The Magical Mystery Tour and Camping

Our wildlife biology class takes place over 5 weeks, luckily, most of this time is spent in the field. We went on a tour through Border Ranges National Park, and even got to camp in the rainforest. This is a picture of our class (minus me as I am taking the picture.)

Our magical mystery tour (the prof's words) began at 9am Thursday morning. We made a stop in a town called Nimbin before heading to the rainforest. Nimbin is like... what I imagine the 1960s were like. I'll just leave it at that.









We took a detour to see some of the huge fruit bats that live in the area. These are called flying foxes, because they are about the size of a fox - so cool!

After Nimbin we drove to Border Ranges National Park and took in several of the views. These pictures are really a poor representation of Australia. The vast majority of the country is hot and dry and flat, we just happened to be on the East coast near the Great Dividing Range. This is most topography there is in Australia.

The land we were on is actually Aboriginal property, given back to the indigenous people fairly recently by the government. One is supposed to ask the elders of the tribe permission to actually climb Mt. Warning (indigenous name is Wollumbin), the volcano that is the focal point of the area. Our professor did this prior to our arrival. Before this field trip, I had looked into climbing the mountain myself, and found out that women weren't actually supposed to. It's so interesting to ask an Australian what they think about the indigenous people. I inquired about Wollumbin to several locals, some told me that I should definitely get permission as it is the right and respectful thing to do, and some were angered that Aboriginal people even have control of the land at all. (One told me to "stuff them," which basically means forget them.)

Personally, I have huge amounts of respect for this people group. They are probably the most under-appreciated group of indigenous people in the world. We hear about the Actecs, Incas, Mayans, Native Americans, and their great contributions to society or how progressive their architecture or agriculture was. However, I am ashamed to say that I had never even heard about Indigenous Australians, let alone knew that they are the oldest surviving group in the world. It's thought that Aboriginal people have inhabited Australia for 60,000 years. - and Australia is not an easy place to live considering most of it is a desert and the ocean surrounding it is swimming with deadly sharks, jelly fish etc. etc. Furthermore, instances of massacre and murder have taken place, relatively recently in some cases, and nobody seems to know about it. As much as I have doted on Aussies, I will say that sadly racism is alive and well in this country. Australia still has a long way to go regarding this (just like the US).

Anywho, we saw lots of cool wildlife during the day. This is a Bower bird, who was being very camera shy.

Bower birds like to find random objects that are blue to decorate their next with. Our prof told us a story that even a topaz ring once got pilfered by a bower bird.

We stopped at a koala rehabilitation center. Almost 90% or of koalas are infected with a strain of chlamydia which can cause blindness and is often fatal.

The camping trip was a few days later.  We took our final exam for biology class in the evening. The next morning  I woke up at dawn and was thrilled to see a few wallabys wandering around.  What a privilege to get to see these animals in the wild.

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Blue Mountains

These are the word Charles Darwin used to describe the Blue Mountains when he saw them for the first time. An accurate description, don't you think?

After leaving Sydney, we got back on the train and took it two hours west toward the Blue Mountains. Now, "mountains" has a very different meaning here than it does in the States, and these mountains were more like big hills. But they were blue, and they were very beautiful.

The three points are called the Three Sisters.

A group of us rode the "scenic railway" down to the bottom of one of the mountains. The area used to be a coal mine, and the railway was used to transport coal. Now, it is like a theme of the mountains and the surrounding city, Katoomba. The little train here is mostly just a means of getting to the bottom, not a ride. But it was nearly a 45 degree angle, and "Indiana jones" theme music played, so it had a roller coaster feel.

At the bottom, we were surrounded by sub-tropical rainforest and the remains of the old coal mine. This is Katoomba falls.

As a part of our scenic railway ticket, we got to take the skyway back. It was like a giant ski lift for 40 or so people.

Unfortunately, this picture wasnt taken the day we actually rode the skyway. The day we rode it there was fog that reduced visibility to less than 100 meters. But, floating through the fog and clouds was exciting.

