rock on

i swear everyday in australia is better than the last. this past weekend, i tried something i had never done- bouldering! i went down with 20 or so people to a town called bowen, a two drive south from townsville. here, beautiful beaches and awesome rocks awaited. we set up camp minutes away from the water and immediately had to go swimming. best surprise ever: there were waves! the water was even cool and refreshing, a welcome change from the ocean by townsville. there weren't nets, but i was assured that no stingers (or at least minimal) were present there. sidenote: everyone told me that there are fist sized holes in the nets at the strand. a reassuring tip considering the highly venomous irukandji jellyfish are the size of a fingertip..

i got a new point and shoot camera, this one can go underwater to 15 meters and is overall pretty tough! good considering i tend to drop everything. 

mike & i enjoying the waves

then we were onto our first boulder of the day, which required a small hike up from the beach. what's cool about bouldering is that you don't have to wear a harness- the rocks aren't too high so if you fall you fall on a cushiony crash pad. still, the climbing can be really hard! my hands are still missing several layers of skin in a few places.

jasper kicking that boulder's ass

admiring the view

one of my many attempts

just hanging out on the crash pad

after climbing around for a while, we decided to move onto another site for our next few climbs. we crossed over the beach  to the other side.

crashpads with legs

this next climb was exhilarating- no ropes but still looked fairly high up. i watched several other people succeed and with a lot of encouragement, i decided to give it a shot.

pre climb excitement

the final push! when i got to the top my heart was beating super fast, but i felt amazing - on top of the world.

later we checked out some cave climbing. i felt way too novice to attempt, but it was really cool watching others climb. i realized this weekend that watching others climb really can be just as exciting as climbing yourself.

a successful climber at "wall of certain death"

just a casual tree pose

i completely lost track of time the entire day- it just was so awesome to be out there climbing and exploring with no need to check in with the real world. seeing and really experiencing beautiful places like this make me feel incredibly lucky. 

plus our campground had pretty clean bathrooms. ;)

underwater paradise

let me just say that i am in love with the Great Barrier Reef. this past weekend, i went out to get my advanced open water diving certification. i signed up with a local dive shop called Remote Area Dive and was actually super lucky to get a spot on the trip- the next wouldn't have been until April and I was able to get $100 student discount! (side note: everything is more expensive in Australia except for the mcdonald's ice cream cones. they are only 30 cents here) i woke up early saturday morning to take a 5:15 am cab to the dive shop, where a whole group of us divers (some new, some experienced) met up and took an hourish bus ride to the boat. i impressed everyone with my ability to fall asleep in any moving vehicle almost instantaneously and even treated them to some drooling. the boat ride was a quick thirty minutes out to Pelorus Island, where we would be setting up camp for the weekend. i was immediately struck by how brightly blue the water was and couldn't wait to dive in. we anchored the boat offshore and haphazardly carried everything onto the island. Remote Area Dive keeps the small campground set up, so all we had to do was pick a (small) tent and throw our backpacks in while they laid out fresh tarps for the "kitchen" and "living room" areas.

Pelorus Island

the boat has a roof that we jumped and dove off of later

i was really hoping no one would drop my backpack..

the kitchen, where i ate more peanut butter cookies than i can count

wetsuits pretending to dry in between dives

our tent with a ocean front view and a sweet hammock

 then we were off for our first dive at a site called Moon Pools near Orpheus Island, a five minute boat ride away. its going to be hard to go back to diving in California.. the water is so warm here that after fifty minutes under in a thin wetsuit, no hood, no gloves, and no booties i was content to stay under for another hour. the corals and fish were incredible, i loved watching their interactions and wished i knew how to identify more of the species. by the end of my semester i should know way more though because of my classes. we followed our first dive by moving onto the next site, Sharkbait (so called because of the cliffs on the island - if you jump off the wrong way you could crash onto rocks below and become food for some creatures..). of course we had to all go jump off some of the tall rocks - i screamed the whole way down. we had another dive there and then headed back to camp for lunch. 

