Last night, I got back to Cairns from our 10-day Rainforest Excursion led by Jack and Tony. Jack is an Irishman who has lived in Australia for almost 20 years studying the rainforest, and especially rainforest birds. He owns a plot of rainforest near where we stayed and has built himself a small house there (see pictures). He knows so much about everything we asked - my friends and I joke about needing a "pocket Jack" to answer all our questions all the time! During our trip, we stayed south of Cairns, two nights at a hostel in Mission Beach, and a week at a lodge in Topaz, a tiny town in the Atherton Tablelands (close to where we stayed during orientation). The lodge was an old farm with three buildings - the teachers stayed in one, ten of the kids stayed in the "dairy" (a couple bedrooms and the kitchen, the hang-out house), and five of us (myself included) stayed in the "annex," a much smaller and quieter house without a kitchen. The lodge was right in the middle of a huge rainforest fragment, so we had rainforest walking trails leaving 10 feet from our houses - so cool!

The first five days of the trip, we visited various different rainforest sites throughout the area. We learned to identify many plant groups and some plant species in particular. On several sites, we collected site data (GPS points, rainfall, soil type, topographical context) and filled in a proforma (data sheet), in which we marked the abundance of different plant groups we saw. From this data, we were able to determine the rainforest type from a list of 13 types found throughout Australia. The sties ranged from dense, diverse rainforests to sparser, simpler rainforests to wet sclerophyll forests (mostly eucalyptus trees). The first few days were very sunny and dry (it's the dry season here), so the rainforests felt like they were missing something. However, it did rain a few days, and those days the rainforest felt so much more like what I was expecting. It's amazing how much difference a little water makes in the environment. The rainy days did bring out the leeches - something everyone in the group experienced - but they don't carry disease, so the only issue with getting bite was bleeding everywhere (since they inject coagulants into your blood stream which stops your blood from clotting…)

One highlight of the trip was going to Ron's reforestation plot. He's a retired Englishman who bought 40 acres of cleared rainforest that was overgrown with weeds in 1999. Since then, he and his wife have cleared the weeds and replanted the area with rainforest species, trying to help create new rainforest, and in particular, connect two fragmented rainforests either side of their plot. Ron was a very inspirational man, completely dedicated to his trees. We all left talking about what we want to leave behind in the world (because Ron can say he planted a rainforest!) and talking about our retirement plans, although none of us know what we want as careers first.

Another highlight was going to Jack's place and watching him mistnet and band birds. Mistnets are very thin nets, about 6 ft tall by 40 ft long, that you hang up in a cleared patch in the rainforest to catch birds. Birds get tangled in the net, and then you untangle them and put a metal band on their ankle as a marker to identify birds. In this way, scientists can track birds to study their habitats, territorial range, interactions with other birds, etc. The birds are left unharmed, but because it's slightly stressful for the birds, mistnets are only used for research purposes, not for fun. You must have a license to mistnet, and all the metal bands are provided by the country's research center and tracked by them. It was really cool to see rainforest birds up close, and although I didn't get to hold any, I did help Jack record data, and we learned a lot from him in the process.

The second half of our trip focused on our rainforest field projects. We formed groups of 3 and created study questions to analyze in the rainforest by our lodge. My group did a project on hemiepiphytes - plants that grow on trees with roots in the tress, but because they are not parasitic (they don't steal their host tree's nutrients), they also have roots that reach the soil. We looked at whether soil type or tree characteristics make more impact on where hemiepiphytes grow. This proved to be a complex project, especially to be done only in three days, but our data collecting was really fun. We basically trampled through the rainforest recording trees with hemiepiphytes growing on them. It was the only time I was with a small group of people in the rainforest, not following a walking trail, and without teachers lecturing all the time. I really got comfortable climbing over anything (as long as I didn't get caught by a spiky wait-a-while vine), and grew to love the forest.

Our last full day in the rainforest, we went for a day hike up Mt Bartle Frere, the tallest mountain in Queensland, with a summit of 1600m. We started at 600m, so it was only a 1000m climb, but that was still a lot and took us 9 hours, although that was under the suggested 12 hours. We had to get up at 5 am to get an early start, and we were hiking by 6:30. The first hour was a huge incline, and we were all panting and sweating, but once we got in the zone, it was a great hike. Some patches on the trail were slightly overgrown, so we did have to do some log-hopping and bush-wacking through 8-foot-tall grass, but that kept the trail interesting. At one point, I got into such a great pace with two other kids that we ended up hiking right by the summit (which was an unmarked turnoff from the main path). We hiked 20 minutes beyond the summit until Tony caught up with us and made us turn around. It was a foggy, damp day, so the view wasn't great, but it was still very satisfying to sit on the high rocks for lunch. We got down around 4, and by the time we made it back to the lodge, everyone was wiped out. We all slept extremely well that night. I think I'm still catching up on sleep (it's only been 2 nights), and my legs are definitely still feeling it!

We now have two free days in Cairns, probably to be spent catching up on work because we have a research essay outline due and had no means to do research for the past 10 days. On Wednesday, we leave for our Reef Excursion, when we will be staying at a research center on Lizard Island for 10 days, snorkeling at least twice a day. I'm really looking forward to it, although I'm nervous about all the boat rides. I have to go buy some more Dramamine before we leave!