The next day, the fog turned to a cold rain. The temperature didn't get above 50 F and the fog was so thick we couldnt see trees that were 15 feet outside our window. So, we spent the entire day lounging around the hostel watching Disney movies and working on homework. It was actually really nice to have a day to relax after running from place to place during the last week in Sydney. We played this game called "signs," one of the many "camp" games we've taught eachother throughout the trip. It was such a blast.

The lounge area near our rooms was the location for a breast cancer awareness jewelry party. So, each time we went between our room and any other area, we had to pass through trays of finger foods, cakes, and champagne. This was rough, considering most of us had no money, and only brought ramen noodles or peanut butter sandwiches for the stay in Katoomba. As the event was wrapping up, the cleaning staff, a few women, came and offered us all the leftover food. You should have seen us! I've never seen college students put away so much cake in champagne in my life! The staff had clearly drank half the remaining champagne already, which made the whole thing that much more interesting. One of the women said, "How often do you stay somewhere and party with the staff like this?" But thats an Australian for you.

Alright, this post is not for the faint hearted. The fact that I was creeped out by this experience says a lot considering the last couple of posts were about snakes and spiders.

So, the story begins with my roommate, Megan, coming out of the bathroom and saying "Guys! Come here and look at this." To our surprise and delight, there was a cute little gecko on the floor. It looked just like the Geico gecko only it was white and yellow colored. I took him over to the other cabin to show my creature-loving friends .

So, as I am holding him with one hand and using the other hand to open the door, Mr. Gecko starts to escape and I catch him by the tail.

Bad idea.

The tail immediately falls off, leaving the lizard running away on the ground and a bloody twitching tail in my hand. This resulted in a loud scream followed by several curses on my part and ten or so curious students arriving to investigate.

Apparently it is a defense tactic. We let the lizard go shortly afterward, and he seemed to be alright. This is the weirdest country.

Sydney!

Last week was such a whirlwind of new experiences! We left for Sydney last Wednesday arvo (afternoon). After a short plane trip we caught a train to Central Station where our hostel was located. My first impression of Sydney was that it was like Chicago or Washington D.C - but classier. The architecture of some of the old buildings is beautiful, as is the landscaping. Here is a picture of the famous Harbor Bridge. You can't see from the picture, but some people are actually climbing across the top of it! Seeing the Harbor Bridge and the Opera House finally made me feel like I was actually IN AUSTRALIA. The whole experience has been so surreal thus far, but seeing the actual buildings that were on TV during the recent Sydney Olympics finally helped it sink in.

The hostel that we stayed in was right next to Central Station, and was a reconstructed train station. Some of the rooms were even old train cars! I met some amazing people in the hostel who were traveling the world. I think aside from the city itself, my favorite thing about Sydney is how culturally diverse it is. I often felt like a minority - which was fine with me! Walking down the street I heard French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, and accents that sounded German and Russian. I think I met someone from nearly every continent in fact (well except for maybe Antarctica).


This is the view from the top of the Sydney Tower.




The Australian Museum


We visited the Tower after a day of absolute random fun. I, of course, had all kinds of things planned for the day (shocking, I know) but as we were walking in the direction of the harbor, we kept stumbling across good fortune.


St. Andrews Cathedral looked small from the outside, but the inside was just spectacular. The stained glass windows, huge archways, and massive pipe organ were so breathtakingly beautiful that we whispered as we walked through.



After visiting the church, we walked past a Virgin Mobile store and a woman was holding a poster and yelling "Guy Sebastian is about to give a free concert!" Concert? Free? We were totally in. It turns out that Guy Sebastian was the winner of Australian Idol, something we have all enjoyed watching during our stay, in 2003. We loved his music - and him! He signed a CD for us "To Team USA, I hope you enjoy your stay in OZ!"



Our stay in Sydney was short, but next up was the Blue Mountains. A post about it is soon to come!

The Spider that Came to Class

This post is for my dad and Janet, who are both going to be stoked about this!

It is already very difficult to pay attention during class here at the Australia Centre. An obsessed crow already tries to get inside the window by repeated flying against it and squawking at the top of its lungs. A group of 30 -40 kids who are staying in the centre come down to the lake to launch sail boats at least a couple of times a week during lecture. There is always something crazy and distracting going on. The fact that a spider casually crawled in, took a seat on the desk in front of me, and proceeded to listen to the lecture for an hour didn't really surprise any of us.
Here is what spidey looks like

I need to research to find what kind of spider this is. He was awfully well behaved during the lecutre on marine oil spills. It was mostly the students who were a little freaked out by him, not the other way around.





























