Coastal Forest Ecosystem Part 2 – Rainforest and Outback

I am officially done with one class: Coastal Forest Ecosystems. We finished our final today! One class down, 3 to go - plus my own ‘targeted research project’ (TRP) - then I'm done with Australia!

The second part of the Forest Ecosystems course was completely different from the first (mangroves) but it was still equally amazing and ridiculous. A friend of mine described our experience as summer camp, and (despite the fact that I never actually went to summer camp growing up), I would complete agree.

We started out in Yungaburra within the Atherton Tableland (a volcanic plateau in North Queensland) staying in a hostel called "On the Wallaby". We then headed to Undara National Park to a resort/camping lodge. Its so hard to keep track of days here, since we are essentially in the middle of nowhere and have class usually through the weekends. Normally, each day we had 2-3 hours of lecture, then spent the rest of the day “in the field”. Our "field" was different types of Rainforests (did you know there’s such a thing as a dry Rainforest?…well there is! We learned all about it…) Here is a little break down of what we did each day.

Sunday

We arrived in Yungaburra and ventured off to the Curtain Strangler Fig Tree.

This amazing fig tree began when a seed was deposited in a branch of a tree (through animal droppings). The seed germinated and aerial roots grew down and around this host tree, eventually pulling it down (strangling it). It was pulled it into another tree at an angle, while the roots continued to grow 50 feet through the air to the ground, creating a curtain effect.

The original tree rotted away so you can almost see completely through it at places.

We also headed to the gorgeous Lake Barrine

where we walked around, exploring and finding some cool musky rat kangaroos. It’s really hard to take a picture of these animals, but they are essentially tiny little marsupials a little bit bigger than a rat, found in the rainforests of New Guinea and northeast Australia.

They actually hop around!

Musky Rat Kangaroos

They are hilarious to watch!

At night, we went on a night canoeing/wildlife spotting trip on a nearby lake. We saw a bunch of possums and musky rat kangaroos!

Monday:

We started with a tour of a tropical Rainforest walking around Lake Eacham (a crater lake),

then went for a little afternoon swim

before heading to a dry Rainforest at David’s Creek.

Tuesday:

Today was an early morning! One of our assignments included listening to the “morning choir” and identifying bird calls. Well, the morning choir begins before sunrise, so we were up and out the door by 5am! No worries though, watching the sun rise in the rainforest while listening to the calls Rainforest birds make is completely worth waking up for.

Morning Chorus Group

After a morning lecture we hiked through a tropical rainforest to this gorgeous waterfall pool

(where we swam of course)

then dried off and headed to Bonadio Farm.

The Bonadios are experiment then had a bbq dinner where we got to try both kangaroo (marinated this time) and crocodile. Both were surprisingly good! Since we were eating in a covered area pretty much in the forest, they put out a table of food and possums, bandicoots, and pademelons all came around to snack while we ate!

We also saw a joey (baby kangaroo) that was rescued after his mom was hit by a car. It was adorable!

After dinner, we took a tour of their glow worms caves! Not as many as we saw in New Zealand, but still really cool!

Wednesday:

One of our tutors, Claire Baker, is essentially an insect expert, and she gave us a bug lecture and let us hold Gretel, as GIANT stick insect!

We left On the Wallaby and began our 3 hour journey in our Troopies to Undara National park in the outback. We broke the long drive up with a swim in yet another gorgeous waterfall pool.

We hiked up to the highest rock, bird watching on the way up,

then sat and watched the sun set over the outback.

Thursday:

We explored the “schlerophyll forest” vegetation of the outback in the morning then had a guided tour of the Undara lava tubes. The view was crazy!

We hiked up and watched the sun set,

and it was just as amazing as the night before. After dinner we hiked back up to the same spot in the dark. We stayed for about an hour stargazing. You can see soooo many more stars than you can it home. I can’t even describe how many stars lit up the sky. Since this was our last night of the course, we headed back down for a campfire with roasted marshmallows (apparently the concept of s’mores doesn’t exist in Australia) and campfire songs!

