Cairns mid-trip report

Have been in Cairns and the vicinity collecting mayflies for the last week. So far so good. Haven’t seen any crocs, but one of the crew almost stepped on a snake. Weather has been good – most days are ~25C, cooling to 18C at night. Even though it’s the dry season, it has rained everyday, although it’s rarely more than a mist.

Have been putting in long days. We collect all day in streams, and then set up light traps at night to catch adults. Have seen lots of mayflies that I haven’t ever seen before, and some cool fish too.

A few pics:

Off to Cairns

I’m heading up to Cairns (pronounced ‘cans’) in northern Queensland for the next two weeks on a collecting trip. It’ll be my first time to a tropical rainforest, so am pretty excited. Hopefully we’ll have time to do some sight-seeing. Regarless, I am taking all my photo gear with me and hope to get some good pictures to share.

I would say ‘later gator/not in a while crocodile’, but I’m still a little freaked out by spending time in the habitat of crocs that eat people, so I’ll just say ‘ciao for now’ (but I don’t want to be chow, not now or anytime)

…and #3453454

Renting Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, thinking it would be good b/c it’s a Tim Burton movie and has Johnny Depp in it. I didn’t know it was a musical. I hate musicals.

Stupid Things I Have Done #3453453

Forgetting the root password on a linux machine because I haven’t used it in a long time. GAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m still alive

Believe it or not, I’m still alive. I just haven’t really felt like I had anything interesting to say lately. Mostly, I have spent the last month just working, although I have done a few trips around Victoria. I went down the the Otway Ranges on the southern Victorian coast for a day a few weeks ago. Beautiful area with temperate rainforest and a nice 30m waterfall. And I forgot my camera

Last weekend I went on the Rutherglen Winery Walkabout with some people from work. Rutherglen is famous for its fortified wines, in particular its tokays and muscats, bu they also make some nice reds. They hold the Walkabout every winter, and it gets bigger every year. This year, over 20,000 visited.

The day started early – our bus left Albury at 9AM and we were at our first winery by 9:20. By 10AM, there were people at some of the wineries who were so drunk they couldn’t really stand up; they just leaned against people in the crowd and kind of oozed their way to the tasting tables. At each winery the complete range of the company’s wines were available to taste. I mainly tried the different ports, but also lots of cabernets and cabernet blends. Only one winery was pretentious enough to have spit buckets. In total, we ended up visiting 4 wineries. At each winery, in addition to the free tastings, at least one person of the group bought a bottle to share. Since we weren’t allowed to have open alcohol on the bus (a new rule this year), we had to drink the whole bottle pretty rapidly. It didn’t take long for everyone to start feeling the effects, but we were a pretty well behaved group. We also spent a few hours sitting on a pub’s balcony in Rutherglen watching the country market. We shared the balcony with a great New Orleans style jazz band, complete with a guy with a voice remarkably like Louis Armstrong’s. The beer at the pub made a nice change from all the sweet ports we had been drinking. We returned to Albury around 6PM, and even though we were all pretty toasted by that time, we decided to continue the party because it was only 6. After a few pizzas and several bottles of wine and/or beer, we decided to call it quits around midnight. Overall, a fun day. The next day wasn’t so fun. Red wine tends to give nasty hangovers. I discovered that fortified wines are worse. Blah.

On other matters, I am heading to the tropical rainforest around Cairns (pronounced ‘Cans’) in a little over a week. Should be a good time, and totally new type of biome for me! I definitely won’t forget my camera for this trip. I’m a little worried about the crocs, however, since this is prime salty habitat and saltwater crocodiles do actually eat people. The alligators in the southern US are cute cuddly things in comparison. We will be up there during the beginning of the dry season, which is when they are least likely to be dangerous, but it’s been a rather wet dry season so far, hahaha (nervous laughter). If you don’t hear from me in for another month, it might be because I got eaten.