Lady Elliot Island

So picking up at Lady Elliot Island, it’s now Saturday, February 16. Lady Elliot Island is an island completely formed by dried up coral and it is only 4000 years old. It is surrounded by coral flats that still remain submerged at low tide, but the waves actually break onto the flat and not on the beach. We arrived to sunny weather in mid-afternoon, which was a nice surprise given that rain’s followed us anywhere. We flew over in a little 12-passenger plane in about a 40-minute flight. We landed on a grassy strip that split the difference of the island and were greeted by the Lady Elliot Island Eco Resort staff. Once we disembarked, we were given our snorkeling gear for our stay while they put our backpacks in our rooms for us (We were only allowed to take 22 pounds of stuff to the island). They gave us a tour of the island, which didn’t take long seeing as the perimeter of the island was probably less than a mile.

We were given an hour or so of free time before having our introductory lecture, so we took about 20 minutes to walk out on the flats of the reef and check out what we were about to see. During our lecture, we were given some information about some venomous creatures in the reef that might’ve been nice to have before we went out. Fortunately, we got lucky and no one got stung by a stonefish or cone shell (look it up, giving CPR is part of the First Aid). After the lecture, it definitely felt like we were about to walk into mine field of venomous creatures. So of course, we went right back out to the beach for a guided reef walk. We immediately got off to a great start seeing an octopus after having walked no more than 20 feet. We saw a few more cool fish, a couple blue seas stars, and all kinds of corals. Afterwards, we had dinner, then another lecture, and then all of us went to bed because we were pretty exhausted from the day of travel. Our accommodations were on the lower end of the trip. It was basically a canvas tent with bunk bed and electricity, but the air came from a fan. For being right on the beach, it definitely wasn’t bad.

The next morning, we had a early morning reef walk at 6:30, ate breakfast, and then had a morning snorkel at 8:45. It was pretty cool because we got to go on a glass bottom boat to go out to the spot, so we could see all kinds of things as we trolled over. After snorkeling, we had free time, lunch, free time, dinner, class, and by the end of the day, we were all tired enough to pass out by 9:30 PM. I was able to spend some time during free time sitting on the beach and working on schoolwork. It’s hard to believe, but we actually have a pretty sturdy amount of schoolwork. It’s a lot for the reason that we typically have a full itinerary during the day and when we do have free time, we have to spend most of it doing work..

The next day, I got up for an optional early morning snorkel at 6 AM, which was amazing because of how clear the water was. Afterwards, we had breakfast and then got introduced to our Lady Elliot Island assignment. This one was about assessing Lady Elliot Island Eco Resort’s status as a resort in the Green Zone of the Great Barrier Reef (the most protected part of the Reef). It was our job to assess whether or not, the resort should be allowed to remain. We had to conduct a science research project and conduct interviews of some staff members. Fortunately, we were in groups of 4 and 2 of were science majors and 2 of us were not, so I didn’t touch the science part and worked on the interviews with my other non-science partner. We got to work around mid-afternoon and it was definitely really interesting talking to the staff. Besides the interview questions that related our research, we got to know some of them on a more personal level and got to hear about their motivations for working at the resort. It really reminded me a lot of camp with the way they have about 35 staff members that live on the island for 10 days on, 4 days off and are working with each other 24/7 during that and completely isolated from the real world. This is actually kind of the last week of Australian summer, so for a lot of them, they will be going back to school for fall semester (which is in two weeks for them). On the research side, it was interesting to learn about the resort. They produce all of their own water by desalination, they export waste by barge, and they treat their sewage and pump it into the airstrip. They generate electricity with solar panels and by burning 120 liters of diesel fuel day, which is about as much as the gas tank of a big truck, so really not all that much and their goal is to be 100% of gasoline in 5 years. Overall, they had a very tiny carbon footprint and the development of the resort actually coincided with an improvement in the health of fish populations, so it was pretty impressive. After working all afternoon, we had dinner and hung around the bar the rest of the night with the resort staff and our team of 4 actually won trivia (thanks to the field guide that UGA hired to come with us playing on our team) and got a free bottle of wine out of it. Finally around 11:30, I went to bed, exhausted.