We ended up letting spidy go in some bushes outside of class. So, if you're ever in the Lennox area, keep an eye out for him. He'll be the one thats oddly very educated about the Exxon- Valdez.

The Pancake Place

Sunday I went to what is lovingly referred to as the "pancake place." Here is the story: There is a song that Jack Johnson sings called "Banana Pancakes." Well, it turns out that Jack Johnson himself owns a house in Lennox Head and ate banana pancakes at this particular restaurant. The place is within walking distance from our cabins, so my friend and I walked down for brekky. I couldn't tell you the name of the place, its tiny and only has outdoor seating. But this place is just adorable. Everyone brings their dogs, which run around unleashed with kids. The front area is littered with kayaks, surf boards, towels, and bikes. Its the kind of place at which one could sit and people-watch for hours.

Here is a picture of the view from our table. If this wasn't good enough already, the food at this place is FANTASTIC. I'm telling you, its the best kept secret in Lennox. The last time I was here I had a chicken sandwich with avocados (avos) and pineapple and I think it changed my life. Today, however, I knew it was time for the banana pancake experience. Before I even go on, if you are on a diet, stop reading now. In fact, just go ahead and go get a snack because there's no way you can see this and not get hungry. Alright, here they are:

This glorious concoction consists of banana pancakes covered in maple syrup with homemade vanilla ice cream on top. In the back there is some famous Aussie bacon whichb is, as I have already mentioned, delicious. So that's how I started my day: enough saturated fat to notably shorten my life. Needless to say, between this and the other amazing aussie food, most of us have gained a couple of pounds. I say its totally worth it!

SCUBA Act II

We went on our second SCUBA adventure today. Luckily the visibility was much higher today - 15 meters this time. (I keep wanting to write "metres" - aussie style) It was also much warmer/calmer conditions. We were in the water by 8am. Strapping the gear,tank and various gauges is always the hardest part of the experience. There must be close to 50 pounds worth of gear by the time we are ready. Each piece has a designated place: the regulator (what you breath through) comes over your right shoulder. The gauge that shows how much air you have left and at what depth you are at gets strapped at your waist. On our left wrists were compasses. Masks and snorkels on our faces, boots and fins on our feet. Underneath all this is a wet suit that honestly takes a good 15 minutes to fit into. The tighter the better when it comes to these things, apparently. The suit is always too short for me (surprise there) which means I am in a constantly bent state while wearing it. To top it all off, we wear hoods that come around our faces that make it look like we are more likely to be shooting into space than to be diving.

So, after suiting up and gearing up, you put your back to the water and flip over the side of the boat. Gravity does the rest. I was the first one out this morning, so I waited by the buoy (pronounced in aussie, "boy") for the rest of the crew. The decent is always a little scary. It gets gradually darker and colder as you pull yourself down on a rope, constantly plugging your nose and blowing to equalize the pressure on your ears.

We aren't actually scuba certified yet, so we still have to practice skills while we are underwater. We did a full mask fill first: You fill your mask with water and then blow air out your nose in order to clear it of the water. We do this so if for any reason our mask would get flooded with water, we wouldn't panic. Then, we worked on achieving neutral buoyancy - which as you can imagine, is difficult. You do this by inflating or deflating your BCD jacket. Anyway, enough of the boring stuff. The cool part comes when we are swimming around and the instructor, Jack, starts excitedly pointing to something in the distance and then telling us to get down low. I look over and see a nice little school of parrot fish... I smile and nod, and then Jack points again. I look over just in time to see a fin a good meter high swimming through the school of fish. It was another gray nurse shark. This puppy had to be 3-4 meters long. We watched it swim with this school of fish, not trying to eat them, but just swimming. We later learned that the fish actually hang out with the shark for protection from other predators. A shark that big would not normally try to prey upon a fish so small - it would be a waste of energy to chase it. It would more likely hunt larger prey (like American college students?)


