Bondi Junction.

The past couple days in Sydney have been fantastic. The first night I shared my room with a girl from New Zealand. The hostel was the nicest city hostel Ive stayed in. We went down to the pub for dinner and ended up staying for the trivia night. I was no good because I could barely understand the hosts accent and I know very little about Aussie pop culture, politics, and historical figures. It was fun anyway. There was also a paper airplane making contest and I did pretty good in that. I didnt want to win though because the priye was two buckets of vodka and that was the last thing I needed.

The next day I went and got a badly needed haircut. It turned out great. Ive decided to grow it out a bit and every time I do that I end up liking the next short haircut. After that I went all through Sydneys Chinatown, checked out the markets, and went to see Wicked. The show was absolutelz fantastic. The lighting and costumes and sets were so incredible. The lead actors were great. All of the songs were awesome. To be honest, I had forgotten how much I love the story. Its just so clever and interesting and makes so many comments on politics and society, but its just funny at the same time. I might even read the book again. Actually, there is one book by that author I haven't read yet, so maybe Ill look it up.

Today, I took the ferry through Sydney Harbour and out to Toranga Zoo. I had another fantastic day. The zoo is all about education and conservation. The enclosures are great, I went to see the open flight bird show, the seal show, the penguin talk, and the chimp talk. They were all very well done. They are actually building a lot of new exhibits too. I think Ill have to come back some day because I didnt get to see a platypus and they are opening a new Tasmanian Devil complex which the proceeds of Wicked are supporting through their Green is Good program.

I took a ton of photos at the zoo. I even made a couple little movies. The very first exhibit I saw when I came in was one of my favourites, the red pandas. This one was active, but there were also several lazy ones sleeping in the trees.

I also really loved the echidnas, little Aussie porcupine=like creatures. This one is confused about where his nature area is located.

After the zoo I headed back to the hostel, picked up my pack, and hopped on the train out to Bondi Junction. Its the town in behind Bondi Beach. I have two friends from the Uluru tour who live here and they are letting me stay for three nights. This is really generous of them because they don't have a whole lot of space and they work very late hours. Right now I'm using their housemates computer. Hes Czech, so this keyboard doesnt have anz apostrophes. The y and z keys are not only reversed, but they are doubled, so you can use both keys to type either letter. Also, all of the words on this computer look like theyre from outerspace. For example, this is how you say New Tab = bez názvu. I could get by on the French one, but here I just have to guess and try to remember where the commands are on the list becasue I dont have a chance to find them otherwise. O well, at least it isnt a Mac.

Promised pictures!

Tonight I'm updating my resume and applying to that job I mentioned in the Yukon next spring. Well, actually it's more like next winter because the earliest position starts in January. I'm going to apply for one of five that start at the end of February or later in the season. I really need to spend some time at home and write the article from my Masters before I head out again. It justs seems so strange that they work in the Yukon during January. I thought everyone up there just hibernated.

Since I'll be on the computer for awhile, I thought I'd set it to upload some of my favourite pictures from the last month (I haven't added any since I went to the Daintree on October 3.

Assisting Helena at PK's pool tables. Her injured finger makes this sort of thing very difficult. Trust me, our game wasn't even affected, we're always horrible.


Myself, Courtney, and Laure putting up the wall of the new building. Helena couldn't help so she took pictures.


Lizard eggs are everywhere. So are lizards.


Feeding a little blossom bat some reward honey after we captured him and ID'd his species.


Our beloved swimming hole at Myall Creek.


Cape Trib in the far distance.


Native hibiscus.


A swamp wallaby joey.


Helena in the canopy crane!


The inside of a mangosteen, the queen of the fruit, and one of the most delicious things in the world.


Laure with her magic floating baby coconut. We were just being very silly one night at the station.

My little cabin in the rainforest.

A picture of a picture, these little bats were orphaned and handfed by volunteers at the Bat House. They need to be wrapped in little blankets because they can't thermoregulate until they are about 6 months old. That's why little bats sleep in their mother's wings.


The bowl of fruit we tried at fruit tasting. The yellow lumpy one is the rollina, and the round purple ones are the mangosteens. The giant green prickly one is the jakfruit.


A member of the persimmon family, the name means child fruit, but I can't remember how to spell it. Tastes just like caramel. I loved this one. It's the little brown one tucked in between the rollinia and the green persimmon.

