Hannah Cohan, 2012 North Queensland Sustainability student blogger, writes:

Day 3 in Australia! Right now I’m on Magnetic Island, with thirteen minutes left to go on my internet…aaaaand there’s a spider on the mouse pad. This is going to be more difficult than I thought…

/mute thud/

Now that that’s out of the way, on to business! ***DISCLAIMER: I didn’t actually kill the spider. I swept it off of the desk. I really just enjoy the word ‘thud’. ANYWAY…***

One of the turtles at Reef HQ Aquarium

It is unbelievably gorgeous out here. Our first day, we went to the Reef HQ Aquarium. It was a lot smaller than aquariums in the U.S, but had a bunch of creatures I’d never seen before. My favorite was the upside-down jellyfish.

Yesterday, we went to Horseshoe and hiked to Balding Bay. The hike was slightly exhausting, but worth it. Balding Bay is absolutely, breathtakingly beautiful. And also a Nude Beach…which may or may not explain the small amount of people there (only two “nudies” that were far away from our group…awkward). I met some nice French people (shocking, I know).

The water was a ridiculously clear blue-green. The sand was a lot coarser than you might find, say, in Florida. I found a shell with a hole in it!

The echidna is the “little guy” Hannah saw

We took lots of pictures while we were there…including a little guy that we found that is the only other member in its family other than the platypus! Look it up at home! (Mostly because I can’t remember the name)

Tomorrow, we depart for our farmstays in Yungaberra. I’ll be with two other girls on a gigantic cattle farm, with 30 horses and 7 working dogs. Should be interesting…

Three minutes left…I have a ton of work to do; I’ll talk atch y’all later, whoever’s reading this!

G’day, Hannah