This semester of University I am taking Physiology, Anatomy, Photography, and Outdoor; Learning in Australian Landscapes (aka; go outside and have fun.) Yes, physiology and anatomy can be quite intimidating at times, but my outdoor class gives my mind a break and is an amazing elective. What is included in this course? Well, just about everything an adventurous student could ask for. We go on four trips, the first being ocean kayaking in Noosa, second is climbing the glass house mountains, third is an overnight trip ocean kayaking/bushing walking in Cooloola, and last is a three day trip to Fraser Island/K’gari. And everything is supplied and payed for (except for food). CRAZY. On the side we also learn a little more about the geology, geography, and culture of the area as well as spend time with some other rad adventurous people. It’s a pretty great set up. I will be writing this blog as I do my trips, it might be a little long so if a certain location interests you most you can scroll to any block. Here’s some more about our adventures:

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Noosa Kayaking- 8/15/19

This was a fun little trip that started in the Noosa River and continued around the houses and nature areas within it. It was interesting seeing how many people in my class were new to paddling. I was confident coming into this because I have been doing paddling activities my whole life! But steering with the pedals below was a lot more difficult that expected, so it was fun learning and figuring out the ocean kayak. Paddling along with my Aussie friend we became better at steering as we pointed out our favorite beach houses along the water. Stopping for some lunch we left the kayaks to head downtown and my friend showed me her favorite shops as we enjoyed some salmon sandwiches. They were so good. Back at the boats we did a flipping procedure to make sure everyone could fall out and get back in correctly and safely. Then, we headed around the river a little longer, this time learning more about he environment surrounding us.

A nice lady came along the trip and explained how the river head was actually moved to allow shipping to go through. This being a hug change to the environment had several effects. One was the environments of fish and their protective vegetation that lined the river was destroyed, another effect was that it created more space to move sand to create islands for houses and infrastructure, and the last was the movement of sand along the coast. I found the movement of sand the most interesting as the relocation of river heads for ports happened all along the coast of Australia. And due to currents, for thousands of years the sand has moved up the coastline in a process called long-shore drift. Now that this process has been interfered with the movement of sand, and beaches cannot form properly. The lady explained that sand at Noosa had to be pumped in from several miles off the coast each year to refill the beaches sand. And this was happening all along the coast. This surprised me, as nobody on a beautiful beach surrounded by forest would expect it to be pumped in by people. Overall, the facts that I learned about the Australian coast on this adventure were amazing and the paddling experience was so much fun. Can’t wait for another outing!

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Glasshouse Mountains (Ngungun)- 8/30/19

I’ve walked around the glass house mountains before, but I never knew enough about the area to know what was available to hike or climb. After about six months of construction, Mt.Ngungun opened to public in the afternoon of August 30th. And on this morning, our class headed up to explore, climb, and abseil the mountain, having it all to ourselves. This trip is great as it gives me more insight on what hiking I can do in the area. Perfect for later adventures. As we rolled up to the small parking lot the class split in two, and my crew headed up a beaten path to the rock climbing spot. Being an ancient lava formation that stood strong as thousands of years of erosion occurred around the mountain, the wall we approached was quite unique in design. It was full of perfect crevasses for hand placement, and their were plenty of climbing lines to attempt. After our instructor set up the lines we were up!

Being nervous, excited, and confident about trying it out, I went up first in my group of three. Yeah, I’ve always been able to scramble, but rock climbing like this always gave me a odd gut feeling. From the bottom, I am so confident and know I could easily do it. But from on the wall, I freak out a bit.. I’m not sure what gets into my head, but it was a challenge! My partners today were great support though, and truly helped me push my limits on climbs I didn’t think were possible. And, I always made it to the top(: And what was the best part for me? That’s coming down, chilling, relaxing and enjoying the ride. Speaking of that, the next thing we tried was abseiling!

After wobbly arms, and shaky legs it was time to walk down a larger rock face. This freaked out several of my classmates who were concerned about the heights, the edge, and the drop off… but none of that crossed my mind. Yet. I was just excited to try abseiling for my first time! Setting up two lines across the face, we geared up, and I was first to try it out. It was a little odd at first placing all of my weight on a rope, who’s speed, control, and safety is literally held in my own hands. Haha, don’t slip! (Just kidding mom, we had extra safety ropes, I would’ve been fine(; Anyways, first steps were going over the edge, creating a unnatural feeling of giving your weight to the rope, and slowly lowering down into a sitting position over the cliff. Feeling extremely excited, I settled into a comfortable position under the edge, took a look around, and continued my repel down the rock face.

