Weekend in the Bush

I finally got a weekend away from the city and it turned out to be much more fun than I anticipated. It was for a field trip for my Australian Wildlife Biology class, so there were lots of mandatory activities I had to take part in, but they were all quite fun and interesting. We studied such things as the plants in the area and the soil at various elevations, which directly contributed to why certain plants grew in those areas. As far as animals go, we caught small mammals, like rats, bats (photo at left) and a small marsupial called a brown antechinus. Bird watching was on the agenda for one morning and my group spotted about 30 different species. We also went out one night frogging at a pond and saw some really tiny frogs hanging onto reeds, which you can also see here on the left. Another pretty neat activity we did was sending out owl calls in the hopes that we would get some to call back to us, but we didn’t have any luck with that. We also called out to some bats, flying foxes and the best one, a koala. Now, I’m pretty sure that no one reading this has ever heard a koala grunting, but let me tell you, it is not anything like what you might expect. It sounds pretty freaky, especially when you’re standing outside in complete darkness. I think we were all shocked at how energetic and scary-sounding the koala was.

Anyway, the whole reason for the staff at Smith’s Lake for doing all this animal observing was for survey purposes. Some of the animals we were looking for are endangered, so it gives them a chance to monitor the numbers of each species and report it to the state wildlife department. As for the students, well we learned heaps about many different plants and animals and got to observe them in their natural habitat. The koala grunting was probably the most interesting bit of info I acquired this weekend simply because I always thought the were so docile and if they made any noise it would be pretty quiet, but I sure was wrong.

The weather up at Smith’s Lake was pretty good, too, at least during the day. Smith’s Lake is located north of Sydney by about 4 hours driving, so it was naturally a bit warmer. However, at night it got quite cold and since the rooms we slept in had screens at the corners open to the elements, we noticed the cold nights quite a bit more than we do in our houses in Sydney.

In addition to the biology that I learned over the weekend, I also learned a bit about stars and the solar system. Now, this was not part of the class work, but my good friend Dominik is taking an astronomy class and the sky is so ridiculously clear at night where we were, so we actually spent quite a bit of time out underneath the stars just gazing. If I truly believed in wishing on falling stars, I would imagine I’d be pretty lucky over the next few years, because I probably saw about 50 of them. We could just see so many stars and the Milky Way galaxy was very bright, too. Amazingly, Dom actually got some really good photos of it all, but the standard rule holds true; that the pictures don’t do it justice. They’re still amazingly good though. In the picture at the bottom, you can see the sun setting over Smith’s Lake and the moon and maybe if you look close enough you can even see the planet Venus at the top of the photo. Pretty cool stuff.

Now, all of this stuff was cool, I really feel like I learned a lot about natural biology in general and I feel I have a much deeper appreciation for the natural environment, but the best part, by far, was just spending time (and constantly repeating funny lines from The Office) with my good friends, Dom and Harry, as well as making lots of new friends. We had three awesome days and two great evenings of just chatting away about nonsense around the fire and out under the stars by the lake. It’s a shame that this trip had to come so late in the school year because now we only have three more weeks of class to spend with each other, but it was still a great time and it has even inspired our next adventure, a road trip into the Outback!

Special thanks to Dom for the use of all of the photos in this post!

Two Tough Weeks

I sure am glad that the last two weeks are over with because I had quite a bit of work that was due, so I was actually busy with school stuff, for once. The next couple of weeks will be pretty laid back until the last week in May when I have a few others big assignments due. But now if I’m smart about this, I’ll get started on some things this week and get ahead a little bit so I don’t have to bust my tail later, but we’ll see how that goes. In about a week I go to Smith’s Lake for my Australian Wildlife Biology field trip. It should be alright, but I’m worried about what I am going to wear because our instructor told us to wear crummy clothes. Well, I don’t have any crummy clothes, so I may just have to go to the Salvation Army store or something. He said we need boots, too, so I guess I’ll have to purchase some of those…kind of a pain.