The next day (Tuesday), I got up for breakfast, we had a morning snorkel after breakfast, and spent most of the morning preparing for our presentation that was part of our assignment. We finished that up and got to have most of the day off. I spent a couple hours trying to get caught up on this thing and then a couple hours on the beach. We had presentations right late in the afternoon, caught the sunset over the west coast of the island (see pictures), ate, had a lecture after dinner, hung around the dining room for a little, had a late night walk on the beach looking for nesting sea turtles (unsuccessful, but did see a great starlit sky), and went to bed.

So this morning, as I can now finally say, I woke up at 5:15 AM because last night’s sunset really inspired me to catch the sunrise. It was an unbelievable thing to have a quiet time by myself on the beach as sun came out of the ocean. It was definitely one of those things that reminds you how big God is. Around 6, I met up with everyone to go on morning snorkel for our last day at Lady Elliot. After seeing amazing things, we swam back, and I got a little morning jolt on the way in. About 100 yards from shore, I collided head on with on with a Blue Bottle jellyfish (who is a close relative to the Portuguese Man o’ War). As I flailed around, someone pointed out to me that there was a Blue Bottle on my back (“No Kidding?!” was my polite response). It’s one of those things where you’re kind of on your own as your getting stung to death because anyone that helps will probably get stung too. After 20-30 long seconds of battle, I finally got the benevolent creature off of me. In severe pain, I swam as fast as I could (which isn’t that fast when you’re fighting waves) to shore and observed lines of red bumps on my abdomen, my arm, my back and another full line that came from my shoulder, across my chest and around my back. I got to spend the next hour with a ice pack on my chest (by far the most painful one), groggy from popping a Benadryl. After breakfast, we took a quiz on species identification, checked out of our rooms, and had couple hours free time (which I spent working on this) before our flight back to the Australian mainland. As I write now, we’re riding a coach bus back to Brisbane where I will spend the next few days before flying to Christchurch, New Zealand on Saturday to meet my dad for spring break.

Writing this blog after leaving the island, it’s kind of hard to remember when we saw what, but over the course of probably 6 or 7 times snorkeling, I saw probably 10-15 Manta Rays (a couple of which made the ones at the GA Aquarium look like baby sting rays), 20-25 Sea Turtles (including one loggerhead turtle that was probably 5 ft long and 3 ft wide), a couple sting rays, and probably 50 sharks (white tip reef sharks, black tip reef sharks, tawny nurse sharks, and leopard sharks). I definitely changed my perception of sharks over the trip. Out of almost 100 species of sharks, only 4 are dangerous which are the Great White, Bull Shark, Tiger Shark, and Oceanic White tip, and even those wouldn’t be dangerous in 99 interactions out of 100. They’re definitely cool creatures and are very important to the ecology of our oceans, but a lot of them are being killed off because of a worldwide demand for shark fins and it could end up being devastating to many marine ecosystems, especially the Great Barrier Reef.

As someone who has always had pretty conservative political views (and still will have after this trip), it has been pretty eye opening to learn about sustainability and the destruction we cause to the environment. I think it’s stupid that sustainability is such a divisive political issue because really I think it starts with a personal choice, not punching a hole on a political ballot (Did you know that George Bush, not Al Gore who flies all over the world in a personal jet to lecture about sustainability, lives in a 100% green house?). I don’t consider myself to be a “tree-hugger” and probably never will, but I would be devastated if some of these picturesque views that are among the most spectacular I have ever seen were unavailable in 50 years. Ethically, I think it is important to consider the ramifications of choices we make and how they will affect people in 50+ years.

And before ending this blog, to any bros going on formal this reading that are reading, enjoy Nashville this weekend. Definitely wish I could be there with yall.

And also, to any camp folk reading, I will be thinking and praying for you all this weekend as the 2013 season kicks of off with the first staff training and ALA weekend. It kills me on the inside to not be on a weekend for what feels like the first time in years, but nonetheless, it’s exciting to think that we’re getting close to Summer 2013 when thousands of lives will be changed.

Thanks to anyone who has read what has been 3 whole pages of a Word Document. I miss Athens and home, but I’m doing great over here in Australia and doing my best to hold it down in the Southern and Eastern hemispheres. Stay tuned for a wrap up of Australia and updates from SB ’13 in New Zealand.

