Conservation Volunteers of Australia: Mount Tambourine

This past weekend I joined up with Conservation Volunteers of Australia (CVA) through a program set up by AustraLearn. CVA took us up to Mount Tambourine where we spent the weekend working on conservation projects and seeing the mountain. Each of the projects we worked on were in residential areas in conjunction with Landcare. The goal of the projects was to restore public lands back to a rainforrest environment with the goal of having these lands connect the 5 smaller national parks in the area. This will allow animals to move between parks without leaving their natural habitat.

Banana Palms

Each of the projects we worked on involved weeding and removing non-native plants as well as some planting of native trees. At our first site we cut down 2 bunches of banana palms and cut up the pieces to use as mulch. The palms were located next to a very muddy creek so it was a messy job.

The results of Day 1. It looks messy but we were assured it would break down in no time leaving a nice area for planting.

Our second day was by far the longest of the weekend. We started the day by weeding out Latana from a section of the area undergoing rehabilitation. Lantana is a very invasive weed brought over from South America. The first time I saw it I thought it had pretty flowers; however, after spending 4 hours removing some of it I may have changed my mind about that . In the afternoon we got to plant over 120 native trees and plants in the area that we had cleared in the morning making the hard work worth the effort.

Day 3 site. This was after we were done and although it looks messy we had cleared out a LOT of weeds.

Our final day was spent at a local highschool clearing privet from site. Privet is a weed that was brought over from China to be used in landscaping and has since taken over in the wild. This was the hardest work we did over the weekend because Privet has a very established root system making it difficult to remove.

Paraglider off Mount Tambourine.

Our hard work was rewarded on the last day as we had some time to see other parts of Mt. Tambourine in the afternoon. We first headed up to the top of the mountain to watch some hang gliders and paragliders jumping off the side of the mountain. It was a pretty amazing sight! After this we went to the Numinbah Forrest (one of the National Parks in the area) for a bush walk. We got to see many amazing trees that were huge. Although the trees were pretty impressive, the highlight of the hike was a chance to see a wallaby (think smaller kangaroo) in the wild. It has been my goal to see one outside of a zoo while I was here and now I have!

The Team in a Fig Tree.
Tyler (PA), Anna Lee (Mexico), Jenny, Jess (MN), Kelly (DC)

Some random observations from the weekend:
* S’mores are a distinctly American thing. We took a stab at sharing the treat with our Aussie leader but it was a bit difficult as Graham crackers are also an American thing apparently. We settled for “Nice Biscuits” which worked okay. The marshmallows were also different with a lot more sugar in them making toasting the perfect marshmallow more challenging because the sugar would burn really easily.
* We are apparently picking up way more Aussie slang than we realise as the Aussies commented several times on things we said that can only be considered “distinctly” Australian. You won’t be able to understand me by the time I get home . Haha.

I hope you all have a good week. On Thursday I am heading off to Kangaroo Island (in Southern Australia) and Tasmania for the midsemester holiday (spring break in American speak). See you all in October!

Surfing Pictures!

As promised here are some pictures from my surfing adventures…

The whole surf group. From front to back: Dom (OZ), Kelly (NJ), Amanda (SC), Robin (WA), Jess (MN), Katie (FL), Amanda (IN), Me, Amanda (MD), Liz (NY), Sarah (NC), Zac (DC)

Just about to fall off.

If you look closely you can see me under the water. I spent a lot of time this way.

Yes I actually had a great time. Although this is one of the few times they caught me smiling. I guess I was just concentrating .

Surfing! As you can tell this was a big event…look at the girl in the background. Haha.

Hang Ten

I have held off on this post hoping the pictures of me surfing this weekend would arrive; however, since I’m out the door again tomorrow I thought I’d share the past weekend and hopefully I’ll have some pictures by the time I get home.

