So much oxidation!

So on another casual weekend in Wollongong, Lauren and I decided to hop a plane and head to the heart of the country.  Australia is he most arid inhabited continent on earth (Antarctica is drier), and  Wollongong gets more rain than 80% of the country's land area.  Cairns is even wetter, and other than that I haven't been far out of Wollongong, and certainly not off the coast.  So it's been a kind of skewed view of the country.

Picture from the plane of flat and red

So Lauren and I took a very early train (after getting very little sleep) to the the airport in Sydney, where we flew to the Ayers Rock/Uluru airport.  We managed to sleep some on the way, and when we opened the window before landing we were able to look out at an utterly cloudless sky and an utterly flat red landscape.  Though given the redness, it was pretty darn green, with way more vegetation than we'd expected to see in the middle of the country, the south of the Northern Territory, the heart of the outback.  Turns out that we were exceptionally lucky, arriving during the wettest year in a very, very long time, so everything was blooming, and in unseasonably cool temperatures, so it was eighty instead of over one hundred degrees.  It was also not during the major tourist season, so there were really very few people around.

The flight attendant informed us that we had landed on an unusually short runway well ahead of schedule because red planes fly faster, and then told us that the time difference was an hour and a half from Sydney time.  A time difference of an hour and a half just seems bizarre.  Then again, the Northern Territory seems a little bizarre.  It's not actually an Australian state, it's a territory.  In 1998 the Australian legislature offered to make it Australia's seventh state, but the majority of voters wanted to keep it as a territory (though opinion poles strongly indicated otherwise).  As it stands, the Northern Territory sends representatives to parliament, but they have no power.  And all Australian citizens are required to vote, but votes from the Northern Territory apparently don't count.  And yet they turned down statehood.  Go figure. 

But state or not, the Northern Territory is definitely big, flat, red, normally very dry, and normally very hot.  We never saw a single cloud while we were there, but the desert was in bloom, and the temperatures were perfect.  We were definitely meant to be there.  We picked up a rental car and drove ten minutes or so to the little town of Yulara, which consists of a single loop road.  We checked in to our campsite, where we were staying in a permanent platform tent, complete with beds, and the bathrooms had soap.  This was comfort camping for sure.

We then had the happy realization that, beyond coming to Uluru, we had no plans whatsoever.  We drove to a little grocery store and bought some food for breakfast for the next day and discovered a large stock of thirty-nine-cent kiwis (Australians like to price things in single cent increments even though their smallest value coin is a five-cent piece), and bought more than a few to keep us going.  Then we went to the little visitor's center and got a brochure showing us the hikes in the park.

Of course we were there to see the Uluru/Kata Tjuta National Park, and it was only about two in the afternoon thanks to the time change, so we drove about twenty minutes to see the rock.  It's hard to go anywhere in Australia without seeing pictures of Ayers Rock, now officially referred to by its Aboriginal name Uluru.  Even postcard pictures make it clear that it's in the middle of nowhere, and even as a geologist it seems an ambitious, expensive trip to go see a single, albeit large, rock.  Well, it was worth it.  It's hard to describe, but knowing what it was like (the trip as a whole), it was worth at least twice what we paid.  Uluru itself is in its scale and solitude unaccountably imposing and distant and close and familiar, since at once it seems bigger and more real than the postcards and simultaneously exactly the same as all the postcards.  Those postcards aren't color-enhanced, all of the color is there in real life (I suppose I should be spelling it "colour" since I'm in Australia, but my spell-checker is American). 

We took some pictures at an overlook, and then decided to go have a close look at the monolith.  Uluru is just over 1,100 feet high.  People do climb the rock, but the traditional Aboriginal owners ask that you do not, so we did not.  We intended just to walk a bit when we got there, but we decided that we had enough time before sunset to seize the day and walk around the entire base.  It's a six-mile walk around Uluru - that's how big this thing is.  It was about the flattest hike I've ever been on, and thoroughly enjoyable.  Along the way there are interpretive signs talking about sacred sites in different spots around the rock, and in some places they ask that you not even take pictures.  There were tons of flowers and in some places even shady trees, though as I said we really weren't hot at all.

By the time we rounded the rock (that is, rounded the rock, walked past a parking lot on a bit of a side path, decided we missed our car, walked a quarter mile or a bit more back to the parking lot, realized it was not where we parked, and then walked the rest of the way around the rock), we were three-quarters of an hour ahead of their 3.5-hour estimate, and we were well in time to drive to the sunset viewing pull-off.  The rock really does go through some incredible shades of orange as the sun sets, and we were able to get our own postcard pictures.  It was gorgeous.