Rainbow welcoming us to the Island

Sunset over the Lady Elliot

Sunrise over Lady Elliot

Good Bye Lady Elliot

News from Noosa

So we arrived in Noosa very early, so early that we had to sit at a rest stop for an hour before anything opened. Around 7, we ate breakfast at a little restaurant in Eumundi, a little town right outside of Noosa, where we were going to spend the morning. At breakfast, we were introduced to the director of the Discover Abroad program who will also be our director in New Zealand. He lives in Noosa so he wanted to spend a few days with us to work on our assignment for Noosa.

Noosa is a very unique part of Australia. It is known because it is a World Heritage Area because it as a city strives to be sustainable and has been known to make choices against development. The noticeable things are that there are no traffic lights, parking spaces, and buildings are limited to 4 stories high. Our assignment for the next few days would be to observe Noosa for a few days to ultimately culminate into a debate where we would make a simulated decision about whether or not to put a marina close to the ocean that would boost the economy of the area, but could potentially damage the environment.

The first part of the assignment was to spend the morning at a market that’s open every Wednesday in Eumundi. We were to randomly survey people and ask them about Noosa and how they feel about its “sense of place”. It’s definitely a little awkward to just approach people, especially when we are very obviously American. However, out of the 8 people we asked to survey, only 2 said no. It was actually pretty interesting just talking to some of the locals and everyone was very friendly and had a lot to say. And then of course, they wanted to tell us all about every single one of their travels to the US. It was funny when they’d want to tell us their impressions of California or Seattle or Texas, and I’d kind of be thinking, “Yeah that couldn’t be any further from where I live and honestly, you probably have spent more time than I have.” But, it was still a fun experience and I was struck by how friendly everyone was.

Come noon, we were all very ready to be finished. Obviously, I didn’t sleep that well in a bus and I was ready to take a nap in a real bed. Before going to our accommodations, we stopped at the grocery store and were given an allowance for meals for the next few days. I was completely blown away by our accommodations. As a group, we had 4 beach house condos and of course, Ben and I had our own. We each had our own bedroom upstairs and the downstairs had a kitchen and living room and a patio that opened up to a swimming pool. It was definitely the nicest place we’ve stayed thus far, and I have a feeling there won’t be any places nicer. I spent the afternoon catching up on the schoolwork that I didn’t get to at the Gorge and also took a nice two-hour nap. We took it pretty easy the rest of the night and it was definitely nice to have a little break.

Then next morning, we woke up and went to class at Central Queensland University. It was only a satellite campus in an office building, so it kind of felt like I was going to class at the University of Phoenix by my house. We got a little more background on Noosa and we’re given our assignment for the debate. Everyone would be representing some party with a specific interest and would have to prepare a 2-minute speech about their agenda and would have to take questions for another 2 minutes. I along with three others was given the task of being a councilman where I would have to hear the presentations and ask questions to everyone. It may sound like I got the long end of the stick, but it was actually a little tougher because I had to know something about everything in preparation for the debate whereas everyone else had to just research their topic (don’t worry, I’m over it though).  Afterwards, we had a few hours off for the afternoon and had a cookout with the group for dinner by the pool. We hung out for a couple hours and then went out for our first time in quite some time at some club in Noosa. I probably would’ve had fun, but I think I was coming down with a stomach bug and left pretty early.

I woke up the next day feeling (at least better than everyone else who stayed out). We had more morning activities relating to our assignment where we were heard from a few Noosa stakeholders and went to Noosa National Park. As always though, it was raining and it kind of put a damper on things, so we were given the rest of the afternoon off. Everyone was still feeling pretty rough from the night before and we all had work to do for our debate, so no one really did anything the rest of the day.

The next morning, we woke up, cleaned up, had our debate, and got out of Noosa to head up to the Great Barrier Reef. We had a few-hour drive to a tiny airport where we would fly in a tiny plane out to Lady Elliot Island. The flight was only 40 minutes long and it was pretty cool because we got to fly low and could see the dark spots of coral in the water. As we flew into the island, an enormous rainbow was protruding from the water all the way into the clouds. It was definitely pretty amazing. But anyway, I’m going leave a cliffhanger ending here so I can let the suspense build as you scroll down the page to the next blog with more about Lady Elliot Island.

For some reason, I didn't take any pictures. So check back later once I steal some from other people.

Carnarvon Gorge

Sunday, February 10 was our first full day at Carnarvon . The bus-ride the day before was pretty long and terrible, but someone was nice enough to share her iPad and we watched a few movies to help pass the time. We rolled into the Gorge pretty late, well after dark and went to bed not long after. Our accommodations were structures about halfway between tents and cabins. They had canvas coverings and were set up on platforms to keep all the critters out and they even had electricity. Overall, they weren’t too bad; it just got a little hot at night.

