Here is a lovely picture of the wound :)
Monday, April 30, 2012
Recovery
Here is a lovely picture of the wound :)
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Croc Watch & Stitches! (Unrelated)
Okay!
I have had a bit of an eventful week since I got back from holiday! Let me fill you in.
The weekend was the most boring part:
Saturday I did work the whole day so I would be able to go out with my friends visiting from Townsville that night. Sunday I lounged around the whole day and caught up on my favorite TV shows that I had missed while I was away. I went to bed early because I had dingo early in the morning.
Monday I woke up at 3:30 am so Liz could pick me up at 4 am for fieldwork. I liked this site. It was easy cane to walk through, nothing like the last one. It was a cool and comfortable morning. We didn't catch as much in the cane, probably because it was sparser than normal, however we did catch a lot in the forest! Lot's of cute melomys. There was an especially cute one with white spots that Liz had caught before and named Bambi. Just catching, weighing, measuring and tagging, the usual. We got through it pretty quickly and I was back to sleep by 9:30 am. The rest of the day I did work on my major essays I have coming up.
Tuesday was a rather eventful day. I went to the zoo, like usual. The morning went normal, the usual feeding and cleaning of the lizards and frogs, followed by the rat room. The afternoon, after lunch, is when things got interesting. A new crocodile arrived, from Hartley's, a crocodile place up the road. Her name was Oprah. She weighed over 200 kg and was over 3.5 meters long. Awesome I know. This is where the cool part comes in. I basically lived through an episode of Crocodile Hunter. She arrived in on a stretcher of sorts, she was strapped down, sedated, her mouth was taped shut, and her eyes were covered. I got to help carry her to her new enclosure!!!!!!!!! We picked her up off the truck and carried her to where she would be staying with her new boyfriend, Zac, who made her look petite. They obviously couldn't let me into the enclosure since he was there but before they lifted her in I got to touch her! I held up her tail and her foot, and pet her stomach, (surprisingly soft). Imagine being up close with a croc like that! Incredible experience. I then got to watch them take off all her straps, and then, just like the show, it took two of them to sit on her back while they took off the tape and ropes on her mouth. Then I handed them the syringes which had the stuff to wake her back up. After that I was put on croc watch and had to wait for her to wake up. It took nearly a half an hour but when she did she went right in the water and her and Zac immediately started mating. They wasted no time on that! Then I took some time to exercise one of the black headed pythons on the lawn before being put back on croc watch to make sure Zac wasn't too aggressive with her. Too bad that wasn't the most eventful part of my day......
That night I was hanging with my friends. I was walking around barefoot and stepped on a large piece of glass. I didn't even notice at first but all of the sudden I look down and my foot is profusely bleeding. There are two long deep gashes in the arch of my right foot. I'm bleeding all over the place and my friends tell me I'm going to need stitches. So before I know it I'm being carried to the car and traveling to the 24 hour clinic in Cairns. The doctor sees me fairly quickly, and I am given some seriously painful shots of anesthetic in my foot. 11 stitches later and I'm free to go. (Not before paying a solid $230 bill). I'm lucky I didn't rip any tendons the cuts were so deep. Just enough to tear some nerves that will keep my big toe tingling for the next 6-12 months. Stuck on crutches for the next two weeks. This same day I also bought my non-refundable ticket to Sydney for next weekend. Guess I'll be doing the city in a wheelchair! I really am so so lucky though it wasn't any worse.
Wednesday morning was thankfully a public holiday, Anzac Day, so I slept in. I wake up and take one step out of bed, feeling kind of dizzy. I take another step and a pool of blood appears below my foot. I keep walking, more dripping more puddles, as I feel myself nearly passing out I bang on my roommates door telling her to come out. She finds my lying on the floor, still conscious, near large puddles of blood. I figure my stitches have somehow ripped open, and we don't know what else to do, so she calls 000 (the equivalent of 911). They promptly arrive and take off my bandage and assure me that my stitches have not ripped open, but that I cannot be walking on my foot anymore. They clean me up give me a new bandage and are soon on their way. I know it seems unnecessary for them to have come, but believe me, at the time it was pretty scary.