Then back to Yulara to find a place to eat dinner, and then settled into a random hotel lobby with outlets to get some work done.  After about an hour, running on at most four hours of sleep, a full day of traveling, a six-mile hike, and an hour-and-a-half time difference, we quite thoroughly crashed and hardly had enough energy to find our tent, make our beds, and set our alarms before falling asleep. 

As absolutely amazing as Uluru is, there's not an overwhelming amount to do (we ended up doing all the major hikes in the park), so we slept in a good bit in the morning.  It was the perfect temperature for sleeping.  Then we ate our breakfast and headed out to the camel farm.  They give camel tours to Uluru, but those were full.  But given that one gets comparatively few chances in life to ride a camel, we opted for the cheap and short ride around the camel paddock, with nice but distant views of Uluru and Kata Tjuta.  Rodney the camel had one hump.  He was quite comfortable to ride, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. 

After eating lunch we headed out to the other half of the park, Kata Tjuta (the Olgas), which is about a forty-five minute drive from Yulara.  We were headed for what is supposed to be the most strenuous hike in the park aside from climbing Uluru, the Valley of the Winds hike.  It certainly had pretty lousy footing and wasn't flat, but the hills weren't horrible, and it was only about four or five miles.  And it was fantastic - even better than Uluru.

Uluru and Kata Tjuta are both incredibly old and convoluted nubs of mountain ranges.  About 550 million years ago, the Petermann Orogeny uplifted a mountain range that began to erode, creating alluvial fans at least two and a half kilometers thick.  One of these is Uluru, and one is Kata Tjuta.  Then, between 400 and 300 million years ago, the Alice Springs Orogeny compressed and uplifted all the sediments in the area (which had been beneath sea level), tilting the Kata Tjuta strata around 20˚ and the Uluru strata almost 90˚.  The sediments around them eroded away, but these resistant units were left.

Uluru is a feldspar-rich sandstone, with oxidized iron making it orange.  Kata Tjuta, too, is orange, but it is made almost entirely of conglomerate.  I have never seen so much conglomerate in my life.  Huge domes of conglomerate (Kata Tjuta, unlike Uluru, is made up of a whole bunch of different domes), with huge clasts of various granites and basalts.  It wasn't very windy, so we renamed the walk the Valley of the Conglomerates.  It was everywhere and everywhere impressive.  The hike went over some parts of the domes and through little canyons, past a creek full of giant tadpoles and a watering hole full in this wet year, beautiful flowers, and truly gorgeous everywhere.  And full of conglomerate, if I haven't mentioned that.

We weren't overly tired by the end of the hike and we had some time, so we did an easy mile hike to Walpa Gorge, another beautiful part of Kata Tjuta.  Then we hung out at a viewpoint until the sunset, just as beautiful as Uluru.  Then headed back to our same dinner place and hotel lobby, managed to stay awake for some ice cream, and crashed for the night.

The next morning we did an 8-am ranger walk at Uluru, taking us on an offshoot path from the base walk, so we hadn't seen it before.  The ranger talked a bit about the geology (which he got only marginally correct) and the plants, and spoke very knowledgeably on the Aboriginal stories surrounding Uluru and Kata Tjuta, showing us rock art and describing the sacred sites.  It was really nice to have time to do our own thing and to do the ranger walk. 

By the end of that, it was time to head to the airport and fly back home.  We got great views of Uluru from the air on the way out.  Upon leaving the plane in Sydney, they asked that we take all of our belongings with us including any children, because they had quite a collection that were getting expensive to feed. 

So, moral of the story, if you ever get the chance to trek out to Uluru and Kata Tjuta, please do it!  It wasn't just cool because we're geologists, though that helped.  But everyone who goes out there seems to be affected the same way.  All-around fantastic!

The Great Barrier Reef

The attraction I was most excited about in Cairns was, of course, the Great Barrier Reef.  The Reef is over 2,600 km long and is actually made up of just over 2,900 individual reefs.  By the bye, Cairns is pronounced "Cans" in Australia.  Clayton told us some long involved story about an explorer named Cristoforo (Christie) Palmerston who got cheated out of his pay and therefore spitefully withheld the location of a fantastic train route he'd found from a nearby town called Innisfail, so Innisfail failed and Cairns got the train and remains the most important coastal city in Queensland.  Today, 3 million people visit Cairns each year, while Innisfail receives some paltry number that Wikipedia does not care to display, even though both are about as close to the reef.

At any rate, we were in Cairns, and the reef is near Cairns, and by the transitive property we were near the reef.  So we went!  I spent three days in a row diving the reef, at several different sites on two different reefs.

