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!

Into the Wild

After being in Sydney and Melbourne it was finally time to get out into the mountains and the outback. First up were the blue mountains outside of Sydney.

Before getting to the blue mountains was our first stop at a wildlife preservation. Here I got to see nearly every animal from Australia. Tasmanian devils, kookaburras, kangaroos, and many, many more. It was cool to see them even if it wasn't technically in the wild. I got to feed a bunch of wallabies too and even picked up a baby, which I'm not really sure if I was supposed to. Oh well, it was worth it.

Then came the long ride into the mountains and as luck would have it, it was cloudy, cold, and rainy when we went up. Our guide had us stop a few times to see if we could see anything to no avail. I did see a waterfall shrouded in the mist, so that was really cool! After realizing that we couldn't see anything out in the mountains we had the opportunity to see aboriginal dances and learn more about the culture and the didgeridoo.

One guy even started teaching me how to play the didg. After about 15 minutes I was getting a good sound to resonate. It's a lot harder to play than I originally thought, but once you hear the sound you're listening for it gets easier. It would take a lot of time to learn to circular breathe and keep playing, but maybe someday I'll practice and figure it out. The guy there told me it took him two months to learn and his brother, a musician, only two weeks.

The next stop on this two week trip with my parents was Uluru and Ayer's Rock. Finally some time in central Australia and the outback! Flying in we could see the massive rock in the distance and then at night we got to see it closer at sunset and eat a barbecue under the stars! I got to see the southern cross and the milky way again. Though this time, because of a full moon, the milky way was tougher to see. But that also meant we got to see a partial lunar eclipse! The earth was casting a shadow on the moon and it was incredible to see.

In the morning we went to look at the rock again, but this time at sunrise and on camels. It was a lot of fun and interesting to learn all the things a camel can do. One very impressive thing is their ability to retain food and water for four weeks. They can go without either for that amount of time. Just awesome. Unfortunately there wasn't enough time to climb Ayer's Rock, but now I have a(nother) reason to come back to Australia.

Made it to Port Douglas today and now I'm off to the barrier reef! Hooray!

Sydney

After a brief flight, just under an hour and fifteen minutes I landed in Sydney, or the gateway to Australia as the locals call it and that's when the Melbourne bashing began. Everyone in Melbourne would not necessarily talk down about Sydney, but would definitely talk their city up. The same as a brother would pick on another brother. It's really enjoyable and entertaining.

First thing we did after checking into the hotel was start wandering as always. Found a restaurant to have a snack and a beer right on the Sydney Harbor. Great views and great food! Then came the Opera House tour. It was surprisingly interesting and fun to actually get to go into three of the theaters. When the tour finished we decided to see Karen O's "psycho opera" called "Stop the Virgens."

If you think you know weird, let me tell you, you haven't seen anything. This was one of the strangest and most confusing, yet entrancing and exciting stage production I've ever seen. I really couldn't give you any explanation as to what we watched, but I liked the music and the weird dancing was intriguing to watch. I have a feeling that everyone leaving the theater that night was confused about what they just watched. I'd say definitely check it out just because it is so...different.

Despite the oddity of the show inside the opera house, this production was a part of a big lights festival called Vivid Live. It opened with Florence + the Machine on May 27th and includes movies, music, art, and lights. It's pretty cool because all around the harbor are different light displays, culminating in this cool display projected on the sails of the opera house (sorry if the video quality is poor)

It's a very cool display and a great idea to bring in more tourists (like they need help with that). It also brings people who live in the area into the downtown area of Sydney, which is pretty cool too!


Yesterday was the day of our city tour. The guide we had was hilarious! Half the time I wasn't sure if he was just pulling my leg or was telling the truth about Sydney, but the whole group (five of us) got on really well with him. An interesting thing I noticed here was that the lines on the road are all white, even the ones that separate the different directions of traffic. Just an odd thing I noticed. We got some really great views of the skyline, ate some more great food, and asked Rick, our guide, where some pubs where the locals go were. He pointed out three of them and of course my parents and I, after relaxing a bit in the hotel, made tracks to the first bar:

The Hero of Waterloo. Upon entering the pub I could tell that everyone knew we weren't locals and were giving us some strange looks. Mostly along the lines of "how did these people find out about this bar." It wasn't in a very secret or hard to find place, but I guess not many people like to go out and immerse themselves in the culture around them. I'll never understand how people can travel anywhere and not want to try the local places.

We then went onto another local bar called Lord Nelson's and it was a small scale brewery as well. It has probably the best beer I've had so far on this trip. It was a crowded bar, which made me feel like I was in Madison. Packed with college-aged people, it was a great place!

Then we finally decided to get some food! Walked a short distance and figured out we didn't know where we were going (surprise, surprise!). So after some slight arguing my mother went back into Lord Nelson's pub and asked a couple at the bar.

They weren't planning to come along, but they figured that we'd get lost along the way. And hey! We made some new friends along the way! Now I have three friends in Sydney and two in Melbourne and at least one in New Zealand, where I'll be going in just over a week! I can't wait! Back to Sydney and the Australian Hotel. I wanted to go there to eat solely for the purpose of getting a kangaroo pizza, which I completely successfully!

