American on Walkabout

Camping at Mesquite Springs

stephmonahan — Tue, 22 Mar 2016 06:20:00 GMT

Death Valley has recently gotten a lot of attention in the media for the superbloom that is currently happening in what seems like a desolate wasteland. This superbloom of wildflowers occurs only once every ten years or so. So naturally I wanted to witness this before having to wait another ten years.

A lot of people had this same idea though. So all of the hotels in and surrounding Death Valley were entirely booked as well as the one campsite that takes reservations. That left the 8 other campsites that function on a first-come, first-serve basis. All the campsites were highly competitive since the park was so unsually busy. My dad and I first checked in at the Furnace Creek Visitor Center to pay the park entrance fee and get a map of where the superbloom was occuring. We thought we could get ahead of the majority of the weekend crowd by getting there on Thursday morning, but by then the first three campsites we checked out (Furnace Creek, Texas Srpings, and Sunset campgrounds) were already full with each site containing well over 100 sites. We then drove out about 50 miles from Furnace Creek to Mesquite Springs in hopes that one of the 40 campsites would be open.

We were lucky that we were early enough to get a spot. We were worried that the campground was so far away from the nearest general store (it would be a 100 mile drive to get to Furnance Creek and back if we needed ice or a cell phone signal to make a call). But being that far removed was somewhat nice and Mesquite Springs offered a decent bathroom with flush toilets, a picnic table, a firepit, and a drinkable water pump so the camping itself wasn't too rough. The spots were fairly spaced out, but sound traveled really well since there were barely any bushes to absorb it. So that crying kid at 6 am woke up everyone in the campground.

My dad and I ended up setting up two tents. We realized after setting up the first one that the all mesh sides were going to leave us really cold at night even with the fly up (temperatures drop to the low 50s F/12-13C at night in March). So we set up a second tent to sleep in and decided to keep the first one up for storage and dubbed it the "garage."

While we were there, we saw a number of cars and RVs circling trying to get a spot, but the campsite had filled up by about 3pm probably. Night fell and people were still looking for spots after having come out 50 miles just to check. We ended up letting a group park their car on our site while they camped the night in the brush nearby. I was really glad that we had gotten up so early to get a spot.

Stradbroke Aboriginal Art Fieldtrip

stephmonahan — Wed, 28 Oct 2015 18:46:00 GMT

Last Wednesday I went on a field trip with my Indigenous Art History class to Stradbroke Island (known as Minjerribah to the local people). We spent the morning with an Aboriginal artist from the Quandamooka tribe. She explained how the art form of weaving had been lost for many years when the Australian government enacted the assimilation policy that prohibited native peoples from practicing their cultural traditions. She was working the re-establish the weaving tradition from descriptions and artifacts. Then she taught us how to weave using traditional materials. I wove a mini basket which was pretty exciting.

We had lunch at a little cafe and then a Quandamooka guide gave a spear-throwing, bush tucker, and didgeridoo presentation. Then he taught us how to throw a boomerang. And guess who threw their boomerang into a tree? I'm obviously not surviving by myself in the bush.

Heron Island Highlights

stephmonahan — Mon, 19 Oct 2015 17:59:00 GMT

My second trip over mid-semester break was another class research trip to Heron Island on the Great Barrier Reef. We drove overnight on a bus up to Gladstone (definitely not the most comfortable bus ride, but I would do it again in a heartbeat to go back to Heron) and then a 2 hour ferry to the island. Here's some highlights from the five days that I spent there.

Snorkeling:
One of the highlights of my trip was definitely all of the snorkeling. My first snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef was at sunset by the ship wreck the first day there. I was lucky enough to dive down and swim next to a loggerhead turtle almost as big as I am! I also caught a glimpse of the outline of a reef shark on my way back in to shore. That was definitely a bit freaky seeing it disappear into the darkening water at dusk.

The next day, we went snorkeling before breakfast at Shark Bay. Just a couple meters from shore we saw some pretty massive sting rays and shovel nose rays. And there were so many of them! After breakfast, we had our first boat snorkel. From the boat, we had to swim about 5 meters to get to the edge of the reef. And when you swim over the reef edge, it's like that scene from Finding Nemo where it pans out and you see all of the colorful fish beneath you. It was absolutely breathtaking. I don't think I have ever seen so many fish in one place in my life!