So this weekend was nice, especially considering how busy I was the past couple of weeks with all the school work. Friday night I went out with the CooRan Crew (Dom, Harry, Kris, me) and also Harry’s brother, Ian, who is visiting Sydney for about a week. We went to the IMAX and saw Spiderman 3. The IMAX experience was so much better this time because we sat about three rows from the top of the theater and not three rows from the front. It made a huge difference. As for the movie, I thought it was alright. Not great, but not terrible. It was about what I expected and what I think anyone could expect. Lots of people were saying it really sucked but I mean it’s Spiderman, based on a comic book, it’s not going to have some deep, inspiring message. So, I’m really not sure what all those people were expecting. Anyway, after the movie we just went out to a pub in Darling Harbour for a little bit and called it a night shortly thereafter.

Saturday was spent on the beach with Miriana (Brazilian housemate) and Jochen and some others followed a bit later. By the time everyone else arrived, Miriana and I were too hungry and decided to leave and make some food. So, we ended up making eggplant lasagna and carrot cake. I use the term “we” very lightly because really it was Miriana who was doing all the work and she had the knowledge of what needed to be done. All I did was cut the cheese J. Apparently eggplant lasagna is pretty common in Brazil, but I had never heard of it. Instead of using pasta in it, you just use the eggplant instead and there is no cottage cheese like mom puts in it back home. Oh man, I really miss that! The carrot cake was also quite different from what I’m used to, because here we mashed up all the carrots in the cake, but mom’s carrot cake always still had the pieces of carrot that you could taste and she uses tasty white icing and the Brazilians use chocolate. Anyway, it was fun to try something new and we had some guests join us as well.

After dinner we went to Coogee Bay Hotel for a drink. We were a group of two Brazilians, two Aussies, a German and an American. I still really love how diverse the groups of people are that I go out with. While at the CBH my favorite player for Sydney FC (soccer), David Carney, showed up at the table right next to us. He was looking good and ready for the big match this Wednesday, which I will also be attending. Anyway, as usual we all had fun talking about our different languages and cultural differences. It’s always a great topic of conversation and leads to some interesting and funny discoveries. After the CBH, Dom and I went downtown to celebrate the birthday of a good friend, Manish. We ended up having a group of about 15 people, so it was a pretty good time. Manish is a really funny guy and I enjoy it anytime he’s around. The first club we tried getting into, we got denied because Manish didn’t have a driver’s license, because in Dubai they don’t list the age on your driver’s license. It was pretty funny because everyone except Dom, Manish and me had already gone in and then they all had to come back out. So, we had to move on to a different place that would accept Manish’s PADI (certified scuba diving) ID. We ended up at Shark Hotel, which we had been told was “rubbish” but it was free entry, so we figured we’d check it out. It turned out to be just ok, really big and not a ton of people there, but we had our own big group so it didn’t matter. We ended up staying there and just danced the rest of the night away. I don’t think I got home until about 4:30, but it was well worth it for big Manish (clap, clap, clap) Manish (clap, clap, clap). <--Sorry, inside joke between Dom and me.

Sunday was a usual, lazy Sunday relaxing on the beach and just taking it easy. Nothing exciting at all, just a lazy day, but I love that because I know that in a couple of months I won’t have those days at all anymore, so I’m taking advantage of it now as much as I can, even if it does make me feel extremely unproductive and useless!

And today, Monday, was the usual relaxed Monday. Everyone I know has class, but I don’t so I usually hit the beach or go for a walk or jog and get caught up on any school work I might have. This Monday I decided to take a walk along the same path that I usually jog, but I decided to take a lot of pictures to show everyone when I get back home. It’s really a beautiful area to jog through, as Andy knows, and it’s funny all the new things that I noticed while walking and taking time to really see everything. I also made myself a nice, big lunch/dinner before heading off to yoga, which I don’t think I’ve mentioned is really, really great. I never thought I would enjoy yoga as much as I do. I just feel really good on Monday evenings because my body is so loose and relaxed. Now, we do quite a bit of strengthening in the yoga class that I’m doing, so Tuesdays I’m usually pretty sore, but it’s not too bad.

So, that’s a pretty normal weekend for me. Have fun and expend a lot of energy on Friday and Saturday, then relax and regenerate on Sunday and Monday. Tuesday begins the school week! :(