Fraser Island Biology Field Trippen

I just spent the last 5 days out at Fraser Island for my biology field trip, and I am still getting sand out of my ears and everywhere else. It was a really neat trip, we did some field work, and I was excited about going back to Fraser again and exploring it some more. We drove up from UQ in a convoy of about seven 4WDs with 10 people in each vehicle, you sit opposite each other in the back seat on benches. It felt like a military operation we were setting out on, I thought we should have rifles as part of our equipment as well. It was a fun drive up, I met some new people and they ended up being in my research group which was cool. This one girl from UBC is scarily similar to Shannon, my first year roommate back home. They have almost the exact mannerisms, talk the same way, and even look somewhat similar. It was really weird. She was super energetic and pretty funny, it kept things interesting. She humped a lot of trees on the island, it seemed to be her default picture pose. A couple girls from college were also on the trip, and my friend Jake from capoeira and USC was there too. The rest of my research group was some kids from the UK and another Canaidan, everyone in the class is on exchange for the most part.

We got the ferry over and drove on the inland track to Dilli Village, the site where we were staying. It is a fenced in campground with some dorm rooms that is owned by University of the Sunshine Coast, it was a nice place. There was a creek right outside it where you could go swimming which was awesome. We didn't go anywhere else that day, just had orientation and played a lot of footy with a bunch of the people there. It was a lot of fun, I hadn't gotten to mess around with a rugby ball before for very long, but it gave us hours of entertainment during the whole trip. The next day we walked down to the beach and did a dune transcet where you record how the vegetation changes the further back you go on your transcet line inland. It was cool but very hard to make a straight transect line from the place you start on the beach, we ended up having to walk through a lot of bushes and other plants. After that we drove to Eli Creek, this freshwater creek down the beach and hung out there for the afternoon. It was windy but not too cold, we swam a lot and I saw an eel in the creek.

I decided to get up and see the sunrise the next morning and go for a run on the beach, so I got up crazy early at 5:15 and got down there for the 5:30 sunrise which I would describe as very bright. It was cool, but it heated up pretty quick even before 6AM. I went running down the beach after that and was very startled when a dingo just appeared running after me. I stopped, and it was less than a meter away and was walking closer, and it was a bit uncomfortable. I was not sure how you are supposed to act, none of the tutors told us what to do in the event of dingo encounter, they had just kept stressing how harmless and misunderstood the dingos were, and that they would leave you alone if you didn't interact with them. Well this one was not leaving and I was trying to not interact, I stomped at it and yelled at it to fuck off, but it really didn't seem fazed. It just kept making this movement with its head like it wanted to get food out of my hand, or bite my hand off, I really am not sure. I was backing away but it was walking too, and I was trying to think of ways I would deal with it if it went for me, I thought getting it in a choke hold would be effective, or perhaps a kick to the ribs, but thankfully he just lay down on the beach and got bored with me after a minute or so, and I backpedaled a good ways down the beach before taking off again. It was pretty funny looking back on it, but at that moment I was just thinking about how long it would take the teachers to find my dead body, because I didn't see them do a single head count the whole time we were there. The dingoes aren't big enough to actually kill you, and rarely attack anyone, but that's what I was thinking about anyway.

That day went on with more funny accidents, we were supposed to hike to Lake Boomanjin on a trail through the forest, but one of the tutors took us walking on the sand track for the vehicles instead that was at least twice as long and much more difficult to walk on because it's just soft sand and a lot of it is uphill. After walking about 4 kilometers, we saw a sign that said we had 7 more to go, and it was really hot out by that time. People were not too enthused abou that. A little bit later, the 4WDs pull up and tell us that everyone went the wrong way except the 2 people at the end. So they picked us up and drove us the rest of the way. The lake was really awesome though, it has red water because it is stained that way from the tea trees. We swam for a long time and then hiked back and went to the big sand dunes on the way back. They were awesome, you could run and jump off the end and land really far down, some of the guys had some crazy stuff going on, they would throw up others as far as they could and lots of them got really far down the dune. We hiked back through the trail we were supposed to go on in the first place, and it was cool because it was dark out and we had flashlights. It was a pretty long walk anyways, and everyone was very ready for dinner when we got back home.

