Blogs from Townsville, Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 21

So since beer prices are so high the great alternative that we came up with is brewing beer at home! (ha and some of you were thinking we would stop drinking). Well our first batch was a simple lager and it came out really good surprisingly. The next beer that we brewed was closer to a hoppy red and now that it has matured a little longer it tastes pretty good. Fermenting right is our first hef. Hopefully that one will be great also because they really don’t have many wheat beers here. So if anyone comes and visits we might have some tasty homebrew waiting for you. For our spring/fall break Crystal and I each went on field trips that were completely different. For my trip we headed out to Morrinya which is in the ... read more

Thursday, 17th April, 2008: Today was walk about day. Roberta made us a hearty breakfast then we headed off for The Forts Walk. Aussie’s call them Walks not Hikes. This walk follows a road built during WWII to facilitate the building of a sea/air watch station and gun battery used to protect Cleveland Bay. We were told by locals that koalas and Rock Wallabies can often be seen on this walk but we didn’t see any. We did see many varieties of butterflies, yellow, red, black, and blue. They were too fast and shy to photograph. The forest trees are very diverse and beautiful. There was a constant sweet aroma from all the flowering trees and shrubs. The first half of the walk was a gradual climb towards the site where several buildings used to be ... read more

We Made It! We wanted to update the blog sooner but we had to sleep first. It was a long trip but well worth it. We are on Magnetic Island just off short from Townsville, Queensland, Aus. The water front room we wanted opened up yesterday....YES! The trip: The flight from Portland to LA was fine. When we got off in LA, we were not sure where we were on the airport or where we needed to go. There were no signs and the staff was not very helpful at first but then we found someone who enjoyed her job and she directed us to the next terminal over which was the International one. Note to self; look up the terminal information before leaving home. The gentleman at the Qantas counter was very helpful and got ... read more

Nach den traumhaften (Reef und Cap Trib) und haarstraeubenden (handgrosse Spinne, Krokodile) Eindruecken in Carins fuhren wieder suedswaerts. Waehrend der Greyhoundfahrt nach Mission Beach regnete es wie aus kuebeln, dazu lief der passende Film - Titanic. Sogar mit Happy End da wir vor dem Untergang ausstiegen:-) Am Nachmittag zeigte sich dann endlich die Sonne wieder und wir konnten das kleine Staedtchen und den Strand erkundigen gehen. Der Strand ist umwerfend. Langer weisser Strand mit Palmen. Leider ist er aber nicht zum baden geeignet (Quallen). Am Dienstag ging es dann weiter nach Townsville. Der Ort ist sehr schoen, erinnert einem ein ein Fischerdorfchen am Mittelmeer. Von hier aus werden wir morgen dann die Faehre nach Magnetic Island nehmen, wo wir auch eine Nacht verbringen werden.... read more

Everything is still going beautifully here in Australia. School has barely just begun and we don’t have jobs yet. As a result there is a lot of free time to explore our surroundings and relax. We went on a trip to a place called Crystal Creek with a group of students. It was about a 40minute drive north of us and it was absolutely gorgeous. This was where you actually start making your way up into the true rainforest. We spent a few hours at this large swimming hole with fairly deep water and swift currents. We exhausted ourselves by trying to go up the rapids and had some bumpy times coming back down them. Next we went to another part of Crystal Creek further up where there were good cliff jumps and waterfalls. We can’t ... read more