We woke up Sunday to the bird screeching around 5:30 AM, so I stayed in bed wide-awake for another hour-and-a-half. When I finally got out of my bed and went outside, I was blown away by the number of kangaroos outside. There were big ones, little ones, and mothers with joeys in their pouches. It was a pretty amazing sight, and we could actually get pretty close to them without them either getting mad or running away.

Around 8 AM, we had breakfast. Our bus-driver, Steve-O, had a duel-role as an outstanding chef. Breakfast was great, and every other meal was awesome too, especially when you’re out in the middle of nowhere and you’re active all day and starving. After breakfast, we had an introduction to the Gorge and all the geological/cultural/ecological stuff we would be learning about (and writing about of course). Afterwards, we did a survivor-like competition where we broke of into 2 teams and competed to see who could make the best cutting tool and water conveyance from natural materials.  Afterwards, we had lunch and went on a hike to one of the side gorges for a few hours.

After dinner, we waited until dark and went spotlighting. We saw a couple kangaroos, a couple gliders, and an echidna, probably not the most eventful spotlighting adventure ever, but pretty cool nonetheless. We came back, looked at the stars, and went to bed.

The next day started with an early morning. We had to be ready to go to hike to Boolimba Bluff. The hike was a pretty short hike length wise, but a very tall hike height wise. We had to climb 900 something stone stairs with several ladders in between. The view at the top, however, was amazing. There were several points with wide-open views of the Carnarvon Gorge. I honestly had no idea that there were so many tall mountains in Australia. The hike around the summit was a little interesting. There was a pretty narrow trail, but we had to jump over literally thousands of ants at a time. Once we descended from the top down the steps and ladders, we hiked to the rock pool for a swim to cool off. After being in the water for about 15 minutes, us walking around and stirring up the bottom somehow created a rancid smell. We quickly got out of the water and that was that.

After getting back, we had a free afternoon (not that that really means anything when you’re in the middle of nowhere).. I tried to catch up on sleep, but between the scorching temperatures inside the tents and the massive quantity of mosquitoes outside the tent, that had a hard time really happening successfully. After laying down for about an hour, I got up and tried to work on some school stuff because we had three modules due by the end of the trip. However, for the same reasons of hot temperatures and mosquitoes, that didn’t really happen successfully either. In the end, I ended up just walking around and being off task for a few hours. We had dinner around 6 and then went and looked at the sky. It wasn’t all that clear so we didn’t stay too long.

Once we got back, we were allowed to stay up and drink wine (one of the few occasions we were allowed to consume any form of alcohol). It’s been interesting on this trip being someone who has been able to legally consume alcohol in the United States for over a year now being told when and when I can’t drink. Not that I have a huge desire to drink frequently or a lot at once, but sometimes it would be nice to have a glass of wine at dinner or the end of the day or when we’re sitting on top of a mountain watching the sunset in the middle of summer, a cold beer would be a nice addition. However, the rule is that we cannot drink anything at all until the days activities are over and we’re not allowed to drink in the accommodations. So opportunities are few and far between and that’s the rest of my soapbox.

So anyway, it was pleasant to stay up and have a glass of wine and I went to bed after about an hour because we had to be up pretty early the next day. We got up for breakfast at 7 and began our day hike at 8. Our first stop was to the Aboriginal Rock Art Gallery (pictures below). By art gallery, it’s not what you would expect. It was a boardwalk built along the side of a cliff where Aboriginals had made “art” 3000-4000 years before. I put art in quotation mark because no one knows for sure if it is art or not, but through our Western eyes (as I’ve learned is a common theme), we think of it as art because it looks likes it. Nonetheless, it was pretty to cool all of their engravings and paintings from plant pigments and to think about how old it was. We also made a few stop at some side gorges, which were pretty cool too. One was one of the sources of the creek, which is created by the convergence of sandstone and moolayember stone. Because the sandstone is porous, water seeps into over many years and comes out where it hits the moolayember. It is estimated that water that comes out is over 10,000 years old. We got back to our starting point around 4 and by that time had completely about 9 miles of hiking for the day. We went back to the campsite and had dinner before a night drive back into civilization. Dinner was probably the best yet and I had my first experience eating kangaroo meat. It kind of tasted like a really good sirloin steak and didn’t really have much of gamey taste to it like venison would.