O ya, and sometime during this busy day we attempted to find time to study for our final which was Friday morning.

Friday:

After an early morning kangaroo-watching walk, we took our final (yayyyy!) then began our trip back to Yungaburra. I stayed at Yungaburra with 7 other students, while the rest of the group headed off to Cairns for 5 free days. Since my TRP is in part of the Coastal Forest Ecosystems component of our class, I have my 3 research days in Yungaburra (but its okay cause I still get 2 days off when we join the group on Monday). We haven’t finalized our research plan yet, but it will involve platypus watching!

Week 2 - Daintree Mangroves

Week 2: One Day of classes then off to Cairns

Monday, real classes started!! We had a long day of lecture, but it wasn't too bad since we were all excited to leave for Cairns on Tuesday.

Tuesday --travel day!!! I thought traveling with a group of 20 with softball was intense, but try 48 plus teachers/tutors! †Everything went surprisingly smooth. We landed in Cairns (pronoun "cans") and broke into our randomly assigned two groups (Bandicoots and Wallabies). My group, the Bandicoots were headed off to the Daintree for the Mangrove ecology unit of our forest unit, while the other group headed to Yungbarra for the Terrestrial Forest unit. After 4 days of classes, we would switch and complete the other part of the course.

There is a little ferry across the Daintree River, providing the only way to cross the river in order to limit the people visiting and preserve the rainforest.

Here is the little hostel we stayed at called Crocadylus:

We started off our Mangrove unit Wednesday morning with a Daintree River cruise down the Daintree River, learning all about the 30+ species of mangroves (actually just trying to write down everything our professor was saying really, really fast cause I actually had no clue what was going on and how I was going to remember the difference between all these different type of mangroves?),



cool little crabs,


and of course dangerous crocodiles


inhabiting the river.

After this cruise, we headed to lunch where I had my first experience eating kangaroo!!! †We had kangaroo burgers and it was surprisingly good! †Apparently we get to try marinated kangaroo and crocodile later in the trip!
We had some free time and a group of use took a jog to this gorgeous beach then went for a little swim!

For the rest of the course, we were broken up into our fields groups, including 8 students and a tutor. †How KL, Liz and I all managed to be in the same group of 8 is unbelievable, but im not complaining! †Each day, we set off into our "Troopies" (below) and headed into the field where every group was studying a different aspect of the mangroves. †The other 2 groups looked at the water and forest conditions, and we got to look at the fauna or animals in the forest (the best one if you ask me -- but it was also the one with the most hands on time in the mangroves with long hours and lots of mud!!) †On Thursday and Friday, we were out in the field from 8am to almost 6pm, conducting 4 mini experiments at 4 different sites. †I won't go into too much detail, but we look at epifauna (life in the trees), infauna (life in the ground), leaf teathering (basically tied leaves to strings and tested to see what leaves crabs like to eat more, which included a component where we had to catch as many crabs as possible in 15 minutes), and hebivory (how much insects eat the leaves).

Colony of fruit bats

Partner shot holding our "mangrove bible" (written by our professor)

Let's just say we got pretty dirty...

and of course since its a tradition, we had to spell out "beat cal" (which actually might happen this year considering Stanny football is currently undefeated in the Pac-10...of course the year im not there..great timing!)

It was a lot of work, but it was also a lot of fun...and because of the long hours both our tutor, Alex, and our professor, Norm treated our group to ice cream (amazing local Australian fruit flavors) both field days. †

Saturday we presented our data (yes, I actually learned a surprisingly large amount) and Sunday we headed to Yungbarra where we will finish the course in the rainforest!

God's Own Country : Kerala

Kerala is called God's own country, and I had always been skeptical of this title somehow, never having been to the backwaters there. Am not anymore! ! I think this term defines this heavenly state aptly!

