Who doesn't love nemo?

I saw these little guys in an anemone while snorkeling:

ENJOY!

An Unexpected Vacation

After we bid our goodbyes to the cattleranch in Cairns, AUS, half of the group traveled to the coast to a small touristy beach town called Port Douglass for the weekend. (The other half stayed back at Wetherby to finish research projects). We arrived on Fiday and had until Tuesday morning to do whatever our little hearts desired. I don't know how it happened, but somehow, we ended up in paradise. No class, no field books, no tests--nothing but a coastal beach town full of amazing opportunities. This unexpected short vacation had the marks of becoming quite a highlight of the trip.
As soon as we arrived to the hostel, we put on our swim suits and headed to the beach, which was only a short and easy 10 minute walk. We literally spent all day lounging on the beach and basking in the warm Australian sun, soaking up life. Many of us learned the value of sunscreen that day, and it is a lesson we will never forget. The Australian sun isn't messing around, it means business. The water as you may imagine was unbelievably warm, but not by any means unpleasant. It was of gorgeous blue tint and extremely flat. It felt as if we were jumping into our own personal gigantic pool. A pool however, where encountering crocodiles would not be a rarity. Yes, you heard me, crocodiles. As if sharks and jellyfish weren't enough, lets throw in aggressive territorial reptiles into the picture!  I'm not going to lie, though we were told they wouldn't actually be where we were swimming, it was quite an odd feeling being in an ocean and fearing a croc. ::sighs:: Only in Australia...

On Saturday, our day was very similar to before. We ate, swam, and toured the town. Port Douglass is your typical beach town. Touristy gift shops all up on and down a main street interspersed with high-end shopping and of course pubs. We were blessed in the afternoon with a standard rainforest rainfall. The first of the wet season here in Australia.

Sunday, however, was probably the most incredible day that I have ever had in my entire life and I say that without hesitation. It was a day to scratch off an item on just about every person's Bucketlist. We had the privilege of scuba diving and snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef. It was simply surreal. The company boat Calypso took us to 3 different sites where you could choose to either snorkel or dive for a solid hour. The colors were remarkably vivid. Several times I had to convince myself that what I was seeing was actually through my own eyes and not a TV screen. It was like having scenes from Planet Earth playing only meters in front of me. So many incredible sea creatures, fishes, giant clams, sea cucumbers etc we saw it all. My underwater encasing for my camera proved to be an extremely worthwhile investment. As you can see here:

Goodbye Wetherby!

So the first part of our second course, "Coastal Forest Ecosystems" (CFE) is over! And what an amazing experience it was! We slept in tents on a gorgeous cattle ranch where we ate to our stomach's content the most delicious meals, we witnessed sunrises and sunsets from the tops of granite mountains, saw animals that some people can only dream about seeing (ie. the kangaroos, wallabys, peacocks, geckos, platypus, etc), toured ancient underground limestone caves, ate kangaroo and crocodile meat (surprisingly delicious by the way), explored the different types of forests and woodlands that exist in this continent, learned about Australia's flora and fauna in contextual detail, and best of all spent an incredible 10 days in the Australian rainforest with really supportive and overall very fun TAs and professors.  After our exam on the final day, we concluded the course with a campfire/talent show. We shared many glasses of wine and laughed and reminisced about the trips.The talent show was entertaining to say the least. Some of us actually performed and sang and played the guitar quite impressionably, while others made up parodies. For example, Katie and I were just DYING to share our love for buttress roots that we decided to create and original rap to the tune of "Baby Got Back" You can only imagine how that went down.. "I like big buttress roots and I cannot lie, you Eucalypts can't deny when a tree walks in with an itty bitty trunk and big roots in your face you get... " and so on and so forth.

Needless to say, we were all very sad to say goodbye to Wetherby and the CFE staff.

Home Sweet Wetherby

And we're off! After a long taxing week at the University of Queensland sitting in a classroom for 8 hours day after day exploring the field of "Coastal Resource Management," our Australian outdoor adventure has officially begun! With a 5am wake up call, all 47 of us groggily packed, got on a bus, and headed to the airport where we were greeted by our travel chaperone, Billy (whose real name is apparently Vincent....not sure where the Billy comes from). We were headed to Cairns, a city in the rainforest of northern Queensland for our next class "Coastal Forest Ecosystem: Terrestrial".  From past Stanford students, we have heard that this part of our abroad adventure is by far one of the best experiences we will ever have in our entire life, so our expectations were indubitably very high. However, little did we know of what was to come.
We were picked up at the airport by 8 safari style Land Cruisers each driven by our professors and TAs.

We drove through the woodlands and then eventually into the rainforest. Destination: Wetherby Station, an eco-tourist Cattle Ranch resort. We were greeted by our professor, Clare Baker (who is casually one of the coolest people I've ever met. She helped film parts of Planet Earth and is buddies with the one and only David Attenborough). She welcomed us to the Station and then handed us over to the owner, a lovely old farmer man who has dedicated his life to agriculture science and now to eco-tourism.
We were then shown our accommodations for the next seven days. At first glance, we see a row of about 28 tents all lined up at the top of a hill. So naturally I though, awesome we're camping! I wonder if they'll supply us with a sleeping bag!! To all of our surprise, however, upon opening the tent we came to the realization that we were about to get spoiled for the next week and a half. All that was missing was a chocolate on our pillow.

Our terrestrial adventure has begun. Wetherby Station will serve as our home base and throughout the day we'll take several field trips to learn about the flora and fauna in the rainforest/outback of Northern Australia. Looking forward to it! Next stop Chillagoe!

Never thought I'd see the day...

....but it is actively down pour RAINING in the sunburnt country. TORRENTIAL rain descended on my head as I walked home from the bus stop. They weren't kidding when they said that Australia is a land of extremed! I could now use a nice fireplace, hot chocolate, and perhaps a blanket. Coldest and gloomiest day yet, and what IMPECCABLE timing!!! We have our first exam tomorrow on "Coastal Resource Management."

For my avid followers, soon after my exam tomorrow I will be sure to post a dense description of what this past week has looked like. I apologize for it being so long since I've posted; it has been quite a jam packed week with VERY little down time.

cheers,
MB