Backbencher

Lecture Two the class discussed the geography of Australia and New Zealand. We started off the lecture with a fun picture display, literally walking us through the geography of both countries. We were also very lucky to have the opportunity to see multiple pictures of Dr. Isern's friend in his high-fashion apparel! ;-)

One of the points of interest I found right in the beginning of the lecture was how emphasized extreme sports were. Dr. Isern discussed how many teenagers/young adults in those two countries participated in an extreme sport in some way or another, and it made me wonder if America would be considered much differently?

The lecture then divided Australia into three different divisions, Western Plateau, Lowland Basins, and Eastern Highlands. A very similar description was given to New Zealand. We learned about the "Felden" in New Zealand, a word distinguished by a historian. Felden means fieldish, and "Arden" means not quite as good for agricultural production. We saw a map of NZ, and there were far less Felden spots then Adren ones.

The part of the lecture I enjoyed the most was the horror story of "introduction of European species." It appears that the countries have something magical about them, every new plant, animal, etc, multiplies and flourishes to numbers too large to imagine. Rabbits, Toads, weeds…you name, Australia and New Zealand are mass producing it. It would be frightening to experience something like that, to wake up and find your front yard missing, completely replaced with lovely rabbit 'left-behinds.' And to think, some of the introduced items were introduced for hunting purposes. I don’t think they meant 1,000's of deer per hunter.