Ethan's Semester In the South Pacific: 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.