The views were amazing. Starting from the top there wasn’t much of a view, but as you lowered down you were above with the trees that formed a stunning setting with the other glasshouse mountains in the background. It was just beautiful. After landing, I hiked up, and tried it three more times, then we headed back down to the vans. Overall this trip was amazing, not only because of the rad climbing and abseiling in a beautiful nature setting, but also because of the amazing people in my group. Today we were able to create stronger connections, making us even more eager for the next adventure to come.

Cooloola Trip- 5/9/19

On Thursday I joined a group of 17 students from class in front of the Uni to prepare for the two days ahead. In these two days, we would split into two groups, one group kayaking through the Noosa Everglades to the camp sight, another group bushwalking in. Then on the way out we would switch. Unsure of all of the details and sights we’d see, we all packed up our backpacking packs and water bags for the hot adventurous day ahead. And yes, it was quite a hot day. Reaching the water, we packed up our ocean kayaks and started a trip across a lake. This lake was formed from sand which was blown in over thousands of years when the ocean dropped several hundred kilometers from the ancient shoreline. With the water levels higher today, this lake sits with a thin bank between itself and the ocean. Paddling through the clear water, you could see the bottom a meter or less away for the entirety of the paddle. With the heat of that day, I don’t know how it all didn’t evaporate! Dipping my hat in several times, with several informational and food stops, we finally reached the upper part of the Noosa river. The Noosa Everglades.

After following a more narrow water way, we came upon another shallow water opening. While moving across the water, our paddles glided against a thick water plant that filled the lake floor, slowly fading as the water began to darken. Reaching the far side of the lake the water color change was dramatic as it formed into a deep red orange black color. It was a beautiful dark setting that fit perfectly with the still mirror water entrance into the narrowing river ahead. Kayaking slowly along the peaceful waters I had completely forgotten that is was a class trip. Until several Norwegian girls pulled up ahead cutting us off for pictures. Ha ha, I guess I can’t blame them, it was a shot to get.

Finally reaching camp, I chugged a bit of water and got out much needed snacks. I was a bit grouchy not going to lie. I’m going to blame it on dehydration and lack of food, with a sprinkle of being stuck with a couple of irritating people for seven hours. After regrouping myself, I lightened up, and started setting up camp. It was a beautiful camp with trees all around and a big flat open space for tents and gathering for dinner. That night we all played Uno, Australian BS, and I was able to get to know a lot of great people. This being my first night camping in Australia I was quite excited, but ended up not getting a lot of sleep as I was distracted by all of the interesting sounds outside. Not being able to sleep, I went outside to look at the stars. The stars are so different and unknown to me here in the land down under, making them even easier to gaze hours upon. In the morning I woke up before the sun at 5:15am, welcomed by a thick fog. I’ve never seen fog like this in my life, it was really neat especially how it rested over the dark water. My new Aussie friend, came to join me by the waterfront, and being the joker he is, he couldn’t help but commenting that it was the perfect place for a creepy old man in a rugged boat to float on by or a crock to jump out of the water and grab me. And I have to say, even though I was drawn in by the lovely setting, he was quite right.

After packing up camp we organized our bags and headed off into the bush. Walking through the forests, I was intrigued how the flora changed so drastically. At one time we were in a thin light open-forest, and as if there were an invisible line, we entered a new dense-forest thick and lush. It was beautiful with tall thick trees, and deep green and browns from the wet forest floor. It was fun leading the group, other than the fact that I caught every spider web for everyone, wondering if I had several crawling over me as I strided under low branches and over wide fallen trees. Being a warm day, I expected to see snakes along the way. But even prepared with gators provided by the uni around our shins, no snake was spotted. After hiking for a couple of hours we reached the vans, headed back to Uni, and spend an hour cleaning up gear for next group. Overall it was a great trip, and I can’t wait for the Fraser adventure!

