Adventure Weekend

September 15th-17th, 2006

The program I came with took us on an “Adventure Weekend” this weekend to the table lands. We took a bus about 4 hours north west of Townsville and stayed at a place called Mungalli Falls. We were basically in the middle of nowhere . We got there when it was dark out and there wasn’t another light for miles. The stars were AMAZING. I have never seen the milky way the way it looked up there. The girls and I just looked at the stars for an hour then decided to go watch a movie with everyone else. After the movie, we all struggled to find our way back to the cabins in the dark and not knowing where we were. I stayed in a cabin with three other girls. I felt like I was at a summer camp. We bonded and it was fun ☺

This is the view we had as we ate all our meals

We had our 7:15 wake up, had breakfast, then hopped on a bus down the street to a hiking trail. We were in the rainforest that had been hit by a cyclone 6 months before, so the entire canopy was gone, and all the trees were just starting to flower again. Our guide told us that there were more varietes of species of tree in one square meter of this rainforest than in the whole amazon.

When we got about 100 meters in to the hike a wild turkey hopped out onto the path and ran away from us, then another 100 meters after that a HUGE wild pig jumped out of the bush and ran right in front of us. It was quite scary, but it was fun to see Pumba.

The guide pointed out strange fig trees that start from a seed that was dropped on the top of a tree, then grows down around the tree until it completely strangles it, and kills it, then becomes its own tree. There were also trees with the most interesting root systems. The roots acted like buttresses, they would grow a root in a such a way that it would support itself through each cyclone that went through.

This is the buttress tree


There is no poison ivy in Australia, but they do have Stinging trees, which are small plants whos leaves look like they are furry, but the spikes are just like broken fiberglass. The leaves feel the heat of your body and move towards it, when the fiberglass gets in your skin it stays there for months. There is another plan in the forest that has a sap similar to wax, that helps to remove the spikes. Another crazy tree is the wait-a-while. It is a vine that has hooks similar to a fish hook, and as the wind blows these hooks grab on to the surrounding trees and helps to pull the plant up as it grows. So, those wouldn’t be real fun to have around as you run through the forest…

The best part of the hike was the waterfalls. We saw 3 of them on the one hike, and they were beautiful. The last one we went to was huge, and there was a swimming hole underneath it. The boys went in the water, but I saw some leeches and decided I didn’t really feel like getting my blood sucked.

This is the waterfall


After the hike we went back for lunch and then went abseiling. We got harnessed up, and repelled down this steep hill backwards and forwards. We were gonna go down a rock wall, but because it was pretty much raining all morning, they decided the rock wall wouldn’t be safe cause it was too wet. But that was a fun time, got a nice butt workout walking up the hill after repelling down.

Then the best part of the weekend – we went down the “land slide” It was this massive water slide that went into a tiny pond. It was about 100 meters long down a pretty steap hill. You slid down on these little foam things, and went about 30 miles per hour down the slide – it was AWESOME.

This is the landslide


After we finished on the slide we had a while before dinner so the girls and I decided to go on the platypus walk and see if we could find some plateaus. Well after sitting there for 30 minutes we think we might have seen the head of a platypus, but we may never know – they are much smaller than I imagined though… we did see a cute turtle and an eel though.

After dinner, we had an Australian trivia night. The girl and I were the Blond Sheila’s and we of course won ☺ After that we went down to the water fall to look at the stars and the glow worms. It was the most romantic thing ever! Too bad I was with two other girls….

The next morning we had our 7:15am wake up again, then we bused around to all the touristy spots around. Saw a giant curtain fig tree, which started as a big tree that got strangled by the fig tree, died and fell over on to another tree, and the fig tree kept growing until it hit the tree that it fell on, thus making a curtain. Pretty cool. This is it


Then we saw the most beautiful water fall ever at Milla Milla.


And these two Giant Pines that had a 6 meter girth. They say these types of pines can grow up to a 11 meter girth. And supposedly these were at least 1,000 years old – pretty cool.

So after that we packed up and headed home.

Castle Hill and Pub Crawl

September 9, 2006

Allie, Ryan and I decided to be brave and hike up Castle Hill, which is a small mountain in the middle of Townsville. We caught the bus over there, got there around 12:45 hiked up, got to the top around 1:45, then hiked down and caught the bus around 2:45 – so it was a nice little walk. Ryan and I had gone to an aeroboxing class the day before and had the hardest workout of our lives. I think I did more pushups in that class then I have ever in my life. So we were quite sore walking up.
Castle Hill from the bottom


We took the “goat trail” up the mountain which consists of basically just dirt and steps all the way up – very painful when your legs are already sore. Only part of it is in the shade so needless to say we were quite hot in the middle of the day. But I was good and brought water for us all and put on sunblock – So I didn’t get a bit of a tan, which is getting quite annoying since I’ve been here for over a month and half and am still as pale as when I came…

We saw a little gecko on the way up. And a few weeks ago there was a huge fire on Castle Hill, they brought in helicopters with water to dump on it to get it out. Well, one side of the trail was still completly black from the fire. It was an interesting sight.

