Wednesday, March 27, 2013

mission beach & tully

when saying final goodbyes to my friends back in the states, i not only received well wishes and clingy embraces, but was sternly instructed to "please stay alive." whether sarah was concerned about australia's vast number of deadly animals/plants, depleting ozone layer, or copious alcohol consumption, she's probably right to fear for my safety. after all, recent events have shown i may be mildly accident prone (katrina put it so kindly as to say i have a death wish). but you know what? being approximately 9,6660 miles from home in a completely foreign environment hasn't really phased me. my biggest fear so far (besides when i thought i was going to fall off a boulder and die) is simply not experiencing enough of what australia has to offer. so far though i think i've been doing a pretty good job.

this past weekend, i went along with others from the arcadia program on a trip north to cardwell, mission beach and tully. we left friday afternoon and spent the evening in caldwell, a town about two hours north. originally, we were supposed to be camping but with all the rain decided against it. i can't say i was too disappointed, especially with the luxury of being able to sleep in an air-conditioned (!!!!) room. we did some outdoor grilling and enjoyed burgers the australian way- kangaroo patties with cheese, a fried egg, beet root, pineapple, tomatoes, lettuce and carrots. SO GOOD. it was incredibly filling, but once i start eating it becomes difficult to stop usually.. so fruit salad and tim-tams were necessary to follow with. a food coma ensued and we all passed out by 10pm. 




we slept in until 8 (a luxurious 10 hours of sleep) and were off for a rainforest hike. i must have been dripping with bug spray, but the mosquitos here seem to be seriously immune to it. two seconds into the trail it became difficult to take in the lush foliage with the swarm that descended upon us.. i tried to keep my cool at first but towards the end we were all sorta freaking out. but i wasn't as bad off as carolyn who had a disturbing allergic reaction to the bites all over her shoulders (the mozzies' feeding ground of choice). we semi sprinted to the beach once we were in site of it and the relief was instantaneous. everyone agreed that it was probably wise to walk back to the bus via the sandy shoreline. 


the trail looked promising at first..


i loved how there were flowering vines growing over the sand


it was actually agonizing stopping to take pictures



sprint walking through the jungle


we were VERY excited to reach the water



thought this tree was pretty cool looking


we spotted a snake out the window and had to stop to take some photos. pretty sure it had a small frog in its mouth

next stop was up a little way to echo creek, where we met members of the grant family and learned about a little bit about their aboriginal culture. their land was beautiful and a thick fog had descended over the mountains. we listened to one of their stories about the taipan snake and the fire it once guarded, then all painted boomerangs with the intention of illustrating part of the story. my artistic talents did not go very far unfortunately. i blame being rushed.. we also tried throwing wooden "spears" at rolling wooden circles (supposed to simulate kangaroos running by). i know its hard to believe, but i would likely starve if forced to hunt this way..


such natural artists


hunting our dinner of wooden circles


look at that form!

we spent the rest of the evening exploring mission beach, another coastal town. there were actually waves here which i would have loved to swim in, but i still had stitches in so no swimming for me. instead we played some frisbee on the beach and wandered around until dinner (delicious pizza). we stayed at a cool rainforest hostel that night and shared a room with a family of geckos. 


mission beach, late afternoon


there was evidence of a large ghost crab population on the beach, they form these circular bits of sand as they feed


our rainforest hostel



sunday morning: kayak adventure down the bulgan creek in tully! this was the best day of the weekend by far. the entire journey was not only really beautiful but exciting as we went through several rapids! i was very surprised that i managed to stay in my kayak the entire time.


preparing to board



definitely waterproof


rapids under this bridge proved hazardous to some




what an awesome weekend spent with wonderful people! and there is still so much to look forward to.

Thursday, March 21, 2013

where are the days going?


seriously though, i'm blaming my recent lack of blogging on that the days are simply going by too fast. last week was especially busy, as I took a CPR/first aid/emergency oxygen course tuesday through thursday. i could go into details on how to give chest compressions to dummies, but that's not very exciting. anyway, i'd way rather share pictures and interesting stories than just recounting my daily activities. 


tried my first passionfruit- sooo good. it was surprisingly light to hold.



last weekend was relaxing after a long week. i spent saturday afternoon down at the strand swimming and chilling on the beach (didn't get sunburn!!), and made it to the townsville home rugby game in the evening. i somehow scored free tickets from the doctor i'd gotten my diving medical from, and they were surprisingly good! it was the most fun though sitting with my other friends down in the grass pretending i knew what was going on. later that night we went back to the beach and visited with one of my friends from rock climbing, who had just moved into a sweet house right by the water. one of the very best parts of that day was borrowing longboards from his housemate and riding down the smooth path along the beach. it was only like my third time longboarding but so much fun- i definitely want to invest in one when i get back to LA.


the cowboys (townsville) vs the storm (melbourne)



playing with fire


it was a beautiful day out on sunday, perfect a drive up to mt. stuart for some rock climbing. mt. stuart overlooks townsville and magnetic island- the view from here is incredible and makes castle hill look super tiny. there's also some awesome rock faces for climbing. being the skilled athlete as i am, i managed to impale myself on a rock even before we began climbing. with my shin bleeding profusely, it seemed like not such a good day for climbing after all.. i ended up getting a few stitches at the hospital instead. but i still got some cool pictures at mt. stuart & ended the night with friends in town to celebrate st. patrick's day.


before..


& after




i'm definitely coming back to actually climb soon





mexican beer on st. patrick's day? sure!

monday i only had one class, and after that katrina and i set off to explore the botanical gardens. we rented bicycles from one of the colleges and miraculously found our destination after some near death experiences riding through roundabouts (we somehow had to get on a highway for part of the fifteen minute trip).


the bikes of death










mt. stuart in the background




after the perilous journey back to school, i managed to impress katrina by waving to one of our friends and immediately falling off my bike afterwards (note: no cars around, flat road). got some more sweet scratches but my stitches remained untouched. sorry, but you all can't be as naturally agile as me.  

i spent tuesday by going to class, climbing at the gym, and spending four hours in the bathroom with ryan boiling down a fish head into just its small individual bones... i'd never smelled better. we are both in this reef fish morphology class, and our first project is to reconstruct a fish skull. it was pretty gnarly getting all the muscle and skin off, and there are so many small bits that putting this dude back together is going to be no easy task.  for now, we are waiting for the bones to get clean and bleached- later in the semester i'll start complaining again. 



after a few hours (did i mention the lights wouldn't stop flickering) we started to feel slightly crazy and seizure prone



bones on bones on bones


wednesday my frisbee team won our first game! i might actually be getting better at this game but its hard to say. no promises- i did manage to get body slammed into the ground by one of my own teammates. again my stitches were miraculously avoided, but the doctor did tell me today i need to wait a few days longer to get them out.. 

this weekend i am headed north with the fellow americans from my study abroad group to explore the rainforest in Paluma Range National Park, experience Aboriginal culture in Echo Creek, enjoy the sun at Mission Beach, and go kayaking in Tully (officially known as the wettest town in Australia). good thing i got waterproof bandages!