The Wet

Well its been a while since we’ve written so here it goes.
A few months ago my friend Hugo and I decided to have an adventurous day and climb some waterfalls near the house at Jurrama. We got there early brought all the climbing gear and headed up the falls. These falls are really neat because they have lots of huge tiers that you have to climb up. After a few failed attempts to get above the first small one (we got up but couldn’t get around it, so we jumped off back into the pool below which I discovered was not deep) we made it about a third of the way up where a large pool and waterfall awaited us. It was a beautiful spot, so we went swimming for a bit while deciding what our best way to get above this 30 meter straight up section. We started off again by going into the surrounding rainforest and up some cliffs. Looking over the edge we came to a section where we were directly above the waterfall and a small ledge was about 20 feet below us. We hooked up the ropes and repelled down to it, not knowing how in the hell we were going to get back up when the time came, but we decided to worry about that later. This section of the falls was amazing, just a giant canyon with a large waterfall in front of us and a river leading the way. We didn’t get much farther than this because the next section was straight up with no hand holds and the water dripping down was making it really slippery. So we just enjoyed the view from up there and started to head back down. Everything went well until we got to our rope that we left from the repel. Hugo tried a new ratchet system to get up (it looked so damn hard and it took forever), I decided to grab the rope and swing around the ledge to where a more doable dirt incline awaited me. Now it wasn’t the safest thing to do since I really wasn’t hooked up the rope and was far above the small pool and rocks below us but it mostly worked out, after a few slips and cursing I made it up and we heading back the way we came. The entire trip took around six hours and we were damn tired after it. We may not have conquered the falls on that round but we have plans to go back when the rains finally stop. Wish us luck.
We finally got our rescue diver certification done. We were going to go to Magnetic Island right off of Townsville but during that week a large salt water croc was spotted hanging around the swimming beaches. So after much deliberation (I was all for it, diving and getting to see crocs!) we (they) decided just to do the dives off of the strand here where it was safer. All in all it was still fun even though we didn’t get to play with crocs.
A local dive boat gave out a great deal a few months ago. A free 5 day trip to the palm islands, scuba diving everyday and we would be looking for coral spawning at night. All you had to do was pay $100 (Australian money so like $1.50 monopoly money) and work for a few hours every morning sanding and painting the deck. It was a great deal. Just about everything that I’ve wanted to see under water I got to on this trip. Different types of sharks, nudibranchs galore, napoleon wrasse, eels, rays, coral spawning, turtles, and some baby cuttlefish. I couldn’t ask for a better trip.
A few weeks before finals were upon us, the wet season started. The afternoon thunderstorms would roll in and put on a great show for a few hours. The lightning would get so close that the entire house would shake. You could watch the lightning go and strike the hills next to our house, it was amazing. At work we watched as a bolt hit the river right behind us, and no I don’t get hazard pay. This wet season is the worst locals have seen for 30 years. Its been raining now for over three weeks straight. The river next to us has risen up over 3 meters. The bike path next to it is under water. Townsville has been cut off to the North, West, and South for a few weeks now. It doesn’t help when small cyclones keep traveling near us, dumping more rain. It was fun today to ride home from work and pedal through a river that a few hours ago was a flat street. I’m not talking about just cycling through a few inches of water but knee deep moving water. It is really interesting to see how high small rivers, streams, roads get when weeks or rain get dumped on them. The town just north of us (Ingham) is mostly underwater. Residents there have to use their tinnies (small boats) to get around the streets. Inland, the small towns have helicopters flying food in for them since they’ve been cut off. What’s more weird is that down south near Melbourne they have some intense heat and fires right now. At last count over 1,000 houses have burned and over 181 people have died.
Well finals are over which means we have no more classes to take, ever! Now we both have to just do our minor projects and then we have another degree. Crystal has most of her data already collected when she went to Lizard Island. I on the other hand will be spending eight days a month out at Alligator creek collected and tracking goannas (very large lizards, think of a slightly smaller komodo dragon). All in all it should be loads of fun (if I don’t get cut off there due to flooding).
Besides the large things going on, we are always going out on small camping trips around here or taking a day off to go swim and relax in some billabong. Of course I’m still catching lots of reptiles and such. For the herpetology class that I took we got to go collecting around school at night. My group found a beautiful baby carpet python and a small brown tree snake. We were supposed to be collecting geckos for a project but the snakes were much more interesting. And of course my friend Will got bit by both snakes (for those that do not know Will, he is Mr. Australia but he gets bit by everything we catch).
Crystal…
While Scott has been gallivanting around climbing and catching things I’ve been spending my days on Lizard Island and as a result have a nice data set I can tackle. My days consisted of early morning rises with picking up light traps and sorting larval fish that are returning to the reef to settle. This was usually followed up with a couple of dives to clove oil some fish (which is how we catch them on the reef alive). I would work in the lab for a few hours scaring some fish in my burst chamber I created then go for a run or swim with a session of yoga. The day was usually completed with sunset drinks where a group of us would wallow in the water oowing and awing over the brilliant sky colors. At night we would often have big group dinners and stay up late playing games and drinking. Let’s just say that marine biologists definitely know how to have a good time!
Scott was able to join me for a few weeks during Christmas and New Years. He helped out collecting the light traps and also helped a researcher collect DNA samples from stingrays. After exchanging secret Santa gifts (which had to be made on the island) Christmas was spent wallowing and eating all day. Big wallowing trays (which were created as secret Santa gifts) were set up with food and drinks floating on them in the ocean and we all just lounged around socializing and playing games in the water. New Years was a blast. We all made guns and Kevlar vests and dressed up like Somalian pirates. Scott and I even painted ourselves black! There must have been a good twenty of us and we ambushed the Marlin Bar (the islands resort staff bar).
Everyone I’m sure wants to know about the diving in Australia. It’s fantastic and despite spending an easy four hours underwater every day, you never get tired of it. My favorite dive actually shares my name. It was located just off Crystal Beach and consisted of a wall with a series of caves created by large stands of coral. These caves would just continue on and on until emerging eventually out onto the reef flat or looping around to another entrance on the wall. The caves were filled with Apogonids and you would actually need to wave them out of the way in order to see. We would also sometimes come across white and black tips or leopard sharks sleeping inside these caves. A person can describe the diving as best they can but nothing really says more than a picture and I took a bunch of these. Also a couple of videos were taken, so that those of you who don’t dive can join us in this world.
Other news, we are moving. Our new address is 30 Wandella crs, Cranbrook, QLD, 4814. It’s just up the road from where we are now and we get a pool.

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