Quick overview:
- Tuesday 29th - Cheap night at Townsville bars & clubs - super drunken partying; not bad enough for spew/hangover.
- Wednesday - Bus tour of Townsville, lots of orientation programs about how to use JCU and plan a schedule, finalized some scheduling, returned to Stockland for a prepaid cell phone
- Thursday - Trip to the local public aquarium, the world's largest living reef exhibit, where I bought an annual pass to return often; trivia night at the on campus club, "The Club," where my team won over the hundreds of other students and therefore each of us received mini-ping pong tables, then returned to the dorms to find most of our friends already drunk early and therefore went to bed somewhat early
- Friday - Trip to the Billabong Sanctuary 17 km out of Townsville to see some Australian local wildlife, including multiple snakes, crocodiles, koalas, wombats, and cassowaries. As soon as I returned Friday, I threw things together to try to meet up with a group of new friends on the island about 2 miles offshore, Magnetic Island ("Maggie"). Confusing, because poor phone service there prevented me from making verbal contact with those I was about to venture about 15 miles away from campus to see, at night, alone - somehow, I made it - arrived just at dinnertime and was actually grillman for the night's burgers. Oh yeah, then we went out and got shitfaced at the island's only "late" (midnight) bar, the backpackers hostel "X Base."
- Saturday - up early (7 am) with two of the guys to clamber all the way down one of Maggie's bay's beaches (Nelly Beach), clamber over massive rocks all the way at the end, climb a path into a hill over down to the trail of a larger hill that led us perhaps five hundred feet off the ground, where we could see Townsville's entire downtown and most of Maggie. Clambered back down in time for breakfast with everyone else, then returned to the beach for some hanging out, music, vigorous games of ultimate frisbee and soccer, and then snorkeled off the beach to find the most coral I've ever seen in my life, with 100% bottom area covered for several football fields worth of area. I'll document this better when I go back with my underwater housing (otherwise I'd drag on here in writing for pages and pages). Then, of course, we came back to make a huge pasta dinner and dance to the local radio while drinking litres upon litres of the cheapest supply of alcohol out here - boxed wine, or as it is nicknamed, "goon." Then, we went to X Base and got shitfaced.
- Sunday - 7 AM, up early, hiked inland this time with a few of the guys, explored the central rainforest-y (dry season now) hills of Maggie, where we also took more pictures... Tried to copy a shot my friend Er-rational took when she was here. Returned in time for lunch, ran into our other house group and a massive dead tarantula on the way back, grabbed beach gear and took a bus over to one of Maggie's other beaches in Arcadia... Stayed there at low tide flipping over rocks and chasing stingrays and blacktip sharks in one foot of water until it was time to run back and grab the stuff from the houses to get on the ferry back to Townsville, where I ate a hearty meal and wrote this post.
I am very tired right now.
Instead of elucidating on all of those adventures, because there were other beer sessions and good people met and stories exchanged and deeper friendships made and other marine animals seen, just take a look through the following pictures, in chronological order from Friday, to get your own idea... Love you all!
Wednesday -
Below, check out Castle Hill in the background, overlooking all of downtown Townsville. I have not yet climbed it, but it is just an open hill at all hours and free to climb. The larger rock behind campus, Mt. Stuart (Spencer?), which is not shown here, is barricaded off for military use (see earlier post!).
Thursday -
Below, check out a three second shutter exposure of an aquarium of myctophid fishes, "lanternfishes." Below each eye they have a sac of bioluminescent bacteria that they can use for... well, many ecological purposes - perhaps recognition, signaling, predator evasion, confusion, prey detection... Anyhow, you can see one fish that had paused for just long enough to define the two bean shaped pouches in the lower left of the picture. The fish are from cold, deep water and therefore the tank is kept dark and cold (the need for a three second exposure).
Thursday Night...
Friday -
Saturday...Sunday... -
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