The meat was surprisingly delicious and with barbecue sauce on the pizza it was delectable!  I highly recommend it. The next things on my list to try are emu and crocodile since I already ate vegemite and am planning to bring some back to share with everyone! That all happened in two days and I didn't even get to today. It wasn't that exciting, but it was definitely another fun trip even if I were tired from staying out with my new friends until 2:30 in the morning! Oh well, another post for another day! Time to get some dinner.

Melbourne

For a first stop in Australia I think this has been a great city. After landing and leaving luggage at the hotel my parents and I walked around a bit. Found a cool bridge which leads to a train station and Fed Square.

After we walked around awhile we found a restaurant and bar. Since we we had landed at 8:30 in the morning and couldn't go to sleep or else we'd never adapt to the time shift here we sat down and had an Australian beer (or two or three). From there we went to a very cool place: the ACMI.

The ACMI or the Australian Center for Moving Images. Basically it was a movie museum and it was awesome! Instead of having only Australian cinema history it had history of cinema and technology from the world. A lot of the information was stuff I learned in classes, but it was still really cool to see.

There was a huge interactive part of the ACMI too. You could become a shadow monster on a screen, make your own flip book, and even act out a scene similar to Trinity in the opening of The Matrix, all while being filmed by cameras 360 degrees around you. There was a cool spinning contraption that had a bunch of figures on it and when a strobe light was added it all looked animated. And there was a three walled screen which emphasized the importance of the combinations of sound and film. It was all very cool!

Tuesday was a fun day as well! We took a tour of the city first. I was expecting it to be a small group, but it was just us and a guide in a van so it was a lot cooler then I thought it would be. We went to Queen Victoria Market, drove on the annual Grand Prix track, saw the old Olympic Stadium from 1956, which holds the ARL (Australian Rules Football League) championship every year. It used to occur in September, but because of the addition of two more teams, it is pushed back to October now. Then we stopped for coffee and cake and it was delicious!

From there we just walked around to visit the places we had seen on the tour. Walking around cities may not sound too exciting, but it's always fun. We waited for a city circle tram, which we rode around the city until we found places to stop. Simple, but entertaining.

Then we ate dinner. I'm still waiting to eat kangaroo in Sydney, so I haven't been trying much new food. However on our tour I did try Vegemite. As our guide said if you don't try it before a certain age most people hate it. I really didn't think it was terrible and am planning to bring some back to the States.

After dinner I met up with a friend who lives in Melbourne. He and I met in New Orleans last year when he was traveling in a group of 52 Australians all across the country. He was on a Contiki tour with a bunch of Aussies who didn't know each other. It was random how we met, and cool to catch up with him in his home city. This time wasn't as wild as the time we met. Instead we went up to a SkyDeck on the tallest building in Melbourne and he gave me a tour of the lit-up city from up there. It was magnificent. Then we went into Crown Casino and sat for a few hours drinking Australian beer and swapping stories from the last year and our lives. It was a ton of fun and I'm glad he came out and met up with me. He tried to get the others from his trip to come out too, but they all had work or Uni early this morning. And since Sydney is so close (around an hour long flight) he might rustle a group from there to meet up with us because he might take a trip to Sydney to get me out to a few clubs there. If it happens it'd be awesome if it doesn't that's cool too. It was just fun catching up with him.

I learned that a lot of Aussies think that everything is cheap. Just remember that. I found it weird and surprising, but we've got lots of good priced things, from alcohol to cell phone plans. Just an interesting fact.

Today is the day I get to see penguins and koalas in their natural habitat and up close and personal. It's going to be quite an experience! I can't wait!

Leaving the Country

I love traveling outside of the United States. Being surrounded by a different culture and experiencing as many new things as I can. And so begins my trip down under. I'll be traveling to Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Uluru, Auckland, Cairns, and Yungaburra.

I've been excited for this trip since I was accepted to study abroad in the rain forests of New Zealand and Australia. I'll be traveling all over Australia for two weeks with my parents and from there will meet up with my study abroad group where we'll be living in the rainforest for a month.

Today we're flying out of Milwaukee to Chicago, a very short flight, we didn't even reach cruising altitude before we had to descend again. From Chicago to LAX 3.5 hours and from LAX to Melbourne, a whopping 14.5-15 hours. I'll be keeping this as updated as much as I can, but due to possibly lacking the internet at times I might find that hard to do.

I'm starting in the south (Melbourne) where it will be the coldest I'll be experiencing (hopefully). I'll be going to see penguins in their natural habitat on one tour and going on many other tours and awesome experiences that I'll be taking pictures of and sharing here (if possible) and on Facebook.

I started this on the plane to LAX and am finishing it in the airport...on my phone. Waiting for three hours to board a ginormous airbus.

Leaving at 11:30 pm US time I'll be missing out almost entirely on May 27th which is pretty cool I think. It'll be like I'm time traveling (hello LOST) and then gaining that day back by experiencing a day, July 11th, basically twice. I'll be even more confused as to what day it is than I am normally during the summer. I'm excited for that and the only reason I can come up with is the fact that I'll feel like I'm in Back to the Future or something, but instead of traveling back multiple years, I'll be "traveling" one day. Oh well.

As I said before I'll have intermittent Internet access while down under, mostly when we take trips into the nearby town and I'm going to update this as much as possible. I may even be able to Skype for a short time. If you want to you should be able to search for me by name. Otherwise try minicoop1227. Until next time, from Australia, have a good Memorial Day weekend!

Taken from the plane to LAX