The Wonders of the South
By
Amy Lam, Amador Valley HS, Pleasanton CA
Famous for its unique wildlife and landmarks, Australia is a place of great diversity. I was fortunate enough to have spent three weeks there this summer (their winter); I can honestly say that staying there – a place with so much open space – has altered my perspective on the life I am accustomed to in America.
We began our travels in Queensland in the northeast corner of Australia. We had landed in Cairns, and without even resting after our fourteen-hour flight, we were whisked off to the Aboriginal "Dreamland." Being the resourceful race that they are, the Aboriginals demonstrated how they survived in isolation in Australia for so long. What many would consider a natural disaster, such as a forest fire, they took as a blessing. The ground would then be fertile; fire cleared away for them land that they needed to use. The tribes-people that we met didn't merely respect the Earth; they worked with it -– almost as if they were a part of it.
We then adventured into the rainforests of Australia. Growing up in the golden hills of California, I had never experienced such greenery in such heat. And yet, the way the air was heavy and sticky from the humidity didn't stop me from seeing the house of green covering the mountains. We didn't get to spend as much time there as I would have liked, but the sights still stunned me. There was a place where no person had tread. There was a place completely untouched and unspoiled. We were also able to visit a wildlife sanctuary where I held a wombat, a koala, a black python, and crocodile! I must confess that I liked holding the python the best. Holding it was like getting a full body massage. I never found out whether it was supposed to be squeezing like that or not!
Next stop was the Great Barrier Reef, one of the seven natural wonders of the world and the only living organism large enough to seen from the moon. The day was overcast, so I didn't get to see the famous brilliant colors of the reef. Yet, as I was swimming, I could hardly contain my excitement – I was there, in the Reef, a natural super-diverse ecosystem, famous worldwide! I don't think I ever got over the fact that I was actually there. The fish would swim right up to you if you were still enough. I remember being quite amused when a fellow traveler in the tour group got bitten somewhere embarrassing as he stayed still for too long. Parrotfish can get vicious! All the while, we were all aware that Australia lay under a hole in the ozone layer and carefully applied our sunblock often.
We went on to stay at a farm, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. This farm was eighty thousand acres (125 square miles) in size; the closest town was a half-hour's drive away. It was amazing how both artifice and nature surrounded us. While we were aware that it was indeed a farm that we were staying in with the cattle fenced in and nothing existing where it wasn't wanted, there was enough of it untouched that it still felt natural. The land was littered with termite mounds. But there, termites are not a curse. They are a blessing, aerating the soil much like our earthworms, allowing plants to grow better. Such is the architecture of the Earth – alien mounds and lumps made of compact soil. Nature was more than just the land there, though. It was in the air that we breathed. In a place so far away from the city, I believe I breathed in the freshest air. And I don't believe I've ever seen the stars so bright and clear. Nature truly surrounded us. The Bushmen also had a true appreciation for nature. Instead of fighting against it, they live with it. Nature is a way of life with them.
On the Tropic of Capricorn, we visited a cave formed from the ground collapsing. Once again, nature had shown her power. In these caves, bats lived. Their waste had been collected for use in fertilizers and we were able to walk on solid, dry ground. The climbing through the cave did get a bit tricky when we were asked to go through a hole that was at most a foot in diameter. But we were also made by nature and for the first time, I truly appreciated how my body could squeeze and wriggle through small spaces. For most of the trip, wherever we stayed, if we walked long enough, we could always find a beach. This was the case in the Capricorn resort. In a much smaller group of friends, we walked down the beach. It was almost completely deserted. Perhaps you have never had the chance to feel completely free and unbounded, but if you have, you will know what I felt then. As the waves of the Pacific crashed on the beach, and as I looked out into the waves, I felt very small. There was no swarm of other humans to back me up against the indomitable sea.
Later on the trip, we were privileged enough to visit Tangalooma. This is one of two places where it is possible to feed wild bottle-nosed dolphins. Feeding them was a most frightening experience. They wanted their food so much that they pretty much snapped the fish right out of my hand. Sometimes, it felt like they were going to bite my fingers off too. But you can hardly doubt my excitement at being so close to wild dolphins. It was amazing. Even though we fed hundreds of fish to the eight dolphins in Tangalooma, we only satisfied less than a fifth of their daily food requirement. When I learned that, I only wished that I had metabolism that fast! On Moreton Island, where Tangalooma is located, we were also able to go sand tobogganing. That is one amusement that is pollutant-free. Using boards, we slid down a sand dune five stories high in six seconds. Of course, we also had to climb up five stories in order to go down, but it was harmless enough to the environment around us. In that desert there were no less than twenty types of sand, all formed by nature. The most extraordinary type we saw there was glass, formed by lightning striking the sand and fusing silicates together.
There was something beautiful about this continent the size of America, yet having less than a tenth of our population. Was it the open space? The air? The animals? The stars? Probably all of them together. After experiencing a place dominated by open space, I couldn’t help but feel a bit smothered when I got home – the same way I had felt oppressed by all that space when I first got there. But I couldn’t help but enjoy the feeling of being smothered by nature.
