Welcome To Ben's Aussie Adventure! These are some of the highlight shots I took on my study abroad trip to Australia. Click on the thumbnails below if you would like to take a closer look at the pictures I took. If you are thinking about taking the "Australian Environment Course" be sure to read my Program Details web page. It says a few words about the program, costs, housing, and what to do and not do. Incidently, the trip was a blast and I would highly recommend it.

Darwin
	This is a picture of the Australian Environment group, minus a few members. It is a summer abroad program run by Beaver College in association with the University of New South Wales. This is the class that I'm touring Australia with. It is serious academic work, aside from hunting lizards, climbing up waterfalls, and enjoying the night life. There is a more complete class picture further down the page.
	This frill necked lizard is posing for the camera. He is an angry little bugger. He was sunning himself on a tree when our guide spotted him, while driving at 55 mph. He proceeded to pull a U-turn, park and grab the lizard off the tree. Steve Irwin might want to take lessons, eh?
	This is one of the many pieces of Aboriginal art that has lasted for thousands of years on the side of a cliff face. The Lightning God and his wife are pictured here. The rest of the family is below outside of the picture. No worries, mate. I have the rest of the scene as well as many of the other pieces in my off-line collection.
	Our group was lucky enough to take a trip to Kakadu National Park, home to wildlife and gorgeous waterfalls. The one pictured here is Jim-Jim Falls. It is jaw droppingly magestic, elegant and easily the highlight of the Kakadu trip. Roughly 525 feet of plummeting water generates a down-draft that whips up driving spray and violent whitecaps. At the base of the falls are sandy beaches eroded from the sand stone cliffs above and brisk pools for swimming. The picture here does not do this scene justice.
	Our group toured the Adelaide River looking for crocodiles. On the salt water side we didn't have to look too hard. They were lounging all over the muddy beaches. In this picture, you are looking at 3.5 meters of twitch muscle, capable of exerting the force of a small car on each tooth, with a brain about the size of a peanut. I have about three pages of notes about these things, but the bottom line is a few hundred million years of evolution can't be wrong. These things are nasty predators.
	Don't be fooled, This picture isn't a thumbnail so clicking on it won't help. This is a nine inch golden web spider we found in the Fog Dam rainforest bordering on the Adeilade river flood plain. There is no larger picture because my camera has no zoom and I did not want to get too close. Rainforests host a large diversity of wildlife. Much of it is toxic, and nearly all of it is wierd.
	This was one of the last activities I did in Darwin. There is a wharf that attracts hoards of fish. For a nominal fee they will let you feed the fish bread. The little ones are between 9-12 inches long and suck/gum the bread right out your hand. The larger ones don't get as close. They are about a meter long and have a tendency to splash all passers by if they happen to get startled. Also present are stingrays and skates that feed on little chunks of fish the owners throw to them.
	Here I went to an Aboriginal college for a tee-shirt making lesson. Aside from learning the basics of spritzing, printing, and silk screening. I learned a bit about the similarities and differences of Western and Aboriginal culture. Believe me, the situation is complex and there are many challenges to overcome. It was a very eye opening experience.
Alice Springs, Uluru and Various Excursions
	This is the sunrise our group had the pleasure of seeing from 22,000 feet traveling from Darwin to Alice Springs. I'm not sure if it was worth getting up at 3:30am for, but it was pretty.
	Here is the Environment Group in its entirety. We are standing in front of Ayers Rock, called Uluru by Aboriginal People. Very cool picture, very much worth taking a look at.
	After leaving Uluru, we stopped at several places. Pictured here is a female wallaroo with a joey. Ain't they cute?
	The night before we checked into Alice Springs we stayed at the Glen Ellen Resort. The evening was great fun. We had great accommodations, prepared food, a bar, and the entertainer pictured here, Tim. (he is playing the Melanka, not Glen Ellen in this shot) Our group really bonded on this night, drinking, playing cards, singing "G'day G'day" and other more colorful Aussie drinking songs. This man was very talented, and could play in many styles. He even managed a Rastafarian version of "Waltzing Matilda," which Cooper found to be splendid dancing music. Thanks, Tim.
	This is a picture from Desert Park outside of Alice Springs. We saw many native bird species and got very close to an emu. I'm told that they kick if you get to close, but this one was pretty eyeball to eyeball with our group. They make low pitched thumping/swallowing sounds deep in their throat when they want to warn you to back off. Also in Desert Park we saw lots of small mammals and lizards in the noctural house. This included the endangered Thorny Devil.
	One of the last things I got to do in Alice was go camel riding down a dried up river bed. This big fella's name is Bendigo. That bloke behind me is Cooper Savage, my roommate and all-round good guy. There are currently about a quarter of a million wild camels in the Outback. This is the largest wild population of camels, anywhere. If you look closely you'll find that camels also seem to have an extra set of knees on their back legs. The better to wander down dried up river beds, I guess...
