Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Orpheus Island Research Station
Whoo... what a weekend! Besides the fact that we had to wake up at 3AM for a field trip it was an amazing weekend at and excluded island in the island chain of Palm islands, next to one of the most dangerous islands to visit in the world, great palm island, makes you feel safe doesn't it! It was considered so dangerous because there were several different aboriginal tribes packed on to the tiny island and what else can you do when your crammed with other people that smell and there’s no electricity or running water...you fight. And that’s the moral of the story, but we did not go there.
We took a 16 person boat jam backed with all our gear out to the island at 7AM. Let me just explain this ride to you, I’m not sure if you know what 25 knots does to ocean waves but let me try and explain... imagine sliding down a mountain side that is covered in boulders in a tin can while its raining.... it was the most exciting terrifying boat ride of my life! Oh and I forgot to mention it lasted 45 minutes!!! I have never held on for dear life as hard as I did on that ride, surprisingly no one got sick!
Once we reached the island and kissed the sand we settled into our accommodations, which were pretty much the nicest cabins, I have ever stayed in! There were 6 people to a room and the bathrooms were a separate building so if you had to get up and go in the middle of the night...you ran scared to death one of the 3 million things that could kill you would stumble in your path.
We spent the rest of the day exploring the island finding coral and going to a lecture by 8 PM I think everyone was passed out. We had an early morning of surveying to do which took up all day, but I got plenty of amazing pictures thanks to my underwater camera! The next day we took the little power boats off the coast of pioneer bay on the leeward side of the island where we were stay, and saw some black tip reef sharks on our way to the windward side of the island, Iris Point to do some more surveying. The passage in which we could fit our boats in just right was a small inlet with jagged corals on one side and huge rocks on the other so as the boats comes jumping in we have to pretty much jump for our lives of the boat in time to not get knocked over by a rouge wave or stab ourselves on coral and rocks, oh and watch out for the blue ringed octopus and cone snails because you would be dead in 30min, of and its stinger season! Ahh the thrills of Australia! After a quick hour long monsoon, in which I’m holding a 4 meter high steel staff in the air while standing in a small ocean, thank god it wasn't a thunderstorm, we packed up all our gear and made the kilometer hike through coral rubble and huge slippery rocks back to the boat pick up sight and waded out into the death filled coral sea and jumped onto our boats, my boat of course had a broken sump pump so the 20 min ride back to pioneer bay we were all staring at the water level rising within the boat and the gas tank floating around in the small pool we had going on inside and praying if we sank that maybe nothing would kill us. Ha-ha but safely we made it back to shore. Where we all made a mad dash to the showers, which to my great surprise there was hot water and we could stay in the shower for a whole three minutes! However, there was one single catch you had to find the shower stall with the least amount of spiders of wildlife in general. Great fun!
We had a lab report we had to complete on the island, which brought us to the primatative age of having to make graphs BY HAND! And writing BY HAND...whoo I don’t know how people did it! :)
The boat ride back to the main land was not nearly as fun as the trip out, but we were all particularly glad for that seeing we all got just over an hour of sleep from staying up the night before writing our lab reports until all hours of the morning. It was a great trip!
Lucky for me I will be heading back to the island again this weekend for my Life History and Evolution class! Looking forward to that as well!
A few updates: we booked our hostel in Sydney and in Brisbane, in brissy we are staying on Bondi beach which is the most famous beach in Australia! And our hostel supplies free snorkeling and surfboard rentals! Also they have a SPA!!!! In Sydney we are staying in an amazing hostel right in the heart of the city! So excited for lecture recess! The following weekend me and a friend of mine are heading to Byron bay for the Mardi Grass festival in the town of Nimbin, that Sunday is also the Groove in the Moo concert festival so it should be an excellent time!
Cheers mates
We took a 16 person boat jam backed with all our gear out to the island at 7AM. Let me just explain this ride to you, I’m not sure if you know what 25 knots does to ocean waves but let me try and explain... imagine sliding down a mountain side that is covered in boulders in a tin can while its raining.... it was the most exciting terrifying boat ride of my life! Oh and I forgot to mention it lasted 45 minutes!!! I have never held on for dear life as hard as I did on that ride, surprisingly no one got sick!
Once we reached the island and kissed the sand we settled into our accommodations, which were pretty much the nicest cabins, I have ever stayed in! There were 6 people to a room and the bathrooms were a separate building so if you had to get up and go in the middle of the night...you ran scared to death one of the 3 million things that could kill you would stumble in your path.
