Yongala and Future Travel

I just finished my last final exam - they all went relatively well, hopefully - so I am officially done with fall semester! Yesterday, when I should have been studying, I went on a dive day trip to the Yongala, a shipwreck off the coast of Queensland. We tried to go out last Friday, but due to Queensland's notoriously rainy weather this time of year, the dive company had to cancel. Luckily, our second choice day, yesterday, was beautiful!! We had to wake up super early, since it is a 3 hour boat ride from Townsville. We got 2 dives, and were able to stay underwater for over 40 minutes each dive! That suprised me, because we went deep - to 28 meters max, which is over 90 feet - and you usually can't stay under very long at depth. But we planned the dive so we gradually ascended, making decompression gradual and allowing us to stay under as long as we had air. The wreck was SO COOL - it is basically a reef now, since coral and other reef animals have colonized it. The fish are HUGE - we saw one that was as a big as a small car! I think it was a giant wrasse - here is a picture off the internet:
There were also sea snakes, which are venomous but don't bite humans - they have paddle-like tails and swim all around the wreck. I thought they would be terrifying but they were just another "fish" to admire. Here is a picture of a sea snake:
We saw a turtle briefly, and one cool moment was swimming through a school of thousands of tiny fish, right up to my mask. The big fish in the distance made it even cooler. We saw a school of barracuda, and huge gropers hanging out in the shadows. Oh, and a moray eel! It was an awesome dive. No wonder it is called one of the best wreck dives in the world. A perfect end to my time in Townsville!

I leave for my adventure on Saturday - 2 days. Tomorrow I am packing and putting my stuff in storage, and then Saturday I leave for Airlie Beach. I will try and update my blog whenever I get on the internet, but I make no promises...

Here is my tenative schedule and a map (mom made me type it up for her, so it'll be an easy copy and paste into this blog!):

Saturday November 20^th

Leave Townsville 1:20pm (Premier Bus)

Arrive Airlie Beach 5:35pm

Stay Airlie Beach

Sunday November 21^st

Airlie Beach

Leave Airlie Beach 8:05pm (Greyhound Bus)

Arrive Mackay 10:10pm

Stay Mackay

Monday November 22^nd

Leave Mackay 11:15am (Qantas Flight 2515)

Arrive Brisbane 12:50pm

Stay Brisbane

Tuesday November 23^rd

Brisbane

Wednesday November 24^th

Brisbane

Leave Brisbane 7:30pm (Greyhound Bus – 17 hours)

Begin 21-day Greyhound Bus pass

Thursday November 25^th

Arrive Sydney 1pm

Stay Sydney

Friday November 26^th

Sydney

Saturday November 27^th

Sydney

Sunday November 28^th

Sydney

Leave Sydney 8pm (Greyhound Bus – 12 hours)

Monday November 29^th

Arrive Melbourne 8am

Stay Melbourne

Tuesday November 30^th

Melbourne

Wednesday December 1^st

Leave Melbourne 10:15am (Tiger Airways Flight TT5662)

Arrive Hobart (Tasmania) 11:30am

Stay Hobart

Thursday December 2^nd

Hobart

Friday December 3^rd

Hobart

Leave Hobart 4:10pm (Tiger Airways Flight TT5665)

Arrive Melbourne 5:25pm

Leave Melbourne 8pm (Greyhound Bus – 10 hours)

Saturday December 4^th

Arrive Adelaide 6am

Stay Adelaide

Sunday December 5^th

Adelaide

Monday December 6^th

Adelaide

Leave Adelaide 6pm (Greyhound Bus – 19.5 hours)

Tuesday December 7^th

Arrive Alice Springs 1:30pm

Stay Alice Springs

Wednesday December 8^th

Alice Springs

Leave Alice Springs 7:30pm (Greyhound Bus – 21 hours)

Thursday December 9^th

Arrive Darwin 5pm

Stay Darwin

Friday December 10^th

Darwin

Saturday December 11^th

Darwin

Sunday December 12^th

Leave Darwin 12pm (Greyhound Bus – 11 hours)

Monday December 13^th

Arrive Tennant Creek 2am

Stay at hostel?

