Magnetic Island Adventure

We had an awesome time on Maggie Island with Sameer, Dylan, and Hilary. We went to Horseshoe Bay first and relaxed. Morgan got to ride in the boat while Hilary, Sam, and Dylan went on the water tubes to take pictures of the times Hilary and Sam fell out. She also got to ride on the group before them to be their spotter and their photographer. We got some food at Noodies restaurant and put a pin on Syracuse/ Rochester on the world map that they had there. Then we had to wait an hour for the bus to Forts Walk, so

we walked to the sand bar. We saw some crazy sea gulls, two sand dollars, and a boy in a sombrero. We finally got the most crowded bus ever and went to Forts Walk where they have the highest density of Koalas. We saw three and one had a baby (Morgan found two, and a German family found the other one). We got to see Arthur Bay where we went snorkeling the first time we went to Maggie and had to walk through every single terrain Australia ("Stralya") has to offer... no joke. The walk was easy, we both did it in our flip flops.

Having our share of Koalas and bugs we headed back to the ferry but had to wait because we miss judged the time. We got to see the sun set and two guys trying to find sunnies (sunglasses) in the rocks by the water which was hysterical. There were also little rock wallabies (two had babies) and relaxed on the rocks ourselves because we were whipped.

We drove back and learned that the rural Australians say "Stralya" instead of Australia.

Sam told us that the two door cars that have a bed and are really popular here are called ute, like utility vehicles. He could not believe that we didn't know what a ute was.

p.s. (1)We only have three day's left in Townsville and it is going by too fast! (2)Morgan's hall mates are awesome because they gave her the funniest barometer from Townsville to have as a keeps sake. It was a lovely surprise.

(3) We are happy that you have been reading our blog and will soon be home to show you all the pictures and share the stories!

Almost done

Here we have a summary of the last few memories of Australia. We tried Vegemite on a grilled cheese sandwich. It was ok with the cheese, but Scott had to try it by itself... not good by itself.









We made cake for the last assessment we handed in!! We finished our Fauna Lab Report and made ourselves a nice marble cake.








We had a movie night with the crew from Uni hall and ordered pizzas. Our pizza was the favorite and we only got to eat a piece each, but it was still good times.










This was taken at the night markets at the strand. Sam said the cotton candy in France is called "bababababa" haha










And finally the girls had a smore night at Rotary! Elaine had never had one and we had real American marshmallows!! Jade missed the marshmallows and was glad to have one!

Orpheus Island Field Trip for Coral Reef Geomorphogy

Here is a summery of our field trip at Orpheus Island.
We left campus at 3:30 am and got to Tylers beach for the sunrise. Then we had to wait for the last boat to get to the island so we watched a movie on Scott's labtop.







Next we got settled into our rooms and had morning tea. We got into our groups for our project and relaxed the rest of the day and ending with some intense games of spoons.









Our Project consisted of us taking data on transects of 6 different sections of beach, 4 at Pioneer B ay and 2 at Iris Point. The main objective was to compare an contrast the high energy reef (Iris Point) and the low energy reef (Pioneer Bay). This brittle star is part of our habitat descriptions.






We got to snorkel every day at some point. This was at Iris Point. We had to be covered head to toe because of Jelly Fish. This made it impossible to dive down and see anything because we would always float back up. Morgan had the hardest time because she would go a foot down and float right back up and even break the surface! It was really agitating, but the reefs were pretty shallow so it wasn't that much of a problem.



The sunsets were beautiful! Every day was amazing pretty much. This was the last day we were on the island and we had just got back from Iris Point. We had to eat dinner and work on our lab report that was due. Every group was up till odd hours of the morning finishing it. The range of ours people got sleep was scary!! We heard from 3.5 hours to 1.5 hours and then most people stayed up all night finishing it. I suppose this was because we had to be up at 5am to get ready to leave before the tide dropped.
Overall it was an awesome time!!

our lives

We have been doing a lot of homework since Brisbane. We finished a coral reef paper, a project proposal on the anthropogenic acoustics involving humpback whales off the coast of Hawaii, and are now doing a history paper. Yes it has been fun... We have been enjoying the puppy that belongs the the head of house at Rotary, his name is Roty. As you can see he is adorable!!! We don't have very much left for the rest of the semester. One lab report, two presentations, and a field trip. We have two weeks of finals and a whole week off to study!! Then off to Hawaii :D

