Approaching the Half-Way Mark

Sorry for the long delay since the last time I posted, but I’ve just been pretty busy with class and other important things (enjoying the beach, attending barbies and hanging out with Europeans).

So anyway, last week I attended my first professional soccer match and it was a really fun time. Sydney FC is playing in the Asian Champions League and last Wednesday the match was against the Urawa Reds, probably the best team in our group, so we weren’t expected to win. However, Sydney scored after the first minute and then took a 2-0 lead later in the first half. It’s really cool the atmosphere and the coordination of the cheers by each team’s big fan club located behind each goal. The match ended up in a draw 2-2, but I still had a really fun time. Of all the sports that I could have really gotten into over here in Australia, soccer is the last one I would have picked, yet it’s provided the most excitement and interest from me so far. I’ve even gone so far as to check out the schedule for the US National Team to see when they’re playing!

This past weekend we had a pretty massive barby at our house for Maya’s birthday. It’s just so cool having all these people from so many different countries all in one place having a good time. It’s amazing, really, and I absolutely love it! The most common everyday things in America can be funny when you are talking about it with someone from a different country. We make fun of the different words that don’t make any sense and even the English words that Americans use that Australians think are silly and vice versa. For instance, Shannon, one of my housemates, thinks it is so stupid that we say “flip flops” instead of “thongs”. One of these days I am going to have a post about all the subtle differences from Australia to America. You’ll be surprised, it’s actually pretty funny some of the things I’ve noticed.

I’ve also recently started getting into trying out some of the different wines that Australia has to offer. They are also very cheap to buy, so I figure I might as well take advantage of it while I’m here. So far I’ve tried a few different types of Shiraz and I like that a lot, not to sweet, but not too dry. It reminds me of Grandma and Grandpa Lamppert’s wine, yet not nearly as strong as theirs! J

Yesterday was the Global Exchange Expo here at UNSW, which is where representatives from universities in countries all over the world all come together so that UNSW students can explore some opportunities for being an exchange student. So, I was there for the afternoon trying to help out people that had questions about USA. I gave a presentation on Purdue as well and I was actually the only representative from the USA to get the opportunity to give such a presentation, so I’m quite proud of that. It also fills a big part of the requirement for my travel grant, so that’s very good as well! It was sort of frustrating though throughout the afternoon trying to help students that wanted information about schools in the US other than Purdue. I realized that I really don’t know too much about other universities as I probably should. People would come up and just randomly ask me where is a good place to go for food science, so naturally I say that Purdue has a food science program, but aside from Purdue I really have no idea of any other places that have good food science programs. UNSW students are also somewhat limited to what universities they can go to as well. But I think the day went well. Hopefully a lot of people will want to come to Purdue now, so that students from Purdue can come here and have the same great experiences that I’m having!

Now, as per many people’s requests, I’ve added a few pictures to some of the previous posts, because I got heaps of good photos from Dom the other day, so sorry for the delay and I hope you enjoy the pictures!

Cheers, mates!

What a Weekend

It was a quite an exciting weekend here in Sydney, but just as much so back in the US where my Boilers were battling their hearts out in the NCAA Tournament. The first round victory over Arizona was late in the day on Friday, so it was 10 am on Saturday here in Sydney, which worked out perfect. However, for the second round game against Florida the game was at 2:15 in the US, which meant I was up at 5:15 this morning listening to it online. It was well worth it, even though the Boilers lost. No shame in losing to the defending champs and playing them extremely tough like we did. So now there’s no more Purdue basketball that I have to worry about missing out on and I already can’t wait for next season. Should be a fun one!

