We're in our final weekend in Australia, so it's time for a retrospective. This will likely be my final blog entry to avoid paying another $25 to access the Internet.

A quick scan yesterday through some of my video clips of student interviews revealed that what we hope to accomplish through a study-abroad trip was achieved. The students participated in their formal classes and embraced the larger classroom of Australia. They engaged the culture and experienced places and people unlike those at home. And they grew as people. Several reported gaining confidence by navigating large and unfamiliar cities using public transportation. Everyone rhapsodized over making new friends.

Last night, the faculty took advantage of the barbecue grills the hotel offers and brought in food to serve a potluck dinner of sorts overlooking the pool. Many of the students did the same thing later in the evening, and had done so the previous two nights. Watching about 30 students collaborate to prepare food was rewarding. Working together to achieve a shared goal while relying on the strengths of each (some are better cooks; some are better at carving pineapple) is a skill that will serve them well in life.

So thanks, parents and families, for lending us your children for four weeks. Watching them mature as they negotiated a new surrounding was a privilege.

We have one more item on our itinerary before we head home: an optional group dinner on Monday. Our wonderful AIFS representative, Laura Masters, arranged for the chefs at the top-rated Ochre restaurant in Cairns to give us a guided tour of contemporary Australian cuisine. That will be a nice treat before we depart the hotel at 2:45 a.m. Tuesday (gulp!) to head to the Cairns airport to Brisbane, then to Los Angeles, then to Miami.

Australia is a fascinating culture. It's more open than its colonial master, Great Britain, but isn't as individualistic as America. It's the size of the United States in territory but has only 8 percent of the population. The center is largely desert, so most inhabitants crowd around the seashore. Their homes are expensive and packed closely together, yet they value their open spaces and geographic treasures. They welcome immigrants and seem to care for each other.

I am so fortunate to have experienced this land with some terrific colleagues and amazing students. Some day, I hope to return to the continent and see more of Oz.

The sun peeks through the clouds this morning (June 1) in Cairns.

On Thursday, May 30, we visited what may be the world's oldest rainforest, just outside of Cairns.

That we could make this visit so easily seems improbable. The notion of visiting a rainforest conjures images of an arduous trek to a remote jungle. In this case, the journey was a 15-minute bus ride. How cool is that?

The bus took us to the Skyrail station, where we took a 4.7-mile gondola ride gliding over the treetops of this protected rainforest. We made two stops en route.

At the first stop, called Red Peak Station, we were treated to a guided walk from a naturalist who explained how this rainforest is older than any other on earth and houses a remarkable number of plants and critters unique to this locale.

Ranger Phil pointed out some amazing plants both distinctive and toxic, and a tree whose lineage dates to the dinosaur age. He warned us about the cassowary, a flightless bird that can pack a punch when it attacks but which generally avoids humans. Alas, we never saw one, though we did see the bush turkey.

The second stop afforded views of Barron Falls, which flows dramatically into a steep gorge.

The gondola ride ended in Kuranda, a small village whose purpose is to service day-trippers like us. We had a tasty lunch at a new healthy foods restaurant. Then Professor Ann Christiano and Jason Cain, a doctoral student and our program assistant, joined me in a roughly two-mile hike through the rainforest along a generally paved path.

We returned to Cairns via the Kuranda Scenic Railway, which opened in 1891. It took us from the village down to sea level, a drop of 1,062 feet, through 15 hand-carved tunnels and over 37 bridges. We saw Barron Falls from a different vantage point and saw another waterfall along the way.

The day's journey helped us see a different side to the tropics than we're used to in Florida. The humidity and rain were similar, as were many of the ferns. But many plants, trees, insects and animals were unlike anything back home. And the mountainous terrain is far more picturesque than flat Florida.

You can see for yourself in the photos.

I haven't posted for several days because I was too busy taking pictures my last two days in Sydney to process them. Then in Cairns, the free wifi access in the hotel was rarely available and always s-l-o-w. So I waited until today to buy Internet access so I could upload a bunch of photos at once.

One of the study-abroad traditions Dr. Mike Weigold has created involves an Olympic contest of sorts. We did that after class in the hotel today, on Wednesday, May 29.

Students are randomly assigned to a team and receive a study-abroad t-shirt in a color that represents that team: powder blue, mint green, etc. The games are held wherever we can find a park or open space, which in Cairns was just a few blocks from our hotel.

The first contest was a limbo stick. Half of the members of each team took turns testing their flexibility to see how low they could go. Those who were vertically challenged did not have an advantage in this task; some of our tall fellas displayed an ability to curve the spine that would make a gymnast proud.

The second contest involved everyone on the team passing an Australian orange to each person and back again without using hands. The trick was to get a good grip on the orange with the chin so that the next person, with his or her head tilted at a 90-degree angle, could use the chin to take it away.

The third contest was a new one this year, thanks to our AIFS tour director, the marvelous Laura Masters. She introduced a game that paralleled the orange pass, only this time with extra-large tourist t-shirts readily available in tourist-centered Cairns. The first person wore the t-shirt while holding hands with the next person, standing opposite. The rest of the team pulled the t-shirt over the wearer's back, through the hands, and over the back of the next person. 

