Greetings for the Southern Hemisphere

Hi there!
Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it.
I have arrived safely in Australia. I've mostly just been hanging out in Brisbane with friends, catching up. I took a quick trip up to the Sunshine Coast Hinterland to visit my friend Shane's family property. It has a beautiful patch of rain forest and a bit of pasture land on it. We saw heaps of nice plants, beautiful orchids, black moths with orange polka dots doing complex mating dances, and a very very big spider on our rain forest walk. This was all punctuated by us getting caught out in a pretty epic storm which dumped hail the size of golf balls on our heads. Ouch!

I spent last weekend on Stradebroke Island with Nicole and Tim who I've been staying with in Brisbane. It was restful and fun. I got to catch up with Ian - our professor from when I went to Uni there 6 years ago. He is great smiling fun. Also to reacquainted with the soldier crabs and oysters that live on the beach across from the island's marine lab. The surf on Stradie was pretty big out at vista point - we definitely didn't get in.


Ive spent all this week traveling down the coast from Sydney to the southern border of New South Wales seeing national parks with exceptional beaches and mountain forests in the great dividing range. We had stellar wildlife viewing with good sightings of gray kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, parrots, and two echidnas!!!

Limpets

Echidna

Goana (this guy was about 1.5 meters long)

Galahs (a type of cockatoo)

Wombat

Lyre Bird (sorry the photo is not that good it was about 20 meters down in a deep dark hole)

Grey Kangaroo

I am headed back to Brisbane on Monday and then to Papua New Guinea on Tuesday. I plan to be gone through March 2 so I wish you all a Merry Christmas and I will blog to you soon thereafter. Enjoy the holidays and please be very safe in all that you do.

Missing you!

To Big Island and Beyond

I took a 5 day journey to the big island of Hawaii. I really enjoyed Oahu, but big island seems like prime habitat for a creature like me. It is uncongested (except a tiny part of Kona where the tourists flock), spacious, wild, beautiful, has a pretty good array of endemic flora and fauna that are still hanging in there, and it is growing! Mel was kind enough to work it out with her very gracious friend Steve so that I could stay at his place in Volcano for 5 days while he was out of town. His house was only about 3 mile from the entrance of Volcanoes National Park where I spent two days hiking and checking out the volcanic formations - lava tube caves, craters rims, crater floors, steam vents, successional forests, and distant vents spewing ash and dust (called vog) for miles in whatever direction the wind blew it. Although I tried 3 times, I never did get to see any molten lava, the wind was always wrong for it. I guess I need to leave something to come back for. I did, however, manage to see Hawaii's state bird the nene - it is a really cool goose that doesn't understand that being run over by cars can be detrimental to efforts of genetic persistence both for individuals and the entire species. I saw them in the road and it took me 10 minutes of very gentle coaxing to get them off to the side so I could pass.
I also headed down to South Point (the southern-most point of the US) which looks like the edge of the world. It has ~30ft. high cliffs that plunge into deep blue water teeming with fish and coral. Up the road a bit I stopped at a black sand beach. They form when lava flowing into the ocean shatters from the fast temperature change. There were hawk's bill sea turtles hanging out in the shallow water half submerged among the rocks. Northwest of these, I visited Honaunau or Place of Refuge. It is a culturally important site because it is an area where several generations of royalty hung out and it there was a large area that was designated as blood-shed free. Old Hawaiian law (Kapu) was really strict and a commoner could be killed for doing things like eating a meal with the opposite gender etc. This place of refuge was the only chance a commoner got to redeem him/herself. If they could make it to Honaunau before they were captured and killed, they could get their infraction excused by a priest there and they would subsequently be able to go home. Pretty crazy huh!? This place has soom very nicely reconstructed traditional buildings and carved statues...it also has a tiny beach with green turtles and an exceptionally good area for snorkeling.
From there I headed up to Kona to do an afternoon and night dive in hopes of seeing manta rays. No luck on the mantas but the dives were still well worth it. I saw some really great snails including a Hawaiian Nassarias (predatory snail) and a little cowrie. I also saw heaps and heaps of different fish species on a fairly healthy bit of reef and quite a variety of eels including garden eels (they live in holes on soft sandy bottom areas and they look like a whole bunch of plants growing out of the sea floor), very large yellowish guys whose names I cant remember, and two smaller species that were speckled. The eels were out of their burrows at night swinging around like very fat snakes in search of a fishy meal. I honestly don't know how they survive because we watched them hunt for quite a while and they always missed.
After the night dive, I spent the night in Kona and headed up toward Waimea for a hike that turned out to be closed. I bought some chai at Starbucks and headed over the saddle road between very large volcanoes Mona Kea and Mona Loa instead. I drove half way up Mona Kea to see the silverswards (an endemic plant that looks like a tiny silver yucca). I tried to get someone in 4wd to take me up to the top as dodgy rental cars were not advised to make the ascent. Everyone I asked declined to give me a lift. I guess I looked too dodgy too.
The rest of my stay in big island was very rainy so I hit up the Hilo farmers market, some waterfalls, and did some snorkeling in puna between intense showers. I slep and read a lot too.