Brisbane -> Surfing with Mojo

We had an awesome time touring around Brisbane on our first day. We saw a ton of historic landmarks and went up to the tower of the city hall. They were working on construction because they built it on a swamp and now it is sinking. We went on the wheel which was kind of like the eye in London. We spotted an awesome free pool that we checked out after. We went around 5 times when they only said 3! We had a sweet lunch in Anzac park on Anzac day! There was a huge memorial with guards and everything. We then met up with the Mojo bus and it took 5 ish hours to get to Spot X at Woolgoolga. We went surfing 3 times and each session was different. The fist day was sweet waves but the current was ridiculous. The second day there was no current, but the waves were small. We did pretty well. Scott got up pretty much every time. Morgan and Hilary got up most of the time but we had a blast anyway. We went to Byron Bay for 2 hours and looked around the shops and got amazing ice cream sundae's with our new friend from Holland. It was an awesome trip!

Undara Volcanic National Park - Fauna field trip

Skink












Northern Grey Bandicoot















Pretty Faced Wallaby




















Lewin's Honey Eater













Tree Frog
Our Undara Field trip was very interesting. Morgan's group (orange) had some epic fails. Their 5 hour bird watch ended up with no birds but there was one bat that was caught the night before. That same day we also got to go on the national park tour and saw wallaroos, pretty face wallaby, and eastern grey kangaroo. We also got to see a bat cave. After that we went frogging and didn't get back till very late so we were all starving. We had another bird watch on top of the crator and saw a beautiful sunset but no birds or eagles. The only thing we caught was an invasive cane toad and house mouse. We also found a few bandicoots and a chestnut mice. Scott's group (yellow) caught birds and a dragon aka success.