As for the rest of my weekend, I spent a lot of time downtown. On Saturday, me and the fellas went to Circular Quay for some food and then just relaxed and had a few beers at the Opera Bar. It’s a great place to hang out, because you can just sit on the wall right along the harbor and look to your left and see the beautiful Opera House all lit up in the night, to your right is the CBD (Central Business District, downtown with all the massice buildings) and then behind you is the Harbour Bridge. Not to mention, right in front of you is the edge of the Royal Botanical Gardens. So it’s just an awesome place to relax and spend time with friends and these guys are probably the closest of friends I’ve got here in Sydney. Dominik is from Germany and is just a real nice easy-going guy who is really into sports, but mainly the big German sport, handball, which I’ve never seen, but soon will. He’s also been teaching me some German words and says that my pronunciation is actually very good. This weekend he was reading a text from a friend which was written in German and I just started reading it just for kicks and he said that my pronunciation was quite good, at least compared to most other people. Pretty neat considering I’ve never studied German or anything, only heard it in the movies and from Dom and my housemates, Jochen and Kati. Anyway, the other guys with us who I spend a lot of time with are Harry, from Virginia, who reminds me so much of my buddy at Purdue, Kenny Stauffer, because he’s so into basketball and sports, and then also Rafael, who is from Brazil. There is so much that we all have to talk about since we have such diverse backgrounds and for Harry and me it’s just fun talking sports. I think he’s into sports just as much as me, if not more. So it was a nice night of chillin at the Opera Bar before we went over to Pancakes on the Rocks, a 24-hour stylish restaurant, with seriously the most fabulous pancakes ever. Gotta give it up to Matt Mechlem for that recommendation. We were absolutely stuffed after eating at Pancakes and got tired awfully quick, plus Rafael had to be up really early the next morning to pick up his wife at the airport, so we headed home.

Sunday ended up being much more enjoyable than I was expecting. I woke up and got to watch a little bit of the NCAA Tournament on ESPN here at home. It’s ESPN Australia so there’s only a little bit of American sports that are shown, so this was a treat. But anyway, I got to see some close, exciting games as is the norm for March Madness. However, Sunday was a very special day, because it marked the 75^th anniversary of Sydney’s Harbour Bridge. So they made a nice little celebration out of it, which to be honest, isn’t very surprising, because here in Sydney there is always something to be celebrating; Mardigras, St. Patrick’s Day, Harbour Bridge’s B-day, always something. But in honor of the Harbour Bridge turning 75 years old, the bridge was completely shutdown all day and people could walk across it from North Sydney, down into The Rocks, Darling Harbour and the CBD. Now, when Dom asked if I wanted to go along, I figured, sure, why not? It’ll be a nice little stroll across the bridge, and when else will I ever be able to walk through the middle of one of the busiest highways in Sydney? So I was in.

We went around 7:30, thinking it would be a good time to go with the sun setting and it wouldn’t be too hot or anything. Turns out it was cloudy and overcast the entire day. So continues my run of crappy weather on days when a nice, sunny, normal Australian day would be just great. It ended up not being a big deal after all, though, because it got dark a little bit sooner, allowing the lights on the bridge to be that much more awe-inspiring. There was also a soundtrack to the walk through the bridge. As we were first walking up to the beginning of the bridge the music was something you might hear at the beginning of a movie. Sort of an up-lifting, here we go type of sound coming from some massive speakers. Then, as we got further in there, there was more upbeat dance club type music playing and it was like being in an outdoor club or something with all the crazy lights and heaps of people. Even further along, they would have various clips of speeches or news casts playing. I’m guessing it was all things that had happened around the world over the last 75 years. I remember hearing, “Germany has invaded Poland,” and also Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. But they were mixed in with music of that time, like The Beatles, so I was really impressed and thought it was done very well. They also used some artificial smoke in certain places, which added to what I described to the guys as a euphoric atmosphere. At the end, of course, there was that accomplishing, “we made it” sounding music that you might hear at the end of a movie. So the whole thing was kind of like we just took a journey through a movie and it even took us a little over an hour, so yeah, sort of like going to the movies, except this didn’t cost anything!

Oh, I almost forgot. At the beginning of the bridge walk everyone was given free hats to wear and the hats had little lights on the front of them. Well, when we got to the end of the bridge at the other side, it was really neat to look back and see all the little lights marching toward us. When we were on the bridge, we wondered why we could see all the lights up ahead as if people were turned around, but when we got there we found out why. Unfortunately, my camera isn’t anything really special and can’t take very good photos at night, so as usual my photos do not even come close to capturing the brilliance and grandeur that I saw that night and it especially can’t describe the enjoyment that I had.