We spent the rest of the day exploring the island finding coral and going to a lecture by 8 PM I think everyone was passed out. We had an early morning of surveying to do which took up all day, but I got plenty of amazing pictures thanks to my underwater camera! The next day we took the little power boats off the coast of pioneer bay on the leeward side of the island where we were stay, and saw some black tip reef sharks on our way to the windward side of the island, Iris Point to do some more surveying. The passage in which we could fit our boats in just right was a small inlet with jagged corals on one side and huge rocks on the other so as the boats comes jumping in we have to pretty much jump for our lives of the boat in time to not get knocked over by a rouge wave or stab ourselves on coral and rocks, oh and watch out for the blue ringed octopus and cone snails because you would be dead in 30min, of and its stinger season! Ahh the thrills of Australia! After a quick hour long monsoon, in which I’m holding a 4 meter high steel staff in the air while standing in a small ocean, thank god it wasn't a thunderstorm, we packed up all our gear and made the kilometer hike through coral rubble and huge slippery rocks back to the boat pick up sight and waded out into the death filled coral sea and jumped onto our boats, my boat of course had a broken sump pump so the 20 min ride back to pioneer bay we were all staring at the water level rising within the boat and the gas tank floating around in the small pool we had going on inside and praying if we sank that maybe nothing would kill us. Ha-ha but safely we made it back to shore. Where we all made a mad dash to the showers, which to my great surprise there was hot water and we could stay in the shower for a whole three minutes! However, there was one single catch you had to find the shower stall with the least amount of spiders of wildlife in general. Great fun!
We had a lab report we had to complete on the island, which brought us to the primatative age of having to make graphs BY HAND! And writing BY HAND...whoo I don’t know how people did it! :)
The boat ride back to the main land was not nearly as fun as the trip out, but we were all particularly glad for that seeing we all got just over an hour of sleep from staying up the night before writing our lab reports until all hours of the morning. It was a great trip!
Lucky for me I will be heading back to the island again this weekend for my Life History and Evolution class! Looking forward to that as well!
A few updates: we booked our hostel in Sydney and in Brisbane, in brissy we are staying on Bondi beach which is the most famous beach in Australia! And our hostel supplies free snorkeling and surfboard rentals! Also they have a SPA!!!! In Sydney we are staying in an amazing hostel right in the heart of the city! So excited for lecture recess! The following weekend me and a friend of mine are heading to Byron bay for the Mardi Grass festival in the town of Nimbin, that Sunday is also the Groove in the Moo concert festival so it should be an excellent time!
Cheers mates
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Fisher Shield
Fisher shield events have been going on for the past couple of weeks and have kept our GR spirits really high! Fisher shield is the competion between colleges thats goes on here at Uni, there are a series of events over the week and weekends where we dress in yellow and black and scream G-R who are we!?... G-R, lose and then go home :) we were doing really well in water polo until the finals :( and so far in net ball (basketball) we have been hanging in there, our biggest and loudest rivals are Uni Hall.
Since the big Cyclone Ului upset, we have had nothing but pouring rain for 3 or 4 hours a day, losing the tan rapidly :( The other night it rained so much during the day the volleyball court outside of my block(dorm) was flooded and so naturally all of college, at around 8:00, decided to play a very wet and sandy game of volley ball :) Until the thrill of running around getting a ball thrown at you and not being able to see it in the rain subsided we moved on to the more common backyard sport of boogey boarding and skimboarding in the lake that had formed in the quad! It was a great night and brought our college so much more close togetherI I have made some amazing Australian and American friends here! The only way, that they will get me back on the plane at the end of these 6 months is probably by drugging me or handing me a free ticket to return!
This week has flown by already and it's scary how fast time is slipping by, all the weeks have been thrown together in a crazy blurr. This coming weekend at 4:30 AM on friday I will be embarking on an adventure to Orpheus Island, off the coast up north, for my Coral Reef Geomorphology class with my professor Scott Smithers (hes written books and published many papers!), for a weekend of snorkling, surveying and sun, oh yeah and 2 lectures. Apparently you can only take 2 minute showers on the island, so I will be that person who after the water shuts off will be covered in soap and shampoo with only one leg shaved! I will be sure to take many many pictures and provide an update as soon as I get back! The weeekend after this I will be back at Orpheus for my life history and evolution of coral reefs class, so by this time hopefully I will have the two minute shower thing down!
The weekend after that i'm going up to Carins to stay with my friends family at their home and check out the Carins behind the scenes!!!!! :)
cheers!
Since the big Cyclone Ului upset, we have had nothing but pouring rain for 3 or 4 hours a day, losing the tan rapidly :( The other night it rained so much during the day the volleyball court outside of my block(dorm) was flooded and so naturally all of college, at around 8:00, decided to play a very wet and sandy game of volley ball :) Until the thrill of running around getting a ball thrown at you and not being able to see it in the rain subsided we moved on to the more common backyard sport of boogey boarding and skimboarding in the lake that had formed in the quad! It was a great night and brought our college so much more close togetherI I have made some amazing Australian and American friends here! The only way, that they will get me back on the plane at the end of these 6 months is probably by drugging me or handing me a free ticket to return!