On the 13th of Nov. I headed back to Mel and Jesse's late in the evening, realized that I actually left at midnight on the 15th (meaning I had to be at the airport the night of the 14th not the night of the 15th like I thought for some reason) and scurried around to get things in order (washing, packing, ordering travel insurance, posting letters and packages to California, convincing t-mobile that they really didn't need to charge me for terminating my account, and shopping for tickets to PNG!!!) that friday. I did take a break to bask in my productivity and people watch on the beach with my former co-worker and her family at Waikiki in the avo and enjoyed a beautiful dinner of thai food with Mel and Jesse before I hauled myself and my packs onto another plane further south. It was a great stay for sure!

I am in Brisbane now. After delayed flights in Fiji, inactive credit cards, a very very large storm, a long night in a hostel, and interesting interactions with the random people you meet when you are traveling with out a very solid agenda, I have made it to Nicole's house. I haven't done much exciting here, just trying to get things in order for my Dec. 2 departure to Lae.

All the best to yous! I'll post pictures soon. I promise!
-c

Oahu the Beautiful

I've gotten to do quite a bit of exploring in Oahu so far and I am really enjoying this place.

On Sunday we spent the morning at the market where I had my first vegetarian manapua (think soggy ball of wonder bread with vegies and gravy in the middle). It was interesting but I don't think I will make a habit of eating them. They would make me pretty fat! We spent the rest of the morning tidepooling at the end of Sandy Beach near Hawaii kai. This place is super fantastic. I saw lots of nice fish, coral, snails, hermit crabs, shore crabs, and huge sea cucumbers (see album "Sandy Beach Tidepools").

In the afternoon, I went on a short loop hike in the forest just up from the house. The forest is mostly comprised of exotics owing to complete deforestation and cattle grazing of much of the island in the early 1800's followed by an aggessive re-foresting effort between 1830 and 1860 when conservation corps planted heaps and heaps of trees in an effort to stop errosion and regulate stream flow. The re-forestation effort planted a huge variety of both native and non native species, basically whatever they could get their hands on. The unfortunate result is the prevalence of non-native species. However, the upshot is that if the non-native plants had not been planted, the top soil and seed bank may have been lost and greater system collapse could have occured. I guess you get the good with the bad. Here are a few pictures from that hike:

On Monday (November 3) I had a hair appointment (yes my friend Mel is so awesome that she hooked me up with a much needed free hair cut from a stylist in training), so I spent the day in town. I visited the Foster Botanical Gardens in the am while the air was still cool. It is a great treat! Situated in urban Honolulu within walking distance from downtown, there are lots huge old trees (some native, some not) and lots of wildlife (almost exclusively non-native, but new to me so I still appreciated them). There was a great variety of palms and cycads from all over the world, a good collection or orchids and native plants, and a really fun edible plants garden including a basil bush four ft. high!!!
See: http://picasaweb.google.com/snailhugger/FosterBotanicalGarden#

Tuesday was spent at the Bishop Museum followed by election day festivities. The museum was pretty cool. They have an excellent display of artifacts from Hawaii both pre- and post european contact, a good historical display and collections from the former royal family from Kamehameha (who first "united" the hawiian islands under unified power) through Queen Lilio'kalani who was dethrowned by those with bussiness interests shortly before Hawaii became a part of the US. My favorite displays showed artefacts and implements from the various islands or island groups throughout polynesia, melanesia, and micronesia. They had some good stuff from Papua New Guinea. Unfortunately this display looks like it was set up in about 1968 and is in great need of repair. The carpet is green shag, some of the signage has warn away, and many of the lights in the display cases don't even work. What I really wanted to see was the insect collections, but with the exception of a few drawers that were in the children's science museum, there weren't any to be seen. Real shame!

