Days 64 - 68 - The Last Fieldtrip and other stuff

Monday was a typical day of classes and not much else happened.

Tuesday was my final fieldtrip of the semester to the Creswick area (West of Melbourne - bout 2 hours) We toured the landcare facility (education center - sorta DCNRish), the seedbank for the area, and then visited a local farm and regional park. The idea was to look at how the community interacts with these resources and how landcare educators share information and all of that good stuff. The weather was icky off and on so it made some parts of the day kinda ugly. The evening brought homework and preparing for my trip to W.A.

Wednesday brought more class and then an afternoon of trying to find supplies for a decent price. It took me nearly 3 hours but I finally got everything I needed. After dinner I attempted to pack - which failed so I decided to unpack everything and give it another go on Thursday.

Thursday brought a day at work and more attempts at packing (still failing). In the evening there was another college meeting for positions around college (ie environmental rep. etc). After the meeting we all went out to a local salsa club but I once again called it an early night (they wouldnt give us free water!!!)

This morning I spent finishing up my homework and making sure all of my Uni assignments were dealt with accordingly so I could leave without feeling stressed. I repacked one more time and finally fit everything - now I just need a scale... I took a short bike ride to get out money and buy some phone credit in case I get lost in Perth. In the afternoon I was supposed to go to the National Art Gallery with a friend but it got too late - so we ended up going shoe shopping instead (come on now this is one of the major shopping areas of the country) I didn't end up getting anything but it was neat to see all the stores. We visited one shoe shop that was 4 floors worth of shoes - ridiculous! The evening was spent worrying about my trip and watching a movie.

And so I must leave you for the next 11 days whilst I go on my West Australia adventure. I'll be sure to take a billion pictures. So just try really hard not to think of me snorkelling in beautiful waters with elegant manta rays.... :o)


Some test batches of seed from the Ballarat Regional Seedbank

Ok this isn't an Australian Native, it's a cork tree - but seriously it's squishy when you touch the bark!

View from Mt. Hollowback - sorry about the haze...


An old brick quarry

Day 63 - Organ Pipes National Park

Sunday morning was spent working on homework and organizing for my upcoming trip to Western Australia. I also took the time to back up all of my pictures since my computer is running slowly and constantly threatening to give up and die. After lunch two of my friends and I decided to head out to the Organ Pipes National Park which is a small park northwest of the city near the airport. We were able to take a train close by and then ride the rest of the distance on our bikes. The park in itself was small but interesting and featured a lot of geology structures made by volcanoes. We also saw a ton of Wallabies which was exciting. After exploring for a bit we decided to ride the bikes all the way home. The distance wasn't bad but I had a hard time keeping up with the boys, especially on the hills! It took us two hours to get there but we finally made it back just in time for dinner. I was pretty tired so I just worked on homework before calling it an early night.


The train ride...

The lookout over the Park

The Rosette formation


The Tessellated Staircase formation


The Organ Pipes (much more impressive in person - bout 20m high or so..) we saw some cool birds of prey zooming around but I couldn't get a pic

And on to the Wallabies - notice how they are all making faces...

looks like he just ate something unpleasant


This one is literally sitting on its butt

Day 62 - Ecology in Anglesea

Today I was up bright and early for my final Education in Natural Landscapes fieldtrip - the plan was to travel to Anglesea (the first town on the Great Ocean Road) and learn from ecologists about the environment. Overall I think I probably should have skipped this trip simply because it covered subjects I already knew and we didn't have much time to explore anything else - but oh well at least it got me out in the sunshine for a while. We started off with an ecologist monitoring the estuary for health. We filled out some observation forms and also took measurements for salinity and dissolved oxygen. We finished the morning by siening up some baby fish and discussing the overall health of the estuary. It was a nice presentation. After lunch we headed up to Lookout Reserve and helped with some vegetative management by cutting down trees infringing on the grassland. It was a beautiful day but really windy! After the grassland work we went for a little van tour of some other vegetation sites before heading back to Melbourne. After dinner I made myself do homework so I could attempt to go for a bikeride tomorrow. Hopefully it's not too windy!


The mouth of the Anglesea estuary

View from Lookout Reserve

Some Kangaroos relaxing....

...on a golf course.

Days 60 & 61 Aquarium

Let's see Thursday brought a day of work at Cafe 99. I had soccer training afterward followed by an early tea (dinner) because of the GAM (General Annual Meeting). Each year Whitley holds a meeting to review Exec. stuff with the students and then there are elections. It is mandatory to attend for anyone living in Whitley - but even though I attend I can't vote because I haven't been here more than a semester. All of the candidates made up videos or speeches and it was actually quite entertaining. The meeting was followed with a visit to the Pub which I attended but only briefly since we had another early soccer game in the AM.

