As I mentioned, when you last heard from me I was heading to Tasmania. I flew out of the Melbourne airport and in my rush made a very unwise move, and got food from Hungry Jacks (Burger King). In a normal situation I would never do this, I rate Burger King significantly lower on the taste and quality of product scale than even McDonalds. But it was all there was and I was very hungry. So I got some, and subsequently got a mean case of food poisoning. Or swine flu, or Ebola, or something that made me feel quite sick for a while. Luckily the nausea and headaches ended quite quickly, however the intensely sore throat lasted for at least a week.
But I stuck it out and headed up North to help with the Save the Tasmanian devil program, monitoring how far the Facial Tumor Disease has spread since the last survey. It was a great experience, and got to see practically all the animals that I could have wanted to (the exception being the platypus) wild and free, and I got to visit places that tourists to Tasmania tend not to visit (ie: clear cut forests - which is essentially all of Northern Tasmania, and a mining camp - where I was surprised to find a large proportion of young 20 somethings, and a large proportion of females. Not at all matching my preconceived ideas that miner were burly middle aged men, apparently they are all burly 20 year old girls).
My crew was made of 3 people, Drew - the team leader, Clair - the assistant, and me - the volunteer. We only caught a single devil with disease, which was great in that it didn't seem to have spread much, and great that I didn't see any really traumatic sights (apparently its really nasty when you see it). However, the other 2 teams which were further north and east, caught a bunch of diseased devils.
After the devil program we headed home to Hobart, where I stayed with Drew for a night. That day I headed out to the Hobart Museum and watched a video on the rigours of Antarctic research and proceeded to return to Drew's to find one of the people interviewed in the movie to be in the kitchen. We then had a nice little conversation where I was told that winters in Canada are far worse than anything they had experienced in Antartica (mind you, it was coastal and in the summer) and they were all impressed with my eyelid freezing shut over my eye story.
Hobart was a nice little place, although quite cold without heating in any building. I toured around for a while, however nothing too too exciting happened while there, so I will save you the time and not write about it.
After Hobart I flew into Melbourne and was lucky enough to stumble upon the opening ceremonies of the Arts Festival where there were a number of free events going on around the town. I was able to see some incredible shows that involved people playing bells on extremely bendy stilts, and then people playing drums and bells dressed in jester costumes while spinning and suspended a good 30 meters from the ground.
Melbourne is a great city, and I would advise anyone going to Australia to budget more time in Melbourne than in any of the other cities (at least those that I visited). There are plenty of little side streets (called arcades) full of coffee shops and interesting little shops to look into. Plus there are lots of free things to do. And a pretty impressive market.
But now I am back in Wollongong and I fly out to Malaysia tomorrow afternoon. I got a surprise a few days ago when I found out that my friend from back home, who now lives in Korea, was able to get a week off and in coming down to Malaysia with me! Much nicer traveling with people than on your own. So as the plan stands, 10 days in Malaysia (with 5 days spent in the wilds of Borneo at the Danum Valley Conservation Center searching for wild Orangutans) and then a one night stop-over in Christopher Cornish's old house in Jo-burg South Africa, then on to Madagascar. In 2 weeks time I will be at my destination in Beza Mahafaly. I have no idea where the last month went.
I'll make sure I get something typed up after Malaysia and before Madagascar, just don't expect anything for about 10 days.
Ayden
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