This week has flown by already and it's scary how fast time is slipping by, all the weeks have been thrown together in a crazy blurr. This coming weekend at 4:30 AM on friday I will be embarking on an adventure to Orpheus Island, off the coast up north, for my Coral Reef Geomorphology class with my professor Scott Smithers (hes written books and published many papers!), for a weekend of snorkling, surveying and sun, oh yeah and 2 lectures. Apparently you can only take 2 minute showers on the island, so I will be that person who after the water shuts off will be covered in soap and shampoo with only one leg shaved! I will be sure to take many many pictures and provide an update as soon as I get back! The weeekend after this I will be back at Orpheus for my life history and evolution of coral reefs class, so by this time hopefully I will have the two minute shower thing down!
The weekend after that i'm going up to Carins to stay with my friends family at their home and check out the Carins behind the scenes!!!!! :)
cheers!
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
St. Patricks day!
Today is St. Patricks day so EVERYONE from college is heading into town for some Irish festivities and green beer!! Handed in my first lab report for one of my classes today at 5:00PM, I dont think I have ever walked faster to make it to this bulding all the way across campus before in my life, but a HUGE weight is lifted off my shoulders now that it is all done and handed in...whoo. Not much has been happening other than everyone stressing about the first round of assessments being due, so this weekend I plan on traveling around to some new exciting location and make sure I have tons of pictures to add, hope everyone is keen :)
cheers
cheers
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Certified Diver!
Got my Open water Diver Certification last weekend! you are looking at a logged 4 hour open water diver! who dove a wreck in Australia! It was amazing! besides the fact that the bus system in Australia is so laid back, I mean they are so laid back they decided not to drive by Uni for 2 1/2 hours while a poor Nicole was out there cooking to a crisp in the 90 degree weather of 7:30 AM! I wasn't too keen. The weekend was amazing traveling to maggie island and diving for two whole days! I got to test out "darwin" my underwater camera case :)
I am having a stressful week with classes kicking in and the fact that here in paradise I actually do have to do work...how lame! Well, I guess it's ok when you are outside drinking coffee going over a lab report when there is a kookabura at the table right next to you... :) The other night we decided to have a mud fight and run and jump in the River, some of the most fun I have ever had, got wicked dirty! saw an Australian OWL!!!! in real life! It was an amazing night!
Went to Mcdonalds or 'Maccas' as they say, tonight and it was AMAZING, don't think I have ever been hit on in a mcdonalds before, just because I have an accent, but there is a first for everything I guess. it was so nice to have a little 'home' food, and it did taste very similar to the states, however there is no dollar menu.... lame!
Cheers! Heading to the market tomorrow morning for some local shopping and ice cream! :)
I am having a stressful week with classes kicking in and the fact that here in paradise I actually do have to do work...how lame! Well, I guess it's ok when you are outside drinking coffee going over a lab report when there is a kookabura at the table right next to you... :) The other night we decided to have a mud fight and run and jump in the River, some of the most fun I have ever had, got wicked dirty! saw an Australian OWL!!!! in real life! It was an amazing night!
Went to Mcdonalds or 'Maccas' as they say, tonight and it was AMAZING, don't think I have ever been hit on in a mcdonalds before, just because I have an accent, but there is a first for everything I guess. it was so nice to have a little 'home' food, and it did taste very similar to the states, however there is no dollar menu.... lame!
Cheers! Heading to the market tomorrow morning for some local shopping and ice cream! :)
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
travels with Steph, and camera mishaps
Sorry it has been so long since I have updateed alot has been going on and alot has happened!!! :)
Last week me and my Steph went to the strand (the Townsville beach) and soaked up some awesome rays and grabbed coffee and shopped. we were so over Caf. food that we decided it would be loads of fun to go out to dinner on the ocean se we found a place called Jamacia Joe's and ordered ourselves some very fancy drinks and talked and talked and talked and ordered amazingly delish pizza, all while overlooking the ocean! We were taking a whole bunch of pictures and I placed my camera down on the edge of the table to take a sip of my drink...well as I pulled my drink closer to me I wacked my camera, which was sent hurtling over the edge of the table and under the deck we were sitting on! I had no idea what to do and did not want to lose all of my pictures from the day! At this point the couple sitting next to us asked what happened and was trying to help us look for it. I went around the deck of the restaurant to the other side and looked inside the dark deep rock cave in which my camera fell into and just thought, well its gone! The guy from the table next to ours was telling me how I really shouldn't stick my hand in there because there were snakes that live in there. Once they bite you, you don't even make it to the hospital, so I was like oh well, awesome! Apparently there was also feral cats that lived in there too. so im poking around this hole with a dead palm leaf trying to see anything at all, and I spot a coke bottle not too far down laying horizontaly on a rock ledge facing a pit of complete probally snake infested darkness, and what do I think I see, the strap of my camera hanging oh so perfectly on the edge of the bottle opening. Now, at this point we have attracted the attention of the entire resturant and a waitress who is now looking in the deep abyss with me and the Australian bloke. I kept saying I think thats the strap of my camera on the end of that bottle! I really think thats' it so all of a sudden she reaches in and rips the bottle out and sure enough, there hanging from the tip of the bottle was my camera! WHAT ARE THE CHANCES!!! turned out to be a great night with delicious food and a feral cat as company! :)
cheers
cheers
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