Ok, so I'm working on sorting out the digital pictures, sizing them and getting them on my WAM webspace... I'll be putting up animal pictures first, then Darwin, Alice/Uluru, Sydney and Cairns in that order. Just now I'm about to run, so I figured I'd put up the schedule post with a sample picture of everyone's pal Mr. Jones the red kangaroo from Sydney:

The day after Green Island, we had our final exam for the Wildlife class.  Nothing too difficult, and Geoff said they were good after he graded them, so no worries there... Right after, I headed out to Cairns Tropical Zoo.  I had my picture taken holding a koala, which was awesome for an animal dork such as myself... His name was Aussie, a young male. Very cute, soft, and sleepy. The picture was done by the zoo folks, so it looks great. The zoo was small, but they still had some cool stuff.  I saw adult cassowaries (very impressive) red pandas (so pretty, I think they're my favorite critters now) and some huge crocodiles (4.5-5 meters on some of them). I also bought a dollar bag of kangaroo food and fed some Eastern Greys and Antilepine Wallaroos.  Nice, friendly critters who enjoyed a chin scratching.  I spent a while there watching one female who obviously had a joey in her pouch, but the kid wasn't showing. Then, back to town to take a nap... The sunburn was getting to me, I think, feeling a bit off but not too bad.  I went out to get dinner and came back to watch some Law and Order and type this up before sleeping.  I'll get a lot of sleep and do my best vampire impression tomorrow, hiding from the sun before my weekend on the Reef.  I'll probably check this blog and my email tomorrow night, but after that there'll be nothing till I'm back in the States. I'll spend Saturday and Sunday on the Reef, then up at 4:30 AM Monday to fly to Brisbane and then on to LAX and points east. I'm really looking forward to this weekend, as Hastings, Saxon and Norman reefs are supposedly amazing, with lots of turtles, reef sharks, and all sorts of cool stuff. It's unlimited snorkelling and diving if I pay a little (65$ for first, 35 after for introductory) so I may do that Saturday... I also get to do a nifty bit of time travel on the way home. My trip back will take minus 40 minutes! I leave Sydney at 11:25 AM Monday and get to LA at 10:35 AM on Monday (or something like that, time may not be exact). Anyway, the Reef should be incredible but I'm also looking forward to seeing all y'all again... It'll be nice to get home.  See you in a few days! (when I'm back alive after jet lag, anyway :-p)

As we left Crocodylus for good on the morning of the 27th, a bunch of kookaburras cheered us on our way... they kept going on and on, all around. It was strange since we hadn't seen any before then. We hopped the buses and headed back the way we came, along the beautiful coastal road. We took a Dreamtime Walk with Aboriginal guide through Mossman Gorge, which was pretty cool.  We heard all sorts of stuff about plants used as food and medicine, and saw some really ancient trees and such. After Mossman, we went to Port Douglas for lunch on the way to Cairns.  As we pulled into the hotel, we all wondered if there'd been a mistake: this place was awesome and right on the beach!  Apparently we stayed in cells in Alice, Uluru and the Daintree to afford a good hotel for the last bit... I did some laundry and got a good shower (the lodge showers in the forest sucked) and went to get some underwater cameras for the next day. Then it was sleep, anticipating Green Island.

We headed out pretty early, around 7:30.  Green Island is a coral cay 16 nautical miles out from Cairns.  We got there, and had a tour through the resort (600$ per person... per night.. wow.) which focused on their sewage treatment and water recycling (since this is a conservation class).  No one paid much attention until we saw the flying foxes, cause none of us cared about the trip except as a snorkelling adventure later. As we sat on the beach at the end of the talk, we saw a pair of humpback whales breaching in the distance.  They were far enough away that they basically looked as big as the lead of a pencil rising up, and then making a ginormous splash. Geoff, our teacher, has excellent binoculars though so we passed those around.. The whales played for a good while, so pretty much everyone got to see them. Right after that, it was snorkel time!