Tennant Creek

Leave Tennant Creek 10pm (Greyhound Bus – 8 hours)

Tuesday December 14^th

Arrive Mt Isa 6am

Leave Mt Isa 7am (Greyhound Bus – 12 hours)

Arrive Townsville 7pm

Stay Townsville

21 Day bus pass expires, 11:59pm

Wednesday December 15^th

Townsville

Thursday December 16^th

Townsville

Friday December 17^th

Leave Townsville 5:55am (Qantas Flight 969)

Arrive Brisbane 7:40am

Leave Brisbane 12:05pm (Qantas Flight 15)

Arrive Los Angeles 7am

Leave Los Angeles 11:05am (American Airlines Flight 40)

Arrive New York JFK 7:35pm

Stay Raubsville!

Totals:

Airlie Beach – 1.5 days, 1 night

Mackay – 0 days, 1 night

Brisbane – 2.5 days, 2 nights

Sydney – 3.5 days, 3 nights

Melbourne – 2 days, 2 nights

Hobart – 2 days, 2 nights

Adelaide – 3 days, 2 nights

Alice Springs – 1.5 days, 1 night

Darwin – ~3 days, 3 nights

Tennant Creek – 1 day

Mt Isa – 1 hour

Townsville – 2 days, 3 nights

Total Bus Time: 117 hours!!! ~5 days!!!

~11,000 km = 6,800 miles

It should be quite the adventure!!!

You know you are becoming an Australian when...

...someone from home makes a comment about a temperature of 47 degrees, and your first thought is "wow, that is so hot!!!" I guess I think in Celcius now.

Thorsborne Trail, Hinchinbrook Island

Last Sunday my friend Maren and I began our hike of the Thorsborne Trail, a 32 km (20 mi) trail on Hinchinbrook Island, 1-2 hours north of Townsville. It was actually pretty complicated to actually get to the island, so I'll begin my story with our journey to Lucinda, QLD.

Saturday night was a special farewell dinner paid for by Butler, so the whole group of us got together for a fancy dinner in town.

Some of my closer Butler friends at the dinner

Maren and I had a 7:30 AM Greyhound bus to catch the next day; however the city buses didn't run until 8AM. It is an expensive cab ride from Uni to town ($30-$50), so as poor college students we decided to use our bus day passes from the dinner to take the LAST bus on Saturday to the bus stop and wait/sleep there until 7. This last bus was at 3:30AM. So after the dinner, we headed home of a few hours of sleep, got our stuff, and spent the next few hours at the bus depot (there were a few other backpackers doing similar things, so it was perfectly safe). We arrived in Ingham, QLD and got a shuttle to Lucinda, QLD, where we took a "ferry" (actually a little tin boat) to the island. The boat just pulled right up to the shore and dropped us off (no dock) and set us free! We felt like we were on Survivor. Two other people, a couple, took the boat with us, so we ran into them frequently throughout the trip.

We hiked the trail in four days, three nights, although the last day was not a very far hike to the pickup point. It was GORGEOUS. The first two days had tons of beautiful swimming holes scattered along the trail, which was a welcome relief from the heat. There were rivers, waterfalls, rainforest, regular forest, beaches, mountaintops - basically every ecosystem we could think of that didn't involve snow.

The trail was relatively flat with a few areas of elevation gain, however it had a lot of difficult parts. There were TONS of river crossings (usually shallow), so our feet were usually wet. At one point, we had to cross a huge swamp - we tried to hop from dry island to island, but always ran into places where it was impossible to cross without entering the swamp. We would have to step into shin-high murky water in crocodile territory (there were warning signs at places where crocs were known to inhabit - none at the swamp but still possible!). A large portion of the last day involved rock hopping around a bay covered in boulders.

We didn't have all the right gear for the trip, since mine is in the US, so we had to improvise. We borrowed a tent, but had no sleeping bags/ sleeping pads, so we slept with cotton sheets on the floor of the tent - very uncomfortable and hard. We didn't have a stove, so our food was limited to that which didn't need heating up. We took loaves of bread from our dining hall and bought peanut butter and jelly, along with granola bars and mixed nuts. My loaf went moldy at around Day 2, so I had to pick off mold spots until it was just unbearable, and then ate Maren's bread. Delicious! My boot also fell apart on Day 3, so I had to tie it together with a piece of my sheet.

On the last day, we met another, nicer ferry at the other end of the trail, which took us back to Cardwell, QLD, where we caught a Greyhound home. As soon as we got on the ferry, it started to POUR - we just beat the bad weather! It rained the rest of the night and into the next day. We were lucky that the bulk of our hike was beautiful weather. When we arrived in Townsville, I felt like a real local as I explained to a backpacker how to get to the hostel in town. After a quick stop at Maccas (what Aussies affectionately call McDonald's), we were safe and sound in our beds!