After dinner, we headed off into the night on the coach bus back into civilization where we picked up with a new day (and where I’ll pick up with another blog entry). I definitely didn’t have the best sleep I ever had being on a bus and all, but I did have an entire row on both sides of the aisle to myself, so it could’ve been worse. I did have a really cool experience around 3 AM though when I woke up from a couple uninterrupted hours of sleep and I sat up in my seat for a little bit as we were driving across completely open flat land and on either side of the bus, I could see a bright starry sky to my left and right. Anyway, we arrived in Noosa, Queensland, Australia (city, state, country) around 6 AM. I think looking back on the Carnarvon Gorge experience, the one thing that I’ll really always remember (besides the spectacular views) was how commonplace it became to see kangaroos. I would literally see hundreds everyday. It got to the point where it didn’t even phase me to walk from my tent to the bathroom and walk right past a 7-foot tall kangaroo. So that’s my personal anecdote and read on to see my blog about Noosa. 

A panoramic inside the Moss Gardens at Carnarvon Gorge
 

Aboriginal Rock Art Gallery (4000 years old)

Atop Boolimba Bluff

Me and a kangaroo just hanging out

At the bottom of the Gorge

On one of our many hikes

Kanga and roo right outside of my tent first thing in the morning

The First Overdue Update

Well, here comes the first update in a while. I could make an excuse like that I’ve been in the outback for 2 weeks and haven’t had any Internet, but the reality is as the trip goes on, I get more and more tired, making it harder and harder to stay up and write. My apologies for the long wait.

So, the last time I posted a blog, I was sitting in the public park outside of our hotel around midnight refreshing my Twitter feed every minute to see if Laremy Tunsil or Montravius Adams would pick the Dawgs. However, Tunsil spurned us for Ole Miss’s cash offerings and Montravius followed Coach Garner to Auburn, but Davin Bellamy was a good pickup. Definitely disappointing that we couldn’t convert on any of the 5 or 6 best players left on our board, but it’s hard to knock them for completely reloading on defense with 4 Inside Linebackers, 4 Safeties, and 4 Cornerbacks, and hopefully Brice Ramsey will live up to his billing as Quarterback of the Future.

Anyway, I know everyone who visited this site really wanted to hear my football commentary, but I really feel like I should be getting back to talking about Australia. Since it’s been so long, I’ve decided to break these up into separate entries. So picking up where I left off, here go on Thursday, February 7.

We woke up pretty early in order to hit the road for a nice day of driving with a stop at the Gold Coast along the way. We rolled in to a beach town around 10 AM that look kind of like an Australian version of Destin, complete with a nice beach, seafood restaurants, and trashy shops lining the strip. Excited for our first real stop at beach, most of us headed straight for the water to swim around in the waves. Of course, per usual, it started raining within 30 minutes. So we quickly gathered our things and stopped at a seafood restaurant right on the strip. If you’ll recall from last blog post, food is very, very expensive in Australia. So obviously, I was sketched out by 5-dollar fish and chips on the menu. Thinking I would outsmart everyone who was going for the cheap stuff, I ordered the 9-dollar snapper and chips. Turns out all of us got what were essentially fish sticks regardless of whether we paid 5 or 9 dollars. Anyway, we finished and went next door to the McDonalds where they had 30 cent ice cream cones (I definitely wouldn’t mind seeing that in the states). Anyway, after all was said and done, the sun came back out, but we only had 20 minutes left, so I found a nice railing to post up on for a little bit before heading back to the bus.

We hopped back on the bus in route for Binna Burra lodge at the Lamington National Park. We went on nice long windy road to top of a mountain with no guardrails (not so much my thing but not that guardrails would stop up a bus anyway). We did however pull over a couple times and see a couple of incredible views (depicted below). In the distance, a lake surrounded by mountains was visible bearing a lot of similarity to Lake Burton.

