life in the boonies (aka north queensland)

Monday- travel

So it was a terribly early morning but we hopped on a plane and flew for 2 hours and ended up in an entirely new landscape. The dry jungly forest and rolling ocean was a nice view on our way to the new home in what the our professor calls the troopie! It was a long windy drive, but we soon found ourselves at a cattle ranch in the middle of the rainforest, which I know is kind of hard to picture, but it is essentially rolling fields with rainforest on the edges. We then quickly got to know our 2 person tents and find the bathrooms and showers and explore the landscape. After a few lectures about all the dangerous animals we may encounter and how we can die (including getting a leech in your eye! lol. this doesnt kill you so dont worry!). We then snuggled into our tents ready for a new day. ALSO: important note, the food here is AMAZING, and there is a constant supply of food, which makes us very happy =).

Tuesday

So we started out the day with some lectures about geology and how the land and weather works in Australia. Then we had some down time, where some people went running, and others played volleyball over the cattle fence, which was fun and innovative!

Then we went into the rainforest to learn about some of the local flora and fauna in person. There are these birds that build huge nests of detritus and use the warmth from the decomposition reactions to keep their eggs at the correct temperature. There are also crazy vines that have nasty prickers which attach to the other plants and use them to grow. We also learned that because there were no monkeys that grew and evolved with the flora in Australia, none of the fruit tastes good, as birds have different palates.

When we came back we had another delicious dinner with some chocolate pudding! Then we headed out to a campfire and told scary ghost stories and long jokes which was a blast! We really get to bond on this part of the trip since we are forced to be together and get dirty! hehe.

Wednesday

Again that morning we had some fun times in lecture learning about the local plant evolution and species in the local area. After a good breakfast of nutella and some chamomile tea it was a good time. Often, I say hello to the horses who hang out by our dorm.

In the afternoon we ventured into the forest once again to do some tree logging and examine the difference between the dry forest and the rain forest. Without natural or man created bush fires, the rainforest will encroach into the dry forest ecosystem, which causes some more issues with regards to whether or not there should be regulated fires or not, and which species or ecosystem to save. That took a long part of the day, but of course we had to go swimming when we got back.

So what we thought would be a short walk to a creek ended up being a hike in bathers and thongs (flip flops) through the jungle, across logs and in the squelching mud. It was a ton of fun and we exfoliated in the thick almost quicksand mud, fell off broken branches and joked about leeches. yay australia! WE then returned and showered! AFter some more SCRUMPTIOUS spag bol (spaghetti Bolognese, we had a quiz night on australia slang and pop culture. We scored a 16/22 which was not too shabby!  Then we went on a night hike and found a lot of spiders (which is a bit disconcerting) a bright green frog and some sleeping birds.