Black persimmon, or chocolate pudding fruit. It looks just like pudding, but doesn't taste so chocolately. It's sweet and nice and I really liked the texture. They do mix it with vanilla and cocoa to make a really tasty frozen pudding that's all natural. I had some after the fruit testing.


The inside of rollinia! Yum! Just like lemon meringue pie.

The little red one is miracle fruit, the green one is tahitian lime. You chew on the miracle fruit for a minute, it's really all pit, just a bit of fruit with very little flavour. Then you eat the lime. The miracle fruit shuts off your sour tastebuds and the lime is so delicious. We even had little shots of vinegar after eating the miracle fruit and it tastes sweet. You have to plug your nose so you can't smell it, but it's so weird. The effect lasts for about an hour.


Jakfruit growing on the tree in the orchard next to the research station. It's the largest tree fruit in the world and can grow up to about a metre long. It's got these dark yellow pieces inside that are so delicious.


Courtney and I running the show at the Bat House. A nice German tourist took this picture for us.
Pushkin the sleeping bat hanging out at the Bat House.


Sand crab homes. They take bits of sand into their mouths, roll them around and eat the organic matter, then spit out the perfect little ball of leaftover sand. These completely cover the beach at lowtide.

Laure, Courtney, Helena on Myall Beach drying off from an afternoon of snorkling.

Courtney at the top of the peak where we stopped for lunch.

Courtney walking along the ridge leaving the final lookout. There is a huge drop on either side of the narrow path and we're about 700 m straight above sealevel. This picture doesn't really capture the ridge very well.

View from the top of Mt. Sorrow. Out over the cycads, down to the town clearings and out over the ocean.

Under the umbrella trees at the bottom of Mt. Sorrow. We really needed to stop for a break and this was one of the most scenic spots for it.


Me on Cape Trib beach. I had to leave that shirt behind. It was just so worn out. I really liked it though.


Courtney and I on the Rum Runner, the diving boat we took to the reef. I wore the wetsuit all day and it's a good thing because even though it was overcast the back of my calves were burnt.


Helena has an underwater camera. She took these the day she was at the reef. I borrowed them from her so that I could have some underwater pictures and show them to you. This was the same reef I was at, and I probably swam past a lot of these things, so you'd never tell the difference. These pictures are pretty good, but the colours are actually much more vibrant when you're there.


This is one of the only areas in the Great Barrier Reef where the blue sea star grows so abundantly.


Helena swimming over the reef. This is at hightide. When the tide is out, you can't swim over some areas.


A giant clam! All of the blue things around the opening are small plants that grow in the cells of the clam's shell. This sort of thing, mutualism, happens frequently on the reef in all different manners.


On the way back in we could see that it had rained in Cape Trib for most of the afternoon. We didn't get any rain out at the reef (about 20 km from shore). And the rain that did fall was gentle and wasn't enough to help with the drought the rainforest has been experiencing for the past three months. People are starting to get very worried that the upcoming wet season won't bring enough rain at all.


Mangrove roots along the boardwalk to the beach. This is where the crocodiles like to live. They aren't around right now because the water is so low.


Rattlecat, the one year old kitty who lived with us at Cape Trib. I wasn't allergic to her because there weren't any walls on our house, so her dander didn't stay around.


Beautiful waterfalls at Kuranda. This picture was taken out the window of the train.


Historical Kuranda Railway. The trip back to Cairns took about 1.75 hours. The train has to pass through 15 tunnels along the side of the mountain. The view was incredible.


Holloway Beach, the place I stayed during my second trip to Cairns.

The Prince's Rainforest Project.

The boys are throwing some big money at rainforest conservation projects. I think this is a really interesting approach to public involvement. I've seen the commercials for this about 100 times. They play them constantly on Virgin Blue and I've taken two flights with them in the past week (the only reason Vigin Blue's food is better than NZ Air's is because they don't bother to serve any).

You can sign up to support their cause here (Daniel Craig likes them too):

This is very interesting to me after actually spending some time in these areas. I think they're doing a really good thing and I'm definitely going to be keeping my eye on this website.