view from our campground

apparently this plant is poisonous.. what isn't in australia?!

the beach was very coral-y

after lunch, we explored Pelorus a little more before it was time for another dive right off shore. this site was called AJ's (no idea why) and we had a night dive here as well. it was half scary/half awesome diving in the dark- all you could see was a small spot illuminated by your flashlight. unfortunately no sharks made an appearance, but we did see some barracudas. 

i'm not sure if its all the short naps i took that day (in the taxi, on the bus, on the boat, in a chair by the fire..) or maybe the loud thunderstorm or the suffocatingly hot tent, but i could not fall asleep that night. regardless, we were up bright and early sunday morning for two more dives, a deep and a drift. diving deep here was way different than back in california- i'm used to dark, really cold water whereas here the temperature remained pretty constant and it was just as bright. sometimes when you go deep, you can show symptoms of nitrogen narcosis - basically you feel sort of loopy/drunk. i kept myself together but couldn't stop laughing for some reason at one point when we were practicing counting off from ten on our fingers..

 the drift dive was the BEST. DIVE. EVER. not that the current was even that strong, but the corals and fish here were just so so beautiful. the pictures i'm posting were taken by a fellow diver, Michelle, but i am hoping to get my own underwater camera asap. it was so hard for me to see these incredible animals and not be able to document them- luckily Michelle did! 

while i came away from the weekend exhausted & with numerous bug bites and scrapes, i would do it all over again. and the great thing is that i will be! maybe not the camping part, but i am going diving and snorkeling with two of my marine bio classes and i am also hoping to go on a dive to the Yongala, a shipwreck that may be one of the best dives in Australia. my friend Katrina dove there this weekend, and you can read about her experience through her blog here: http://harvardia.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/day-20-possibly-best-day-of-my-life.html

perpetually sweating

i wouldn't exactly be exaggerating by blaming the heat for my lack of recent blogging. anyway, the past seven days in review start with a second trip to the strand on saturday. the tide was surprisingly lower than it had been the last time i was in the water; this time i could walk all the way up to the edge of the net (if i wanted to). not lying, something definitely nipped my foot and it wasn't katrina or arielle playing a trick on me. i avoided the water for the next twenty minutes in favor of developing an interesting sunburn on my left thigh with a vague handprint outline. on the post swim walk from the strand to the bus stop (a whole 20 minutes), i swear we all looked like we had been trekking through the desert for days without water. we shuffled along, groaning incomprehensibly in between croaks of "water..." the rare water fountain where we could replace the near boiling substances in our water bottles with some nice lukewarm H2O was definitely well received. in our altered state, we couldn't resist getting gelato at a highly recommended shop. i chose wild cherry and chocolate hazelnut - excellent decision. somehow, we recovered in time for a night in the city at our college's club sponsor, mad cow, where we finally found cold beverages. some even had ice!

sunday morning my friends and i gathered at rotary, which is student housing where groups of people share a kitchen and its up to them to cook their own meals. each one of us brought a different food item- with my culinary expertise, i thought it wise to come bearing nectarines and orange-mango juice. we had a diverse meal: bacon, eggs, SO MUCH TOAST, peanut butter & jam, chocolate chip muffins, and the most exciting- kangaroo! tasted kinda beefy to me, and it was really tough. overall i liked it. 

this week classes finally began, and i'm really excited about all of them. each includes some sort of field trip, the first of which is next weekend. this weekend though i am finally going diving! i'll be getting my advanced open water certification while getting my first taste of the great barrier reef. ryan will be bringing along his GoPro so hopefully we'll get some cool videos and pictures to share! i'm also excited about rock climbing club, which i've recently become involved with. they climb twice a week at an indoor gym, and on weekends go on trips to both local and far locations. it's a great way to meet people, stay active, and see some cool places!

somehow i've been trusted enough to earn a belay license..

a few of the animals living in one of the marine and topical sciences buildings where i have class!