Fraser Island Field Trip

Last weekend I went on a school trip to Fraser Island for the first half of Mid-Semester Break. Mid-Semester Break is one week long, just like Spring Break in the US. This was a field trip for my Biology class (Australia’s Terrestrial Environment), which is one of the classes mostly filled with American study abroad students. We were on the Island for about 5 days and it was a really great time.

Fraser Island is one of the most interesting places I have ever been. It’s the world’s largest sand island and is only accessible by barge and can only be driven on in a 4-wheel drive vehicle. It also has Australia’s largest population of pure-breed Dingos (more about the Dingos later…) The island is filled with giant sand dunes, beaches, eucalypt forests, freshwater lakes and rainforests. In the past the island was logged and mined but since 1991 it has been listed as a World Heritage site and is now almost completely protected as a National Park.

On Thursday morning we packed up the 4-wheel drives and headed about 4 hours north of Brisbane to Hervey Bay where we took the barge over to the island. It is really interesting because the outer beach along the island is basically a highway. So instead of seeing people sun tanning or playing in the ocean along the outer edge of the island, there are cars zooming past and there is an actual speed limit and policemen patrolling. This is probably because it’s the flattest part of the island so it is the easiest place to travel. There are roads that go through the inner parts of the island, but they are very windy and extremely bumpy. Absolutely no one swims in the ocean off of this island because of the dangerous rip tides and sharks, but there are many beautiful lakes on the rest of the island including some busy beaches and other secluded small lakes.

Half of the students on the field trip were camping and the other half were sleeping in bunkhouses on the campground. As you might guess, I chose to camp (less expensive and of course more fun). We were in a campground surrounded by a fence to keep the Dingos out. We also had an eating area with a kitchen and outside tables where we thankfully had all of our meals cooked for us by the kitchen staff. Not necessarily ‘real’ camping, but close enough.

We spent three complete days on the island (plus the first and last 2 which were travelling) with half of each day dedicated to education and the rest for more fun activities like bushwalking (hiking), and swimming in the lakes. On each of the three days we spent the first half doing scientific fieldwork in different habitats on the island.

Othe first day we went to the shore of the island and did a Dune Transect, which involved examining how plants gradually colonize and develop an ecosystem on sands deposited by the sea. After working on this, we spent the other half of the day at Eli Creek, which is the largest freshwater creek on Fraser. This creek is surrounded by giant dunes and is definitely one of the most beautiful areas I have ever been.

On The next two days we spent our ‘education time’ in the eucalypt forest and then the rainforest (Fraser is the only place on the planet where rainforest grows on sand!) We examined plants and insects in order to understand the differences between the two types of forests. We studied the different habitat types and learned how they relate to changes in the physical environment (such as soil, climate, disturbance). I don’t want to bore you all with science talk here… but just to give you an idea if you are interested, these are some of the things we measured in order to learn about these habitats: tree basal area, canopy tree heights, leaf morphology, leaf litter diversity, groundcover abundance, seedling abundance, flower and fruit morphology, ant diversity and abundance, spider diversity and hunting strategy, and soil composition. It was really fun collecting data and using cool high-tech science instruments to gather the data. I felt like a real scientists and it was really neat to have a real-life use for some of the stuff I have been learning.

In our free time on the second day we took an extremely long hike to Lake Boomajin which had weird redish water, but we swam in it anyway since we were in desperate need of refreshment after the long bushwalk. The better part of the day was stopping at an area with huge dunes that we got to play on for a while. There were so big and beautiful, definitely a sight I will never forget. On the third day we did another very long hike to Lake Mackenzie. This lake was gorgeous, but much less secluded than the others we had been to because it is much easier to access.

Another neat thing I learned on this trip was Spotlighting. Every night one of the Tutors (like a Teaching Assistant in the US) would take a group of students out to try to spot some nocturnal animals. To do this you put a bright flashlight right next to your eyes and look for the “Eye shine”. Eye Shine is the light from your flashlight bouncing back at you off of the animal’s eyes, helping you spot millions of spiders and some frogs. I was really proud of myself and felt really cool because the night I went out, our group only found 4 frogs and I was one of the people who found one!

The last day we were able to have some free time lying on the beach. But things got really interesting when we were leaving the island… We had just gotten on the barge and we saw a 3-year-old girl get attacked by two Dingos right next to the barge. It was a very surreal and scary thing to see. Her family was fishing on the shore for the day and the little girl and wandered away and the Dingos started to attack her. Once the family saw what was happening the mom ran over to grab the girl and as she was running away from the Dingos the mom fell with the child in her arms and they got attacked some more! After they had finally completely gotten away, they were rushed onto the barge so they could be taken to the mainland where an ambulance was waiting. From what we saw, it seemed that the Dingos had bitten the girl all over her legs but it did not look too serious. We found out later that this was all over the news and that the Dingos were later shot (they all have identification tags on them). Throughout the trip we had seen multiple Dingos on the island, and we always kept our distance but they never tried to bother any of us or even seemed to notice that we were there. It is definitely one of those things that you don’t believe will actually happen until you see it yourself.

Besides the weird/scary ending, Fraser Island was a really great time. There are still many things on the island that I did not get to see so I would love to go back some day and spend more time there. It was great spending time with my classmates, everyone was very friendly and welcoming, and I also learned a lot about the island and environmental research in general.

We got home from Fraser late Monday night and I spent all day Tuesday and Wednesday writing a paper that was due the day after break. My roommate and I then headed off to the Whitsunday Islands for the rest of break, which I will tell you all about next. Thanks for reading!

