Down Under The Trees

These past seven days I have been exploring Tasmania. Tassie (as Australians call it) is the wild island off the southeast coast of the mainland. The reason for our field trip to Tassie lies in its importance to both the Australian and global environmental debate. The pristine alpine lakes and old growth forests have been the stage for environmental conflict for around one hundred years. 

The current conflict is mainly concerned with the logging of old growth forests that have been excluded from the large protected areas (roughly 50% of Tassie is federally protected wilderness). To give us some perspective on the issue, we were taken on a number of day hikes through these forests. If anyone reading this has not seen an old growth forest, I advise you to immediately put it on your bucket list. I had previously seen only one other old growth forest in British Colombia, and it didn’t hold a candle to the forests of Tassie. The key feature of an old growth forest is that is contains vegetation at all stages of growth from sapling to full maturity. This is no easy feat as trees such as the Huon pine take 2,000 years to reach full maturity. Other trees, like the Eucalyptus Regnum, the second tallest trees in the world, only take around 900 years to fully mature. 

These forests create unique habitats that support endemic species of flora and fauna. It really was something else to walk by these giant trees. They were massive in every sense of the word. I have no experience that is comparable to standing at the base of a tree that is around 270ft tall and is over twice as old as the nation of my birth. It certainly changes your view of time. Especially when you walk out of just such a special place into clear felled coupe, where nothing but the bleached bodies of rejected lumber lay scattered about. My apologies for the dramatic language, but it really is a stark change in landscape. To be fair, the issue of industry and conservation in Tassie is mixed and muddled one. It has also been an incredibly divisive one for the community, and one I have no place to take sides in. 

There are however inspirational stories of how people are addressing these issues with pretty remarkable actions. One such individual is Miranda Gibson who has been living in the top of the Observertree, a giant Eucalyptus in an area of contested forest, for the past 76 days or so. We got to stand under this tree and talk with Miranda through a mixed means of yelling and radios. I didn’t just see trees though, I also got a chance to see wombats, echidnas, and a platypus. The echidna and the platypus are both monotremes (those weird mammals that lay eggs).

My Time in Tasmania has been great, but has regrettably come to a close. Today I depart Hobart for Sydney, from big trees to a big city, it is certainly going to be a change in scenery. One welcome part of city life, however, is the access to camera repair shops. My old 35mm film camera seems to have a broken shutter release of sorts which is has me pretty bummed. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get it fixed while in Sydney so that I might be able to take some more quality photos. In the meantime my recently purchased point and shoot will have to do. That’ll have to do for your serving of Jambalyle for now, but come back soon as I am going to be getting more time conducive to keeping the world up to date on my travels.

Echidna looking for some grub

Me being weird in front of a very very large tree.

* More pictures to follow. It is hard to upload photos with our broadband sticks, and most of my good photos I took with my film camera (RIP February 2012). 

Catching Some Waves (And My Breadth)

So the last week or so has had me pretty much on the go, so I apologize for not updating as diligently as I should be. Enough with the excuses though and down to the specifics.

After leaving the City Backpackers Hostel in Brisbane, we headed to a part of the East coast of Australia known as Seven Mile Beach. Our destination was this pretty swanky and exclusive beach community. This was where we would be “camping” for our three day orientation to SIT and Australia. No complaints from me. As a group we all set up our tents next to a building called “The Crab” as this was where we would be meeting for our orientation sessions. One particular nice feature of our location was our proximity to the beach, about 200 yards. To make it even better, it was a private beach that was split between us and the residents of this community, which basically meant we were the only ones on the beach. Having such a nice outlet for afternoon swims certainly made orientation significantly more enjoyable.

Speaking of things going swimmingly, I definitely aced my first test of the semester. To be fair, it was a swimming test, but I’ll take what I can get. Passing the swim test was pretty important though, as without it I would’ve been a bit more limited in my afternoon swims at the beach.

Our first real taste the Pacific actually came the following day. We all woke up around 5:30am and piled in the bus and made a b-line for the iconic Byron Bay Lighthouse to watch the sunrise on the most easterly point of Australia. It was more than a little spectacular, and waking up early was a cinch as we were all still on U.S. time at this point. So after a brief lecture at the foot of the lighthouse we descended to one of the many beaches and had an early morning dip. I can think of few better ways to start off a morning.