Eastern Grey Kangaroo















Rock Rat















Horseshoe Bat

Easter in Sydney - finally the tale

Day 1
Left Townsville early in the morning and got to Sydney in the aternoon. It was a nice flight and once we got to the airport we decided to stay in the City Resort Hostel for $37 AUD for 2 nights. We got a van driven by a crazy Russian who was not the best driver. We had interesting companions in the bus with us. The first was an older lady who had a hard acent that no one could understand, the next was the bright blondes who got in the front seat and we all were making fun of them. The best story was when they were asking where the city center was and we had been driving around the center since we left the airport! They lived up to the term "Dumb Blondes". As soon as we got to our hostel we locked everything up and went off to see the Opera House and climb the Sydney Bridge. There were so many bus tours by the Opera House it was crazy to walk through. Morgan was almost taken out by a few Asians taking pictures. We took pictures with a few statues on our walk. A boar fountain gave you good luck if your rubbed its nose, and Scott took pictures with Matthew Flinders too. We walked to the rocks to climb the bridge. We had to wear awesome suits to climb the bridge with a head lamp, ear phone, beanie, and fleece. We took pictures of some sweet celebrities that have climbed the bridge, such as Steve Irwin, Will Smith, and Bruce Springsteen. Our tour guide told us strories of some bridge facts. The first one was when an Irish work man fell off the bridge at 40 meters and survived but was bruised up and was back to work in 5 days! He wrote up a story about it and said that he was upset about ruining his shoes because on the fall he split his boots. Also in WW2 3 Japanese submarines made it into Sydney harbor by following the lights of the Ferries. They were aiming for a US navey ship in the Harbor at the time but missed and hit an AU boat. The Americans freaked out and started shooting at what they thought was the subs, but really it was Fort Dennison, the small island in the middle of the harbor. It was the only time the island has been fired upon. John also told us that when they were building it there were no hand rales and they had to climb using just rivets in the metal, and there were about 6 million in the bridge which keeps it together. They had crazy methods of getting the rivets into the bridge. There were only 2 men that actually died falling off the bridge, and 16 all together in the building of the tunnels and the city in 1930's. It was opened in 132 and a little boy rode around 3,000 km to get to the openeing (and back). He was a celebrity. We enjoyed climbing it with 8 other people, it was a full moon and not a cloud in the sky. We got to see the southern cross and all the different parts of the city at night. It was an amazing 3 hour walk. We were so hungry we had to find something. We saw one cute little restaurant in and when we checked it out the plates were $130 each!! So we went to City Extra and had a very nice dinner even though our wiater was an EPIC FAIL. We had for an hour for our check after we were done eating. We tried different things to get him to give it to us but non of them worked. We tried pouting at him, glaring at him, stacking the cups (which he took immediately but no check), sleeping, laughing obnoxiously, and his response was to pack up his things and leave because his shift was done! We were so mad and the next guy came over eventually to give us our check. We walked back to the Hostel through Hyde park and saw the cool fountain and the sweet water pool.
Day 2
We got up at 6:50 am and decided that it is the best time of the day to be in the cityl. There was only runners and bikers and the opera house was so beautiful without all of the tours. We had breakfast at the City Extra and we had amazing pancakes and ice cream. This time we got our check quickly. We took the Ferry to Taronga zoo and for 4 hours we walked around and saw all of the animals. They had a baby sea lion with a lady taking notes on him, we called him Peter. We also saw Tasmanian Devils and a little girl said "it's not a monster it's just a devil". There was also Francine the moneky! The Pygmy hippo was adorable. Both of the platypus exhibits were lacking a platypus! We were so sad. there were zebras and giraffes over looking the city. The leopard seal was huge!! We had lunch back at the Circular Quay at McDonalds, which was an epic fail. Scott got hit in the head by a sea gull that was going after his food! We then took the ferry to Darling Harbor to see the aquarium. We saw the dugong feedings, the shark and rays exhibit, the Nemo exhibit, no platypus the first time we saw it but then we walked all the way back to go see it again and it was out and playing. There wer actually 2!! It made our day. We had dinner at AmoRoma which was excellent but we were still hungry after we left because it didn't even fill our bowls. Hilary and Morgan had neon green pesto and Scott gnocchi. So we had to have waffle ice cream sundaes after. We listend to some guy singing in a suit and then walked back to the hostel through Hyde park again.
Day 3
We started off the day with breakfast at the Arch Cafe...it was pretty good we had an egg and bacon sandwich. We then caught the bus to go to Bondi Beach but we took the long bus with a scenic tour. We saw awesome houses that bordered the Ocean and we decided after school Marie, Hilary and us need to move there because it has a breathtaking view. A lady on the bus helped us out on where to go because we had to catch a different bus, she said she would house us for the night if she had room for three which would been totally cool for Easter but we proceeded to the beach and found hostel. The hostel was called Surfside and it had free body boards and rollerblades and breakfast included plus we got coupons for free drinks. We then went to the beach after we rented body boards even though it was cloudy out. The water was very cold but we got used to it and got a few good waves in. After surfing we walked the Bondi Beach stretch for little shopping and we had a late lunch, early dinner at the Bondi Bistro. Hilary got a really good pizza, Morgan got a chicken burger and chips (fries), and Scott got a beef burger...they were extremely good. When it got dark, we went back to the beach and played in the sand. We buried Hilary and made her into a castle and a stingray. After we built a nest and took pictures pretending to be Easter eggs in it, then we turned it into a bunny. On our way back to the hostel we got a Hungry Jacks (Burger King) chocolate dipped ice cream cone for a dollar.
Day 4- EASTER SUNDAY!!!
We started off the day waking up at 6:15am and walked to Coogee Beach. It was a great walk and the view was off the hook. Bronte McKeay, a cemetary, and kids easter egg hunting in their front yard and cool swimming pools were some of the fun things we saw. We walked by three pools with lots of old men in togs (speedos) and one was even doing yoga! After we came back to the hostel and checked out then we went to breakfast at the best restaurant ever The Gelato Bar Restaurant. Morgan and Hilary split a tomato and cheese omelet and strawberry french toast. Scott had chocolate banana crepes served with ice cream aka the best country ever!!! Ice cream served with breakfast :) Then for dessert we ordered rum cake and an eclair to split and they were heavenly. We then caught the bus back to the city and we had a hotel crisis because all the hostels were booked. So we found a cheap hotel in a room with three beds and a tv and the best part was we got the whole room to ourselves! We then preceded to take a nap because we were exhausted. Next we went to the Anzac Memorial and walked throught the botanical gardens. We follewed the botanical garden to the Opera House where we finally walked up to it and touched it. Then it was time to use our coupons and get a free drink which was a glass of house wine. Next we headed over to Cockle Bay to enjoy the night life so we got dinner for under ten dollars and got awesome milkshakes at the Lindt Chocolate Cafe. They were the best things ever and we sat by the harbor and enjoyed them! We took George Street back to the hotel and walked through the Queen Victoria building. At the hotel we watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith and took showers to relax which was great then we went to bed at around 11pm because we had to get up at 4:40am to catch the taxi to the airport.
Day 5
Left Sydney at 7:10am and got doughnuts and bagels from Krispy Kreme for breakfast. Noor ( our Australian friend) picked us up from the airport in Townsville.

