If We'd Started the Semester on Heron Island, We Never Would Have Left

April 8 – 10, 2014

By Claire Hinkley

We’ve spent the last week on a tropical island paradise— turquoise waters and white sand and brilliantly multi-colored coral reef and all. Heron Island is a coral cay in Capricornia Cays National Park, and is part of the Great Barrier Reef. It’s tiny, small enough to walk around in less than half an hour, but the reef stretches far out around the island to the east. We’ve been lucky enough to stay at the University of Queensland research station located on the island, and we’ve taken full advantage of what the island and reef offer: snorkeling, reef walks, turtle-spotting and bird-watching expeditions, and beautiful sunsets.

Getting Suited for a Snorkel

Although our first couple of days were too windy to take boats out onto the reef to snorkel, the last three days have more than made up for it. Friday’s snorkel at Blue Pools in particular was perfect: calm, azure water; sunlight trickling down to light up the pinks, oranges, and purples of the coral and turn the rainbow of fish sparkling and iridescent; and warm breezes keeping us from getting too chilly as we floated, watching the underwater world beneath our goggles. The snorkeling has been amazing, and most of us have been taking full advantage of going out on the boat as many times as possible.

Snorkel Buddies!

I think my favorite part of our time on Heron happened on our very first night here. Heron Island is an established nesting site for sea turtles— mostly green (Chelonia mydas) and loggerhead (Caretta caretta gigas). In the past, the island was home to a turtle soup factory, until they depleted the turtle population and had to shut down. Luckily, the turtles have come back now that the soup factory is gone. We happened to come to the island during hatching season. After a lecture on sea turtle biology, we walked down the beach at dusk. Soon, we spotted tiny dark splotches slowly traveling over the sand and coral rubble on the beach toward the ocean. Upon closer inspection, the splotches proved to be tiny turtles, their flippers too big for their little bodies, struggling over the footprint craters in the sand. As I stood still, watching, I felt a gentle, scratching pressure on my foot. I looked down to see a baby turtle scrambling over the top of my bare foot, determined to make it to the water. It was a magical moment.

Now we’re heading off to Fraser Island for the final leg of the program, where we’ll have our final exams on the biology coursework. It’s crazy that we’re almost done; it hasn’t even begun to sink in yet. For now, though, there’s still one more magnificent sunset to enjoy over the Great Barrier Reef.

-Claire

Sunset Paradise

Goodbye Carnarvon, Hello Kroombit

April 2 – 4, 2014

By Becca Zilk

We spent most of April 2nd working on and presenting our experiments on fire ecology and on social behavior of animals. I really enjoyed listening to the presentations, especially the ones on social behavior of animals, because I learned a lot about different Australian animals from my peers. Two of these projects were on pretty faced wallabies, one was on apostle birds, and as Gabby previously detailed, ours was on social behavior of ants and termites. After dinner we decided to watch Finding Nemo in order to get ourselves into the proper mindset for studying marine animals at Heron Island, where we will be snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef. We also felt obligated to watch this “Australian film” because many of our lecturers have discussed aspects of it in parts of our lessons.

Exploring Carnarvon Gorge

April 3^rd was our last day at Carnarvon Gorge. We had a few optional hikes planned for those who were keen.  One of the hikes was a dawn walk to watch the sun rise from atop a bluff. I had been planning on going on this hike, but my foot (which Sierra mentioned in her blog from March 2^nd-5^th) has still been giving me trouble on and off and had been hurting all night. I decided to sit out that hike. It turns out that was a good idea because the other students reported that it was basically a scramble in the dark up a very steep slope. The other hike that was offered was a pretty intense canyoning adventure that involved swimming across rivers and rock climbing. This sounded like a ton of fun and I really wanted to go, but climbing would have been really bad on my foot. Instead, I stayed at camp, finished the book I had been reading, and went for a swim at the swimming hole near camp. We had a pretty quiet evening and an early night, as a lot of people were tired from getting up early and going on two strenuous hikes.

Sunrise over Carnarvon Gorge

Canyoning Group

The next day started off with an efficient pack up of camp. By 11am we had all piled back onto our home away from home, the tour bus. Three hours later, we found ourselves at a cattle station called Kroombit, in Biloela, Queensland. This station had turned to tourism to subsidize the station during times of drought and has basically become a dude ranch. It was a very bizarre experience and took some getting used to. Almost all of the people working there were not Australian, but backpackers working for their room and board while trying to get their 2^nd year visas. The evening’s activities started with trying out the mystery meat (which was kangaroo) and continued on to learning how to crack whips, line dance, and ride a mechanical bull. All of these things felt very touristy, but it was fun to just let ourselves relax and have fun for the evening.