The next day we got a chance to have some more fun in the waves and actually try our hand at one of Byron Bay’s most popular activities, surfing. Apparently our Program Director figured that there was no way we could get oriented to the local culture without some surfing lessons, a sentiment we were all more than happy to agree with. So off to the beach with some seriously large boards and not so large waves. I don’t think I could’ve looked any more like a noob if I had tried. I definitely felt like “Squid” from Rocket Power. It was pretty easy to spot the group of Americans learning how to surf. We all had matching black “Rashies” (long-sleeve shirts to reduce chaffing form the board), 10ft bright red and blue surfboards made of plastic and foam, and were having more fun than any local would have thought possible in 3ft of water. It was really fun, and we all seemed to get the hang of it. By the end of it, we were all posing for pictures before we headed back to the crab for another round of orientation and our last night at seven mile beach.

After some morning meetings and the hustle and bustle of packing up our belongings and tents, we started the process of moving into our apartments in Byron Bay. The apartments themselves are pretty nice, certainly by dorm-room comparisons; and they are made all the nicer by virtue of their being a mere two blocks from the main beach and the heart of Byron Bay. Having moved into our apartments, we were on our own for food until our upcoming trip to Melbourne, Tasmania, Sydney, and Lismore. As a result  five of us guys decided to pool our budgets and make a little grocery group. We have surprised ourselves and everyone else with our culinary competency. Here is just a taste of what we’ve been cooking up: Dinner Kebabs w/ stir fry rice, potato and onion pancakes w/ homemade applesauce, Pasta w/ lamb meatballs, french toast, smothered kangaroo over rice, and (of course) Jambalyle. Needless to say, we’ve been eating well. 

Now, I’m sure that up to this point my Studies abroad have sounded more like a vacation than an academic pursuit, but I can assure you that is not the case (unfortunately). The morning after moving in was our first day of class. Getting to class involved deciphering what turned out to be wrong directions and walk 3km (approx. 2.5 mi) along a highway. We were not very happy campers when we arrived. To make things even better (read sarcasm here) the first class was a breakdown of the approaching ISP (Independent Study Project) section of the course. Without even having started this 4 week research period, I seem to have managed to fall behind already (I’m just noticing how much I’ve been using parentheses). It is not just me of course, in fact it is everybody in the course, but still I was definitely starting to freak out. If we wanted to do anything with Aboriginal peoples, which I do, we apparently needed to have already arranged something with a local organization or community, an expectation which I had zero clue about. So after some panicked emails and internet research, I’m feeling a little bit better about where I stand. I have also been overwhelmed with the amount of journaling required for the course. We have our sustainability journal in which we are supposed reflect on readings and coursework to write down ways of implementing what we’ve learned, then there is the ISP journal in which we are supposed to be documenting the development of our ISP topics and resources, and then there is the journal I am trying to keep. In short, too much journaling. 

Before I get all Negative Nancy though, class time in Australia can be pretty sweet too. Take for example the kayaking field trip up and down the Brunswick (a local river) estuary, or the “welcome to country” ceremony put on for us by the local Bunjalung People. There is certainly a lot about the down-under which can bring me up. I mean c’mon, where else would I be able to play a hundred year old Didgeridoo, or hang out with a baby Kangaroo? Or rent a surfboard on my day off and paddle around trying to look less and less like someone who doesn’t know how to surf? All in all, I am managing to catch my breath along with the occasional wave.

Surfin it up in the shallow end

Welcome to Country

Baby 'roo named "Beautiful One"

Sunrise at the light house

View from the lighthouse

Das Crab

Potato pancake

The Beginning in Brisbane

As I sat drinking a pint of “Fat Yak” with some fellow expatriate course mates it became clear that my Australian semester had begun. Perhaps I should back up a little. At the moment I find it pretty difficult to use words like “yesterday” or “last night” as the 16 hour flight and crossing of the international dateline have left my internal clock more than a little confused. All that to say if the time-line of this post doesn’t make sense... too bad cause it doesn’t make that much sense to me either.