Upon arrival, we put our stuff down and got situated for a little bit and then had a class with an introduction to the rain forest and about how to distinguish between various animal skulls and tracks. Pretty interesting actually. Afterwards, I took a break for a little and sat up on the apex of the mountain right on the terrace of the dining hall to watch the sunset over the mountain range. Definitely something that a picture can’t do justice. We ate dinner and then had a cultural presentation where we did some colonial Australian dance with some of the other guests at the lodge (all over the age of 60) and listened to someone play the diggery-do (sp?) a traditional Aboriginal instrument. Not to long after, we went to sleep. The accommodation wasn’t too bad. Ben (the other lone male on the trip) and I had nice A-Frame room with twin beds and a little entry room to keep our stuff. The bathroom were dorm style, but it’s all part of the experience.

The next day we awoke and had breakfast in preparation for a couple of hikes through the rain forest. On our first hike, we saw everything typical of a rainforest with big wet leaves, a closed canopy, and thick vegetation. Again, I got some decent pictures, but the pictures can’t do the walk justice. We saw a pretty cool variety of wildlife including fig trees, snakes, and skinks. The next hike, we descended the mountain a little bit into the eucalyptus forest. I had my first koala sighting which was pretty neat. As we descended, we got more and more into rainforest and hiked along a narrow trail that had a dramatic drop-off with some phenomenal views. By the time we finished, it was almost dinnertime. After dinner, we went spotlighting and saw another koala, some pademelons (mini-kangaroos about the size of a rabbit), a leaf-tailed gecko, an owl, and some opossums (which are much prettier in Australia). We also saw the most incredible night sky I have ever seen and had a clear view of the Southern Cross, the Milky Way, and two other galaxies that I have never before seen just looking up at the night sky.

As always, I had some schoolwork before going to bed and finally finished around midnight. The next day, we had what was advertised as a 10-hour drive to the Carnarvon Gorge that turned into a 13-hour drive thanks to a block in the road where we had to completely turn around and go another way. Anyway, read the next blog for my experiences at the Carnarvon Gorge, possible the most beautiful place I have seen in person.

On the way to Binna Burra Lodge
 

Sunset right outside the Binna Burra Dining Room
 

Koala!

Inside the rain forest

Showing off my photography talents

First Days Down Under

First things first: I’ve received constructive criticism that my blogs have boring titles and need pictures. So from here on out, I will post photos, I will start titling my blogs with clever titles and no longer title them “Blog Number __”, and you will notice that I made a background picture and if you check my previous blogs, you will see the corresponding photos. Like I said, I’m new to the blogosphere and I need to learn how to do these things. Shout out to Paige Biringer for teaching me how.

So anyway…

Well, as predicted, the travel day was absolutely terrible. The day started really early when we had to be at breakfast by 7 AM. After a quick breakfast, we got out of the hotel around 9 AM. We loaded up the coach and headed to the Cherry Blossom Festival in Waimea, Hawaii, the second-largest Japanese cultural festival in the world. We stayed at the festival for about five hours, an hour and a half of which we spent walking around, and the rest of the time we spent sitting together at children’s playground trying to stay out of the sun since most of us were fighting sunburn from the previous day. For one thing, if I had been the one making the schedule, I think I would have structured the day a little differently. Five hours at a Japanese culture festival was a little excessive, especially since we already had a long day ahead of us and we definitely could have reallocated some of those festival hours to waking up a little later than 6:30 AM. Secondly, family members could probably attest that something titled “cultural festival” wouldn’t really be my thing (And I mean no disrespect to Japanese culture).

Moving on…at around 2 PM, we had the pleasure of departing the festival and went to the Airport. Of course, our flight got delayed. And the airport was basically a courtyard with a restaurant, gift shop, and ten airplane gates. So then around 7 we had the shortest flight of my life over to Honolulu where we had a 2-hour layover before the 9-hour flight to Auckland, New Zealand. Fortunately, I took a melatonin and could barely keep my eyes open for the first 20 minutes of a movie. That made the flight pass pretty quickly. After a 4-hour layover in New Zealand, we had a three and a half hour flight to Brisbane, Australia, our final destination. Crossing over the International Date Line was pretty strange. We basically went from Saturday, February 2 to February 4. Our only thing on the agenda upon arrival was to have our Australia orientation after which I took a 2-hour nap before going to dinner. After a quick dinner, I was ready to pass out. I went to bed at 7:30 PM and slept until 6 AM the next day. Honestly, after the nap and the full night’s sleep, it was a pretty seamless transition into the new time zone. Granted, its only 4 hours different from Hawaii.

The next day brought our first full day in Australia.