Overall, it was a great hike!! We saw tons of wildlife (lizards, birds, sharks - see below) and the scenery was great.

Me on top of a peak

At the top of a waterfall/cliff overlooking a bay - note Maren for scale

At Zoe Falls - the waterfall is a lot taller than this picture makes it seem, and the pool at its base is perfectly crystal clear

Swimming at Zoe Falls

Treacherous swamp crossing

HUGE spider! I don't think this guy is poisonous, but still terrifying!

One of our campsites, right on the beach

Boulder hopping

Shark things - there were tons of these along the coast, we think they are bottom feeders

One of many lizards

Now I am buckling down and studying (right now, writing this post to procrastinate) since I have finals in the next two weeks. Then, goodbye Townsville! Where did the time go??

For more pictures of my hike, check out my facebook album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2071229&id=1479180374&l=f92fc74f6f

Castle Hill, Fury Game, Maggie Island

The last few weeks have been relatively uneventful (thus the lack of blog posts), just a lot of classes and Townsville daily life. I am currently in my last week of classes (what?!) - time is flying here! I am in Townsville until November 20th, which means I have a week of study vacation next week, then two weeks of final exams. Exams here make me nervous, because in the Australian system, most of my finals count for 50+ percent of my final grade. There hasn't been a whole lot of assignments throughout the year, which means a lot of free time for me but not a lot to judge my progress in each class. Better start studying now!

The weather here is getting hotter and hotter - we are entering Australian summer, which means temperatures in the high 80s every day. We will often get random 5 minute downpours - this is also their wet season, although Townsville doesn't get hit as hard as the rainforest up north.

Some of my weekend escapades are as follows:

A free Townsville attraction is Castle Hill, a mountain in the middle of the city with a steep trail up to the top (there is also a road, for the pansies). Townsville residents use it for fitness - running and walking the steps before work in the morning, etc. Maren, Leah, Hope and I decided to climb it. It was a tiring climb up rock steps, but the views at the top were very nice:It was a little rainy/foggy the day we went, but you can still see 360 degree views of Townsville, and Magnetic Island off in the distance.

On a few occasions, Maren and I have been in the gym when 20 or so very good-looking guys have filed in and filled up entire rows of machines. We realized they were professional soccer players for the North Queensland Fury, who are based in Townsville. We decided we should support them at one of their games! The game we went to was against Perth, and they won! It was a very exciting game, and the crowd was really into it. One section was full of people painted green who chanted non-stop, waved flags, and were generally very rowdy. The only thing was, right at halftime, it started to POUR! Since we were already soaked, we decided to stay anyway and just deal with looking like drowned rats. We went to the afterparty because we wanted to meet the players like the flyer promised, but they took FOREVER and we ended up grabbing some free food and leaving before they arrived (if they even arrived at all).

Our favorite cute goalie in action

Maren and I in the rain

Another Townsville attraction is Magnetic Island - called Maggie Island by the locals. It is a twenty minute ferry ride from the city and is a relatively undeveloped beach and rainforest paradise. Five of my friends and I all went in on a beach house (meant for four people - we squeezed into one double and two single beds), which ended up being the same price per person as it would have been to stay in a hostel! We had our own kitchen, living room, dining room, grill, porch, and bathroom. We cooked all our own meals. First was Mexican night - we made tacos (quesedillas for me!) and Maren's famous guacamole - delicous!

Hard at work cooking dinner!

Family dinner on our porch

The next night, we grilled burgers (hamburgers for the meat eaters and fishburgers for me).

Tom manning the grill

Our house came with its own possum! These guys are like squirrels out here. This one came both nights to clean up our mess outside. They are pretty cute.
During the day, we went to the beach and relaxed. The beaches on Maggie are beautiful. They are a series of bays. I even got slightly tan! (But don't worry, dad, I applied sunscreen religiously. The sun here is brutal, and excellent at burning the tiny spots on my body that I missed sunscreening) It is almost jellyfish breeding season, so we have to be really careful when we swim. The most popular beaches have stinger nets that keep out most of the stingers - but not all! They can be really deadly, and the beaches have little vinegar stations for you to put on your stings.

Me at Radical Bay - we had to hike to get here

Leah, Maren, and Tom rented mopeds to see the island while the rest of us hiked/beached - they thought they were a cool motorcycle gang.

I got to try!

Other times, we explored Maggies extensive network of hiking paths. Some were steep and difficult, others not so much. One walk, the Forts walk, explored a bunch of old WWII forts and ended up at a high point on the island where there were 360 degree views. It was gorgeous! The forts walk is famous for the possibilty of seeing wild koalas! I looked really hard, but didn't get to see any. There was, however, a koala warning sign!