K'gari Adventure- 10/10/19

Before coming on this tip I was told by many other students to visit Fraser Island. Fraser island was frequently said, and I had known to call it by that myself. Then coming to our last class before the trip we went over details of what was expected, one of them being to only refer to the Island by its traditional native name. K’gari. Over the last hundred years or so the natives in Australia had been deprived of there land and culture. A sadly familiar story that can be told around the world, as many tactics were used to concrete new comers print and erase the native ways. One of the tactics, which may seem small, but has a large effect was the changing of native land’s names. There is a small movement in Australia to start calling and referring to areas as their native names as a sign of respect to the natives before them. So, their is a tiny part of history which I felt was important of why I refer to K’gari as K’gair. Now, lets get to the trip.

After the drive down to the Rainbow beach area we took a short ferry ride over to the island. K’gari is the largest sand island in the world, due to long-shore drift as discussed before, and is filled with small towns, a beach highway, and other small connecting roads in between. Driving off the ferry onto the sand we headed down the long stretch of highway. It was so cool! The “highway” was a long wide beach, and you definitely need a good 4-wheel drive for it. Watching classic Aussie cars speed by along the sand with their water/fishing gear it couldn’t get more Australian than that. Stopping about a mile in, we hopped off and rode wide tire bikes along the water while the other half of the crew collected trash. It was pretty fun! Then it was our turn to collect trash along the shore, so we drove up father where no class has collected trash yet that year. I was shocked to see how much was washed up on the shores. You hear about it all of the time, but to see it? It changed me. Walking along for about 40min we collected 10 large bags of trash, 170 bottle caps, and plenty of other random plastics. Back at camp we were able to sort out the bags into categories to see how much of what was being washed up along the shores. It really broadened my perspective of the global waste issue, has encourage me to be more considerate about my personal waste impact, and how hopefully in the future I can help create a bigger change.

Along with rubbish collection and riding bikes, we also learned about the the vegetation progression, wildlife, and human impact across the island. After our first night we headed to an old lumber town and walked through the rain forest talking about how the lumber industry negatively effected the forests ecosystem and natural species. After the educational walk we then took a long drive to Lake McKenzie. Arriving long before the other groups we were able to relax in the water and on the beach for hours. It was absolute beautiful with bright white sand and clear blue water, making it my favorite spot of K’gari. The drive back was a bit harder as all of us were exhausted, the road was extremely bumpy, and we had to get back before the tide came over the beach (“highway.”) Making it back in time, we settled down at camp and relaxed in our tents as a rainstorm hovered over us. That night we then got together as a group and played card games under a picnic cover, then went to bed with the storm.

Waking up in the morning I felt refreshed as the rain put me right to sleep. Others were not so lucky, as they slowly made breakfast, tired after their sleepless stormy night. But there was still an exciting day ahead, so we packed up camp and took off further down the beach to see the famous shipwreck the SS Maheno. Along the way, I drove with an Aussie who had previously lived in the US, and asked some questions about her stay. Amazing and blessed by her story, she told us students in the car about her adventures of biking from coast to coast in the states. Her story was so exciting and she told us all about her journey. I had been previously trying to get people to tell their adventurous stories, and with no luck, the Australian student leaders/teachers were too shy to tell them, or none of them had a story they thought was worth sharing. This made me sad because on adventures people always tell their crazy stories! That’s one of the best parts! Sharing mine all along didn’t seem fit, so it was very nice hearing a good story from my driver. She was great, and I hope I can catch up with her again soon.

Arriving at the ship wreck, we hopped out of the cars to check it out for a few minutes. This ship was unique though as it was just sitting on the beach. You ask how the heck did that happen? A Cyclone of course. In 1935, the Japanese purchased the Naval ship from Australia and was towing it back when an unexpected Cyclone hit. The storm broke the chains and the boat was lost to the power of the ocean. This ship wreck luckily had no casualties and became a popular tourist hit. After everyone snapped their perfect boat pictures we stopped at another crystal clear stream flowing from the island, then made our way back to the University.

Overall, this outdoor class has taught me so much about the Australian environment, outdoor activities, native culture, and human impact. I am so thankful to have this unforgettable opportunity and can’t wait to share more when I come home to Colorado.