Trips Take People

Wow, I feel like so much has happened since my last blog! Here are the highlights:

-Brisbane Festival light show with acrobats flying through water
-Paper Kites concert
-Field trip to Lamington National Park
-Sunrise bird watching
-Waterfalls and swimming holes
-Firefly-lit path
-Slept next to a python
-Late night swims in Surfer's Paradise

I could summarize everything, but I think I'll just expand on my favorite moments from the past few weeks.

Every year Brisbane has a festival right on the river. There is free music, dancing, and a light show that takes place on a floating barge. The light show was absolutely spectacular. If you've been to Disneyland and seen World of Color, picture that. Large streams of water shot through the sky with laser beams coming from the tops of the tallest skyscrapers in the city shooting images into the water, creating designs to flow with the music encircling you. On the stage floating in the river were 20 foot flexible poles with little dolls on them that slowly started moving back and forth through a waterfall coming down from some scaffolding. The dolls moved faster and faster, bending on these pogo-stick like poles, twisting and turning, until we realized they were not dolls at all, but real people, dancing in long, flowy jellyfish costumes, bending and bouncing with only their feet attached.

After the light show, my friend and I discovered a fun little Indie bar on the West End of town. It had ferns hanging from the ceiling, men with funny hats and mustaches, and bookshelves with VHS tapes instead of books (yes, that's how hipster it was). We talked and laughed and watched Forest Gump, which was randomly playing on the back wall of the bar.

The next day, our whole class left for Lamington National Park, our second field trip. I don't want to make it sound like Girraween (the first field trip) was bad, but Lamington was like double-chocolate fudge ice cream with sprinkles. They were both wonderful, but Girraween was just really cold, and I want to put a jacket on just thinking about it. Lamington was a beautiful, lush, tropical rainforest. There were ferns and waterfalls and parrots and birds of paradise and vines and fig trees! But there were also venomous snakes and trees that would inject you with poison-filled glass trichomes. We did some extensive hiking while in Lamington and saw a whole range of different habitats: wet sclerophyll, dry sclerophyll, heath, and subtropical rainforests. Basically, the water and nutrient level of the soils has a huge impact on the vegetation. We learned about Strangler Figs that start their lives as tiny little seedlings that are deposited in bird you-know-what at the tops of tree branches and then send their roots down, slowly digging them into the soil, one at a time until eventually they have formed a huge trunk that takes over and parasitizes the tree they had landed on. So not the nicest plants in the world, but certainly beautiful and majestic. We saw lianes, or more commonly known as Tarzan vines. Yes, I tried a swing or two, and no, I'm no Jane. I saw a snake, and if you know me, you know that I was not happy about it and will not embellish. We also had a python that lived in the rocks right next to our cabin, but he was okay because he kind of just sat there. We named him Patchos because he likes Patches'O'Sun. One of the nights we took a "Senses Walk" and journeyed into the depths of the rainforest with nothing to guide us but a rope by our side. This may not seem like a big deal, but when the canopy cover of the rainforest is over 80%, there is no amount of moonlight that can help you see. I could not even see my hand when it was 4 inches from my face. So, you're holding onto this rope for dear life, feeling for the knots that notify you when there's a step down and if you miss those, you can expect a significant stumble. The whole time I was just hoping those venomous snakes and spiders were as lost in the dark as I was. But, it honestly was truly a magical adventure. Suddenly, all of my trust was placed in a tiny thin rope meandering through wild Australia. I knew that everything that surrounded me were things that I had seen earlier that day, that they were still alive and working. It was just an odd, eye-opening moment when your mind truly wraps around the idea that seeing isn't believing. I was in the heart of a living, breathing forest, and I knew it- I could feel it and I could sense it, but I couldn't see it. It was an opportunity I would definitely encourage everyone to take. It was a nice little reminder that even though we may feel like we are in the dark at times, we are still fully surrounded by life, and that the sun will always be faithful to shine.

The rest of the trip included waterfall adventures, scenic overlooks at sunrise as we counted bird calls, wild koala discoveries, and one of my favorite moments: the firefly path. On our way out of the rainforest on the third day, the sun began to go down just as we were passing through Stinging Tree Forest, a scary thought in itself. But then something magical happened. At first there was just one, and then three, and then thousands of brilliant, glowing balls of light flickering from tree to tree. It's hard for me to explain how unreal it was. Magical, astounding, flawless. The kind of thing that makes your heart flutter, that puts you in that childlike state again, as though you've just woken up Christmas morning. All I wanted to do was chase them, catch them, watch them fly, following their ever-glowing beams of light. I could have sat there for hours, just letting the magic surround me.