Koalas!

View from the top of the forts walk

It was a very relaxing weekend, and it was good to see Maggie up close and personal. Next week, during our study vacation (when I should be studying...) Maren and I are embarking on our Hinchinbrook Island backpacking trip. We leave Sunday and return Wednesday. Then I have four finals in the next two weeks. November 12th is our tentative dive of the Yongala, the shipwreck off Townsville.

I am hard at work planning the next leg of my journey, which begins once my time in Townsville ends - November 20th. I am doing a mini loop of Australia via bus - the plan is roughly: Townsville -> Airlie Beach (Whitsunday Islands) -> Brisbane -> Sydney -> Melbourne -> Hobart (Tasmania!) -> Adelaide -> Alice Springs -> Darwin -> Townsville. The purpose of the loop is so I can leave most of my stuff in Townsville, then just fly home from there. My flight home is on December 17th, so mark your calendars! I am nervous to travel by myself, but from my experience with backpacking/hostelling around Oz, I will most likely be able to quickly make friends. Should be quite the adventure!!!

Lecture Recess: Cairns Trip

Last Friday was the beginning of our lecture recess, a sort of spring break (since, after all, this is the Australian spring semester). After my lab on Friday, five of my friends and I took the train from Townsville to Cairns, a city about 6 hours north of us. It is known for its proximity to the Great Barrier Reef, and its tourism industry takes millions of visitors each year on reef trips.

Waiting for the train:

We got into Cairns around 8, walked to our hostel, Global Backpackers, and went to get our free "dinner" promised by the hostel. It turned out to be about 6 spaghetti noodles on a plate, with a teaspoon of sauce. It seemed like someone was playing a joke on us, but I guess that's what you get for $16/night! The next morning, bright and early, we headed out to our liveaboard boat! Basically, a huge boat is anchored on the reef, and a little day-tripper boat shuttles people back and forth every day. We were staying for 3 days and 2 nights. You dive right off the back of the big boat, which also has cabins, a "saloon" where all meals are provided, and a sundeck for hanging out.

Our cabin

The five of us (Hannah, Maren, Alicia, me, and Tom) from JCU aboard the Kangaroo explorer!

We were going to do ten dives in three days: 3 the first day, 4 the second, and 3 the third. All of us except Hannah were just open-water certified (Hannah has completed all certifications possible, and now is an Instructor - it was very handy to have her as a free guide! She took care of most of the navigation when we were underwater by ourselves) but Alicia, Maren, and I were getting our Advanced certification on the boat, along with a couple from New South Wales, Australia:

Our advanced class in the saloon with Brendan, our instructor

Getting advanced certified entailed a deep dive (30 meters, or about 100 feet), a night dive, and a navigation dive, along with our choice of two other specialty dives - I chose "boat" (instead of entering the water directly from the dive deck, they took us out in a small boat and we had to roll backwards off the edge into the water), and underwater naturalist (where I just had to identify different fish). The deep dive was not super different from a regular dive (open water divers are certified to 18 meters, or about 60 feet) except a little darker and colder. Brendan, our instructor, cracked an egg underwater and the yolk remained intact, showing us the increased pressure down there. As we were passing the yolk around, a huge fish was hovering over our shoulders eyeing it, and as soon as it got far enough away, the fish gobbled it down! The night dives (we did 2, one with Brendan and one by ourselves) were awesome - a huge red bass followed us around because he had learned that our flashlights would illuminate little fish that he could eat. We saw a sea turtle on one of the night dives, and a lionfish. For the last few minutes, Brendan made us turn our flashlights off, and our eyes adjusted just like walking at night. There were bio-luminescent particles in the water, so with every fin stroke the water lit up like fairy dust. SO COOL! The navigation dive was difficult, but my dive buddy was very helpful. The rest of the dives we were free to wander around in pairs (or our case, a group of five) and we saw SO many different kinds of fish. We saw sharks, a barracuda named Barry, and about four sea turtles! I got to scratch one of the sea turtles on the back. Some of the highlights:

Lionfish

Sea Turtle!!

Holding a sea cucumber - its tube feet would suction to your hand!

Clownfish - we found nemo!

