Day 47

I spent the weekend at Cape Tribulation with my tropical marine ecology class!  It was a three-hour bus ride along the coast and through the Daintree rainforest.  The Daintree is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which means it is a place of "special cultural or physical significance."  We visited the mangroves and the rocky shoreline at Cape Trib, basically taking a close look at the flora and fauna that grow in those places.

After the 3-hour bus ride we visited the Daintree mangroves first.  There was mud, some crabs, some mangroves, and the smell of sulfur.  Everything was brown (trees, mud and water) or green (leaves).  I was personally not a huge fan of the Australian mangroves, but I must admit that I'm a bit spoiled after kayaking through the beautiful mangroves of Bonaire.  Unlike the Australian mangroves, the mangroves in Bonaire were full of colour.  The birds, tree crabs, upside-down jellyfish, sponges, and algae were all so pretty and brightly coloured.  Also, the Bonairean mangroves didn't smell like sulfur, making them the clear winner here.

A pretty St. Andrews Cross spider!

Itty-bitty froggy!

Look at this little guy.  He's adorable.

This was one of those experiences that reaffirmed my belief that my blood is toxic.  I never wear bug spray, and I never get bit by mozzies (that's Australian for 'mosquito') or any other kind of bug.  I can count on one hand the number of bug bites I've gotten in the last few years.  Now, that alone wouldn't make me think I have toxic blood, but when I was in the seventh grade one of the class pets bit me and the next day they were both dead.  I know that correlation doesn't imply causation, but still, it's a little weird.

This is a degu.  Kinda cute-ish, maybe?  (Photo credit: Sam Wise)

After the mangroves we went to check out the rocky intertidal area and look at molluscs.  My dive booties have zero traction, so climbing along slippery rocks covered in razor-sharp barnacles was a bit stressful.  Everyone was a bit cranky from hunger, but the exercise was quick enough.  It was cloudy but I got two lovely panoramas there!  (Panoramas are quickly becoming my favorite thing to make.)

Click me to make me bigger!  This is the 'rocky intertidal area' that we 'surveyed.'

This crab seemed quite regal, sitting there like that.

This is a barnacle.  Those two bits in the middle of the hole?  That's the barnacle.  They come out to feed when underwater.

A tiny eel, stuck in very shallow water at low tide.

Isn't he gorgeous?

Sea urchins!  There were tons of them under the rocks.

The view as we left!  Pity it wasn't a nicer day, but it was still lovely to see the fog on the mountains.

After the intertidal exercise we checked into our hostel, but since it was only about 2pm, we had a lot of time to kill.  Our trip leader/chauffeur, a grad student named Paul (who does awesome work finding new species of gobies [that's a tiny fish] by snorkeling up freshwater streams) suggested we take the bus to a swimming hole.  I didn't bring a bathing suit, so I ended up jumping in with my clothes on.  The pictures don't do it justice.  This place was incredible.

Perfect spot to jump off!

A perfectly lovely swimming hole.

After dark we went on a 'spotlighting' adventure.  Spotlighting is exactly what it sounds like: you take a torch (that's Australian for 'flashlight') and you go look for stuff.  We made some excellent finds, and let me tell you, this fancy camera of mine was totally worth the money to be able to take cool photos at night.

First, let's look at some Huntsman spiders!

Look how pretty he is!  The body is about an inch long, and altogether he was larger than my palm.

Close-up time!

Look at those palps!  Palps are not fangs, but rather a sensory organ, kind of like a tongue.
The males also use them to deposit sperm during mating.

Next up: the peppermint stick bug!  They got their name from the scent of the fluid they spray to defend themselves.  If you rub the back of it, you'll get sprayed with bug juice.  The fluid smells exactly like a new pool toy that you've just taken out of the box, mixed with peppermint.  Not very good, but not bad either.  And definitely pepperminty.

A baby peppermint stick bug!

A big one!  I rubbed his bum (that sounds weird) and he sprayed me with his peppermint juice.

A close-up of his face.

Now for the miscellaneous finds.

Some sort of katydid, apparently.  Check out those antennae!

A large cricket that can bite off a chunk of your finger!  He's a good 2 inches long, minus the legs.

