Crystal Creek and my Outback Departure

I had a really amazing weekend; our awesome Aussie friends drove us up to Crystal Creek, and we got to swim and climb and jump all day. It reminded me of being up in Ithaca, except we're allowed to swim here. And the water was much warmer! It was another one of those amazing, yet totally inexpensive trips. I loved it.



I can't believe it's time already, but I leave for my Outback trip tomorrow night. I'm catching a midnight bus up to Cairns, and then flying from there to Alice Springs. We get in Thursday afternoon (Wednesday night for most of you folks), and then the trip officially starts that Friday morning. I'll be spending 10 tens traveling all over Australia's Northern Territory. We'll be hitting up all the popular spots, and iconic sites: Uluru (Ayers Rock), Kata Tjuta (The Olgas), King's Canyon, Serpentine Gorge, Wallace Rockhole and the Valley of the Winds. It's going to be the most amazing time, and I cannot wait to get to experience it. We'll be doing loads of hiking, swimming and camping every night.

On a more negative note, I blew out my right knee last night (my previously good knee) and I got it checked out today. The probable diagnosis is a torn PCL, but it can't be confirmed until I get an MRI. Mostly because I don't understand health care very much, and foreign health care especially, I didn't schedule an MRI yet. It sounds like I'll have to pay out of pocket, and the waiting list for an appointment is about 6 weeks. By that point, it's really going to be useless for me; I have less than 2 months left here. Bought a new knee brace, taking loads of Ibuprofen and have been taking it easy. Hopefully the Outback trip doesn't make things too much worse. We'll see how it feels in a week.

I'll be back on October 5th, and will update with how amazing the trip was as soon as I can. I doubt words will be able to describe what sleeping under the stars in the middle of the Australian Outback will feel like. I'm also really excited for the chance to learn more about the indigenous culture of Australia. It's suppose to be a very spiritual place, and to be honest, I need some of that in my life nowadays.

Billabong: Round 2

Today marked my second trip to volunteering at Billabong Sanctuary, and it began with some early morning rain. I mention the rain only because it's the second time since I've been here that it's rained, and both time were days I was at Billabong. Anyway, today I worked mostly in food prep for all the animals. A dietitian for wombats, kangaroos and crocs, if you will. I was also on bird cleaning duty, which turned out to be pretty eventful. I made friends with one of the lorikeets very easily; the second I got in his cage he flew to my shoulder and started nuzzling my hair and neck. He was pretty happy with all the attention and wouldn't budge off me the entire time I was working in his cage. As for Jacko, a beautiful Cockatoo, I was allowed to handle him and hold him on my arm. I set him down across the room when I went to clean his cage, but he promptly came chasing after my shoe laces. It was quite entertaining.

After bird duty, there was some time to play with the 5 month old dingo puppies. They are gorgeous sister pups, and they are quite playful and well trained. Really made me want to own one actually. I watched in on a few of the saltwater croc shows, and actually learned quite a bit. My other exciting job was collecting hibiscus flowers to feed to a bearded dragon. I actually thought the ranger was joking when he asked me to go pick flowers, but no. They were devoured by our bearded dragon, along with cockroaches and grapes. A mini garbage disposal.

Anyway, I had a really good experience once again and I really enjoy getting to do so much with animals while I've been here. I plan on going back, but not until after lecture recess (which is next week already!). I'm getting really excited for my trip to the Red Center... 7 days!

Living the Island Life at Maggie

As a bit of reward for getting though the mid-semester week, myself and a bunch of friends from James Cook decided to take a little weekend vacation at the beautiful Magnetic Island, just off the coast of Townsville. Known to the locals as Maggie, it's just a 20 minute ferry ride from downtown and it's hard to believe it was a totally different world over there. Maggie has everything your standard island in Australia would have- beautiful beaches, palm trees everywhere and awesome views.

But there really was so much to do there. Once we settled in, we visited the local markets, caught a bit of culture, and met some local islanders for a few games of pool. The locals made the night for us- they were so different some people we've met already, and really were living the island life. Saturday we went to the beaches, swam in the hostel pool, and rented scooters for the night to drive around the island with. We caught a few sighting of my favorite bird, and my friend Hannah got a great picture.

