Aussie term of the day…
“Biscuits and Scones” - Remember that whole lemonade / solo / lift thing that I mentioned a while back?
Well here’s another one for you. Let’s see if I get this right… Their biscuits
are our cookies, their scones are our biscuits, and our scones are their
biscuits. What the heck?! So needless to
say, this has become a source of poking fun the past week. “I’m just gonna sit
here and eat my COOKIE with milk.”“Wouldn’t it be nice to have a scone for
breakfast? Oh wait, you guys don’t HAVE any!” But seriously, I’m gonna have to
make them American scones sometime soon and introduce them to that breafasty
goodness.
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| Morning fog over Mount Stuart on the way to uni |
Aside from having coffee on campus a couple times, I can’t
say I had really gotten a good induction into some of the common student
cuisine on campus, until this week. I’ll
give you some advice and say that the Miss Sushi place has probably the best
Vanilla Lattés around (I know, sushi and coffee, but trust me on this) and they
also have some pretty good sushi I might add.
Friday’s tend to be Free Upgrade Fridays on coffees which is fantastic! The
Juliette’s gelato place in the library usually has an amazing selection (I
would personally recommend Ferrero and Caramel Fudge), though I would warn you
that that building often feels like Antarctica.
It seems almost a waste of energy to use enough air-con to give the
massive building a feel like you’re in the center of the polar ice cap in
contrast to the outside world but maybe the method to the madness there it to
help keep students awake while studying…
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| Skink on campus. |
Also, every Tuesday and Thursday the Rock, Paper, Scissors shop downtown usually has $5 fish n’
chips. Bec, Blessing and I made a dinner
out of it this past Thursday in fact! Very lemony though I might add.
Aside from enlightenment in food cuisine, I got to go to
Magnetic Island (i.e. Maggie Island in typical Aussie shortening style of
course) this weekend!
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| See ya' in a bit Townsville! |
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| Takin' the ferry over to Maggie Island |
That was way fun and really very pretty. The weather was pretty darn warm so I guess
it was a good day to go swimming! Which
we did for the first time OUTSIDE of a stinger net… Just a little unsettling after the umpteen serious talks we have been
getting about NOT going into the water without a stinger net. Of course there would be this one little cove
where the jellies mysteriously wouldn’t be found for some reason. Cause that makes sense.
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| And we didn't die! |
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| Arcadia Beach, the mysteriously jelly fish free cove. |
We all got day passes to the bus for the day and
hop-skipped around Maggie to several beaches around the island.
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| Horseshoe Bay |
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| Picnic Bay |
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| Under the pier at Picnic Bay |
At one beach, Picnic Bay, a group of about 8
of us took off from the rest of the gang to take a hike up the mountain to a
lookout of some Maggie Island coastline. I think roundtrip it took us about an
hour and it was quite hot for the most of it.
But I can’t complain, at least I wasn’t one of the people in that
marathon they had going on. Those people
had to run in it.
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| Most of the group aside from the other Julia who was taking the picture. |
Completely off topic here, but I have been wearing flip
flops (i.e. “thongs”) here so much that I am getting calluses between my big
toe and the one next to it…
Back on track. The hike was a bit of a fun rock scramble and the look outs
were breathtaking!
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| Picnic Bay from the lookout |
Other than seeing some absolutely gorgeous scenery and hanging
out with some pretty fun people, I also got to see some pretty cool
wildlife. Of course there were some cool
birds I saw flying around but this one in particular caught my eye as we passed
by it while riding the bus. I can’t seem to figure out what it was but it was
mostly black, about the size of a bush turkey, and had bright blue, iridescent
feathers on its chest and a red head and crown.
I do know that it wasn’t a cassowary, that is certain. Speaking of which, from what I have heard,
those things are nasty. Don’t get in a
fight with one of those. You will lose. And speaking of dangerous animals,
I got to learn a bit about a notorious one this past week.
If you haven’t heard about drop bears yet, let me
enlighten you with a helping of study inspired knowledge. Scientifically they
are called the Thylarctos plummentus,
and they became a protected species in 1968 after populations were decimated
and drove almost to extinction by overhunting for the fur trade and their
teeth. They are a marsupial with a remarkable likeness to a koala in appearance
though there are some studies that show they are more closely related to
predators like the Tasmania tiger and the Tasmanian devil. They are carnivorous and live in treetops,
choosing the “sit-and-wait” hunting technique and waiting for prey to walk
below them before dropping several feet from the trees height and on to their
unsuspecting prey. They don’t normally
go after humans, though if sufficiently spooked and given ample opportunity
they will. They are relatively dangerous,
like the cassowary and a good number of other animals here, so it is not
recommended to give them any cause for coming after you. Like you normally would when hiking out in Australia, always keep
an eye on your surroundings and know what’s around you!
An old bushman’s trick for deterring drop bears when
hiking in an area you know they are present, is putting on a little Vegemite. Weird,
I know, but it works kind of like mosquito repellent does for mosquitoes. It’s
said they have a strong aversion to the smell. There are some conflicting views
as to its effectiveness but I would say it’s always worth a try just to be on
the safe side!
On a slightly lighter note, I got to see a bunch of rock wallabies!
There was a whole group of them on Maggie Island on a rock peninsula our group
walked out to while waiting for the 6:45 ferry back to the mainland.
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| Nelly Bay and the ferry terminal around sunset |
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| Rock Wallaby! |
AND I got to see my first Joey in the pouch
today too! It was so cute!
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