Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Rainforest Update

I finally have real internet back. Yay. OK back to the important stuff.

Got back from Binna Burra National Park on Friday night. The trip was alright, not as much fun as the Outback but still cool. One day we had to get up at ~4:30 am and another around 5:30 am so it was a little rough as I like my sleep, and the beds were like boards as well. So I was a little cranky for most of the trip but oh well.

We had a 15km (~9 miles) march on Wednesday which was not fun at all. The enjoyable part of the rainforest is to go out where there is no one, sit there for about an hour or longer and watch everything come out. Never got a chance to do that because we were always doing something. The forest is a lot different from the wet-tropical forest of Costa Rica but still very cool. Lots of birds, paddymelons (bush wallaby), snakes and spiders. The don't have any primates down here so the closest thing were ring-tailed possums. OK now the pictures. Hope you like the poisonous stuff Bradley. More like the Australia you see on TV.




Just some lichen


Big Monitor Lizard ~5 feet long

Possum, a little different than the ones at the house

Great view from camp. The Gold Coast is way in the background.

A view up to the canopy
Some fungus
Carpet Python


Funnel-web spider, very poisonous and deadly

Bush Rat

A species of lizard that lives in the funnel web spider burrow

Honeybee

Sun dew carnivorous plant

Natures knot

Huntsman spider

View from the long trek

Little frog

Lots of cool animals. There is a video of the funnel-web spider feeding that hopefully will be on YouTube soon. I'll post it when my mate gets it up.

Not much else going on. I have the week off of class but have to work on an assignment which is due on Monday but I might be able to get an extension because I was gone last week. We'll see.

Our new roommate moved in on Saturday. She's very cool and fits in well with the rest of the house. So there will be some party pics soon as we'll have to have a welcoming and going away party for both Emma and Nina.

Off to work on my GIS assessment. Hopefully another update soon.

Cheers,
B.



Monday, September 10, 2007

Words but no Pictures

I'm stuck back in the 90's as we have lost our broadband for a few days. Our roommate recently moved out and so did our swift internet. And of course the time when I need it the most, football season, I don't have it. Damn. So it might be a few weeks until the pictures will return. By then I should have some good ones of all the creatures in the rainforest. And I'll post some more of when Kristy was down here. As we discovered some great (drunken) shots from John's B-day party.
As I'm leaving for the rainforest this weekend and will be gone for a week the updates will be lacking. I'm taking a break from writing another paper due on Wednesday. Lots of fun. My relaxing break from school is going to be my field course under the canopy. Oh well.
Besides school everything is going well down here. The weather is finally getting better but we did have about a week of rain on and off so that was really good. Not much else going on but school work. Which I have to get back to now as I'm actually getting out of the city tomorrow for a little while and need to get most of my paper done today sometime. Hope everyone is doing well.

Later,
B