We woke up early on Sunday, and headed off to a horse ranch to do some riding. It was easily the best part of the weekend. It was a two hour ride, consisting of walking, trotting and cantering through the bush, on the beach, and even some bareback riding in the ocean. Running the horses up a sand dune and emerging onto the beach was one of the most amazing views/ experiences ever. It was awesome.


And now, after such a cool weekend, it's back to work. I've been working on another paper, and a presentation that I have due for neuroscience. Only about 10 days until the Outback trip!! Just got to keep working hard!

Mid Semester Week

It's official. I'm halfway through my classes here in Australia, not including the exam weeks. It's been marked with my first test, and my first big paper. I still have another test this week, and a big presentation and paper for next week. Now that I have a few things done, I feel a lot less nervous for the rest of it. My first test here was definitely scary and nerve racking. I hope I did okay!

My past weekend was fun, but not too eventful. We went to the local markets a lot, and I bought a lot of really cool, handmade Australian type things. Most souvenirs and trinkets. I really the markets though; so many people are out and about, and it's just a cool experience. I also went to the free public pools again, and on the walk back I caught a sighting of my favorite Australian bird (or one of them). It's the kookabura, and they are really cool looking. They have HUGE heads compared to their body. I love them.

Sunday I spent a good bit of the day on a field trip. My Biodiversity class went to Rowe's Bay to examine different types of habitats, and the number of species we could find. Pretty as this may look, it was walking around in huge fields of mud, in the hot sun. Surprisingly, I still really enjoyed it! This habitat was rocks that were submerged with high tide, and exposed at low tide. And this is a Mangrove tree. All the roots point upwards, so when it's covered in water, it can still breath. Pretty cool looking!

Billabong Sanctuary

I started my volunteering experience with Billabong this week, and I absolutely love it. Don't get me wrong, it was a long day with quite a bit of work, but it was definitely worth it. I learned how to pick up and hold koalas, saw some baby koala joeys up close and personal, held snakes and lizards during a ranger show, and maned the cash register and camera for the animal photos. We also swept cages, raked leaves, cleaned the kitchen, and prepared food for the wombats. The Sanctuary is a really cool place to begin with- a lot of the animals are free ranging, and have plenty of space and wonderful people to care for them. My car ride home was really interesting- I was car pooling with one of the rangers, and she regularly takes home one the wallaby, Arnie. In addition, we had a baby wombat in the car too; Tonka mom was sadly hit by a car down in south Australia, but the baby survived and was sent up here to Townsville to be cared for. He's super cute and really small. So many animals to cuddle! I'm going back again, in 2 weeks, for another round of volunteering. Hopefully, I'll be smart enough to being my camera with me, and catch a few pictures of some of the animals!

Tonight we went to the local market held the first Friday of every month, and on every Sunday. Packed with vendors and their handmade goods, I ended up buying quite a few things. Some of my purchases are really unique and cool- some are just pretty. I had to resist strong temptation to empty my whole wallet tonight... but I did get suckered into buying a bunch of sunflowers at the end of the night.
The flower vendor was just starting to get rid of them at that point, and they were too pretty to not buy for half price :) After a quick walk on the beach, in the war ocean water, we caught a bus back to campus. Another beautiful day.

Eccentic Australia

I've yet to post about how volunteering went last week- mostly because I didn't actually go. There was a mix-up in dates, and I don't start until this Thursday. I'm still really excited for it.

I haven't been up to anything too too exciting the past few days- taking it easy and getting some work done before next week (Mid-Semester!). Time is flying. I have been planning some other trips for the future here: a few friends and I booked flights to Sydney in November! I almost didn't think I'd make it down to Australia's most iconic city, but fate was in my favor. And we got tickets to see a show in the Opera house, which I'm sure will be awesome.

This is a video of a massive amount of lorikeets (small, parrot looking birds) hanging out in one of the trees downtown. There are legitimately HUNDREDS of them, and they make such a racket. It's normally around dusk when you see this many of them, all together in the same trees, squawking their heads off. Pretty as they are, I don't think I'd ever want to own one.

Otherwise, here are just a few more pictures of Australian things that I've gotten to enjoy!


The biggest snakes in Australia



Still loving Harry Potter- Aussie Style


The free pools- so pretty



Aussie money- made of plastic and straight out of monopoly



Apparently they don't like ketchup like we do- finding Heinz was a God-send