Easter in Sydney - videos

we had such a nice time and the weather was perfect! these are just a few of the videos we took we hope you enjoy!

Pics of Pelorus

So we started out at 5:30 am when the van from RAD came and picked us up!! We drove for about an hour and half and got to Ingham where we met our boat by this pier. There was 8 passengers and 6 crew members !! We took a 30 min boat ride, where we were legit 2 feet from the water! When we got to Pelorus Island we made a chain to unpack everything. We set up camp in the tents that they already had set up. They gave us a snack and told us how everything was going to work this weekend. They told us to watch out for drop bears and hoop snakes and how to protect ourselves from each. First put vegemite on our hands because the drop bears can't stand the vitiman B in it and stand in front of a tree because the hoop snakes will just run stright into it. We realized that they were just kidding and they do that to all foreigners because we are so gullable. Drop bears were real once, but because of the extinction of Australian megafauna they were wiped out. Our first dive was cool because we saw clown fish, and Scott and Hilar did their underwater naturalist for their advanced certification. During our break we took the "trail" up the mountain to see if we could get to the tower. We saw huge spiders the size of scott's palm!!!! we almost walked into one of the webs but because we had a stick guiding us through trees we were ok. our destination was never reached but we got to a rock that gave us a pretty good view so we were happy. We did a pretty interesting night dive where you could only see where your flashlight pointed, yes it was a wee bit sketchy. we saw a cuddle fish and scott and hilary saw a small white tip reef shark (No worries). i also got to see the bioluminescence in the water which was awesome!! we had a good meal by the campfire and then they brought out the australian "marshmellows". the quotes are because they are smaller and denser than ours and extremely sweet! they are equivalents to peeps. hilary, spider, and scuba steve had a perfect marshmellow competition which was hilarious!! spider brought out this HUGE branch with a million branches off of that to roast his marshmellows on and there were enough for everyone and then some! so they had a competition of "fluffy bunny" where they put a mellow in their mouth and said fluffy bunny. hilary got 5 while spider got 17 or so! it was mad good! in the morning they cooked us breakfast on the grill and the advanced divers went on their deep dive to 25.1 meters(82 ft). The next dive was the drift dive where they dropped us off and we got to swim along with the drift. we got to go through an underwater tunnel between the corals. we also saw a fire fish, a huge crayfish etc (see videos). My group was a bit over zealous and swam past the boat, so scuba steve had to come and get us in the little dingy boat. we had what was left of the wonderful carrot cake (thanks to the advanced group who ate most of it :-/) and rested on top of our boat. we got to jump off the top of it which was a good time while the crew was practicing scuba rescues, which were quite amusing. then we got to go in again and tour around by ourselves which was fun. after we went back to the mainland and had a nice BBQ, filled out our dive log and went back to uni.

video from Pelorus

Some news on the home front

So we found out who next year swim team captains are.... Scott, Alison, and myself!!!! It is pretty exciting! We are going to have an awesome time with our team. Other than that no interesting news. We are going scuba diving this weekend, so we will have a lot up next week for your viewing pleasure :)

