Today we went to Ku Ring Gai National Park which is located north of Sydney. We were met by our three National Park Guides, David Tribe (who has been leading our trips for the past six years), John Booth, and Rea Thompson -- their knowledge of Fauna, Aboriginie history, and Australian history was awesome and we soaked in what they had to teach.
We started our journey this morning viewing carvings that were dated between 200-2,000 years old -- it's hard to tell because the Aboriginie people would continously carve over the same lines as they would share stories. It was neat to see a part of history and to also learn about their connection to the land. Aboriginie people believe very much that we do not own the land, but rather we belong to the land and there is a great spiritual connection ~ to share in a custom of feeling the spirts of the land we experienced the tradition of face painting with clay. Everyone participated in this tradition and we got some great pictures!
From the carvings we went on several short bushwalks to see ancient paintings, we learned about squiggly gum trees, spiders that spin golden webs (don't worry they weren't poisonous), and how regeneration in the bush helps certain plant species not become extinct. Several of the students tasted the nectar of a palm bush, which reminded me of honeysuckle, we also got to see Westhead Lookout -- one of the most famous look out points in Australia -- it was beautiful!
From Westhead we headed to our last bushwalk down to a really unique beach with lots of interesting rock formations. Some of the students swam in the waves, while others wandered around checking out the scenery and watching some of the surfers that decided to brave the steep trail down to the shore.
Overall it was a great day, rain showers and all!
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Welcome all, this is the first entry to let you know that we have travelled in time and made it to Sydney. Why do I say we travelled in time, the main reason is that January 3rd never happened for us. We left LAX airport at 9:30 pm on Wednesday January 2nd and found ourselves after 12 hours in Auckland, New Zealand on January 4th. After a short layover we then hopped on another flight for a three and half hour flight to our final (for now) destination, Sydney.
I will say that I was impressed by our students ability to keep a positive attitude and outlook despite many of them having travelled for 30+ hours. We only had two minor inconveniences. Luckily one of them happened to me. I had trouble flying out of Greensboro and as a result had to do some standby flying to make it to LA in time to make our flight to Auckland and Sydney. I somehow made it, but my bag did not. I hope to be reunited with it tomorrow, but we will see. The other inconvenience happened when a student misplaced the paper ticket for their flight from Auckland to Sydney. After some work the student was able to pay to replace the ticket, so all is good.
After arriving to our hotel, Mallory and I had a short meeting with the students to go over some details pertaining to the course and then we gave them the rest of the day as a free day to explore Sydney all that it has. Some of the students explored the City Centre, some explored the harbours and Opera House, while others went to the beach.
Mallory and I chose to explore the Rocks area around Sydney Harbour and the Opera House. Plus we went to the the Botanical Gardens. Tomorrow is our first group activity, stay posted for our journeys.
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Welcome to the 2008 Elon University Australia Ecotourism blog. Hello this Dr. Eric Hall writing. Mallory Anderson and I will be leading this course of 30 students to Australia. Our journey will take us to the east coast of Australia for 3 weeks. Feel free to stop by and see what we are doing and post any messages you want others to see. Hope you enjoy.
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