So as we are watching this shark and swimming closer, I forget to look immediately where I am swimming and nearly put my hand directly on a wobbygong carpet shark. These guys hang out on the bottom and are generally harmless (the scar on Jack's leg begs to differ though). None the less, it gave me quite a start. We saw quite a few nurse sharks this morning as well as lots of colorful fish. We are diving again tomorrow, I can't wait!
This is the view of Julian Rocks, the area we normally dive. This is a small island about half a mile off the coast.

The "Break"

I put the title of this post in quotation marks, because to say that you had a vacation while you are already in OZ seems a little counter-intuitive. This last week, we didn't have class in order to give students an opportunity to travel. In order to save money, and because I can't think of a place I would actually like more than Lennox Head, I stayed at the camp with five other students. On Wednesday, I took a bus into Ballina, a neighboring city, in order to volunteer with Coastcare. This group looks after the beaches by planting native vegetation, taking action to prevent erosion of the beaches, and eradicating invasive species. I worked for a few hours cutting back Bitou bush that had been sprayed with herbicide a month or so earlier. It was rough work, and we all ended up with scrapes and bruises. I was especially impressed with the 60 year old man named Ron who worked with the five of us. He seemed to be working harder than the rest of us! I mentioned this to the leader of this operation, Lee, and he informed me that Ron is 88 years old! I think there must be something to this bacon and cane sugar diet.

Thursday, I returned (after getting lost and touring most of East Ballina) to help out with a group of school children who had come to help plant native wattle in place of the Bitou bush. The kids were typical 8-9 year olds. When they found out that I was American, they were sure that I must know Miley Cyrus personally. They worked hard in the heat, and most seemed to enjoy being outdoors for once. I found from the teachers that the children don't often get to take breaks from the classroom to go outside for trips like this. Considering that the school is walking distance away from some of the most beautiful and biologically diverse land in the country, this is unfortunate. Environmental education in Aussie is sadly lacking in the same way it is in the States. When I individually spoke to the kids about what they learned about in school regarding the environment, they had mixed reactions. Some impressed me with their knowledge of erosion of beaches, littering and other issues. Some of them said they had never even heard of global warming. My favorite answer regarding global warming was, "Well... its like when you litter... and then all the penguins... they die.... and that's bad cause they're cute!"
I will say that these kids were remarkably well-behaved and hard working. It was a pleasure to spend time with them, and I hope to get to do it again.

Tenterfield Trip

Our "Australia Life and Culture" class takes various field trips on Mondays. The 19th of September, we left for our first overnight adventure to beautiful, exotic Tenterfield, NSW. Alright, maybe not exotic - this little town was like Mayberry crossed with Texas. We left on Saturday the 19th of September. Now let us remember that this was the day after my friends and I went out for my birthday. I won't go into detail, but lets just say that the three hour bus ride that followed a long night of bar hoping was rough on a few of us, to say the least. Anyway, we survived and arrived at the Golfer's Inn Motel by lunch.


After lunch we got back on the bus and headed for Bald Rock, the largest Monolith in Australia. The climb up was over and around huge slabs of granite. This is where a famous bushranger (a cowboy up to no good) named Thunderbolt had his famous hideout. He waited among these rocks and in caves for unsuspecting travelers to pass by. He would then steal whatever he could manage to take including gold, horses, and stagecoaches.

The view from the top of Bald Rock is stunning. No picture could adequately capture it.




Yay! We made it! The girls on the trip took a group photo.
Here we are taking a break with our fearless leader Lyn.

After descending Bald Rock, it was tea time! Ah, tea time in Australia, one of my favorite things. Tea time usually takes place once in the morning and once in the evening. "Tea" can be in reference to anything from the literal drink to snacks, or even to dinner itself. During this particular tea time, we replaced those spent calories with two foods that truly make me want to move here: First, damper. Damper is a completely carb-filled, white, processed-flour bread that is simply delicious. We slather it with butter and then Cocky's Joy, a syrupy, sticky-sweet spread that is essentially cane sugar. In addition to this we ate Anzac biscuits which are coconut cookies, also fabulous. The tea is similarly smothered in milk and sugar.