7 First Impressions of Australia:

Australian people are very friendly. Most people behind counters want to talk and ask you what part of the US you are from. Everyone has been really helpful when it’s come to directions, recommendations, and such.

Brisbane is a really cool city. My impression is that the urban size is pretty similar to Atlanta. There are a lot of tall buildings, but there is also a lot of green space. In fact, there’s a nice little park called King Edward Park right across from our hotel where we go to use free WiFI.

Food is really expensive- Lunch at McDonald’s was 11 Australian dollars. It’s pretty tough to eat a meal for under 15 dollars.

Alcohol is really, really expensive. A 24-pack of Budweiser (the cheapest one) at the package store is a cool 55 bucks. Strangely, wine is grossly disproportionate. All the fine-wine drinkers can get a bottle of Yellow Tail for less than 10 dollars. The Australian dollar is 91 cents to the US dollar, so it’s really about 9 dollars.

We’re definitely not in Athens, GA. I definitely stick out like a sore thumb in my pocket-t’s, khaki shorts, and rainbows. However, I haven’t been treated any differently because I don’t look like a local. If anything, people are more friendly. There’s also the obvious difference from the previous 2 points…

They drive on the left side of the road. As a pedestrian, it’s a little tough to get used to looking right-left-right rather than left-right-left.

Mall’s are very common. It seems like there is one on every street corner However, their malls are very different than ours. They all have food courts, but they all close at 5 PM. Also, instead of department stores, you would find things like Target or the grocery store.

Anyway, that first day we had class from 8-11 AM (miserable) for our first Anthropology class followed by a presentation on Australian culture. Afterwards, we had a lunch break before having a scavenger hunt at the local natural history museum. Fortunately, it wasn’t too hard to find everything and I actually learned some cool things in the process. Did you know that Australia is home to the world’s largest species of cockroaches and they are 35 times the mass of a normal cockroach? (Imagine having one of those crawling on you Ryan Johnson)

That night, we decided to take the opportunity to go out for the first real opportunity on the trip. We went to the local bar called Down Under, which was definitely an interesting experience. It was “Ladies and Lady Guys Night”. Use your imagination as to who was walking around and what they were wearing. Needless to say, I stuck pretty close to people from our group. At one point in the night, I met and talked to a guy from Kenya who told me he lived in Dunwoody before I told him I was from there. What are the odds? (He wasn’t a “lady guy”)

This morning, I got up at 7 AM and headed to WiFi park to get my Internet time in. We had 8 AM class again for a couple hours before taking the train to Boondall Wetlands Environmental Center. We took a little tour around the facilities with mosquitoes literally swimming in the air around us. That definitely put a damper on things. Other than that, we sampled some foods native to the Bush and got a slightly boring lecture on the Aboriginal people. Afterwards, we took the train back to downtown Brisbane where our hotel was and got the rest of the day off. We went to dinner downtown, came back to the hotel to hang out, and now here I am in WiFi park working on this blog. It’s 10 o’clock PM here, but I still got a couple more hours. I have an interview at midnight to match up with 9 AM in Atlanta. Not sure what the internet situation is going to be like the rest of the week, as we’re about head off into a more remote area, but look for updates in the next few days.

Good luck to the Dawgs on National Signing Day. Not feeling too good about it, but we’ll hope for the best. I may have to post a blog about that too.

View from the Hotel in Brisbane

Cool View of Brisbane on the Way to the Queensland Museum

On the Way to Boondall Wetlands

Boondall Wetlands

Blog Number Two

Alright so blog number two, here it goes…

Picking up where I left off, Day 4 in Hawaii. Day 4 might have been the best one yet. We started off with breakfast at the military camp and immediately when on one of the most amazing hikes I have ever been on. We started off along the “Crater Rim Trail” at Volcanoes National Park. As we walked, steam lined the trail coming from vents in the Earth. It was almost like walking through a sauna. It’s a shame looking that pictures can’t capture the vast beauty of looking out over a volcanic crater, probably 1000 feet deep and miles long and wide.

We took a little break at the Visitor Center to learn a little bit about volcanoes and lava and such and then progressed down another trail even more beautiful than the first. As we walked, the active Kilauea volcano (hasn’t erupted since 1984) was visible in the immediate distance. Again, pictures can’t do the view justice. The trail descended into a lava tube (which is basically a cave that was formed by lava) and all of a sudden, we were in the middle of a rain forest.