This past weekend I took a trip to Byron Bay to try my hand at surfing. It was quite the adventure. A group of us were picked up on Friday evening for the two hour trek to Byron. From the moment we stepped in the van the tone for the weekend was set: that of the surfer party life. The surfer driving the van was named Shawn-O (emphasis on the O) and he definitely fit the surfer stereotype: blond, dirty hair, wearing board shorts and interested in partying and girls. Needless to say it was a fun ride and the two hours went by rather quickly.

As the weekend was all about surfing, we were up bright and early Saturday morning for our first surf lesson. The surf was not exactly beginner surf as it was very windy so there were waves coming from every direction. But did that stop us? Of course not. After learning the basics of the surf and how to get on the boards we headed out to the water. I can honestly say I spent more time under the water than on top. If you could classify any of my actions as standing up it was only for the last second of the ride and I was underwater before I even realised I was standing. One moment that particularly sticks out in my head is Shawno riding the back of my board to “stabilise” it and me ending up under the water while he successfully surfed on my board. Funny how that all works.

On Sunday morning we were back in the water for a second lesson. The weather was worse than the previous day as it was actually raining but we went to a more sheltered beach so the waves were coming from one direction instead of five (although they were bigger this day). Dom (our other instructor) taught me another technique which seemed to be a bit more successful for me and I can now say that I have surfed a few waves in my life. I ended up much more bruised than before I started but I surfed! (Now I just need the pictures to come so I can prove it .

Another highlight of the weekend was a Saturday afternoon walk to the Byron Bay lighthouse located on the most easterly point of Australia. This was probably the highlight of my weekend as I got to see many beautiful views of the bay, coastal rainforest and the light house. In absence of surfing pictures I will leave you with some pictures of my Byron hike. Enjoy!

The Byron Bay Lighthouse

We had some scattered showers on our walk but this just meant many beautiful sightings of the sun coming through the clouds over the water.

Byron Bay. These waves were much like some of the ones we surfed: constant. Look closely and you can see a wind surfer.

Lots of surfers…and these ones were good.

Surfers of a point. As you can see, these waves were huge!

Footy!

Go Lions! Katie (OR) and I Celebrating after a Lions Goal.

This weekend I had the chance to go to a footy game at the Gabba here in Brisbane. The Aussies were on to something when they invented footy (also known as Aussie Rules Football). This sport is one of the more entertaining I have ever watched and I am quite surprised that it hasn’t become more popular throughout the world. As I’m sure many of you reading this are unfamiliar with footy I will do my best to explain it to you. The best way I can describe AFL is as a combination of the best aspect of every game that we are familiar with in the states. It seems to borrow from basketball, volleyball, football, soccer, rugby, wrestling and boxing. It is a very high contact sport with no padding worn by the players. The game is fast paced and something exciting always seems to be going on (either on the field or in the stands). Although the game often seems to have very few rules (for examples players will be fighting with each other on one side of the field while the game is actively happening at the other end), it is more structured than it first appears but in general easy to understand the main gist.

The Aussie Rules Field. Notice the Goal at the end. The middle is worth 6 points and the outside posts worth 1.

Based on what I learned at the game (and some research I did before hand) here is a short background on the game. Footy was first created to keep cricket players in shape during the off season. It has evolved into much more than that since then and is one of the most watched sports in Australia. The rules for AFL are pretty simple. Footy is played on an oval shaped field that varies in size but can be between 135 to 185 meters long. (You’ll quickly realise that there are many un-defined details about the game such as the field size). The goal consists of for poles. Scoring between the middle two poles is considered a goal which is worth 6 points. Scoring between the outer two poles on either side is called a behind which is worth only one point. The ball can be kicked or bounce once before going through the goal but can not be touched by anyone for it to count. Also it can go through the poles or above the poles as long as it is within the proper region of the goals. Players are only allowed to carry the ball for a maximum of 15 meters at which point they must bounce the ball on the grass at least once (think dribbling in basketball), kick it to another player, or pass it using somewhat of an underhand volleyball serve method. “Regular” throwing is not allowed. The ball is pretty much in constant change off between the two teams with possession changing continually. As best I can tell the other team can do pretty much anything to gain control of the ball including tackling and fighting with the other team. There are rules about what exactly is allowed but they seem to be pretty lenient and for the untrained eye it seems as if anything goes. If a team member catches a ball that was kicked a distance greater than 15 meters they are given a free kick and allowed to take time to set up their next move without fear of tackle by the other team, otherwise it is a free for all at all times during the game. The game is divided into four quarter which last 20 minutes; however, the clock never stops so when game play is interrupted this is later taken into account allowing each quarter to last anywhere from 20 minutes to 37 minutes in one quarter last night. (I’m not sure how that worked out because there was definitely not 17 minutes when play stopped but who am I to question?) Each team has 18 players on the field at one time and 4 players on the bench. As such the players are in excellent shape as they must play most of the game (since there are only 4 subs).