The Blue Mountains

This weekend’s trip took me west of Sydney to the Blue Mountains where I got to experience some spectacular views of the Jamison Valley, Wentworth Falls, The Three Sisters and Katoomba Falls. The weather up in the mountains was just beautiful. It was very clear and the air was very fresh and crisp. The temperature only reached about 19 degrees Celsius which is about as cold as it gets in the middle of the night in Sydney these days. I also got to ride the steepest railway in the world!

The day began with a quick stop at Olympic Park, home of the 2000 Summer Olympics. It was pretty neat as we got to see markings of the heights and distances for long jump, high jump, triple jump and pole vault. Let me tell you it was extremely impressive. It’s a bit hard for me yet to be able to comprehend exactly how long and high these measurements were because it was all in meters, but just looking at it was astonishing. Then there was also a gazebo-type building that had TV screens surrounding you and it had the sights and sounds of all the big events and it was cool because you really got to feel what the atmosphere was like during the actual events. The most memorable one was probably the sprinting events where Michael Johnson dominated with his gold shoes. I got the chills from watching him blow everyone else away and listening to the crowd in surrounding me was neat, too.

After Olympic Park we headed to Featherdale Wildlife Park which is a small zoo on the outskirts of Sydney. It was all pretty much the same things that I got to do at the Cairns Tropical Zoo, but it was very fun to play with kangaroos and wallabies again and pet the koalas. They also had lots of beautiful birds there and I even got to see a joey (baby kangaroo) that one of the staff members was holding as well as one that was still in its mother’s pouch. It was so funny because it was down in the pouch, but then the mother got scared for a little bit and hopped for a few meters and then when she stopped the little joey poked its head out of the pouch to see what was going on and make sure everything was alright. Too funny!

After Featherdale we moved on along to Wentworth Falls which is where I got my first glimpse of the Blue Mountains and Jamison Valley. In case you’re wondering, the reason they are called the Blue Mountains is because there is a high concentration of oils in the atmosphere from eucalyptus trees and when that oil mixes with the air it creates a bluish color that surrounds the valley in certain areas. Now, the Blue Mountains aren’t really mountains at all. This area is actually a series of plateaus surrounding the Jamison Valley, but it is at quite a higher elevation above sea level than Sydney and it does snow sometimes in the Blue Mountains, so it has the feel of being in the mountains. Anyway, at Wentworth Falls we took a short hike down to a lookout to get some good views of the waterfall and the valley, but we didn’t actually walk down to the waterfall. That would have taken another couple of hours.

From Wentworth Falls we stopped for lunch in a small town called Leura, which is the Aboriginal word for lava. Then we moved onto one of the more noted landmarks in the Blue Mountains, The Three Sisters. This rock formation, like most other landmarks in the area is given its name from an Aboriginal story. This one had something to do with three brothers who fell in love with three sisters. The three sisters were turned to stone by a witch who said that when she returned from fighting in the war, she would return them to their human forms. However, the witch perished in the battle and so the three sisters have been stuck like this ever since. That’s the short, condensed version of the story, but it gets the point across. Anyway, I got to hike down the side of the cliff and touch the Three Sisters and you also get a really good view from out there as well. It’s a bit scary though walking down the side of the cliff because it’s so steep and such a long way down, but I made it out safely.

ScenicWorld was our last stop of the trip. This place is built at the top of a large coal mine that is no longer in use. We took a nice stroll down the side of the cliff once again, and unlike our previous walks, we did not have to walk back up this time, since we were going to ride the Railway back up. Anyway, this was the best walk of the day and we really got into some deep forest where it was pretty dark and cool, but also sort of mysterious. I enjoyed it a lot because it gave me that feeling of a rainforest again, sort of like at Cairns. There were all sorts of overhangs on the side of the cliff where the aboriginals would seek refuge from storms and bad weather. We also got some great views of Katoomba Falls from the walk, which was just like Wentworth Falls, it didn’t contain a whole lot of water falling at once, but it fell really, really far where toward the bottom it looked like a lot of the water had pretty much turned into mist. Once we finally got to the end of our walk, we arrived at the Katoomba Scenic Railway, which is the world’s steepest inclined railway. It was used many years ago for the coal mining. They used it to get the coal from the bottom of the cliff to the top and also the miners would ride it up and down as well. They still had a lot of the equipment and railcars that were used many years ago on display. Riding the railway was cool, because when you first get into the railcars, you are leaned way back, so you know it’s going to get real steep and it sure did. It was like riding a rollercoaster up the first big hill and we did it backwards. However we knew we wouldn’t be going back down it really fast on the other side. Once we got back to the top of the cliff we had to scurry to the bus because we were already behind on time, but that was the end of the trip and we headed back home to Sydney.

