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!