Travel: Day 9 - Australia - Botanical Gardens and scavenger hunts

One of the advantages of teaching at a small liberal arts institution is the freedom to design and offer courses that are close to one's heart. 

In January 2011, I taught Tropical Ecology  and, for one of the class activities, I took a group of students on a 10 day trip to Puerto Rico. (Click here to read about the trip to Puerto Rico). 

In January 2013, I taught Ecology of Australia and, naturally, it entailed a field trip to Australia! What follows is a travelogue of our adventures together, the sights we saw, the things we did, and the lessons we learned while exploring a land far removed from home.

(You can see the previous posts in this thread here).

In the original plan, Day 9 was to be a free day for the students to explore on their own.  However, since we had unsuccessfully tried to visit the Cairns Botanic Gardens earlier in the week, we added it to the agenda.

(Sandra 2013)

The Cairns Botanic Gardens is located about 5km from the city center.  We took a bus to the Collins Avenue entrance and began our tour of the facility.

(Trey Cusick III 2013)

The Cairns Botanic Gardens (also known as the Flecker Botanic Gardens) is a typical botanical garden containing a wide range of plants (clearly labelled with their scientific names), focusing mainly on ones found in the wet tropical regions of the world such as Southeast Asia.

(Trey Cusick III 2013)

Distributed over 38 hectares, the property was established in 1886 indicating that many of the trees are really old and well-preserved in their native habitat.  

(Katherine Lederer 2013)

(Note: In order to conserve space on the blog and make it easier to scroll through, I am condensing how much of  the post is displayed.  To read the rest of it, simply click on the "Click here for the rest of my jaywalk" link below).

There is an extensive collection of tropical flora as well as exotic species, mainly palms, orchids, and tropical fruit trees.

(Victoria Vollmer 2013)

We spent more than 3 hours touring the facility, exploring possible every nook and cranny. The following photographs barely  describe the lush beauty and abundant flora (and some fauna) of the place.

(Kinsley Shoup 2013)

(Trey Cusick III, Stephen Spanel, and Angie Proctor 2013)

(Katherine Lederer, Victoria Vollmer, and Hannah Steen 2013)

After taking the bus back to the city center we stopped for lunch during which the students received their next assignment for the day - a scavenger hunt in Cairns.  Here are all the items that were on their list.

(C.S. Manish 2013)

The students broke into two groups and they spent the next few hours traipsing around Cairns finding (and photographing) things on the list.  Here are some of the things they successfully found:

(Katherine Lederer, Angie Proctor, Kinsley Shoup, and Victoria Vollmer 2013)

(Sandra, Hannah Steen, Emily Kinder, Stephen Spanel, Trey Cusick III and C.S. Manish 2013)

Finally, to cap off the day, we were treated to a nice dinner by CISabroad at the Splash Seafood Restaurant.  The folks dressed up and took some photos to commemorate our trip to Australia and our final night in the country.

(Jessica Sztaimberg 2013)

After days of me "carrying" them around Australia, it was only appropriate that the students returned the favor!

(Jessica Sztaimberg 2013)

I'll let you decide whether they did a good job of holding on. 

(Jessica Sztaimberg 2013)

With that the excursion part of the trip came to an end.  The only thing left to do was to pack our bags and embark on the long voyage home (but more on that in the Day 10 post).

P.S.  All trip long I was treated to a crash course in contemporary slang and expressions.  After days of persuasion, Richie finally convinced me to join her with my (pathetic) version of a duckface. 

(Hannah Steen 2013)