Millaa Millaa (Water Water)
Sunday
we headed out early morning to hike the Lamb’s
Head Range. It was beautiful. By the time we got up to
the high-altitude rainforests, the trees were so dense and the
entire forest was covered with damp green moss. We navigated our way
to 5 different rock outcrop lookouts that each gave a fabulous view
of the Great Dividing Range. Lookout 5 actually overlooked
Cairns. It was breath-taking. And as we descended the mountain, the
environment gradually changed from a thicket rainforest to a
eucalypt savannah. A fire had recently gone through the area so all
the trunks were completed charred and burned. Some larger trees
(greater than 6 feet in diameter) were completed hollow with just a
brittle outer shell left. It was amazing!
We had
an intense week of classes from 8:00am to 5:00pm every day.
Fortunately, we had a few night activities that broke up the intense
lecture and field excursion time. Monday night we went to a local
gem shop for an opal cutting demonstration. The owner was a great
guy who taught us about the history of Australia’s opals, how to
pick out a fake, glass-plated one, how he leases private land to
find them and how he constructed his own opal cutting machine. His
shop was filled with opals, fresh-water pearls and various other
precious gems or minerals from around Australia. I bought a few
necklaces and earrings for myself and friends. Tuesday night was
soap-making with Donna, my homestay mother. It was exactly like
baking a cake and even looked good enough to eat at times. We mixed
a soap base with coconut oil and added essential oils like
lemongrass and lavender for scents. We mixed it all together in a
round cake pan. It’ll take 4-6 weeks to harden enough for use, so we
won’t be getting them until the very end of the program. It was an
interesting process and possibly something I might take up later in
life as a chemistry project.
The
weekend could not have come soon enough as we all packed our bags
for a homestay weekend with various families. Another student, Mike,
and I headed off with Donna and her two children, Toneille and
Hayden (twins) for a few days. It was dinner by the time we unwound
with a glass of sweet wine on their back porch by Lake Tinaroo
shores, watching the sun sink into deep pinks and oranges across the
sky. It was breath-taking and we spent the rest of the night with
bellies full of Tasmanian salmon and prawns (shrimp), exchanging
life stories with these strangers.
Mike
and I woke up fairly early Saturday morning for a kayak around the
lake, stopping briefly for platypus sightings. The water was like
glass ahead of us, so still and untouched by any motion and our
kayaks cut smoothly through it. Skinks and water dragons scurried by
the banks when we got too near and giant gum trees loomed above us
as the sun rose higher and hotter into the sky. We kayaked to a
floating dock where we jumped off rope swings. We got back to the
house for a pasta and lemon-garlic prawn lunch and a quick shower
before hopping on some rickety bikes. We biked the short loop around
the lake neighborhood and decided to venture into Yungaburra. There
were a few more hills than either of us remembered so my legs
muscles were screaming at me by the time we creeped back into the
driveway. It was a great exercise day though. By that time, Donna
and Hayden came back from Hayden’s swim competition, which he did
exceptionally well. His family has a legacy of champion swimmers, so
it is very impressive. Dinner was fabulous again with steak,
sausage, chicken curry, spiced sweet potatoes and salad. We spent
the rest of the night watching a footie game between the Broncos and
the Dragons while sipping on some lemon-honey green tea and
biscuits. Sunday morning, Donna took us all on a tour of the
Tablelands, beginning with the Millaa Millaa falls circuit. The
circuit consists of 3 giant waterfalls. We followed the winding road
through green agricultural fields until we reached Gallo Factory
where we sampled every cheese and chocolate product they had! For
lunch, we stopped at a cute teahouse that serves organic dairy
products like cheese and yogurts. I had a delicious fruit salad with
homemade gelato. We moved onto Ravenshoe (pronounced Ravens-hoe) to
check out their wind turbines. The project started only a decade ago
with $20 million invested in 20 wind turbines, which power 3,500
homes in the area. It was definitely a hopeful sight for the future
of the Tablelands. We traveled back to Yungaburra, stopping briefly
for some ice cream, before we said our thank you’s and goodbyes to
our homestay families and headed back to the center.
Now I
have another week of DRs (Directed Research) ahead of me. Today I
traveled to 3 supermarkets and investigated their produce origin.
The rest of the afternoon was spent on writing up a few assignments
due this week and the next. Time is definitely getting more and more
crunched as deadlines approach. It’ll all get done eventually
though. Only 4 more weeks to go! Can you believe it?
