Tyrconnell Gold Mine, The Outback

We traveled farther inland, leaving the pavement, and spent a few days at Tyrconnell historic gold mine in the Australian bush. At the turn of the 19th century Tyrconnell was a booming mining town with a population of over 10,000 and now it is home to 11. This number includes our hosts, Andy and Cate and their 3 cute boys. Cate said that "the outback" is not necessarily a location or type of terrain as much as a mindset and way of living. Tyrconnell definitely reminded me of the wild west. It was dry and hot and dusty but a little kid's heaven: plenty of space to run around, bugs and tadpoles to catch, shiny rocks to collect, and a pond to swim in.
While the students camped out with the big bugs and cane toads, we had an adorable cottage with french doors in every room (including the bathrooms) that opened onto the porches. We had amazing evenings sitting outside watching the sunset.

Checking out the "chooks":

 The reservoir Andy created to provide water for domestic use (and a swimming pool for the boys). They collect rain water for drinking and all of their electricity comes from solar panels.

 Trying to clean off some of the dust:

 These buildings hold the rock crushing/gold filtering machinery. Andy's family worked the mine until the early 90's- producing bars of gold. 

 As far as wildlife, we saw kangaroos and these large piles of dirt (some over 5' tall) all over the place:

Termite mounds! No wonder all the buildings were made with corrugated metal. Termites eat out the center of the eucalypt trees and that is how the wood for didgeridoos comes about.

Did I mention the tire swing? Cadie was in heaven.

Yungaburra and Atherton Tablelands

From Magnetic Island we moved inland over a mountain range to the Atherton tablelands area. This area was historically all rainforest but much was converted to farmland with white settlement.

The tablelands were beautiful with many hikes, waterfalls, craters, lakes, and large and strange trees. This one is a strangler fig:

 This one, a "pine," is over 1000 years old:

 Crazy students in the background, jumping in the freezing water. Ok maybe it wasn't freezing but the air temp was probably in the 60s.

 Cadie wanted to get in this one:

 Barron river falls:

The first night we were in Yungaburra we walked along a river trail and found platypi! Not sure if that is the correct plural term but I'm talking about these guys:

The platypus was much smaller than I expected - more like a baby beaver. Just outside of the town of Atherton we saw herds of kangaroo hanging out on a golf course. Apparently they like big green grassy areas. The 'roo in Australia is similar to the deer in the states. They come into towns and eat gardens and get hit by cars. They are hunted for meat and pelt (ask Cadie how she liked her 'roo burger). I think they are pretty cool, and good tasting. 

We spent Eric's birthday in Yungaburra and celebrated with a night canoe trip on a lake to spot night animals. Even though it was way past her bed time, Cadie was in great spirits and on the way back in was making us all laugh with her goofy comments. We found the elusive tree kangaroo:

Along with three different species of possum (much cuter than the Ohio counterpart):

Cadie's favorite animal was the barking owl that sounded like someone's yappy pup.

 Can you spot the littlest goof-ball?

Now a few comments about the little man - learning some things from his sister:

including how to move! He took his first few knee crawls in an airport on the way to Australia and almost overnight (or whatever that time-warp of travel was) became a serious crawler. I love the packaging on these "nappies" - "catch me mum!"

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. 

The Big Post

Well our month long adventure has come to an end and now we are all back at home staring at piles of laundry and an empty fridge. I want to share all of our fun and the 100s of pictures but I'm going to have to do it in pieces because I also need sleep. A fourteen hour time difference is hard on kids (and me).
We set out for Australia a month ago and were nearly stymied at the first airport because of this goof:

Who put her passport in her backpack and we didn't find it until the very last possible second to make the plane. We met Aunt Paige at airport #2 who helped out with the long (16 hours!) flight:

Traveling is exhausting but the kids did great and were able to sleep on the planes (and in the airports):

Australia was beautiful and amazing and I think I left a piece of me there. We traveled throughout North Queensland and stayed in breathtaking places such as Magnetic Island: 

the outback (at an historic gold mine):

and the Daintree Rainforest, a world heritage site:

 

We had quite a few wildlife sightings, some a little too close!

Fruit bat at bat rehab center:

~5 meter scrub python on neighbors roof:

 Wallaby:

And our adventures were unbelievable. SCUBA diving at the Great Barrier Reef, night canoeing with tree kangaroo spotting, night hikes to look for the elusive cassowary, hikes to waterfalls, and soaring 43 meters above the rainforest in the bucket of a crane. I'm hoping to document each of these later, more details to come, but here is a cute one with C in the canoe way past her bedtime.

 Why Australia for a month? Eric led a study abroad class again and we joined him this time. Just another tough day at work: 

Can you believe he gets paid for this?