On Tuesday the whole Colgate group went on a day trip with the Deep Sea Diver's Den company.  I'm guessing it was about 50-60 people on a highly-commercialized boat with a rather loud engine.  We motored out about an hour and a half to Norman reef.  Their system was incredibly efficient - I definitely give them that.  Divers went one way, non-certified divers that wanted to try diving went another, and snorkelers went in a third direction for individual briefings.  Then the boat anchored and everyone was shuffled into the water as quickly as possible.

For certified divers, you could pay an extra $15 a dive to go with a guide, or go unguided with a buddy.  I wasn't all that impressed with the guides, and Lauren and Claire and I decided to dive together without a guide.  It was actually really cool.  It was the first time I'd dove without a guide.  It was an easy site - spectacular water clarity, and all you had to do was keep the reef on one side on the way out, and on the other side on the way in.  We had fun going at whatever pace we felt like.

But here we were on a touristy dive boat with a ton of divers and snorkelers around and the reef was still seriously everything it's cracked up to be.  You know all those postcard pictures and nature movies and animations in Finding Nemo?  That's exactly what it's like.  Deep blue water, sun streaming down, a coral wall dropping straight off into the ocean, colorful coral, and fish everywhere.  We didn't see anything really notable in the two dives we did on Norman reef beyond the most spectacular fish and coral you can imagine. 

But if it wasn't for the spectacularness of the reef itself, I wouldn't have been all that impressed with the trip.  There was plenty of free time on board that crew members could have talked to us, but never once did someone mention why the reef was important, or warn us to be careful for any reason other than avoiding things that can hurt you.  So many tourists could get some new knowledge on a cruise like that, and they didn't try for any of it.

Fortunately, my next two days were spent on a dive trip that was the total flip side of Deep Sea Diver's Den.  I did an overnight live-aboard on the 75-foot yacht Vagabond.  Not only did the Vagabond have the advantage of a set of sails and a very quiet motor, it also was small - there were eight passengers and three crew members on board.  Four of the passengers weren't certified divers - a Chinese couple and two Korean friends - and I didn't get to know them much at all.  The other four of us were certified - Stefan, who was Swedish and probably in his mid-thirties, and a brother and a sister, Kit and Kari, who were just finishing medical school and a master's degree respectively.  Stefan was my dive buddy most of the time, and I especially had a great time hanging out with Kit and Kari (though it got quite confusing when it was Kit, Kari, and Karen).

Since the Vagabond is small, it has a roving permit and can go to a lot of the reefs that the bigger boats don't have access to.  We went about 42 km offshore to Thetford Reef, and it took us three or four hours to get there.  There was no wind on Wednesday, so we motored out.  On the way there, crew member and dive master Jon gave us a reef talk, including facts about the reef and its importance and pictures of a lot of the creatures we might see.  Score one for the Vagabond.  There were also lots of books available to us on board, including guides to reef corals and fish and such.  It was also easy to ask the very knowledgeable crew members questions since there were so few passengers.

We did three dives and one snorkel the first day.  We started at a place called 360, since there are 360 small pieces of the reef in the area.  Jon dove with us.  We were all competent divers, so his main role was to show us the coolest places and to point out interesting things that we might have missed on our own.  For whatever bizarre reason, I usually ended up with wayyyy more air than anybody else (on the dives in Shell Harbour, I was consistently one of the first to run out.  Not sure why it changed, but not complaining!).  So when other people ran out first, Jon would signal the direction of the boat for the other divers and then take me further. 

After 360 we headed to a site called Mystery, where we did another dive.  Then we moved to the Lagoon, where we did a snorkel and a dive, and also anchored for the night.  When Jon briefed us on the site, it was pretty mind-blowing.  He pointed behind him at a spot that shelters black- and white-tipped reef sharks.  To his left was a turtle cleaning station, where sea turtles go to get their shells cleaned by small fish.  Past that was a sandy area full of rays.  And in front of him was a forest of giant clams.  One or two things to see, maybe?

On the dive at Mystery I saw a blue-spotted ray, but I was the only one to see it.  It wasn't until Kit and Kari and I snorkeled at the Lagoon that we saw the sea turtles.  We swam around from the shark haven for a good ways and had almost given up hope, when Kit stuck his head out of the water yelling "I see a turtle!  I see a turtle!"  And sure enough, a big green sea turtle came to a large area of soft coral, soon followed by a second turtle, to have his shell cleaned.