We also did a night snorkel that night. I'll have to admit I was a bit nervous about it, especially since I had seen that shark the day before, but decided to brave it anyway. We were all given dive lights and glow sticks to attach to our snorkels. We took the stairs down from the dock into the harbor and jumped in from there. The first thing I noticed were all the tiny fish that just swarmed to the light and then swam beneath me for most of the snorkel. They were probably about 3 cm each. We also saw a couple green sea turtles, some rays, a barracuda, and some other relatively large fish. Then we saw the shark. It was a black tipped reef shark about a meter and a half long. It swam directly under me lit up by all of our dive lights. It was an equally scary and amazing moment to be in the water with such a prehistoric looking creature. At night. We were only in the water for about 15 minutes for the snorkel, but it was probably the biggest highlight of my whole trip to Heron Island.

Stargazing:

There were really only a few buildings on the island so there wasn't a lot of light pollution to obstruct the stars. So the conditions were perfect for stargazing on the beach! The sky was so clear the night we went. We could see the Milky Way and a thunder storm off on the horizon. I was even lucky enough to see a few shooting stars.

Research:

Since I was there with my Australia's Marine Environment class, I had a research project to work on. My group worked with zooplankton and we compared the different species present on the reef during the day and those at night. Really I was just excited to be using microscopes and to spend a little bit of time being dry amidst all of the snorkeling. island highlights

Another Fun Video

stephmonahan — Wed, 7 Oct 2015 16:40:00 GMT

Just a casual day down under with kangaroos fighting in the street. Also watched this video in class and thought I would share.

Come to Australia!

stephmonahan — Wed, 7 Oct 2015 16:32:00 GMT

Just a fun little video my proffessor had us watch before we went on our research field trip. Enjoy!

The World's Largest Sand Island

stephmonahan — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 20:35:00 GMT

So I'm currently on my mid-semester Spring break and I just got back from my first of two research based field trips. I spent the past 5 days with my Terrestrial Environment class on the world's largest sand island: Fraser Island. It boasts 122km in length and is about 22km at its greatest width. Fraser Island is the host of numerous fresh water lakes, the purest population of wild dingos (I saw 2 on the first day!), and both eucalypt forest and a stunning rainforest. Here are some of the highlights!

4WD: In order to get around Fraser, you need a 4WD drive since there are no actual paved roads on the island. Someone else described our 4WD experience as "the most Australian thing I've ever done here." And it really is. We barreled down the beach at 80km, flew over bumps in the sand and past some wild dingoes as ocean water sprayed over our big SUVs with snorkels attached to the engines. The whole experience was basically the India Jones ride in Disneyland, minus the fake snakes and mummies and plus some other dangerous fauna (it wouldn't be Australia without it right?).

Bushwalking: The first and fifth days were travel days and we spent the other 3 out in nature the whole day. We hiked somewhere between 6-12km each of those days and it was exhausting since it was all on sand (some compact, but also a lot of loose sand). If my calves weren't buff enough before, they definitely are now because I really felt the burn after some of those hikes. Nonetheless the bushwalks were absolutely beautiful throughout Fraser's diverse ecosystems. I would have never guessed that a rainforest could grow on sand. That just seems to defy logic, but I guess this is the topsy-turvy, upside-down continent of Australia. Each of the environments hosted an array of weird plants, creepy crawly insects (with spiders that did not need to be the size of my hand and too many mosquitos), and some amazing bird watching (wild cockatoos, sea eagles, and some neat sounding whip birds).

Sandblow: This was one of the really awesome places that we hiked to on our third day. It honestly looked like someone picked up a giant sand dune from the Sahara Desert and dropped it in the middle of a eucalypt forest in Australia. The sand was soooo soft and had an amazing view of the ocean in the distance. My group and I climbed to the top of the dune and jumped off for some great fun and some pretty cool photos.

