Belated Blog Post: The Beginning of the Rainforest (Beware, spider and snake pictures follow)

Here is the entry I wrote on the 8th but haven't been able to update since. I will fill you in on the rest later (limited internet + uploading pictures = slow to update blog):

So I’m in the rainforest! It didn’t start out so well. I underestimated the time/space it would take for me to pack up all my stuff and so I was late to the bus and ended up taking way more than I had planned. I finally got to the bus and our new teacher John informed me that I was giving my flying fox presentation in five minutes (we all had to research and memorize information about one flora and one fauna to be given on demand without notes anytime over this trip). Stressful. But I love flying foxes and was nerdily happy to learn things about them and teach other people. Plus it was nice to not have to worry about it.

I love long bus trips. I listened to my music (I’ve become re-obsessed with Great Big Sea lately, it’s really great to listen to while watching the countryside whiz past). This part of Australia really looks nothing like what you would think of when you think of Australia. Not just the rainforest, but the huge areas cleared for agriculture. It’s most striking on the Atherton Tablelands (where we are now). Observe:

But I am getting ahead of myself. So far there has been a lot of walking/hiking. We are learning about the different types of rainforest which is interesting. We have been unlucky with animals, so far, though. We’ve barely seen any. That’s the weirdest part about the rainforest here, I think. It took me a while to realize that they’re just too quiet! There need to be monkeys. Not that I’ve ever been to a rainforest before, but just from everything I’ve ever seen it seems weird to have a rainforest without monkeys. Someday I will go to the Amazon and Indonesia and Africa. That is something that is also happening right now, all I can think about now is all the adventures I want to have. I want to see all of Australia, I want to roadtrip around the US, I want to go to Canada, I want to go to every continent. I want to keep travelling.

Anyway, we stayed the first two nights in a hostel called The Tree House which was really cool. It was all open and had porches and hammocks and a gorgeous view stretching out to rainforest.

It also had a resident dog and cat. The cat was big and the calmest cat I have ever met. The second night I was petting him and then we snuggled and he just sat there, even when I ended up falling asleep with my head on his back. Adorable. Also! This hostel (like all the others) had a selection of books randomly left behind over the years. One of them was In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson (one of my favorite books ever and a big part of the reason I became obsessed with Australia and wanted to come here) in French! Super exciting! I even managed to read the first paragraph through a combination of rudimentary French skills and memorization of the book.

Only two problems with the place: 1) when everything is open and some people (from our group and the Swedish girls and Dutch guys staying there) decided to stay up way later than everyone else and scream and splash in the pool and play really loud music the rest of us can’t really sleep. 2) when everything is open, bugs come in. Lots and lots and lots of bugs. I was okay with this in general, but then I lay my head down on my pillow, looked up and saw this:

And completely freaked out. I have been seeing enormous spiders literally since day one in this country, but it that is by far the biggest and the scariest and the hairiest. I woke up every hour or so during the night, freaking out that it had repelled down and was on my feet (I switched where my head was, for obvious reasons). Terrifying. In the morning it was gone and we did not see it again, though, so everything is okay. The only good thing about all the bugs inside is that you also get lots of geckos inside. They are adorable and make the craziest noises! Did you know geckos made noises? I didn’t! Also, the Dutch guys called them “checkos” with the hacking noise in the back of the throat like “Chanukah”.

The next morning we hiked up a mountain. It was only an hour or two, and at times it was annoying but overall I think I like hiking. Which is good because we do it a lot and a lot of the other people complain about it, but I am realizing a lot lately how little I have to complain about and appreciating everything more, which is wonderful. Anyway, the view from the top looked like this:

We also saw some skydivers coming down from a plane!

I want to do that! We are talking about all going either skydiving or bungee jumping or something after the program. It depends on how much it costs and everything (because I am going to Uluru afterwards! I am SO excited. It’s not been booked or anything yet, but I HAVE to go. And it’s not terribly expensive but I don’t know how expensive everything else will be yet so I need to make sure I have enough) but I think that would be amazing. I am just crossing things off my life list left and right here!