Also, today security at Virgin Blue took away my Canadian camping fork. Not only did she take it away, she laughed at me when I said I thought I was allowed to take it on the plane. And it wasn't a nice laugh at all. Aussies are very good at doing not-so-nice laughing. I wouldn't really mind, except the only reason I had the fork with me is because the previous Virgin Blue security person had laughed at me because I thought I wasn't allowed to take the fork on the plane. So, now I only have a spoon to eat with (well, until I hit the cheap markets tomorrow and find a replacement) and my fork is in the mail on the way to Warsaw in an unmarked envelope. Mom, when you pick up my fork from the post office, this is why I sent it. When security takes things away they ask you what you want them to do with it. So far two pairs of my sewing scissors have gone in the garbage (it's easy to forget them in the bottom of my carry on pack because I usually carry my knitting in there). This particular security guard, after laughing at me, wouldn't let me throw my fork in the garbage because it was so nice and insisted that I mail it home. I had some stamps to use up and I had an envelope, so away it went.

Sydney, Sydney, Sydney!

I'm in Sydney! I only have five days to explore this great big huge wonderful city! This is my last Australian destination, so I'm going to make the most of it. I'm now 15 hours ahead of home, so it makes it harder to call, but I'll try to give you a shout tomorrow.

I landed here at 5:45 this afternoon, took the train into town, found my hostel. It's the nicest big city hostel I've been in so far. I went to the pub for dinner and played trivia with my roommate. We didn't win anything. I couldn't really understand the host's accent or answer any of the pop culture/political/local news questions. They asked if an ant is intoxicated which side does it always fall to, left or right? I have no idea, but I wish I did. I think about ants enough, I"ll have to google the answer later.

Tomorrow I'm getting my hair cut, shopping at the huge, cheap Paddy markets, then going to the musical! I'll probably stroll over to see Darling Harbour too.

I've had a really great time the past few days with Pat in Brisbane. I got to see the city, ate wonderful food, watched a huge lightening storm from the highrise, and somehow came out of the casino with $47. I'll try to get some of my pictures up soon.

Night! Cass

Tim Tam index.

I've been meaning to post this for awhile and an e-mail I revceived earlier today encouraged me to finally put this up.

The back cover of my travel guide (Let's Go Australia, purchased from Macondo's used books in Guelph, very popular with the Canadian crowd around here) mentions that it includes a Tim Tam index. I didn't think much of it, but one day on a flight or a long bus ride, I decided to look through the guide and find out more about it. It took a bit of flipping, but I eventually found a little sidebar in the Victoria section explaining how this index works.

The basic rule of the index states, "the sharp increase in price is directly proportional to how far one has trekked into the Never Never". Therefore, the Tim Tam becomes a numerical representation of exactly how deep into the middle of nowhere you are; just how far away from civilization you have ventured. Also, your desire to consume Tim Tams seems to increase with their scarcity and price. Even though I could hardly eat anything in the dry heat of the outback, it was where I wanted Tim Tams the most.

The guide states that the average price for Tim Tams is $2.72 AUD. In Perth, a decent sized city where grocery stores with sales are located, I have found the cheapest Tim Tams at $1.98. In the wet tropics of northern Queensland where all chocolate must be refrigerated, I've found Tim Tams for $4.90.

Today, my mother sent me an e-mail saying that she had purchased authentic Australian Tim Tams in Peterborough, Ontatio, Canada for $1.12 CAD (about $1.23 AUD). The lowest priced Tim Tams are officially found on the other side of the world. I have photographic evidence to prove it (thanks Nat!). This really is an interesting situation. So many questions have been running through my head during snack time today. Even though I can't take it too seriously, I can't help but wonder...what does this tell us about the civility of these countries? What does this tell us about international trade and transportation of commodities? Perhaps my next degree will have to focus on the importance of chocolate biscuits in international relations, development, and economics.

Probably not though, I just found a group looking for field assistants in the Yukon next spring to study red squirrel ecology. I'm going to update my resume and send it in. I could do that for a few months and keep looking for a real job in Ontario for the summertime. Wish me luck!

The place of the platypus.

Kurunda is a small rainforest village about 35 km north of Cairns. It was originally settled by goldminers, abandoned and resurrected as a hippie commune full of markets, music festivals, and artist's studios. This attracted a lot of attention from the city. The skyrail was built to make travel to Kurunda easier. It's the longest gondola system in Australia. The old historic train line has also been refurbished and operates as a tourist attraction. You can take the skyrail up and then ride the train back down. And that's exactly what I did last week before flying down to Brisbane.