We didn't go far out from the Island, basically hanging around the jetty where the boats came in. At first, it was low tide so some spots were inaccessible (unless you wanted to get scraped by coral and such swimming over. Still saw some awesome stuff like the giant clams (which blended right into the rocks.. they looked like mouths in solid rock or coral), and gorgeous rainbow parrot fish.. I could actually hear them crunching the coral, and they didn't seem to care that people were watching. There were various other colorful things too, but I don't know their names, so..  the tide coming back in made it much cooler.  Some good sized Cod showed up under the jetty, and Geoff found a large sea cucumber which was really cool.  On the way back in to get my second camera (the first ran out because I don't know how good it'll turn out, so I took multiple pictures of the same things) I swam right over a beautiful tan with blue spots sting ray.  I waved our group over so other folks got pics while I went for the other camera.  I got really lucky when I came back out: I found it again on my way in for the last time. He went to hide under a coral shelf, so I dove down and snapped two shots... hopefully one will come out, it was really pretty. On the boat back in, we saw some more whales spouting in the distance, which was cool. I discovered that my camera can also do video, so I took a short one.. really eats the memory though, so I may delete it if many more picture chances come up... got pretty seriously sunburnt, despite use of SPF 30... ah well, it was all worth it!

Alrighty, nothing going on tonight so I figured I'd pay up for some time on the computer and do a proper update...

We left Sydney around 9:30 AM on the 24th, flying to Cairns. We hopped a tour bus that took us to the city proper to eat lunch, and then headed out towards the Daintree Rainforest.  We had to bail on the big bus and go to two smaller ones so that  we could get across the Daintree River ferry.  After that, we were driving along the coast with some amazing beach and mountain views, everything covered in thick forest right down to the sand.  We got to Crocodylus Lodge a little while before dinner time. The eating/recreation area is a big tarped-over spot with many tables, a pool table, some couches, dart board and two computers that I posted from.  That night, we played lots of Hearts, Spades, darts, a game called Mafia and some pool.  It was pretty good relaxation before turning in. The rooms are basically bunk beds in large wood-floored tarp-roofed huts.  There was some *serious* rain the first night, but never after that. We actually slept best the night with the rain, because it kept the local scrub turkeys quiet...

The first full day began with the sounds of what we called the "bird-of-death" cause it sounded big and we knew cassowaries were around (which have been known to kill people from time to time). We took a walk along a muddy trail in the forest with the teacher leading, pointing out various plants and such along the way.  We were too noisy for any wildlife to show except a couple of scrub fowl and some turtles in the creek.  After that, we hopped the shuttle to the beach on Cow Bay (cause dugongs, sea cows, apparently live near there but we didn't see any).  There were three beaches, the first where we arrived and the other two reached by climbing over rocks and such.  It was a beautiful place, with a creek running out of the forest down to the water, and good waves.  We body surfed and basically enjoyed the sun and water.  I hear that crocs live around there too, but no signs so no harm done...

That night we took a spot light walk with Possum, the local guide.  Funny little guy, bald with a goatee, but very knowledgable.  We saw a Boyd's Forest Dragon, which is local-only and a threatened species, so that was cool.  Also saw some striped possums which are really cute, and again found nowhere else in the world.  A few bandicoots were around, but that was no big deal since there'd been one running around the dining room the night before. Also saw some birds, a lot of spiders, and one large and UGLY cane toad.

The next day (26th for reference) we were woken up waaay too early by some idjit looking for backpackers in the wrong room. We went with our teacher to some bat research place, where we were supposed to be met and lectured except that the person who was going to do that never showed up. So, we hit the beach for a bit to decide what to do. Really nice scenery again, mountains and ocean and rainforest. We eventually settled on doing a zipline course through the canopy instead of anything educational.  It was flat out awesome, being way up in trees to the point that we could see the fringing reefs and the barrier reef beyond them from within the rainforest looking over the beach.  There were five trees that we zipped between, sometimes going fairly fast and upside down... It's a whole new view of a rainforest from 90 feet in the air head down.  Lots of fun, everyone definitely went home happy from that.

We went back to the lodge, and basically had nothing to do so we resorted to playing cards and writing in journals. A young cassowary wandered by, but I missed the chance to take a picture cause the first time I noticed it I thought "meh, large turkey" and ignored it for a bit before realizing what it really was... bah. As there was really nothing to do, I went on the night walk with Possum again (our group was big enough that we were split over two nights).  Nothing new this time except for a few melomys (marsupial rats) and a large paddle-tailed eel in the creek.  No possums or cane toads, apparently both nights we went were abnormally quiet.. Stupid birds cost us some more sleep.  I went to bed, didn't hear one of the other guys come in... first thing I *did* here was "<bleep>ing BIRDS" and sure enough, the scrub fowl were going off again.. ugh.