Scuba Cert Part 2

Yes we are now scuba certified! We can legally breathe underwater now! It was so much easier this time than last. We met in the morning and got all our equipment together the set off in the ocean. We did two dives while we were out there and coming up to the surface for more than 10 mins constitutes as a new dive. We got to do "underwater tours" where we saw lion fish, a sting ray, and we got to feed the fish some bread (even though fish can't really digest carbohydrates) but the fish seemed to like it. Then we had to do the skills like we did in the pool, but they were a piece of cake. After our dives we got to write them in our dive log, which is a small booklet and kinda lame because it is not in the binder like everyone else we know. We had the rest of the day off and we walked the beach and found awesome shells!! There was a dead washed up giant clam shell still intact! It was awesome and we need to figure out how to get all of our goodies home!! We went to Man Fridays for dinner!! We have been dying to go there forever! It was excellent. Then we sat on the beach and watched the moon rise, which was bright red!! It was a full moon too which was cool. The next day was the same deal, 2 dives in the morning and the rest of the day off. We saw another lion fish and a crocodile fish! We also had a skill of swimming through an underwater hoop! After, we walked again and went to a swing set looking the bay. We went to another great restaurant for dinner and sat on beach and let our stomachs settle.

OH Baby!!!

Trisha and Devin are now proud new parents of Jared Allen!!!! We are so excited for them both!!

He is adorable!!!

Scuba Cert Part 1

This past weekend we headed out to start our scuba certification. We got a nice dinner on the strand and we took the worst ferry ride over to the island. Because of the cyclone up north the weather was a bit rough, which made the water extremely wavy! Our stomachs were doing jumps like it was its job. We took the bus over to base and somehow a huge moth got in. It was flying all over the place and girls were screeching and the boys were trying to bat it away. It flew to the back of the bus so they calmed down, we were pretty calm through all of this btw. Then the moth decided to land on Morgan's book bag! It just chilled there catching its breath and then she tried to move it along and it went out the window next to her!! It was very amusing. We started our class Saturday morning at 8:30 and they gave us a book and told us we had to read and do homework for the first two chapters. We hadn't had that much work since we've been here! We had to watch the two videos and then we finally got to go in the pool. We just did some basic skills with all of our gear on, such as retrieving our regulator and getting water out of our masks. There were trickier ones, such as taking all of your gear off!! Morgan had to have the instructor hold her down because when she had to take her gear off and when she had to take the weight belt off she would start floating to the surface! Very funny. After we cleaned all of the gear we got to break until the next day, but we got even more homework! We pretty much had to finish reading the book and answer all of the questions. On Sunday we had to watch the rest of the videos, but we got to go in the pool again and practice more skills. We got to practice being neutrally buoyant which was a blast! When you inhaled you floated up towards the surface and when you exhaled you sunk back down to the floor! Then was our final exam, which was easy and we got to leave. However we only had 25 mins to catch the ferry when we were a 45 min walk from the marina!! And no there were not any buses at the time! So, we booked it!!!! We literally got there when the ferry was about to leave! However, the crewman hadn't gotten on board yet and saw us running and held it! We jumped over the fence and ran onto the boat!!!! We were so tired though but it was good that we made it! We go back on Saturday to finish it up with four open water dives!!

Classes and Campus Life

(Our first class to start off the week is Australian and Pacific Exploration. It is two back to back 50 minute sessions with only a ten min break in between and it is as exciting as it sounds... It is a class with a video lecture to the other campus (this past class one girl at the other campus was passed out sleeping in the front row) and our teacher talks so quietly that we in the same room as her can barely hear her (sound familiar). She stands at the podium and spits out info at us with no powerpoint or outline just maps for 2 hours!!! The tutorial of that class is much better we are assigned readings each week and in the tutorial we break up into groups and talk about what we read then discuss as a group. Our next class on Tuesday morning is Conservation of Marine Wildlife. This class is much more interesting and we have different specialists come in and lecture depending on what their field is. This past class the teacher got done in 40min and was like peace. There has not been a practical (lab) yet but it starts next week. On Wednesdays we have Coral Reef Geomorphology lecture and practical. The professor is really interesting and our first practical today got out early so we were excited. Thursdays we only have one class and it is Australian Vertebrate Fauna. This class is interesting too and our teacher is a speed demon too but there are way more slides. It is also a video lecture and about 10mins are wasted at the beginning trying to set up the video feed. Fridays are our busiest days with Conservation, Coral Reef, and Fauna lectures along with Conservation practical. We start at 8am and do not finish until like 4 or 5. And we are in lab so we dont even get lunch!

