Mt. Coolum

So far over break we have spent most of our days at Mooloolaba Beach or relaxing by our pools in our apartment complex.  Although this has been a great way to spend relaxing over Spring Break, we wanted to do something different today.  So we decided to go hiking.  We set our sights on Mt. Coolum, a mountain just a few miles north of Sippy Downs.  This mountain is 208 meters tall and is very close to the coast line.  You can see the mountain in the distance along the coast from Mooloolaba Beach, so we’ve always planned to one day hike up and see the beautiful coastal view.

When we arrived at the foot of the mountain, we were disappointed to see a sign saying that the path up the mountain was closed for construction.  The sign said that only authorized personnel were allowed to enter through the gate keeping out the public.  We weren’t sure if we should turn around or not.  Then we saw some people come down the path and they said they got up to the top with no problem.  So we decided to trek on and climb the under-construction mountain.  The path started off well-formed but it quickly turned steeper and rough.  We had to climb up rocky and pretty steep paths, but eventually we made it to the top.

The view from the top was so beautiful.  When we looked to the east we could see the ocean, beaches, and boats.  To the west we saw the Glass House Mountains.  The ocean looked so pretty and blue and the atmosphere seemed so peaceful.  From the top of Mt. Coolum we could follow the coast line and find our local beach, Mooloolaba Beach.  It was really cool to be able to look down at Australia’s magnificent coast, the sandy beaches and beautiful blue oceans painted a wonderful picture from above.



No stopping us!




Climbing up!




The path up!




Beautiful view of the beaches!



Eumundi Markets

The past few weeks have been full of school and school work.  I had an overload of assignments to do and not a lot of free time.  I had to take a break from exploring Australia and concentrate on school.  It was quite a bummer to have to stay put and do work, but I had to remind myself of the true reason I’m here and that is school. But now I’m on Spring Break and don’t have to worry about school until October 3^rd, so the adventuring has begun again.

Today, five of my friends and I took a two hour bus ride north to Eumundi where they have a huge market place on Saturdays.  The markets are full of jewelry, clothes, crafts, food, produce, Aboriginal items, Australia souvenirs, and so many more creative things.  Most of the items are handmade which made the shopping even more exciting.  The vendors were so nice and would always strike up a cheerful conversation with us.  They would tell us about their work and ask about our lives.  We would always be so intrigued with each other’s stories. 

At one of the tents they were selling and playing didgeridoos, so we stopped by and listened to the beautiful music and looked at the amazing handmade Aboriginal musical instruments.    After playing some songs, the vendor asked us if we wanted to try playing.  Of course we couldn’t resist.  So we sat down and had a lesson on how to play a didgeridoo.   Both of the vendor’s were so nice, explaining how to play the instrument and make different sounds.  They cheered us on even though the sounds we were making sounded more like a dying cow than beautiful music.  We did get a little better after practicing for a while and Holly even decided to buy one of the beautiful instruments, so we will continue practicing and hopefully get better.

My first big buy of the day was a boomerang.  It is also a handmade Aboriginal piece of work.  It is beautifully carved and painted and has a kangaroo on it, so I couldn’t resist buying it.  Although boomerangs are made for throwing and hunting, I think my boomerang will just a piece of artwork just for looks.  It’s too pretty to mess up.  My next big buy of the day was a pair of Australian made Uggs.  I love Uggs and ever since I decided that I was coming to Australia I knew I would have to buy a pair of real Australian made Uggs.  Just knowing that they are made and from Australia makes the boots so much better!  The Uggs are so cool, they have a picture of Australia on the heel and have AUS with the Australia flag designed for the tread of the boot.  I bought a pair of bright pink ones because I figured they were different than just the ones you can buy back home in the USA.  Today was a great day and a fantastic beginning to a well-deserved break from school.



Markets!




Didgeridoo!




We're starting a band...




My Australian Souvenirs



Australian Uggs!

