Amanda Ferguson, 2014 North Queensland student blogger, writes:

Thursday, May 22

G’day, mates! After the farmstay, I now have an accent! I’m just kidding, I still sound very American, but on the Atherton Tablelands with my host family was a chance to hear a variety of the local lingo.

“Keen as mustard” meaning smart and enthusiastic and “bloke” instead of man were two phrases I heard quite often. They also used the word “nice” in places where Americans typically use the word good, particularly when we were talking about food. Honestly those farmstay meals were some of the best I’ve had on this program. I guess no matter where you are, nothing beats home cooking.

Friendly horses at the farmstay

We talked about some other differences between Australian and American food. For one, ketchup is called tomato sauce in Australia. A few other American to Aussie translations include candy is lolly, cookie is biscuit and cantaloupe is rockmelon. Also ranch dressing is not common, much to my dismay.

We also had a chance to interact with and feed the horses and cattle, which my farmstay classmates and I definitely enjoyed. The horses were extremely friendly.

After that, we were off to Tyrconnell Historic Gold Mine. Here we took an even closer look at plant adaptations to Australia’s hot dry land. The bowerbird in particular was interesting to hear about because it’s mating ritual is so unusual. The male bird builds a bower out of twigs and then collects different colored trinkets such as glass, bottle caps or shells to create a pathway leading up to the bower where it will perform a dance of sorts to impress females. These structures can become fairly intricate which is pretty impressive for one small bird to do.

Tyrconnell sunset

The best part of this Outback location though was the stargazing. Illuminated diamonds fill the sky in literally every direction while the Milky Way cut through the background. Sleeping outside, that was the view I had while falling asleep.

Now we’re in Port Douglas venturing out to the Great Barrier Reef. My stay here in Australia is almost over, but I have no doubts that the reef will make a perfect ending to this great adventure!