I spent the day browsing through the shops, eating dragonfruit and lime/apple/pineapple ice cream and snapping pictures of the interesting places around town. I wanted to add a few here, but it isn't happening yet! I'll try again soon...

O, and Kurunda means 'place of the platypus' in the local native language. Playtpus are one of the most difficult creatures to find in the wild, but the river in this area has great banks for sightings. Unfortunately, as the area was built up, the playtpus were pushed out of the area. Apparently, if you really want to see one you can travel north and sit very quitely at the side of the river at dusk and you might be able to spot one swimming by.

This post is giving me a hard time.

I lost pictures. It was a bit sad, but not the end of the world.

Then I found this and I liked it:



So I posted it here.

Brizzy.

This afternoon I flew into Brisbane. It's nice here. A bit cooler, a big bright city. Hopefully I will meet up with some family friends this Saturday. They have been in Sydney the past few days and are just recovering from all of their traveling too. I also hope to meet up with a local knitting group. I found them on Ravelry and asked if I could come to join their weekly meet up at a pub here. Unfortunately, they usually meet on Tuesday nights and I will fly out on Tuesday afternoon. They said they'd like to have a meet up this weekend too so I can come!

I have so much to write about and so many pictures to add! The internet here is free, but I can't figure out how to access the USB ports. That's okay, it's bedtime for me and I have a lot of time to figure it out tomorrow. I'm sharing a room tonight with three girls from Brantford. They came here to play soccer in Sydney and now they are traveling up the coast. My flight attendant today saw my Canadian patch and asked where I was from. He's an Aussie, but he's been to Peterborough about ten years ago! Such a small world.

I'll be back tomorrow to tell you all about my last few days at the research station, my stay in Cairns at Holloway Beach and my trip to Kurunda!

O, and this time in Cairns I ended up staying with a friend at his house on the beach. It was SO much like being home with Andrew in Guelph. I miss Emslie St. a lot. I'll always miss that house. I'm not homesick, but after thinking about all that I was starting to miss some things about Ontario. Then Jayme sent me a really long e-mail and a whole bunch of great pictures. I miss these guys too! Brian is teaching Stogie to be a good dog and sit at the dinner table while they eat. He doesn't even try to eat off their plates....aw, good Stogie, one of the family.

Great Barrier Reef.

Today I had one of the best days. Not just of my trip, but probably of my entire life. Courtney, one of the other volunteers, and I went on a sail boat out to visit the Great Barrier Reef. We spent the entire day snorkling, learning about reef ecology, and cruising along on a huge boat called the Rum Runner. It was built for 120 people, but tourism in Cape Trib has been hit hard by the economic situation in Australia, so there were only 17 people on board. The crew was great and we met a lot of really nice people.

The reef off Cape Trib is the least disturbed area along the coast. The coral is perfect and there is so much wildlife. We wore short wet suits and just floated along for about three hours. I saw huge sea turtles, rays, sea cucmbers, blue sea stars and about a million species of coral.

Yesterday we also climbed Mount Sorrow. That was quite the feat. The most rugged mountain i've climbed so far in the hottest condiitons.

I'll have more once I'm back in town with an english computer and high-speed internet. Just wanted to post about my day before dinner. Tonight I'm making an apple crisp and we're roasting a feral pig the neighbours caught. Should be interesting.

Mastering the Art of French Cooking in Cape Trib.

Here at the station, I've been cooking a lot. Pretty much every evening since I arrived for myself and 3 or 4 other people. It's been really great to cook in a big, well-supplied kitchen. I can request any groceries I want and there's all sorts of interesting foods growing around here to find.

Tonight I made gazpacho for the very first time. I don't think I've ever even seen gazpacho before, but Helena spends a lot of time in Spain and requested that we try to make it the other day. The groceries came in with a ton of tomatos, so tonight was the night. It turned out so well. I will definitely be making it again in the future. I also made a banana bread cake with butter icing for dessert. The bananas came from a tree down the lane and the coconut came from the beach. It was so good. The director said it was the best banana cake he has ever had. The other day Helena injured her hand very badly while digging a ditch for the new water system. She split her ring finger from the tip to the base of her second knuckle and lost her finger nail. She has been in a lot of pain and after dinner she told me, in her sweet broken English, that thanks to me (and my banana cake) she could forget the pain for a few minutes. I think that's one of the best compliments I have ever received.