We did work earlier in that day too, we went to the sclerophyll forest with all the eucalyptus trees and did our project on invertebrates. We captured spiders and ants and identified them and said what type of predator they were or other things about them. We aslo saw a stick insect (that looks like a stick) and a baby praying mantis. The coolest one was the flower spider I thought, it was green and yellow and eats nectar I believe. The day after that we went to the rainforest and did a project on leaves. We collected leaves from all the dominant plant species in the area and identified them, and measured the circumference of the trees in the area. It was not as exciting as the insect project, but we made it more interesting when we recorded our data that night by playing with all the leaves and drawing faces on them. It really was extreme serious science going on at this place.

After the leaf project, we hiked to Lack Mackenzie which was beautiful. It was crystal clear blue and just amazing looking, we hung out there for the afternoon and I caught a freshwater turtle from the bottom. He was cool, a pretty small guy but swam really well. We went to Lake Wabby on the next morning before we headed out, it is a lake behind some big sand dunes. We hiked over them and it was sweet to go swimming after going through the mini desert. It was a great way to end the trip, everyone was having a really great time. We headed back to the ferry and had a bit of time to hang out on the beach, but you can't go in past your ankles pretty much because of the really strong rip tides and the fact that there are 120 species of shark that go right through the channel between Fraser and the mainland. But we played footy and it was good. We saw a whale in the water, and then a pod of dolphins when we stopped to wait for the ferry, it was really cool. They were so close off the shore, just past the wave breaking point. We headed home after filling up all the tires on the vehicles, and it was a good ride back. The trip was really great, it reminded me a lot of sierra camp in tahoe, lots of swimming in lakes and hanging out with cool people. These UQ field trips really are something amazing. The 'trip' to the parking structure top floor at USC to try to see stars for my astronomy class really does not compare.

Pictures are: rainforest canopy (w/sclerophyll plants), dingo we saw while driving on the beach, guys throwing people off sand dunes, turtle at McKenzie, beach yoga at McKenzie, driving on the beach, our science project leaves, and more yoga on the dunes before Lake Wabby.

Goondiwindi B&S Ball Mayhem

I just got back from what seemed like a very long weekend out in the country town of Goondiwindi for their annual B&S ("Blokes and Sheilas") Ball out at their showgrounds. This was one of the most 'different' things I have done in Australia or perhaps in my life, definitely met a bunch of people that have a very different lifestyle than me. There are a bunch of these balls held every month or so out in the country, and were started up back in the day so that the rural kids can meet each other and go socialize together, and have grown into pretty big events that have quite the following. I really had no idea what I was getting myself into. A guy I met at the Porsepine airport awhile back said that I should go to one of them for a different view of Australia, and the opportunity came up last weekend, so my friend Laura and I went with some of her high school mates and their friends. We got up at 5:30 on Saturday morning and took the greyhound bus to Toowoomba (2 hours west), and then got a ride the rest of the way (2 more hours) with a friend. It really was out in the bush, there was nothing but cacti and short brush trees in really dry ground. We passed a school once that was one building big just randomly out on the road and that was the only building I saw the rest of the way out of Toowoomba. We pulled into the showgrounds at 1PM and already there is a guy in his 'ute' (strange form of pickup truck that is huge with the country people) is doing donuts in this dust bowl where a bunch of people are already parked and hanging out waiting for the get together that night. We hung out with a bunch of people that were all connected somehow, friends of friends of my friend, etc, and everyone was really welcoming and nice and easy to hang out with. But wow, they are such different people. Most all the guys had jobs that dealt with livestock or construction or things like that, were really into hunting big game animals (kangaroos anyone?), wore cowboy hats (and short shorts, as the Aussies do, because what could be more masculine!), drank insane amounts of beer or bundy rum and cokes, swore up a storm (everyone is a 'mad cunt'.. they thought it was funny that that word is so bad to say in North America, it's thrown around here pretty liberally and nobody cares), and were mildly to moderately racist and were not shy to let you know about it. The girls were cool, I had an easier time hanging out with them in general. The ones that went to school with my friend from college were really funny and outgoing and easy to talk with, but there were a couple other girls next to us that were pretty hardcore and one said she wanted to 'git her biff on' (/beef, she wanted to get into a fight) that night, and I wouldn't have messed with her. She had one of those beer hats that you have the straws coming down out of and was pretty huge and angry. I definitely got along with the girls better, they were much easier to talk to and weren't It was really hot and dusty, and we were pretty dirty by the later afternoon. We went to the toilets to go shower, but the showers were filled with about six inches of black water that was not draining, so we decided we could just hold out.

