Camping on the Sunshine Coast

So this weekend myself and 5 friends of mine decided to go camping on the Sunshine Coast, an stretch of beaches between Brisbane and the Great Barrier Reef. We ended up camping on Coolum Beach, and then hiking and swimming in Noosa National Park. This was my first camping experience in Australia, and it was wonderful. Not only was the entire weekend extremely cheap, it was also a great way to experience this area. We took public transportation up from Brisbane. This was an interesting way to travel, it cost us $10 each way so was really cost effective, but took about 4 hours each way. And we had a bunch of bus and train transfers. We made our way without incident, and we chatted the time away and we stocked up on Tim Tams to snack on. The time passed quickly. Our campsite was in a camp group that was basically 50m from the beach. We set up our tents and then bummed around the beach for our first afternoon (see below). It was a bit windy but really great. We ended our evening by cooking a camp food dinner of beans, sweet potatoes, and sausages/veggie burgers. And decided to get up in order to see the sunrise.

This ended up being the best idea of the trip, not only was the sunrise absolutely beautiful (see top photo), but we also were fortunate enough to see a baby sea turtle (see below)!!! He was going pretty slowly, but determined to make it to the water. Unfortunately, he was pretty weak and we didn't think he is going to make it :(, but that's life and it was still really cool to see him try for the water. We spent an hour rooting him on, before heading out to Noosa.

Noosa is a surf town on the edge of a national park. We went for a great hike along the coast, through the national park. We kept a lookout for koalas, which are known to live in this area, Unfortunately, we didn't see any. We did get to enjoy the natural beauty of the coastal eucalypts though (see below). After our hike we went for a swim on one of the surf beaches. The waves were huge! And it was really great to get to go in the water. After Noosa, we headed back to Coolum to pack up camp and make the long journey back to Brisbane. It was only overnight, but it was a great trip, taken in great company. I was so glad we were able to fit this in because I will not really be traveling outside of Brisbane until June.

20k Hike in Lamination National Park

So this was our third trip for my course Australia's Terrestrial Environment. We went to Lamington National Park, which is a mountainous area south of Brisbane and west of Coolengatta. We split into 4 groups and hiked different trails around the national park. I choose to do a 17k trail through rainforest, sclerophyll, and volcanic rocks, finishing with a walk through caves (see below right). I had such a wonderful time! We walked at a pretty slow pace, stopping to learn about plants and take in the amazing view (see above!). We saw a mother and baby pademelon (small forest kangaroos), which were really cute, but I didn't manage to get any good pictures of them. We ended up taking a slight detour in order to hike to a waterfall, upping the distance to 20k. I didn't mind, the waterfall was beautiful (below left). We stopped to admire it, and of course, as I was crossing the stream I fell. I wasn't hurt, I'm super clumsy and basically fall every time I hike so it was expected. The good news is that I fall and trip so much, I know how to fall properly and catch myself tripping so that I'm rarely hurt from my tumbles. I had such a nice day, this trip renewed my enthusiasm for hiking!

Rottnest Island and the Indian Ocean

So if you can't tell by the adorable quokka in the picture above, my trip to Rottnest Island was fantastic!  Rottnest is an island of the coast of the Western Australia, about 20 minutes by ferry from Fremantle. My second day in Perth was spent there. I had several reasons for making sure that I stopped here during my short time in WA. Firstly, I really really wanted to make sure that I saw/swam in the Indian Ocean. I've never seen it before and one of my bucket list items is to see all five oceans. I was able to check three off the list after this trip! The island has some reefs around it, because the water is kept warm by the southward Leeuwin Current which brings warm water from the equator southward along the west coast of Australia. They have several snorkeling sites around the island, and even have underwater snorkeling trails set up. This was really cool, they have a series of plaques on the bottom of the sea floor that you follow as you snorkel. I went to little salmon bay and snorkeled there. I ended up being snorkel buddies with a extremely nice couple from Sydney. They were driving up the coast of WA, and were great company for the first part of my day. The snorkeling wasn't the best, it was a bit choppy and a little chilly. We saw some pretty sizable fish though. I think I'm also really spoiled from snorkeling and diving the GBR. But, it was the Indian Ocean, so that was really cool for me. 

