It’s a strange feeling when you realize how much of your life can fit into a relatively small backpack. I had this feeling for the first time a few weeks ago when we said goodbye to our homestays and set out into the bush. For the remainder of our time in Australia, the term “home” will become associated with a large bus, canvas tents, different islands, and of course my lovely backpack that I have been hauling around for the past three months.
Thus, part of this blog post will be dedicated to my backpack. Thank you for always being close by, for providing spaces for all my treasured items that provide comfort, and for always having new and unexpected places for me to place new items acquired along the way. I never thought of myself as a backpacker, but you make me feel like anything is possible. Cheers to what we have accomplished, and cheers for what is yet to come.
The other part
of this blog post will be dedicated to the awesome field studies we have started doing as part of the biology section of our program. Our first week out in the bush was spent at Lamington Plateau, where we got to do a lot of hands-on science, which I have never really gotten to do before. We trapped mammals (and released them after identifying their genitalia of course), listened for birds, caught and observed insects, and learned about two very different kinds of forests-sclerophyll and rainforest, which sometimes can be found right next to each other in what we learned is called an ecotone. I learned a lot this first week of real bush camping, and I am looking forward to what is yet to come in this last leg of our adventure.