After the hike and a couple hours of free time, we had a cultural presentation by a Hawaiian couple who educated us about the goddess Pele (the chief deity of the Hawaiian culture), Hawaiian instruments, and Hawaiian dance. We participated in playing music and followed along with some hula dance moves (which I learned that all hula moves have a meaning). The beauty and tranquility of the couple playing music and singing was very striking and it is really characteristic of Hawaiian culture. We actually learned that when explorers arrived in Hawaii for the first time, the Hawaiian queen actually conceded all of the islands because that’s what she thought would be safest for her people. Afterwards, we had dinner and class for a couple hours and after reading a bit, passed out.

Day 5: We got picked up by a coach at the military camp and went to the black sand beaches to see sea turtles. We only saw one, but it was still a pretty cool sight. Our next stop was a five mile round trip hike along the coast to the green sand beaches (one of only two in the world, the other is in the Galapagos Islands) and to the southern most point of the United States. We had a picnic lunch on the beach and got caught in the rain (which has been characteristic of the trip) on the way back to the bus. We made one more stop at the place where Captain Cook landed in Hawaii (and where he was killed) with dramatic scenery. Steep mountains lined the coast because when tectonic activity happens, earthquakes will actually push sides of the mountain into the water.

The bus finally took us into Kona, which is the tourist part of the Big Island. Of course, since we’ve been here it’s rained a bunch and they haven’t had rain in eighteen months. Upon arriving at the Kona Seaside Hotel, we were relieved of the itinerary and given the night off to go into Kona. We ate dinner at a good seafood restaurant and walked around for a couple hours and then came back to the hotel. Although I had the intention of getting some work done, I sat in the hotel lobby with my laptop open and talked instead of getting any reading done.

Day 6: In the morning, we listened to a presentation about conservation and alternative energy at the National Energy Laboratory Hawaii Authority (pretty boring, not gonna lie) and came back to the hotel before getting turned loose for a few hours of free time. At 4 pm, we departed for Mauna Kea at an elevation of 9000 feet. Who would’ve thought there was sub-freezing weather in Hawaii? Unfortunately, the sky was pretty cloudy, but we saw some stars for a little and we got to look through a telescope to see the rings of Jupiter.

Day 7: We got up, ate breakfast, and hopped on the coach to take a tour of a Kona coffee plantation, which was pretty interesting, even though I’m not a coffee drinker. Afterwards, we had a couple hours free time to grab lunch in the city of Kona and then took a tour of the palace that all the Hawaiian monarchs before Hawaii became a US territory. Those monarchs definitely had it pretty good in an 1800s style New England home right on the coastline. Later on, we had a couple hours of class and were turned loose to study and work a couple of 250 word essays due on Saturday.

Today, we got up early to depart for our sea-kayaking and snorkeling trip. We got to the place around 9 and headed out of the harbor. We attempted to find some whales to see if they would come get close to us. Though that didn’t happen, if we went a few feet underwater, we could hear their noises as they communicated with one another. The next stop was to attempt to cliff jump. We kayaked toward some cliffs and few of got out of the boat to swim to shore. I was actually ten feet away from the climbable part of the cliff before 15 foot swells started slamming into the side of the cliffs. The guide decided it would be unsafe to swim any further, but it was sort of fun bobbing up and down in such large waves. Afterwards, we went to snorkel before wrapping up the expedition. We got back to the hotel to hang out for a little/work more on the essays before having class for an hour or so before having our last-night-in-Hawaii-dinner with the whole group and with our instructors who will be departing tomorrow. As always, we came back to the hotel to work on schoolwork, but thank God I sit here now having finished all of my work for Hawaii with a little bit of time to relax before going to bed.

This will be my last update from Hawaii before heading off to Australia. Saturday, we get to have nice a 24-hour travel day (3 hours early for our flight, 1 hour to Honolulu, 3 hour layover, 9 hour flight to Auckland, New Zealand, 4 hour layover, 4 hour flight to Brisbane, Australia…check my math if you feel so compelled) and in fact, it will technically be Monday when we arrive. So that’s something to look forward to. Stay tuned for updates from Australia!

Cool view at the point where Captain Cook landed in Hawaii

Me Standing In Front of the Lava Tube

Looking Toward the Volcano

Lava Steam Vents

Ancient Hawaiian Carvings

Green Sand Beaches

Black Sand Beaches

View along the Crater Rim Trail