Mon. June 18 - Wed. June 20 - Class and 12 hour bus rides

MONDAY
Monday is just as rough in Australia then it is back home. We had a long day beginning at 9am. The course was titled "Creating a Green, Sustainable Environment". At first, this class wasn't my cup of tea, probably since we talked a lot about land tenure in Australia and all the legalities of owning land. So, after hearing about all of that, I was tired. I visited the library to work on a paper that had a due date pushed back, but I left it on my computer. Here's me leaving the library...

TUESDAY
Not much different from Monday, only I edited my paper and turned it in. Matt also talked to us about his development in his research for the Box Jellyfish.

The Box Jellyfish is a deadly Jellyfish and is extremely popular to be found off of the Australian Coast during Jellyfish season. It has said to begin in October and last until April for the threat. The Jellyfish are in a Polyp stage when it's the off-season. They are harmless and hard to find at this time. Otherwise, I wouldn't get in the water. We also learned and saw a video on the Irukandji Jellyfish Sting. This is said to be the most painful thing a human can experience. Once stung by a very very small (these suckers are tiny), you won't know it until about 30 minutes after. Then, you will start to feel pain everywhere in your body. I'm afraid that's no exaggeration. Matt was telling us of his experience in seeing someone get stung by one. The pain can last up to 3 days and there is no anti-venom or cure. No thanks.

WEDNESDAY
Woke up early on this day to begin our loonggg field trip to Cooktown! I had no idea what was in store...first of all, packing for 5 days in a backpack just doesn't work. It was maximized in weight and comfort, just don't do it. My professor even claimed I was crazy for somehow attempting to fit everything in it!

We begin our travels going up a mountain near Cairns. This is actually a road at capacity and it incredibly steep, twisty and dangerous in my eyes. My professors said there are a lot of accidents. We stopped at a lookout on our way up:

We headed north to Mareeba, which happens to be our professor's town. The vegetation immediately changed once we were outside of Cairns. The grass was more like savannah grass and the trees were really skinny. Our first interview we had as a class for our project was at a waste center in Mareeba. The man talked a lot about what they were doing for the town. He took us up to the waste yard and showed us his compost he'd been working on. It was amazing the processes that they had. There was also this awesome dump truck that emptied its load from the side. First, Mareeba's vegetation. Then, waste.

Mareeba's Old Prison

 We drove a LOT that day, so I slept on the bus for most of the time. I knew that there wouldn't be many sights from point A to B. I did wake up at one point and saw a lot of smoke, that's right our bus crashed!

...That's probably a bad joke. What was really happening was the fires that they have every dry season. It's apparently healthy for regrowing vegetation. Here's what it looked like from the bus (pardon the "Auto Door" sticker)

 We also traveled to a Mango farm. There were so many Mango Trees.

 

Our last stop for the day was Swiss Farms, a Banana farm. It was really neat, I'd never been inside one of these. 

Above: Banana's not fully grown. Below: First wild wallaby photo attempt.

 Our night ended with checking into our accommodations...I didn't think it would be a campsite. We had rooms in trailers that consisted of either one full bed or two twin beds. I shared with Rachel. When we walked in, there was a spider and a gecko on our wall. I was not too excited, except the showers were incredibly clean and roomy. I did enjoy my shower :) Here's a picture of our room.

Cheers for now!