Me with a giant clam

Me underwater

Pufferfish, I think

Fin blisters

After our trip ended, Alicia, Hannah, and I spent two nights in the city of Cairns in a hostel. We upgraded a little from Global and stayed at Gilligans, which was a good decision (the free meal was slightly bigger, and the rooms were SO much nicer). In our hostel room we stayed with 2 girls from London and 2 guys, Ian and Erik, from Nevada, who we got along with very well. Cairns was a lot of fun, and is full of international backpackers. On Tuesday night we went on a pub crawl, which included transportation around the city on a double decker party bus. We met a lot of people from all over the world, which was really fun. We also went souvenir shopping and explored the city.

Hannah, Alicia, and I

Our new friends from the hostel, Ian and Erik (with Alicia)

Double decker bus

I had SO much fun on this trip, and look forward to doing more travelling after classes get out! I was definately bitten by the travelling bug this week! But for now, we have a month left of classes, then a week of study vacation and 2 weeks of finals. Then, my time at JCU is over! It went super fast, and I'm a little sad it is already drawing to a close. I plan on travelling for a few weeks by myself after finals, then will be heading home in time for Christmas. In the next few weeks I am looking forward to diving a shipwreck off the coast of Townsville, which supposedly has HUGE monster fish and is amazing, as well as a backpacking trip on Hinchinbrook Island with my friend Maren. Should be an exciting next few months!

Rugby, Paluma, Undara, Shakespeare, and Sailing

A lot has happened since my last post, and here is a quick overview-

A few weeks back, we went to a rugby game. Rugby, or "footy", as one type of rubgy is called (there are two types, rugby union and rugby league, but I can't keep them straight) is HUGE in Australia. The North Queensland Cowboys are based in Townsville. They lost, but it was still fun to see the whole scene.Group of Butler kids at the rugby game

the Cowboys- notice their lack of padding or helmets, making American football players look like wimps

Next, as part of my program, we took a trip up to Paluma, a section of rainforest near Townsville. We took a rainforest hike and then went to a swimming hole at crystal creek, where we could jump off high rocks and slide down natural water slides.

Natural water slides at crystal creek

In the rainforest at Paluma - this root grew into a knot

Last weekend, my parents came to visit! They rented a campervan where the three of us lived for a few days:

It was pretty cramped! I took a bus down to Mission Beach, a town north of Townsville where there are a lot of wild Cassowaries - HUGE flightless birds similar to emus but more colorful. At Mission Beach we took a rainforest hike and saw 2 cassowaries! Since it was rainy and we couldn't go to the beach, we decided to use our remaining time to go to Undara, a series of lava tubes west of Mission Beach, more in the dry outback area of Australia. We drove west and crossed the mountain range on a beautiful drive. As we progressed west the landscape became drier and drier. We saw wild kangaroos and wallabees along the road, as well as huge termite mounds:

We camped at Undara that night and observed the wildlife at the campsite - wallabees, cute rat kangaroos, and lorikeets (colorful birds in the parrot family):wallabee at our campground

The next day we took a hike to a lookout:

mom and dad

me at the lookout

and then went on a guided tour of the lava tubes. A long time ago, there was a huge volcanic event and rivers of lava poured over the land. The outside cooled first, and hardened into these tubes that insulated the lava within and allowed them to travel further. Eventually, the inside lava flowed out, and the shells were left over. They go for miles and miles, but some have collapsed. It was really cool!

I had to go back to school to go to class, so after giving mom and dad a tour of campus, they headed south to continue their adventure. They leave tomorrow, and so far they have gone diving at the Whitsunday islands and saw a wild koala! They are currently in Brisbane.

I had a busy weekend this weekend. On Friday, five friends and I went to see a Shakespeare play - Richard III- in a botanical gardens in the city. It was really fun! It was a great atmosphere, and even though I'm not the biggest Shakespeare fan I enjoyed it. The play was really well done, and it was kind of creepy (a bunch of ghosts come and haunt him)

Set of Richard III

The next day, we woke up early to go on another Butler event - sailing around Magnetic Island, which is off the coast of Townsville. I have never been sailing before, and I loved it! The seas were pretty choppy, so it was a rough ride - which made it more fun! A few people in our group got seasick, and most people felt a little queasy, but not me! I guess I have sea legs... The more adventurous of us stood in the front to ride the waves:

It was hard to balance! After an hour or so of sailing, we pulled over to a beach for morning tea and eventually lunch. We went swimming and had fun on the beach:

In front of our pirate ship

A few of us went out to dinner in town afterwards. This week I have to buckle down and do a lot of work, but next week we have a week off of classes. I am going north to Cairns and going on a dive trip - a liveaboard boat for three days and two nights. I am so excited!