I spent the rest of the day relaxing and alternately either being in extreme pain from my foot, or extremely sick from the codeine. Chinese and chocolate were obviously on the menu. I don't know what I would have done without my roommates to help me!
Today I did work and rested. I went to see the doctor across the street to get all the information I needed and to pick up a pair of crutches. I even made my way to dinner at the dining hall! Tomorrow will be much of the same, relaxing and working on my papers. Class is not possible at the moment but I should be back next week. Sadly no dingo fieldwork or zoo either :( .... or camping at Fitzroy island this weekend :( :(
Well that was my exciting week! Hopefully it continues to get more boring.
I have had a bit of an eventful week since I got back from holiday! Let me fill you in.
The weekend was the most boring part:
Saturday I did work the whole day so I would be able to go out with my friends visiting from Townsville that night. Sunday I lounged around the whole day and caught up on my favorite TV shows that I had missed while I was away. I went to bed early because I had dingo early in the morning.
Monday I woke up at 3:30 am so Liz could pick me up at 4 am for fieldwork. I liked this site. It was easy cane to walk through, nothing like the last one. It was a cool and comfortable morning. We didn't catch as much in the cane, probably because it was sparser than normal, however we did catch a lot in the forest! Lot's of cute melomys. There was an especially cute one with white spots that Liz had caught before and named Bambi. Just catching, weighing, measuring and tagging, the usual. We got through it pretty quickly and I was back to sleep by 9:30 am. The rest of the day I did work on my major essays I have coming up.
Tuesday was a rather eventful day. I went to the zoo, like usual. The morning went normal, the usual feeding and cleaning of the lizards and frogs, followed by the rat room. The afternoon, after lunch, is when things got interesting. A new crocodile arrived, from Hartley's, a crocodile place up the road. Her name was Oprah. She weighed over 200 kg and was over 3.5 meters long. Awesome I know. This is where the cool part comes in. I basically lived through an episode of Crocodile Hunter. She arrived in on a stretcher of sorts, she was strapped down, sedated, her mouth was taped shut, and her eyes were covered. I got to help carry her to her new enclosure!!!!!!!!! We picked her up off the truck and carried her to where she would be staying with her new boyfriend, Zac, who made her look petite. They obviously couldn't let me into the enclosure since he was there but before they lifted her in I got to touch her! I held up her tail and her foot, and pet her stomach, (surprisingly soft). Imagine being up close with a croc like that! Incredible experience. I then got to watch them take off all her straps, and then, just like the show, it took two of them to sit on her back while they took off the tape and ropes on her mouth. Then I handed them the syringes which had the stuff to wake her back up. After that I was put on croc watch and had to wait for her to wake up. It took nearly a half an hour but when she did she went right in the water and her and Zac immediately started mating. They wasted no time on that! Then I took some time to exercise one of the black headed pythons on the lawn before being put back on croc watch to make sure Zac wasn't too aggressive with her. Too bad that wasn't the most eventful part of my day......
That night I was hanging with my friends. I was walking around barefoot and stepped on a large piece of glass. I didn't even notice at first but all of the sudden I look down and my foot is profusely bleeding. There are two long deep gashes in the arch of my right foot. I'm bleeding all over the place and my friends tell me I'm going to need stitches. So before I know it I'm being carried to the car and traveling to the 24 hour clinic in Cairns. The doctor sees me fairly quickly, and I am given some seriously painful shots of anesthetic in my foot. 11 stitches later and I'm free to go. (Not before paying a solid $230 bill). I'm lucky I didn't rip any tendons the cuts were so deep. Just enough to tear some nerves that will keep my big toe tingling for the next 6-12 months. Stuck on crutches for the next two weeks. This same day I also bought my non-refundable ticket to Sydney for next weekend. Guess I'll be doing the city in a wheelchair! I really am so so lucky though it wasn't any worse.