I boarded my flight to Dallas around 7:10pm on Monday (Jan 30) night which brought me into Dallas around 9pm (still Monday night). I met with a conspicuously collegiately group twenty-somethings who, as I rightly guessed, turned out to be some of my new course mates. We began boarding our flight to Brisbane shortly there after. As all the passengers began shuffling along into the behemoth of a plane, several of the Australians in line started talking with one another. Now, there isn’t anything particularly out of the ordinary with Australians having casual conversations with one another; that is unless you are an American who desperately wants to have an Australian accent. I know that dwelling on how “cool” their accents are might be a tad stereotypical, but it really started to make the whole trip seem real to me. I was definitely getting more and more excited and less and less nervous, “How could a country full of people who sound like this be anything less than awesome?” I thought.

After spending 16hrs (it turns out that the flight from Dallas to Brisbane is only 16hrs and not the 22hrs that my plane ticket said it was) in close proximity with some Australians, I can safely say that they are as nice as they sound. I made fast friends with the two women who would be my neighbors for the day/night/really long flight. We started talking and didn’t stop until we were a good two hours or so into the flight. They were very helpful and informative, as well as just great to talk to. They made sure that I could properly pronounce Melbourne (“Mel-bin”) and Cairns (“Caans”). They were also the harbingers of some very good news, the drinking age on the plane was indeed 18 and more importantly the booze is free. Talk about a good way to get me excited about sitting in an airplane for more than half a day. As it turned out though I only ended up having one drink, but it was still free. I spent the rest of the flight watching “Reel Steal” and the most recent Pirates of the Caribbean.” “Reel Steel” was an obvious choice as Hugh Jackman is an Aussie and “Pirates” because....well just because. I managed to stay up as long as I could and only started to sleep when there was only 8hrs remaining till we reached Brisbane.

We ended up arriving early Wed (Feb 1^st) morning, like 5:30am early. Upon arrival we did the whole customs thing, which was way more intense than I was expecting. There were about four levels to whole process one of which involved a K9 unit and a physical inspection of all declared goods. They may be friendly, that doesn’t stop Australians from being pretty authoritative when the want to be. After the customs ordeal all there was to do was wait till 9am for our program advisor to meet us.

Peter and Dave met me and the now entire SIT crew at the aptly named “Meeting Point” in the airport. From here we loaded the bus, had a short orientation, and were then dropped off at our Hostel and left to our own devices till dinner at 5pm. Feeling gross and with some time to kill, I joined some classmates in taking a dip in the pool. I’m not sure if all Hostels in Australia are this cool, but “City Backpackers” in Brisbane was pretty neat indeed. I think you can get the idea of the place with just a few details, it is bright orange with dark blue accents, has a bar and patio that overlooks the Brisbane river, is entirely populated with attractive twenty-somethings from all over, and the swimming pool had a window in it. Still, I set out with some SIT-ers and we walked around Brisbane, grabbed some lunch, had a pint, did some bonding, walked through a farmer’s market, actually bought school supplies (an encouraging venture as it reminded us that we were actually going to school), and then headed back to Hostel to dress for dinner. As a group we met Dave and Peter, our pleasantly stereotypical chill Australians who looked like they surfed between conversations, at Vietnamese/Thai restaurant called “Huong’s.” After several variations of curry, rice, and meat or vegetable of some type, the gang headed back to the Hostel with not a little excitement. Tonight was Wednesday night, which at City Backpacker’s means Karaoke. After some “A for effort” renditions of songs that I used to like, I along with the majority of the crew finally gave in to the Jetlag exhaustion and collapsed on the cheap, plastic lined bunk bed.

 Packing action shot

 Packing, non-action shot

 Looking at maps in the airport

 The aptly named meeting point

Australian Farmers' Market (just like any other Farmers' Market)

Picture worthy building I walked by in Brisbane

The Gang on the way to dinner

Brisbane River

This morning (Thurs. Feb 2) we are taking a two hour bus ride to our orientation camp site near Byron Bay, Australia. It has already become apparent that the always-on-the-go itinerary and the constant packing, unpacking, then re-packing, then lugging of luggage it entails will be one of the semester’s biggest challenges. It is also unclear how much reliable access I will have to the internet. Once we leave the Hostel in a couple of hours we won’t have access to internet till Sunday at the earliest, as we will be camping. That is one of the reasons this post is such a doozy, as it will have to hold you over for at least a little while. On the bright side, part of our orientation entails surfing lessons, or so I hear. More news to follow, but for now that is your (rather) hearty helping of outback.