Tuesday night we went to an election party at Jesse's friend's house. On the way there, we drove past the private school Barak Obama used to attend. I guess a lot of kids go to private or charter schools here in Hawaii because the school system is not so good and getting beaten up for not being Hawiian is pretty common. We got to the party just after the election result had been announced. Great news! I am very excited about what the future might hold, although it is going to take quite a bit of work to get our country back in working order. I am impressed by how many people were engaged in this election. I heard prissy girls making fun of other prissy girls on the bus for not getting out to vote. This is the first time voting has ever been en vougue. Que bueno! Hopefully people will stay engaged. Oh, and the view from the porch of Jesse's friend's house was as good as the election results!

Wednesday I went touring around the island. I started with a morning hike to the overlook on Makapu'u (see "Makapu'u overlook" slide show) followed by a strenuous climb down to the tidepools and blow holes at dragon's nostrils. It really did sound like a dragon breathing in and out. Eerie! The holes weren't blowing much but a fine mist would fly out every once in a while. I saw tons of fish down there chasing each outher around (see "Dragon's Nostrils tidepools" slide show) but the hike back up to the top sure wore me out.
From Makapu'u I took the H-3 over the mountains toward Pearl City. Wow!

Then I headed up the H-2 to the north shore for a rather rather bad fish burrito (apparently my stomach is particularly uninterested in cod) and a stellar visit to turtle beach (see "Turtle Beach" slide show) where I saw six turtles while I picked my way along the rocks.

From there I headed toward sharks cove and tidepool. The snorkeling was divine!!!! I saw tons of fish all tropical and very beautiful and in great abundance. There were several different species of sea urchin including the pencil urchins. I saw two eels and a shape shifting octopus too. Yeee! This is what the site looked like:

On the far end there was a breach in the sandstone wall and water would poor in like a waterfall.
On my way back to Mel's house, I drove along the windward coast and stoped in the mormon town of La'ie where there is this great sea arch:

Thursday I spent the day walking on different trails in the mountains above Mel's house toward Mt. Tantalus. Beautiful vegetation and amazing views!! See "Tantalus Trails" slideshow.

Today I am taking it easy and looking for travel insurance but it is time for me to go check out the Leeward Coast. More soon. I promise!

Aloha

Hi there,

After several lovely going away parties (thank you!!), getting rid of a whole bunch of my stuff, quitting the job, and saying good bye to so many of my friends, family, and my cat; I have begun my trip. Thanks to everybody for coming out to my going away gatherings and for your kind wishes for my journey.

After spending a few days with my parents in Fresno and an evening in Santa Cruz with my very good friend Heidi, I have arrived in Honolulu. The weather here is interchangeably rainy and gorgeous. I am staying with my friends Mel and Jesse (see photo) in the Nuuanu-Pali area; basically up the hill from Honolulu in the rainy mountains.
The first thing I did when I got here was take a very long nap while it poured down rain all afternoon. Friday I headed into Honolulu proper with Mel. She works at the Nature Conservancy office downtown. I explored China Town early in the morning while the weather was still cool and the vendors weren't being pushy. Propelled by my market purchases, I explored the downtown government buildings and the Iolani Palace, home of the former Hawaiian manarchy (see below).

From there I took another bus through Waikiki. There was not much I wanted to see there. I am not into shopping and I like beaches that have very few or no people on them and I am saving my trip to the aquarium for a rainy day, so I kept going toward Waimanalo and stopped at an amazing beach at Makapu'u. I spent some time there tidepooling and enjoying the views before I took the bus into Kailua and over the Pali back to the house.

Today we went snorkling in Lanikai where we saw tons of fish, descent coral bommies, and a pretty large sea turtle. The wind was churing things up so the visability was not fantatstic but we still had a nice time and the sun came out after lunch so we all got warmed up and sunburned. On the way home we stopped off at the Pali overlook for a beautiful view.


We had an unexpected visitor in the house tonight: a pregnant house gecko. It jumped on Jesse's jeans and posed on his bum while I took this pic.
While Mel was cleaning the house she found this little beastie: a centipede introduced from Thailand. I guess they can get twice this big and really hurt if they bite you. I hope not to see one of these alive while I'm here. This one was preserved in the freezer. Jesse is an entomologist (studier of insects).


Overall I am having a good time. The people are really nice and I am enjoying all the fresh fruit. Honolulu is a little congested and seems very poorly planned. The drivers are bad but at least they usually stop when pedestrians want to cross the street and they seem to try not to put each other in danger. I think most people are just too distracted by the shiny windows on all the buildings or maybe its the wonder of what this island looked like before all the buildings and invasive species got here. In any case, I am looking forward to seeing more of the island in the coming days. Hope you are well!