Kiana

Adam and I (and Trevor and Stephen) went on a three day scuba diving live aboard on a sailboat. We sailed through the Whitsunday Islands and out to the Great Barrier Reef. The first day we sailed to Whitehaven beach and then slept in the lagoon of Hook Island. At the crack of dawn we had all of our scuba gear on and hopped into the water for our first dive. Then we sailed to Bait Reef and did a second dive. We saw two green sea turtles and a white-tipped reef shark. So neat! That night we watched the sunset and it was amazing to be out in the middle of the ocean, the stars that night were spectacular. The next morning, after a rocky sleep we woke up for the sunrise, much too early for my liking, buy hey, when in Rome. We suited up in our scuba gear again and hopped into the water before 7:30am. We saw more turtles, clown fish, and four more sharks were there too, but I missed them. Then we had a six hour sail back to land, this time we actually put all of the sails back and used to wind to carry us. That was quite a rocky trip and it was a good thing we were all too tired to be sea sick or it would have been a disaster. It was the most amazing trip and the best way to see the Great Barrier Reef, I felt so lucky the whole time I was out there.

                                                Crown Of Thorns Starfish

                                             Jelly!

Whitsunday Islands

I think I found the most beautiful place on earth, well at least the most spectacular that I have ever seen. Whitehaven beach in the Whitsunday Islands is known as one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, and I love beaches so it is my favorite place on earth. The sands are the purest and whitest of those anywhere else. It feels like walking on velvet. Our captain said it was a 10,000 dollar fine to take any of the sand from the beaches, thats worse than being found with cocaine. The sands have only been allowed to be taken twice, by NASA, and some extremely fancy resort on the neighboring island so that they could make their own beach, selfish jerks. So we hiked the forests around the beach and just marvelled at the sight of the beach. I want to get married here.

More Sunshine and Adventures with Adam!

 

So after we went on the S. S. Moltke shipwreck dive Adam and I stayed on Maggie for a couple nights to go on more adventures. We found some waterfalls and went for a swim in the rare freshwater. The next day we rented a dirt bike, yes like a little boy's dirt bike so that we could take all the paths, and non-paths and just to ride around the island on. The first steep dirt road led us to Florence Bay, which lemme point out, in other visits to Maggie my friends and I have not been able to find. It was a nice secluded beach and the sun was scorching. Perfect.

Then we did a nice hike up the fort walk to see all the cannons and stuff from world war 2. We met a sweet British couple that wasn't too keen with the long hike up, and seemed like they had traveled all the way around the world six times, including going to the quite "boring" Louvre. So we left them and hiked down, well actually ran down the mountain back to our little boy dirt bike.

We wanted to see the sunset from the western most point of the island. We discovered the ride would be a little bit of a longer drive and on a dirt road that was potentially flooded. So we stopped for some wine and hurried off along the dirt road. We didn't really make it to the western most point, but did find a beach. The sunset was amazing, the drive back through spider webs in the dark was not. When we got back to the hotel we had a scrumptious dinner at the restaurant on the docks of the marina, and an even more delicious dessert. Mm!

The next day we woke up and headed to the hotel pool, which resembled a lake more, it was just huge! After catching some rays and grabbing lunch we hopped on the ferry back to Townsville. Once in town we refueled with some tequila and nachos with everyone

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SS Moltke Ship Wreck, Magnetic Island

Adam is finally here!! Our first adventure was a trip out to Maggie Island to scuba dive the SS Moltke a ship that was accidentally blown up by a dentist in 1911. The visibility was pretty awful but it was still neat to be able to dive a ship wreck. There were a bunch of cool corals and fish around. 

 

 All suited up and ready to go!

 View from the swim out there, which was a pretty long swim, lemme tell ya.

 

The shipwreck, sorta, and the sucky vis we had.

                                     Hey Mr. Clam!

Palm Islands, Orpheus Island-Field Trip

For my ecology and evolution of reef corals class we took a three day field trip to the Palm Islands to collect data for an independent project. Each group of two was assigned a specific coral that we had to observe in the ocean and collect a bunch of data on. Of course the species Kaitlyn and I were assigned was in deep water and too gigantic to even measure, but we managed somehow. So the adventure began by waking up at 4am after about 23 minutes of sleep to take a two hour bus to stand in the rain to mope onto a barge that took two more freakin hours to make it to the islands...spectacular. Once we were finally on the island we started by snorkeling in a downpour four about two more hours, also pretty freakin spectacular. That day wasn't too enjoyable. The next day we were in the ocean for about four more hours, after the day started out with me forgetting my fins..not too smart on my part. It was actually a much nicer day, we had better visibility and just a better day looking for coral overall.

                                                                       Kaitlyn and I

 Completely unrelated to our project, but cool looking.

 Sting Ray in the mangroves, also completely unrelated.

 Woo! Our ugly coral, (on the left) losing against this brainy looking one.

Sunset on our last night there...

Footy Game!

In order to dive into the Australian culture we felt it was a requirement to throw on our rain coats, grab a nine dollar beer and sit down to watch some muscly men run around and throw each other to the ground, we suited up for the rugby game. Apparently Townsville's rugby team isn't too spectacular, but this season they had won one game and we thought we would try to bring them some more luck. Maybe they suck so bad because they're the Cowboys and they play at Dairy Farmer's Stadium, and their mascot is a cow, I just don't see how that is too intimidating. Well I guess I was mistaken, these men were frickin huge. They make American football players look like little sissy's. These guys arms were as big as my legs for sure, and I have some pretty big legs. And they don't wear any padding, not even a helmet, not safe. They just run around and tackle each other to the ground and hope that they can stand up after... it's really crazy. After I got over how burly the men were the game was really fun to watch and they actually ended up winning! Woo!

Rainy Weeks

Well I haven't updated my blog in quite some days..Sorry guys! I've been really busy actually doing school work for once, as well as having some adventures. So the past couple weeks have given me a clear view why Townsville is considered to be in the rainy tropics. It pretty much rained for a week straight, I don't even understand how the clouds could hold that much water! We had planned a weekend trip to the Whitsunday Islands but the good 'ol leaky clouds canceled that one for us. We ended up going hiking on Castle Hill which is down in the city close to the strand. We didn't really know what we were up for...first of all it was pretty much a hike in itself just getting to the bottom of the "hill" we were going to hike up. Then we read some signs that said we should be in good physical condition to go any further. Needless to say it was a good work out and all of us had some tired shaky legs on the way down. There were beautiful views of the beach and the city from the top though.

                                                                   Halfway there!

View from the top! (Thats Maggie Island out there)

We also had a change to explore the city at night through a pub crawl organized by our ultimate frisbee teams. The theme was Heroes vs. Villains, we dressed like the teenage mutant ninja turtles. We hand sewed our outfits! It was a really fun night.

  I've also seen a bunch of cool wildlife mostly right on campus. The other night when I was going for a run I saw my first kangaroo! There are also two wallabees that are always hanging out around our townhouse. There are so cute. I've seen a bunch of cool birds, larakeets, and these big pink parrot looking things. We also spotted a snake one day. Two yellow-bellied humming birds just flew up to my window, they're so itty bitty but they have been hanging out around here all day. And of course there are kookaburras everywhere!

                                                                  Green Tree Frog!