Well, one week left and I cannot wait to get back to work. I'm now quite poor, but still have enough to take a 6 hour trip on the Great Barrier Reef. I still think Cairns is an odd city, it's more touristy than anything I have seen so far. Also, it does rain in Australia I have found. I thought it'd be dry, but it's rained 83.5% of my days here. Tomorrow, though, we're going to Cape Tribulation! I hope to see the 20ft salt water crocodiles I've been hearing and learning about. Also, I'm going to hold a koala [View Full Entry]

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Currently I'm on Orpheus Island, having boated from Australia. It's still considered to be part of the Queensland region of Australia. I'm a guest at the research station of James Cook University. The only other way to get to this island is to pay $$$ for a flight to the resort on the other side. It is gorgeous here. There's mangroves that are all over the beach, bandicoots and silver-crested cockatoos roaming around, and little black-tip reef sharks and rays swimming in the shallows. The tide goes out at least 300 yards from the high tide point, which is crazy. The [View Full Entry]

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It is markedly hotter here than NZ. Cairns is an odd city and I can't really describe it. There are bats (large ones) in the trees by the city library and they screech like a mixture of pig/baby cries. There are hundreds of parrots that gather at dusk in the city center. Didgeridoos are only $25! I'm sitting in a "Kwikmart" type of store, paying the cheapest fees I can for internet ($3.50/hr). This is across from a large hotel/casino/rainforest dome, called the Reef. The hotel we're staying at Used to be called Inn The Tropics and I was surprised TravelBlog [View Full Entry]

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Well, this will be my last entry in New Zealand. It has been a blast here! All that is left for me to do are: write an Art History paper, take Geology final, and take 2 more Biology tests (which no one yet knows what it will be on since we've had NO further lectures to study from). Tonight, at 3am, which is an insane hour to do anything, our class is going to the Christchurch airport and then flying to Auckland, and then flying to Australia. I can't remember if it's directly to Cairnes, or if we have to hop [View Full Entry]

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Well, Queenstown was a blast! I did not go bungy jumping, however. The Shotover Jet was one of my most memorable experiences in QT. At over 80km an hour, we 'shot' up and down the Shotover River, going through canyons, almost hitting the walls, turning at the last second with hairpin turns. Then the driver would do full 360 spins! I'm so glad I had sunglasses to keep the water out of my eyes. Besides that, I took the gondola QT is famous for up the mountain side and enjoyed the views. They have a luge ride up there as well, [View Full Entry]

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Right now, I'm looking out my window at the gorgeous view from my hotel room. We arrived in Queenstown yesterday and from what I've seen, it looks to be a pretty cool place. From Harihari, we drove to Wanaka. As a class, we didn't do much. There was a geology field class on yet another watershed project. These are basically public streams for runoff. Wanaka was the place where I celebrated St. Patrick's day, however. I even got a haircut so I'd look halfway decent. Most of the class gathered at Shooters Bar for pool, dancing, and drinking. Honestly, as small [View Full Entry]

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***I wrote this in Harihari, but didn't publish it because it wouldn't let me upload pictures*** Once again, we're in the middle of nowhere, but instead of beautiful mountains and scenery, we're in this scrubby field. There's a few sheep and chickens wandering around. At least we have laundry and internet here, though. Continuing from where I left off... From ChCh, our group traveled to the Cass Field Station and stayed at University of Canterbury's base there. This was really in the middle of nowhere, with a train running through the valley. This meant no internet. The station had a wood [View Full Entry]

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Hello folks! Sorry about the delay, but I haven't been able to get online. I've been to Castle Basin and West Point in the last week. Castle Basin was in the middle of nowhere. West Point was too far from town, in the middle of the suburbs. No pictures just yet. At Castle Basin, we made topographical maps and walked for an hour through this narrow limestone cave that had a river running through it. The water went up to my chest. Really cool in that it wasn't commercially run. Just a stop off the road. In West Point, we went [View Full Entry]

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Also known as ChCh. I'm staying at this retro motel/apartment place at the moment. They have no internet what so ever, so I'm at the library. Unfortunately, this means I will not have access to Skype until further notice. The food is still bland in New Zealand, but they do have great curry places. And Thai. I can get some killer Thai food at this one place where all their dishes are $10 NZ and it's fabulous stuff! I really miss real Chinese and Mexican food. I went to this place called South of the Border here in ChCh, where they [View Full Entry]

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Since I last talked in Auckland, I've traveled a bit. I've gone down to New Plymouth, then an overnight near Wellington, then a ferry across the Cook Straight, then a train from Picton to Kaikoura. In New Plymouth we had our first exam for Art History. I think I did rather well. We also went on a geological trip to the nearby beaches where cliffs had been uplifted to show the many layers that makes up the earth. It was a short stay in New Plymouth, which was good because the grocery store was a good 45 minute walk each way. [View Full Entry]

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