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.