After this, we headed off the the Doctor's Nose Winery for a wine tasting. Most of us had never done a wine tasting before - some of us weren't even allowed to drink in the States yet. (Drinking age is 18 here.) It was great fun. We tasted several different wines, all made in from the grapes in the fields surrounding us. I even got a special birthday port with my name on it as a surprise!

The next day we woke to an Aussie brekkie (breakfast) of eggs, toast and bacon. Another pause to talk about Aussie bacon: Aussie bacon will make even the most stringent vegetarian throw down their hummus with abandon and chow down.

Anyway, back to the story. We went to Billabong Blue to fossick for sapphires. This consisted of shoveling a bucket of dirt through sieves and then washing the remaining rocks. Most of us found small sapphires or other gemstones.

Lunch was shared with community members from a Christian missionary called Danthonia Christian Community. The group consisted of people from all over the world, many from the U.S, who were temporarily living in this community. The group shares everything, and is not paid for the work they do in their sign-making business. The group is almost completely self-sufficient and most of the lunch we ate came directly from their land. (Little did we know the sandwiches we were eating were actually kangaroo, not salami.) It was an interesting experience to say the least.

After this we toured Tenterfield's many historical buildings and met the Mayor of the town. We saw the place that Sir Henry Parkes gave his famous speech urging the states to federate. There was also an old railway and museum, and several other old shops and businesses. It was very similar to what we would find in an American pioneer village or museum. The two countries have similar stories during the Industrial Revolution.

I'll end with bits from our teacher, Lyn Lockery's poem about the trip:

"We left the coast for country life,
a chance to get away.
To climb Bald Rock and fossick too,
up the Tenterfield way.

We walked right into Thunderbolt's cave,
the tank traps passed us by.
Bald Rock was really awesome,
with views that made you cry.

The Doctor's Nose was a special spot,
some tried to crack a whip,
found new friends with Peter and Jan,
got the taste of grapes on our lip.

At Deepwater we passed the 'Wee log' (where you relieve yourself after a long day of driving)
we headed for Billabong Blue,
sapphires and zircons gleefully found,
then damper and a trip to the loo.

Danthonia Christian Community
met us with friendship so kind,
showed us how they made their signs,
then a lunch, the best you could find.

We toured the town with Val as a guide,
learned Tenterfield's history with glee,
heard of Parkes and met the Mayor,
then we all returned to the sea. "

Pictures!

No theme to this post, just some pictures I've recently taken. This first picture is of this crazy bird called a masked lapwing. It and its mate had a nest in the middle of a field near our cabins when we first arrived. They would throw an absolute fit whenever anyone would get within 50 yards or so of their nest. They dive bomb us and screech at us. Recently, their eggs hatched into cute baby lapwings. I don't have any pictures of the babies because, basically, I don't want to risk my life. Did I mention that these things actually have a spike on their wing that they use to stab curious American tourists? Oh yes, its true. So much for us ever playing soccer in this field!
This next picture is of a python we found near the cabins. I named him Monty. Phil, our resident amateur naturalist, caught him for us. It was actually pretty tame for being a python. Here he is trying to cut off circulation in Phil's arm. The next picture is of another snake Phil found. It is a green tree snake, which are usually pretty friendly.

I went for a walk around Lake Ainsworth around sunset and snapped some photos of the ducks. They were obviously used to being fed cause they all swam up to me, and seemed genuinely irritated that only had a camera.




















The lake here is a dark blue tint - you can even notice it from a satellite photo. It also smells fantastic. The tea trees give the water an almost oily feel. Its an absolutely beautiful lake.

Whale Tale

"Class" is generally a loose term here at the Australia Centre. Sometimes class is class, consisting of three hour lectures and quizzes, but sometimes class is more like vacation. Luckily for us, our marine biology class has recently been more like the latter. September 10th, we borrowed the local whale watching boat in order to collect some plankton samples. We broke up into two groups. The first group was about 30 minutes late coming into the dock. We eventually found out that this was because there was thought to be a humpback whale that was possibly injured and stranded. They went to check it out, but couldn't find anything.

