I just got back from a ten day stay on Heron Island and now it's my last week in Australia. I may not get my blog entry about the trip up until after I'm back in the States because of all the work I have to do before I leave, but I have put up the first batch of pictures. I can't take credit for most of the underwater shots, but I thought I should share them all the same.
<3 Jessie
http://s279.photobucket.com/albums/kk130/Jess_E_Rose/?albumview=slideshow
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
From the City to the Outback
I recently spent three nights in Sydney with a couple other girls from my program, Becca and Amanda. Lucky for us, Becca has a close friend, Courtney, living in Sydney at the moment, so we stayed with her for the weekend. She showed us around all the places one is supposed to visit while in Sydney. Of course, our first stop was Circular Quay, which is where both the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House are. I was surprised to find that the Opera House is not, actually one big building, but a few buildings positioned close together. As expected, we took lots of pictures in front of Australia's icon from every angle until our cameras tired of capturing the same shot over and over. After we had had our fill of tacky tourism for the day, we went inside some old building close by. I don't know what the name of the building is and if we hadn't been with Courtney, we would have seen no reason to go inside. We followed Courtney assuming we were just going to the lou or something, but to our surprise, there was a mini replica of the city of Sydney sitting a foot or two below our own feet protected by a ceiling of glass.
Courtney took us to Bondi Beach, where she and I ate a full rack of ribs... each! from a restaurant called Hurricanes, a local favorite. We wandered around the city taking in the sights. There was an art exhibit going on throughout the entire city ( I think it was called "Art and About"). Perhaps the most interesting piece we saw was a giant bike, at least 30 ft tall, made entirely out of parts from regular sized bikes. She showed us Manly Beach, which is similar to Huntington. We took the Ferry from Manly back to Circular Quay so we could look at the Opera House from yet another angle. We asked a man to take a picture of the four of us in front of it, but he only managed to get the corner of it in :P. One of our evenings, we went back to the Opera House so we could watch the sunset behind Harbour Bridge. Unfortunately, it was cloudy, but the view was still very beautiful. Another night, we trekked over to Darling Harbour to watch a fireworks show. There were so many fireworks, it would have had Jared saying "is it the grand finale, yet" non-stop. I also managed to meet up with my friend Todd, who lives in the suburbs of Sydney for a coffee and chat.
After Sydney, I made my way into the Outback, sort of. We drove West for ten hours and were still about another days drive from the very beginnings of the actual Outback. Carnarvon Gorge was beautiful and we were lucky to be there during a particularly rainy season, because it meant the weather was not too hot and the wild flowers were blooming everywhere. Speaking of... did you know Australia has a native wild hibiscus species? And it's edible? I sure didn't!
We spent the majority of our time hiking around the gorge. One of the hikes required five or six river crossings each way, which would have been no big deal since there were large stepping stones leading the way across... except for the fact that high rainfall had caused the water level to rise well above the stepping stones. Every time we came to the river, we would take our shoes and socks off and forge through. Everyone moved very slowly since the current was fairly rapid and there were big rocks hiding just out of visibility waiting to stub any unsuspecting toe. At one point the water was nearly up to out butts. Some people slipped and got entirely soaked... and of course, being the kind people that we are, the rest of us laughed at them. We got smart by the time we were making our second pass at all the crossings and just left our shoes and socks off until we reached the end of the trail.
Just like at Girraween, there were kangaroos everywhere. We saw quite a few joeys with their mothers and some huge males. There were pretty faced wallabies and kookaburra. I spent some time waiting patiently by the platypus pool hoping to catch a glimpse of one. After a few attempts, I finally saw one! Actually, I saw the tip top of its head before it ducked quickly below the surface, but hey, that's more than most people can say. :)
One morning we woke up at the leisurely hour of FOUR AM so we would have enough time to hike to the top of Boolimba Bluff for the sunrise. Half of the hike was, quite literally, straight up a huge flight of stairs so that by the time we reached the summit everyone's knees were shaking. Unfortunately, we missed the sunrise by about fifteen minutes, but the morning mist hid the sun from us anyway, so it wouldn't have mattered much when we showed up. Even though we missed the sunrise, we were happy to have conquered such a grueling trail and the view from the top rivaled the view from our sunrise perch in Lamington.
Tonight, at 11:30 pm, I hop on a bus for my final field trip during my stay in Australia. My destination is the Heron Island Research Station where my class mates and I will have the opportunity to conduct our own research projects as well as dive on the Great Barrier Reef. I'll talk to you all in ten days!
~ Jessie
Courtney took us to Bondi Beach, where she and I ate a full rack of ribs... each! from a restaurant called Hurricanes, a local favorite. We wandered around the city taking in the sights. There was an art exhibit going on throughout the entire city ( I think it was called "Art and About"). Perhaps the most interesting piece we saw was a giant bike, at least 30 ft tall, made entirely out of parts from regular sized bikes. She showed us Manly Beach, which is similar to Huntington. We took the Ferry from Manly back to Circular Quay so we could look at the Opera House from yet another angle. We asked a man to take a picture of the four of us in front of it, but he only managed to get the corner of it in :P. One of our evenings, we went back to the Opera House so we could watch the sunset behind Harbour Bridge. Unfortunately, it was cloudy, but the view was still very beautiful. Another night, we trekked over to Darling Harbour to watch a fireworks show. There were so many fireworks, it would have had Jared saying "is it the grand finale, yet" non-stop. I also managed to meet up with my friend Todd, who lives in the suburbs of Sydney for a coffee and chat.
After Sydney, I made my way into the Outback, sort of. We drove West for ten hours and were still about another days drive from the very beginnings of the actual Outback. Carnarvon Gorge was beautiful and we were lucky to be there during a particularly rainy season, because it meant the weather was not too hot and the wild flowers were blooming everywhere. Speaking of... did you know Australia has a native wild hibiscus species? And it's edible? I sure didn't!
We spent the majority of our time hiking around the gorge. One of the hikes required five or six river crossings each way, which would have been no big deal since there were large stepping stones leading the way across... except for the fact that high rainfall had caused the water level to rise well above the stepping stones. Every time we came to the river, we would take our shoes and socks off and forge through. Everyone moved very slowly since the current was fairly rapid and there were big rocks hiding just out of visibility waiting to stub any unsuspecting toe. At one point the water was nearly up to out butts. Some people slipped and got entirely soaked... and of course, being the kind people that we are, the rest of us laughed at them. We got smart by the time we were making our second pass at all the crossings and just left our shoes and socks off until we reached the end of the trail.
Just like at Girraween, there were kangaroos everywhere. We saw quite a few joeys with their mothers and some huge males. There were pretty faced wallabies and kookaburra. I spent some time waiting patiently by the platypus pool hoping to catch a glimpse of one. After a few attempts, I finally saw one! Actually, I saw the tip top of its head before it ducked quickly below the surface, but hey, that's more than most people can say. :)
One morning we woke up at the leisurely hour of FOUR AM so we would have enough time to hike to the top of Boolimba Bluff for the sunrise. Half of the hike was, quite literally, straight up a huge flight of stairs so that by the time we reached the summit everyone's knees were shaking. Unfortunately, we missed the sunrise by about fifteen minutes, but the morning mist hid the sun from us anyway, so it wouldn't have mattered much when we showed up. Even though we missed the sunrise, we were happy to have conquered such a grueling trail and the view from the top rivaled the view from our sunrise perch in Lamington.
Tonight, at 11:30 pm, I hop on a bus for my final field trip during my stay in Australia. My destination is the Heron Island Research Station where my class mates and I will have the opportunity to conduct our own research projects as well as dive on the Great Barrier Reef. I'll talk to you all in ten days!
~ Jessie
Monday, October 25, 2010
Aaaaaaah!
Here's a brief outline of what the last month of my stay in Australia looks like.
I spent the second weekend of October in Sydney, flew back to Brisbane that Sunday morning and left for Carnarvon Gorge the next morning (Monday). After a ten hour bus ride, my class mates and I arrived at the Gorge where we spent five days forging rivers, hunting platypuses, and doing field work. After another ten hour bus ride, this time in the rain, we were back in Brisbane, again. All time unoccupied by lecture during the next week was spent working on a scientific report about the research I had done while on Straddie. That paper was due last thursday. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and today were spent working on a paper for my Australian Studies class, which I just turned in, as well as studying for the Marine Bio final I have on Wednesday. Currently, I'm taking a break from school work to, finally, update my blog. Then it's back to studying. I leave for a trip to Heron Island on the Great Barrier Reef late Thursday night and need to have most of my research for a project testing the effects of sea cucumber toxins on bacteria done before then. Then I'll spend ten labourious days snorkeling and diving among the corals; I know, my life really sucks ;) When I get back from Heron on November 7, it's back to the grind stone to spit out a scientific paper on my Heron Island research, write a paper and take a final for my Terrestrial Ecology class and write up a research proposal before Friday the 13. I guess I had to earn those 21 units at some point. haha
My detailed account of Sydney and Carnarvon will be up soon. The pictures are already up, though. So take a look and enjoy!