After dinner we did a night dive.  I'd done one night dive before and loved it, and this one was also great.  It's kind of eerie being underwater in complete darkness, but after you get below the surface its not too bad.  We had glowsticks tied to our tanks and underwater flashlights that tended to attract swarms of little tiny shrimpy things, just like moths swarm to lights.  Jon told us to shine our lights at the coral and look for red glints, and those were the eyes of crustaceans.  We saw quite a few, including a really fancy zebra mantis shrimp.  We also saw sleeping parrot fish.  Each night they make themselves a mucus sleeping bag to shield their heartbeats from sharks.  At one point, Jon caught a cuttlefish smaller than the size of a fingernail in the beam of his flashlight - the smallest cuttlefish he or any of us had ever seen.  But the best part was the sea turtle - a BIG sea turtle, a good four feet across - sleeping in the reef.  When sea turtles sleep, they put their heads inside a hole in the reef, and just float there, looking for all the world like a little kid going "you can't see me!"

When we got back on the boat they had a fantastic dessert for us.  Paul, the captain, turned off all of the lights on board.  We could see other ships on the horizon, but very far away.  A big storm in the distance was making beautiful lightning, and everywhere else the southern stars were spectacular.

The next morning we were in the water snorkeling by 6:30.  The wind had picked up a ton overnight, and a short rain squall left us with a rainbow to snorkel beneath.  Not too long after jumping in I saw my first reef shark - a white-tipped reef shark, maybe four or five feet long.  It was the first time in my life I got to yell "SHARK!!!!" (to alert Kit and Kari) and actually mean it.

After breakfast we moved to a place called Canyons, which really was made of coral canyons.  It was probably my favorite dive.  Jon took us through little tiny slots that I never would have tried on my own, but it was easy with his example.  I'm not all that experienced a diver, and this trip was the first time that I really felt like I had a grip on the technical aspects and complete control of my buoyancy.  Maybe that's why I was so much better about conserving air.

Our last stop was back at 360.  We were going to go to another site, but the winds were so high that the water was too choppy, and 360 was pretty sheltered.  By this point we were all utterly exhausted, and spent a while getting up the energy to jump in for one last snorkel.  Jon thought I was too slow so he soaked me with a hose until I jumped in.  I was certainly glad I did.  We were close to heading in when Kit caught site of a leopard shark just going into a little arch in the reef.  He was only a couple feet long, and very pretty.  They aren't as commonly seen on the reef.  Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me, because we watched him for a very long time.  Just as we were heading in we also got a great look at another blue spotted ray.

Since it was a windy day we got to sail back to Cairns, double-reefed and just using the main.  Swells were a good 8-10 feet in unprotected areas, so we spent most of the time just hanging on as much as we could.  Eventually things got a bit calmer, and Paul told us we could go up on the bow if we wanted.  Of course I wanted to, and for the first ten minutes it was great.  Then a huge wall of water came over the rail and totally soaked me (it missed Kit and Kari entirely), and I looked back to see Paul smugly waving.  I was soaked for the rest of the trip.

It was a little more expensive to do the Vagabond trip than it would have been for the more commercialized boats, but it was worth all of it.  If you ever go up to the reef, look for something like the Vagabond - you'll learn more and really get a more personalized experience.  I also have lots more pictures on Facebook if you'd like to see some more.

And yes, we did indeed find Nemo (or at least clown fish)!

A few more...

 Here are a few group pictures our professor sent that I thought you might enjoy!  You can click on them to blow them up.  They include the group at Tranquility, the mouth of a giant crocodile statue, and true Colgate spirit.

Daintree Rainforest

Sorry for the long interlude between blog posts!  Not to worry, I have one or two things that I can fill you in on by now.  I'm currently half asleep, almost finished with my laundry, and not even close to unpacked after arriving from Cairns this morning.  Cairns is in tropical north Queensland, and it was our spring break destination.  I still don't really understand that a) spring break ended in October and b) it's October already.  Happy October.  Also happy daylight savings time in Australia - step one to making the time difference even more confusing.

Our whole Colgate group flew up to Cairns early Sunday morning.  Early as in a 4am pick-up so we could get to the airport in time for our plane to be delayed two and a half hours.  Fortunately we had nothing scheduled Sunday - we just settled into our hostel, walked around town a bit, and caught up on some sleep.  Sleep, however, was not easy to come by, given that our hostel (Gilligan's) is a bona fide party hostel, currently housing eleven football teams.  We managed to come back with a few memorable stories.

Our first real day was spent at the Daintree Rainforest, about an hour and a half north of Cairns.  Our guide, Clayton, picked us all up in a bus.  Clayton was very impressive - knew a lot - and had a happy gift for verbiage that filled up our time on all of the drives during the day.  Unfortunately, at seven in the morning we were all struggling to remain attentive (remember the lack of sleep and the eleven football teams?), and those not currently caffeinated eventually gave up the struggle.  Nonetheless, I learned that the rainforest is like quantum physics and I'm supposed to trust my subconscious, though I missed the reasoning as to why.