I was on the second trip. As we left, we all kept an eye out for the humpback. As we were watching, someone excalimed that they saw a dolphin fin. Our professor said, "...that wasn't a dolphin." Turns out it was a shark! It is very rare to see them surface like that, apparently.

Later, the captain of this ship lowered an underwater microphone into the water so we could listen for whale sounds. We could hear them singing! We knew they had to be (relatively) close. So we kept looking.

Eventually we saw spouts and eventually fins and tails! One of the whales breeched in the distance, but I missed it. We probably saw 15 or so whales migrating.

We were so excited about the whales, we almost forgot our origional purpose: to get some plankton. Here is our proffessor Danny (in OZ, profs and teachers are on a first name basis, which makes sense if you have ever met an Aussie) getting out the net. We skimmed the net on the surface of the water for a few minutes and got a jar full of plankton that we later looked at under microscopes.


Thanks to Kelly for the pictures!

Under the Sea

After many hours spent in the classroom or crammed in a tiny hotel pool, we were finally to the point in our scuba certification class that we got to dive in the ocean. Needless to say, we were pretty excited - and nervous. This time of year, all sorts of animals are out and about, especially gray nurse sharks.

We were told that the sharks are like "big Labradors" and that they wouldn't bother us. What our scuba instructor neglected to tell us is that he himself has a nice little scar on his back end courtesy of one of these Labradors.

So, Wednesday morning, we took a very bouncy boat trip out to Julian Rocks. This area is exactly what it sounds like: a bunch of big boulders that create a great habitat for marine life. We dove about 12 meters down on two 30 minute trips.

Above is a picture of a Carpet Shark. We saw several of these guys, and had to be careful not to accidentally hit one with a fin! They are obviously very well camouflaged. Unfortunately the visibility was very bad (4-5 meters) and the water was thick with sand, mud, and pieces of seaweed. Our instructor said that if we could dive in these conditions, we would be a pro at diving in "good" conditions. Either way, we still had a great time and saw some awesome animals.

On our first dive, right as we were getting comfortable with the cute starfish and sea anemones, our instructor started excitedly pointing to something in the distance. What do you know, it was a big gray nurse shark! Now this picture is NOT of the shark we saw (thank God) but this is the same species that another diver encountered at Julian Rocks. Yeah, looks just like a cuddly Labrador... NOT.

The snark we saw was significantly smaller than this one and for some reason was swimming with its mouth wide open. We later learned that this was probably because it was injured in some way - maybe stuck by a hook.



There were also lots of puffer fish. These guys look small, but are actually a good 1.5 - 2 ft long. In addition to these, we saw a loggerhead turtle (think Finding Nemo), a green turtle, clown fish, sea urchins, and many other fish I don't know the names of. I also could have swore I heard a whale singing... but it could have just been wishful thinking.






Here is a picture of our smiling faces after the first dive. We can't wait to dive again!

Thanks to Rusty, Kelly, and Megan for the pictures!

Treasure Hunting

This week I got to go treasure hunting in the forest! One of the men who work at the sports centre is an expert on the native flora and fauna of this region. He was generous enough to show me around. There are lots of treasures to be found in the 100 yards or so of bush that line the beaches, I don't even think we scratched the surface in three hours.

First of all, nearly every species of bird is either beautifully colored or has some other showy feature. Some of the birds whistle in a human-like fashion so convincing that I actually mistook them for another camper.

The rainbow bee eaters usually hang out near our cabins on the electrical wire. This picture doesn't do their beautiful colors justice.






Another common bird we have seen along the beach is, of course, the silver gull. I know they are probably a pest to the locals, but I love them never the less.

The trees in this area are curious as well. This tree is Coast Banksia - it has flowers that look and feel like a hairbrush. It is one of the most common trees in the area.Here is a fun game: can you find the animal in the picture below? Its a leaf mimic butterfly. Its coloration and jagged wings make it look just like an old dead leaf. I would never have noticed it had it not started flying.











The butterfly below is one that is common around the beach. I don't know its name yet.


In other news, the group passed the written and swimming portion of the scuba test on Saturday. It was a very long day to say the least, but we are all glad it is over. Now we just need to practice with our scuba gear in the swimming pool in order to be officially scuba certified!