http://s279.photobucket.com/albums/kk130/Jess_E_Rose/?albumview=slideshow
I spent the second weekend of October in Sydney, flew back to Brisbane that Sunday morning and left for Carnarvon Gorge the next morning (Monday). After a ten hour bus ride, my class mates and I arrived at the Gorge where we spent five days forging rivers, hunting platypuses, and doing field work. After another ten hour bus ride, this time in the rain, we were back in Brisbane, again. All time unoccupied by lecture during the next week was spent working on a scientific report about the research I had done while on Straddie. That paper was due last thursday. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and today were spent working on a paper for my Australian Studies class, which I just turned in, as well as studying for the Marine Bio final I have on Wednesday. Currently, I'm taking a break from school work to, finally, update my blog. Then it's back to studying. I leave for a trip to Heron Island on the Great Barrier Reef late Thursday night and need to have most of my research for a project testing the effects of sea cucumber toxins on bacteria done before then. Then I'll spend ten labourious days snorkeling and diving among the corals; I know, my life really sucks ;) When I get back from Heron on November 7, it's back to the grind stone to spit out a scientific paper on my Heron Island research, write a paper and take a final for my Terrestrial Ecology class and write up a research proposal before Friday the 13. I guess I had to earn those 21 units at some point. haha
My detailed account of Sydney and Carnarvon will be up soon. The pictures are already up, though. So take a look and enjoy!
http://s279.photobucket.com/albums/kk130/Jess_E_Rose/?albumview=slideshow
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Stradbroke Island
I thought it would be a good idea to spend a little time each evening, during my stay on Straddie, writing about the day's activities so I could post my blog in a timely manner soon after my return to Brissy. ... if only thought was all it took. Anyway, I think it goes without saying, I didn't follow through with my idea so now I have to think back on what I did to give you the full story. I'm going to switch things up a bit this time; the day-by-day mini journal won't really work well for this trip so I'll just give you the highlights.
The first thing we did after setting our stuff down at the Moreton Bay Research Station was hop in a little power boat with our snorkel gear and go exploring around a tiny mangrove island just off the coast of Straddie. The waters of Moreton Bay are interspersed with high latitude reefs which aren't as extensive or colorful as the reefs at lower latitudes such as the GBR, but but are no less beautiful. We all swam about and poked around one of these high latitude reefs for a couple of hours before getting too cold and heading back to the station. I'm sure we were an amusing sight to any onlookers; upwards of forty people all wearing masks, snorkels, and fins swimming in every which direction and occasionally ducking below the surface.
The reef wasn't very deep; only about six feet down, but the difference between what I could see at the surface and what I saw when I dove down was quite surprising. Floating like a dead person across the surface, I could make out shapes and see some really cool brain corals maybe a few larger fish, but once I dove a few feet it was like the whole reef had transformed. There were little fish hiding in crevices and filter feeding tube worms poking their fronds out. I wouldn't say the snorkel was as spectacular as my dive off Straddie a month or so ago (mainly because I didn't see any sharks or turtles), but it was different. There are different organisms living in six foot deep waters versus 40 foot deep waters so it was a great chance for me to see the diversity of Moreton Bay.
Of course, not everything is as hard to get to. We also spent a good amount of time exploring the rocky and sandy shores near the station during low tide. There were tons of nudibranchs, bubble snails and flat worms all over the sandy shore and the rocky shore was infested with crabs. Someone caught an octopus with a net; it was quite small and didn't look like anything too exciting, but it ended up being a blue ring. You can't really tell that blue rings are blue rings until you piss them off... so, naturally, we pissed it off to find out if it was, in fact, a blue ring and it changed from brown to bright blue in an instant. (no scientists or helpless marine creatures were harmed.)
Another great way to see what lives in the sea is to go seine netting. A seine net, at least the one we used, is about thirty meters in length with floats attached to the top and a lead weight on the bottom. Basically, you stick your foot through a loop attached to the lead line then walk through the water for a time. Eventually, you, and heaps of other people to help, drag the net toward the shore and end up dragging marine organisms in with you. The seine net brought up a few small sting rays, a guitar fish, some puffers, sea cucumbers, itty bitty squids, prawns, eels, and tons of other creatures. We collected them all out of the net and after a short while of playing with them, we released them back into the ocean.
This field trip marked the start to my scientific research as a marine biologist. We were broken up into groups to come up with and conduct our own research projects. My group decided to compare the crab population densities and diversities on a rocky shore frequented by people versus a rocky shore seldom visited as well as look at the percent algal cover and number of gastropods, little snails, on each shore. Over the course of four days, my group went down to the rocky shores during morning low tide to count gastropods, estimate percent algal cover, and catch crabs. Each day, we spent one hour catching as many crabs as possible and tossing them in a bucket for safe keeping until we could ID, sex, and measure them. No crevice was left un-inspected and no rock left unturned in our hunt for crabs.
Since it was raining most of the time, we brought the crabs back to the station to sort them by species and gather data on their sex and size. There was a little difficulty at first with identifying some species, but, luckily for us, Peter Davey, the crab expert, just happened to be staying across the street from the station for a few days with his wife. He managed to sneak away to have a look at our crabs and helped us ID the species we weren't sure of. After all our data was collected, we returned the crabs to their home shores then I sat at my computer inputting everything into excel. I spent a large portion of my evenings looking up scientific papers to cite for the paper that I eventually have to write about our mini study. ( I was working on it earlier this evening, but then decided my blog would be a more worthwhile endeavor. Don't worry, the paper isn't due until the 21st. so I've still got plenty of time.)
These projects took up the majority of our time on the Island, but we did manage to play around a bit. A few of us went out for a snorkel over the sandy shore we had previously trampled over during a break in the rain. There wasn't a whole lot to see, but we did get to swim with a huge school of shinny fish. Being mature university students and adults, we pretended to be dolphins and chased the school around for a good half hour watching them move as a body of one. It was big fun indeed! hahaha. Later in the week, about half of us went on a little sand boarding excursion. That was a lot of fun too. I guess sand boarding is kind of like snow boarding or skate boarding, but only in the sense that you stand on a board with one foot in front of the other. Steering is weird; you put all your weight on your back leg and use your front leg to decide where to go, which is extremely difficult. I did manage to ride down the hill standing up on the board quite a few times... so yay!
Our last day on Straddie, we ventured over to Point Lookout to have a wander around the cliffs and beaches. From the cliffs, we saw some turtles and dolphins in the water. And in the distance, we could see whales breeching and spouting. We stopped off at a gelato shop then continued down the beach. After swimming for about an hour, we loaded onto the bus and came back home to Brissy. But only for a short while; I'm flying to Sydney tomorrow afternoon for a three day weekend then on Monday heading to Carnarvon Gorge for our final Terrestrial Ecology field trip. Life in Australia is busy! But I love it.
<3 Jessie
The first thing we did after setting our stuff down at the Moreton Bay Research Station was hop in a little power boat with our snorkel gear and go exploring around a tiny mangrove island just off the coast of Straddie. The waters of Moreton Bay are interspersed with high latitude reefs which aren't as extensive or colorful as the reefs at lower latitudes such as the GBR, but but are no less beautiful. We all swam about and poked around one of these high latitude reefs for a couple of hours before getting too cold and heading back to the station. I'm sure we were an amusing sight to any onlookers; upwards of forty people all wearing masks, snorkels, and fins swimming in every which direction and occasionally ducking below the surface.
The reef wasn't very deep; only about six feet down, but the difference between what I could see at the surface and what I saw when I dove down was quite surprising. Floating like a dead person across the surface, I could make out shapes and see some really cool brain corals maybe a few larger fish, but once I dove a few feet it was like the whole reef had transformed. There were little fish hiding in crevices and filter feeding tube worms poking their fronds out. I wouldn't say the snorkel was as spectacular as my dive off Straddie a month or so ago (mainly because I didn't see any sharks or turtles), but it was different. There are different organisms living in six foot deep waters versus 40 foot deep waters so it was a great chance for me to see the diversity of Moreton Bay.
Of course, not everything is as hard to get to. We also spent a good amount of time exploring the rocky and sandy shores near the station during low tide. There were tons of nudibranchs, bubble snails and flat worms all over the sandy shore and the rocky shore was infested with crabs. Someone caught an octopus with a net; it was quite small and didn't look like anything too exciting, but it ended up being a blue ring. You can't really tell that blue rings are blue rings until you piss them off... so, naturally, we pissed it off to find out if it was, in fact, a blue ring and it changed from brown to bright blue in an instant. (no scientists or helpless marine creatures were harmed.)
Another great way to see what lives in the sea is to go seine netting. A seine net, at least the one we used, is about thirty meters in length with floats attached to the top and a lead weight on the bottom. Basically, you stick your foot through a loop attached to the lead line then walk through the water for a time. Eventually, you, and heaps of other people to help, drag the net toward the shore and end up dragging marine organisms in with you. The seine net brought up a few small sting rays, a guitar fish, some puffers, sea cucumbers, itty bitty squids, prawns, eels, and tons of other creatures. We collected them all out of the net and after a short while of playing with them, we released them back into the ocean.
This field trip marked the start to my scientific research as a marine biologist. We were broken up into groups to come up with and conduct our own research projects. My group decided to compare the crab population densities and diversities on a rocky shore frequented by people versus a rocky shore seldom visited as well as look at the percent algal cover and number of gastropods, little snails, on each shore. Over the course of four days, my group went down to the rocky shores during morning low tide to count gastropods, estimate percent algal cover, and catch crabs. Each day, we spent one hour catching as many crabs as possible and tossing them in a bucket for safe keeping until we could ID, sex, and measure them. No crevice was left un-inspected and no rock left unturned in our hunt for crabs.