Friday's game didn't start till 8 but it was reallllly windy. It was a close match and in the end we only lost 0-1 but unfortunately that means the end of the girls season - boo. Oh well it was fun, I think I played better on Wednesday though I just couldn't get on target this time around - grr. After second breakfast with the team I retreated to my room for some attempted homework time and cleaning. After lunch I hopped on the bike and headed to the Melbourne Aquarium! I couldn't convince anyone to come with me but it was still pretty entertaining by myself. It wasn't a bad aquarium, but sorta small and many of the fish weren't labeled which was bummer. I learned a bunch of random facts about fish. It also turned out that the aquarium only really covers Southern Australian fish, so my plan to be well educated while snorkeling in W.A. failed. In the evening after dinner I went to a dance recital with some of my friends to support our fellow Whitlian performing. The pieces were all student choreographed and even though I didn't understand most of them - it was still fun watch, unfortunately I didn't get any good pics - the lighting was rough.

The aquarium

Some species of unlabeled seahorse

The Murray Cod - Largest freshwater fish in Australia

Some species of unlabeled Angler Fish - he didn't have his little glow light thing on though :(

Gino's distant cousin!!! A side neck turtle species - instead of drawing their head back like our turtles they just bend it over to the side to protect themselves

A lungfish!

One of the displays...

Axolotl - which I'm not sure are even native to Australia???

Blue Blubber Jellies - straight from out in the Philip Bay - and apparently according to the sign, they are considered a delicacy for eating!!!

Southern Lion's Mane Sea Jelly - this is part of the family that has the toxins in their stingers - apparently the biggest one (an artic variety) can have a bell of 2.2 meters and tentacles reaching up to 36 meters (over 90 ft) - um holy crap.

This was probably the coolest part of the visit - a big room called the fishbowl where you could stand in this tunnel and all of the fish would swim around you!

Days 57, 58, and 59

Back to class as usual... Monday brought my first and only "midterm" - wasn't too bad. The rest of Monday simply brought some classes, hall, and time to catch up on emails and homework.

Tuesday is my busy day of classes but in between I had to pick up gear for my Western Australia trip - the backpack is smaller, which is sad. I also checked out STA (student travel assoc.) for backpacking trips up north but no such luck! In the evening I bought my tickets for my Sydney trip in October so I was pretty pumped. I made myself got to bed early so I could wake up for my first Whitley girl's soccer game - apparently I made the team even though I couldn't make any of the trainings because of class!

Wednesday came too soon and in no time we were out warming up for the game - who plays soccer at 6:30 am??? Anyway we ended up losing 0-2 but I think we put up a good fight - IH (International House - another college) had a pretty strong front so we were lucky to have a good goalie. I didn't play near as bad as I thought and only completely embarrassed myself once when I chose to be indecisive about taking a chest ball or header and ended up using my face - oops. After a quick breakfast I headed to class. My boss called me off today so I decided to go for another bike ride after lunch instead of being worthless in my room. I headed out to pick up the Yarra Trail where I left it off at the Yarra Bend Park - as the trail continues it heads into the suburbs of Melbourne and the area became beautiful! I saw some new birds and even an Echidna! I saw a lot of those blue-tongued skinks basking in the warm sun - but no snakes :o( Unfortunately I had turn around before too long so I could make my 5 pm class - which I was late to anyway - oops again. After class and a late meal it was back to homework for the evening before calling it a night.



A Galah feeding in the grass


A Common Bronzewing

Some Noisy Miner Chicks being noisy

Day 56 - Wilson's Prom - Sunday

The day started much earlier for everyone because we needed to be back at the van by noon. I got up extra early to try and walk down the beach and catch the sun rise but again I was thwarted! First off the sun was coming up in the wrong place again, curse my navigational skills and second I couldn't wade across the little creek because the tide was up. (I have an irrational fear of wading through water when I can't see the bottom) I sat on a big rock and waited for light before finally getting up the nerve to cross the creek. I only went about halfway down the beach so I could be back in time for breakfast. After breakfast and cleaning up we headed off onward to the final leg of the hike, only 10 km but mostly all uphill. The hike started off on the beach then continued onto a boardwalk and then worked its way up over the mountain side. The vegetation switched to a temperate rainforest category which was cool. The weather was cooling off quick and we soon were rushing to beat the oncoming rain clouds. We managed to make the carpark just before the storm hit, unfortunately the "after" shot is not on my camera. We headed down to Tidal River visitor center for some hot chips and lunch. A bunch of people friendly Rosellas tried to steal our food and I tried to catch one that was hanging out on my foot but I just plain missed. I wish people wouldn't feed them because the poor diet makes them look sickly. Anyway I managed to sleep most of the way home so I had energy to do wash, homework and unpack once I got back to Whitley. All in all the experience was amazing and I am now doing the research to see if I can squash in another backpacking trip somewhere, somehow. Hopefully I can work it out!