The second reason that I wanted to go to Rottnest was that I wanted to chance to do some hiking and get to see some of the natural areas of WA, even though I was there for such a short time. I ended up hiking part of the island, and taking the bus part of the way. Rottnest is really rather small, there is a single road that goes around the entire island. There are only buses and bikers allowed on this road. No private cars. This makes it easy to hike along. It consists of gently rolling hills and a scrub brush ecosystem. This meant that there were long stunning views of the ocean along each stretch of the hike (see above). Also it made it impossible to get lost, which was great since I was hiking on my own. I took proper precautions though. I had a map with me, as well as a first aid kit, water, food, rain gear, a blanket/towel, and extra layers. Nothing went wrong and none of my emergency gear had to be used. I had wonderful sunny weather with a bit of a breeze, and wasn't really on my own for more than two hours or so. It was actually a wonderful experience, I was able to go at my own pace, take in the sites and really live in and out of my head. It was the ultimate relaxing activity for me and I loved it. 

The next, and most important, reason that I wanted to get to Rottnest is the quokkas. Quokkas are small marsupials that fulfill a rabbit-like niche. They are technically small kangaroos, but are endemic (only found) on Rottnest, so this is the only place in the world that you can see them in the wild. They are extremely cute and are everywhere on Rottnest! I didn't see any the first hour I was there and was really concerned that I wouldn't see any, but I shouldn't have been worried. I saw one when I was on the bus, and from there my luck just increased. As I was hiking along I saw two that were eating plants along the trail (above left). I snapped some photos and watched them hop! My next quokka encounter was my highlight of the trip. I stopped for lunch at a picnic area overlooking a beach and the lighthouse. I was the only person there and it was a beautiful and peaceful place to stop for lunch. I was eating my hummus and veggies, when suddenly, this quokka came hopping up to me from nowhere. He proceeded to hop around my picnic table and basically beg me for my food. I know that it is not a good idea to feed or touch wild animals, because then they become dependent on humans for food and cannot survive on their own, so I didn't do either of those things. I did snap some great photos, and had wonderful company at lunch (see the top picture and right above picture). While this was really cool to be that close to him, it also made me a little sad. This really isn't natural behavior. I learned later that day when walking through the Rottnest Museum that the island's ecology has been extremely altered by humans. The island used to be covered in forest instead of scrubland until humans chopped it down, quokkas lived around the edges of the forest and were present, but not numerous. For awhile humans hunted the quokkas and kept the population in check, but once the practice stopped they became very numerous, and now prevent the forest from growing back and maintain the scrubland. It's interesting to learn how human alterations can have unforeseen consequences. 

Learning about the ecological history of the island didn't detract from my day. And when it was time to catch the ferry back I was treated to sunset over the Swan River and some stunning views of twilight falling over Perth (see below). The purple color of the sky was reflected into the river, and now Perth will forever be associated with purple in my mind. It was the perfect end to an amazing day. This day was all about appreciating the beauty of a small piece of Western Australia and I'm so happy that I was able to include that in my time there. 

Isolated in the West: My Solo Adventure in Perth

So last weekend I had a very different kind of trip. I went on a solo trip to Perth in Western Australia! There were amazing airfares to Perth that weekend and I really wanted to get to the western part of the country (WA actually makes up more area than all of the other states combined!), so I booked the flight and planned a trip on my own, since most of my friends were either busy, or not interested in visiting Perth. 

