Caroline Marion, 2013 South Queensland student blogger, writes:

June 15

Last time I wrote, it was about the Great Barrier Reef which was my favorite location without a doubt, whatsoever. It was truly astonishing in every way possible. Not only was the nature there exceptional, but let’s not forget to mention the food was kicking. We had all been pretty hungry because there is such a price difference here we tried to save money on food! So to have Lady Elliot Island’s all-you-can-eat buffet, for lack of better words, was extremely nice. Sadly though, our time there had to come to a close and we were off to the rainforest at Lamington National Park!

Let’s just start out this post by saying I pictured the rainforest as being sunny, a few rain showers, warm, monkeys, waterfalls, etc. Well, I was very, very wrong. This location was most certainly my and my classmates’ most challenging experience of the study abroad experience thus far. The rainforest I just described accurately depicts, or at least from what I’ve heard, those of Northern Australia. We though, we were in South Queensland. It was constantly raining, extremely cold, completely covered in a canopy of bush and trees and the monkeys were replaced with snakes. Massive snakes. We all told ourselves though, this is a once in a lifetime experience and it’s still going to be great. We settled in our small, freezing cabins and prepared for the next day.

Our positive outlook soon changed when we were caught in a downpour for eight hours while hiking the following day. It was the heaviest rain I had ever been in. We were all drenched to the point where you just had to laugh because everyone looked absolutely hilarious and terrible. We were trying to continue with our learning but you could barely hear over the roar of all the showers!

Our local field guide took us to an overlook without railings, and several students nearly had panic attacks because of how high up we were. We thought we had reached safety when we walked the trail to the bottom, but we thought too soon! We all noticed an itching sensation and soon the panic of the leeches struck us. Leeches are actually harmless, but people do not like them! And I learned that rather quickly due to all the screaming that took place when people found them. We finally made it back to our campsite at about four that afternoon, with attire that without a doubt would have to be retired.

As we got back into our cabin, we all just had to burst out laughing. We looked around at each other, all sopping wet with annoyed looks on our faces and it was just priceless. Such a bothersome experience turned out to be one of my fondest memories. Just sitting there laughing at what we all had gone through together made us closer as a group. We all decided that surely this would be a story to tell our parents, then our kids and even grandkids one day. It was just one of those experiences. After we had dried off though, we had a blast participating in some bush dancing and, needless to say, we all came to greatly appreciate our time in the rainforest. We were soaking wet the entire time, but happy nonetheless.