A Good Portion of the Group. From left to right (beginning in row 1): Kelly (NJ), Trish (PA), Hannah (Scotland), Imke (Germany), Katie (OR), Robin (WA), Tyler (PA), Greg (NJ), Lincoln (WI)

The game at the Gabba stadium here in town this weekend was between the Brisbane Lions and the Geelong Cats. I went to the game with 20 other people and we had a great time. The game was a big one for Brisbane as we had to win in order to make it in to post season play (which unfortunately didn’t happen as we are ranked 10th in the country and Geelong is ranked #1 having lost only 4 games this season (and winning the last 14 games or something crazy like that)). Despite the odds against us the stadium was packed (34107 people attended the game) and the crowd was enthusiastic the entire game. The Lions put up a good fight especially towards the end of the game but ended up loosing 103 to 145. (Did I mention it is a very high scoring game?) Despite the loss the game was a fun experience and the crowd had a great time. Some highlights and observations from the game included:

* Watching the trainers. They are allowed to be on the field at any time and play does not stop for them to attend to a potentially injured player or to provide water to players. Rather they run on to the field and work with players around the play. They also play the role of carrying directions from the coach to the players as the coach is not allowed to step foot on the field.
* A Lions player ripping the shorts off a Geelong player during a tackle. The player continued to play in his underwear for several minutes until a trainer was able to bring him some shorts and there was a lull in the action for him to change. He never stopped playing and returned the favor to the Lions player later in the game when he tried to pull his shorts off.
* The cheers and jeers between the players of opposite teams. Each team had huge pom poms (called floggers) behind the goals for fans to wave during the excitement and many people had their team flag to wave, hats (or crazy wigs) to wear and a scarf sporting their teams colours. There was definitely a lot of yelling (and a bit of fighting) back and forth between sides. No one can say Aussie’s aren’t passionate about their sports.
* 2 girls (spectators) deciding (they were probably rather drunk at this point as drinking seems to be a big part of the event ) to streak across the field during the middle of play in the 4th quarter. (The game only sort of stopped while this was happening). They were chased across the field by police officers and security until they were caught (or more likely tackled) by police and carried off the field. We were all curious to know what the punishment for that would be but no one around us seemed to know.
* Rowdy Geelong fans throwing one of their friends (a large guy) up in the air every time the Geelong scored in the last quarter of the game. The guy was probably thrown in the air at least 30 times.
* Other rowdy fans being escorted out of the stadium by police all while still swinging at and punching the police hauling them out.
* At the end of the game all of the fans are able to go down on the field which is another interesting twist that would never happen at a sports arena back home. Apparently sometimes if something big happens mid-game people will enter the field during quarter breaks too.

Although the spectators provided as much entertainment as the game itself the game really was the highlight of the night. The excitement of the fans and the energy behind the game made for an enjoyable watch. I really am surprised that footy hasn’t become more popular throughout the rest of the world. I can see the rest of the world really enjoying the game.

If you would like to see what game play is like, you can go to this website: Watch Aussie Rules Football Here I will say: if you aren’t thoroughly impressed by the game on video – it is much more exciting and easier to follow in person when you have an idea of the bigger picture of what is going on. Although I have enjoyed watching the games on TV here it is much more interesting in person. Go Lions!

If you want to read more about footy: More about Footy