This was a great experience for two reasons. First of all, I actually really liked Perth, like all of the Australian cities I've visited so far, it had it's own really really different feel. And secondly, because this was my first time traveling somewhere alone. I learned so much about myself, and really gained a lot of confidence and agency through this trip. Here are three of the really cool things I learned through this independent travel experience:

• When you're alone pre-planning is critical. I did a lot of research before reaching Perth to plan out my actives, pick a hostel in a good location, familiarize myself with a map of the city, and look up public transport. This ended up real helping me out, because I was easily able to find my way around the city, and helped me avoid any problems with my plans. It also gave me to confidence to be able to move about the city on my own and get to do the things I wanted.
• It's okay to be spontaneous, and take changes from  'the plan' in stride. Really, it's all about a balance between one and two. I'm usually a very organized and logical person. Knowing what's up always makes me feel comfortable. However, something I learned on this trip is that sometimes things don't always go according to plan. For example, the bus times were different than I planned on Rottnest Island so I had to rearrange my day a bit. This led to me not being able to go on any of the free guided tours, but also to me having a wonderfully relaxed day, and meeting some really wonderful people also seeing the island on their own. Or that most of the restaurants in the Perth CBD close at 5p… so I ended up eating dinner at the same place every night. Upside, they had the BEST kimchi fried rice ever. Also my last day I had nothing planned, and ended up taking the bus to Fremantle and literally wandering around the town the entire day. 
• Sometimes you have to say 'I want to do this' and just go for it. I went on a wine tour alone, because I really wanted to see the Swan Valley Wine Region. I was the only solo person on the tour, and you know what, that was okay. The people on the tour with me were so welcoming and friendly, and I had a wonderful time! When I've told people about this trip (that I did alone), or even coming to Australia in the first place (without knowing anyone on my program), I get lots of reactions. They range from shocked to impressed, and you know what? I've come to realize it doesn't really matter what other people think. This trip, and my whole experience so far here has taught me that I am an independent person. I'm not afraid to do things I love on my own so I don't miss out, and I have no problems meeting people along the way. 

Okay, so now I'll tell you a little bit about the actually trip and Perth. I took a red-eye there and a red-eye home, and was there for three wonderful days. I had planned trips my first two days, and a free day which I used to explore the town of Fremantle on my third. When I wasn't doing any of these things, I was exploring the CBD. Perth's central area is very compact. The main commercial center is the Hay Street Mall and consists of 3 parallel streets with shopping. They are lined with indoor and outdoor shops. Also the three streets are connected by numerous small arcades (see below right), with more shops. Each arcade had their own personalities and some had beautiful facades (see below left)! This really added to the character of the city. 

My main activity for the first day was a wine tour to 5 wineries, a brewery and a chocolatier in Swan River Valley. This is an area to the east of the city with some wonderful wineries. This was the first wine tour that I've been on and I learned a lot about grapes, and different kinds of wine. It was a really beautiful area, and most of the wineries had really nice tasting venues. My favorite new wines that I tasted were Chenin Blanc (a sweet fruity white), and a special red from Lancaster Wines called the Wissanger, which was a light fruity red. It was a day of good drink, good food, and good company! And the price was such a steal! At 3 of the wineries there were 9 tastings, at 2 there were 15!!!! I had a glass of beer at the brewery. Cheese and crackers at 2 of the wineries and the brewery. I ate a wonderful plowman's spread lunch, and chocolate samples at the chocolatier, plus I had about 4 gourmet truffles as well :) This day was definitely an amazing one, and I went to bed that evening very happy (and still drunk haha). 

In fact the entire trip was an amazing hodgepodge of great things to do. I did all of the things I love, my first day was good food and drink, my second was outdoors stuff, and my third was history filled. I took the 1 hour train to Fremantle. This is the biggest port in Western Australia. This bustling port city also is known for it's art galleries and coffee shops. In fact, they have a street called the cappuccino strip. I had a fantastic time window shopping, and eating lunch at a bakery (see these posts about the food in Fremantle). Another wonderful thing about the town is that most of the buildings are old colonial style and have beautiful colorful facades (see below). I wound around the streets, enjoying the beautiful buildings and the views of the Indian Ocean. 

Unfortunately, while beautiful, Fremantle has a sad and tragic past. It was home to the largest prison in Western Australia. A prison known for its horrible conditions that was open for almost 200 years. I walked up there. The prison is no longer open, and is now a museum and national heritage site. It still towers over the town though. I decided not to pay for a tour, but did look through several of the free museum exhibits. While it was pretty dark stuff, I was also glad to learn about the past because I think the history of a place adds an important dimension to wherever you are. That's something my parents always tried to impress upon me, and that I'm constantly reminded of by my sister's love of history. 