Wednesday morning was thankfully a public holiday, Anzac Day, so I slept in. I wake up and take one step out of bed, feeling kind of dizzy. I take another step and a pool of blood appears below my foot. I keep walking, more dripping more puddles, as I feel myself nearly passing out I bang on my roommates door telling her to come out. She finds my lying on the floor, still conscious, near large puddles of blood. I figure my stitches have somehow ripped open, and we don't know what else to do, so she calls 000 (the equivalent of 911). They promptly arrive and take off my bandage and assure me that my stitches have not ripped open, but that I cannot be walking on my foot anymore. They clean me up give me a new bandage and are soon on their way. I know it seems unnecessary for them to have come, but believe me, at the time it was pretty scary.
I spent the rest of the day relaxing and alternately either being in extreme pain from my foot, or extremely sick from the codeine. Chinese and chocolate were obviously on the menu. I don't know what I would have done without my roommates to help me!
Today I did work and rested. I went to see the doctor across the street to get all the information I needed and to pick up a pair of crutches. I even made my way to dinner at the dining hall! Tomorrow will be much of the same, relaxing and working on my papers. Class is not possible at the moment but I should be back next week. Sadly no dingo fieldwork or zoo either :( .... or camping at Fitzroy island this weekend :( :(
Well that was my exciting week! Hopefully it continues to get more boring.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Lecture Recess
Okay wow! So now I have to fill you in on my entire lecture recess! I figure the best way to do it is to quickly go through everything I did and then use lots of pictures to really illustrate it, because most of the names I give you won't mean anything to you. The weather all week, besides the last day, was great. Bright, sunny crisp and clear. Cooler than I'm used to, and without the humidity.
We were picked up from our hostel in Adelaide at about 6:30 am on Sunday by the Groovy Grape tour van. We picked up a bunch of other people so there was a group of us, all around the same age, from Mexico, Switzerland, Brazil, Germany, UK and France. After traveling about an hour we arrived at the Sea Link ferry and took it to Kangaroo Island. It was about an hour but I was still exhausted so I slept the whole time. When we got there we met up with our tour guide Luca. An Italian who has been living on the island for almost 10 years. We stopped at the IGA to pick up some snacks and then went to our first lookout, at Pennington bay. An overlook of the ocean and cliffs. Then we drove more down an extremely bumpy dirt road. Most of the driving we did on Kangaroo Island was on roads like that. We arrived at Vivonne Bay where we did some sea kayaking down this beautiful river. That was one of my favorite things. Then we had some lunch at the icnic area before heading to a nearby gift shop. On the way to our next destination, Flinders National Park, we saw an echidna walking across the road, which was really cool becuase they are so rare! When we arrived at the park we went to see the Remarkable Rocks, this really cool huge rock formation jutting out into the ocean. Then we went to Admirals Arch where we went to an outlook and saw fur seals and Aussie Sea Lions. So cute!! Then we went to Hanson Bay Reserve where we go to see koalas, kangaroos, and parrots. We walked around through the eucalyptus trees and saw an awesome sunset. We stayed in a farmhouse hostel. We played UNO, had pasta, and sat around a bonfire. The sweedish girls did some weird yodeling.
The next day we woke up early and went back to Vivonne Bay, this time to Ellen Point. Gorgeous. A scrubby rock outcropping looking over the water, complimented by the sunrise. We saw another wild koala as we were watching along. Then we went to Fur Sea Bay where we taken onto the beach and got up close with the wild sea lions! We couldn't get too close but we were right on the beach with them! After that we went dune boarding. We had to hike up this extremely steep dune with our sandboards and then slide down. So cool! After that we drove to Snelling Beach where we got to go swimming and tanning. The water was so cold, but so refreshing! We had lunch there before driving back to the ferry and heading to the mainland. We said goodbye to everyone and then grabbed some chinese "wokinabox" for dinner before returning to the same hostel we stayed in the first night. We were buggered and went to sleep early.