The final task was a water-balloon toss. Five pairs from each team tried to toss a balloon over ever-increasing distances without letting it break or dropping.

Naturally, such contests involve trash-talking and good-natured ribbing. Some coaches, such as Professor Ann Christiano, encouraged their teams to trick-out their t-shirts and attire to create a more menacing look.

Today's winner was the coral red team, coached by Dr. Andy Selepak.

Check out the pictures for more.

On Tuesday, May 28, the day after arriving in Cairns via a three-hour Qantas flight from Sydney, we headed to one of the great wonders of the natural world: the Great Barrier Reef.

Our 75-person group was the sole customer for the 100-seat boat run by Compass tours, which did a fabulous job in helping the skittish and enabling everyone to enjoy the reef.

After about 2.5 hours, we arrived at the reef. The Compass crew set up boundaries for everyone to be safe in snorkels (or for those certified, in scuba gear). After a half-hour or so, the crew served lunch and floated to another area of the reef with different wildlife.

Students reported seeing a barracuda, turtles and all manner of fish, including Dori (for those of us who define aquatic life through "Finding Nemo.") They saw all types of coral in various shapes and colors. Although the seas were choppy, the students enthused over the beauty of the reef and seeing nature in all its glory.

Unfortunately for me, the Bonine tablets and wrest bands were unable to mitigate a debilitating case of sea sickness. So Heather Edwards kindly used my new underwater camera to take the pictures you see here. Thanks, Heather!

Sydney is such a remarkable place that I sought to make the most of our last two days in the city.

On Saturday, May 25, I spent the day at the Taronga Zoo, which is a ferry ride away from Circular Quay. The zoo is old school, with cages instead of open, naturali spaces. But that also means the animals are closer and easier to photograph.

After a short ferry ride from Circular Quay, a cable car whisks passengers over the zoo to the top of the hill. Visitors then walk downhill as they meander through the zoo, which emphasizes Aussie creatures.

But half the fun of the zoo is its locale. And at almost every turn, visitors are confronted with dramatic vistas of the harbor, the Opera House and the Harbor Bridge. Visually, the exotic animal kingdom has to compete with what homo sapiens hath wrought.

In the evening, I returned to film Vivid Sydney, the wonderful light (and at times, sound) show that started the night before and lasts for two weeks. I wandered all over the harbor to find different perspectives on the Harbor Bridge, which was lighted on the side opposite the Opera House. I got back to the hotel about midnight.

On Sunday, May 26, Professor Christiano and I took a morning ferry to Manly so we could do the Manly Nature Walk in perfect sunshine. This is a 10-kilometer, 6.2-mile walk along and above the seashore, The walk goes through some of the last remaining unspoiled portions of Sydney Harbor. Carved into the sandstone are some Aboriginal drawings of a wallaby, a kangaroo and a fish.

The walk was one of the most remarkable nature treks I have experienced, displaying the full majesty of creation. As Professor Christiano said, "Good think we didn't skip church today!"

To cap off a wonderful closing day in Sydney, I went back to Darling Harbor to view the light show -- twice. (Each show is different.) Then I packed for our flight to Cairnes (pronounced "cans").

Sydney is a world-class city of unparalleled beauty with great culture and friendly people. I'm honored to have experienced it, and I hope these final pictures from Sydney entice you to visit, too. 

I began Friday, May 24, by awakening at 5:20 a.m. to tour the Sydney Fish Market. The tour was worth every minute of lost sleep.

The Sydney Fish Market claims to be the largest fish market in the southern hemisphere. Each afternoon and evening, fishermen bring in their catch. Most of the fish is from Australian and New Zealand waters. (We saw a little that had been air-freighted from Indonesia.) The fish is sold to buyers, wholesalers and retailers, starting at 5:30 a.m. every day.

The buyers sit in stadium-style seating in front of three large screens that represent three groupings of fish by type: A, B and C. Each screen resembles a large clock -- only in this case, the "hands" represent dollars and cents. The auction begins high and goes lower until a bid is made. This process continues for three to five hours, or until the day's fish is sold.

Some prized fish, such as yellowfin tuna, is given a grade according to the redness of the meat and other factors that indicate fresh and tasty. The tuna we saw were about 100 pounds each and were each worth about $3,000.

Our tour guide, Sabrina, took us around the auction floor (where photography, sadly, was banned) and showed us some of the variety of fish caught. They ranked from shark (or "flake") and snapper to crabs and lobsters. (The crustaceans were alive.)

After the tour, we wandered through a couple of retailers who buy fish from the market each day and sell them on site. The retailers were just starting their day, so we could see them arrange their ice displays to make their fish look attractive while others worked on filleting variety of fish. We even got to see an expert filet a tuna.

In the afternoon, I toured the Sydney aquarium (no big deal) and Museum of Sydney (well done) before heading to Circular Quay (pronounced "key") for the first night of Vivid Sydney.

