Around Cairns (cans)

better late then never....

Hello all,
Sorry for how long it's taken me to post a new blog. Days come and go pretty fast here. Time is flying by way too fast for my taste. So since we talked last a lot has happened including jumping out of airplanes, a tsunami that wasn't quite as exciting as expected, a pretty amazing field trip and the acquiring of one of the coolest jobs I could think of.

So lets start with the jumping out of airplanes. For my friend Kaitlin's 21st birthday she decided that it would be a go time to jump out of an airplane. I guess it's as good as time as any. I mean you've made it this long why not test it out and see if your really suppose to have made it this long. So of course being the loyal friend that I am I couldn't just let my friend go up there alone. So I took the plunge and I'm here to say it really is one of the things that you need to do before you die. It's such a weird combo of sheer terror and just absolute amazement at the world. I got some great pictures from the jump for you to check out.

After all that excitement I had to take a field trip with one of my classes. It was pretty awesome. We went to this beach that a tribe of Aboriginal people live on and they taught us how they gather and cook food from around the area. The guy that lived there taught us how to throw a spear to get fish and crab (yes I was a pro)and then took us into the mangroves to look for food. We collected periwinkles, mussels, and crabs. The mud was literally up to our knees and it was pretty tough to get around but we managed. We didn't get any fish but I had brought peanut butter and bread just in case. Once we gathered everything together we brought it back to the guides house and cooked it. The snail was actually really good but the mussel could have used something, not sure what but the needed something. We all sat around on the porch and our guide told us how they hunt and cool stories. It was up there in my top field trips, right after St. Augustine in 4th grade but it is a tight gap.

The last bit of really cool news I have for you guys is the fact that I am now working at the turtle rescue and rehabilitation center here in Cairns. I went to my professor after class one day and just asked if there were any projects that professors needed help on and if so could she get me in touch with them and it turns out that a professor here started a turtle center about 10 years ago and has been operating it with zero government funding. I got in touch with her and went to talk to her and now I go with her 2 days a week to help out with the turtles. It is amazing, there are 6 turtles currently in tanks there and they all had been rescued by Dr. Gilbert. There is not regulation here about ghost netting so what happens is the turtles get caught in the nets making it impossible for them to dive. The turtles get dehydrated and most the time end up dying unless someone reports seeing them so we can go pick them up. It is an awesome job even though I have to get up at 730 am.

So that's about it for now but I will try to update more often. Happy late St. Patrick's Day to everyone, I hope you had a good one. I will just upload some pictures from around Cairns so you can get a feel for where I am. I love you all!
Cheers,
Caitlin

first few weeks of my trip

Hello all,
I hope you are all going well. Everything is amazing here. From the first hour we got here our program had us busy with all sorts of cool activities around the city. For the first week we had an orientation with some other students studying in a town 3 hours south of us called Townsville. This was a pretty interesting coincidence being that two other girls I knew from my school were going to Townsville so we got to have the same orientation week. We all stayed in a nice hostel just a few minutes from the city. The first day we took a trip out on a huge Catamaran boat to the Great Barrier Reef. It was absolutely amazing. I did two dives with some amazing dive masters that really knew their way around the reef. We saw Giant Clams that were every color you can imagine, we saw some Reef Sharks and even a turtle. I tried to tell it the East Australian Current was the other way but I don't think he could understand my accent. (Mariah will probably be the only one who gets that reference). When we finished our second dive we actually swam to a near by island where we took all our gear off and got to snorkel a small patch of reef where we saw a blue spotted sting ray (not the kind that kill Steve Irwin). The water was so warm, it felt almost like a bath tub but the island kind of smelt cause it was a bird sanctuary. When we had finished we were served lunch which was really good. I got this meat stuff on rice and I didn't know what kind of meat it was so after I finished I found out it was lamb so apparently I like lamb. We let the sails down and power sail back into port. I manage to not get sunburnt so I call it a victory.


Day two we help this crazy old conservationist lady plant some trees that provide the fruits eaten by an endangered bird called the Cassowarry. To call this animal a bird is like calling a Koala a cat (in my opinion. This 'bird' is like a mixture of an ostrich, a turkey, and a unicorn... I don't really have any pictures of it yet but if you have seen the movie UP it is like the bird in that only with a horn. I'll try to get a picture of it soon.

The last adventure we went on with Australearn was to a kind of zoo thing called Rain Forest Station that had tons of animals native to Australia not to mention some aboriginal dancers and a place to learn how to throw a boomerang. Oh yeah you'll get to see the video. This place also had Kangaroos just hopping around. Of course I fed the kangaroos, and yes we were allowed to. It was a pretty cool place with everything from giant Crocs to tiny koalas named Tim Tam.

















So far everything is amazing here and I am having an awesome time. I will try to post a new blog every week to let you guys know whats going on. Love you guys!
Cheers,
Caitlin