The Daintree rainforest was really cool.  I won't go into full detail here cause I might miss something and I don't really have that much time to type since it was three dollars for half an hour... Basically, we did some night walks (guided by a dude named Possum), saw some critters that live here and nowhere else (even a cassowary that wandered past the dining area), had some time on great beaches (which probably had crocs nearby, but no one was eaten, so...) and did a zip line course through the rainforest canopy within view of the Great Barrier Reef.  At one point, I slid along head downward over 90 feet or so of nothing... fun times.

Now I'm in Cairns, and they've gone all out for the hotel... I guess we stayed in cells/hostels at Uluru, Alice and the Daintree so they could afford a good hotel here.    The views are great, it's right on the Esplanade walkway down to the main part of the town, and it's generally a really nice hotel.  Right (see, an "R" word) now I'm plotting what I'll do with the Friday/Sat/Sun free  days. The most attractive option right now is a 2 day 1 night trip on a boat around the Outer Reef.  I'd get to snorkel all I want, and also do introductory dives (quick course and hop on in) which would be up to 6 dives, including one at night (when the sharks come out and all sorts of other critters, and daytime ones do funky stuff like encase themselves in mucus coccoons {parrot fish}).  It's slightly pricy, but going on the logic of "Jervis Bay didn't happen and when am I going to be on the <expletive> GREAT BARRIER REEF again" I'm likely going to go for it anyway. That'll probably be Saturday/Sunday, since the end-o-program party is Friday night, and I don't want to miss that one.  So, when I arrive at BWI, I'll have been diving on the Reef less than 72 hours prior.  I have some decent underwater disposable cameras (I got two cheap ones at the Rainforest lodge, so did many others... on the bus to Cairns, we discovered they're three years expired. grrr.) so hopefully there'll be great pictures involved.

While Taronga Zoo in Sydney was awesome (got to feed some giraffes!), I think I might hit the one here too, because at this one they let you actually hold the koala for the picture instead of standing next to it, and there's also the "feed the kangaroos" bit.  Cobar the Western Grey in Sydney is still my favorite Kangaroo of all time (though, Mr. Jones the big Red gave her a run for her money), but I might check these guys out too.  Then maybe I'll just relax Friday or do something close like parasailing, and hit the Reef over the weekend... Either way, it's gonna be amazing... I might do a slight bit more tour research, cause it would be pretty funky to go out to the REAL  outer reef, by the drop off where the whale sharks and such hang... The one I'm looking hardest at is kinda-outer-reef but not on that side of it. 

We go with the class tomorrow to Green Island, where we'll here some conservation babble which noone will pay attention to because we're snorkelling in the Reef around it immediately after... Looking forward to that too!  Since the next few days will be really packed, I may only update once or twice more.  Certainly no more after Friday if I do the Sat/Sun dive trip, cause when I get back Sunday night it's gonna be "pack, sleep" for the flight early Monday.  I have to get up pretty early here to fly to Brisbane before heading on to LA.... anyhow, that's about it for now.  See y'all soon!

Just putting this up to say that I'm not sure how regular updates will be for the rest of the trip.  At the moment I'm at a computer at the dining area of the Crocodylus Lodge in the midst of the Daintree Rainforest, and it's a dollar for 10 minutes so I don't feel I'm going to be on very much :p  Also, to be honest, when I'm in Cairns the Great Barrier Reef seems to be a far more interesting way to use my time than sitting on the computer, especially given that we'll probably only have netcafe access and they might close earlier than we get done doing things.... so I'll update as I can.  I'll probably look in once or twice to see if there are any more messages or emails, but I might not put anything up.  I'll make sure to bring it all up to scratch when I get home though, with (backdated) pictures too.  Till then,