Since it was raining most of the time, we brought the crabs back to the station to sort them by species and gather data on their sex and size. There was a little difficulty at first with identifying some species, but, luckily for us, Peter Davey, the crab expert, just happened to be staying across the street from the station for a few days with his wife. He managed to sneak away to have a look at our crabs and helped us ID the species we weren't sure of. After all our data was collected, we returned the crabs to their home shores then I sat at my computer inputting everything into excel. I spent a large portion of my evenings looking up scientific papers to cite for the paper that I eventually have to write about our mini study. ( I was working on it earlier this evening, but then decided my blog would be a more worthwhile endeavor. Don't worry, the paper isn't due until the 21st. so I've still got plenty of time.)
These projects took up the majority of our time on the Island, but we did manage to play around a bit. A few of us went out for a snorkel over the sandy shore we had previously trampled over during a break in the rain. There wasn't a whole lot to see, but we did get to swim with a huge school of shinny fish. Being mature university students and adults, we pretended to be dolphins and chased the school around for a good half hour watching them move as a body of one. It was big fun indeed! hahaha. Later in the week, about half of us went on a little sand boarding excursion. That was a lot of fun too. I guess sand boarding is kind of like snow boarding or skate boarding, but only in the sense that you stand on a board with one foot in front of the other. Steering is weird; you put all your weight on your back leg and use your front leg to decide where to go, which is extremely difficult. I did manage to ride down the hill standing up on the board quite a few times... so yay!
Our last day on Straddie, we ventured over to Point Lookout to have a wander around the cliffs and beaches. From the cliffs, we saw some turtles and dolphins in the water. And in the distance, we could see whales breeching and spouting. We stopped off at a gelato shop then continued down the beach. After swimming for about an hour, we loaded onto the bus and came back home to Brissy. But only for a short while; I'm flying to Sydney tomorrow afternoon for a three day weekend then on Monday heading to Carnarvon Gorge for our final Terrestrial Ecology field trip. Life in Australia is busy! But I love it.
<3 Jessie
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
More photos, oh boy!
I've added some more photos from my camera as well as a bunch that I've taken from my friends... they are now slightly out of order, but i'll put little explanations saying where they were taken.
http://s279.photobucket.com/albums/kk130/Jess_E_Rose/?albumview=slideshow
http://s279.photobucket.com/albums/kk130/Jess_E_Rose/?albumview=slideshow
Monday, September 27, 2010
Melbne Not Melbourne
Sorry for not updating the blog for quite some time. I had midterms last week so most of my free time was spent studying. I have nearly filled up the hard drive on my computer and therefore, have no more room for new photos to upload onto photo bucket. I'll sort it out soon so I can share my pictures with everyone.
Anyway... I had four days off from Uni the weekend before last and decided to head down to Melbourne (pronounced Melbne in Aussie) with some of the other EAP kids.
As is tradition, a journal of my explorations in Melbourne...
Day One
My friend Shannon and I left straight from Uni Wednesday the 15th for the airport to catch our flight at 5pm. We got there quite a bit early and ended up being able to switch to the flight at 4. After a little more than two hours, we landed in Melbourne and began the task of finding our hostel in St. Kilda. Luckily for us, a shuttle took us from the airport to the center of the city where we caught a tram that took us right to our hostel. Another stroke of luck; the hostel messed up on our booking and accidently put us in an all girls six bunk room for the first two nights instead of the coed eight bunk rooms we had expected.
After settling into the room, and putting warmer clothes on since it was about 20 degrees cooler in Melbourne than it had been in Brissy, Shannon and I worked on our papers. Yes, papers. We had a short essay on an Australian habitat of our choice due on Friday so we managed to set out a little bit of time each day to work on them. For dinner, we found a hole in the wall Indian restaurant called Lentil as Anything that lets you decide how much you want to pay for your meal. We shared a plate of the most amazing curry ever then went back to the lounge area of our hostel and played giant Jenga while listening to a guy playing guitar and singing until Christina arrived; she had taken a later flight. Once she showed up, the three of us sat and listened to the guy performing then went upstairs to our rooms for an early sleep.
Day Two
Woke up early to do some more work on my paper. I'm such a good student :) Christina, Shannon, and I got some delicious coffee and wandered around the main street of St. Kilda. Once we were done with coffee, we bought a few day passes for the tram and headed to Brunswick St. to do some shopping. Everything was too expensive for our wallets, but we had fun looking through all the clothes. After a eating an amazing panini for lunch, we decided to try and find the Tim Burton Exhibit. We weren't quite sure where it was, but we figured the museum was a good place to start. Turns out, the exhibit was on the other side of the city from the museum so we hopped on a tram and got off at the convention center, which is not where the exhibit was either. We asked one of the ladies who worked at the convention center how to get to the exhibit and her directions took us in the wrong direction. So we got off yet another tram and waited for the one that would take us in the right direction. Then it started raining on us! :P We took shelter in the play equipment at a park right next to us and waited. Fortunately, the rain only lasted about ten minutes. The next tram we got on took us to Federation Square; the heart of the city... and the location of the exhibit! yay! Our next few hours we occupied by Edward Scissorhands, Jack Skellington, and the Mad Hatter along with some lesser known characters spawned by the strange mind of Tim Burton. Our day had made us quite hungry so we headed "home" to the hostel and cooked ourselves some pasta; an inexpensive staple in the diet of anyone traveling on a budget in a foreign country.
I suppose I've made it sound like we spent most of the day helplessly lost in a city none of us had ever seen before, but we took every wrong turn as a new adventure. We even intentionally spent time wandering around the streets of Melbourne taking in all the sights. The graffiti in Melbourne was fun to look at. For the most part, instead of names of gangs or profanities, they are works of art. It became part of our weekend to be on the look out for interesting graffiti everywhere we went. Also a big part of my weekend... coffee; I'm addicted and Melbourne has the best cappuccinos ever!
Day Three
I finished writing my paper right after I woke up and sent it into my professor for grading. Shannon was not quite done yet, so Christina and I made our way to a cafe for a nice cup of coffee. And what did we do while we were at the cafe? We studied for our midterms!!! Shannon met up with us a short while later and the three of us stayed there until about one before deciding to head into the city for some more explorations.
My homestay had suggested that I visit the Queen Victoria Markets during my stay in Melbourne, so that's where we went. It was sort of late in the day, as far as market hours go, by the time we got there so a lot of the vendors were breaking down there stalls, but all of the food vendors were still going full force. Since we hadn't eaten for a few hours, we bought a huge loaf of bread and some fancy cheese and sat outside filling our very happy bellies. We were so full from our little "snack" that we didn't have to eat dinner that night. We did however, have room for some tasty cakes from a bakery near our hostel.
Day Four
Since we missed out on most of the shopping at the markets, we got an early start wanting to get the full experience. Basically, the markets are a massive swap meet and everything sold there is heaps cheeper than in regular stores. So... naturally... we did all of our souvenir shopping there. After far too much time shopping, we visited China town, which was a lot smaller and cleaner than any China town in America.
Our last stop of the day was the Victoria National Gallery, home of the largest suspended stained glass in the world. On our way there, we passed a street performer who looked extremely familiar. We stopped to watch him and later found out that he was the guy staying in the bunk below mine back at our hostel. We also passed Melbourne's version of the Eiffel tour (at least, that's what I'm calling it) and a really cool rainbow high rise; its windows were all different colors. There was a bit of confusion in finding the right streets, because Melbourne doesn't feel the need to use street signs at every corner and they can't decide on just one name for a few of their streets, but at last, we made it to the gallery. The glass was amazing. We entered a large empty hall, walked right to the middle, then lay down and gazed upward. The entire ceiling was covered in a mosaic of glass; it wasn't as breathtaking as the cave of glow worms, but it was pretty amazing to see.
Day Five (sort of...)
Shannon and I had to wake up at 6:30 in the morning so we could get to the airport in time for our 8 am flight; I really do love having to rely on public transportation :P . That's all there is to say about sunday.
Cheers, Jessie
As is tradition, a journal of my explorations in Melbourne...
Day One
My friend Shannon and I left straight from Uni Wednesday the 15th for the airport to catch our flight at 5pm. We got there quite a bit early and ended up being able to switch to the flight at 4. After a little more than two hours, we landed in Melbourne and began the task of finding our hostel in St. Kilda. Luckily for us, a shuttle took us from the airport to the center of the city where we caught a tram that took us right to our hostel. Another stroke of luck; the hostel messed up on our booking and accidently put us in an all girls six bunk room for the first two nights instead of the coed eight bunk rooms we had expected.
After settling into the room, and putting warmer clothes on since it was about 20 degrees cooler in Melbourne than it had been in Brissy, Shannon and I worked on our papers. Yes, papers. We had a short essay on an Australian habitat of our choice due on Friday so we managed to set out a little bit of time each day to work on them. For dinner, we found a hole in the wall Indian restaurant called Lentil as Anything that lets you decide how much you want to pay for your meal. We shared a plate of the most amazing curry ever then went back to the lounge area of our hostel and played giant Jenga while listening to a guy playing guitar and singing until Christina arrived; she had taken a later flight. Once she showed up, the three of us sat and listened to the guy performing then went upstairs to our rooms for an early sleep.
