ENR 697

The Australia study abroad class: Sustaining Human Societies and the Natural Environment, with the theme "sustainable development to explore the relationship between people and their natural environment" traveled to five different areas within north Queensland and learned about different natural resource issues. We (kids, Paige and I) would join Eric and the students for many of their activities but did our own thing while they had lecture, or when we needed naps. It was nice to have the freedom of a rental car and to have a chauffeur who had experience driving on the left side of the road (Paige lived in New Zealand last year). There were 29 students from Ohio State. They were good kids and great with Cadie. 

Our first location was Magnetic Island. We had serious day/night confusion and I earned a horrible mom award by making Cadie walk 1/2 mile to the grocery store while she cried and yelled "my body wants to be asleep." But we had immediate wildlife sightings that cheered her up. At dusk the rock wallabies came out.

As we went to breakfast the first morning, the hotel workers were out feeding the birds leftover bread. We joined them and they gave Cadie a packet of jam to hold out. Immediately, she had lorikeets climbing her arms and landing on her head! I wish I had pictures but Cadie's wide smile will be a memory I will cherish. 

We were also introduced to some of these:

(Can you see the spider in Paige's window?)

We joined the students at a Great Barrier Reef aquarium where Cadie got to touch a leopard shark and we got a behind-the-scenes tour of a sea turtle hospital. 

Who's the biggest clown?

 Magnetic island has a large colony of wild koala's and we went on a hike hoping to glimpse one but didn't. Next year maybe? We did get great views of the beautiful bays and beaches of the island. I wish we spent more time at the beach here - we had great weather but we spent many of our afternoons trying to get the kids on a regular nap schedule.