When we got to the top we could see the airport, the strand, magnetic island and we could just make out James Cook. It was really beautiful up there.
The view of the Strand from the top


There is a road that takes you up to the top as well, so I might get one of my friends to drive us all up there during the sunset one day cause that might be the most beautiful sight I will ever see.

When we got back we had to get ready for John Flynn’s Pub crawl. The theme was Comic book characters, nursery rhymes and fairytale creatures. Em and I really wanted to go as Mario and Luigi, but the boys talked us into being the girls from Team America – so we decided to go as Team Australia (a spoof on Team America – which is a movie made by the same people who make SouthPark) . Well the guys got soo excited when they went out to look for their costumes that they ended up spending over $60 just on guns. After they got their guns they decided that it would be much cooler if they went as SWAT. So they went as swat – ditched me and Emily – but they promised to be our bodyguards for the night. (Em and I spent a total of $10 on our costumes)
Em and I and the SWAT boys


We started the crawl at 5:30 – First pub we went to we didn’t see the boys but for two minutes when they told us that they almost got into a fight with some of the townies. They made it out of there without fighting, and went on to the next pub. We rarely saw them all night. But, I did find the boys carrying a crippled boy from college to one of the bars cause it was such a long walk for the kid. I almost melted - they were such sweet boys :)

At our 3rd pub we had dinner, didn’t fill me up at all, but that was ok. Then we went to two different pubs before they dropped us off in town and offered to take us home immediately or we could find a way home later on our own. So, Allie and I decided to stay in town, Emily went home.
All the girls


It wasn’t that crazy of a night, but I had a great time. Only one person had to be sent home in a taxi because she was so inebriated. And I didn’t even have a hangover in the morning!

Footie Game

September 1, 2006

The Townsville Cowboys played their last game against the Parramatta Eels for Rugby League yesterday. Em and I had gotten tickets to the footie game for only $15. We were told to get “lawn seats” because then we would really enjoy the experience. We tried to get as many of the Aussies to go with us, but no one really wanted to go. I guess the Cowboys weren’t really that great this year, and no one wanted to see them lose again to the Eels.
This is Emily, Alli and I at the game

Em, Alli and I took the bus to the game. We were warned before that it might rain, so I brought Bryce’s nifty difty little rain jacket – and it came in very useful. We got there about an hour before the game started so we could get good seats and met up with a bunch of our friends from college (some Aussies actually did end up coming after all). We sat on the lawn, which was right by the in-goal (endzone). We had pretty good seats. Beers were only $4, so we got a few of those, and sat and watched the game. The hour before the game, the minor league teams play each other. One of my friends from college, Dozier, actually played for the league just below the minor league, so he introduced us to one of the other players and the two of them hung out with us until it started to pour. This is Dozier, Greg and I

The stadium was the most bootleg stadium I have ever seen. There were four grandstands, a few box seats and the lawn. The stadium was not nearly as big as Georgia Techs, and they still couldn’t fill it. The stadium was sponsored by the Dairy Farmers, so they sold milk and raffled off prizes for people who had certain milk cartons. They blew up giant cows on the field for the pregame show and for half time. And there were a ton of cheerleaders, who went around with the 5 different mascots getting autographs during the game

It rained on and off during the game. But it wasn’t bad at all. And because it is footie of course there were no rain delays. Rugby League is a completely different game then the rugby I know. Dozier was trying to explain the differences to me but I had a hard time understanding. Supposedly, you get 6 tackles to get to a try. After the 6th tackle you have to give up the ball, so they usually kick it after the 5th tackle. There is no stopping play after the tackle. The person who got tackled has to put the ball back into play. This means that there are very few scrums and absolutely no line outs – my two favorite parts of rugby. The game is different, but it was fun to watch. It reminded me of a mix between red rover and American football (which is called Grid Iron here for some reason that I haven’t figured out why yet)

So the Cowboys won 22-8, which was really exciting. They put off fireworks for each try, which was awesome.

After the game we took the bus into town and hung out at Flynn’s for a while, then just went home. We were in bed by 2 – just to be woken up – quite rudely – at 6am because there was a cross country race and everyone who ran from John Flynn got John Flynn points towards the Fisher shield – which is the prize between all the colleges and halls. So we were woken up at 6, just to stand in the rain until 8 [with no food or water], then walk 6k around the college. Every time we got to a water station – they had just ran out of water –not so great after a night of drinking and 4 hours of sleep. Some of our residents ran; one girl won it all and one of our guys placed 3rd. So that may help us toward the Fisher shield, but our college was definitely the least represented out of all the colleges. This is me and Em in the morning - we're not happy

Needless to say I got back to the college – ate a huge breakfast and slept till 1pm.
But TOMORROW I GET TO GO ON THE YONGALA!!! Will be the best dive trip I have ever been on and I can’t wait!