Day Two
Woke up early to do some more work on my paper. I'm such a good student :) Christina, Shannon, and I got some delicious coffee and wandered around the main street of St. Kilda. Once we were done with coffee, we bought a few day passes for the tram and headed to Brunswick St. to do some shopping. Everything was too expensive for our wallets, but we had fun looking through all the clothes. After a eating an amazing panini for lunch, we decided to try and find the Tim Burton Exhibit. We weren't quite sure where it was, but we figured the museum was a good place to start. Turns out, the exhibit was on the other side of the city from the museum so we hopped on a tram and got off at the convention center, which is not where the exhibit was either. We asked one of the ladies who worked at the convention center how to get to the exhibit and her directions took us in the wrong direction. So we got off yet another tram and waited for the one that would take us in the right direction. Then it started raining on us! :P We took shelter in the play equipment at a park right next to us and waited. Fortunately, the rain only lasted about ten minutes. The next tram we got on took us to Federation Square; the heart of the city... and the location of the exhibit! yay! Our next few hours we occupied by Edward Scissorhands, Jack Skellington, and the Mad Hatter along with some lesser known characters spawned by the strange mind of Tim Burton. Our day had made us quite hungry so we headed "home" to the hostel and cooked ourselves some pasta; an inexpensive staple in the diet of anyone traveling on a budget in a foreign country.
I suppose I've made it sound like we spent most of the day helplessly lost in a city none of us had ever seen before, but we took every wrong turn as a new adventure. We even intentionally spent time wandering around the streets of Melbourne taking in all the sights. The graffiti in Melbourne was fun to look at. For the most part, instead of names of gangs or profanities, they are works of art. It became part of our weekend to be on the look out for interesting graffiti everywhere we went. Also a big part of my weekend... coffee; I'm addicted and Melbourne has the best cappuccinos ever!
Day Three
I finished writing my paper right after I woke up and sent it into my professor for grading. Shannon was not quite done yet, so Christina and I made our way to a cafe for a nice cup of coffee. And what did we do while we were at the cafe? We studied for our midterms!!! Shannon met up with us a short while later and the three of us stayed there until about one before deciding to head into the city for some more explorations.
My homestay had suggested that I visit the Queen Victoria Markets during my stay in Melbourne, so that's where we went. It was sort of late in the day, as far as market hours go, by the time we got there so a lot of the vendors were breaking down there stalls, but all of the food vendors were still going full force. Since we hadn't eaten for a few hours, we bought a huge loaf of bread and some fancy cheese and sat outside filling our very happy bellies. We were so full from our little "snack" that we didn't have to eat dinner that night. We did however, have room for some tasty cakes from a bakery near our hostel.
Day Four
Since we missed out on most of the shopping at the markets, we got an early start wanting to get the full experience. Basically, the markets are a massive swap meet and everything sold there is heaps cheeper than in regular stores. So... naturally... we did all of our souvenir shopping there. After far too much time shopping, we visited China town, which was a lot smaller and cleaner than any China town in America.
Our last stop of the day was the Victoria National Gallery, home of the largest suspended stained glass in the world. On our way there, we passed a street performer who looked extremely familiar. We stopped to watch him and later found out that he was the guy staying in the bunk below mine back at our hostel. We also passed Melbourne's version of the Eiffel tour (at least, that's what I'm calling it) and a really cool rainbow high rise; its windows were all different colors. There was a bit of confusion in finding the right streets, because Melbourne doesn't feel the need to use street signs at every corner and they can't decide on just one name for a few of their streets, but at last, we made it to the gallery. The glass was amazing. We entered a large empty hall, walked right to the middle, then lay down and gazed upward. The entire ceiling was covered in a mosaic of glass; it wasn't as breathtaking as the cave of glow worms, but it was pretty amazing to see.
Day Five (sort of...)
Shannon and I had to wake up at 6:30 in the morning so we could get to the airport in time for our 8 am flight; I really do love having to rely on public transportation :P . That's all there is to say about sunday.
Cheers, Jessie
Monday, September 13, 2010
A Cave of Glow Worms
In keeping with the fashion of how I documented Girraween, here is a mini journal of my stay in Lamington National Park. ( and I apologize for taking so long to post my newest entry)
Day One
We arrived at Bina Burra, a camp in Lamington, around 11 Monday morning. After a brief lecture and inadequate lunch of soup we made our first venture into the rainforest. The rainforest is pretty much what you'd expect; wet, green, shady. There aren't many brightly colored plants or animals like what you might find in other parts of the world, but Lamington is no less breathtaking.
Day Two
After breakfast and a short lecture, we were separated into three groups. My group headed off with two of the teaching staff, Michelle and Ayesha, on a 17 K hike through the rain forest. We spent nearly 7 hours walking through the forest which was beautiful, but really made me feel trapped after a while; it was nice to finally emerge from the forest and see the open sky.
One of our assignments over the course of our ecology field trips is to find insects and draw them in our field books with brief descriptions of their behaviors and what we think the function of their physical features might be. Michelle is an entomologist so about every 10 of 15 minutes someone would find a bug and yell "Michelle!! What is this?" then take a picture so they could sketch it later.
Day Three
Again, after breakfast and a short lecture, my group headed off on a 12 K hike with our professor, John Hall. The path we followed took us through rain forest, cool temperate forest, wet sclerophyll forest, dry sclerophyll forest, and heath land. I was amazed at how rapid the vegetation would change; in a twenty minute span of time, we had walked through four different types of forest. I could give you a long explanation as to why this occurs which would be fascinating to me, but most likely boring to everyone else so I'll just say that the reason for all the variation is that nutrient richness varies in different parts of the forest and leave it at that. I am more than happy to give anyone who cares to know a more detailed explanation.
We stopped for a little break next to a creek and John surprised us with some Australian cakes called Lamingtons. We all had a giggle at the fact that we were eating Lamingtons in Lamington then continued on our way. John took us to a cliff in the middle of the heath land for lunch. We pushed through a narrow over grown path until we found ourselves in a little clearing over looking miles upon miles of forest to the right and the ocean in the distance to the left. It was a little cloudy that day so as I ate my lunch, I watched the clouds roll over the mountain tops.
At one point, we came across a massive Gum tree that had fallen to the forest floor. The whole deadwood center had been eaten out by termites so we crawled into the trunk via the roots and took a bunch of pictures. In wet sclerophyll forests, the gum trees are the tallest things around. I guess they're comparable to redwoods, so you can imagine the size of the trunk we were sitting in.
Day Four
Woke up at 4:45 in the morning... yes, MORNING! EW! to take a survey of bird calls during the dawn chorus of the rainforest. We followed John through a dark abyss of trees and vegetation, lit only by the narrow beams of our head lamps until we came to a look out. Again, we could see miles upon miles of mountains covered in forest as well as the ocean in the distance. I camped out on top of a rock as the sunlight started to grow brighter and listened for the distinct call of the Karrawong. There was a dense mass of mist looming over the river down below that slowly faded away as the the sun rose. With each passing moment, the birds grew louder and louder until the sun finally showed itself and blanketed the canopy with its warm beams. And as if a conductor had motioned for the end of a song, the birds became silent except for a few occasional cockatoo.
We had the rest of the day "off" which really means instead of going on a compulsory hike, my group spent the day doing our assessments in our field books. The work wasn't too difficult, though since we're all science nerds and find sciency work interesting.
After lunch, we went on a little walk with Michelle and saw a koala! I had seen koalas at the zoo earlier during my stay in Australia, but it was so much more exciting to see on in the wild. We were super lucky too, because the koala was actually moving around. To give you an idea of just how lucky, koalas spend 20 hours a day sleeping, so we really did walk by at just the right time.
That night, we headed up to the main lodge for a bush dance, which is much like a square dance. It was so much fun; everyone joined in. Afterward, we attempted to have a campfire, but our wood was wet so it never got going. We sat around the would-be campfire passing around a guitar and singing.
Day Five
After spending a week in the rain forest, with sunny skies and a gentle breeze, it finally rained. When we woke up, the whole forest was engulfed in cloud. Walking around was eery. We spent most of the day finishing up the remaining bits of our field books and left around six that night. Everyone was exhausted and very keen to head straight home, but we had one more stop; Natural Arch to see the glow worms. We got off our bus and hiked down a path through the forest in the nearly pitch dark, since light is detrimental to the glow worms. We eventually felt our way down a flight of stairs and ended up in a cave dotted with tiny faintly green lights. I felt like I was in the night sky, completely surrounded by stars. It was the most amazing thing I have ever experienced and it was hard to leave. I don't actually have any pictures to show you, because cameras are not allowed in the glow worm (actually, they're glow maggots) cave so you'll just have to take my word that it was amazing.
I'm currently doing research on Australian deserts in the UQ library. I have a paper due Friday, but a few of us are heading down to Melbourne tomorrow (Wed) night for our long weekend, so I would like to have my paper done today and not have to worry about it. If I actually get my paper done today, you should all be immensely proud of me; I don't think I've ever finished an assignment more than a few hours before it was due. :)
Cheers,
Jessie
ps the latest pictures will be up before monday.
Day One
We arrived at Bina Burra, a camp in Lamington, around 11 Monday morning. After a brief lecture and inadequate lunch of soup we made our first venture into the rainforest. The rainforest is pretty much what you'd expect; wet, green, shady. There aren't many brightly colored plants or animals like what you might find in other parts of the world, but Lamington is no less breathtaking.
Day Two
After breakfast and a short lecture, we were separated into three groups. My group headed off with two of the teaching staff, Michelle and Ayesha, on a 17 K hike through the rain forest. We spent nearly 7 hours walking through the forest which was beautiful, but really made me feel trapped after a while; it was nice to finally emerge from the forest and see the open sky.