I love the Eucalypts against the skyline

A little crab that came out of the sand


The final trek begins...


The boardwalk

Temperate Rainforest

Day 55 - Wilson's Prom - Saturday

I decided to get up and try to watch the sunrise because I definitely didn't want to sleep 9 or 10 hours and be a grumper all day. I was a bit stiff and my muscles felt a little tight but other than that I was feeling pretty good. When I got out to our little beach I realized the sun would come up just out of my view but it still looked pretty cool with all of the colors in the sky. Will came out and took a few pictures as well and also contemplated a swim (insane) but ultimately decided to head back to his bag. Since no one else was moving by 7 I took a hike back to the bigger Waterloo bay beach in hope of catching a glimpse of a Wallaby, but no such luck. I saw some little birds and tons of fairy wrens but I still didn't get a good picture - little rascals! When I came back to camp at 8 no one was moving so I ventured down to the creek to look for crayfish but didn't find any. I did see an eel who had come up with the tide foraging for food which was pretty neat. Just for clarification the water at the campsites is piped in from upstream so we don't have to drink the brackish stuff. Eventually other people started stirring and I was able to make breakfast and start packing up for our next trek. The ravens got into everyone's stuff during breakfast and stole my granola bars and stabbed our cheese block, bold buggers. We needed to make a 14 km hike to the next camp at Sealer's Cove. We didn't get a move on till after 10:30 though - slow people. The day brought a lot of ups and downs as we needed to go over two smallish mountains. We hiked out of the fire damage area so the vegetation changed drastically, I spent every second scanning for any species of herps but saw nothing but a few skinks :o( We took breaks for photo ops, snacks and water. We had a minor detour at the Kersop Peak which was fantastic and really showed how beautiful the area was. We reached Refuge Cove at about 2:15ish and took a nice long lunch break on the sand. Will spotted some whales - which was absolutely the most exciting thing ever - and we spent so long watching them that we almost got trapped by the tide! (at high tide some of the beach trail sort of goes underwater -there are ways around but it's a pain) We made a run for it and made it down the beach with only slightly wet feet. With another 7 km to go before dark we headed out and up - the whales stuck around so I was able to get some pretty good pics from up on the mountain side down into the bay. The rest of the hike was similar to the first half - a lot of up and downs before we reached our destination. A couple people saw Wallabies but they spooked pretty quick so I didn't get to see them - too busy hanging back taking pictures of everything. We reached camp at about 5:30 and set up tents before heading down to explore Sealer's Cove. Named for the Fur Seal slaughtering that once took place there, the cove is really shallow but I finally go to see my Oystercatcher and some other shore birds. After dark we made our dinner, Penne pasta with pesto sauce, red peppers, cheese, and snow peas - we're gourmet- don't be jealous. Anyway it was yummy especially followed with some hot chocolate - yay! Of course our dinner was rudely interrupted because as soon as the sun set the possums attacked. I mean attacked - they we in our bags, tents, food, everywhere! Will literally picked one up and through it out of the German's bag, while I tackled one to get a chocolate bar back. We learned quickly that these devious little creatures could open zippers and fully enjoyed trying to get into everything. Nothing was safe. Eventually we secured everything known to mankind and the possums backed off. We ended the evening with more star gazing and mint biscuit competition. Of course another possum ruined my beauty sleep by breaking into Amber's bag in the middle of the night.

Just before sunrise... my favorite time of day!

Pretty

More pretty

Beach at our campsite

The set up

That's a fur seal - it may just look like a brown blob to you - but it was really neat

Change in vegetation

The view from Kersop Peak

Lunch time at Refuge Cove

Starfish

Southern Right Whale, there were actually two of them and this picture does the whale no justice because they were ENORMOUS!

On the trail again...

Termite mound

My favorite shorebird - I think I like ours better. Notice the leg band

That's our tent and that's a brush tail possum coming out of it. Notice the new color variation

This is the one I tackled - chocolate thief