Tuesday we woke up early to get picked up by another Groovy Grape tours van, this time manned by the enthusiastic Aussie named Lorry. He was funny, very strong accent. He's somewhat of a bogun. On this trip we had an older Aussie couple (Barb and Wayne, so adorable), along with others from Sweeden, Swiss-Germans, French, a lot of people from Europe. This day was a lot of driving, we had many miles to cover. So for the first bit I just took a nap. Lorry educated us on the Murray River system as we crossed it on the Jervois Ferry before arrivng at our first stop in Meningie where we picked up a few things and got a view of the lake. After more driving we stopped at a Cafe to get some 'pies and pasties', filled with meat of course. We also stopped at the Victora/South Australia line to get some pictures with the signs as we crossed over. Then towards the end of the day, after more driving and shopping ofr dinner, we went to Mckenzie Falls. It was a steep hike walk down, but they were lovely. We saw a kookaburra there too. When we left we took 'Mount Difficult Road' (yupp that was the actually name), to get Brambuk Backpackers where we spent the night. It had super comfy couches and a fire in the living room. We had a delicious BBQ with more kangaroo. Yum. It may seem like we didn't do a lot today but the drive was so relaxing, there was always a beautiful landscape (mainly farmland and pastures with cattle), and I read a good book.
Wednesday we started off early and hiked the Pinnacle at Grampians National Park. This was another highlight of the trip. It took about 2 and half hours to the top and back. It was amazing. We walked upwards over rocks to the this incredible view that looked out over the whole area and the network of mountains. I don't even know how to describe it. We then drove to Lake Pertobe Reserve, a really pretty park and picnic area. We had lunch and then we played a game of Cricket! We were split into two teams, team smily face and team sad face. I was on team smiley face. 'Backyard Cricket' is much more interesting than the game you see on TV. It was actually pretty fun. I wasn't very good at it, but I did get a chance to be the bowler. Unfortunately our team lost, but we had a great time. Hereafter the Great Ocean Road really starts! Next we left for the Bay of Islands, another lookout spot over the ocean, then the London Bridge, or well the half thats left of it anyway! Apparently a couple went out there when the whole formation used to be attached to the mainland but then the connecting piece broke and they had to be rescued by helicopter! London bridge really did fall down! Then we watched a perfect sunset at the 12 apostles. More rocks in the sea. It was all lovely and purple and gold and perfect. We stayed at the 13th Apostle, the name of our hostel. Lorry made pasta bolonagse (dont know how to spell that) and got comfy in bean bag chairs and watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
Thursday, the last day of our Groovy Grape tour, we left in the morning for Apollo Bay, called paradise by the sea. That was just a quick stop before starting the REAL Great Ocean Road, where you really are driving right against the ocean. We stopped at the Cape Patton lookout then went to what appeared to be a camping site but had all these king parrots that we fed and we had them all over our arms and our heads! Lot's of fun. Then we stopped in Lorne, a small surf town. We had lunch by the ocean and our lunch was what is apparently an Aussie classic, a chip sandwich. Which is essentially bread with butter, tomato sauce and french fries, folded together. Sounds weird I know, I was hesitant too, but it tastes fantastic! You just can't think of how horrible it is for you. At the beach were were surronded by seagulls and cockatoos. I fed the cockatoos and they jumped right on me! So cool. Then we went to Belle's beach, another surfing place. We also stopped in Torquay, the home of RipCurl, a famous surfing store, inventors of the wet suit. We went to the outlets and I got a new bikini and flip flops for cheap! Then we made the final trip into the actual city of Melbourne. I will never be able to call Cairns a city again. Melbourne is HUGE. Skyscrapers and everything. Cairns is nothing like that. It was awesome. After being stuck in traffic for a while we were finally dropped off in front of our hostel, Melbourne International Backpackers. It was a pretty nice place. We got a room to ourselves which was great. We decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner out, so we got ready and walked around until we found Della Nonna, a cute and fairly classy Italian restaurant with reasonable prices. The linguini with seafood was excellent. We had a relaxing dinner, walked around the city, and crashed pretty early, it had been a long week.