One of our assignments over the course of our ecology field trips is to find insects and draw them in our field books with brief descriptions of their behaviors and what we think the function of their physical features might be. Michelle is an entomologist so about every 10 of 15 minutes someone would find a bug and yell "Michelle!! What is this?" then take a picture so they could sketch it later.
Day Three
Again, after breakfast and a short lecture, my group headed off on a 12 K hike with our professor, John Hall. The path we followed took us through rain forest, cool temperate forest, wet sclerophyll forest, dry sclerophyll forest, and heath land. I was amazed at how rapid the vegetation would change; in a twenty minute span of time, we had walked through four different types of forest. I could give you a long explanation as to why this occurs which would be fascinating to me, but most likely boring to everyone else so I'll just say that the reason for all the variation is that nutrient richness varies in different parts of the forest and leave it at that. I am more than happy to give anyone who cares to know a more detailed explanation.
We stopped for a little break next to a creek and John surprised us with some Australian cakes called Lamingtons. We all had a giggle at the fact that we were eating Lamingtons in Lamington then continued on our way. John took us to a cliff in the middle of the heath land for lunch. We pushed through a narrow over grown path until we found ourselves in a little clearing over looking miles upon miles of forest to the right and the ocean in the distance to the left. It was a little cloudy that day so as I ate my lunch, I watched the clouds roll over the mountain tops.
At one point, we came across a massive Gum tree that had fallen to the forest floor. The whole deadwood center had been eaten out by termites so we crawled into the trunk via the roots and took a bunch of pictures. In wet sclerophyll forests, the gum trees are the tallest things around. I guess they're comparable to redwoods, so you can imagine the size of the trunk we were sitting in.
Day Four
Woke up at 4:45 in the morning... yes, MORNING! EW! to take a survey of bird calls during the dawn chorus of the rainforest. We followed John through a dark abyss of trees and vegetation, lit only by the narrow beams of our head lamps until we came to a look out. Again, we could see miles upon miles of mountains covered in forest as well as the ocean in the distance. I camped out on top of a rock as the sunlight started to grow brighter and listened for the distinct call of the Karrawong. There was a dense mass of mist looming over the river down below that slowly faded away as the the sun rose. With each passing moment, the birds grew louder and louder until the sun finally showed itself and blanketed the canopy with its warm beams. And as if a conductor had motioned for the end of a song, the birds became silent except for a few occasional cockatoo.
We had the rest of the day "off" which really means instead of going on a compulsory hike, my group spent the day doing our assessments in our field books. The work wasn't too difficult, though since we're all science nerds and find sciency work interesting.
After lunch, we went on a little walk with Michelle and saw a koala! I had seen koalas at the zoo earlier during my stay in Australia, but it was so much more exciting to see on in the wild. We were super lucky too, because the koala was actually moving around. To give you an idea of just how lucky, koalas spend 20 hours a day sleeping, so we really did walk by at just the right time.
That night, we headed up to the main lodge for a bush dance, which is much like a square dance. It was so much fun; everyone joined in. Afterward, we attempted to have a campfire, but our wood was wet so it never got going. We sat around the would-be campfire passing around a guitar and singing.
Day Five
After spending a week in the rain forest, with sunny skies and a gentle breeze, it finally rained. When we woke up, the whole forest was engulfed in cloud. Walking around was eery. We spent most of the day finishing up the remaining bits of our field books and left around six that night. Everyone was exhausted and very keen to head straight home, but we had one more stop; Natural Arch to see the glow worms. We got off our bus and hiked down a path through the forest in the nearly pitch dark, since light is detrimental to the glow worms. We eventually felt our way down a flight of stairs and ended up in a cave dotted with tiny faintly green lights. I felt like I was in the night sky, completely surrounded by stars. It was the most amazing thing I have ever experienced and it was hard to leave. I don't actually have any pictures to show you, because cameras are not allowed in the glow worm (actually, they're glow maggots) cave so you'll just have to take my word that it was amazing.
I'm currently doing research on Australian deserts in the UQ library. I have a paper due Friday, but a few of us are heading down to Melbourne tomorrow (Wed) night for our long weekend, so I would like to have my paper done today and not have to worry about it. If I actually get my paper done today, you should all be immensely proud of me; I don't think I've ever finished an assignment more than a few hours before it was due. :)
Cheers,
Jessie
ps the latest pictures will be up before monday.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Rugby and Nurse Sharks and River Fire, Oh My!
I went to my first rugby game friday night. Lots of fun! It was the Broncos vs. the Raiders. Being raised in the states, I automatically associate Broncos with the colors orange and blue and Raiders with silver and black so it was funny to see the Broncos wearing maroon and gold and the Raiders wearing lime green and white. Also funny, rugby shorts; they're so short, and all the men are so giant. Aside from not knowing any of the rules of rugby, the game was entertaining. For the most part I just cheered when everyone else did, so I at least seemed like I knew what was going on. Every time the home team would score, they set off some small fire works, which is a great addition to any event. I'm still not sure who actually won the game, though. I never did find out where the score board was and I left a few minutes early so I didn't have to deal with the whole stadium of people trying to leave at once. Maybe at some point today I'll look up the scores online, maybe.
My friend Shannon and I decided to go diving this Saturday. Instead of going home after the rugby game, Shannon and I went and stayed with some of the other members of the University of Queensland Dive Club so that we could all be picked up at one place at 5:40 in the morning. Such an awful time to be awake! We drove for about an hour to the ferry that would take us across the bay to Stradbroke Island where were diving. Everyone, about ten people, crammed into one car so we could board the "Big Red Cat." You aren't allowed to just walk onto the Big Red Cat, you have to drive onto it and then you can get out of your vehicle and walk around the boat. The ferry ride took about 45 minutes, then we piled back into the car, picked up our boat and gear, then headed out to the beach. We launched the boat from the beach then drove out to a reef about an hour away. Oh, and I just need to mention the water in Australia... it's in the 70s nearly all the time, so getting in the ocean is like jumping in the bath tube; such a nice change from diving in the Monterey Bay.
The first thing I saw after descending into the ocean for the first dive was a grey nurse shark about three meters long just hanging out in a little underwater canyon. Then I saw a turtle! We dove to about 20 meters then surfaced about a half hour later, jumped back into the boat and headed over to another reef a little ways away. After switching out our empty tanks for full ones, we hoped back into the water for a shallower dive, about 12 meters, for about 43 minutes. Visibility wasn't as great as it could have been, but it was still amazing to be swimming around in an environment I had only ever seen on tv or in magazines. I saw a few wobbegong sharks, a huge puffer fish, corals, schools of fish, crab, urchins.
As a beginning diver, maintaining neutral buoyancy and breathing efficiently are two of the most difficult skills. I was very proud of my self for being able to maintain neutral buoyancy, which I could not do during my first four dives. I used up air fairly quickly during the first dive, but I ended the second dive with 100 bar more air pressure in my tank than I had at the end of the first dive. So on top of having an amazing time diving in Australia for the first time, I'm excited at improvement of my diving skills.
Diving took up most of the day, but under no circumstances was I going to miss River Fire. I got off the train for home and onto the train back to the city within ten minutes. I got home, dumped my dive gear on the bed, hopped in the shower, hopped out of the shower, dried off, got dressed, grabbed a sandwich, and ran back to the train station with time to spare. Yes, I know, I am amazing. haha Since I got back from diving so late, I didn't have time to find my friends before River Fire started, so I just stood by the river by myself. A nice couple kind of took me under their wing and showed me where to go, which was very nice. I got off the train in the city just in time to see a jet fighter fly low over head with its tail on fire; I'll take this time to point out that it was supposed to be on fire, it's part of the River Fire celebration. Shortly after, the fireworks started. There were fireworks everywhere. Everywhere. The Aussie's launched them off every bridge along the river and off nearly every building as well. I've never been surrounded by so much noise. The show went on for thirty minutes and it was constant explosions the whole time. Toward the end, another plane flew by. This time I was closer to the river, so I had a better view. The plane was sooo loud and it was just amazing to see it on fire. Honestly, there is no way for me to describe it. Afterward, I found my friends and my roommate then went to bed.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
Byron Bay
This weekend was my first actually traveling in Australia. A bunch of us decided to head down to Byron Bay in New South Wales. So after spending four days camping and freezing my butt of in Girraween, I headed to the beach to do some more camping. Luckily, it was warm at the Bay. It was so nice to sleep through the entire night without waking up from being cold even in my ultra warm sleeping bag. Soo, Amanda and I left bright and early saturday morning to meet everyone else at the car rental place by 8 am. We all packed ourselves and our camping gear into six tiny Hyundais; five people to a car, laps buried in back packs and bags and set out on our first adventure driving on the wrong side of the road. It only took about 2 hours to drive to Byron so we had camp set up and were hanging out on the beach before 11 am. Our campsite was right on the beach; we only had about a two minute walk to the shore. The water was beautiful and clear and the sand was so fine that it squeaked underfoot as we walked across the beach. We decided to do some snorkeling, which was fun. Then walked down to the point where you can climb some stairs to a look out deck... and we looked out (go figure) on the ocean and across the bay.
