Daintree!

Group picture of students in front of Daintree river/coast lookout.

This past week we had our last large trip. The Daintree is another Wet Tropics World Heritage Area just like the rainforests that surround the Centre, but it is further North and in the lowlands right next to the ocean. The Daintree is also a little bit different than the Atherton Tablelands because it is virtually undeveloped. The Tablelands has protected pieces of rainforest, but lots of paddocks and houses. Very few people live in the Daintree area, especially north of the Daintree river where the local shire council decided to not allow an electrical grid. Back to that later.

On our drive to Daintree,we stopped at Mossman Gorge, a rainforest State Park with a river running through it. After a long swim break wearing ourselves out with the currents, we were back on the road. Before taking the ferry across the Daintree River- no bridge- we went to the Daintree Icecream Factory where native fruits are grown and made into delicious ice cream.

River at Mossman Gorge- had to swim through a strong current to get to the rock.

We spent some time on the beach, no swimming because of stingers (jellyfish), and got settled in Crocodylus, the 'backpacker's resort' that we were staying at. On the way to the beach, one vanload of students got to see two cassowaries dart into the rainforest! Picture large cabins, but with a waterproof tarp for a roof and thick mesh for walls. The next day was packed.

The day started with a trip to the Daintree Discovery Centre, a privately run rainforest boardwalk and information center. There were lots of paths to explore, a platform tower to get a good view and a theatre with informative videos.

It's a statue, don't worry!

Afterward we went to a plot of 3b rainforest, mesophyll vine forest with dominant fan palms, in case you wanted to know (we had to learn all about rainforest types earlier in the semester). An entire rainforest with 15-20 foot tall palms overhead, and a ground layer that I could actually walk through. It was a really neat change.

The fan palms that dominate type 3b rainforest.

We got to spend a lot of time on the beaches and even on the famous Cape Tribulation. In the afternoon the group split in half and took turns visiting our professor's home and going on a Croc Cruise. Siggy, my ecology professor, and her husband live in the Daintree when she isn't teaching at SFS. Their house is amazing- running on its own power and water. There is a solar power tower, it has to be higher than the rainforest canopy. Their bathroom is located on a deck (there's no one around anyway) and they have to keep books in an old glass front refrigerator because of the humidity.

The Croc Cruise was equally fascinating. The Daintree River emptys out into the ocean, creating a portion of estuary zone. This crocodile habitat is lined by awesome looking mangroves. We were in a 20 person tour boat, and saw two crocodiles! The female was just hanging out on the shore, but the male was actually swimming. It was huge- over three meters.

Ocean-side of the Daintree.

Upriver- Queensland's 3rd highest peak!

Male croc

The last day, on the way back to the Centre, we stopped at 'Wild Wings and Swampy Things', a wetland nature refuge. It was very, very warm out. Since then we've jumped into a finals weekend. Saturday several assignments were due and we had our first final. The second and third finals were today (Monday).

Sunday however, we got a day off! Most of the students took off to make Didgeridoos, an aboriginal instrument. I was with the minority who went to Granite Gorge, a privately owned and awesome boulder covered creek gorge. Seven of us went, spending most of the afternoon at a swimming holes that we'd hiked to, playing in the (small) rapids and going up and over huge boulders to find more. Pictures of that will be in a seperate entry. Finals are done and over with, so it's time for me to take a break!

Picture from April Fools Day:

Easter- Mission Beach

Across the street from our campsite at Wongaling Beach.

After a long week of independently working on directed research projects, we left for our relaxing Easter weekend on Saturday afternoon. We were heading to Mission Beach, beach area about 2.5 hours south of the Centre. For the entire semester, we've been spending one of our two hours of free time Friday afternoons playing games of Ultimate Frisbee. It's a lot like soccer (same-ish size of field) with different strategy and crossing a line instead of making a goal. Our interns arranged for us to meet up with James Cook University, an Australian Uni which is in Townsville, at the halfway point of Mission Beach. The tournament, a total of four 1 hour games, took place yesterday-Australian Easter.

