Inland Island Oasis

Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world. This means that the island is missing a rock bed anchor and a rich soil layer. The inhabitants, which include dingoes and wallabies, subsist entirely on what the sand can provide, which is impressive as sand is pretty unforgiving. An entire rainforest has somehow managed to exist here. Over many hundreds (or thousands??) of years, plant remains built layers of nutrients available to the next generations of life, allowing soil-dependent species to adapt to living in sandy terrain. Pretty cool environment, and absolutely gorgeous to match! Check it out....

And the coolest part? That's a LAKE!! Yes, freshwater has never looked so amazing! Since the whole island is old, bleached-white silica sand, the lakes even look like beaches! This inland perched lake, Lake McKenzie, collects rainwater that is slightly acidic, making it uninhabitable for certain species. I took my underwater camera, and captured a few pictures that look staged in a backyard pool!

F.I. for Fraser Island

On our day tour to the island, we also visited the island's rainforests, crystal-clear inland creeks, wind-blown sand Pinnacle formations, and even an old shipwreck. It. was. AWESOME. Another absolutely gorgeous location. On the way home, we were even lucky enough to spot two dingoes! Check out the rest of our pictures in this album (Click where it says "this album"...)! There are just too many good ones to fit here. (I'll be keeping this Flickr album updated too, so you might want to bookmark it if you follow along!)

I'd have to say though, that the most shocking part of the trip for me was "morning tea" (snack) after the rainforest walk. Rainfall overnight had made the landscape damp, but nothing muddy or squishy considering the island had no dirt to make mud! I was hanging out on a log, warming myself with a cup of instant (gasp...) coffee, when I felt a sharp bite on the arch of my foot. I swatted at my Keens, thinking it was just one of the billion bugs that live here. I thought I got it until I felt the bite again. This time when I swatted, I noticed A BLACK LEECH on my skin. Cue spilling coffee and a mild state of panic. If there is anything that freaks me out as much as whiptail spiders and scorpions, it's leeches. I tore my shoe off and immediately thought of all the things in Australia that can kill you, wondering if this species of leech was one of those. Thankfully, our tour guide pulled it off before it was too attached, and Paco just chuckled at the coffee stains on my pants. 

The rest of our relaxing long weekend was spent...you guessed it....SURFING! Finally back in the water on the waves! We surfed Noosa Heads, one of the many world famous surf breaks here in Australia. The water was cool and so sparkling clear that I could see to the bottom more than 8 feet down! Words really can't describe how perfect the water is here....The waves were small, but really fun to catch on a longboard. The second day surfing, I tried out my new baby....Yes, I already found myself a surfboard, exactly what I was looking for! Fish shape that can catch knee high to overhead waves, three-, four-, or five-fin setup, 6'10" (getting shorter!), and it's even a pretty color! The guy gave me a fair price, with leash and fins, and it's epoxy material, which is supposed to be sturdier than my previous fiberglass boards. Hopefully it's sturdier than the one I snapped in half last spring...haha! Check her out on the left, she's a beaut. 

Yes, despite all this fun and adventure, I'm still working. Evie Update: This week has been the first half of a two-week school break. Evie and I have tried to keep busy all day by going on a mangrove tour with classmates and visiting the museum. We have also had some mighty interesting conversations. Evie tells me that when she grows up, she will have 164 natural childen, all with the middle name Helen (which is also her own middle name). She says your idea lightbulb is actually your skull...her lightbulb is green with leaves and mine is white with crystals. If we break our lightbulbs, new ones cost upwards of $129. Good thing that American lightbulbs are supposedly harder to break than Autralian ones, according to the storekeeper. Gargling is the surest way to turn on her lightbulb. She exclaimed once that the only thing she likes better than butterflies are train rides and the only thing better than icecream is a flight of stairs. Haha! Oh the mind of a (very imaginative) 5 year old.

Life's good here so far, I can't believe we've been here a whole month almost! This weekend will be spent relaxing in a quiet, empty house but more big travels are on the horizon! Watch for another update on that coming very soon.

Tamborine and Lyre

First of all, watch this fascinating, 3-minute BBC video on the Lyre Bird. I'm serious, watch it!