Campus life is interesting. We still don't understand how the colleges can be so self absorbed. For example, we went to the other dining hall and some random guy came up to a few of us and asked if we lived there in a very unfriendly tone and we said yes just because of the attitude he was giving. These girls that were there told him to get out of the line because he couldn't possibly know every "fresher" aka freshman and he left. But that is the type of thing that goes on and we don't understand why because we are allowed to eat at the other dining halls. Also the thing we have noticed is that they either love their gravy because every dinner pretty much is rice and some sort of meat and veggies in a sauce to put over the rice. We don't get many choices at all, and we have begun to miss UNE's selections! We also miss how UNE's cafe is actually open when you want food. Here breakfast is 7:30-9 lunch is 12-1:15 and diner is 6-7 and don't even think about going into the cafe if it's out of those time frames!

We see a lot of wildlife here on campus too! We have seen a bunch of wallabies near Morgan's dorm and walking to class as well. Also, we have seen flying foxes which look like huge bats. We have seen regular bats too, and we saw one today hanging upside-down in a tree! We also saw a "beaver rat" by Morgan's dorm too! Here is a link that shows the different mammals that we have on campus : http://cms.jcu.edu.au/discovernature/mammalscommon/index.htm !!

the fisher shield

this past weekend we had a swim meet that went really well! it was different than we expected because there were so many people there! each dorm ( they call them colleges) had so much pride, especially scott's college! i was combined with another college and we had some support but we had quite a few swimmers than they normally do. the support for colleges was so intense! it was actually really great to see. people who didn't even know us were cheering for us! every time scott was on the blocks everyone from his college started chanting and yelling for him and when i was swimming i heard my college yelling for me too! it was really something. it reminded us of harry potter because of the intensity for their college! one college had a mascot head of a lion and a bunch of people would run around the deck with the mascot! each college had a pep talk to their swimmers too and everyone would sing their college song! we didn't know our songs but it was still really fun. i had to pep talk our new friend who was a distance swimmer to get psyched for her 50 free! she was so nervous, but she did fine. i swam the 100 fly, 50 breast, and 4 relays. the first realy was a blast!! it was called the participation relay and everyone from each college had to swim in it, even if they didn’t have a swim suit on. there were at least 40 people from scott's college who participated and i had about 15. the rules were that there could only be four swimmers in the water at a time and you had to swim 25 meters and get out as fast as you could so the next person could go. we got our entire team down and back in the 5 mins that they gave us and scott's team only got down! the next relay was the under over where we went sideways across the pool and had to go under and over the lane lines. the last two were the 4x200 medley and free relay. my relay team stayed the same for both the medley and the free. we won our medley! and came 3rd in the free. it was so much fun and it was really close!! our college was cheering so intensely for us!! scott swam the 100 fly, back, breast, and free, the 50 fly, the last two relays, and of course the participation relay too. they got first in the free relay and third in the medley. overall it was a really fun day!!

videos

At Least We Saved A Dollar

Base Backpackers our hostel that we stayed in on Magnetic Island.

Ocean scene right out our front door.

Walking along the beach collecting shells right before sunset.

Beautiful sunset on Nelly Bay.

Morgan couldn't resist!

Sunrise at like 6:30 am that Morgan made Scott get up for...it was worth it!

After walking up hill to find the waterfalls we passed the path and came to this outlook...not a bad accident at all. Over looking Arcadia Bay.

Photo-op.

The Falls. We climbed down from pool to pool... the cool water was so nice on such a hot day.

Girls showering in the falls!

We didn't drink pina coladas but we got caught in the rain. We walked about 20min from Nelly Bay (where our hostel was) to Picnic Bay in the dark so we wouldn't have to pay for the bus when we went out to dinner. We had really good pasta and later ice cream...finally. Then we left the restaurant and it started sprinkling so Josh suggested we take the bus but we were like no we can walk (mind you it's both ways uphill) and about half way back it started down pouring...like legit monsoon rain (which is apparently common this time of year). We got soaked but at least we saved a dollar by not taking the bus and we also saved the environment we decided. It rained all through the night and the dry river that was in front of our room was flooded so bad.

Morgan and Jen not so happy that it was still down pouring at 10am. We had to catch a bus and a ferry back to the mainland. Not fun!

(Yes that's a garbage bag.)