I Hugged a Koala!

Okay, now that I have a little bit of time to debrief, here’s what’s been going on in the land down under.

Right now I’m in a town in northern Australia called Cairns, (pronounced “cans”) the town has about 100,000 (up from 45,000 before the airport opened in 1994) and has a huge industry for tourism and sugar cane. Our bus driver this morning explained a lot about the sugar cane process around here. The entire production is self sufficient, using the non-sugar parts of the cane for mulch and energy that exceeds the needs of the factories. The cane producers actually put electricity back into the general grid. (pointless facts, maybe, but still pretty cool).

We’re staying at a place called Gilligan’s, it’s the nicest hostel I’ve ever seen! The rooms are fairly modest, but super clean and there’s a pool outside and a club/bar downstairs, nice kitchens and a lovely internet café on every floor.

The exciting part is what we did TODAY. This morning after our academic info session and goal setting with the Australearn program, our group headed off to a place called the RainForeStation (think Rain Forest Station) and it was incredible. We walk in and the first thing we see is a kangaroo just walking around on the path in front of us. From there we saw koalas, dingoes, wombats, wallabies, crocodiles, snakes and exotic birds. We got to feed the kangaroos (their fur is really soft!) and take pictures holding a huge snake! There were fruit orchards to see and we took a “duck tour” on a 1940s tank/boat through the lake/swamp and rainforest! We also saw an aboriginal dance group and one of the dancers taught us how to throw a boomerang, how to make and play a didgeridoo (the insides are hollowed out by termites) and how to throw a spear. We got to toss boomerangs, its tougher than you think! Mine didn’t quite come back, but it was fun to “Have a go” as the Aussies say :) There are different types of boomerangs all over the country depending on the different tribes and the usage. Some of them are pretty deadly. At the end of the day, we got to hold a koala and have our picture taken with it!!! They’re really soft and smell like eucalyptus. Overall, it was a fantastic day, Australia is more beautiful and exciting by the minute and I can’t wait to see more of it!

We leave tomorrow for Sydney and I’ll be moving into an apartment, meeting even more people and getting settled.

That’s it for now, much love, Rachel