The Senses of Australia (MCS)

Lake Entrance, Victoria 

Wilson's Promontory

I’ve been in Australia for about a month now and I can say, even after doing quite a substantial amount of traveling throughout my life, that there is nothing quite like it.

Sight: Even though the United States and Australia are very different culturally, I've seen areas that look almost identical to places in the US. Strip malls, urbanization, and suburban sprawl seem to exist universally. The unique thing about Australia is how you can drive an hour north and enter a completely different ecosystem. I started my journey to school east of Melbourne at Phillips Island, in which the area looked comparable to what I think Ireland would look like with lush green grass and rocky ocean views. As I headed North towards Townsville (where JCU is), it continued to get hotter and hotter. I passed through sunny beach towns, dense forests, and miles upon miles of farmland. Only a few hours of where I am now are rainforests and if you head inward you will find the arid outback. The climates that I am used to from around the US and many other countries are incredibly intensified. 

Taste: The foods seem quite identical to that of which I am used to. Though, I haven’t really had a chance to explore differentiating cuisines (I haven’t even tried Vegemite yet!). Hopefully, as I travel around Australia, I will have more of a chance to try more. 

Smell: Being landlocked for the majority of my life, I’m quite unused to the smell of the ocean and the intense smell of fish that sometimes goes with it. Some mornings, when I walk out of my room to class, I get blasted with a prevalent dosage of fishy nausea. I’m hoping this is because of the nearby ocean, but we are 30 km away from any beach front so it really could be coming from something else. Other than that though, the smells are quite similar. 

Sound: The most obvious differences between sound from the US and here, are the accents and the birds. Obviously, being in Australia, there is the Australian accent, which isn’t nearly as hard to understand as I thought it would be. Since James Cook University is renowned for its Marine Biology, people from all over the world travel here to study. So, not only have I been exposed to the Australian accent, but I have met people from places I have never even heard of before and can hardly understand because of their accents. Something that I find incredibly impressive is how people whose first language isn’t English can thrive in this academic setting even though it’s really not easy to understand many of our lecturers. The other major differences in sound are the birds. I feel as if every time I walk outside I hear a different kind of bird call. And let me tell you, they are different. Ranging from screaming children, whistling men, and birds that sound more like monkeys than anything birdlike, I feel like I have experienced a spectrum of sounds unlike any other. 

Touch: My biggest fear with touching things in Australia is that I am usually unsure of what it is. Especially in this area, which is rather tropical, their bugs, plants, and animals are all super foreign to me. I'm so used to romping around in the woods of Western Pennsylvania without a care in the world because I know the biggest danger I am likely to encounter is poison Ivy. Here, I don’t even know if they have an equivalent to poison ivy. The protocol about animals might be completely different. Even what they say are turkeys, look nothing like the turkey that I am used to. 

All in all, it has been quite the experience and I cannot wait to do, learn, and see more. Until next time.