I was very fortunate to pick a good day to visit the Blue Mountains because apparently the weekend before, it was very cloudy and you couldn’t see anything. In all honesty, there isn’t too much point in going to the Blue Mountains if you can’t see out into the valley or see any of the waterfalls, so I was grateful to be blessed with such good weather!

Back to School

Alright, it’s time for the post that describes the real reason that I am able to be here in Sydney and that is school. After all, I am “studying” abroad and I will apologize now that this one may not be as exciting as my other posts, but I know at least one person will be very interested in the outlook of the classes I’m taking. Enjoy Dad!

Well I only have class four days of the week, Tuesday through Friday. My class on Tuesday is Managing People. This is a required human resources class that I need to take to fulfill a requirement back home. The class looks like it is going to be very basic and fairly easy to do well in, but I can also sense that it is going to be very difficult to stay focused for 2 hours of lecturing. It was already a struggle on the first day and we were only there for an hour. Hopefully, somehow, the material gets interesting, but so far we just talked about organizations; all the different types that exist and what their purpose is. Pretty basic stuff, but it was the first day and that’s more than we did in any of my other classes. In addition to the lecture on Tuesday for Managing People I also have a one-hour tutorial, as well as a one-hour tutorial on Thursday. Since this was the first week, though, we didn’t have any of those tutorials.

Wednesday is a very easy day, since I only have a one-hour lecture for Australian Wildlife Biology. This class should be pretty interesting as we get to talking about the different types of animals and plants that are native to Australia and why they are here. So far, we just talked about how the continents have shifted over many millions of years to where they are now and also how they are still moving today, although only at a rate of about 2 centimeters per year. Evidence shows that millions of years ago a lot of the continents were together as one landmass which proves how the same animals are found in different parts of the world, they traveled across land. Anyway, that class should be pretty cool and in addition to the lecture on Wednesday, there is a two-hour lab on Thursday evening. I am also required to go on a weekend excursion to Smith’s Lake to observe some of the flora and fauna that we will be talking about in class.

Also on Thursday I have what projects to be a very interesting and fun class, The Marine Environment. Now, this is a class that has the potential to be the one where I learn the most, even though it will require the least amount of study, I just think I will find the material to be very fascinating and therefore it will be easy to stay focused. There are three compulsory field trips that I must attend. How awesome is that? I have to go to places like Botany Bay and the Sydney Aquarium. Don’t think that will be too difficult of an assignment. And the best part of it all is that these field trips account for 40% of the total grade! Booyah!

As for Friday, well I’m not going to get my hopes up. It’s an Economics course on the history of Australian Economic Development, another class that I’m required to take for my Management major. It could be worse I suppose, but it doesn’t appear that it will be too terribly interesting or engaging of a class. I don’t see if being extremely difficult though either, so that’s a plus. I have that class for three hours on Friday morning.

Overall, the classes here are held in a pretty different manner than in the US. Most of the classes require you to complete just a couple assignments throughout the semester, usually an essay or two, and then take the final exam. Now, this does not mean that I can just slack off and try to learn it all in the last month or anything and hope to just do well on the exam. The exams here are not multiple choice like most in the US. Here, the exams are all in essay and short answer format, so I will actually need to learn the material very well and not be able to guess if I don’t know the answer. I’m not saying that I never studied hard or that you don’t need to know your stuff for classes in the US, it’s just that having to write essays is a little bit more intimidating than if I could take a multiple choice exam. I think by having exams like this I will learn a lot more anyway, so it might be for the better.

One week down, 13 more to go!

Surfing at Bondi Beach

I don’t know what it is with the Australian weather just not wanting to cooperate with me when I do cool stuff in the water, but today when I had my first surfing lesson at Bondi Beach, it was just like when I went scuba diving…rainy, windy and chilly. I actually was quite cold on my way to the surf shop, wearing just a t-shirt and my swimmers. I thought that might make the whole experience pretty miserable, but luckily I was wrong.

