Meg's Adventure Down Under: The Daintree Rainforest!

Hi!

Wow so much has happened in the past few days! I have been all over the place, lots of photos to share.

Wednesday was not too eventful, I had my usual 6 hours of class then Zumba and a movie at night. I had to go to bed early to wake up at 2:30 am on Thursday. I didn't sleep very well due to the monstrous red blotches that can hardly pass as bugbites. There were in giant clumps and it looked like I had some sort of skin disease, I have no idea where I got them, probably from the zoo? They have finally started to clear up, thanks to antihistamines from the chemist.

So Liz picked me up at 3 am and we headed to the site just 10 minutes away in Carvanica. We started in the cane fields as usual, opening up the traps. I really liked this site. And the stars, WOW, I have never seen so many. AND, I heard dingoes howling! It sounded like there were about 4 of them close-by, so exciting! It was great. We caught heaps of animals. Unfortunately though I was having an off morning and let three of our captured animals escape before we could measure them... oops. :/ After that we headed into the rainforest. What a workout, the area we were in was extremely steep, not fun to climb up and down on loose gravel, there is one point it is so steep you basically just have to hold onto trees and slide down on your butt. We caught a lot of melomys though, and it was a great view. By 8 am we were done and I headed back to the lodge where I proceeded to sleep well into the afternoon until my next class. That night I hung with some friends and went into the city.

Friday I had class from 10-2, nothing too exciting. I got my first grades back! Both were in effective speaking, both D's. Don't worry! That stands for Distinction, and is the equivalent of an A in our terms. After that I hung around until I had fieldwork again at 3 pm. It was a rough afternoon. The rainforest was so hot. And I got lost when I was on one of the gridlines and accidentally ended up on the wrong one, so I had to climb up and down the steep path two more times than normal. I was exhausted by the time we finished and went to the canefield. The canefield wasn't as bad. Nice and flat, and very breezy. It went by quickly. The whole procedure took a little longer than normal though because Liz was also trying this new technique where she picked random patches on the site and was measuring amount of grass every 4 cm. After that we got back around 6 pm, I went to dinner and then hung with my friends Maggie, Ella and Laura for the night.

Saturday we woke up bright and early for our field trip for Conserving Tropical Rainforests. By 8:30 all 24 of us were loaded up onto two vans and were heading to our first stop, Mossman Gorge, about an hour away. Mossman Gorge is a beautiful area you can swim in, in the Mossman River, surrounded by tropical rainforest. There is a picnic area and aboriginal walking tours. The first thing we did was listen to the stories and ask questions to two aboriginal people who live in the nearby community, Roy and Rachel. Roy is an elder and Rachel is the CEO of the Bamanga Bubu Ngadimunku community. They are currently working on a project to create a new visitor center down the road from Mossman Gorge, with a shuttle bus system to reduce the effects that all the car traffic causes on the environment and increase the privacy of the aboriginal community. The new visitor system should open in May. It will eventually be operated exclusively by the aboriginal community. It was very interesting to hear what they had to say. There is a lot more to this, but too much too comment on here. I can always upload my field report that I have to write later on this whole weekend. (a lovely 4,000 words), which includes a Social Impact Assessment. Next we did a Rapid State of the Environment Assessment, using the pressure, state, response method. Basically recording tons of data on the current condition of the area, the impacts visitors have, etc. etc. We didn't even get to swim in the gorge! Too much of a liability for the school I think. We did see lots of scrub turkeys, and a forest dragon.

Next we headed north to the Cow Bay Region, up in Daintree rainforest area. We checked into our accommodation, Crocodylus. A very rustic place, but beautiful, truly within the rainforest. We stayed in tarp covered cabins. No hot water for us! After checking in we drove around Cow Bay and did a rapid assessment of the effects of urban development in the area, specifically the linear barriers created, edge effects, etc. etc. By that point it had been a really long day and we were all pretty tired and cranky so we were very excited when they brought us to the beach! Gorgeous, as usual. There was such a lovely breeze, it was very relaxing and required no note-taking, thank god! After that we went back to Crocodylus were we had a delicious dinner and a cool drink before taking an ice cold shower and passing out at 9 pm!

Finally at today, Sunday. We woke up for an early breakfast at 7:30 before journeying to Marrdja Boardwalk, a raised pathway through the rainforest and mangroves. It was so cool. Mangroves are such interesting trees. We did a rapid assessment of the effects of tourism infrastructure on the environment. Thankfully that was the last educational thing we did! Next we took a quick drive over to the canopy crane, a crane built by my school that brings researches up above the rainforest canopy to study it. Very cool. Too bad we couldn't go on it! After that we headed over to a farm to get some homemade ice cream and then we went to Jindalba Recreation site to have lunch (which included some California oranges, yay USA!) and walk along another path through the rainforest. Our last stop was on the way home, a lookout over Cape Tribulation, absolutely breathtaking, then we continued on our two hour ride home. The whole time I didn't get to see one cassowary! Despite the numerous signs warning us to slow down and not run them over.

There was so much beauty in one weekend, it was incredible. And my friend Amanda and I compiled a whole list of things we still need to do! But tonight I think I will just relax :)