Royal National Park

Hey Bloggers,
My last environment is the coastal environment. The coastal environment that I’m travelling in is the Royal National Park at Audley. This coast line is beautiful and it contains lots of different animals, we saw a white breasted sea eagle. We saw its nest high up in a tree; it was 2 metres in width. The coast line is manly made out of sand stone so it is very white, there are lots of waterfalls that fall over the cliffs. There are many coastal plateaus with spring flowers making it very colourful. You always hear the sound of the waves crashing against the cliffs. We have friends in Bundeena and the park surrounds their house. The fallow deer was introduced to the park in 1885; we went spotting them at night.
The aboriginal people that lived in this area have left paintings and other things to signify the way they lived. They collected shellfish from the sandy beaches. The Dhjarawal were exposed to many different diseases when the English came. They did not survive many of the new sicknesses. There were carvings in the rocks near the pools of water from where they sharpened their axes and spears. I tried to sharpen a stick but it snapped within seconds. Their spears had three prongs on the tip for piercing the flesh of the fish.
This was my last journey so, so long folks.

THe Great Barrier Reef

Hey Bloggers,

I'm here on the Great Barrier Reef Snorkelling the clear waters. Yesterday I was on the island called Long Island Resort, it was fantastic. I went on the donut that was behind the jet boat and I fell in. When I was in the water I saw a sea turtle, it had the fright of its life. That night I was watching the karaoke and this guy sang, “I’m too sexy for my shirt” and he had many shirts on. Every time he said the words, “I’m too sexy for my shirt”, he took off a shirt. At the end he had one shirt still left on, it was pretty cool.
The Great Barrier Reef is the largest coral reef in the world. It has over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands covering over 344,400 square kilometres.
Recreational fishing is not a big part of my life but a big part of the people that live up here near the reef. Over 800,000 Queenslanders think of themselves as recreational fishers. I do come from Redcliff which is not very far away, so I’m close to not sticking out like a sore thumb.

Kenya Mountain

Hey Blogger,
I’m back in Kenya as I forgot to go to Mt Kenya and climb to its top! The common name for this mountain is Kilimanjaro. I can’t wait until I get to the peak. The highest point, 5199m, rises from a lush forest to a wonderful rocky peak. The peak is covered by equatorial snow, it was really weird. This snow has formed a series of glaciers and some frozen cliff faces. The profile of Kilimanjaro is a tropical Volcano so I think it is going to be a bit scary. At the base of the mountain there are some famous hotels like the Mount Kenya Safari Club, River Lodge, Treetops, Mountain Lodge and the Bantu Lodge.
Today I started my climb, it was easy. It began as a small incline and then started to get steeper. The next day I had just started to climb in to the snowy bits and there was this big rumble and an avalanche went down the other side of the mountain. It was incredible. The next morning I went to the peak and it was a spectacular view. When I reached the bottom I was amazed that it took me so long to get up but so little time to get back down.
There was lots of wild life at the place I was staying, but they were all orphans as their mothers had been killed by poachers; there were cheetahs and antelope and lots more. I felt sorry for them, I wanted to take them home with me back to Australia but I couldn’t. That night a lynx came up to my tent and ran off into the bushers.

Kenya Savannah Grassland

Kenya Savannah Grassland
The Savannah has very few trees so there was not much shade for dad and me to park the 4-wheel drive under. Most of the trees were surrendered by lions, monkeys, hyenas or wilder beasts, so we just had to stay in the sun and boil as we took pictures of the animals. Dad had the shot gun in his hands if any dangerous animals started to attack us in our 4-wheel drive, if they kept on coming we would have to drive away and leave it for another day. After we’d watched these animals for a while we drove down to the water hole to see if there were some cool animals there. When we got there, we saw a black rhinoceros drinking from the far side of the water hole. A troop of baboons came down to the water for a drink but didn’t realise that there was a cheetah watching their every move. It was moving straight for the old male on the outside of the troop. The cheetah started to sprint with amazing speed; it zoomed past the 4-wheel drive and had reached the troop in seconds. The alarm call went though the troop and they all scattered in to the trees but it was too late for the old male, it had been caught be the cheetah. Three cheetah cubs ran out into the open and started to eat once the mother had finished.
The people of Kenya are called the Masai. Whilst we were there we saw them build thorn fences around their camps to stop the lions and other dangerous animals from getting to an easy meal of goat from a farmers pen. They also made fires and danced around it singing to the spirits to keep them safe during the night. In the day they danced in large groups and jumped very high into the air.

THe Arctic Tundra

Biomes tundra was amazing to see and experience. It lies just above the Arctic Ocean, in the world's highest northern latitudes. There were lots of different animals in the tundra, like caribou, reindeer, lemming and the polar bear. The tundra experiences 24 hour days, so it was hard to sleep because the sun always shone through the cabin’s windows. Tundra is one of the driest and coldest places on earth. All tundra locations can reach below freezing on any night, even in the tropical locations. Last night it was -10C. In the summer the soil gets very soggy because of the melting permafrost. Most of the plants and shrubs bloom early in autumn. In this short period of time the flowers are brilliant; it’s like the area comes from another planet it’s so wonderful. The cabin we stayed in was much like the one in Antarctica. Some armed forces send their troops to stay up here for extensive training. They do this because the people who live up in the tundra live longer, studies show that the air is much cleaner than the air at lower altitudes. Pretty cool, I should stay up here.