Note: I’m
catching up on my posting because between a busy life and a busy program, I
haven’t been keeping up this blog very well.
If you get the chance to study abroad, do it, whichever school you wind
up attending. I have made some fantastic
memories and seen amazing things. Plus, it breaks up the routine of school and
lets you get to know new people.
After our
time in Tasmania, we went straight to camping in the rain forests of Lamington
Plateau. It definitely was a rain forest, our group had the worst
storms the program leader had seen in the 20 years of bringing L&C students
there. Despite the fact that there were
30 people camping with everything needed for school and travel (laptops,
cameras, phones, etc.) the only casualty was a pop-up shelter which flew into a
tree and a few damp notebooks.
Our time
there was a lot of fun, we went spotlighting for nocturnal animals, hiking
through different kinds of forest, watched many different kinds of birds, and
went bug hunting among other things. We
found a bowerbird nest in the woods and found a bright blue crawfish in the
stream. Towards the end of the trip we
hiked down to see a wall of glow worms. Getting
a picture was impossible, but it looked like a starry sky surrounding us.
After Lamington,
we spent a few weeks in Brisbane working on our venom biology projects. We got to use the facilities at University of
Queensland and had lectures from venom experts there. Every day we went to UQ we needed to take
public transportation and I am thrilled to say I took a boat to school. Brisbane has a ferry system called the
CityCats (they’re catamarans) which run up and down the river crossing back and
forth. I really enjoyed it.
During one
of our Brisbane weekends we took a trip to North Stradbroke Island. We got to stay at a marine science center and
spend our days learning about the various ecosystems that survive on a sand
island. We waded through stingray
infested waters, followed a stream through a mangrove forest, watched thousands
of crabs scuttle across a mudflat, and saw wild koalas for the first time.
Have
questions about anything? Feel free to
email me at ameliaberle@lclark.edu