Last night we had sushi. It was very delicious. I've had a lot of practice though, thanks to Nat and all our Guelph sushi events. I even made the thin fried egg filling and it turned out perfectly. We ate sushi for dinner and again for lunch today.

The girls are requesting that I write down all of my recipes for them, but that's really hard to do. A lot of the things I've been making are just things I know how to do. The director told me he'd have to take away my passport so that I can't leave. I've already decided to stay one extra night and they're happy because that means one extra dinner. They are planning the things we need to eat for the next few meals that are left and have decided that we need to start cooking lunch as well.

I've had such a great time here and I'm so glad I decided to come live in the rainforest for a couple of weeks. Courtney, the new volunteer, will be in Auckland at the same time as me, so we'll hopefully be able to meet up again. I also have open invites to visit Paris and Normandy and another stop to make during my tour of the UK. I don't know how I'm going to fit this all in.

This weekend will be a really great one too. Tomorrow will be my last day at the Bat House. Sunday Courtney and I are going to climb Mount Sorrow. It takes 7 hours return, but the view of Cape Trib and the ocean will be worth it. We're going to leave in the morning and take a picnic. On Monday we're going on the boat to the Great Barrier Reef. Tuesday, I'll catch the bus into Cairns and stop at the crocodile sanctuary and the organic biodynamic hippie-dippy ice cream shop on the way back south.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you all had fabulous, delicious feasts!

I went to visit our neighbours, the tropical fruit farm, and sampled all sorts of wonderful things. They have a tasting each afternoon and they invite all of the volunteers at the station to come for free. I can't even begin to describe everything because this french computer is so difficult, but I'll put up pictures next week. All I can say is that mangosteens are still my favourite (I preserved a couple jars the other day, so fingers crossed they'll make it across the borders intact), but that's mainly because I love the way they look and how delicate the segments are. I tried a fruit called rollinia and it tastes and feels like lemon meringue pie, so that might be my favourite tasting fruit.

I couldn't go to the reef yesterday because the boat was out for maintenance, but ze have a new volunteer and hopefully we will both be able to go next Monday.

Love you and miss you! Cass

Twitch two.

An update of my Australian animal sightings.

Kookaburra – Potoroo Reserve – September 10
Gannett – Sinker’s Reef – Sept 12
Mardo – Two People’s Kitchen – Sept 12
Magpie – everywhere – all the time
Splendid Fairy Wren – Potoroo enclosure – Sept 13
Bush Rat – Mt. Gardner – Sept 15
Noisy Scrub Bird
Wild potoroo
Bandicoot
Crested pigeon – Alice Springs – Sept 19
Skinny Magpies – Alice – all the time!
Yellow-throated miners – Alice Springs – Sept 20
Peacock – Toddy’s yard – Sept 20
Dingo – Uluru Cultural Centre – Sept 22
Camel
Zebra finch
Rock Wallaby – West Macs – Sept 23
Australian Grebe
Desert Fish
Red Kangaroo – Overlander Train Mt. Isa to Townsville – Sept 29
Australian White Ibis – Townsville Mall – Sept 29
Palm Cockatoo – The Strand in Townsville – Oct 1
Australian Brush Turkey – Austrop – Oct 3
Orange-footed Scrubfowl
Millipede!! eek
Cane Toad!!!!
Common Blossom Bat
Northern Blossom Bat
Tube-nosed Bat
Emerald Dove – Austrop Oct 4
Lace Monitor – Cape Trib Beach – Oct 5
Sulphur-crested Cockatoo
Ulysses Butterfly – Cape Trib – Oct 6
Mudskipper (fish that can jump up on land!) – Cape Trib Beach – Oct 9

Life in the tropics.

There are some aspects of life in the tropics that are just so different from life in the temperate regions. Here there is a fungus that loves to grow on CD's. Any little tiny scratch or dent in the top surface and the fungus will get in and start to spread across the metal film on the underside of the CD. You can see it growing in a squiggly little pattern, but you can’t stop it and it slowly eats away all the music on the CD.

Also, anything made of leather or metal doesn’t really last in the tropics. As soon as the inside of the bread machine gets flour on it, the oven will start to corrode. The station goes through about one bread machine every year. I thin k they must put bread machine on their Christmas list each time.