Vikram mentioned that Sean and Shane wanted to go down the coast a bit to do some spear fishing and that they had two more spots in the car so I decided to tag along and just go snorkeling while they were catching dinner. The current was really strong though so I decided to just hang out in the tide pools and climb around on the rocks with Clark. While standing on the rocks watching the guys jump into the water, I looked out to sea and saw some whale spouts! I even got to see a hump back jumping out of the water! Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures, but it was still amazing and I wouldn't have seen them if I hadn't tagged along. I spent quite a bit of time poking around in the tide pools looking at the sea stars, limpets, chitons, and anemones. I even saw an octopus! No it did not have blue rings. Clark let me use his waterproof camera while I was exploring so I got a few good pictures and I'll post them when I get them from him. I also spent a little bit of time poking through the rocky beach looking for pretty sea shells; I found quite a few... I probably wasn't supposed to take any so it'll be our little secret, shhhh. :) The guys speared five fish, so we had a fresh fish dinner Saturday and Sunday night. The fish were very tasty and free which made dinner even more delicious. They were staying at a hostel, so a bunch of us hung out there for a while then went back to the campsite to sleep.
Sunday some of us took a walk into town. Instead of taking the streets, we walked along the beach soaking up the sunlight and watching the surfers. There had been next to no one in the water on Saturday when the ocean had been as still as a lake, but Sunday the waves were crashing and surfers dotted the sea. We stopped for a while to watch them and enjoy the perfect day. In town, we walked along the main streets seeing what there was to see in all the shops. I didn't buy anything, but it was fun just to look. Everyone was still really worn out from Girraween, so once we got back to camp we took naps. I pulled my sleeping bag out of the tent so I could nap in the sunlight. We went back to the hostel that night for another fish dinner then called it a night.
This morning, my tent was slow to rise. We woke up around 7, but didn't feel like getting up so the four of us just laid there falling in and out of sleep until 8 listening to all the strange birds and our friends shuffling about outside. For breakfast, I treated myself to a cappuccino and some gelato. Australia has the best cappuccino's I've ever had; they just taste so much better than any I've had in the states (except for the ones my Auntie makes, of course). And my new favorite thing is sticky date! We had some delicious sticky date pudding while in Girraween so I got sticky date gelato and it was amazing. So, so good, I highly recommend it to anyone.
Now, I'm just relaxing a bit before I do some studying and then head off to bed. I've got Uni at 9 am tomorrow. Normally, 9 am would be entirely too early for me, but my internal clock is all thrown off, along with all the other UC students, so I end up going to sleep between 10 and 10:30 every night and waking up between 6 and 7 without an alarm.
Good Night All
Jessie
Vikram mentioned that Sean and Shane wanted to go down the coast a bit to do some spear fishing and that they had two more spots in the car so I decided to tag along and just go snorkeling while they were catching dinner. The current was really strong though so I decided to just hang out in the tide pools and climb around on the rocks with Clark. While standing on the rocks watching the guys jump into the water, I looked out to sea and saw some whale spouts! I even got to see a hump back jumping out of the water! Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures, but it was still amazing and I wouldn't have seen them if I hadn't tagged along. I spent quite a bit of time poking around in the tide pools looking at the sea stars, limpets, chitons, and anemones. I even saw an octopus! No it did not have blue rings. Clark let me use his waterproof camera while I was exploring so I got a few good pictures and I'll post them when I get them from him. I also spent a little bit of time poking through the rocky beach looking for pretty sea shells; I found quite a few... I probably wasn't supposed to take any so it'll be our little secret, shhhh. :) The guys speared five fish, so we had a fresh fish dinner Saturday and Sunday night. The fish were very tasty and free which made dinner even more delicious. They were staying at a hostel, so a bunch of us hung out there for a while then went back to the campsite to sleep.
Sunday some of us took a walk into town. Instead of taking the streets, we walked along the beach soaking up the sunlight and watching the surfers. There had been next to no one in the water on Saturday when the ocean had been as still as a lake, but Sunday the waves were crashing and surfers dotted the sea. We stopped for a while to watch them and enjoy the perfect day. In town, we walked along the main streets seeing what there was to see in all the shops. I didn't buy anything, but it was fun just to look. Everyone was still really worn out from Girraween, so once we got back to camp we took naps. I pulled my sleeping bag out of the tent so I could nap in the sunlight. We went back to the hostel that night for another fish dinner then called it a night.
This morning, my tent was slow to rise. We woke up around 7, but didn't feel like getting up so the four of us just laid there falling in and out of sleep until 8 listening to all the strange birds and our friends shuffling about outside. For breakfast, I treated myself to a cappuccino and some gelato. Australia has the best cappuccino's I've ever had; they just taste so much better than any I've had in the states (except for the ones my Auntie makes, of course). And my new favorite thing is sticky date! We had some delicious sticky date pudding while in Girraween so I got sticky date gelato and it was amazing. So, so good, I highly recommend it to anyone.
Now, I'm just relaxing a bit before I do some studying and then head off to bed. I've got Uni at 9 am tomorrow. Normally, 9 am would be entirely too early for me, but my internal clock is all thrown off, along with all the other UC students, so I end up going to sleep between 10 and 10:30 every night and waking up between 6 and 7 without an alarm.
Good Night All
Jessie
Friday, August 27, 2010
Oh the Sclerophyll Forest; Girraween Nat'l Park
I just got back from an amazing camping trip at Girraween National Park in Queensland. For a solid four days, the only time I wasn't moving was during sleep, which isn't entirely true since I spent most of the nights shivering to keep warm or else squirming to find a comfortable position to lay. This was my first experience in the Australian Bush as well as my first taste of actual field work. I can honestly say that this past week was one of the most amazing experiences of my life... and this was only the first field trip of the program. With out further adieu, a mini journal of my stay in Girraween.
Day 1
We had to meet at UQ around 7:15 Tuesday morning in order to hop on a bus and spend three hours driving until we made it to the bush. For the most part, much of the land we drove through looks like the Central Valley; open space, cows, houses widely spaced apart, intermittent trees. As we journeyed closer to Girraween, the scenery shifted to forest. There were a few open spaces along the road and can you guess what we saw grazing? Whole flocks or herds (I can't recall the proper term at the moment) of Kangaroo! The sound of the bus was enough to send them bounding across the meadow into the shelter of the forest, which in turn caused shrieks and shrills of enjoyment from not only the girls, but the guys as well, on the bus. Kangaroo would become such a common sight during the trip that even over the course of four days, we've all gone nearly numb to the excitement of seeing a Roo in the wild.
When we arrived, we promptly set up tents and had a quick lunch before going on a short hike to a nearby creek. There, John Hall, our terrestrial ecology lecturer, started teaching us about the ecology of the environment that surrounded us. We started our first assignment then went on a hike to the Granite Arch; the pictures will go up soon for you to see. Afterward, John assigned small groups to specific areas of the forest where we had to measure a 30 by 5 meter plot and record tree heights, girths, density, and conditions as well as profile the other plants and ground coverings in our plot. I guess we spent about five hours away from camp that first day before heading in for dinner. Oh. My. God. Dinner. We had some pretty amazing cooks and they fed us enough food for the entire Steelers football team to eat until they were stuffed and still have leftovers. After dinner, John gave us a lecture and then we all scooted straight off to bed. I think everyone went to sleep before 10:30. But damn was that THE coldest night I've ever had to endure. The weather forecast was entirely wrong so we were expecting chilly, but not just barely above freezing during the night.
Day 2
After breakfast, John separated us into two groups; my group went off with John and the other spent the day with Billy and Aeysha, our PHD student assistants. My group surveyed areas of forest gathering data on the types of plants that tend to grow shortly after a brush fire vs. long after a brush fire. Our data will actually be used by the Park Rangers in helping them to better understand the importance of fires in a forest ecosystem. Once our field work was done, John lead us on a massive hike visiting many of the park's magnificent natural structures of granite made during the triassic period. Millions of years of weather have eroded the stones into what they are today. We basically sprinted up a large amount of stairs until John realized that we didn't need to rush, because we would have plenty of time to see everything he wanted to show us. The hike to castle rock took a little over an hour, maybe a bit longer since John likes to stop every so often to explain various plants to us. Anyway, we arrived at Castle Rock, or so we thought, and John says "it's just a bit further." So we made our way through a crack between two giant boulders across a perilously steep smooth granite sheet and up the sides of a few more boulders and ended up with a view rivaled by next to nothing. I could see miles upon miles in every direction. We ate our lunch perched atop Castle rock then headed back down to make our way to the Sphinx which was not too far away. The Sphinx is a large almost oblong granite (everything that isn't forest at Girraween is granite) stone with a smaller, rounder one sitting on top of it. Our last stop was turtle rock, which looks nothing like a turtle, but if you use your imagination, and I'm talking about the one you had at the peak of your childhood, you can maybe understand why someone thought it looked like a turtle. Again we were away from camp until about five ate dinner went to lecture then straight to bed. Temperature wise, the second night was not much better than the first, but we managed to cram four people on cots into one tent which made for added heat during the night. Only one downfall, we ended up having to touch the sides of the tent. Generally speaking, you don't want anything to touch the sides of the tent, because those things tend to be a bit damp when you wake up in the morning. And that night... it poured. We were fine when we went to sleep, but about halfway through the night until a bit after we woke up for breakfast there was a steady waterfall on the tent so my sleeping bag and pillow got a tad damp and by default lost some of their ability to keep me warm.
