{"id":52232,"date":"2024-09-26T06:09:43","date_gmt":"2024-09-26T13:09:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carpediemeducation.org\/?p=52232"},"modified":"2024-10-05T06:38:13","modified_gmt":"2024-10-05T13:38:13","slug":"fall-2024-cairns-to-the-daintree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carpediemeducation.org\/fall-2024-cairns-to-the-daintree\/","title":{"rendered":"Cairns to the Daintree: New Adventures, Wallabies, and Overcoming Challenges"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Written by South Pacific Students, Grace and Caroline<\/strong><\/p>\n

What\u2019s New in Our Journey?<\/h4>\n

After our long flights, we safely arrived in Cairns! Mary and Sushi bravely drove on the opposite side of the road for the first time and got us to our lovely hostel. For lunch, we ventured to our first Australian shopping mall and indulged in some food court delicacies. We spent a good first night at the hostel, enjoyed swimming in the pool, started orientation, and even made a few new friends.<\/p>\n

The next day, we drove to SheOak Ridge (with a quick pit stop at the grocery store to pick up necessary snacks: TimTams, chips, coffee, granola bars, etc.) and made MANY wrong turns on the backroads of the Daintree. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, we met up with Marcus and Claire, our partners for the week who run a nature reserve here in the Daintree rainforest, and they warmly greeted us at their property.<\/p>\n

Once we settled in, we continued orientation throughout the week, learning about managing risk, writing community guidelines, playing A LOT of games, learning how to effectively work together, and much more. When we weren\u2019t busy with orientation, we helped Claire and Marcus with their work around the property. We took down the barbed wire (and encountered a few wasp nests along the way\u2014sorry, Sushi, Grace, and Julia!) and prepared pots because Marcus plans to plant 80,000 trees (out of 100,000)!<\/p>\n

We also met Theo, the VERY cute and sadly imprinted wallaby at SheOak. We fed him plenty of sweet potatoes and gave him many chest scratches, which he thoroughly enjoyed. Claire also let us watch her nightly feeding of the wild wallabies, and we loved seeing all of them, especially the adorable joeys. There are so many details we might have missed, but overall, it\u2019s been a wonderful week!<\/p>\n

Top Three Highlights of the Week:<\/strong><\/h4>\n
    \n
  1. Meeting and hanging out with Theo! He\u2019s super friendly and loves to smile, especially when he\u2019s drowning in sweet potatoes. He often comes up from Claire and Marcus\u2019 house to hang out at our bunk, which we really appreciate. What a wonderful host!<\/li>\n
  2. As a group, we\u2019ve discovered a shared love for UNO and have been playing it every night after dinner (and sometimes during the day). Our games get quite intense, filled with lots of screaming and laughter. Don\u2019t worry\u2014we\u2019re keeping a tally of wins and will update you on the scores. Clivia is currently the reigning champion with four wins.<\/li>\n
  3. Our third highlight has to be removing all the barbed wire from Marcus and Claire\u2019s property! They started the project a while ago, and we were able to help finish it. In our next post, we\u2019ll update you on how many kilometers we removed. We became quite skilled at understanding the complexities of barbed wire, which truly seems to have a mind of its own. Many scratches later, we think we\u2019ve mastered it\u2014though there\u2019s always room for improvement!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Challenges We\u2019ve Faced (and Conquered!)<\/strong><\/h4>\n

    While we\u2019ve loved our time at SheOak Ridge, we\u2019ve found the compost toilets to be a bit of a challenge (to put it mildly). But we\u2019re powering through, knowing that this experience will make us stronger! We\u2019ve even picked up some Aussie slang and now call them \u201cdunnies.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Our second challenge has been the number of spiders and snakes. Claire and Marcus have reassured us they aren\u2019t very dangerous, and we\u2019ve learned a lot about them\u2014but we\u2019re still cautious and quickly dive into our tents, zipping them up as fast as possible!<\/p>\n

    Group Dynamics & Moments of Gratitude:<\/strong><\/h4>\n

    We are incredibly grateful that our group clicked immediately, and we all get along so well. With a small group, it\u2019s easy to spend one-on-one time and really bond. Everyone is unique, but we\u2019re all on the same page and love to laugh and sing together! We\u2019ve been playing lots of games\u2014both in orientation and during our downtime\u2014and telling stories to get to know each other better.<\/p>\n

    We\u2019ve found a great balance between being serious and getting our work done while still having fun and being a little silly. It\u2019s been a joy to find this harmony in our group!<\/p>\n

    Bonus Fun: Language Lessons and Musical Vibes<\/strong><\/h4>\n

    Clivia has been teaching us German, and our current favorite word is \u201cSchmetterling,\u201d which means butterfly. We\u2019ve also been enjoying lots of guitar playing and are so grateful for Gabe and JT\u2019s (Julia T., who we call JT!) musical talents.<\/p>\n