Brisbane

This weekend we decided to take a trip down to Brisbane to explore the city life.  Brisbane is Queensland’s capital and most populous city.  It is the third most populous city in all of Australia behind Sydney and Melbourne.  After a two hour train ride from the Sunny Coast, we finally made it to Brissy.  And man, was the view different!  My university is kind of located in the middle of nowhere, nestled in a small little town right next to a nature preserve.  So I’m used to seeing a lot of open land with crazy plants and animals roaming the land.  As soon as we got off the train we knew exactly where we were, the tall buildings, the bright lights, the number of people and cars, we definitely made it to the city. 

We spent the entire weekend exploring the city.  The city is located right on the Brisbane River (the city was actually named after the river), so it was a really pretty sight to see a huge city right on the water.  You could definitely tell that we were in the city when you looked into the water, it wasn’t the clear blue that we are used to seeing, but it was still a picturesque view.  We went into the heart of the city, where we were surrounded by huge buildings.  In the middle of the city there are outlets and other shopping stores that stretch the length of Queen Street.  Queen Street is the main street of the city and a huge tourist attraction.  We even found some City Roos chilling on some benches on the street.  They were awfully cute.



Queen Street

City Roo!

After doing some shopping, we headed to the City Botanical Garden, which is kind of like Central Park in New York City.  It is just a big park on the edge of the city and the river.  It was filled with beautiful flowers and other plants, and it was a nice place to take a break from the busy city.  When we were walking through the park we saw a few guys who were walking and doing tricks on slacklines, we struck up a conversation and they let us try walking across the lines.  This was really hard since the lines were only about an inch thick, but they helped us walk the lines and we had a lot of fun.

Next, we walked over a bridge that took us to the other side of the river and into South Bank.  Here we found markets with a lot of fun Australian artifacts and other items for sale.  We also found a beach!  Yes, that’s right, we found a beach in the middle of the city!  Along the river, there are a few lagoons (that is separate from the dirty city river water) surrounded by sand.  The lagoons are all a part of Streets Beach, which is another big tourist attraction.  We relaxed at the beach, watched some street performers, listened to live bands, and had a drink from a local bar to end our mini vacation away from school.



Streets Beach

Fraser Island

One of the classes I am taking this semester is Integrated Marine Systems, and one of the requirements for this class is to go on a mandatory field trip.  This semester the field trip was to Fraser Island, so I had no problem fulfilling this class requirement.  Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world, being 120 kilometers (75 miles) long and around 24 kilometers (15 miles) wide.  It is made up of sand that has been accumulating for approximately 750,000 years on volcanic bedrock.  Unlike many sand dunes, the plant life is very abundant on this island.  Another item of abundance on this island is lakes.  Fraser Island has over 100 freshwater lakes, some of these lakes are considered the cleanest lakes in the world!  Fraser Island is home to half of all the perched lakes around the world.  We learned on this field trip what a perched lake is exactly.  A perched lake occurs when the lake forms above the regional water level.  The perched lakes on Fraser began when compacted sand formed a thin layer of clay-like substance and then when it would rain the water had nowhere to drain, so a lake formed.  Since the lakes are high above sea level, there is no way that the lake can receive its water underground, so all of the water in these lakes are purely from rain water.  When we visited some of Fraser’s lakes we realized that most of them have flooded over a lot of surrounding land, and this is mainly to do because of the intense rain storms that occurred in Australia earlier this year that led to massive flooding everywhere.  It was very cool to be able to find freshwater lakes throughout the entire island that were so clear.  It was a beautiful sight.



Airplanes landed and took off on the beach!



So, our mission of the field trip was to go out and do field work and collect data that we will be using for further research throughout the semester.  The data we wanted to collect was the number and types of shore birds on Fraser Island.  So pretty much, we had to go bird watching, which turned out to be a lot more fun than it sounded.  We met at the Uni bright and early on Tuesday morning, split up the class and jumped into two Land Rovers and made our way to Fraser Island. 

