First I will tell a quick story fitting for my expectations for this trip, then you can read on about some less exciting crap about everyday life here..its been raining for 2 days and I've not much to do, so feel free to read the highlights then move on :)
So yesterday we were hiking to one of the beaches on the island and we did make it there and had the entire beach to ourselves, and it was amazing. (Mother, I'm sure you're going to be reading this at some point so you can go ahead and skip down to the next paragraph). As we were hiking back we were pretty worn out because we decided to continue hiking up some huge boulders on the coast, and were just kinda taking our time and we stumbled upon the first of two lovely creatures pictured above, the much talked about snake, the Australian Death Adder... Did I mention DEATH is included in its name? Now at this point we passed it once already and we are unaware that it is this snake that we were told about by the park guide the day before. When we came back upon it 2 hours later it had only moved about a foot, so...what else is there to do with it? I picked it up with a stick. And kinda pretended to throw it at Colin, but only a little. It moved really slow and never struck at us, and so I put my camera in the close-up setting and took the pic above from about 4 inches away. Climbing down further we stumbled upon another one on the trail, and getting back we talked to the park guide, and showed her the video of us playing with it on a stick and she started screaming and freaking out, and saying many explatives, and it was then that I was informed I had just picked up the 9th deadliest snake on the planet, and also kinda poked it with a stick a little. oops? (sorry mom, won't happen again). Then this morning when two girls came up to us and asked if we were the guys who picked up the snake and told us that the story was spreading all over the island, I realized that I don't think I fully understand the scope of what we did yesterday, because they also said many F words when we showed them the video. anywho, on our hike today we were quite a bit more cautious to say the least, and ended up seeing no snakes, but more importantly, we saw a baby Koala in a tree! Oh, and we also went back in the bat cave and poked the bat clusters with a stick this time to get them really crazy so we could take a fun pic of the girls getting attacked by the bats, so that was a nice addition to the day.

As far as the everyday, I am really starting to settle in here on the island, and loving every minute of my days. I've gotten to know the staff pretty well, and they are all lovable friendly people, so it is awesome to be around them and work with them. Today is the second consecutive day of monsoon rain, it basically rained for about 12 hours yesterday, then cleared up enough for us to start a hike then began again as we were halfway up, but no worries because I have been wearing proper attire around the place. When we got here Colin and I began a series of "lets see how long we can go without..." games, the first was going without a shirt, and the bet was quickly upped to no underwear as well as no shaving, so I am finishing up day 4 of wearing nothing but sandals and board shorts, it's quite nice after a while. But tonight I decided to get dressed up and put on shoes with my shorts, so I am looking pretty snazzy if I do say so myself. I dont think I have mentioned many everday details, so there were are few and here are some more. I am in the northern state of Queensland, and it is smack dab in the middle of their wet season, and besides the obvious rain, something else that really punched me in the face when I got off the ferry was the humidity. To say that it's humid here is like saying...it's chilly at the South Pole. I have quickly become accustomed to my entire body being sticky 24/7, and you begin sweating as soon as you get out of a cold shower. Nothing ever dries, and my board shorts have mildewed from all the rain and humidity. My books are starting to curl up from the moisture in the air, and with all this, somehow it is perfect here. Its probably because I dont wear shirts anymore. But it is so laid back and care free, and the days are filled with exploring and the nights with good food and great fun, so there is not much more I could ask for, except maybe for maybe someone to shoort the birds that sound like monkeys that are outside my bungalow everynight..but I'm still working on that.