Sky Diving!

Last weekend I went skydiving! It was the one of the most frightening and amazing things I have ever done. We jumped from 14,000 feet over Byron Bay, which is the highest jump in all of Australia. It was so much fun, unlike anything I have ever felt in my life. I was really scared but I am so glad I did it, I want to do it again and again. The first few seconds are the scariest ever, but the feeling of being in free fall is unbelievable. Once the parachute was up I was able to relax a little and enjoy the beautiful scenery and the amazing feeling. Words really cannot describe it, so here are some pictures...

Thanks everyone for following my blog! Feel free to leave comments and messages so I can feel like it's more than just my mom and sister reading :)

Next week is Mid-Semester Break so on Thursday I will be traveling to Fraser Island and then to the Whitsunday Islands. Should be two amazing trips, I can't wait!

Cairns- Great Barrier Reef, Rainforest and Waterfalls!

This weekend I spent 4 activity-filled, rainy, exciting and memorable days in Cairns.

I traveled there on Thursday night with my roommate and 6 guys from our apartment building. The boys had planned this trip a few weeks ago and my roommate and I joined in after hearing great things about the area from many people. We didn't think we were going to make a trip up there but over the past few weeks we have heard amazing things about the area (one backpacker I met in Melbourne who had been traveling Australia for the past year said it was his absolute favorite city) and the boys had some pretty cool things planned so it seemed like a great opportunity.

Cairns is definitely a tourist town, with almost everything revolving around the Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef. The hostel we stayed at was interesting, to say the least. Everyone was extremely friendly and welcoming, but they were not the most normal people in the world.. it was definitely an experience and I am glad I was traveling with boys instead of just one other girl because I felt much more safe and comfortable. Our weekend was jam-packed with activities so we did not spend too much tiem at the hostel, so I guess it was worth the $12 per night to have to be around a few crazy people.

On Friday we woke up early, rented an 8-passenger van, and drove an hour and a half north of Cairns to Daintree Village for an electric boat tour. This area is beautiful! Part of the rainforest has been lost to logging and development but it is now protected as a World Heritage area so we were able to see a lot of amazing natural environment. The electric boat tour was on the Daintree River, a famous area for spotting crocodiles.

I have never seen crocodiles in the wild before so this was really exciting. We saw one full-grown crocodile and later saw a baby croc (about a year old and very small). We were able to get up pretty close and get a good look since our boat was so quiet, which was very cool. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable about the area so he had a lot of great information for us, making the tour well worth it. We learned that this rainforest is home to over 3,000 plant species! We then ate lunch and everyone had crocodile meat but I could not bring myself to eat something that I just marveled over and took pictures of for the past hour. We spent the rest of the day making our way back to Cairns, stopping on the way to take a few rainforest walks, swim in the ocean, and seeing the well-known city of Port Douglas.

The next day was our Great Barrier Reef day! We woke up extremely early, practically ran to the boat because we were of course late, and spent the whole day on a sailboat.

First we went snorkeling but the water was rough- there were many waves and the water was not very clear. I went scuba diving twice throughout the day, the first time was not great because the cloudy sky made visibility but the second dive was AMAZING. I saw some cool fish and the corals were absolutely beautiful. There were certain ones that we were allowed to touch and they were so soft and silky, like nothing I have ever felt before. Since we are not certified divers, there was a guide with us at all times literally holding our hands, telling us what we were allowed to touch, and pointing out cool fish and corals to us. I seriously felt like I was in Finding Nemo it actually looks very similar to that, I was really just in disbelief the whole time. The weather was not great so that was a bit of a letdown, but the sailboat was really fun and scuba diving was unforgettable, I definitely want to do it again some day.

Sunday was filled with a waterfall-rainforest tour. Besides the rainy weather again, it was wonderful. We spent the day stopping at different areas of the rainforest and seeing some beautiful waterfalls.

The most amazing part of the day was swimming in one of the huge waterfalls. I have never swam in a waterfall before it it was such a strange feeling that I had not expected. I guess I expected it to just feel like a shower or the fake waterfalls I have seen at pools, but it was so much more amazing than that. There was such extreme pressure and the natural beauty was almost overwhelming.

By Monday we finally got a little down time in- a few of us went to a coffee shop in town and got caught up on schoolwork. Monday night we participated in a barcrawl that our hostel was hosting called ‘Mad Monday’. All week everyone at the hostel had been talking about Mad Monday so we were interested to see what it was all about. Basically, the entire hostel has matching tshirts that get written all over with permanent marker throughout the night and you go around to different bars and also get dinner. This was really fun, we met some very interesting and cool people from all over the world and at least got one night out in Cairns (all of the other night we were way to exhausted to go out at all). It was a bit difficult though because we had to at the airport by 5am the next morning. So we all just decided not to go to sleep at all, making for a very rough plane ride and whole next day.

Cairns was a really fun time especially traveling with such a large and fun group of people. My favorite part was definitely the scuba diving and all of the beauty of the rainforest and the waterfalls is definitely unforgettable. I wish we had better weather so that we could have spent more time at the beach and exploring, but overall it was a great trip. I will be on the Great Barrier Reef one more time while I am here- we are traveling to the Whitsunday Islands over Mid-Semester Break. I don’t think I will spend the money on scuba diving again (even though I would love to), but I am exciting to do another sailing day-trip and maybe snorkel a bit.