Freshwater lakes: We also hiked to 3 different freshwater lakes that were all super beautiful. I swam in all of them and they were all a pretty comfortable 23C or about 72F. So pretty warm, but cool enough to be refreshing after a long hike. The first one, Lake Wabby, was at the bottom of another pretty big sand blow and a number of people tried sledding down it into the water. The second lake, Boomanjin, was like swimming in a big cup of tea, since the water was a reddish brown from oil from surrounding trees. And finally, Lake Mckenzie was a beautiful crystal clear lake surrounded by white sand beach and is possibly one of the prettiest places I've been.

Fieldwork: Well, this was a class-based trip so obviously we did some science. It was mostly survey work: doing transects on the coast and in the forests, collecting leaf and spider specimen (spiders are not my favorite), and identifying soil profiles. Eventhough it was a lot of work, it was definitely fun to be outdoors instead of in lab for a change. Australia has such unique flora and fauna and it's all really interesting.

Hobbit meals: Essentially, to keep up enough energy, we ate almost as many meals as hobbits. We had breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, and dessert. All the food was delicious and I ate wayyyy too much this trip :)

"Did ya getcha win?"

stephmonahan — Thu, 13 Aug 2015 18:17:00 GMT

So yesterday was the public holiday for Ekka. Ekka (an Aussie abbreviation for exhibition) is the "Royal Queensland Show" which is sorta like a really big state fair. Anyway we had the Wednesday off so that people could go to the horse races for Mekka Wednesday.

A friend and I went to the city in the morning to try and find a fascinator (one of the funky hats/headpieces women wear at horse races) and it was surprisingly easy. I guess horse races are a bigger thing here than they are in America since A) we got a whole day off from school to go to the races and B) fascinators were in abundance at the Australian department store Myer with just about every price range in mind.

When we got to the Doomben race course, it was a beautiful sunny 80 degree day with not a single cloud in the sky. We took our seats and about a half hour later, the dark storm clouds rolled in. Just as the race was starting, it was like all heaven let loose in fire and brimstone. Buckets of rain fell from the sky, seemingly horizontally because of the strong wind and lightning flashed across the sky. Mud flew up on the race course as the horses flew by to the finish line; the speakers and umbrellas from the trackside area below fell over and flocks of mostly drunken people scrambled to take cover. Luckily, I had a dry seat under the overhang and got to just laugh at all of this, but my friends who had just left to get food, got caught in the storm. The storm lasted about 20-25 minutes before sunny blue skies opened up again. That's Australian weather for you I guess.

We stayed for another race while the sun was still out and then decided to leave afterwards since more storm clouds loomed in the distance. Thankfully, we got on the train just before the rain started agian. The conductor came down to scan everyone's "go cards" (what we use to get around Queensland's public transport system) and asked us in a really thick Australian accent, "Did ya getcha win?" We stared at him for a few moments totally unsure what he said. Finally we realized what he said and explained that we were just at the races to watch and didn't place any bets. Overall, it was a fun day at the races and I would definitely go agian if I get the chance, even if there's a massive storm in the forecast.

First 2 Weeks of School Plus Some Weekend Adventures

stephmonahan — Fri, 7 Aug 2015 09:40:00 GMT

So I've had the first two weeks of classes at the University of Queensland (located in the Brisbane suburb of St. Lucia) and I can honestly say that I'm super excited about all of the classes that I am taking. I'm fufilling a couple of my general education requirements with Indigenous Art History and Torres Strait Islander Studies. Before I arrived here, I didn't realize that Australia had 2 groups of indigenous peoples: the Aborigines and the Torres Strait Islanders. So far both of my indigenous study courses have been really interesting. In the Torres Strait class, we had one of the leaders of the Erub people come to talk to us about the challenges he faced growing up in a country that only recently granted the indigenous peoples citizenship in 1967. We also had a member of the Aboriginal community come to my Indigenous art history course to speak to us about Aboriginal identity. I feel like I've already learned a lot about their amazing culture just in the past two weeks.

The other two classes that I'm taking are Australia's Marine Environment and Australia's Terrestrial Environment. Both of which have some fun research-based field trips all over Queensland, including one 5 day trip to the Great Barrier Reef! So basically with all of my Australian studies courses, I'm going to learn a lot about this country.