Our Home Away from Home

We will learn more about the history and how the station traditionally functions tomorrow.

Until next time,

Becca

Camping in Carnarvon

March 30 – April 1, 2014

By Gabby Ray

The first thing that struck me about Carnarvon Gorge was the sheer number of flies in the area. Coming from Lamington, where I developed an acute fear of leeches, I thought I would not mind having a couple of flies around. But it seemed to me that our campsite was infested with them. Once I realized that guarding my drinks and food was a futile effort, I was able to enjoy Carnarvon for everything else it offers.

The campground itself proved to be a gem. Never mind the flies, the area was filled with kangaroos and wallabies of all shapes and sizes. Especially around sunset, we were bound to see at least a couple of pretty faced wallabies (yes, that’s their real name) feeding close by. Conveniently for us, the natural defense mechanism of most of these marsupials is to freeze in place, so I got the opportunity to essentially have a photoshoot or two with these adorable little guys and their kangaroo cousins.

Eastern Gray Kangaroo Mother & Joey

On Tuesday, we began our observations and experiments on the social behavior of animals. Waking up every morning to newly formed ant mounds directly outside our tents inspired my group to study communication in ant colonies. We decided to do a manipulative experiment. We would set up a piece of food one meter away from a designated ant colony. We would wait until a defined line of ants formed from the opening of the ant mound to the food, recording their times as they went along. We would then remove the food and record the time it would take the ants to stop going there, because we hypothesized the ants would use their pheromones to communicate that the food source was missing. 

Unfortunately, our experiment was in an open, uncontrolled environment, which meant that we profoundly underestimated the quantity and diversity of ants in the area. We had three separate attempts to study three individual colonies, but each time another species of ant swooped in for the food before our designated study colony.

Ant Nest Outside the Tent

This small defeat led my group to a new direction of study: communication among termites. We initially observed that the termites in the eucalypt trees had built tunnels running up the length of the tree on the outside of the bark. Our tutor, Simon, told us that termites do not do well in UV light, so they grind up wood to create these small pathways from the top to the bottom of the tree.

We conducted an experiment on the termites with this in mind; we broke 2cm, 4cm, and 6cm sections open in their tunnels and recorded the termites’ response times. The first thing that happened when we opened the tunnel was a flood of soldier termites flew out of the broken section, surrounded the perimeter, and banged their heads on the wood, sending signals to the worker termites. Surprisingly, the workers, with large, black pincers, were much larger than the soldiers, who were smaller and red with flat heads. The workers did their job as fast as they could, in just under an hour for each section. It was interesting to observe the efficient division of labor among termites.

I think, having grown up in a very old, wood house, I always had somewhat of a bias against termites. I never exactly wanted to know how they worked, but after spending a few hours observing their complex systems and specialized workers, I realized I might have misjudged the intricate social behaviors of these little insects.

We’ve had a beautiful week at Carnarvon Gorge and have become immersed in learning about and observing Australian wildlife. In other words, all’s well on this side of the world!

-Gabby

Jetsetting

March 27 – 29, 2014

By Emma Garcia

During the three days that this blog post is about (March 27^th-29^th), I was mostly in a transition period of travel and adjustment between the independent travel week and the beginning of our week in Carnarvon Gorge. I have decided that instead of recording all the tedious details of my travel habits, I’ll make a list of useful things I learned during these three days, because not a day goes by in Australia that I don’t learn something new about myself, my limits, my environment, or my friends. Here we go.

1.     The YHA sets an unfair precedent for all other hostels. As someone who had never stayed in a hostel before coming on this program and whose only hostelling experiences since have been in the YHAs in the Blue Mountains and Brisbane, I believed that most, if not all, hostels were clean, well-organized places with soaps on the pillows at check-in and a free pancake breakfast on Friday mornings. This is not the case. On the first day of our independent travel week, my travel buddies and I stayed in a non-YHA hostel that can only be described as a particularly dirty hovel. By the time we checked into the YHA for our last night in Cairns, I seriously considered kissing the floor of our clean, well-lit, air-conditioned room.  In reality all I did was tear up a bit and then raid the free bin, because nothing is more celebratory to me than receiving free, second-hand clothing.

2.     Australian airport security checks are easy peasy lemon squeezy. You don’t have to worry about carrying over 3 ounces of liquids, wearing shoes, or learving random items in your pocket. Unless you have an umbrella in your bag, you have to scan that separately.  I learned this during both the 7 am flight from Cairns to Brisbane and the 8:30 am flight from Brisbane to Rockhampton on March 28^th.