Friday was our last day, so we woke up at 6:30 to make the most of our day before catching our 4:30 flight. After grabbing a croissant and tea for breakfast we toured the city and simply just walked around and took in the sights. Not much was open obviously but we did some great window shopping in stores we could never hope to afford! This was the only day it was raining but by midday it did let up, it wasn't cold so we didn't mind. Once things opened we did some shopping, I got a 'singlet' (tank top) and some sushi. We walked through chinatown. We strolled through the mall. At 10 am the ACMI (Australia Centre for the Moving Image) was open so we went there. We got in for free and looked at all the interactive exhibits. It was all about the history of the moving image, from sound, to movies to televsion, video games, and it was all interactive. Very interesting. There had some stuff from movie sets, like a dress Nicole Kidmen wears in Moulin Rouge (one of my favorite moves). After spending a couple hours there we went across the street to a restaurant called MoVida were we had some delicious tapas. There was this chilled almond soup with grape granita, I've never had anything like it. Then all we had time for was to head to the hostel, grab our bags, get a taxi (yes, I hailed my first taxi!) then go to the airport. It was an easy flight back, I got to sit next to Annie, and before I k new it I was back at the lodge in Cairns. My trip was over! But what a trip it was.
We were picked up from our hostel in Adelaide at about 6:30 am on Sunday by the Groovy Grape tour van. We picked up a bunch of other people so there was a group of us, all around the same age, from Mexico, Switzerland, Brazil, Germany, UK and France. After traveling about an hour we arrived at the Sea Link ferry and took it to Kangaroo Island. It was about an hour but I was still exhausted so I slept the whole time. When we got there we met up with our tour guide Luca. An Italian who has been living on the island for almost 10 years. We stopped at the IGA to pick up some snacks and then went to our first lookout, at Pennington bay. An overlook of the ocean and cliffs. Then we drove more down an extremely bumpy dirt road. Most of the driving we did on Kangaroo Island was on roads like that. We arrived at Vivonne Bay where we did some sea kayaking down this beautiful river. That was one of my favorite things. Then we had some lunch at the icnic area before heading to a nearby gift shop. On the way to our next destination, Flinders National Park, we saw an echidna walking across the road, which was really cool becuase they are so rare! When we arrived at the park we went to see the Remarkable Rocks, this really cool huge rock formation jutting out into the ocean. Then we went to Admirals Arch where we went to an outlook and saw fur seals and Aussie Sea Lions. So cute!! Then we went to Hanson Bay Reserve where we go to see koalas, kangaroos, and parrots. We walked around through the eucalyptus trees and saw an awesome sunset. We stayed in a farmhouse hostel. We played UNO, had pasta, and sat around a bonfire. The sweedish girls did some weird yodeling.
The next day we woke up early and went back to Vivonne Bay, this time to Ellen Point. Gorgeous. A scrubby rock outcropping looking over the water, complimented by the sunrise. We saw another wild koala as we were watching along. Then we went to Fur Sea Bay where we taken onto the beach and got up close with the wild sea lions! We couldn't get too close but we were right on the beach with them! After that we went dune boarding. We had to hike up this extremely steep dune with our sandboards and then slide down. So cool! After that we drove to Snelling Beach where we got to go swimming and tanning. The water was so cold, but so refreshing! We had lunch there before driving back to the ferry and heading to the mainland. We said goodbye to everyone and then grabbed some chinese "wokinabox" for dinner before returning to the same hostel we stayed in the first night. We were buggered and went to sleep early.
Tuesday we woke up early to get picked up by another Groovy Grape tours van, this time manned by the enthusiastic Aussie named Lorry. He was funny, very strong accent. He's somewhat of a bogun. On this trip we had an older Aussie couple (Barb and Wayne, so adorable), along with others from Sweeden, Swiss-Germans, French, a lot of people from Europe. This day was a lot of driving, we had many miles to cover. So for the first bit I just took a nap. Lorry educated us on the Murray River system as we crossed it on the Jervois Ferry before arrivng at our first stop in Meningie where we picked up a few things and got a view of the lake. After more driving we stopped at a Cafe to get some 'pies and pasties', filled with meat of course. We also stopped at the Victora/South Australia line to get some pictures with the signs as we crossed over. Then towards the end of the day, after more driving and shopping ofr dinner, we went to Mckenzie Falls. It was a steep hike walk down, but they were lovely. We saw a kookaburra there too. When we left we took 'Mount Difficult Road' (yupp that was the actually name), to get Brambuk Backpackers where we spent the night. It had super comfy couches and a fire in the living room. We had a delicious BBQ with more kangaroo. Yum. It may seem like we didn't do a lot today but the drive was so relaxing, there was always a beautiful landscape (mainly farmland and pastures with cattle), and I read a good book.