However, despite the gloom of the prison, I had a great day in Fremantle and a wonderful last day in Perth. The trip was definitely one of my highlights in Australia and I'm so, so glad that I did it!

Footy Game at the Gabba

So I had an opportunity to go to an Australian Football League game last night! It was really cool because the sport is only played in Australia, the way American football is only played in America. It was like a cross between Rugby and American Football. I had no clue what the rules were, but it's really fun to watch. They kick and throw the ball to their team members and can tackle as well. There are 2 end goals, made of 4 posts (see below right). It's 1 point to score in one of the 2 outer zones, and 6 points to score in the middle. It was a fast paced game and even though there were over 2 hours of play time it flew by. We were rooting for the Brisbane Lions (of Course), but unfortunately they were creamed. They lost by over 60 points. That was a bit disappointing, but I was still happy that I got to go to the game. 

Paradise on Heron Island

Okay, all you need to do is look at the two pictures above to understand why this post is titled paradise. The five days that we spent on Heron Island were some of the best that I've had in Australia so far. The scenery was gorgeous, we got to go snorkeling 4 times a day, and this trip had a lot more play than work. We were here for my Australia's Marine Environment class. We were there to collect data for a research project but to also have an amazing time. We went for a walk around the island and learned about the birds that make there home here. Then we went for a walk on the reef flat at low tide and go to see some of the invertebrate inhabitants of the island. I have a soft spot for chitons (below on the left), because they are really cool looking, and there was a fuzzy chiton in the touch tank at the Shedd where I worked in high school that everyone overlooked. The other coolest thing we saw on the reef flat were sea hares. These soft guys are grassers on the flat, they eat algae and ink like a squid when stressed. My prof does research on them so she really likes them. She picked one up and feed it, and when it dropped it's algae it inked because it was upset. It was really cute! 

While that stuff was cool, the highlight of the trip was, of course, the snorkeling! We went at sunrise every morning (see below left), and sunset every night (see below right), as well as morning and afternoon, and we did a night snorkel the last night of the trip. My project was snorkeling and counting butterflyfish so that was why I got to snorkel so much! We had one rainy day with bad conditions, but otherwise we had amazing weather. 

And we saw so much wildlife!!! Turtles, sharks, and rays were abundant on the reef, and there were so many kinds of fish (below)! Lots of groupers and triggerfish. As well as clownfish, butterflyfish, damselfish and other small colorful fishes. 

However, I had a favorite fish. It was this extremely happy parrotfish (below), that I saw on our second boat snorkel. He was getting cleaned by three cleaner wrasses and loved it. He was opening his mouth and swimming upside down in joy! It was so cute, and his happiness embodied what I was feeling in that moment. I snapped a ton of pictures of him before heading on with the rest of the group. 

Everything about this trip was amazing. It renewed my attitude that the Great Barrier Reef is the most magical and gorgeous place on earth. I was sad to go and leave Heron behind, I'm so happy that I get to go back and dive the reef again in June otherwise I would have been so much more upset leaving. 

Getting Sandy on Fraser Island

Fraser Island is the biggest sand island in the world. It is the enormous accumulation of sand during glacial periods. Because it is so large it is unique in that it has many distinct vegetation communities, including rainforest! We were there for 5 days with my Australia's Terrestrial Environment class. Something really cool about Fraser is that there are no paved roads. The highway is the beach that runs along the eastern side of the island. So to get around you have to go 4WD (above). At first I was a bit dubious of this off roading method of travel, but by the end of the trip I really enjoyed it! Another wonderful thing about driving along the beach was that we got to see Dingos (below)!!! They were a highlight of the trip. Fraser is home to the largest pure population of Dingos in Australia. It was amazing to see these animals in the wild. They look like dogs, but reddish and a bit more mangy. They also act like dogs and play around. But they have social dynamics more like wolves and can be dangerous to small children (and also small adults according the the ranger, which I was NOT pleased to hear). Apparently if you see a dingo you are supposed to cross your arms in front of you and stand back to back, we never needed to do this for safety reasons, but it became an ongoing joke of the trip to "assume the Dingo position." 