We traveled for about two hours until we reached Rainbow Beach.  We then had to drive onto a ferry which took us to Fraser.  Once we were on the island we trekked up the coast line in our Land Rovers and began spotting out birds, tallying what types of birds we saw, what behaviors or activities they were taking place in, and their exact location using a GPS with latitude and longitude coordinates.  When we collected the data it really made you realize just how many birds live on the beach.  We learned the names and some cool facts about all the birds.  I learned so much!  I can now point out and name most of the shore birds in Australia!  During our trip we were even lucky enough to spot one of the rarest birds in all of Australia, the Beach-Stone Curlew.  We literally just got on Fraser Island and started looking for birds when Holly points out a bird.  Our professor, who is driving the car, looks over to where she is pointing and keeps on driving.  He said, “No, that’s just a coconut.”  Holly points it out again and the professor looks over for a second time and then slams on his brakes.  Then he starts freaking out and gets so ecstatic and said that that bird is one of the rarest birds in all of Australia and he has only seen it three times in his whole life.  Someone else who was on this trip with us even said that her mom is a professional bird watcher and that her mom has never seen a Beach-Stone Curlew in her entire life.  It was really cool to see this specie of bird that not many people have ever seen in real life before.



Ferry ride!




Beach-Stone Curlew



Besides birds, we had a lot of other cool finds on this trip as well.  Our first find was a dead Dugong (Australian Manatee) that was washed up on the beach.  We got out of the car because we weren’t sure what kind of animal it was.  Our professor kept saying, “Oh, I think it’s a cow.”  I asked if he meant a sea cow, but he was too interested in the dead animal to answer.  So Holly and I kept asking, “How does a cow get onto this island?”  And our professor said, “You know, it must have died at sea and then washed up with the tide.”  This still didn’t answer our question of how a cow could have died in the ocean.  Then our professor announced that it most definitely was a Dugong, which Holly and I had no clue what that was.  Then someone in our class finally said to us, “You know, a manatee.”  So, finally we got our answer of what this carcass was.

Our next big find was a ship that washed in with the tide relatively recently.  Our professor goes to Fraser Island very frequently and he said that this ship was not here the last time he was here.  A lot of people have been writing all over this ship, mostly their name and the date.  And the latest date we could find on this ship was in late June.  This really makes you wonder what could be sunken or floating around in the ocean that a good storm could uncover.  It’s so cool to think about! 

As we continued on up the coast we then found another dead Dugong.  This one was being guarded by two Dingoes who were probably feeding on the dead animal earlier in the day.  This Dugong was a fresher kill and you could see more of what it really looks like.  The head and body of a Dugong looks a lot like a manatee, but its tail looks just like a dolphin’s tail.  It’s really quite odd looking and makes you question evolution a little.

A couple of minutes later we came across another dead washed up animal, but this one was different.  This one was bigger and flatter.  This one was a giant Sunfish!  I’ve never seen a fish so big!  Sunfish are very cool looking fish and are always relatively big, but the one we found had to be one of biggest.  This fish must have been pretty old judging by the size of it.  We were all amazed at how gigantic this fish was.  Our professor was trying to devise a plan of how to get this fish back home so he could keep its skeleton.  It was one amazing animal!  To see this kind of fish alive in the water would be kind of scary, but at the same time quite amazing!



Sunfish!



Later on in the day, as we were driving back to our camp, we spotted some whales swimming right off the coast.  It was so cool to be able to stand on a beach and just look out and see huge whales swimming by.  There was one point where a wave formed right where the whale was swimming so you could see an outline of the entire whale through the wave, and it was the biggest animal I’ve ever seen!  It was enormous!  It was so amazing to be able to see this beautiful animal gracefully swim by. 

