Last post

These are a few warning signs we have encountered in our jouney.  This is my final post from Down Under. Thanks to all of you who read my blog. Although my Spring Term trips are over, I'll be adding other cool stuff to this blog from time to time. Sava out (for now).

Australia vs. America, and last day

Australian words are sometimes different from American words.  They also like to shorten everything.  Here are a few examples of words we have learned the hard way.

G'day mate.                                          bush.                             Tassie                           Footie
Hello.                                                   woods.                          Tasmania.                     Football

Good on you.                                       brekkie.                          Aussie.                        Snags
good luck.                                            breakfast                        Australia.                     Sausages

prawns.                                                 sunnies.                         Overtaking.                  Heaps                  
shrimp.                                                 sun glasses.                    passing on a freeway.  lots

shrimp.                                                 busking.                         Barbie
a little fresh water crodad.                   playing on the street.     Barbecue

One thing that is confused between Americans and Australians is the phrase "shrimp on a barbie".  First of all, shrimp would be a fresh water crodad, and second, they would never even barbecue prawns.

Now, today was our last day in our nine week adventure.  We started out finishing our gist shopping, in Cairns, until 2:00 P.M.  Then, we swam in the ocean, and had lunch.  Lastly, we relaxed, and we are about to have dinner.  By the way, we will fly to Aukland, New Zeland, then get a plane to Sanfransisco, which will be 13 hours, and lastly fly into Boston.

A funny looking crab

My brother and I at the beach

Who knew the life gaurd could catch so much air!

Relaxation

Today, we really took it easy.  My brother, mom, and I got massages while my dad got a haircut.  My massage was really relaxing.  Next, we had lunch and swam in the ocean with my dad while my mom checked out the few shops in Palm Cove.  The water at the beach was just as warm as it was yesterday at the reef ... 78 degrees F.  The waves were just big enough to body surf.  I wished I had had my boogie board.  Then, we did a little school work and played a few games.  Lastly, we went out to dinner at a restaurant that commemorated the Queensland lifeguards.

Do I really need a caption? C'mon!

Finding Nemo Q and A

Now, back to those clams we saw yesterday.  I said they were the size of a car tire, and here is my proof. Check out this photo, with Dacha's hand (just before it got pinched off).  Just kidding.  Giant clams actually cannot close completely, but they do filter about a swimming pool's worth of water each day, so the reef needs them.

My brother's hand next to a giant clam.

Today was our third and final day at the Great Barrier Reef, and I have learned some interesting facts about clown fish.  So far, we have been in Sydney Harbor where Nemo (of "Finding Nemo" fame) ended up.  Today, we have seen the drop off where Nemo went to touch the ''butt", which is called the Continental Shelf.  So, we've kind of retraced Nemo's path backwards.  We have seen a barracuda, which may have eaten Coral, Nemo's mom.  Enough film trivia.  Let's do some real clown fish Q&A.

This is me snorkeling, and looking at a clown fish.

Q #1: Are clownfish funny??
A #1: I have no idea.

Q #2: Are there more then 95 species of clownfish??
A #2: Yes, there are 100 species of clownfish.

Q #3: Is there an bivalve called a sea squirt??
A #3: Yes, and frankly, it is my favorite animal, because it has the word "squirt" in its name.

Q #4: Does it make sense that after Coral was eaten, Marlin searched for Nemo?
A #4: It made for a fun movie, but actually, the largest male clownfish turns into a female if the dominant female (of which there is only one per group) is eaten or leaves the school.  So, actually, Marlin would have become Marlina or something and then searched for Nemo after that.

GBR Quiz: Where is the fish? Can you find more than one?

Great Barrier Reef: Day 2

Photo-bomb on the GBR. It was fun to swim upside down.

Snorkeling on the reef today. I was able to dive to about 5m.