When I got to the surf shop they had a nice big long list of all the things that can go wrong while surfing and that I could die from something bad happening so there definitely wasn’t any sugar-coating going on about what I was going to do. Then they had me sign it saying that it was still ok and they weren’t responsible for it. After that, it was time to get the wetty (wetsuit) on and head down to the beach.

The total number of people in the group was around 12, but after introducing ourselves to the group and telling about our surfing experience, we were split up into smaller groups based on how much we’d surfed before. So, naturally, this being my first time, I was with the beginner’s group, just there to learn the basics. My instructor was Ryan and he was a real fun guy who did a great job handling us rookies. We first sat on the beach and talked about the basics of handling the board in the water, how to get on and off the board, where to position ourselves on the board and how to catch a good wave. Then we got in right in the water and went for a try. The water, as usual, was pretty cold, but I actually got pretty hot sitting on the beach in the wetty so it felt quite nice. Ryan really helped us for the first few tries and we were just trying to ride the wave all the way in to the beach and basically do every step except stand up on the board. This was pretty easy when Ryan was there and told us when to do what, but once I was on my own for a few tries, it was sort of tough to read the waves and decide which ones were good to try to catch.

After a bit of that, it was time to head back to the beach for another small lesson about how to stand up on the board. Then we went right back into the water and gave it a shot. And on my first try to stand up what do you know, I did it perfectly and rode the wave all the way in to the shore! Now, that must have just been luck because it wasn’t so easy every other time, but I was able to get up on the board quite a few times and that’s pretty good according to a sign I saw in the surf shop that said on the first lesson you should expect to maybe stand up on the board once or twice. So I was happy about that. But again, my big problem was being able to read the waves correctly and be able to choose the good ones. Like a lot of things, getting good and comfortable with surfing comes from just practicing and repetition.

Throughout the afternoon the water was quite rough and I got knocked around pretty good a few times. There was even one time where I just got demolished from all sides by a few huge waves. My legs got taken out from under me and I was flying all over the place. I don’t think I’ve ever swallowed so much salt water in all my life than what I did today! As expected, when the day was over I was very exhausted. As fun as surfing is, it is very taxing on the body, and although it’s a great workout, it is very tiring. So when I got back to Coogee, I decided to treat myself to a nice big pasta bolognaise lunch and a whole pitcher of water to replenish my body!

O-Week

Back in Sydney, this past week was O-Week (Orientation Week) for exchange students. But before any of the actual orientation activities got under way, I finally found a place to live! It’s located just a block from Coogee Beach and I can see the ocean from the balcony of the house. The house is quite big and I actually share the house with nine other people and as skeptical as I was about how that might work out, it’s actually been really good. I’ve already spent some good time with the Australian couple in the house, Maya and Shannon, they are fun to talk to and we have a lot in common. Shannon is big into sports and Maya really likes animals and neither of them seems to be real big partiers or drink enormous amounts of beer like a lot of people I’ve met. So we get along real well. Also sharing the house are four Brazilians, one German, one Scot, and the girl I’m currently sharing a room with, Nicky, is from England. She moves out next week though and I’ll be getting a new roommate. But I’m just glad to finally have a place to live and I really think I scored on this place, because it’s a nice house located in a real nice area, close to the beach, with wonderful housemates and is very affordable. Can’t ask for much more than that.

So, on to the events of O-Week. The first day was pretty much a wash, aside from meeting a few people. We went through a bunch of boring administrative stuff for the first three hours and then got some free food before taking a campus tour. Khalid, my Aussie Mate, couldn’t make it, so I was sort of a nomad, just tagging along with other groups for the campus tour, which was more of a scavenger hunt. Basically, I already knew most of the places we went to see and after that there really wasn’t much more guidance and so everyone sort of just dispersed.