The Lamington adventure had to come to an end, but a few friends and I made a quick turn-around and were an hour down the coast in Surfer's Paradise by the end of the following day. Surfer's Paradise gets a little grief, and I have heard it described as a tacky Miami and Vegas mixed together. Certainly not an intriguing description, but its proximity and beaches attracted us all the same. And I am very glad I went- despite the skyscrapers, it was really a beautiful place. We went out dancing at night, made friends, and went for a swim in the ocean under the stars. You know, I am really, truly loving my life down under. Every day is such an adventure and I continually have more and more love for the people I'm with. Sometimes it's hard to slow down and just soak up all the blessings I'm experiencing. I recently found the following quote:

"People don't take trips... trips take people" -John Steinbeck 

As cheesy as it may sound, I feel as though I am constantly being seized by the glory of each moment, as though I am being taken into a deeper place of me that I have never been before. I am taken aback by beauty every day. It's not Australia that's astounding me, it's the moments. The moments when God really allows me to see the beauty that exists- not just in nature, but in people. It is these things that take my breath away. The things that seem too impossibly perfect. And they are whisking me away.

How Byron Bay Took My Breath Away

After putting in  long hours on our day off this past Friday working on a research paper about the incredibly adorable Southern hairy-nosed wombats, I decided I deserved a little vacation (as if I'm not already on one). So, I joined a group of friends in a town about 2 hours south of Brisbane, the wonderful Byron Bay. As soon as I stepped off the bus I ran into some of my friends at a gelato shop, and gelato is something I've been looking for the entire time I've been here. It was killer to say the least. After we got our gelato, we headed to the beach and passed all sorts of people along the way. My host mom had warned me that Byron Bay would be full of hippies, but I didn't quite believe her- I am from Sonoma County after all. But there were bare feet and dreadlocks everywhere! I was in heaven!

Eventually we made it to the beach and my feet sunk in to the fine white sand that squeaked beneath my toes. The water seemed to have three color tones: dark, mysterious blue water glistened offshore and progressively turned to an almost olive-green and finally a lighter turquoise as the cool water approached me. It was actually the first time I've been on a real beach since I've been Australia. Brisbane doesn't have beaches- just a river and a man-made beach, which hardly does the job. As I stood there with the waves saying hello to my toes, I had an overwhelming sensation that I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

The beach extended to a point that held a lighthouse high atop the hill. The lighthouse, of course, was our next destination.Once at the end of the beach, we took stairs up to the lighthouse. It was no easy trek, but it almost felt like we were in a rainforest- the flora was much darker and richer than anywhere we had been yet. Every 20 steps or so we would get to a vista with a view more stunning than the last. We finally made it to a plateau next to the lighthouse and just stood looking out at the all-powerful Pacific Ocean. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted what looked to me like a whale spout. We had passed a sign that told us dolphins and humpbacks frequent the Bay this time of year. Being who I am, I obviously got very excited and stared out in the direction of the spout, not letting my eyes blink. After a few minutes, I thought maybe it had just been  my imagination when, get ready.... a humpback whale lept out of the water and breached! Yes! The sight I have been dying to see for all my 21 years finally came to pass!  It was something I will never ever forget. Just a few hundred meters from where we stood one God's most glorious creatures was dancing above the water, showing us his magnificent form. Only two of my friends had seen it with me so we ran to tell the other girls and were all leaning over the fence, waiting, praying for it to happen again. And it did. 5 more times! Words cannot even describe the joy I felt watching as the whales came up for air, diving for their meal, and then suddenly leaping out of the water, twisting, and landing on their backs, creating the most splendid splash. The whales eventually went on their way, as we did ours, but I will forever remember them and that moment that took my breath away. 

The sun set on the horizon and the night began! We played games, laughed, and went out dancing. It was so incredibly fun and there were people out everywhere. Byron Bay reminds me a lot of Santa Barbara- fun, sun, beaches, great food, and plenty of opportunity to dance. It was a very laid back town that I could definitely see myself returning to and probably moving to (sorry, Mom). Even though we wore ourselves out dancing, we were determined to see the sunrise at the lighthouse. It is situated on the easternmost point of Australia, and being from California, I rarely get to see the sun rise over the ocean. So, at 4:30 am, after sleeping for about 2 or 3 hours, we hiked back up to the lighthouse and waited. I thought that the moment the humpback whales breached was the highlight of the trip so far, but this sunrise shook me in a whole new way. The red blazing ball of gas slowly ascended into my view as I sat on top of a grassy hill, great friends to my left and right. On that morning, I saw the waves of the ocean in a way I have never seen them before. They weren't abnormal waves, but it was almost as if my perspective had shifted, so that I saw them as a rhythm. They were like little mounds of purpose, moving towards me, pursuing me. They beat with the earth, not against anything. And in all their seemingly randomness there was a sense of being constant. It's hard to explain, but it just felt right. As the sun raised higher and higher above the horizon, its reflection made a path of light directly towards me and God spoke. He showed me that this path we walk may seem long- to walk from the beach to the horizon seems arduous. But the whole time we walk this path we are walking on water. And the closer you get to the Sun, the brighter the path gets. So even though the waves may be choppy and the sea may at time seem unsettled, we must remember that we are walking on water, and that's a place I do not mind being.