Holidays in the tropics are interesting too. They don’t really celebrate Halloween in this part of Australia and they don’t have Thanksgiving, so they don’t have a good date to actually switch over into Christmas mode. This means that I’ve already come across Christmas gear in the strangest places. The stores have already stocked advent calendars with wintery scenes on the front, but they have to keep them in the fridge with all their other chocolate bars so that they don’t melt. Imagine going to your fridge each morning to find the correct chocolate square from an advent calendar you purchased three months in advance. Not to mention, chocolate bars, the tiny one row Dairy Milk bars, are $3.00 here. What an outrage.

Pretty much everything spoils very quickly in the tropics because there is so much moisture in the air. This is the peak of the dry season but the one compact of blush I have gained so much water that the powder just cracked and crumbled into the container. The research labs here are essentially two very large, dehumidified refrigerators. We keep all sorts of interesting scientific equipment and assorted items in them including all of the media, CD’s, tapes, video cassettes (yeah, I know), books, basically everything you want to protect from disintegrating in the next couple weeks.

People and animals move very slowly in the tropics. There aren’t really clocks here and we generally sort of start the day at 8:00 am. Nothing opens until 10:30. The cat that lives at the station is the laziest creature I have ever seen; poor thing in her little fur coat.

One very nice thing about life in the tropics though is that amazing fruits are in season all year long. Living next to a fruit orchard is the best thing in the world. I know I’ve mentioned a few of the fruits I have sampled and tonight we have a ripe durian to eat - the smelly, horrible fruit that is so popular in southeast Asia they need to have signs in public locations saying No Durians Allowed. I’m sort of scared of it, but I’ll give it a go and I’ll definitely let you know what I think!

An interesting commission.

In Australia, every tour or trip or touristy thing that you could possibly book has a commission fee attached to it. If you book a tour of Uluru at the front desk of your hostel they will receive 5% of the cost of the trip, or so, depending on the deal the hostel and the tour company has made. Here, at the Bat House, we book tours and things for people. This means that the 5% that would normally go to a money-grabbing party hostel (one of the only other places in town to make a booking) actually goes to bat and rainforest research and restoration projects. In this country, one that runs on tourism, you can find many places such as this one that will also make bookings for you. From now on, I’m going to try to book events through organizations that actually really need my money. I’m going to take the trip, I might as well give a small percentage of my money to an organization that will put the funds back into the local community or the environment.

This is just an interesting observation I’ve made over the past few days since I’ve been running the Bat House. The commission I make from a simple phone call can actually double the income for the day. I don’t push the tours because that isn’t my job, but it’s great when people ask me to book for them and we have a selection of pamphlets and posters about local attractions. I’m going to keep looking for places like this as I make my way down the coast and hopefully my monies will go to some good cause as well as some great adventures!

The World Without Us.

It’s been a time here at Cape Trib. I’m not even sure how to explain the events of the past few days. Hans, the man who takes care of the bats and runs the educational centre didn’t show up for work on Tuesday morning. Hugh, the director, went out to his cabin to find him and found that he had died in his sleep. This was a person that I had lived with for only four days. His cabin was the next one past mine. This everchanging population dynamics of this place make this a very different sort of situation.

He was of Dutch decent, but was a permanent local to the Cape Tribulation area (one of about 50). He had been the Park Ranger for the region and knew absolutely everyone and everything that went on in this town. He also knew an awful lot about the local environment and was the one to go to if you had any questions about anything local; related to the social, economic, or environmental conditions.

Unfortunately, Hans had had a rough time over the past few years. His girlfriend had died, he had undergone triple bypass surgery, and he was plagued by skin cancer. It was all a lot for him to handle, so he left town for several months. He returned and decided to leave his house and live here at the research station and educational centre. He was always an avid volunteer at the Bat House and a champion of conservation and restoration, which the other people here are not always interested in because they just want to make money from tourism and the environment tends to be ignored.

Over the past few months he had finally started to seem like his old self. Hugh said he was very content here. He had even purchased all of the material to build his own house on the property. On Saturday, in fact, he had raised the first wall and was so proud to show us his two windows. On Monday, he had went into Port Douglas to see his doctor and have two spots removed from his leg, but he joined us for homemade pizza and cheerfully went off to bed.