The second day provided much more excitement, especially in my case. The morning began with the usual administrative mumbo jumbo, but after the first hour and a half we got a short break and as I was walking back into the theatre where the program was being held, a guy walks up to me, shakes my hand and introduces himself. Dave is his name and he tells me that he needs a volunteer and would like me to do be that guy. I asked Dave what I would be doing and he just said that it wouldn’t be anything real difficult, but I would get a free surf lesson if I helped him out. So I agreed, seemed like a great deal for me. Dave is a surf instructor, if you didn’t catch that already, and he was doing a presentation to all the exchange students about the basics of surfing. My first assignment was to go in the bathroom, put on a wetsuit and then put my clothes back on over the wetsuit and go sit in the crowd with the rest of the students and wait to be called down. After two tries of getting the wetsuit on, because the first time I put it on backwards (doh!), I was finally ready and went through a few quick lessons from Dave about some basics of surfing that I was going to have to demonstrate for everyone and how exactly the presentation was going to go. After that I was ready to go and headed back into the theatre.

Dave’s presentation was the last portion of the morning’s activities, so I got awfully hot sitting in the theatre with the wetsuit and my clothes on. When it was finally time for the surfing presentation, Dave asked the crowd how many of them came to Sydney hoping to learn how to surf. Lots of hands went up, but I shouted out, “Oh yeah, right here, definitely!” Everyone sort of started chuckling, thinking that I was just being silly, but Dave then asked me to come on down to the front and help them out. So, as I was running down the stairs looking super excited to be chosen, I began to strip off my clothes, revealing the wetsuit, and I was ready to surf! Then Dave and his partner, Brenda, pretty much just began to abuse me with sunscreen, zinc, a hat and some crazy sunglasses and then I went through all the demonstrations flawlessly. Everyone seemed to really get a kick out of the whole skit and I kept thinking back to my days in Young Life when I did that stuff every week. Good times! But anyway, as you can imagine, for the rest of the week, I got people coming up to me saying, “Hey, you’re the surf guy!” Most of them assumed that I had surfed before since I was so flawless with my execution during the presentation, so they were pretty shocked when I said I hadn’t.

The next day, there was no more administrative stuff to do, so we just went on a trip to Bundeena and the Royal National Park. It was quite a trip actually getting there. I had to walk a bit, take a bus, walk a bit more, take another bus, take a train, then a ferry, then walk some more and I was finally there. It was pretty amazing, though, because it was a really remote area, but yet we were so close to Sydney. We got to see a lot of aboriginal rock engravings and some wildlife, but nothing real exciting. It basically ended up being a long bush walk when we were finished. We probably walked about four kilometers (2.5 miles) in the sand, with the sun beating down on us, because there weren’t any real large trees or anything to give us some shade.

A few days later, I went with my good German friend, Dominik, on a ferry ride across the bay to the other side of the harbor and it was the same crazy feeling. It was like we were in a forest far from much of anything, but then you just turn around and there was the huge city right there. It’s really cool for a city to have those places where you can really get away from everything, but not have to travel very far at all. When we got back to the harbor, we got some good laughs watching a street performer do a number of tricks, the final one standing on a bike 22 feet in the air and juggling a knife, an apple and a flaming torch, while also taking bites out of the apple as he juggled. It was a good laugh though when he would just make random comments about people just walking by.

Anyway, the weather is beautiful here as usual. Sorry to everyone back home in the snow, but the beach is wonderful and I’m definitely not sad about missing that winter weather back home! :)

Atherton Tablelands

My last tour in Cairns took me to the Atherton Tablelands. This is the land in the mountains west of Cairns and since it is at such a higher elevation, it is about five degrees cooler than in the city and is much less humid. I actually got a bit cold at one point in the trip since I was just wearing a t-shirt and shorts.

Getting up to the Tablelands you have to drive along a very windy mountain road which has something like 267 turns in just 11 kilometers of road. So one of the first questions the tour guide, Scott, asked us was if anyone gets car sick. We were safe because no one raised their hand. It was a very windy road, but Scott seemed to keep everyone occupied very well by telling stories or pointing out neat things along the road. Something I found very interesting was about eucalyptus trees that were growing along the lower parts of the mountain road. Once we got up to a higher elevation the vegetation turned to dense rainforest. But Scott told us to notice the dark and almost burned look to the bark of these eucalyptus trees. The reason they looked like that was because they actually were burned. The fire was actually intentionally started, too. Eucalyptus leaves are very oily and extremely flammable and the trees actually need fire to survive and grow. Scott said that if they aren’t burned intentionally that they will actually start a fire themselves (I forget exactly how he said that worked but it made sense). So in order to make sure that the fires don’t get out of control they burned the eucalyptus trees before they can do it themselves. So, I thought that was quite interesting; a tree that can start fire on its own.