A huge land snail!  His shell was at least 2 inches in diameter.  My index and thumb couldn't make it around him!

And now, for more Huntsman spiders.  

 

Super close up!  Look at those eyes and palps!

That's all for now.  I promise to try to take more non-spider photos in the future!

Cheers,
Ashton

Day 44

Today my class went to the Flecker Botanical Gardens to learn about plants.  That doesn't sound very exciting, I know, but once we stopped caring about filling out our paper (that took about 10 seconds) and started to just look around, it was pretty cool.  I'm not one for flowers, but I think some of these can kill you.  And that always makes things more interesting!

The gardens were created in 1886, so the plants here have had plenty of time to get nice and big.  Let's try to make this educational, shall we?  And if education doesn't interest you, just scroll through the pretty pictures.  :)

This is a pitcher plant.  There is only one genus, Nepenthes, in the entire Nepenthaceae family.  The pitcher plant requires lots of rainfall, which it collects in the pitcher.  Glands around the top produce nectar to attract ants and other insects; the rim around the top is slippery and causes the bugs to fall into the pitcher.  More glands inside the plant produce digestive fluids, which basically dissolves whatever falls in.  This is my new favorite plant because it's carnivorous!

I didn't know all of this when I tipped one over to see what came out.  A bit of it landed on me, but don't worry, I'm fine!

Did you know that ginger grows on trees?  Okay, not really, since we actually use the rhizomes (roots) of the ginger plants.  They sure make a pretty flower though, don't they?

Torch Ginger, from the family Zingiberaceae.  Isn't that a fun name?

 
Heliconias are very pretty and very big.  This one here is about two feet long.

This is also a Heliconia.  It kinda reminds me of barbecue ribs.

The next few photos are of orchids.  There was a whole orchid house at the Flecker Botanical Gardens.  Orchids don't smell very flowery so they're nice in my book.

I love the pattern in the middle!

These remind me of dragons.

Honestly I don't even know if this is an orchid.

But look how fuzzy it is!

Okay, education time is over.  I have no idea what any of the rest of this is, so just enjoy the pretties!

It's a tree-urchin!  (Get it?  It rhymes with 'sea urchin?'  I think I'm turning into my mother.)

This is the view from below.  The vines are pretty strong but I was afraid to swing on them in the Gardens.

Artsy-fartsy fern photo!

Jumping spider!  Isn't he just adorable?  Look at those big ol' eyes!

It's like a big pink flower-snake!

I have no idea if those are berries or flowers.  I wasn't brave enough for a taste test.

It's a potato tree!  The 'potatoes' got up to a foot long.  I wonder if they're edible?

These were tiny!  Maybe a centimeter wide, each.

Spiky tree, wouldn't want to fall into this guy.

The view from the boardwalk.

Tonight I did more toad-hunting and caught five, no problemo.  I think I'm getting better at this!  I also got sprayed with toad pus today--I thought they were peeing on me at first, but it turns out they just squirt pus out of their bums.  Charming, yes?  It's actually a bit dangerous if it gets in your eye, because then you absorb it and bad things happen.  Dogs die fairly regularly from licking the toads, so I made sure to wash my hands well.

Cape Tribulation is coming up this weekend!  I have no idea what's up there but I'm sure it will be lovely.

Cheers,
Ashton

Day 42

Australian fashion (or at least the fashion of Cairns) is quite different from American current fashion.  I say 'current' because Cairns fashion is almost identical to what was popular when I was in middle school.  Long peasant skirts, psuedo-combat boots, midriff-baring shirts and waist shawls are all in vogue here.  Between the fashion and the turn-of-the-century American pop I hear everywhere, it feels a bit like I've traveled back to the year 2002.

Since I don't have class on Wednesdays, I figured today would be the perfect opportunity to go downtown and pick up a few new clothes to help me fit in better.  I love thrift stores and garage sales, and around here the closest thing to either of those is an 'opportunity shop,' or as the Aussies call it, an 'op shop.'  A few older Australian women had talked to me about these op shops before, so today Taylor and I printed off a map and went downtown to check it out for ourselves.