Today, we did ... the same thing we did yesterday, except we went to three different sites!  We snorkeled/SCUBAed at the Great Barrier Reef.  We again saw a rainbow of flamboyant, radiant, and fluorescent, as well as drab-colored, gill-using aquatic craniates that furtively hid behind the kaleidoscope of differently-colored coral as we dramatically made our approach ... and then there was the sea cucumber. (Went a little nuts with the thesaurus again.)  Did you know that the Great Barrier Reef is the largest living thing visible from outer space?

There are about 10 species of coral in this photo.

One of the most intriguing fish I saw were Blue Green Chromis.  They were, at first, radiantly blue and schooling around stag-horn coral.  When I approached them and waved my hand (like the dive master suggested), they turned bright green!  About 10 seconds later, when they calmed down, they turned back to blue.  That was really cool, especially for a fish the size of your thumb.

A few other neat things we saw were Cristmas-Tree Worms, and Giant Clams.  The "worms" were blue, and looked like a Christmas Tree, hence the name.  (Not very worm-like at all, really.)  When you waved your hand at one, it would suck its little tentacles back into the coral where it was growing.  It was something I have never seen before, but it reminded me of the movie Avatar, which also featured disappearing, spiral plants of some sort.

My dad said I looked like a Smurf in my stinger suit.

We also saw giant clams.  Some were even the size of a car tire!  One of the clams was dead, lying in a patch of sand and it was open all the way. It didn't look like there was much going on inside of it, but it reminded my mom of two enormous Ruffles Potato chips.  Guess what?  When you wave your hand by a live giant clam, it sucks in its "lips".  These fleshy parts of the clam had bright blue dots and looked really cool.  Who knew a clam could be so interesting?

Scissor-tail sergeants schooling near the reef.

The whole reef is alive when you look down. Amazing!

Snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef

After the shallow reef is the Continental Shelf "drop off."

Today, we did something that we have planned for over a year.

My brother and I, about to get back into the water.

You can even see the Great Barrier Reef from outer space!

We snorkeled at the Great Barrier Reef.  Well, my dad SCUBAed, but my brother, mother and I snorkeled.  The boat took us to three parts of the outer reef, all about 30 minutes apart.  The first place they took us to was called the Three Sisters, due to its three islands.  The second place was called Phil's.  I have no idea why.  The third place we went to was called Barracuda Bombie, which had the most beautiful scenery of them all.  We got to see barracudas swim in schools, as well as big parrot fish eat the coral... and of coarse multiple nemos.   We got to see a kaleidoscope of flamboyant, as well as drab colored gill using aquatic craniates that furtively hid behind the rainbow colored coral as we dramatically made our approach.  Man, that was worse then the sunset blog.  #thesaurus LOL  It was actually really fun, and we are going to do the same thing for the next few days.
   

Cairns, and the forest

Me next to a King Fern.  I am holding one of its dead branches.

Today, we woke up at 6:00 A.M., and hopped in our Holden, the Aussie-made rental car, and drove to a place where a tour guide in 4-wheel-drive picked us up.  We were the only ones in the car, and the driver/tour guide was really nice!  His name was George and he was from Portugal.  He took is into the Gondwana rain forest, which happens to be the oldest rain forest in the world.  George said it was about 180 million years old.  He explained that he ground was originally under water, but was pushed up all those millions of years ago when the continent of Australia bumped up against the Asian tectonic plate.  The rain forest had huge ferns called King Ferns.  They are taller then me, as you can see in the picture.

On the trip, George also brought us too a humongous fig tree.  This 550-year-old tree started out growing on other trees, sort of like a vine.  Then, the fig tree started taking over the "host tree," and started to hog all the sunlight.  Eventually, this killed the original tree.  The hole you can see in the center of the tree is from where the old tree used to be.  All the little strings you can see are its roots.

The giant fig tree

The tour went until about 12:30, when we had lunch.  Then, from about 1:30 to 7:00, we shopped our brains out.  I got myself some fun little Australian road signs on the way.