Hans had a lot of family in the area. Even his mother is still here and he was 73, so she has to be even older than that. They have all been stopping by and sending notes. His nephews have been by to clean out his cabin. Hans really loved Reader’s Digest and had purchased everything they had published in recent years. The boys found four unopened mail packages from the past couple weeks. The library has literally doubled with cookbooks and nature books.

Next Wednesday, the community will have a wake and a celebration of Hans’ life on the Dujubi Boardwalk. It is a beautiful walk all down along the coast of the beach and it was one of the projects Hans built as an employee of the National Parks. I’ll help with the food and the cooking and I am glad that I can be here to help so that his family can spend the time remembering Hans and all of the good things he did for this region.

En Francqis.

Tonight I’m typing on the French intern’s computer . Some of the keys are in the same place, but many are not. The main problems are that the q and a are reversed, the period requires a shift key and the m is out in the middle of nowhere. I’ll try my best, but this is fairly slow going.
Monday at the research station is the day off.

Last night the girls’ friends came to visit from places including Brisbane and as far away as Melbourne . They camped on the beach and had a big bonfire. By the time I arrived there was only one marshmallow left, but I was fine with that. I rarely eat them in Canada and the Aussie mallows are nowhere near as good as the Canadian ones. They are tiny and faux fruit flavoured. It was very fun to sit around the campfire and help the French students with their English conversation. They are all here on five month training periods from an agricultural college called LaSalle. They are starting their third year and have to spend the semester in an English-speaking country taking part in some sort of research program. So, the girls chop coconuts by day (they are trying to determine if we can identify coconut varieties using some simple measurements of parts of the husk) and chat with all of us the rest of the time. Let me tell you, we have had some Funny conversations. They ask me all sorts of questions and I have to decipher what they are asking about. They have to take a difficult English test in Sydney before they return home.

Instead of camping with them I decided to come back to the station to sleep in my own bed. It had started to rain and I didn’t want to get soaked even though it hasn’t rained here with any intensity for three months. The wet season could arrive any day. This morning I slept in then went down to the beach to find the girls and their friends. They were snorkeling at the next beach over. I joined them and we swam out very far in the shallow, clear water. The salt water still drives me crazy though. After the swim we hiked up to a lookout over the beach and found a huge Lace Monitor Goanna (big reptile). On the walk I also saw a huge Sulphur-crested Cockatoo. Then we walked down to the fresh water creek with a really nice swimming hole to shower off and jump from the swinging rope.

I spent the afternoon napping and catching up in my journal. We had a selection of tropical fruits from the neighbours including bananas, mangos, starapple, and mangosteen. The mangosteen is my favourite fruit and you can only really eat it here because it will not keep to transport, so no mangosteens in Canada :(. Maybe I can preserve some in simple syrup if we have a lot and I can find a good jar. I will carry it for the rest or my trip. The mangosteen is called the queen of the fruit and it is beautiful and SO tasty. It is nothing like a mango though. I will definitely post a picture when I have a chance. Now I really want to go to the fruit tasting at the neighbour’s farm.

Okay, I can’t type anymore. This keyboard is crazy. The shift period is a real pain. O, and the entire internet is in French too. Luckily, I can get by :).

The Daintree.

Hello from the hot, humid, wonderful, beautiful northwest coast of Queensland. The rainforest meets the reef here at the salty, floaty Coral Sea.

I'm staying at a rainforest research station for the next couple weeks. The living is easy and the internet is dial-up. Unfortunately, I won't be able to post any photos until I head south. I'll have to do a major update once I find my way back to a high-speed internet area and I'm going to have some good pictures, so it'll be worth the wait :)

The station occupies an area of land in the Daintree Rainforest that was once completely deforested for cattle ranching. Cattle only lasted up here for about three years and then a lot of the land was abandoned. The people here have worked to reforest this area over the past twenty years and it is absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately, there isn't much community involvement in restoration or conservation of this lovely place because most of the 50 or-so other locals are only interested in building giant party hostels and making tons of money. Good thing the only way in is by a small ferry that carries about 30 cars and slowly makes its way back and forth over a river that is about 50 m wide. That sort of controls the amount of people who can actually come in and stay.