Our first stop once we got up into the Tablelands was a lookout on the side of the road that gave a pretty nice view of where we had just come from and how high up we actually were. It was kind of hard to see some things because of the clouds but it was still pretty neat as you can hopefully see in the picture. Then we moved on to a giant tree called the Cathedral Fig Tree. These types of trees look more like a bunch of vines, but actually they are a bunch of roots. The tree begins by attaching onto an existing tree pretty high up in the canopy and then it sprouts roots down towards the earth. Eventually it gets so big that it will actually kill off the pre-existing tree and just continue to get more massive. So this was just one of the biggest ones around, so it was pretty cool. We were also looking for some muskrat kangaroos while we were in the forest, but didn’t have much luck. We saw one but weren’t able to catch it.

From the Cathedral Fig Tree we traveled on down the road for awhile until we came to Lake Barrine. This lake is part of the Crater Lakes National Park which is a group of craters and lakes that were formed from volcanic explosions thousands of years ago. Since the lake is the remnants of a volcano, it is very deep and the land around it is quite fertile. We took a walk through the rainforest around the lake, which unfortunately became a very wet excursion when it decided to rain on us. We were looking for all sorts of neat trees in the forest and also came across quite a few of the forest dragons again. We even got to see some baby ones. But the worst thing about this rainforest was the leeches. Now, at first when Scott warned us about the leeches, I was thinking they were the big, massive ones that bother you when you’re in rivers, but when I finally had one attach to me, I saw that they were just little ones. However, their size can be very deceiving. Not only are they hard to pull off, but most of the time you don’t even realize you have them on you until it’s too late, making it even more difficult to pull them off of you. So, it was a really bad idea for me to be wearing only flip flops because when I got out of that rainforest I was awfully muddy and had about seven or eight resident leeches on my legs and feet.

Our next stop was for lunch, which we had at a picnic area at Lake Eacham, another of the Crater Lakes. Before I sat down for lunch I got a little bit of a surprise. I felt a little bit of an itch on the bottom of my foot and when I looked at it, I realized that I hadn’t quite gotten all of the leeches off of me at Lake Barrine. Now, this guy had been hanging on and sucking my blood for about 20 minutes or so on the ride from Lake Barrine, so he was getting pretty fat and was extremely hard to pull off. Finally after lots of pulling and squeezing on the little mongrel, I was able to get it off. He left behind a pretty nice little hole in the bottom of my foot and it bled for quite awhile and even hurt a little bit. After I rinsed my foot off pretty good, the bleeding finally stopped. Luckily I hadn’t been the worst case because my good friend, Mark, from London, had a massive leech on him that just had a feast on his foot. It was absolutely disgusting how big that sucker was and how long Mark bled after they got it off of him. Anyway, that’s enough about leeches. Lake Eacham was the lake that we could actually swim in if we wanted to, but it was pretty cold and rainy so I passed and there were actually only a couple of people that did jump in. I did get to see some turtles and some kind of big lizard around the outside of the lake though. A neat fact I learned about the turtles that lived in the lake was that they can breathe out of their butts! It actually allows them to be able to stay underwater for longer periods of time. Ah, the resourcefulness of nature.

Then we finally got to see our first waterfall, Millaa Millaa Falls. This waterfall is the most photographed waterfall in the world when it comes to movies and commercials. The reason for that is it’s so easy to get to. You can park right up near it whereas most other waterfalls are deep in the jungle somewhere. You are also normally able to swim in this waterfall, but since there had been so much rain lately it was just a little bit too dangerous for us to take the plunge. Even though it was still raining, Millaa Millaa Falls was a very beautiful place to visit.

Moving on toward another waterfall, Scott realized that we hadn’t really seen a whole lot of wildlife yet, so he took us to an area where he usually sees some tree kangaroos. Sure enough, the spot where he said they’d be we saw one. We only got to see it for a little bit, but it was still really neat. They get spooked very easily so I unfortunately did not get a picture of it. The tree kangaroo actually looked more like a monkey to me, but there are no monkeys in Australia, so the tree kangaroo is as close as we get to monkeys around here. Just up the road from where we saw the tree kangaroo was another lookout, which we stopped at but really didn’t get to see much of anything at all. We were pretty much inside a cloud, so as you can see from the picture there really wasn’t much of anything to look at. The place had a really eerie feeling to it though, which I found to be pretty neat.

