This week flew by. After getting back bright and early from Cairns on Monday I spent most of the day recooperating. Tuesday was a good half day of classes with my first reef fishes practical where we had to ID a reef fish. My partner and I got it no problem (but only because the key feature was the fish's blue teeth!) Wednesday was a long day filled with classes and to top it all off I got a few laps in at the pool and had a nice walk with my Ozzies after dark. Thursday I jinxed myself and got my first sunburn with Morgan and Scott at the beach, but it was soooooooooooo worth it! The water was wonderful and relaxing. Thursday night we took a trop to Stockland (the mall) to get some Tim-Tams (the best cookies EVER) and a new notebook so I can keep track of all the crazy adventures I still need to go on. We just missed the bus on the way back so we had to do a bit of people watching--for any of you that know Carousel mall or even Shoppingtown mall at night on the weekends....well here in Australia they have the same thing--crazy punk kids and super skanky girls, its a small world after all! Friday was a movie night day and my first Conserving Marine Wildlife practical--we got to practice being IUCN ecologists. For anyone who isn't familiar the IUCN make the red list--for endangered species. I have to say it was a pretty cool activity. It is really making me think about careers in conservation.
Now for what you've all been waiting for! Paluma!
It actually wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be. It clearly can't compare to the ocean, but it was nice. We had to meet as a class at 8 AM on Saturday morning, and it took about an hour to get there. Once inside the Paluma park we had to drive up the mountain to 2925 feet and then hike our way up a bit more. As we drove up we could see an amazing view of the ocean, Townsville and the other mountain sides. We were all a bit scared because the driver was zooming around the curves---on one side we were inches away from hitting the side of the mountain and its jagged rocks and on the other inches away from falling off a cliff. Now mind you it was a single car roadway meant for both ways of traffic. SCARY. On our way up it sprinkled a bit, but it really never rained on us the whole time.
When we finally made it up we split into two groups. My group went on a rainforest walk with our actual professor. The whole time he stopped and named off Latin family names of trees and plants. It was really difficult to follow and almost unenjoyable. I tried my best to write down their characteristics and take pictures to remember the plants later, but I was behind the whole time. I finally gave up and just took pictures of sweet trees and epiphytes. There were a lot of huge buttresses at the base of trees and tons of epiphytes (those vine looking things that wrap around trees). We hiked into wetter regions and drier regions--some with some great overlooks. We didn't have to worry too much about the wildlife. The only things really were ticks, mites and leeches. Sadly I did have to fight off the leaches. --It was strange too because I had long pants on, but suddenly I felt something cold on my leg, like water. I lifted my pant leg up and what do you know there was a leech! I yanked it off and smushed it in disgust. Then about two minutes later I felt the same cold sensation on my neck! YUCKKKKKKKK, eww eww!! And about two minutes after that I was face to face with a palm size golden orb weaver (or something like that). I am so glad I wasn't face to face with it by surprise!
After this 2.5 hour walk we stopped and met up with the other group for lunch. This wasn't really enjoyable as the people I sat with were trying to knock out the wild turkeys hanging around us with their apple cores, stupid Americans (urgh). After lunch we switched teachers and went on a different path called the H loop or as the Ozzie's say..."hach" hehe. By this time a cloud had settled in on us, and I do mean on us. We were so high up we were in the cloud. It was really cool to walk through the rainforest like this, the video in this post is from that walk. This was a more enjoyable walk because the teacher really didn't know anything about families and genuses and stuff so we really just walked through and tried to enjoy it. One thing we did stop to talk about was this little plant with hairs on it. There is some plant in the rainforest that is suppose to sting you, "the stinging plant". But it turned out to just be a particularly hairy plant. Also on this walk we saw a coral fungi (see it on my snapfish pictures) which was a vibrant neon orange. Again, no real wildlife--and luckily no leeches!
Overall it was about 5 hours of hiking/walking around in the woods so when we were done I was pretty pooped. But it was pretty cool to be in the rainforest! I think everyone fell asleep in the car on the way back. Reminds me of the good old days of being a three year old hehe.
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