That night we went to Mission Beach. All of the beaches here are so amazingly beautiful it almost doesn’t matter that you can only swim in the small part that has been blocked off by the stinger net. The sand is softer and whiter than anywhere else I’ve ever been, there are palm trees and mountainous islands covered with rainforest on the horizon, and it’s just beautiful. We were there at sunset, too, which just made it so much more incredible. The ocean here is warm, too, like bathwater, and much saltier than the Atlantic, at least where I’ve swam. I don’t have any pictures of it, but it was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

One thing I have neglected to mention to this point is how many butterflies I’ve been seeing here. They are everywhere! They make me smile and think of Gram every time I see one, and I’ve had several flutter around me and land on me and stuff like that. It makes me really happy. They are so beautiful. This is one of the few I managed to get a good picture of. It’s called a Cairns Birdwing:

That was taken just before the Mamu canopy walk. It is what it sounds like; we walked along a boardwalk suspended in the canopy. It wasn’t as amazing as I was hoping because I was expecting the canopy to be a lot more closed around us but it was still cool.

This was my favorite part:

That last picture is me and my friend Rachel. Rachel is from Minnesota, too, and is super sweet. I have barely any pictures of people, I realized, which is lame and I need to fix. Also, everyone here is shorter than me! It’s ridiculous! Two of the three guys are taller, but I am the tallest girl and am taller even than the professors I think. I am a giantess!

But I digress. After the canopy walk and lunch we had another hike in another different type of rainforest. It was hilly and beautiful on the way but we got to the end and it was probably the most spectacular thing I have ever seen. There was a sheer cliff face hundreds of feet in the air with an enormous waterfall cascading down it and a pool at the bottom. And we got to swim in it! It was clear and cold and absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures because it was raining at the beginning of the walk and I was afraid for my camera’s safety. I will post pictures as soon as someone else puts them up on Facebook/gives them to me. But it was one of the best things ever just to float in the water and look up at a sheer rock face and thousands of gallons of rushing water right above me. I can’t really describe the feeling.

On the way home we drove through the beautiful country from the first picture at the top. I listened to Great Big Sea and watched the scenery and napped a little bit until we got to the Lodge where I am sitting now. It’s way off the beaten path in a clearing surrounded by rainforest surrounded by farm country. We have two houses, one which only sleeps five which the three guys are in, and one with a big bedroom, a small bedroom, and two bedrooms in the living room/kitchen which all the girls are sharing. Rachel and I are in the random beds in the middle of the main room which is actually kind of fun. It’s really cozy and I like it a lot.

Today we hiked a lot again, and failed at seeing wildlife during the day, for the most part. At night, however, we saw some wildlife a little too close for comfort. One of my friends, Katherine, was going outside to get something and stepped on a snake. This snake:

We happen to have a poster of snakes of Northern Queensland hanging in the bathroom area and identified it as a Small-Eyed Snake, which is listed as venomous and dangerous. It slithered over our shoes and hung around the front porch area for a while but did not seem particularly interested in us, even when we were flashing lights at it. Later on, however, someone ran out of the bathroom screaming. Somehow it found its way inside and is currently residing in the shower room, just one door away from where Rachel and I are sleeping. I’m sure it’s fine and is just looking for somewhere warm to spend the night but it is still not the most comfortable feeling in the world sleeping so close to a potentially deadly snake.

We also saw some other wildlife tonight, though! We went out spotlighting around the Lodge and saw a bandicoot scampering, a bunch of possums – most of whom looked like this:

And a couple of pademelons (which are a lot like wallabies but smaller and only live in rainforests):

If you can’t see, the pademelon is in the exact middle of that picture. We were using red light because it is less intense for their eyes and won’t freak them out as much so they won’t run right away (like they do if you shine white light on them). Or, I suppose, hop away. We saw a fair number of them doing that, too, which is always fun to watch.

Anyway, I should have been asleep hours ago. I really wanted to finish this update tonight, though, because it turns out we have no internet at all here, not even dial-up, and tomorrow we are being taken into Atherton to use the internet (mostly to check on our ISP stuff, which is sort of back to the drawing board for me, but I won’t get into that right now) and I wanted to be able to update all of you on my exploits thusfar.

I hope you are all having a fantastic week and I miss you!

So that was from 8 days ago, you will hear plenty more stories once I finish writing them, I'll post them ASAP.