a family and so many other obligations, it's just a typical class. Prof. Mike is definitely interesting. This trip made me realize what a complicated guy he's turning out to be. He tells us all these anecdotes about himself, he discusses life with us, he's an insomniac, and during the entire trip of Kroombit I didn't see him without a glass of red wine (not that I blame him in particular). He's traveled all around the world. He's just such a puzzle. On the one hand, he seems like a kiwi hick shooting rifles, on the other he's an academic, on the other he's a big geek with his 80s swim trunks and red fro, on another he's a charming sophisticate who knows his wines and has infamous friends, and on another he's a radical outraged liberal. It works together, but it doesn't stop me from being surprised all the time.

Kroombit

This was definitely an interesting trip. Not my favorite, but definitely with many insights to the outback and some interesting stories.

Kroombit is a cattle ranch/tourist hostel.

First of all, I have not been so abused in my entire LIFE. In a space of 5 days (and 2 were all traveling), I managed to get a sizeable bruise on my chin, lacerated my legs up quite a bit, and scraped my back and hip on the 4WD doors. I have a bruise on my inner right thigh from mechanical bull riding, a rash from some evil plant, and a deep infected hole in my left shin from a cruel twig. Second of all, I have not been so testosterone-soaked in my life. I could not believe how...rugged...the owners were.

The first day we arrived, we just played a bunch of random games that the ranch organized. We rode the mechanical bull (which I sucked at by the way), then just wandered around the place looking at the stars. Poor Megan got a fencing wire stuck through her big toe =(. The next day we went out for a "bit of a wanda" and that took us to a few places in a 4WD, stopping occasionally for lectures from a cattle-rancher's view (Andrew, the owner's son-in-law) and Prof Mike's view, and finally we stopped at this one creek and walked for maybe 5 hours up it. There is no trail, and you had to fight like a madwoman to get through the brush sometimes (hence most of the injuries). At the end, we finally reached the first waterhole and went jumping off the cliff face. Poor Max slipped and tumbled awkwardly down, breaking his right ring finger. The water was absolutely disgusting too, there were clumps of algae floating on the surface and strongly smelled of sulfur, but it was refreshing after such a arduous hike. When we got out, algae and filth coated our skins. Andy's leg and toe hair were clumped with dirt *shudder*. There was one stinging plant whose leaves looked exactly like the innocuous leonas so I kept running into it. It starts off with a little stinging, then it builds up to a really bad burn, then you get a few bubbles on your skin. I had fun, despite the pain, but a lot of the girls complained so much I wanted to strangle them. It's kind of exhilarating to run around in a non-trail. Oh, we did stop at this one place called Marblehead and it had devonian coral fossils! There was a small pond there with thousands and thousands of tadpoles, all cane toads! The boys decided that since they were evil, they felt justified in killing all the baby toads. I dunno, I know they're ecological evil, but I can't bring myself to just smash them. We also saw a beautiful orange snake swimming in the pool. How it managed to survive all those toads is a mystery, unless it just doesn't eat them.

The following morning we went on a 4WD for 12 hours (oh my bum...) and we saw Beautiful Betsy, a bomber plane that mysteriously disappeared in the 1940s and was discovered a little over 10 years ago...and a bunch of different kinds of vegetation. The orb spiders there are absolutely gorgeous. Lots of kangaroos and wallabies. Had some nice lookout points overlooking the gorge, kroombit top, and a waterfall. The following day we went for a horseback ride and it was fun I suppose. A bit boring really, my horse just plodded like no other and I didn't know how to make him perk up a bit. I did start to learn how to not have him run me into trees. Conrad had gone the day before, and apparently he had had a bunch of lessons when he was young but hadn't gone in a while. He hung towards the back and tried to canter, but lost control of the horse and had it run him straight into a waist-high branch. The horse went skidaddle and he just hung on the branch until someone could help him.

We went camping the following night and Prof. Mike brought a star chart! The overlapping constellations would be taurus, orion (upside-down), the seven sisters...and a few other astrological ones. As much fun as I've had on this trip, I'm definitely glad it's over in a week. I was so irritated by so many people that night. Girl Alex and Megan were drunk and kept me awake by screeching, and at 1:30am David accidentally stepped on Andy, Andy freaked, and somehow a shoe hit me in the mouth. We woke up early for a goat rodeo, which horrified me hoenstly, and at the end I was just tired of everything. I like the country, I liked hiking and camping out under the stars, but it was just too much. It's amazing how many people were such brats.

I am getting along really well with Lyra and Ann, both very easy-going outdoorsy girls. I'm excited in spring when I get back to the states. Both Lyra and I were reminiscing about the violin, and we decided that when we got back we would camp out at Joshua Tree and do a little fiddling.

I also can't wait for just traveling by myself.

But it's been a good week for sure. I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. I was just a little bitchy is all.

So I have two papers and two finals, and I have to work out the details of my travel plans. I am absolutely swamped, this is my only break. Streeesssssssss.