Vivid Sydney has numerous talks and performances, but what interested me was was the light shows. For example, the roof "sails" on the Opera House reflected a moving light show set to music. Pictures can't really do the displays justice, but the photos will give you some idea of what it looks like.  

On Thursday, May 23, Dr. Andy Selepak and I took 16 students from our ethics classes to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. What we heard was music to our ears.

The ABC is a well-regarded public broadcaster that serves this nation of about 24 million people. It is a full-service network along the lines of the BBC. But unlike the BBC, which derives its revenue from a license fee paid by television set owners, ABC gets its money from the government in three-year contracts. 
 
The ABC has some 1,000 journalists nationwide, according to our tour guide, Gordon Lavery, the network manager for ABC's 24-hour news channel, which launched three years ago.

What I've seen of the ABC in three weeks is a high-quality broadcaster that puts to shame much of what is seen in the United States. I was especially struck last night (watching while grading papers) how the network covered nonstop a town-hall-style meeting led by Prime Minister Julia Gillard in western Sydney even though the 41st meeting of its type could not have generated much news. CNN would have cut away in a minute, bored.

But what really impressed me about the ABC was hearing from Mr. Lavery how the network's journalists are expected to be multi-platform journalists.

ABC journalists handle radio, television and online. The broadcaster has worked hard to make its website more robust, and it expects its journalists to write for online as well as create packages for radio and for television. Yes, some journalists are stronger at one form than another. But there is not such thing as just a "radio" or a "television" journalist. 

Increasingly, journalists in the states are expected to be fluent in more than one platform, too.

Thus, people like Dr. Selepak and several others have been pushing to continue to convert our shiny new newsroom back home, the Innovation News Center, into a truly integrated, multi-platform newsroom. Some of us have been agitating for a revolution in our curriculum to match. 

The ABC newsroom offers an incentive to integrate our platforms with all deliberate speed.

See pictures for more.

On Tuesday, May 21, we experienced natural Australia.

We took buses two hours west of Sydney to the Blue Mountains, which are less mountains than rolling hills about 3,000 feet high. But the gorges cut throughout he sandstone make the hills more dramatic. Perhaps the most-photographed sight in the region is the Three Sisters formation, which we saw from an overlook near Katoomba.

Afterwards, we went a few miles to Scenic World, which claims to have the steepest railway on earth: up to a 52-degree incline. The railway was built to ferry out shale and coal. Now it's used to ferry tourists on what feels like a slow-moving roller coaster. Most returned to the top via a gondola, but my fear of heights prompted me to take the railway back up the hill.

Perhaps the best part of the trip came at the start of the day, when en route to the Blue Mountains we visited the Featherdale Wildlife Park, where students got to pose with koalas, feed wallabies and pet kangaroos.

See pictures for more.

This morning (Sunday, May 19) was the Sydney Morning Herald half-marathon. Three in our group ran all 13.1 miles: Dr. Tom Mueller, who got his Dr. from our college, and students Ginny Hamrick and Hannah Helms. Hannah, who ran her first-ever half-marathon, proudly wore her star-spangled running shorts to show off for her country.

That two of our students took a risk to run a long race in an unfamiliar country is a testimony to the study-abroad spirit. The healthy ways in which they engage the culture is inspiring.

After a refreshing jazz service at the city's oldest Anglican church, St. James, I ran into several students who were engaging in a different type of culture: a wine festival celebrating the Mudgee region. 

Tony Shadbolt of Short Sheep wines, a small winery he runs with Sue Widler, explained that most Australia wines come from the western and southern part of the country, and not from New South Wales, the southeastern state where Sydney is located. If people think of New South Wales wines, they come from the Hunter Valley, not the newer Mudgee region.

The Mudgee region is full of boutique wineries like Short Sheep, mom-and-pop shops where the owners grow the grapes, make the wine and handle the marketing. It's a daunting task, but one he and Sue clearly love.

And may I say, the Short Sheep semillon is the best white wine I've ever tasted!

See pictures for more.

Good fireworks pictures are tough to take, I discovered tonight.

On Saturdays in May, Darling Harbor ignites a seven-minute display of fireworks from a floating platform. These are the smaller, machine-fired fireworks rather than the exploding shells we associate with major celebrations. But they were still pretty over the water.

Taking fireworks shots involves setting the camera on a tripod and using a remote control to trigger the "bulb" setting that keeps the shutter open. The bright flashes associated with an explosion ruin the picture because they blow out the image. So the goal is to open the shutter immediately after a burst, leave it open for a few seconds and close it before the next burst occurs. This requires a combination of skill and guesswork. About three of the 45 images I shot were usable.

Meanwhile, it's 10 p.m. on a Saturday in Potts Point, which means the party outside has another eight hours to go. Some bloke (as the Aussies would say) is directly outside my hotel window with a microphone, a karaoke machine and a loudspeaker. I'd compare his tortured version of the Doors' "Light My Fire" to a strangled cat, but that would insult the cat. It's going to be a long night here in the low-rent district.