-Pat

Just adding to this here to put in the last two days I was in Sydney.  The Roar and Snore was pretty cool. We took a night walk around the Zoo, and saw some nocturnal stuff like the long-beaked echidnas (Taronga has the only two captive in the WORLD) and the lions up and about, a beautiful year old cub who wandered past us, a really active snow leopard, and some good views of the city lit up at night.  We also met Mr. Jones, the big red kangaroo who was tall enough to reach over the side of his enclosure and sniff at us. We slept in tents in the education center courtyard, but sleep was tough cause it was a bit chilly even in three layers and a borrowed sleeping bag.  Needless to say, the bloody kookaburras woke us up... grr.   The highlight of the morning was feeding the giraffes carrots.  Hope, a twenty year old female, is blind so she just stood there and stuck her tongue out and waited for someone to put a carrot on it... Charity, the male, was really outgoing too. Their daughter Niota was sorta standoffish, but finally took a carrot (from me :p) and was friendly enough after that, so that was really cool.  We then got some behind the scenes views of the nocturnal house, mainly the dietary stuff which wasn't too thrilling.  We had the whole day to wander the zoo though... Before leaving the education center, I went over and saw Cobar the kangaroo again (she was hanging out by the fence waiting for attention) so that was cool.  During the day, saw the tiger and lion cubs in better light which was pretty cool.  Also went back to visit Mr. Jones, who came over and sniffed/pawed at me... one large critter, him. Probably as tall as I am, and huge legs/shoulder muscles. Saw the most deadly snake in the world, the fierce snake who has enough venom in one bite to take out 200,000  mice.. I took the sky safari back to the ferry dock, and the ferry to Circular Quay.  Went back to the dorms and got lunch, and then checked my email and packed things for a while. I headed downtown, went into QVB and got a requested kangaroo skin and posted it home.  After that, I met up with David and we had coffee till John and Julie showed up. The four of us ate at a good Italian place, and then went and saw "I, Robot"... somewhere, Asimov is doing cartwheels in his grave, but the movie had good entertainment value. The preview for Alien vs. Predator was actually intriguing too...  After the movie, we wandered a little bit and then split to go home.  The Sydney MUDders are great folks and made this visit a lot more fun than it would have been without them (gave me something to do when the folks in my program were out drinking).. The next day, we left Sydney which is chronicled in posts above!

Tuesday had nothing interesting in Environmental history. The Botany Bay trip was interesting, but there was a distinct lack of whales. Lots of cool visuals onthe coast, and we found a kookaburra that seemed to like posing for pictures. We also saw some historical stuff which I suppose I should appreciate the significance of, but it wasn't alive or moving so I had a hard time caring :p We had a guided walk where one of the local Aboriginal tribe who works for the park service explained all sorts of plants and their uses, which was pretty cool as well. After that, we went back into town.. I sat about till around 5:15, then went downtown for the regular Tuesday MUD persons dinner. David and Ben were there, who I'd met before, and Nick and Terry for new folks. We went to a Spanish place where they had all sorts of funky seafood, while I stuck to the cow with a good steak.. We bummed around a book store for a bit, and then split up to go home, having failed to find a sufficiently empty coffee shop to haunt. Nice enough day though, if a bit tiring from all the walking around the park and city.

Wednesday was also fairly laid back and dull. Basically, there was Environmental history for a long time, and then an excursion into the city where our professor walked us around the Rocks and showed us some of the oldest stuff in the city. There were lorikeets everywhere, which was sorta surprising.. Made for a nice colorful change from all the pigeons though. Afterwards, the professor bought us all drinks at a local pub (only 5 or 6 of us, and I did have coke (for those of you who seemed to think I'd start drinking down here)). I wandered around the Rocks doing touristy stuff for a bit longer, then came home for a shower and happy fun sleep.

Today, Thursday, I had my written final exam for Environmental history. Tonight, I'm staying over at the Zoo for the Roar and Snore thing, which should be great cause we get to feed animals in the morning and meet lots of cool stuff tonight! I'm also due back in class in another building in... 7 minutes, so I'm going to post this and run... catcha later!

I went into town after breakfast to check out Paddy's market, a big building in China town with all sorts of shops and what not. There really wasn't much to interest me (since it was mostly geared towards fashion, it seemed) but it was cool enough anyway. I wandered around a few malls downtown, just killing time... Went to a book store, and got some cheap reading material. After that, I pretty much used the day to just sit and relax. I'd been doing so much walking lately that I didn't really feel like moving... also the weather was terrible, rainy and high winds. A huge tree was down across the main road into town from UNSW, but the buses had their own lane so that was all good... not really much more to report on this day, though.

