To the Land of Oz

The next few posts are my attempt to catch up on my blog, considering the long gap of events that had occurred. So picking up from Fraser Isand, my next destination was Byron Bay in New South Wales with the Quad-Pod (Kristen, Chidy and Amanda).

After returning from Fraser Island, I unpacked and repacked for four days at Byron Bay. Catching a shuttle, it was a two-hour journey from Brisbane. We found this vacation package on our hostel’s website, complete with activities planned out.

On our first day, we explored the town of Bryon. It certainly classifies as a beach town, with shops featuring surf boards and swim suits, but Bryon might also be the capital of alternative lifestyles. There is an environmental center with people protesting and raising awareness on issues ranging from climate change to legalizing marijuana. We spent the afternoon window-shopping and walking along the beach. The water is amazing-super clear and the prettiest blue-green. We didn’t plan it but we eventually made our way up to Cape Byron Lighthouse. It was a good hike there and on our way back. 

You can see the bottom!

Lighthouse.

The second day was our surf lesson. It was drizzling and really windy, which made learning how to surf even harder. We spent the first half hour safety precautions and how to “ride the wave”. It sounded easy when we were practicing on the sand. You push your surfboard alongside with you. Wait for the break of the wave to come towards you. Swing your body onto your board lying down. Push up with your arms to all fours, while putting enough weight at the back. Bring your feet forward and stand up. These steps became impossible in the water. The first challenge was getting out into the water far enough with the surfboard. The waves were strong and it was so much easier getting swept back. Once I was out far enough, it took me a really long time to get the timing right of when to swing onto the board. Needless to say, I fell off my board more than I actually surfed back to shore. By the end of our 3 hour lesson, I was exhausted.

The next day was a tour of Nimbin. Nimbin is a hippie town. That pretty much sums it all up. It was probably a two hour drive from Byron. This colorful “Happy Coach” picked us up from the hostel and along the way, we stopped by an Australian country pub and a small waterfall. Nimbin was a really small town, consisting of one major strip of shops. I felt really out of place and the only places I felt comfortable were the bakeries where I had my fair share of eclairs and vanilla slices. Later that night, we all went out for dinner at a restaurant for seafood. It was so incredibly good.

Oysters on half shell for starter. Photo by Chidy.

Seafood pasta. Photo by Chidy.

On our last day, we went sea-kayaking. We had a quick safety and kayaking lesson and then Kristen and I paired up to face the ocean. Getting past the waves was easy enough. After that, we kayaked around the bay, keeping our eyes peeled for wildlife, but really, we were just looking for dolphins. After an hour and a half, we finally saw dolphins!! One actually swam underneath our kayak. Sea-kayaking was definitely my favorite part of the trip. Oh, and our kayak was capsized when we tried to go back to shore. But hot chocolate and Tim Tams made everything better. Chidy, Kristen and I spent the remainder of our time at Byron at the beach and playing in the waves. By late afternoon, we caught our shuttle back to home, sweet home—Brisbane. And thus, marking the end of our mid-semester break.

 

Photo by GoSeaKayak 

Photo by GoSeaKayak

I left off concluding the month of March. In this entry, I will attempt to summary adventures in April, starting with my mid-semester break (part 1).

The first week marked the beginning of my mid-semester break. I was filled to the brim with excitement because the first half of my break was spent in the world’s largest sand island—Fraser Island for Australia’s Terrestrial Environment. It is remarkable that sand can support diverse ecosystems like the rain forest and marsh lands and sclerophyll forests. This island is also home to a population of 200 “purest” dingoes in the world.

The trip began with a three-hour bus ride and a barge ride over to the island. Several SUVs awaited our arrival. Within the first ten minutes, it was apparent why 4WD was necessary. Only in Fraser Island would the beach be considered as a major highway. While we were waiting for the other half of the group to arrive, Steve and a group of students played touch footie (rugby).