I've also gotten to explore the area a little bit more (thanks to no Friday classes in my schedule). Last weekend, I had dragon boat training again on Saturday and then ventured out to the beautiful Gold Coast for a beach day on Sunday. Yesterday, I went to Brisbane's Science Center to check out their dinosaur exhibit which was pretty cool, especially since we recently learned about all of Australia's flora from that period that still exists today in my terrestrial environment class. Afterwards we went to see the Brisbane Broncos play the Canterbury-Bankston Bulldogs in a rugby match. Unfortunately, the Broncos lost by 2 points, but the game was still exciting to watch (even though I didn't really figure out what was going on until the last 10 minutes of the game). Today (Saturday) was a lazy day that just mostly consisted of grocery shopping and such and then tomorrow is the final training session for dragon boat before race day next weekend! Hopefully, I won't be as sore after practice as last week.

Bushwalking and Dragon Boat Training

stephmonahan — Tue, 28 Jul 2015 17:41:00 GMT

I had a pretty adventurous Friday and Saturday this past weekend. I spent pretty much all day Friday bushwalking (Aussie for "hiking") up in the Mt. Coot-tha Forest just outside of Brisbane. Then on Saturday, I had my first training session for the Dragon Boat Regatta.

Mt. Coot-tha

Our group of 6 girls decided to go hiking in the beautiful eucalyptus forests and rainforests of Mt. Coot-tha, so we took about a 20-25min bus ride up to Chapel Hill where the trailhead to the lookout point began. When planning the trip, we didn't realize how steep this particular trail was going to be and it was essentially a straight shot up the side of the mountain. The trail was less than a mile long, but took at least an hour to climb it. Definitely felt accomplished after reaching the top. There was actually a cafe and a restaurant on the top of the mountain at the lookout point that had a bus stop and people were able to drive there with their fancy picnic lunches and nice clothes. Meanwhile, we had just hiked up the mountain and were all sweaty and tired, but our picnic overlooking the whole city of Brisbane was much more rewarding.

We chose a longer and easier path down on the Aboriginal art trail that featured a number of paintings, tree carvings, and rock formations. On the way down, we saw some really colorful birds and you could really tell when you were walking from eucalyptus to rainforest because of the stark change in vegetation. It was amazing the difference a couple hundred meters could make! We reached the bottom and eventually ended up at the Brisbane Botanic Gardens where we got popsicles before catching the bus ride home.

Dragon Boat Training Numero Uno

So I signed up to compete with my apartment complex's Dragon boat team: Dragonest. I had no prior experiece, but decided to try anyway. And I'm so glad i did. It was a good work-out and a lot of fun. Plus, everyone on the team is super nice and all of them except Hannah and I are Australian, so it's nice to reach out of our little group of Americans and meet other people. We have a few more training sessions before race day on August 16th so hopefully we'll be able to get all of our strokes in sync before then.

Photos: Brisbane

stephmonahan — Wed, 22 Jul 2015 17:34:00 GMT

Photos: Ozzie Food

stephmonahan — Wed, 22 Jul 2015 17:16:00 GMT

Brissy: A Food Lover's Paradise

stephmonahan — Wed, 22 Jul 2015 15:38:00 GMT

I've been in Brisbane (aka Brissy) for exactly a week now and let me tell you, that is more than enough time to truly fall in love with this beautiful city. You get the big city feel, but with a lowkey, laid-back atmosphere and unbelievably friendly people. And so far it seems as though there is literally always something going on, especially in the trendy area of South Bank where I'm staying. I live in an apartment about 2 blocks from the Parklands, which hosts beautiful greenspace, an abundance of delicious restaurants and cafes, a number of events, a man made beach, and the Brisbane wheel, all along the riverbank of the Brisbane River.

Brisbane is honestly any food lover's paradise (so I promise you don't have to worry about me starving anytime soon, Mom). There's such a breadth of ethnic food choices here that you can essentially satisfy any craving. I'm personally super excited about all of the the Asian restaurants nearby. On a similar note, I'm also excited for the Noodle Night Market taking place in the Parklands for the next 12 days. Sooo much Asian food is going to be consumed. Last weekend, the Regional Flavors Food Festival took place there and was super amazing. I feel like there's just a constant stream of food markets going on in this city. It's perfect. Just today I went to the Queens Street Farmer's Market to pick up some groceries and scored some freshly made pasta from an Italian guy and the best yogurt I've ever tasted, among some other things. I haven't had a bad meal here yet (or even a mediocre meal for that matter) whether I'm eating out or cooking for myself with the super fresh ingredients that I'm able to get here. Even the eateries on University of Queenslands campus are super good.

