Living on the Edge

First week of classes went well, but we were all excited to start the weekend. Saturday was our first tree planting day! We worked aside members of TREAT (Tree Restoration of the Evelyn and Atherton Tablelands) to plant 3000 seedlings. We spent the whole morning throwing fertilizer into holes and planting seedlings within them. It was here that we met Tim, the summer intern who is now probably on his way back home to Brisbane for the fall semester. (Our spring overlaps with their summer). Being one of the first Australians we encountered, everyone was interested in learning what they could about Australian culture from him.
After the tree planting, we touristed a bit. We viewed some waterfalls, ate at Gallo Dairy and later we hit up our first Australian Pub (Peeramon Pub). IDs were not necessary since there really isn't a drinking age in Australia. I'll leave our experiences at the pub on the DL since drinking is a universal phenomenon anyhow.

Well the weekend ends and so began another week of classes. Perhaps the most valuable thing I learned that week was never open your cabin door before shining your light on your porch. I say this because I accidentally let a venomous Eastern small-eyed Snake into our cabin. I instinctively reacted by kicking it backwards to prevent it from biting any of my cabinmates (do not fear animal rights activists, I only kicked it hard enough to redirect it from moving further into our cabin). I then flickered my light towards the corner of the porch so that it would slither away from me and the door. As soon as it moved, I sprinted past it, slammed the door and warned my perplexed cabinmates that they shouldn't go outside until the morning.

My first encounter with a snake was quickly succeeded by a chance sighting of our first python. As I was frantically searching for my misplaced camera, I shined my light into the eyes of a 12-ft long Amethystine python right outside the center. Unfortunately I have no pictures to show since the lost status of my camera was my reason for stumbling upon it. However, I have heard rumors of a Carpet Python that has made several appearances at cabin 2. I will post a picture of it as soon as I see it. In summary, snakes: we have a lot of them.

Thought I'd throw in a picture of a Monitor Lizard chilling on a tree B)

Snakes aren't the only things to be seen when the sun goes down. Yungaburra has quite the nightlife scene, as we discovered on our nightwalk. From bioluminescent mushrooms to the spectacular flickering of fireflies you will hardly need a flashlight to navigate the woods (just kidding, NEVER get caught without a flashlight! You'll need it to see the snakes.) Pictured above are Pademelons, which are small kangaroos and below is a Forest Dragon. Yes, Dragons exist and we have those too!