Currently, the station is mainly involved in education. There is a population of Spectacled Flying Foxes that live here, but they are all injured and cannot survive on their own in the wild. Any babies that are born are released into the wild and the local bat populations are monitored. There is a Bat House at the front that tourists can come and visit. It's a really well-maintained and interesting place and has a 1 km hiking trail through the regenerated rainforest area.

There is also a laboratory area with two lab buildings, a workshop, and the captive bat area. In behind that is the kitchen/office/library that is made of of three smaller buildings with a large open concept dining area/sitting area in the centre. This is where we make all of our meals and hang out. The food here is all made by us and we eat very, very well.

Off throughout the forest there are about 8 small cabins for visitors to live in. I have a really nice one with the big bed and a veranda. The windows are all open all the time and just have a screen over them. It's on stilts so I can just see out into the tops of the rainforest trees. I think I'm going to stay here for awhile, two weeks at least.

The other people who live here are Laure and Helena, two french interns both half way through a five month internship, Hugh, the station coordinator, and Hans, who runs the Bat House, takes care of the bats and does everything that needs to be done.

Last night we spent the evening catching fruit bats and today we've been walking the beaches (they do a lot of local restoration work) and seeing all of the projects people have been carrying out. I'm just finishing lunch and I have to head out. Mondays are days off to we will either be catching a boat out to the Great Barrier Reef, Visiting the neighbouring tropical fruit farm, or doing something called Jungle Surfing. Hopefully I have a chance to update later!

Where have all the good tunes gone?

I want Bruce Peninsula and Sun Parlour Players at the Albion tonight!

This is what people say about Canadian music: "O, I like Nickelback."

Are you kidding me?

I've read every single free indie music newspaper I could find (two to be exact) and nothing is appealing. I did, however, miss a festival in Townsville by one day. Apparently Townsville is also one of Xavier Rudd's favourite places to play. I think he was at that show and I now remember why I recognized the name of the town, I've seen it on his Myspace.

I'll keep trying. Hopefully I'll find something interesting down the coast. Aussies are really into DJs though, and I'm not totally. Someone was playing something cool called Girltalk the other day, but still I want a band with some substance.

O, and on the topic of missing things, I seem to only be able to arrive in a city a day after every event in the world. I've successfully missed the rugby finals in three states, I think. I'll keep trying in NZ too, though.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Where did September go??!

Shout out: I mean, Happy 26th Bronwen!!

Cans.

This morning I climbed an big hill then caught the bus up to Cairns.

The big hill was named Castle Hill. The town of Townsville sits at the base of the hill. The hill part of the name is accurate, but the castle part is not. Well, I suppose it looks a bit like some castles, maybe, but there aren't any castles in this part of the world.

Anyway, I really had to scamper up the hill and back down in order to make it to the hostel in time to check out. You should have seen me. I'm a much different hill climber than I was back in WA. No breaks till the lookouts in hot, humid morning weather. There were many other people doing the climb too because people in coastal cities love to stay in good shape.

I'm really glad the 6 hour ride to Cairns will be one of my last on a Greyhound for awhile. I'm just sort of tired of moving around and I'm really looking forward to staying in one place for a bit. I did see some interesting sites on the drive though. This is a banana and sugar cane growing region. All of the towns smell like corn on the cob. I think the busdriver said that's because the refineries use a lot of oil in the sugar extraction process. I wasn't really paying enough attention though because, man, the busdrivers down here chat a lot.

At one little town called Tully we pulled in right beside a giant gumboot! It also had a giant frog on its side. Here's a bad picture of it. I wasn't supposed to be off the bus, but I had to snap a quick photo.

Then, to my delight at the next little town near Mission Beach was parked beside a giant Cassowary. Here's its backside. I really hope I see a real Cassowary in the wild (twitch).

Other than that, Cairns isn't really my scene. It does seem beautiful, but it's just too busy and crazy with bright lights and crazy people at night. The hostel I'm staying in is huge and really impersonal. I have located a wool shop, however, (the last thing these people need) so I will be dropping in tomorrow before the person from the research station picks me up. I also need to find some shorts because I didn't pack mine. That was sort of silly. I will say that I did a pretty good job in the packing department (thanks everyone for all your advice). I've used everything and have had things to wear for every occaision (thank goodness I packed that fleece because I wore it every minute awake and asleep for the first month of my trip).