Sydney
	While in Alice, Cooper and I learned to play an Aboriginal instrument called the Didgeridoo. It is essentially a resonant tree trunk hollowed out by termites. One cleans out the muck, decorates it, and applies bee's wax to the top for a mouthpiece. You create a drone by buzzing your lips at the top (NOT like a trumpet) and create sounds by modulating your voice and changing the shape of your mouth. If you are really good, you can use circular breathing. By sniffing air in through your nose, while pushing air out with your cheeks you can play continously. Here Cooper and I are in Sydney checking out an Aboriginal art store's selection.
	So the question every asks when you visit Sydney is, "Did you see the Opera House?" The answer is yes: from an airplane, a boat, a bus and on foot. You really can't miss it. This picture was taken from a ferry from Circular Quay to Manly Beach on the other side of the harbor. I got to attend a symphony here featuring prodigy violinist, Sarah Chang. Some of my friend attended "Madame Butterfly" two days later. It really is a very nice building.
	Just to rub it in, after my exam in "The Economics of South East Asia," our class was treated to lunch at the base of the Opera House. I also had the priviledge of visiting the US consulate on this trip. Sadly, they wouldn't let me take any photos for security reasons.
	Here is a skyline picture of Sydney. Sydney is a beautiful city. The program directors were nice enough to provide our crew with a check list of things to do to help us get oriented in such a large environment. I managed to check off the following: attend an Aussie rules football game, go inside the Opera House, watch a film at the worlds biggest IMAX, catch a ferry to Manly Beach, take a walk around the Olympic Site, hike somewhere in the blue mountains, catch a drag show at Oxford Street. I also got to: tour Darling harbor, catch a laser show, check out "The Rocks" hitting the markets and a few pubs, and party at Coogee Palace on July 4th with my "Yankee" friends. That leaves about a hundred million things to do the next time I get down to Sydney.
	I had the opportunity to go to the Blue Mountains for a weekend to enjoy bushwalking and abseiling (Aussie for repelling). Abseiling was really fun and very, um... well, lets just say I'm not sure heights are my thing anymore. I had the pleasure of hanging face first by a chest harness off a ninty meter drop with nothing but a rope to support me, not to mention the job of convincing my body that it should be okay with that. The view was astonishing, and so was the thrill of surviving. Then there was the thrill doing it again just because you could. Bushwalking was less dramatic. We tromped around a coastal rain forest by the same area where people would go canyoning. It was a little wet and quite a work out. There where no nine inch spiders here, however.
	This is a resident of the fabulous Sydney Aquarium. This place is highly recommended. I had the honor of touring this colorful museum with Corey, a very knowledgeable marine biology student. We got to see all sorts of sea life. There were large tunnels through enormous tanks where one could look up and watch a shark, skate, or sea-turtle glide over you. I also got to see a platypus (hyper little thing) and get a taste of the fish to be seen in the Great Barrier Reef.
	Legendary Bondi beach was quite an experience for me. This was first time I had done anything more than wade in a saltwater body of water, let alone battle the waves to two hours learning the basics of surfing. Though it doesn't look like it in this peaceful picture, the waves at Bondi are fairly spectacular, especially for a Midwestern boy like me. I was able to acheive a standing position on the board for about a second and a half on the last wave of the day. I was very pleased. I'd love to try surfing again sometime. That big protrusion on the left side (Actually center, but you can't tell in this shot) of the beach is a stadium under construction where Olympic beach volleyball will be played.
Cairnes
	This is Cairnes, resort town extrodinaire. Notice the introduced species of palm trees, the gorgeous blue sky and the heavily graffitied skatepark across the street from our beautify accomodations at the Matson Resort. The Matson was an overkill of luxury, with 5 beds, 3 balconies, 2 bathes, full kitchen, 11 story view of the ocean and town, not to mention tennis courts, work out facilities, multiple pools, and a pool bar. It was a really nice place to stay. Too bad I spent most of my time in Cairnes visiting rain forests, jumping out of airplanes, and scuba diving. :)
	Trinity Beach was a 25 minute drive by taxi from the posh resort we got to stay at. It was very scenic. I enjoyed renting a catamaran to sail in a 15 knot breeze. I got it to surf and go upwind one pontoon. It was great, but if you do this, make sure to wear a bathing suit because you get soaked in salt water pretty quickly.
	This cute little flyingfox makes her home in a bat sanctuary. She is a spectacled flyingfox. She eats fruit (not blood), see with her eyes (not ears), and is the closest non-primate relative to homo sapiens in the animal kingdom. She also can't be released in to the wild, because she is so used to humans. She has a tendency to flying towards and cling to people. This isn't popular outside the bat reserve.
	Here is Scott all suited up for night diving on the great barrier reef. I did a 2 day / 1 night scuba diving trip on a boat called "Reef Encounter." I cannot recommend this enough. The "No School Scuba" program allows a novice 5 dives at different locations in the barrier reef. Sarah and I also made history by being the first "No School Scuba" people ever to do a night dive. I got so see all sorts of wildlife: a friendly three foot long fish named Wally, sea cucumbers, clown fish, all sorts of corals, starfish, lobster, sharks, giant clams, the list goes on. Once, dolphins even accompanied our vessel while we were between stops. It was unreal.