"Today was the best first day of school ever!"

On Monday we started our Environmental Science class with a bang, hiking down Mount Wellington.

We met Lorne, our professor, outside of our apartments at 9 am, and he told us that instead of sitting through lectures, we were going on a hike. He gave us an hour and a half to get ready, and then we were off. (Side note: Lorne is originally from Canada and came here to do his Ph. D in Environmental Science about 20 years ago, and hasn’t left since. He has been to Antarctica 17 times for research, and is the coolest guy ever.)

We took a bus up to the summit of Mount Wellington, the mountain that overlooks Hobart. This bus ride up to the top was very scenic, but very nerve racking. Every time we went around a corner, I gripped on to armrest because about 2 feet from the edge of the road, the mountain dropped straight down. I chided myself later, because clearly holding onto the armrest with all my might would not have saved me, but I digress.

So we got to the top, which is 1270 meters (or metREs as the sign says, above) above sea level. This is about 8/10 of a mile, which was needless to say verrrrry high. We were above the clouds (above)! Our group climbed the pinnacle for some nice photo ops (above).

Then, we began the long hike down. Those of you who know me know that I do not have a lot of experience hiking, or doing any sort of outdoorsy activities. You also know that I have a tendency to roll my ankle if I do so much as step on a pebble the wrong way. So, I walked down quite slowly to avoid any mishaps.

The walk was well worth it. On the mountain, we saw lots of cool things. We began our descent down the “Zig zag track” (above), and we were still above the clouds. It was really eerie how these cool columns made out of dolorite rock (for those geology nerds out there) came up out of the clouds (above). We saw some cool plants (above), but more importantly we saw some amazing views of Hobart (above).

After about an hour and a half of walking down, we left the alpine climate and entered one that was much more tropical. We went through forests that had huge trees (above) and an incredible amount of ferns (above).

We got out of the woods and walked a further hour and a half to our apartments. We guestimated that we walked about 6 miles, but the steep downhill part made it feel more like 20 (okay, I exaggerate a little bit). It was an incredible feeling though to look back up at the top, where we had been this morning. If you look at the picture with the tree branches in the way, that little pinprick on the top of the mountain is the white column behind us in the picture at the pinnacle. Pretty crazy.

Definitely the best first day ever.