We went to Kerala in Sep, on a 3 day weekend.. four old friends on a girls weekend out:). We flew into Cochin, and from there on drove to Kumarakom. Its a 2 hour drive, and what surprises you on this drive is the density of population there. You never feel as if you've left the city of Cochin (now called Kochi!), all the way to Kumarakom. There is inhabitation all along the way, and you get glimpses of beautiful houses with coconut trees next to them, rubber plantations, rice fields.. We actually went through the hinterland, as the direct road to Kumarakom was blocked, so that was good as the drive is quite beautiful.

At Kumarakom, we stayed at the Backwaters Ripples resort next to the Vembanad lake.. Its a beautiful and reasonably priced resort, with a swimming pool with a beautiful view of the lake, a clock tower or tree house (couldnt figure out what this was) to get an aerial view of the lake, a library with a good book collection, a health centre, a massage centre and an activity centre... perfect to have a relaxing time, isnt it?

The cottages at the resort are good, each with a lake view or garden view. The service is quite friendly, with a traditional Mallu welcome given to all. The food at the resort isn't too great though. Something notable about the resort though, is that the bathrooms have an open roof, with plantations all around. Quite creepy to be frank, but some people seem to love it!!

Kerala is the place where you should go when all you want to do is relax, completely.. do nothing, just read and think:) And thats what we did! Laze around, talking, reading and nothing else other than that, just taking in the beauty and calmness of the place around.

In the evening, the resort had a ferry ride, which takes you on the lake, where you can see the sunset over the lake. The lake is huge, though it seems to have deteriorated, due to the water hyacinth floating all over. You will also see lot of houseboats floating around on the lake.. The sunset scenes are beautiful too, and all you feel is serenity and calmness..














The next day, we stayed in a houseboat which picked up from the resort itself, and then we floated around in the Alleppey area (now called Alapuzzu). The houseboats turned out to be much bigger than we expected though! The sitting room was huge, with windows to sit in and admire the stillness of the water outside. With two bedrooms and bathrooms, it was bigger than what we get in Mumbai:). There are 2-3 people on the boat to take care of you, as the boat navigator and the cook but you are otherwise on your own. The meals on the boat were tasty, traditional Mallu food. Everything has coconut and/or is made using coconut oil:D. They just love the coconut, dont they?

The houseboats are floating aimlessly on the lakes most of the day, but moored on the banks for meals and at night. Just sitting there in the boat, floating on the water, reading a book.. yes that's how heaven must feel like! The houseboat has stars fitted onto the roof which are switched on at night and flicker in different colours. Though you don't need them, the night sky is so beautiful there anyways!!

We also had a funny incident with a cow there! For dinner, our houseboat was docked, and a guy came with a small boat asking us if we wanted to go for a boat ride. One of our friends was enthu about it, and so we also decided to give her company. We got onto another houseboat, then jumped onto land to reach the boat. I was walking in front on the path to the bank, which was quite narrow. My friends who were behind, saw a cow charging at them, screamed, and got back into the houseboat next to them. However, I was already ahead and could not turn back. So I got onto the side of the path, where there were some fields. It was a raised ground and I thought I would be safe there. But the cow who was running on the path, suddenly turned and charged towards me. I screamed and ran into the field, which was like 5 feet lower! So I fell onto the crops and the mud:)))). Thankfully the cow followed only for a bit and then left, guess it did not see me anymore..:). Was quite a scary experience, and I shudder to think what would have happened if the cow followed me?! It sounded very funny later though if you think about it:))

Anyways, the next day, we had to bid goodbye to the backwaters and the houseboat (tearfully), and then we drove back to Cochin, where we had to take our flight from. In Cochin, Kochi fort is apparently good to visit, but we chose to spend our time more productively, namely shopping!!( what else would you expect if four women are on a holiday!). Anyways, the whole market in Cochin was selling only two things, both Mallu specialities: Silk Sarees and gold jewellery! We did some saree shopping and also increased our knowledge about the different types of sarees there are! Choosing the colours for the sarees was tough though, its difficult to be comfortable with the kind of bright colours usually worn in the South!