On the first day we were here, we settled into our bungalows in the middle of a rainforest, which is up a mountain from the Daintree River, where the mangroves we'd be working in are located. We did a rainforest walk led by an aboriginal tour guide, who showed us how aboriginals used to live in the rainforest. He showed some trees where, if you touch their black sap, you burst out in blisters like you've been badly burned. It was a really interesting hike. After the hike, we got to swim in a freshwater stream, which was amazing. The cold water felt AWESOME against the 30 or so mosquito bites I got from the hike. Note to self: never, EVER wear shorts in the rainforest. There's usually enough shade so it doesn't get hot.
For the next few days, after a boat tour on the Daintree River where our professor introduced us to the plant species in the mangroves, we had field days. Our group of 23 (split from the program's overall group of 47 which were taking the other half of the class that week) was split into 3 groups to study different parts of the mangroves. I was in the group studying fauna (mainly, crabs). My group was a lot of fun and we ended up having a lot of fun times in the car, which resulted in a bunch of inside jokes, but my group wasn't so fun in that we ended up being in the mangroves more than anyone else. Don't get me wrong, mangroves are really interesting to learn about. They are much less fun to be in for 8 hours a day. The first day, my group went in to collect leaves, and I ended up getting so many insect bites that I broke out in hives that night!
It turns out that mosquitoes are not the worst things in Australia, the flies are much worse. It turns out all the bites I'd been getting were from sandflies, which are so tiny that you can't even see them. Mosquitoes can bite through clothes and jeans, but there are infinitely more sandflies, and sandfly bites can last up to two weeks! I ended up getting groups of localized sandfly bites that still itch today, and a couple of mosquito bites that went away by the end of that week. I got 100 sandfly bites on my neck alone, 40 around my ankles, 60 on both legs, and I didn't even want to count the ones on my arms. Some of my friends got 100 bites just on the back of their hand, which looked gross and painful!! Bug spray didn't work either - I put bugspray on my skin and then my clothes (40% deet, although my friends with 100% deet still got eaten), then put on insect repellent lotion on my face, and then another layer when I got into the field and I STILL got eaten. I ended up using my eczema steroids as itch cream, and passed it around because everyone was suffering. Some people told me I won in terms of having the most bites, but that's not really a contest I wanted to win.
But other than that, I had some good times in the mangroves. The second day, we went to a rhizophora forest where I learned the true meaning of "jungle gym." The picture below is one I pulled offline (we've reached our internet capacity, so we can't upload pictures). I wasn't very happy when I saw that we'd be working a day here, but it ended up being a lot of fun climbing the roots. The roots are pretty easy to climb, except sometimes you can't tell if a root is dead, and you put all your weight on it and it collapses, making you fall into the mud below and sink into the mud up to your calves. Not so pleasant. Also, we ended up working late on 2 of our field days, so the tide began coming in and we had to wade back out into the boat. The water ended up going up to our knees at one point. There was really no point in trying to stay dry, though, since it basically rained the entire time we were in the forest. Like I said, not so pleasant.
Overall, I wasn't a big fan of the mangroves, because they were really difficult to move around in with all the mud and the roots, and because I basically got eaten alive, but in the end, it wasn't too bad. I realized that once I gave up on trying to stay clean and dry, I had a much better time. On our last day (when only my group had to go back into the mangroves and everyone else got to sleep in), we ended up having a mud fight. In the end, though, I'm relieved to be out of the mangroves, but I would also go back in, but definitely not for 9 hours a day, 3 days in a row.
Also, our bungalows were very humid, so we were basically never dry. My passport curled up and all my papers felt like they had been dipped in a bucket of water. When I brought my clothes to where I'm staying now, everything still felt so wet! I also ended up throwing out the $6 shoes I bought specifically for the mangroves because they got so dirty. That was very satisfying.
Fun fact: Vietnam has a lot of mangroves on the Mekong Delta. My professor did some research there recently, but unfortunately, a lot of mangroves are dying because of human activity and climate change.
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