Day 3
Aside from waking up chilly and slightly damp, I was excited to start the day. We split off into the same groups as the day before and did what the other group had done the day before. We went to the creek with Aeysha and Billy to set yabby traps. (Yappy's are a type of crustacean smaller than a lobster but bigger than a shrimp.) Then we took samples of the sediments at the bottom of the creek to find out what sorts of creatures live there. We found baby shrimp, dragon fly larvae, and nymphs, to name a few. A while later, we set off for the Junction, a place where two creeks meet up. Lunch time at the Junction was beautiful. After lunch, we went back to the yabby traps to see if we caught anything. We did! One of the traps had a large red female yabby in it. She had fairly large pinchers and spines along her sides. Her tail was curled under protecting a batch of eggs from predators. Of course, we let her go as soon as everyone took multiple pictures of and with her. Then we took another hike to the Pyramid. Pyramid is the "next to nothing" that rivals Castle Rock. You have to walk up a ridiculous amount of stairs before you get to a path that takes you straight up the side of a massive granite boulder with nothing to hold onto but the solid rock beneath your feet. We followed a dotted white line painted on the rock by the rangers some years ago that apparently shows you the best path to follow so as not to slip and fall all the way to the top. We were so over come by sheer amazement at our accomplishment and the view that everyone started cheering. I couldn't believe how windy the top of Pyramid was. Again, we took heaps (the aussies love to use the word heaps) of pictures before heading back down the rock. Heading down is, hands down, waaaaaayy more frightening than heading up. Probably because you can see exactly where you'll go if you manage to fall. As always, we went back to camp, ate dinner, went to lecture then went straight to sleep. This night managing to stay decently warm and dry.
Day 4
This morning we partially broke down camp then drove to another part of the park to do a bit more field work. We did some more sampling of creek sediments and took some data on a type of plant called a banksia. The creek we worked at is called Underground Creek, which made no sense when we first arrived, but after about an hour we found the "underground" portion. A while ago, part of a granite boulder that hung over the creek collapsed on top of it, but did not obstruct the flow of water. It was really awesome to stand on the rocks above the creek and hear it running beneath my feet. Of course, having already conquered Castle Rock and Pyramid, the little boulders that lay on top of the creek seemed like mere play toys to us so we spent a good half hour climbing up and down and around until we were called to poke and larvae and count banksia pods. (which is actually fun if you are a science nerd like me) We went back to camp and finished packing up then drove back to Brisbane.
I had a lovely dinner with my homestay tonight. Needless to say, I am exhausted. But, I am waking up early tomorrow (saturday) morning to meet up with a bunch of friends so we can caravan down to Byron Bay for some more camping during our three day week end. Pictures will be online at the start of next week!
~ Jessie
Monday, August 23, 2010
Brisbane Rain
I get to fall asleep to the sound of rain tonight. I'm sitting in my room wearing jeans a sweatshirt (jumper in australian) and socks, because it's quite chilly this evening. In my mind, it's still the end of summer, not the end of winter. I have to keep reminding myself that I am in the Southern Hemisphere and the weather is supposed to be like this during August. Actually, as I learned today in lecture with John Hall, my ecology professor, the weather is supposed to be like this in August only during the La Nina years. That's another thing to get used to; I keep thinking "well, if it's la nina, why is it raining?" The answer has something to do with the different hemispheres and anti-clockwise airflows along with high and low pressure systems... I basically learned how to be a meteorologist today in one short lecture! See mom and dad, traveling to Australia wasn't all just for fun! I'm learning things too! :D haha
Honestly, it feels like I've been here longer than a week. I've hardly sat still since my plane landed. I guess I just want to do as much as I can while I'm here so I don't miss out on anything. Yesterday, I did end up finding the flea market. I walked along the river for quite a ways in one direction taking pictures of buildings, bridges, and boats. And when I got to the end, i turned around and found my way back down the river to the flea market. There were a few interesting things there, but for the most part it was exactly what you'd see in the States... but more expensive. As well as going going going, I have hardly had a moment to myself since landing in Brisbane. There are seven of us living under one roof, five of which are all young women. When we aren't in lecture, us EAP student tend to travel in large groups to various sights around town. Even my trip to the zoo was with at least twenty other students with whom I study. As I assume you can imagine, my time wandering alone amongst the high rises of Brisbane was much needed. Even sharing a room in the dorms in Santa Cruz, I had more time just to myself than I've had this past week. I'm not complaining about it, by any means, I only bring it up as something that's new for me.
Tuesday morning (tomorrow for me), I am headed off to our first field study at Girraween National Park. I'll be back Friday afternoon, but I'm leaving again bright and early Saturday morning to go camping at Byron Bay with some other students.
Until friday,
Jessie
Honestly, it feels like I've been here longer than a week. I've hardly sat still since my plane landed. I guess I just want to do as much as I can while I'm here so I don't miss out on anything. Yesterday, I did end up finding the flea market. I walked along the river for quite a ways in one direction taking pictures of buildings, bridges, and boats. And when I got to the end, i turned around and found my way back down the river to the flea market. There were a few interesting things there, but for the most part it was exactly what you'd see in the States... but more expensive. As well as going going going, I have hardly had a moment to myself since landing in Brisbane. There are seven of us living under one roof, five of which are all young women. When we aren't in lecture, us EAP student tend to travel in large groups to various sights around town. Even my trip to the zoo was with at least twenty other students with whom I study. As I assume you can imagine, my time wandering alone amongst the high rises of Brisbane was much needed. Even sharing a room in the dorms in Santa Cruz, I had more time just to myself than I've had this past week. I'm not complaining about it, by any means, I only bring it up as something that's new for me.
Tuesday morning (tomorrow for me), I am headed off to our first field study at Girraween National Park. I'll be back Friday afternoon, but I'm leaving again bright and early Saturday morning to go camping at Byron Bay with some other students.
Until friday,
Jessie
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Photos from week one!
The first website I was using only let me load a small amount of photos per month so I've switched to this one. Let me know if it doesnt work.
http://s279.photobucket.com/home/Jess_E_Rose/recentuploads?view=slideshow
http://s279.photobucket.com/home/Jess_E_Rose/recentuploads?view=slideshow
Saturday, August 21, 2010
CRIKEY!
After a looong and laborious week ;) at uni the weekend is here! I've spent much of my free time exploring Brisbane with the other EAP students and am starting to feel more settled in. It rained friday, so we all came home after uni with the intention of going back out when the rain stopped. Well, we ate dinner with the fam and headed into town, but Amanda and I only stayed for a short while before promptly catching a train back home and going to sleep before 1030. Saturday, I went to the Steve Irwin Zoo! It was sooo much fun! I got to feed and hang out with the kangaroos, hold a koala, and pet a wombat. Feeding the roos was amazing; they're really soft and they have this one giant toe on their feet in between two small ones. Holding the koala was awesome as well; they grab onto you as if you were a tree so you feel like youre getting a big snugly hug. And they smell like eucalyptus; it permeates clothes and stays there forever. Of course, I couldn't go to the Steve Irwin Zoo without seeing the croc show! These creatures are massive. They put alligators to shame. I'll put some more pictures up either today or tomorrow so you can see just how frightening they can be.
For the first time in my life, I get to experience what it's like to be the one with an accent. Generally speaking, Aussies and Americans dress the same so no one can really tell that I'm not from around here just by looking at me, but once I start talking people put surprised looks on their faces. I've gotten a few double takes, too. And I am slowly starting to pick up the Aussie accent. It's substantially more difficult that a British accent which seems to just roll off the tongue, but the other night I said something about a chair and it sounded a bit Aussie. Maybe by the end of my stay here I'll be able to impersonate the accent flawlessly.
Someone mentioned a flea market of some sort going on in the city at the moment so I think I'm going to try and find it. There are tons of really cool buildings to see in the city so even if i don't find the market, I'll wander around a bit and see the sights. Keep an eye out for my pictures!
Jessie
For the first time in my life, I get to experience what it's like to be the one with an accent. Generally speaking, Aussies and Americans dress the same so no one can really tell that I'm not from around here just by looking at me, but once I start talking people put surprised looks on their faces. I've gotten a few double takes, too. And I am slowly starting to pick up the Aussie accent. It's substantially more difficult that a British accent which seems to just roll off the tongue, but the other night I said something about a chair and it sounded a bit Aussie. Maybe by the end of my stay here I'll be able to impersonate the accent flawlessly.
Someone mentioned a flea market of some sort going on in the city at the moment so I think I'm going to try and find it. There are tons of really cool buildings to see in the city so even if i don't find the market, I'll wander around a bit and see the sights. Keep an eye out for my pictures!
Jessie
Thursday, August 19, 2010
The first batch of pictures
I do believe i've figured out how to share my photos with you all.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/53228776@N08/show/
enjoy!
<3
Welcome to the country, mate
Let me just start out by saying, there was the most enormous spider napping above my bed tonight. Nasty thing! The Australians (which is how we refer to Lou and Jo) said they think its the same one they tried to kill two years ago when the last group of Americans were staying with them. Usually, I don't have a problem with spiders, or any bugs for that matter, but I was not going to bed with this one sitting above me waiting for the perfect opportunity to jump on me and attack the second I nodded off to sleep. Luckily, Alina is quite fascinated by insects and caught the spider in a tupper ware so we could move it somewhere less near to my bed... and me.
I've started working on one of my first assignments, which is to observe a native animal and record & write about its behavior. I went into uni a couple hours early the other day so I could wander around and sort of shop for an animal to observe. I decided to watch a flock of cockatoos, called corrella by those aussies, for about an hour and a half. I still have to go back for a bit more observation. One of the ladies in the programs office, Steph, said that it's actually very unusual to see flocks of corrella in the city, but the recent drought has brought them here in search of water.