Obviously, you can also get the iconic vegemite and TimTams here. I tried vegemite in Sydney and honestly it's just not my cup of tea. It kind of tastes like salty, fish-oil butter in my perspective. TimTams on the otherhand are going to be my downfall while I'm here. They're these delicious cookies that remind me a little bit of a twix bar and I just can't stop eating them. It's bad.

At least it's pretty easy to stay active here, which I'm going to need to do with all this delicious food I'm eating...

Photos: Sydney

stephmonahan — Tue, 21 Jul 2015 17:35:00 GMT

42 Wallaby Way, Sydney

stephmonahan — Tue, 21 Jul 2015 15:52:00 GMT

I spent the first few days of my Australian adventure in the beautiful city of Sydney. To my dissappointment, I was informed very soon after my arrival that there was no Wallaby Way in Sydney. Clearly, someone is missing out on making a lot of money off of tourists. However, this was probably the only dissappointment I experienced in the three days I spent there.

Our travel group stayed in the YHA hostel in the historical Rocks District which was originally where all of Britain's convicts were kept when Australia was formed as a penal colony. The hostel was built on an archeological site that used to be home to some of the convicts. Pretty cool. The hostel also had amazing views of the Sydney Opera House and the Harbor Bridge from the roof.

After the short program orientation, we went on a walking tour of the city. Highlights included beautiful views of the harbor, the Royal Botanic Gardens which actually hosted 2 castels (somehow originally intended to prevent the French from attacking), and the Rum Hospital. The fun fact I learned about the Rum Hospital is that the name comes from the fact that convicts were paid in rum to build the hospital because Australia didn't have any form of money then.

When the tour finished, I peeked into the lobby of the Sydney Opera House, just to say I've been in it and then ventured over to the Museum of Modern Art until dinner at the hostel. Later, a couple others and I rounded out the day with a pint at what claimed to be Australia's oldest pub.

Day 2 was a super busy day. We got up early and took a bus first to the Featherdale Wildlife Park, then to the Blue Mountains Scenic World Katoomba, and lastly to the Waradah Aboriginal Experience Center.

At the wildlife park, I got to pet kangaroos, wallabies, a koala, and saw countless other animals truly iconic to Australia. We hiked in Katoomba for about an hour and a half and I'll admit it was absolutely freezing when we were at the top of the trail. It was supposedly -5 degrees Celsius, the lowest temperatures Sydney has seen in 15 years as I was told. Nonetheless, the hike was still beuatiful with gorgeous views of the Three Sisters rock formation and a very friendly and informative trail guide. Getting back to the top of the trail was quite an adventure though since we took the world's steepest railway back up. Since I'm slightly afraid of heights, this was rather terrifying. We sat backwards on a series of benches enclosed overtop with a few bars on top to hold on to. It was so steep that I was literally staring straight down as we ascended backwards. I'm pretty sure my heart was still pounding from that by the time we arrived at the Waradah Aboriginal Experience Center. Once there, we painted our own boomerangs and then sat for didgeridoo and Corroboree dancing demonstrations. It was really interesting to learn a bit more about the Aboriginal people and makes me excited for the Aboriginal studies classes I plan to take while I'm here.

After a long day up in the Blue Mountains, we returned for dinner at The Establishment, which turned out to be a fancier place than we were all dressed for. Oh well, the food was good and at least our whole group was all in the same boat. I went to bed pretty soon after dinner since I was exhausted, ending day 2 in Sydney.

The morning of day 3 was primarily taken up by more orientation meetings that while useful, weren't the most exciting. But we had free time for the rest of the afternoon which a few of the other girls from the program and I used to sort out our Australian phones and walk to Chinatown for an amazing lunch and walk around the city. We ended our last day in Sydney with a lovely dinner cruise around the harbor with decent food, a couple of drinks, and wonderful company before packing up for the move to Brisbane.