George Hayward, 2012 North Queensland Sustainability student blogger, writes: Wednesday, June 6 Today we arrived at our second last location: a homey place called “On the Wallaby.” It’s a backpacker’s lodge with probably the friendliest staff we’ve encountered so far. This was evident as soon as we arrived when Tracy (one of the employees) greeted us with smiles, jokes, and…

George Hayward, 2012 North Queensland Sustainability student blogger, writes: Saturday, June 2 Finally! A place that feels like home. Today we arrived at our farm stays, and it has been quite a comforting experience thus far. I’m with the four other male students on a 260 acre property that has been owned by this family since 1985. Upon arrival this…

George Hayward, 2012 North Queensland Sustainability student blogger, writes: The first thing on the agenda today was a trip to the Canopy Crane Research Station. After a thorough briefing of all the plants and animals on the site that could harm us (this is customary in Australia) we broke into groups and participated in tree measurement and analysis. The research…

George Hayward, 2012 North Queensland Sustainability student blogger, writes: Today was very active. We went to the Daintree Discovery Centre and had a guided tour. Something really interesting that I learned on this tour is that the canopy provides structural support to the trees. The roots of these trees only go about 6-12 inches into the ground because only the…

George Hayward, 2012 North Queensland Sustainability student blogger, writes: May 24 Today was entirely dedicated to travel. We left Magnetic Island early this morning with Port Douglas as our final destination. We did indeed arrive, but several hours later than expected. There was a bad accident on a road that we couldn’t detour from, and thus we spent two extra…

George Hayward, 2012 North Queensland Sustainability student blogger, writes: May 22 Today we had our usual breakfast and then journeyed into Townsville via the ferry. Once there we went to Reef HQ, which is the National Reef Education Centre for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. After a short introductory video, we broke into groups of about eight and…

George Hayward, 2012 North Queensland Sustainability student blogger, writes: May 20 Yay! We officially landed in Brisbane, went through customs, claimed our luggage, took a shuttle bus to domestic flights, went through security and boarded our next plane – all in an hour and a half! Note to future students: our layover in Brisbane Airport was two hours. If yours…