Then, we went to our camp at Dilli Village to unload all of our stuff and take a break.  Dilli Village is owned by the University and is mainly for students and staff who are conducting field work and research on Fraser Island.  It is located further inland on Fraser, behind the big dunes.  We were able to sleep in cabins which were very nice, much better than sleeping on the ground in a tent.  After we unloaded everything, we jumped back in our Land Rovers and headed further inland to go see some of the lakes.  We saw a couple of Fraser’s famous lakes and even got to put our feet in one.  Holly and  I were the only international students in our class, everyone else is from Australia so they were all used to coming to Fraser in the summer and going swimming and fishing and four-wheeling, but this was all new to us so of course we were the only ones who actually got into the water.  Crazy Americans!  After visiting the lakes, we headed back to Dilli Village for dinner and bed.  There are no paved roads on the island, all of the “roads” are just tracks through the sand.  They are all single lane paths, so you just have to hope another car isn’t coming from the opposite direction.  The roads are so bumpy and curvy and fun!  Our professor knows these roads like the back of his hand so he was flying through the woods and we were just trying to hold on for life.  It was one crazy ride, that’s for sure!

The next morning we headed back out to the beach and started bird watching at the point where we left off the day before.  We found many more cool birds and some other things too.  Our first discovery we came upon was one of Fraser’s famous shipwrecks, the SS Maheno.  This ship was built in 1905 and wrecked into Fraser Island in 1935, where it has become a popular tourist attraction.  We also saw a Dingoe playing in the water nearby, it was so cute!

SS Maheno

We ended our data collecting at Indian Head, which is a giant cliff that looks like an Indian head staring out at sea.  Captain Cook named the cliff in 1770.  We parked our Rovers and hiked up the cliff.  The view from the cliff was absolutely beautiful!  You could see down Fraser Island for miles!  You could tell just how clear the ocean water was by looking down over the cliff and still seeing rocks at the bottom, it was beautiful.  While we were up on the cliff we were lucky enough to see a couple of whales swim by.  There was at least two whales, maybe three or four, we couldn’t really tell if there were different whales coming up for air each time or if they were the same two.  They were beautiful and we even got to see one of the whale’s tail as it flipped into the water.  What an amazing sight!  The whales were the last great thing we saw before we turned around to go back to catch the ferry and go back home.  This whole trip was just an amazing experience!  I learned so much from my professor who seems to know everything about beaches and sea life, and I even got to tour the island and see so much of its wild life.  It was such an amazing trip!

Under Water World

Today we went into Mooloolaba to visit Under Water World.  Holly interns and volunteers here so she was able to show us around the aquarium and tell us all about the numerous animals they have.  We started off the day watching a seal show, which was quite humorous.  The seals performed very well and could do many funny and cool tricks.  The show was quite entertaining and the seals were so cute! 

After the show we walked around the aquarium which was awesome.  Since Holly works here, it was like having our own personal tour guide.  She knew almost every kind of fish and could tell us cool facts about them all.  When we got to the shark tank, Holly was able to point out each different kind of shark and was even able to tell us what their personal names were.  It was so cool!  They have Bull Sharks, Grey Nurse Sharks, Black Tip and White Tip Sharks, Hammerheads, Sandbar Whalers, and many others.  And by the end of the day I was able to point out the different types of sharks.



Since Holly works at Under Water World she was able to bring us behind the scenes for a free little tour.  By being behind the scenes we were able to see the multiple turtles that have been rescued and are in rehabilitation right now, and juvenile animals like baby sharks, sting rays, and other fish.  By being behind the scenes, we were also able to walk on a small walkway that was built over the shark tanks.  We were able to lean over and watch the sharks and fish from above which was so cool!  We were so close to them!  From this view we could tell how big these animals really are (because when you look through the glass from below they look 30% smaller).  They were huge!  While watching from above we were also able to see the tips of the shark’s fins out of the water, it was like a scene from Jaws!  It was so cool to be able to be that close to the sharks and still be a safe distance away.  Being able to go behind the scenes of this aquarium was an awesome experience and something I will never forget.