Wednesday we started off early and hiked the Pinnacle at Grampians National Park. This was another highlight of the trip. It took about 2 and half hours to the top and back. It was amazing. We walked upwards over rocks to the this incredible view that looked out over the whole area and the network of mountains. I don't even know how to describe it. We then drove to Lake Pertobe Reserve, a really pretty park and picnic area. We had lunch and then we played a game of Cricket! We were split into two teams, team smily face and team sad face. I was on team smiley face. 'Backyard Cricket' is much more interesting than the game you see on TV. It was actually pretty fun. I wasn't very good at it, but I did get a chance to be the bowler. Unfortunately our team lost, but we had a great time. Hereafter the Great Ocean Road really starts! Next we left for the Bay of Islands, another lookout spot over the ocean, then the London Bridge, or well the half thats left of it anyway! Apparently a couple went out there when the whole formation used to be attached to the mainland but then the connecting piece broke and they had to be rescued by helicopter! London bridge really did fall down! Then we watched a perfect sunset at the 12 apostles. More rocks in the sea. It was all lovely and purple and gold and perfect. We stayed at the 13th Apostle, the name of our hostel. Lorry made pasta bolonagse (dont know how to spell that) and got comfy in bean bag chairs and watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
Thursday, the last day of our Groovy Grape tour, we left in the morning for Apollo Bay, called paradise by the sea. That was just a quick stop before starting the REAL Great Ocean Road, where you really are driving right against the ocean. We stopped at the Cape Patton lookout then went to what appeared to be a camping site but had all these king parrots that we fed and we had them all over our arms and our heads! Lot's of fun. Then we stopped in Lorne, a small surf town. We had lunch by the ocean and our lunch was what is apparently an Aussie classic, a chip sandwich. Which is essentially bread with butter, tomato sauce and french fries, folded together. Sounds weird I know, I was hesitant too, but it tastes fantastic! You just can't think of how horrible it is for you. At the beach were were surronded by seagulls and cockatoos. I fed the cockatoos and they jumped right on me! So cool. Then we went to Belle's beach, another surfing place. We also stopped in Torquay, the home of RipCurl, a famous surfing store, inventors of the wet suit. We went to the outlets and I got a new bikini and flip flops for cheap! Then we made the final trip into the actual city of Melbourne. I will never be able to call Cairns a city again. Melbourne is HUGE. Skyscrapers and everything. Cairns is nothing like that. It was awesome. After being stuck in traffic for a while we were finally dropped off in front of our hostel, Melbourne International Backpackers. It was a pretty nice place. We got a room to ourselves which was great. We decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner out, so we got ready and walked around until we found Della Nonna, a cute and fairly classy Italian restaurant with reasonable prices. The linguini with seafood was excellent. We had a relaxing dinner, walked around the city, and crashed pretty early, it had been a long week.
Friday was our last day, so we woke up at 6:30 to make the most of our day before catching our 4:30 flight. After grabbing a croissant and tea for breakfast we toured the city and simply just walked around and took in the sights. Not much was open obviously but we did some great window shopping in stores we could never hope to afford! This was the only day it was raining but by midday it did let up, it wasn't cold so we didn't mind. Once things opened we did some shopping, I got a 'singlet' (tank top) and some sushi. We walked through chinatown. We strolled through the mall. At 10 am the ACMI (Australia Centre for the Moving Image) was open so we went there. We got in for free and looked at all the interactive exhibits. It was all about the history of the moving image, from sound, to movies to televsion, video games, and it was all interactive. Very interesting. There had some stuff from movie sets, like a dress Nicole Kidmen wears in Moulin Rouge (one of my favorite moves). After spending a couple hours there we went across the street to a restaurant called MoVida were we had some delicious tapas. There was this chilled almond soup with grape granita, I've never had anything like it. Then all we had time for was to head to the hostel, grab our bags, get a taxi (yes, I hailed my first taxi!) then go to the airport. It was an easy flight back, I got to sit next to Annie, and before I k new it I was back at the lodge in Cairns. My trip was over! But what a trip it was.
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