3.     Lamingtons are an Australian staple. The ladies of the Country Women’s Association in Blackwater, Queensland, lovingly demonstrated this to us. After our program rendezvoused in Rockhampton and set off for Carnarvon Gorge, we stopped in to visit the local chapter of the Country Women’s Association of Blackwater, a small mining town in central Queensland. I was quite happy with our stop, as it involved a fair amount of sitting, listening to stories, and eating cake, which are some of my absolute favorite activities. Also worth noting is that while Lamington—angel  food cake covered in icing and coconut—is an Australian staple, it seems to have become quite popular under other names in different countries. I mean, come on, cake dipped in chocolate covered in coconut bits was bound to catch on. 

4. Australian gliders are the cutest things. The night of the 29^th, our tutor, Simon, took us on a night walk through the forest of Carnarvon Gorge to spotlight gliders, nocturnal marsupials that glide across the forest canopy. We found a few greater gliders as well as some yellow-bellied gliders, and I swear, when they spread their tiny arm membranes and leapt from the trees, my soul flew with them. Or should I say, glided with them.

5.  Except for echidnas, which are actually the cutest. I don’t think this actually needs much explanation; we found two echidnas during our walk, and I fell in love. It really is that simple.

-Emma

A Very Wet Independent Travel Week

Reunited in Rockhampton

March 24 – 26, 2014

By Ian Christie

As we barrel forward through the second and final week of independent travel, we have entered into the stage of frequent commentary on how quickly time has passed. The truth is, of course, that since January we have done so much and have made so many memories that thinking back on our time in Sydney seems impossibly far away and reminds us the time hasn’t disappeared, rather it has been well spent. Still, only three weeks remain. We have finished our final exams for three out of four of our classes. In front of us stands a welcome immersion into the Australian bush and the continuation of our field studies portion of the program. The next three weeks, full of travel and natural splendor, are in large part, what made myself and several others apply to this program in the first place.

We spent last week at Lamington Plateau, being introduced to the scenery and ecology of some of Australia’s most impressive rainforests. So impressed were we that this week myself and several other students took the independent travel week to see more rainforest farther north.

After an early morning flight, we found ourselves in the small, charming seaside town of Cairns, in North Queensland. This is the furthest north we will make it in Australia, and a great opportunity to see a spread of Australian landscapes not before experienced. We encountered the even smaller, even more charming town of Kurunda, made it out west to get a small taste of a more arid Australia, and got soaked in the wet rainforests of the aptly named Misty Mountains south of Cairns, before reuniting in Rockhampton with the rest of the group today.

Already it is apparent that we weren’t the only ones with stories to tell from the independent travel week. From taking in the cultural sites of Melbourne, to roughing it in Tasmania, the rest of the group seems equally happy with their travels. Everyone seems to be feeling mentally rested and eager to get on with the final stretch of the program. Usually I would expect to see homesick faces at this point in such long trip away from home and all that is familiar, as minds tend to turn toward home with the end finally, realistically within site. Yet the anticipation of the experiences we still have before us in Carnarvon Gorge and on Heron Island have kept spirits high. Furthermore, at this point in the trip it’s amazing that we haven’t started tearing each other apart after over two months with only the same thirteen other students for company.  Instead, we’ve come out of our week apart eager to see the people we hadn’t been traveling with, to swap stories, and to explore Carnarvon Gorge.  

-Ian

From Rainforests to Crags: Australia's Wild Side

March 21 – 23, 2014

By Nicky Wolff

On our last full day at Lamington Plateau we had a free day to roam the beautiful national park. Seven of us decided we wanted to take a longer walk deeper into the park on a loop trail that would take us all day to complete. We started off with packed lunches and plenty of water to sustain us while we roamed the rainforest that, thanks to our professors, we've quickly gotten to know over the past few days. Log runners (small birds) darted past the luscious undergrowth on the dank forest floor as we ventured deeper into the forest.  Overhead nearly all the sunlight was blocked by tall trees caked with epiphytes and heavily draped with lianes. The hike took us along three raging waterfalls each with moss-lined pools underneath. As adventurous college kids, we eagerly took advantage of the plunge pools to cool us down. Anthropods, isopods, arachnids, true bugs, and normal bugs all greeted us from the surrounding rocks. We have adapted to the presence of these crawlers and face them not with fright, but with increased interest. Yet as we continued we soon realized our greatest foes of the day would be leeches. During the thickest part of our trudge through the forest (where we were wishing for a machete) we flicked off at least ten bloodsucking leeches per person. After about 17 kilometers of walking and checking for leeches, we happily scurried back to camp, feeling like we knew what it really is like to be in the rainforest—in order to understand the diverse rainforest and all its birds, plants, bugs, and mammals, we had to lose a little blood from leeches.

