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!

Sunrise and Surf

The day we arrived in Australia we were in desperate need of sleep, so many of us crashed at 7 or 8pm. I decided to take advantage of this fact and set my alarm for 5:45am the next morning. An eastern ocean sunrise is one of the only reasons I would ever willingly do this.

In the distance here you can see Lennox Point, one of the best surfing spots in the world. Of the many water fowl we have spotted in the last few days, these pelicans are one of the few I recognize.

With a landscape like this, we just had to get in the water. But because its winter, the water is still very cold. So, later in the week, we bought used wetsuits and went boogie boarding.

This is me and my buddy Jackie in our swanky new suits.