Blog

Between the field trip to the Daintree, final exams, and the Atherton Tablelands Folk Festival, these past 2 weeks have been such a blur of new experiences, mental exhaustion, and musical release–in that order.

The Daintree was absolutely eye opening. For starters, we stayed in wall tents situated in intensely dense rainforest that dripped with color. Our first morning, we were piling back into the vans after trekking around the Daintree Discovery Centre, and saw a Cassowary crossing the car park! We all threw ourselves to one side of the van to gape at this totally unreal dinosaur-like creature.

After the Cassowary was long gone, we took a tour of a boardwalk that consisted of rainforest that abruptly turned into thick mangrove swamp–the biodiversity in this area was impressive. Next up was my favorite part of our trip to the Daintree: we visited a local exotic fruit farm for an exotic fruit tasting. We tried bits of breadfruit, pommel, solo papaya, sapodilla, black sapote, mamey sapote, star apple, jaboticaba, and soursop. Hands down, the sapodilla fruit was my absolute favorite–it’s a sweet-tasting fruit with a gritty texture that brings guava to mind.

When we’d had our fill we made our way over to Cape Tribulation, named by the infamous Captain James Cook. It was a serene stretch of beach that was intimately small. The following day was equally as amazing–we got to see Scarface, a 4 meter long alpha-male crocodile, on an extremely informative croc-cruise. Later that day, we made a final stop at Mossman Gorge where we hiked a 2 km walking track that showcased several twisting strangler figs and boulders of mind-blowing proportions.

And just like that our time in the Daintree trip was over, and before we could begin to miss it, we found ourselves dancing our hearts out to The Timbers at the Atherton Tablelands Folk Festival in Yungaburra. This festival wasn’t exactly Bonaroo or Burning Man, but in a way, it was better–I met so many good-hearted people and listened to so much local folk music that you can only really get at a small music festival like this one.

I’ve had the time of my life these past two weeks and I’d like to thank The School for Field Studies for making these experiences available to their students. I’d also like to thank all my friends and family for their wonderful support during my time here in Australia and for tuning in to share in my adventures with me. Cheers!