The next day we packed up camp and left Lamington Plateau to start our week of independent travel. I went with a buddy to Tasmania for a bit of hiking. As I flew into Hobart, the capital city, I was reminded of other remote towns I've been in. Hobart has the harbor and seafood places of Maine, but the practical layout of Anchorage or Juneau. The rolling hills of the countryside filled with wheat and livestock remind me of my home in Wisconsin. I could tell tourism season has ended, as the town was dead quiet by 8 o'clock. Australians have a phobia of temperatures dropping below the 60s, which they are prone to do in Tasmania, so it didn’t surprise me that the only people visiting seemed to be from places where they put dots over their letters. I can tell it’s my kind of town though; there are more outdoor stores then any other type of store. Tomorrow we will head to Freycinet National Park to camp for two nights. This trip will be short but good, giving us a little relaxation before we push through our final few weeks of the program.

-Nicky

    

Mammals and Insects and Birds. Oh My!

March 18 – 20, 2014

By Katherine Jernigan

Our group’s return to the Australian bush was as refreshing as it was educational. There was a perfect balance of good food, card playing, and smelliness to bring the group a bit closer together while enjoying the beauty of the Australian rainforest and learning about the ecology of the area. 

Tuesday morning, half of us woke up early to hike out and check the bird nets that our fearless avian studies tutor, Stephen, had set up. We were lucky enough to find three birds caught in the nets: one logrunner and two yellow-throated scrub wrens. Stephen showed us how to gently hold the birds, giving us a chance to examine their weight and appearance before setting them free. After taking down the nets, we headed back to camp for a wonderful hot breakfast made by our beloved cook, Ulla.

Strangler Fig in Lamington National Park

After breakfast and a quick equipment cleanup, we split off into small groups to plan our rainforest studies projects. We were encouraged to examine the question, “does competition occur in rainforests?” The question seems simple enough, yet as many of our groups realized, competition is harder to prove than one might think. My group decided to look at epiphytes, which are amazing plants that live on the branches and trunks of trees and are found throughout the rainforest. My trio spent the afternoon counting and identifying epiphytes to test our hypothesis, that there would be interspecific competition for space at different heights in the rainforest. After estimating the heights of numerous orchids, staghorns, ferns, and other beautiful epiphytes, and processing our data, we came to the conclusion that we couldn’t conclude anything at all about competition. Other groups couldn’t say much for competition either, despite the diverse range of projects examining things like the population density of brush turkeys and forest growth after disturbance. As it turns out, most groups weren’t able to prove that competition exists in rainforests and agreed that future in-depth studies would be needed.

Sierra on the Canopy Tree Walk

The Most Magnificent Epiphyte I've Ever Seen

After presenting our findings to each other the next morning, we had a bit of free time to explore the forest without our lab gear in our hands. A group of us decided to hike down to a beautiful waterfall with a view. I know our professors keep telling us that Australia is flat in geological terms, but I’ve got to tell you, it has some beautiful mountains.

The Waterfall Hike

View of the Waterfall

After our hike, or “walk” as Australians call it, we met up with Kathy, an entomologist who introduced us to the wonderful world of Australian invertebrates. We headed back into the forest to gather insects. Gathering involved shaking branches onto white sheets, strategically swooping brush with large nets, laying out pitfall traps, and overturning rotting logs to pick out cockroaches with forceps. All in all, we had a grand old time channeling our inner 9-year-old bug-hunting selves.

Later that night, Kathy showed us something really special. The conditions were perfect for hiking out and looking at glow worms. The bioluminescent worms, which are actually maggots, emit a bluish glow that attracts insects, which then get stuck in silk snares that the maggot has expertly hung like fishing line. These glow worms are unique to Australia and New Zealand and it was amazing to get the opportunity to see them. The numerous glowing lights along the bank looked like fallen stars. We all sat quietly staring as if we were looking up at the night sky.

We spent the next morning examining our invertebrate findings under microscopes in a makeshift lab with the guidance of the highly knowledgeable, Kathy. We saw everything from spiders to beetles to bees and learned all about what makes those creatures tick. My favorite finding was a giant moth larva the size of my finger that Ian and I agreed we would eat for no less than $3000. American dollars, of course. Lucky for us, no one had that kind of cash on them, so the ethanol-soaked larva was returned safely to its designated vial. All of us learned a lot from classifying our invertebrate findings, although it was a bit disconcerting to see all of the insects, particularly the large ones, that are cohabitating this beautiful continent with us. As we nestled in our tents that night, we dreamt of ticks, leeches, and giant worms, all of which we had the pleasure of interacting with that day. Our experience with the flora and fauna at Lamington was definitely an unforgettable one.

Cheers!

-Katherine