We visited three op shops today: Kaotica Vintage & Secondhand, Vinnies, and Endeavor.  The first one was a bust, a tiny little shack with just a few racks of clothing in sizes much too large for us.  Vinnies had a large selection of dresses, but not so much for skirts, and nothing we tried on looked very good.  (Of course, that's not their fault.)  We had more luck at Endeavor, which was much larger than the other two.  I found a long off-white skirt with little silver buttons sewn on, and a cute casual dress.  I also found this interesting piece on the "Vintage/Retro" rack:

This is a denim off-the-shoulders dress.  And when I say denim, I mean thick, jeans-style
denim.  I got sweaty after about 30 seconds, and Taylor had to help get it off because my
arm mobility was too limited to reach the zipper.  Not a keeper, but definitely interesting.

This was found alongside a shirt from Aeropostle, a Pocahontas-style shirt, and several shirts with numbers on them.  I think Australians may not know what the words "vintage" and "retro" mean.

After the op shops we were hungry, so for "afternoon tea" we stopped for noodles at the Japanese shop Ganbaranba.  (There really was tea, so it counts.)  Since coming here I've tried and become obsessed with tonkotsu, which is a broth made from pork marrow bones.  It is delicious!  (For those familiar with Japanese food, this is not to be confused with tonkatsu, which is a breaded and fried pork cutlet.)  The bowls of soup are huge and my tummy feels like a waterbed when I've finished it all.  You might think that's not a very good feeling, but trust me, it is.

Also, sushi comes in WEIRD flavors here.  Good thing it's dirt cheap!

Fried chicken sushi?  Against my better judgement, I vow to try this before I leave the country.

Afterwards we explored the Night Market.  The name is a bit misleading because the Night Market opens at 4:30pm.  As expected it's an expensive tourist trap, full of souvenir shirts and boomerangs and animal bits, plus a large number of overly-aggressive massage booths.

This is the first koala I've seen.

In Australia, honey comes from... kangaroos?

In Australia, the scrotum of a kangaroo is very versatile.

This is a kangaroo scrotum.  Why not keep your change in it?

And why not also use the kangaroo scrotum to crack open a beer?

I really wanted one of these Hello Kitty phone charms, partly because they're Hello Kitty, partly because they're a souvenir, and partly because I've never been able to use a phone charm before.  Sadly, they were $10 each, and I didn't want them that bad.

So cute!

Ohmygosh it's a Hello Kitty SCUBA DIVER!

There were a lot of weird bags for sale.  Many were in the shape of old-school radios, cassette players, and shoes.

This is a shoe-purse?

Jerky!  So many flavors, but so expensive.  A mixed bag of 10 packs cost $100 but was 'discounted' to $63.  Dang.

I sampled the spicy kangaroo jerky: not bad, but nothing special.

Oh hey, these look familiar.  Funny, I didn't think Native Americans lived in Australia too!

And just to be sure, I looked it up.  No tribe in Australia has ever used a dreamcatcher.

There was an entire aisle of massage booths, and since Taylor and I were the only folks in the whole market, they attacked us.  Dozens of beady little masseuse eyes staring me down, beckoning me into their lairs.  It was worse than walking past those kiosk workers at the mall.  I'm pretty sure they were offering 40-minute massages for $15, though, so I might have to go back.  (With a stick to beat them off, those people are scarily aggressive.)

Next to all the massage booths was a woman claiming an ability to determine your health by looking into your eyes.  This practice is known as "iridology" and is considered a legitimate alternative medicine technique by those who believe in that kind of nonsense.

My favorite was the photo (not pictured) that pointed to the area of your eye that
reveals recreational use of hallucinogenic drugs.

There was a fair bit of Aboriginal art sold there--or at least, art listed as Aboriginal, as apparently there's a bit of a problem with people selling fake Aboriginal art--but I didn't think my point-and-shoot would do it justice.  Hopefully I can get some nice photos of Aboriginal art soon!

Tomorrow I've got a field trip to the Flecker Botanical Gardens, and this weekend is an overnight trip to Cape Tribulation, so expect lots of photos in the next few days.  I'm making a solid effort to update this blog at least every two days from here on out, so consider bookmarking it!  :)

Cheers,
Ashton