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!