Cool huh?! WE SAW ONE!! It was a female, smaller and with less tail-plumage, but we stalked it into the forest while it scraped around for food. We were able to get within a meter before she realized she had onlookers and bolted. Supposedly, they're shy animals that aren't so easily spotted, so our timing must have been just right!

While hiking at Mount Tamborine today, Paco and I explored two different waterfall loops, Witches Falls and Curtis Falls. Luckily, we got to Witches Falls before the crowds, which meant an unspoiled walk into a rainforest dreamland. Several different species of birds, including the Laughing Kookaburra, Rainbow Lorikeets, Cockatoos, King Parrots, and this elusive but loud Whipbird (listen here), were chattering in the trees, flitting between branches with their mates, or even trying to find new mates with bright plumage and fancy calls. As we descended into piccabeen palm and eucalyptus rainforest, I felt like I was the first human to ever discover this land. There was a true magic under the stretched palm fronds and shadows of the eucalyptus canopy.

The human crowds unfortunately broke the spell not too long after we finished Witches Falls, but Curtis Falls was an adventure nonetheless. This is where Paco spotted the lyrebird, and a camp of Little Red Flying Fox (bats) hung overhead. We even saw an adorable pademelon, a small, fluffy relative of the kangaroo!

Panorama from the top of Mt. Tamborine!

Last weekend, and our first weekend here, we visited Stradbroke Island, another wonderland. Straddie (as the locals call it) is one of the barrier islands here in Moreton Bay. We took the car over on the ferry and explore just about the entire island. Here we saw our first kangaroo, koala, and wallaby, signaling that indeed we are officially living in Australia! Ha!

From the picturesque Point Lookout on the northern Pacific corner of the island, we could see "whales como arroz" blowing up waterspouts as they traveled south for their bi-annual, seasonal migration. Dolphins (and their teeny babies!Aw!) played around the edge of the rocks as surfers waited for the perfect wave in cool, crystal green waters. If this place was any indication of our future Aussie discoveries, there will be many more dreamland adventures to come!!

Point Lookout

Looking down Straddie's Pacific coast

Inlet at Point Lookout

Frenchman's Beach

 Now that I've filled you in on the traveling, I suppose you want to hear about the real life part that got me down here. First of all, Paco and I had a wonderful pre-move trip to San Francisco, where we walked about in the Presidio, Golden Gate Park, Berkeley, and Oakland, and we had THE BEST seafood Cioppino ever in Little Italy. Our host was warm and welcoming, and I've never seen such a cute outhouse before! (Her shared house had a compost toilet in the equally cute garden! After all, it IS San Fran! Awesome IMO.) Secondly, jet lag is a real thing, but if you time it right, it wasn't so bad. Skipping a whole day on the calendar and traveling for some of those really threw me off, but I've slept quite well here. The flight was also not as much of a total nightmare as it's made out to be, but then again I had a fun travel buddy. :)

Evie and I are getting in our groove, and her extensive vocabulary, insatiable imagination, and mature awareness definitely keep me on my toes and keep me laughing (except when we're both tired...we're still figuring that part out...). The family seems to be as good of a fit as I had hoped for too. Paco has found a job teaching English, and he start TOMORROW! Yay! Our room is cute and comfortable, we live 8 houses from Moreton Bay, and the weather has been absolutely gorgeous since we arrived. Slowly but surely, we are making friends, and I am hoping to join a volleyball league soon to meet more new friends. I can drive on the left side of the road, which was easier to adjust to than walking on the left side of the sidewalk when passing oncoming pedestrians! Ha! I'm not used to living in a foreign yet English-speaking country...I still have anxiety when calling someone on the phone or speaking to strangers because I'm so used to struggling for my words. Everything here is so similar to the U.S. but different at the same time, so Paco jokes that it's like a parallel universe. There are the same fast food joints by different names, similar grocery stores and clothes styles, but Coles is the supermarket and Lowes in the cheap clothing store, and familiar-looking houses, cars, and people with unfamiliar names. It's quite odd and eerie in a way, especially since I'm used to a more stark culture shock. Oh, and for those of you who are wondering, I'm 14 hours ahead of you east coasters. That means I'm likely a calendar day ahead of you already! 

All is well here, and I am happy. We are planning a coastal drive for a long weekend trip this weekend, so be on the lookout for more soon!