In Which I See Many Amazing Things and Am Attacked by Australian Wildlife for the First Time

Oh my goodness. I just got back from our orientation week. It was pretty ridiculous. The days feel really long here. Partially because they are literally longer than at home (SO much more daylight! :D), partially because I had gotten nice and used to not doing anything all day over break and now we get up at 7:30 and are moving basically all day, and maybe a little because I am far away. So this might take a while.

The good thing is that over orientation my homesickness got a lot better. This was partly due to hearing from some of you, partly because we were so busy all the time I didn’t have time to think about it, and because good things kept happening that made me happy to be here. I also got closer to a lot of the people here. It seems really crazy that I’ve only known them for a week. Oh, and the other really helpful thing: it was sunny all week *knocks on wood*.

The first day we all loaded up in the enormous bus and headed out. We took a nature walk (this will be a common theme) and saw a kookaburra!

The sun came out before lunchtime (a celebrated event) and we went to a beautiful rainforest park with a stream in it where we were allowed to swim. I don’t actually have the pictures from this place, because other people here have water proof cameras and I am overprotective of mine (because it is fantastic) but they will be on facebook whenever people want to post them. I really don’t think I can explain or show with pictures how absolutely gorgeous this scene was, though. Or how amazing it is to swim in a river in the rainforest. It’s just so peaceful and beautiful and awesome!

Next we went to the beach to talk about another ecosystem. You can’t really swim in the ocean in Northern Queensland from November to May because of the ridiculous numbers of incredibly poisonous jellyfish called “marine stingers”. Mostly if they touch you you will just die. Terrifying as that is, that doesn’t stop Australia from making hilarious caution signs. I have taken pictures of a lot of caution signs I thought were funny in this country, but this is my favorite:

That night we stayed in Port Douglas. We did go to the beach, where they have little areas that are completely surrounded by what they call “stinger nets” which are supposed to keep out the jellyfish. I don’t really trust this system, and it was low tide so the tiny area we were allowed to go in got down to maybe 2 feet deep, so we didn’t stay very long.

Day 2 might have been my favorite day so far of this program. We went to an Aboriginal heritage centre and were shown around by this tiny Aboriginal woman named Rosie. She was probably one of the coolest people I’ve ever met. She was just so…happy and wise. I don’t really know how to explain it, but we all felt exactly the same way. I love her and kind of want to be her when I grow up. She showed us around the rainforest from her perspective, showing us what the different plants were used for. She even took the girls aside and showed us the sacred Women’s Pool, which was really amazing. I actually did get a deep spiritual kind of feeling from it.

She also showed us a cave where they had done stick paintings:

And gave us a lot of wisdom along the way. My favorite thing she kept saying was also what her Aboriginal name means: “Life’s a challenge, live each day at a time, and tomorrow’s another day.”

There was an art gallery with beautiful Aboriginal art. I bought a couple of small things (everything was so expensive!) that will be souvenirs for someone and a book about the rainforest plants and their uses. I’m excited about it, it looks really really interesting.

In the afternoon we went to Mossman Gorge, another river in the rainforest for us to swim in. If possible, this one was even more beautiful and amazing than the first one. It also had current, which was fun. I’d never really swam against current before. It was fun. This one I do have a picture of, but other people took more.

We ate lunch there and I was sitting at the table all alone and minding my own business when I got attacked by Australian wildlife for the first time. So, everyone who told me I would not be safe here was right. People who kept sending me articles about the terrifying things here that were going to poison me and how I was going to die. I hadn’t even been in this country two weeks when I got bitten! What did I get bitten by, you ask? What heinous creature of this terrifying and venomous country? Well I will tell you. It was a turkey. This turkey, in fact:

He wandered up under the table and bit me right on the toe. I am awaiting the next full moon, but I fully anticipate turning into a Wereturkey. I will let you know.

Later that day we went on a guided tour down the Daintree River. We did not see any crocodiles, sadly (I really want to see one from a safe distance), but we did see a lot of birds and adorable frogs:

And even fish that can spit! Seriously, they spit a stream of water a couple feet in the air and knock prey off of branches above them into the water where they catch them. We watched them do it. It was amazing!

Day 3:

Rainforest Habitat Area! This is an indoor-outdoor park/zoo thing where they keep all kinds of native Australian animals, a lot of which are endangered. We went there because it is much much harder to see most of these in the wild. A lot of them were birds like this Cassowary:

Who is basically a dinosaur, and will slice you open like a ton-ton with those claws if you anger it in the wild. They are very endangered and I want to see them in the wild so bad!

Also here were Tawny Frogmouths which are basically the best thing ever. They look like muppets. Adorable muppets that I want to snuggle.

We watched them being fed and I got to pet one! Super soft.

The next section was all outdoors and filled with wallabies, kangaroos, and a bunch of big water birds. In general I am not sure how I feel about allowing people to get so close to wild animals, even if they were raised in captivity, but we were restricted to the paths and the animals came and went as they pleased. It made me feel a little bit iffy, but they gave us “Roo Food” and OH MY GOD I FED WALLABIES AND KANGAROOS!!!

It is hard to feel morally uneasy when adorable things are literally eating out of the palm of your hand. Their lips were soft and tickley and the littlest one actually grabbed my hand with its tiny claws to bring it closer so it could eat. Adorable.

I did object to the koala cuddling/picture taking. They kept arranging it so it looked just right for the camera and the whole thing just seemed too stressful for the animal and training it to do something that wild animals shouldn’t do, etc. So I didn’t do that. I saw many koalas already on this trip though, and honestly seeing them in their natural habitat makes me happier than holding one in an artificial environment would.

Also, you might have noticed my sweet Bush Adventure Hat. Hats are necessary here because it’s hot and the sun will basically fry you alive. It is pretty ridiculous and pretty fantastic. I bought it very rushed at a chemist (which is a pharmacy, if you don’t know) but I think I kind of love it for how ridiculous and Australian it is.

Then we drove up to the Atherton Tablelands, where we encountered this freaking sweet gigantic moth!

It is called a Ulysses Moth and is really beautiful. This one is dead, by the way. One of the girls has a phobia of moths and we actually got her to hold it! She was freaking out but there is photographic proof and it is definitely progress.

Then we went to a place called the Curtain Fig Tree.

It was really magical and amazing and made me feel like I was in Avatar. This is a Strangler Fig that has taken over three different trees. They start high up on the trees and their roots grow down while their canopy grows up. It is breath-taking.

Anyway, this is only half of the INSANELY long blog post I wrote but it is quite late and I have to get up at 6:30 tomorrow to head out to the reef (exciting) and I am almost out of internet, so the rest will have to wait. Love you all! You are wonderful! I hope you have a fabulous day!