Our final destination took us to Dinner Falls and a huge crater which I can’t even remember if it had a specific name, but it was just so massive. This crater, like the lakes, was also made from volcanic activities, but it is much smaller and you can actually see how deep it is. Scott made sure we brought some rocks along from the parking lot to throw into the crater, because it made a huge sound from having such a far drop. That was pretty cool and then Dinner Falls was actually a series of waterfalls, but nothing terribly spectacular.

The real highlight of the day came when we were just getting ready to leave Dinner Falls, head back to the bus and then make our way back to Cairns. However, we were in for a surprise. Cassowaries, as you may know from reading on earlier post, are quite dangerous to humans and have even been known to kill a couple people. Well, a small group of us had walked up the hill from Dinner Falls and were standing there chatting when all of a sudden one of the girls yells out “Oh shit, what is that?” I looked up and standing right there about 10 feet away from us is a big, huge cassowary. Like most tourists would we all run and yell, which is the last thing you are supposed to do when you come across a cassowary. I remember thinking though, like a huge wuss, that as long as there is someone between me and the bird, I will be fine, it will get them first. Well luckily for all of us the bird did not get too excited and decide to run after us. However, the cassowary was now standing right in the middle of the path; our only way out of the forest. So we ended up having to wait….and wait…..and wait until about 45 minutes later it finally wandered off a little ways up into the forest. So we slowly snuck back towards where it had been and as soon as Scott gave the OK, he led the way for us out of the forest. But then suddenly I look up into the trees where it had wandered off to and there is the damn thing running after us! I looked up at Scott and he said to just keep walking, so I put my head down and just kept walking, but it was definitely a quick walk. Well now, I look back behind me a bit and realize that there is no one behind me because the four or five people that were trailing me had stopped because they figured the cassowary was going to cut them off. So much for my plan of keeping someone in between me and the cassowary. When I looked back in front of me, Pier, the big “Italian Stallion” of the group, who had been right in front of me, was now in a full sprint, running past the females in front of him again doing exactly what you are not supposed to do. I started laughing at this, but was obviously still worried about the cassowary coming up behind me. Well, luckily it must have realized that we weren’t interesting enough to keep pursuing because when I looked back I noticed that it wasn’t there anymore. Scott was now waiting for us and told us to just keep walking on by and on to the bus. Eventually, the others that had been separated finally were able to sneak by the cassowary which apparently was still close by. When we all finally made it back to the bus, we all were so worked up and could not stop laughing about the incident. I couldn’t stop laughing about Pier and how he, being by far the largest person in the group, seemed to be the most scared and just jetted past everyone.

So everyone was safe from the cassowary and it really ended up being a great bonding experience for everyone, because on the bus ride home everyone seemed to pretty much let loose. It got very entertaining when Mark sang a few karaoke songs and toward the end everyone was singing to various classic hits. When we got back to Cairns that wasn’t the end of it either, because most of the group ended up going to a pub called the Woolshed which is a big gathering place for backpackers and the like. I even got to see goldfish racing in all its glory. Talk about a funny experience!

On that trip to the Atherton Tablelands, I met some of the most fun people of my whole traveling experience so far. We ended up getting together for the next couple of days and it was really fun to hear of everyone else’s experiences.

I also got to do the kangaroo petting, koala cuddling and see a crocodile show when I took a trip with my roommates, Traci and Gordon, to the Cairns Tropical Zoo. It was really neat, like any zoo, but they did a really nice job of having shows for most of the animals they had there and spread them out so that we were able to see all the ones we wanted. Some of the crocs we saw were enormous. The guy doing the crocodile show also showed us what 3000 kilos of pressure per square inch in a croc’s mouth sounded like. It was very impressive and I even got a little video of it. I also got to see up close the most venomous snake in the world, the Inland Taipan. Seeing all the animals was very neat, but also just spending one last day with Gordon and Traci was really fun, too. I really enjoyed their company and we had quite a few very good laughs.