Cabins in the Rainforest

One of the highlights of the trip so far had to have been our free Auckland weekend. It was great to be able to go out with each and just explore the city however we wanted to. Traveling everywhere in a big group has been great, but sometimes the days are really long and we're all exhausted at the end of the day. We got to see some of the quieter and shyer members break out of their shells and we all had a great time!

As I've said before I love meeting new people and this weekend was a great time for that to happen. I met eight new friends this weekend and they all took us out on the town and showed us their favorite places to eat and hang out. It was a great treat! We've got a lot of great memories from this weekend to add to this entire experience. Not only do I love meeting new people, but I finally got a picture with my friend Alexa, from half way around the world!

It was great to see her again and this time have her show me where she lives and some of the things she loves about the city.

From Auckland we had a long journey ahead of us to get to Yungaburra. We left our hostel for the airport at 4:30 in the morning and then got there nearly three hours before our flight so we slept, read, or ate the time away. Then we landed in Sydney and had a three hour layover there and when we finally landed in Cairns we had about an hour and a half van ride into the rainforest. We finally arrived at the Center for Rainforest Studies outside of Yungaburra around seven at night. It was a long day. But when we arrived here we all perked up because we were in a new place!

The first full day we were here was Tuesday and we started the morning off with a site walk to get us all used to where we would be sleeping and living for awhile. We walked a loop around the center and got to see a lot of cool rainforest. Yes, I am actually living in the rainforest. We all bunk in cabins in the woods (rainforest) and the "man cave" as we all have deemed it looks the most similar to the cabin in the recent movie. IT'S AWESOME!

Anyways we learned about all the deadly animals we could encounter here and by the end of the site walk I think almost everyone had had a leech either bite or almost bite them. The worst part about these leeches is they drop out of the trees and sometimes can end up on your eye ball. Eyeball leeches. What the hell?! Aside from that the leeches are fine. They try and bite my legs a lot, but because I have hairy legs they can't get to my skin. Very handy if you ask me. There are a few spiders and snakes that we could come into contact with here, but those haven't happened very often. And finally the stinging trees. If we touch a stinging tree we'll be in pain on the spot and will be reminded of this contact everyday for NINE MONTHS. Too long for one touch of a tree for me, even though I'm tempted to touch one just to see what it's like.

Wednesday we were split into four different groups to investigate four different towns around the area and how they felt about where the lived. It was a very cool exercise and I found it to be very interesting because we all got to meet more new people and learn about their lives in the town, how they felt about conservation, and what they did or didn't like about their towns. Just very cool! The town that I went to, Atherton, was great! We learned about an award winning bakery with fantastic apple turnovers and an added bonus of vanilla Coke!

And now today was a great day too! A very very very long one though. We had a lecture in the morning and then went to Malanda Falls to have field lectures. I learned a lot today and had fun doing it too! We got to see a lot of different animals in the wild like tree kangaroos, kookaburras, and even a possum (they're actually very cute here). See:

Both the tree kangaroos and possum were just lucky finds, but were just incredible to see. Today had to have been the highlight of the trip. I know I say that a lot, or at least it feels that way, but everyone here is becoming better and better friends and we all get along so well that when we have the opportunity for free time like we did today, we're almost never bored. Our free time today was spent at a crater lake where we got to swim for a couple hours. Nice and cool water was nice after being in the sun all day. Hole in the ozone really makes a difference, it feels like the sun is always burning my skin. Nice and toasty!