We hadn't played frisbee in about a month... so quite a few of the students were intimidated out of playing. Both JCU and SFS students registered as either beginner, intermediate, or expert, and we were divided on to teams in equal numbers. Apparently, also in relatively equal numbers of girls. I couldn't believe that a game as mellow as UF would be ridiculous enough to require females on either team to guard each other, and not the guys who might be more at their skill levels. Anyway, I was on a team with several JCU guys, SFS intern Kaitlin, and Quinn from SFS. Seven people play on the field at once- we also had two subs.

The defensive strategy is man-on-man defense, following one person around the whole time. Because the other teams had 3 girls and we only had 2, both Kaitlin and I were on the field for the whole hour for most games. I suppose it was a positive for our team- we covered all of our marks well enough that one of the team captains we played against privately asked us to back off of their girls a little so they could get the frisbee. Our 'hat' (mixed) team won all three of our mixed games- tournament champions. Then we played a short SFS vs. JCU game. In our defense, they had a much larger pool of experienced players to choose from, an all-star squad. We had beginners on our team (me). We lost 3-7, but held our own for a good while.

The rest of the weekend was very nice. The night before the game, we spent the night at a campsite right next to the ocean. I managed to resist swimming until after our frisbee games though, doing some body surfing and playing in the ocean with the other students. What a strange Easter!

April Fools and Homestay

I know, I know. April 1st may have been a week ago, but I've been keeping busy with my Directed Research project.

More photos for this blog will be posted in the next few days.

Last Wednesday started off with a bang when we discovered that our cabin door was latched from the outside. At 6am on my only sleep-in day this semester. I'm not completely sure why all of the cabins have exterior locks, but they turned out pretty handy for some pranksters. As our cabins are on 2 meter stilts, we only had 2 window exits onto the front porch. By the time we popped out a screen, I was awake enough to investigate other prank possibilities. In the girls' bathrooms the showerheads were missing so I went over the the boys' to borrow, and discovered that there was green dye in the showerheads. We decided to leave them for the boys to experience. I headed down to the Centre to get some breakfast and found that all 40-odd pairs of spare shoes that students leave down at the Centre were lined up one by one, toe to heel in a meandering loop down one side of the building. Both of the fridges were 'dressed up' with clothes magneted to them and hats with wigs set on the top. Also, the bell that is used to call mealtimes and classes was missing. It later turned out to be strung high between two trees on our driveway. Best of all, I was told to walk up to the carpark. All three vans' tires were removed- they were sitting up on blocks. The tires were on top of the carpark roof. A little later, the site manager turned on his ceiling fan and flour covered the room.

By the end of the day, I had learned how to put tires on (quickly too, we had to leave for a field lecture). It took a week to get the bell back.

Just a few days ago was homestay weekend for the students here. We were set up in twos, threes and fours and matched up with local families. I was assigned to 'the stained glass lady' with my friend Nate and another student, Sandra. The couple, Christina and Dermot, were very nice, smart, fun people. Christina is indeed the stained glass lady, teaching 5 classes a week to community members out of the studio behind their house. Dermot is a consultant on Aboriginal-Environmental issues, especially working to allow the management of Parks and protected areas by Aboriginal peoples. Neither was originally Australian, but I would trade this funky couple for any other Australian family. They loved to talk after dinner, once telling us how they embarked on a 3 month sailing trip to Indonesia with another couple, each couple bringin a baby under the age of 2. On a 30 foot sailing boat. In any case, we went on a few hikes and spent a fair amount of time relaxing with books and 'playing' in the glass studio. Christina also makes glass beads and after giving us a tutorial with the torch, she said we should feel free to 'play' to our hearts' content. I ended up with 15 or 20 glass beads and a small stained glass piece by the end of the weekend. I didn't really want to go back to a cabin full of girls and cooking for 30 after the weekend, but here I am.

My beads!

I've been keeping busy with interviews and distributing questionnaires for my Local Foods research project.