Monday was a bit cooler. Environmental history in the morning really wasn't anything except a funny movie about stoned hippies... Wildlife was a lecture about whales, as a preface to our trip to Botany Bay on Tuesday. After classes were done, I went into town and met my friend David in the afternoon. We walked around and he pointed out all sorts of historic sites and things. We got coffee at the Opera House Cafe, while it poured outside. After that, we went through the botanic gardens and saw some more sites before ending up at Sushi Train for food... Pretty cool restaurant/concept, in that you sit on a bar stool basically and a conveyor belt with all sorts of dishes go by. They all cost the same (2.50$A) and you got charged based on how many plates you had when down. I had some sushi with crab, one with chicken/avocado and some octopus which was pretty good. After that, we headed over to Darling Harbour where Cynthia joined us to hang out a bit. We ended up back near the QVB at a small cafe, where we had some wedges and hot chocolate and such.. Then, we walked back towards Cynthia's car, and things got interesting... There was a crazy person on the street, a young woman who looked perfectly normal except that she was dancing along the sidewalk, occasionally bumping into people, sometimes standing still and dancing in place... we walked fast beyond the carpark where we were headed (I needed to go to 7-11 on the corner for a bus pass) and she disappeared by the time we came back out. So we went into the carpark, and pushed the elevator button. It opened, and there was the crazy person... Cynthia and I were standing where we could see in, David couldn't and he asked what was up... We sorta looked at each other and tried to figure out some excuse for not getting on the elevator when the woman stepped out and asked us where she was. We told her (it was written on the wall..) and she said "that's where I'm supposed to be..... This isn't where I'm supposed to be". She then mumbled something about being illegal and the hospital where she was born... we edged around, jumped into the elevator and fled. Now, this woman looked perfectly sober and not-stoned, but wow... what a nutjob. Cynthia and David dropped me off at UNSW, so I went back to my room and recorded the craziness in my journal before sleep.

I woke up and ate breakfast, then walked down to Coogee beach (~20 minutes from the University). I did the 3.5 mile or so Coogee to Maroubra beach cliff/beach walk, which was really nice. There were some great shoreline sights, as well as tidal pools down on the rocks. I found some sea urchins, neptunes necklace plants, and various other cool things... Tidal pool ecology is awesome. I also managed to find a pair of rainbow lorikeets that'd sit still for me to get pictures of them. They're really pretty birds, and they're everywhere but they refuse to sit still or be in the open for pictures most of the time :p Those two made my day.I ended up all the way down by the Malabar school, where I'd gone riding the day before. After that, I caught a bus into the city and checked out the markets at the Rocks. They had a lot of cool stuff, but most of it was expensive and not things I'd get unless I lived here (knick-knacks for around the house and such). I also walked across (and back) on the Harbour Bridge, which was pretty cool, getting some good views of the Quay and city while I was at it. I then caught the L94 express bus home.

It was then Laundry Time, so I threw my clothes in and read for a while. Dinner was at the 5$ steak place (a good fallback, like I'd thought) and then I watched Old School in the TV room downstairs with a bunch of folks, who (it turns out) later got really drunk and totally trashed the place... Mostly idiots from the Georgetown history program, useless wastes of oxygen that they are...

Friday July 16.. I've already gone into detail about the riding and such, so I'll get to the rugby! As it turns out, the Wallabies are Australia's national Rugby Union team (known internationally as just Rugby)... We were barracking for the Sydney Roosters, playing the St. George Illawarra Dragons. Since the Dragons are only based two or three miles from the Roosters, it was a split crowd pretty much 50-50 for each team. It was pretty cool to see some of the players in person that I'd watched in State of Origin. It was also a solid game, with St. George scoring 14 in the first half (Sydney 0) and Sydney coming back with three tries in the second half to win 18-14. It was really tense, as St. George had the ball within 10 meters in the last thirty seconds... There was a ton of energy at this game, unlike AFL, and we also had good seats that let us se the video screen, so we could know what was going on at the other end of the field. All in all, it was a lot of fun.

Afterwards, we walked back to Uni, since the buses were horribly crowded and the footy ground wasn't that far away anyhow. I then changed, and hopped a bus into town for a MUD persons birthdaty party. Met a few new folks at the club there, but didn't stay very long as it was smoky/noisy and the birthday person was catching a flu... They dropped me off at a convenient bus station, which got me close enough to home that I could walk the rest with a slight tour of (not so) scenic Randwick. One of the folks at the party explained while I was there that the "woman in the red dress" scene from the Matrix was filmed at Martin Place, right by where we'd been, and also the helicopter crash scene was filmed down the street on George Street. Pretty cool... all in all, between the riding, the footy and the birthday thing and meeting new people, it was a great day.