After lecture today, Alina, Amanda and I headed over to the Brisbane city botanical gardens. On our way out, we saw some sort of mammal digging in the fallen leaves under some bushes near a man sitting on a park bench. We walked over to investigate only to have the man look at us for a few moments before informing us that the mammal was his dog. A second later, a little scruffy dog came jumping out of the leaves. We had a good laugh about it. We also signed up for the UQ dive club tonight, so now we can go on discounted dive trips through the uni. We were planning on going out after dinner tonight to meet up with other EAP kids, but home was too comfy and the Australian tv shows were too entertaining... and then there was the whole spider incident, so we just decided to stay in.
There will be pictures to come; as soon as I can figure out how to load a bunch up at once on the blog.
Good night!
Jessie
I've started working on one of my first assignments, which is to observe a native animal and record & write about its behavior. I went into uni a couple hours early the other day so I could wander around and sort of shop for an animal to observe. I decided to watch a flock of cockatoos, called corrella by those aussies, for about an hour and a half. I still have to go back for a bit more observation. One of the ladies in the programs office, Steph, said that it's actually very unusual to see flocks of corrella in the city, but the recent drought has brought them here in search of water.
After lecture today, Alina, Amanda and I headed over to the Brisbane city botanical gardens. On our way out, we saw some sort of mammal digging in the fallen leaves under some bushes near a man sitting on a park bench. We walked over to investigate only to have the man look at us for a few moments before informing us that the mammal was his dog. A second later, a little scruffy dog came jumping out of the leaves. We had a good laugh about it. We also signed up for the UQ dive club tonight, so now we can go on discounted dive trips through the uni. We were planning on going out after dinner tonight to meet up with other EAP kids, but home was too comfy and the Australian tv shows were too entertaining... and then there was the whole spider incident, so we just decided to stay in.
There will be pictures to come; as soon as I can figure out how to load a bunch up at once on the blog.
Good night!
Jessie
Monday, August 16, 2010
First Day at Uni
Woke up before 7:30 am this morning. Lou escorted us to Uni; we took the express train from Yeerongpilly to Park Street then hopped on the bus which took us right from Park Street to the Uni. I am very excited to say that in the entrance to the building in which we have our lectures, there is a very very large crocodile hanging from the ceiling. He reminds me of the crock in Peter Pan, minus the clock.
We met all of our professors today as well as the people who run the program. At 11 am, we had tea time! We all went outside and UQ had trays of pastries and sweets along with tea and coffee set up for us. Two things that stood out more than anything... 1) they had real china out for our drinks, not the paper crap we always use at home and 2) the coffee was in tea bags! This is perhaps the most handy thing I have ever encountered and it makes me wonder why we don't have coffee in little bags at home. Perhaps I'll start a coffee in tea bags company when I get back to the states and make a fortune for my self. :)
After tea time, we were all given our very own Australian bush hats! They have University of Queensland written on the front. We were also given our "go cards" which can be charged with money to make public transit faster and a little less expensive; it cost A$3.90 for a one way bus/train ticket to UQ this morning. I feel like the greatest expense I'll have while in Australia will be transportation to and from Uni every day.
After the school day (well not school, you can't call it school over here or college either, 'cause everyone thinks you're referring to high school. And if you ask someone who goes to Uni something about "school" or "college" they'll get offended.) So anyway... after we were done with our business at Uni, a bunch of us hopped on the CityCat, a catamaran that shuttles people up and down a portion of the Brisbane River. That was a fun experience in itself; it was a new way to check out the rest of the Brisbane area. The regular commuters were taken aback by the sudden onslaught of about twenty American students. After getting off the cat, we wandered around an outdoor mall area for a while checking out the differences and similarities between American and Australian stores. Alina, Amanda and I had to find our way back from the city to our homestay without the help of Lou, but we managed perfectly well.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
First Day in Brissy
So here it is, 9:08 pm on sunday night. I am exhausted and will probably call it a night as soon as I finish writing this. I have school tomorrow morning at 9 am which means I'll have to be at the train station no later than 7:40 am to get to Uni with plenty of time to find my class room. Lucky for me, the oldest of my two homestay "sisters" (Lou) will be waking up early along with me and the two other girls staying here (Alina and Amanda) to show us exactly how to get to Uni and where to find our classroom.
My 14 hour flight was bearable. Other than the fact I had to spend nearly the entire time confined to a small area with little to no room for a change of position I rather enjoyed the trip. I watched two movies, read my Kurt Vonnegut book, ate a surprisingly tasty salmon dinner, and slept a total of between 4 and 6 hours. I really don't know how I am still functioning at the moment; I've only had two cups of coffee today and the first was before 6 am. One would think I'd be sound asleep by now, but I've managed to keep my energy level up all day.
I met four other UC students in the terminal before take off and we stuck together after landing as we made our way through immigration, baggage claims, and customs to find the driver who would drop us off at our homestays. I was the last student of a group of eight UC students to be dropped off, which gave me the opportunity to explore the suburbs of Brisbane within the confines of a vehicle that knew exactly how to take me to my final destination without getting terribly lost. This town reminds me of a cross between suburbs back east and the Santa Barbara Zoo. I am reminded of the Zoo not because of any interesting animals i can see, but because of all the foliage which looks a great deal like what they've got going on in SB.
The family is great. Cate, the mother, took us shopping today for breakfast and lunch supplies. She also gave us a mini tour or the public transit stops so we would know ahead of time what to expect. The two daughters, Jo and Lou, are hilarious together. They bicker just like sisters, except for the fact that every last jest is done in fun and they seem to always retort with a response that makes them both laugh. We had roast lamb and vegetables for dinner tonight; it was delicious.
I spent much of the day and evening with all the girls; I am amazed at Tim's, the father, ability to cope with having a wife and five young women in the house all at once. That is a lot of women under one roof. The family has a dog named Ben. Alina and I decided to go for a short run and take ben with us in the late afternoon. We saw an Australian Bush Turkey on our way back to the house. It's fun to start seeing creatures that i've only ever seen at the zoo. My room was the hang out room today. It is the biggest and has a queen bed, so it is the most comfortable to have all five girls in at once. We compared musical tastes as well as made fun of each other's slang terms. I was sad to have to be without my guitar for three whole months, but Lou has a guitar that she rarely plays so I played it tonight. Maybe I'll actually have a little time to play regularly.
It's best I be off, I can hardly keep my eyes open anymore.
Cheers,
Jessie
My 14 hour flight was bearable. Other than the fact I had to spend nearly the entire time confined to a small area with little to no room for a change of position I rather enjoyed the trip. I watched two movies, read my Kurt Vonnegut book, ate a surprisingly tasty salmon dinner, and slept a total of between 4 and 6 hours. I really don't know how I am still functioning at the moment; I've only had two cups of coffee today and the first was before 6 am. One would think I'd be sound asleep by now, but I've managed to keep my energy level up all day.
I met four other UC students in the terminal before take off and we stuck together after landing as we made our way through immigration, baggage claims, and customs to find the driver who would drop us off at our homestays. I was the last student of a group of eight UC students to be dropped off, which gave me the opportunity to explore the suburbs of Brisbane within the confines of a vehicle that knew exactly how to take me to my final destination without getting terribly lost. This town reminds me of a cross between suburbs back east and the Santa Barbara Zoo. I am reminded of the Zoo not because of any interesting animals i can see, but because of all the foliage which looks a great deal like what they've got going on in SB.
The family is great. Cate, the mother, took us shopping today for breakfast and lunch supplies. She also gave us a mini tour or the public transit stops so we would know ahead of time what to expect. The two daughters, Jo and Lou, are hilarious together. They bicker just like sisters, except for the fact that every last jest is done in fun and they seem to always retort with a response that makes them both laugh. We had roast lamb and vegetables for dinner tonight; it was delicious.
I spent much of the day and evening with all the girls; I am amazed at Tim's, the father, ability to cope with having a wife and five young women in the house all at once. That is a lot of women under one roof. The family has a dog named Ben. Alina and I decided to go for a short run and take ben with us in the late afternoon. We saw an Australian Bush Turkey on our way back to the house. It's fun to start seeing creatures that i've only ever seen at the zoo. My room was the hang out room today. It is the biggest and has a queen bed, so it is the most comfortable to have all five girls in at once. We compared musical tastes as well as made fun of each other's slang terms. I was sad to have to be without my guitar for three whole months, but Lou has a guitar that she rarely plays so I played it tonight. Maybe I'll actually have a little time to play regularly.
It's best I be off, I can hardly keep my eyes open anymore.
Cheers,
Jessie
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
T minus four days until take off
So here it is, my last four days in the states before I embark on a journey that will take me over the equator as well as the international date line in one fell swoop; a big step for someone who's never traveled outside of the continental United States. I've already packed, twice, in an effort to distribute the weight of all my junk between two suitcases so as not to go over the 50lb maximum weight limit and pay huge fees at the check-in counter. The smaller suitcase is packed almost to explosion while the large one still has quite a bit of space. The reason for this seemingly non-sensical way of packing? The larger bag already weighs 47lbs!
Words cannot even begin to describe how excited I am to spend three months in Australia! As a child, I always said I was going to attend a four year university and spend some time studying abroad. It feels soo amazing to actually be living my dreams!
But now I must return to wracking my brain for any and every possible thing I may be forgetting to pack as well as those last minute items I'll need to buy soon.
Until I land in Brisbane,
Jessie
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