4-meter crocodile

Our first activity of the day was a relaxing boat ride on the Daintree River to see if we could spot some crocodiles.  The tide was pretty high, so there weren't too many out sunning themselves, but we did see a couple!  These are saltwater crocodiles, the largest living reptiles in the world.  The back of the seats in front of us duly warned us to keep our extremities inside the boat because "crocs can jump."  And since the largest reptile in the world can jump out of the water most of its body length, and since their body lengths can be up to six meters, it's best to listen to the warning signs.  We saw a young crocodile just a few feet long, and a mature crocodile (he had a name, I can't remember it for sure), who was four meters long. 

Then we rejoined Clayton who drove us down a little road into the rain forest, talking the whole way.  We walked a little ways down a rain forest path barefoot.  Australians just really don't like wearing shoes, so we followed his lead.  But it was bizarre to walk through a rain forest in Australia - who's to say what poisonous spiders we placed our bare feet over? - without shoes on.  Clayton went in front "for the snakes."  We stopped to sample local edible plants (a little purple quandong fruit, for instance), and to climb up an enormous hanging vine.  We never stopped long because there were so many mosquitoes. 

Tranquility

After not too long we reached our destination, which is a place called Tranquility.  It was a gorgeous waterfall cascading through the rain forest into a big pool.  After just learning all about the dangerous and deadly saltwater crocodiles that inhabit the whole area, we enthusiastically jumped into the water to go for a truly enjoyable swim.  Clayton said it was safe.  We climbed up on top of the rocks at the base of the waterfall and sat under the cascade.  It was ideal.  Then we headed back through the rain forest, onto the bus, and stopped to eat lunch.

Our afternoon was spent with an Aboriginal guide named Brandon.  He took us down to a beach, past two signs warning us that the water was infested by both jellyfish and crocodiles, and gave us spears.  Our professor didn't realize that we would all be given sharp objects, and was I think vaguely alarmed, but none of us actually managed to spear each other.  Our goal was to go out into the jellyfish and crocodile infested waters to hunt crabs.  Brandon showed us how to throw the spears (though we didn't have to actually throw them to spear the crabs), and had us practice by aiming at a coconut.  I can't aim, but bizarrely I was one of only two people to embed my spear in said coconut.  Maybe I could be a good spear hunter.  Who knew.

We waded out onto the sand flats to look for crabs.  The water was just a bit deep to do this, and in fact we couldn't usually see our feet.  I hate crabs - I'll even admit I'm afraid of crabs - and I couldn't see where I was putting my feet.  It was not the most comfortable feeling, particularly when a large crab scuttled over my left foot (I stood very still and told Brandon which direction it had gone - they'll follow your feet if you jump - but he couldn't find it).  Brandon did spear one large crab on the way out. 

MUD!

But since we weren't finding many crabs, he decided to take us into the mangroves to find periwinkles and mangrove mussels.  This, in theory, was something I could handle.  Mussels don't generally pinch or bite.  But mosquitoes do, and we happened to be in mud up to our knees sometimes, so I still couldn't see where I was putting my feet.  I have a stab wound from a mangrove stalk in the bottom of my foot to prove that.  Brandon told us that the best thing to do to avoid mosquitoes was to cover ourselves in a thick layer of mud.  We were muddy anyway, so this seemed like a good idea.  It did work.  But we were quite a sight to see.  We eventually made it out of the mangroves and were able to wash off in our friendly jellyfish-crocodile-crab-infested waters, so of course then ourselves and our clothes were all soaked (we never saw any jellyfish or crocodiles - so we were lucky, we were visiting at a safe time of year, or the signs were up for insurance purposes).  On the way back across the sand flats people caught a few more crabs, and all told we ended up with three big ones.

Brandon took all eighteen of us to his house across the road and cooked up everything we had caught or gathered.  We also tried a bunch of native plants - hibiscus, for instance, which is very lettuce-like - and collected almonds off of the beach (I think they were almonds?  I can't actually remember).  He let us try everything, along with coconut meat and juice, and sugar cane.  I don't like seafood, but I did try the crab, and it wasn't horrible.  He also told us a lot about Aboriginal hunting techniques.  All in all we did have a very good time, and it was certainly memorable. 

Then we went outside and had to push-start the bus, and drove home without the benefit of lights or a speedometer.  Clayton didn't talk quite the whole way.