 

It was nightfall when we arrived to Dilli Village, our campsite and also home to Cafe Dilli-cious, where I had the best food ever! Kristen and Chidy were situated in bunkhouses while I roughed it out for four nights in a tent by myself. At night, the students divided themselves into field work groups, and competed for six free beers  in trivia. My group came in second to last, but it was alright.

 

Swimming hole by Dilli Village where Kristen, Chidy and I spent a few afternoons/early evenings here.

The first full day began with a hike to Lake Wabby. It was pleasant, especially with our tutor, Kris stopping periodically to teach us about various floras found on the island.

 
Kris, the plant man.

 
Kristen smiling at the camera, but I also want to point out the guy to the left of her. That’s Dr Steve Salisbury. He’s the epitome of the Australian stereotype. I like to think of him as the Australian Indiana Jones.

Lake Wabby is a perched lake, dammed by the sand dunes. When we first arrived, Steve fooled us into thinking the lake dried up. Lake Wabby might be my favorite lake. The water was deep blue green, and the lake was surrounded by beautiful, pristine sand dunes.

Afterward a nice swim, we headed to the beach for our first field activity—dune transect. Running a 100m line into the sand dune was actually harder than one would expect. At 80m, our group ran into thick bushes and shrubs. It was impossible to measure anything past 90m without getting your hair stuck in branches and legs scratched up. We had to determine ground cover percentages, measure tree heights and identify species. At the end of it, we were pretty wiped out.

The next day, we went to Lake Boomanjin. This lake was much bigger and the water was dark orange because it was stained by the tannin from the tea tree oil in the Eucalyptus. I first noticed that there wasn’t a beach at this lake but soon found out that the water level had risen since the large amount of rainfall from the year before. Some of the trees were underwater, which made swimming easier because I could rest on branches.

 

Can you see the color of the water?

Our field activity for that day was looking at invertebrate diversity in sclerophyll forest. We set up sugar and protein traps for ants. We also dug around the leaf litter, looking for any invertebrates including spiders, insects, and scorpions!! Other groups looked at things like forest structure (tree basal area, tree height and morphospecies) and forest regeneration (seedling abundance and height, and fruit types). When we got back to Dilli Village, Kristen, Chidy and I went for a swim at the swimming hole to unwind before dinner and data analysis.

The last full day was our toughest yet. My group woke up super early (5:30 am) to go bird watching. We walked down to the dune and saw mostly honey-eaters. Next, we drove to our rainforest habitat. Immediately, we saw the difference in forest structure. The trees were much taller and the forest floor was dark.

As we descended to our study site, the rain got harder and harder. My group looked at forest structure and it was hilarious trying to measure tree height and tree girth in the torrential downpour. Most of the students’ workbooks fell apart in the rain. Afterwards, we hiked 6.7 km to Lake Mackenzie which helped warm us up after being caught in the rain.

Lake Mackenzie was probably the most pristine lake I have ever seen. The turbidity of the water was so low that you could see the bottom. We had several hours to swim around and look for turtles. It made the hike totally worth it!

Of course, don’t think that my entire Fraser trip consisted only of swimming in lakes. Our last night, relating back to what I said about our last full day, included my group washing everyone’s dishes. Everyone stayed up pretty late, cramming to identify the hundreds of rainforest species, measure leaf surface area, calculating tree basal area and tree height and getting their workbooks ready. Many cups of tea were had and generated many dishes. By the time, my group finished cleaning up, we were too tired to function, let alone analyze the data we had collected from the rainforest. We toughed it out and managed to get most of the work done.

We finished our workbook on the last morning at Fraser, with help from Kris. Our group was separated into two for our journey back to the mainland. While we waited for the first group to take the barge over, Kristen, Chidy and I hung out at the swimming hole one last time. When it was our turn to go, we get to 4WD once more to the barge, beating the tides and Easter traffic. Then it was four hour bus ride back to Brisbane.


The beach is the main highway. The tide was high.

On the barge, looking back at Fraser Island.