Written by South Pacific Students, Grace and Gabe
What’s New in Our Journey?
Hello from your friends Gabe and Grace, the current leaders of the week!
It has been a whole week since the last blog, and boy oh boy, are there updates! Starting off the week, we completed our second food shop of the trip, and it was by far our biggest one yet. We purchased seven days’ worth of food, and the group divided and conquered the grocery store beautifully. Since we were already in the beautiful town of Mossman, we visited the Mossman market and lots of other shops on the main street. The group indulged in lunches at the café, bubble teas, and whatever else the local vendors had to offer!
The next day, we all visited Cape Tribulation, an incredible beach with beautiful wooden boardwalks that lined the sides of the entire beach. The water was so incredibly blue, and we all felt very lucky to be in such a beautiful and unique landscape. After the beach, we drove to Mason’s swim hole and waded in the beautiful jungle water (don’t worry, there were no crocs!). We concluded the day with ice cream at the Daintree Ice Cream Company, which was some of the best ice cream we’d ever had! After our relaxing long weekend, we got back to work at Climate Force and helped the crew around the property. Some of our tasks included mulching, weeding, working in the tree hardening center, and planting trees. Rob showed us the ropes throughout the entire property and was always happy to answer our questions as we worked, putting up with our Y2K music accompanied by pitchy singing.
Towards the end of the week, the entire ClimateForce crew and Carpe Diem participated in a remote beach cleanup, only accessible by boat! Terry and Calum, the boat owners, were generous enough to shuttle us back and forth from the main beach to the remote beach we were cleaning up. We ended up cleaning 251 kg (553 pounds) of trash and finished the workday “stranded” on the beach, drinking fresh coconut water and listening to Bob Marley. All in all, it was a great week at Climate Force, and we are grateful to have been a part of such an inspiring project. We will miss the Daintree, volunteers, and Climate Force staff very much and will always hold this experience near and dear to our hearts.
Top Three Highlights of the Week:
- Mary’s spooky haunted house: Our fabulous OE, Mary, took it upon herself to set up the scariest haunted house that has ever occurred in northeastern Queensland. It was filled with riddles, haunted house music, smoke, a scary French man, and a lot of crawling. Shout-out to Mary, Sushi, Ash, and Naïm for putting on a stellar performance.
- A “Fancy” dinner party hosted by the lovely Nicky: Barney, the CEO of ClimateForce’s mother, cooked up a delicious curry for lots of hungry beach cleaners. We were incredibly grateful for her generosity and her delicious food. We played smooth jazz on the speaker and had an elegant evening. We wrapped up the night sitting by the fire and exchanging stories.
- The beach cleanup: Cleaning the beach seems to be a unanimous highlight of everyone’s week. We showed up to a trash-covered “Shipwreck Beach” and left it a little cleaner and definitely a bit more sunburnt. Although one of the group boat trips broke down in the middle of the ocean, and the other groups were left on an isolated beachfront, everyone left the beach cleanup in high spirits, giggling tons (and a little dehydrated).
This Week’s Challenge
This week, the group has begun to understand the true power of mosquitoes. We are all completely covered in little bites and are constantly itching our ankles. These unwelcome friends very much enjoy coming out during the evening and disturbing any group peace. I think the group can all agree we are excited for a bit of a break from the “mozzies.”
Looking Ahead
This upcoming week, we head to Port Douglas to get our scuba diving certification! We will be spending a little over a week in Port Douglas at a hostel in town. The group is looking forward to lots of new foods, meeting hostel friends, exploring Port Douglas, and, of course, getting our scuba on! We’ll let you know how it all goes in the next blog. 🙂
A Few Extra Highlights
- Gabe conquered the pepper challenge: This week, Gabe and two other volunteers at ClimateForce took it upon themselves to eat the hottest pepper grown on the farm. The pepper is called a beach habanero and causes reactions like throwing up, hiccups, crying, and screaming. Gabe was the first to start back up on mulching after subjecting himself to the pepper, while the two other volunteers, Naïm and Jo, needed a longer breather and a rest break. Good job, Gabe, once again making the SoPac 24 group proud!
- UNO scores: Clivia and Ash are still tied at seven wins each! An honorable mention goes to Susannah for winning UNO for the first time and crushing the competition. Good job!!!