We also hiked an absolute ton on this trip. Some of the trails were all sand, some had mosquitos, but all were beautiful! And all of them ended at a lake, which was really nice because then we got to go swimming. The lakes on Fraser are formed as a fresh water table accumulates on top of the salt water from the ocean, in certain areas with less topography the water table peeks above the surface and you get these beautiful clear lakes (see below). My favorite was lake McKenzie. It was huge and clear and I got to snorkel in it! But the best part was that we found turtles swimming in the lake. We caught a baby one and I got to hold him. He was super cute, and it was the first time that I held a turtle! 

Of course, most of this trip was work rather than play. We had to do transacts every day that we were on the island. We did them on the dunes, in the rainforest, and in the Eucalypt forests. Though these activities weren't that fun, the places that we were explored were stunning. Particularly the rainforest (below), it was really cool and felt like I was in a dream. Also there were no leeches. We had been dreading the rainforest hike because we were scared of the land leeches, but we didn't see any so we were able to just enjoy a wonderful time among the trees. On our way out of the rainforest, well, it really lived up to it's name. Torrential rain started to fall, and we had to hike back out. It was really wet, but made it feel more like an authentic rainforest. 

Bonus: Besides all the cool nature, they fed us so incredibly well on this trip. There was always a ton of choices, and lots and lots of veggies. We had a really nice time on this trip, it was definitely a rewarding experience. We headed back to Brisbane, and then 6 hours later I left on the last leg of my Mid-semester journey. On to Heron Island and back to the GBR!

Exploring the Whitsundays

The Whitsunday islands are south of Cairns, but north of Brisbane. After our amazing dives in Cairns we boarded a Greyhound Bus and took it overnight to Airlie Beach, the town that is the gateway to the Whitsundays. These islands are a gorgeous paradise-like gem found between the mainland and the Great Barrier Reef (yes it's so long that 12 hours south of Cairns you're still adjacent with the GBR). The islands were formed from the ancient volcanism on Australia's East Coast that was caused by a hotspot. When sea level rose the mountains were covered forming a group of 74 islands. Since the islands are between the GBR and shore they are incredibly sheltered making them ideal for kayaking and sailing. We went kayaking around some of the closer islands the afternoon that we arrived. Conditions were perfect, blue-skies and a surface as smooth as glass (see below), it was like gliding through a dream! We stopped at one of the islands to snorkel and even though the water visibility wasn't great, I was able to duck-dive down and see some corals. 

The next day we took a boat ride out to the famous Whitehaven Beach (see top right). This is a 7 km long white sand beach on the largest of the Whitsunday Islands We had 4 hours on the beach, and we spent the time walking along the beach (we got a bit over half way before turning back), snorkeling off the beach, and, of course, relaxing in the sun with a good book! We were able to see a ton of corals just off shore, but had to wear stinger suits, due to the threat of deadly jellies. No worries, though. The beach was amazing and it was nice to be able to do all of the fun beach activities that I enjoy. The boat ride itself was also a wonderful part of the day. We got to see all of the islands and the scenery is spectacular (see top left). It reminded me of the islets around Vancouver Island, but in a subtropical setting rather than a temperate one. After an amazing day we came back to Airlie Beach for some dinner and a night out. Airlie is a back packer town. It's only one street, which is lined with hostels, pubs, and travel agencies. It's filled with young people and vacationing families, all coming and going. Some people are going out on sailing trips, others are returning. Some are passing through on their way up the east coast. It's a really fun bustling place, and for a backpacker town, its really pretty (see below). 

The next morning, we grabbed some brekie and headed to the airport to catch a flight back to Brisbane. We had to leave because we were going on our next adventure in 12 hours: Fraser Island.