Hike through Mt. Whitfield Environmental Park

I am finally here in Cairns, Australia! I ended up sitting next to a crazy right-wing Jesus-loving Christian on the 14 hour flight from San Fransisco to Sydney, which was...interesting. He was very chatty and wanted to talk about "God's awesomeness" and his "anticipation of the afterlifehe." Conversing with this fellow was frustrating, though I survived nonetheless.

Cairns is very hot and humid. After the group met at the airport and made it to the hostel, we promptly put on our bathing suits and jumped into the pool! That evening we toured the town with our leader/teacher, Jack. He showed us the man-made lagoon where people swim in the city since there is no real beach in Cairns...plus it's "stinger season" so swimming off the coast in northern Queensland is not recommended. It was hard for us all to stay up since we were all jet-lagged, but we managed to make it down to the hostel's bar for a drink before we called it a night at 9pm. At the bar we met a lot of the other people staying here, who are mostly our age and from all over the world.

We woke up at 6:45am the next morning for our nature hike at Mt. Whitfield Environmental Park. Just as the cab driver dropped us off at the entrance, it began to downpour. The rain finished however, just as we entered the forest and in a few short minutes my quickdry pants were no longer drenched. During the hike Jack enlightened us about the flora of a rain forest and pointed out the native and nonnative species. As we got back to the base after our morning hike, we were greeted by another SIT staff member who had an amazing tropical fruit breakfast waiting for us. Mangos, kiwis, mangosteens, papaya, baby bananas, melons, and scones....so delicious!
Last night was our first night out on the town and it was a more than fantastic time! We got pizza and watched Serena win the finals at a pizzeria around the corner, then went to a few bars later in the evening. Today, we are going to Reef Teach to learn about our mairne module.

Fellow Traveler

As I was settling into my seat on the plane from Omaha to Denver, a man in his late twenties, early thirties sat down in the seat next to me and placed a Lonely Planet guide book to Australia in the seat pocket in front of him. Excited, I promptly asked him if he was traveling to Australia too! He was. He said he'd saved up some money, quit his job, and is going to backpack in Australia for a few months. He has no set plans for this trip; just going to stay in hostels and hopefully meet other tourists to travel with. We talked about Australia for a good portion of the flight. This made me realize how much background research I did NOT do. He let me borrow his book and I read up on some Queensland history. This made me feel more informed.

All Packed and Ready to Go!

I finished packing today and managed to fit four months worth of clothes for hiking, swimming, camping, touring, and partying into a large hiking backpack and one daypack. I'd commandeered my sister's old room and converted it into my packing room, laying piles of clothes by category around the perimeter of the bedroom-- I can be a bit OCD at times. I tried hard to stick to the packing list that the program sent, but couldn't resist throwing in a few extra articles of clothing for each category. "One dress," says the list??--come on, I'll be going out more than that. Did I mention that there is a bar located on the first floor of the hostel we are staying at? Hello!
Tomorrow, Wednesday, January 27th, I'll be leaving Omaha in the late afternoon and heading to Denver, Colorado. I'll, then board a flight to San Francisco, CA where I will hopefully meet up with other students in my group. Then we'll head to Sydney, Australia. After this 14 hour flight, We'll get on a 2 hour flight to Cairns in Queensland, Australia a.k.a. our final destination. We'll make our way to the Northern Greenhouse Hostel in the heart of the city, which will be our base camp for the next four months. Seems like a pretty fun place by the looks of its website: http://www.friendlygroup.com.au/northern-greenhouse/facilities.html