The ball started up at 7, and I thought it was funny that it was advertised as being 'strictly black tie', because it turned into the messiest thing ever. People apparently have a tradition of bringing food coloring into the showgrounds in sauce containers and just attacking each other with it and spraying it everywhere. There was dye all over they boy's white shirts and on people's skin, and the guys had the arms ripped off their shirts after about 30 minutes, or just weren't wearing shirts at all. The big angry girl had blue dye all over her face and neck, I told her it was like being a smurf and she got all hostile and was just like, "Thanks." and glared at me, so I looked at the ground and avoided making the situation worse, not wanting to get into a 'biff' with this one. I don't think you should get dye all over yourself and then act all serious about it, but maybe it is a serious matter for her, who knows. There were a couple bands that played, but oh god, the music was awful, all country all the time and it was rough. I don't know how to dance to it, and it drives you crazy after awhile because it is such shit music. We had fun just going around and meeting random people though, we were in and out of the actual ball area quite a few times to go hang out at people's cars and that was fun. They had free BBQ as well which was cool.

There was just so much ridiculous stuff going on around us. These 'bogan' country people really like to make noise, all night it seemed like a competition to see who could make the most obnoxious sounds, from leaning on car horns for minutes at a time to blasting a Disturbed album literally all night long to setting off fireworks, not up in the sky, but horizontally towards where we were sleeping. One actually went off right above our heads, it was a bit insane. At one point I opened my eyes and saw 3 cops just standing around us, I am not sure what they wanted, but I just acted like I was asleep because I didn't want to be asked to move or anything like that, because I was freezing already. It was a very long night of not much sleep, as me and Loainie (Laura's friend), were sleeping under a tarp on one of these roll up mattresses ("swags"), and it got pretty cold. My sleeping bag got locked in the trunk and I wasn't sure who had the keys, so we just made do with the tarp. The sun came up pretty early though and woke everyone up, so we only suffered a few hours of fireworks, cold, and bad metal music all going on around us. The next morning, more crazy stuff started up, complete with some guys wanting to 'pimp a friend's ride', so they cut of his roof with a chainsaw and later tipped it over. There were burning couches everywhere, probably about 50 during the whole thing, if not more. Also, slip and slide competitions across the hoods of cars with dew on them were popular, and of course, more Disturbed. Laura and I decided we were in fact, not "down with the sickness", as that song was on repeat for a good hour. Some of the boys that were in the car parked next to us with the extreme drinking habits took full advantage of the morning 'recovery' that consisted of free 'all you can drink' beers at the bar, and these 2 brothers had 15 drinks each in 2 hours, one of them after he had just woken up and thrown up bile and explained to us that you just had to keep drinking, its the only way to get better. It was quite impressive and worrisome at the same time. We found out they also got really sick right after their friend had driven them away (after the mandatory breatalyzer on the way out), and they ended up projectile vomiting on the side of the road. These people were actually insane I do believe.

The girl that was driving us unfortunately got food poisoning from the free breakfast sausages they were handing out that morning, and was feeling pretty ill when we were leaving. It was a crazy drive. We were supposed to get a lift all the way back to Brisbane, but she decided to stop in Toowoomba and stay there for the night because she would be driving and have to pull over because of being nauseated every half hour or so. One of the other girls felt sick too, I think Laura and I were the only ones that weren't massively ill, we felt pretty good other than being a bit sleep deprived which was lucky. It was good that Laura's friend stopped driving though for sure, she was in bad shape, so we got the greyhound back again and finally got home at 7:30 or so. It was a really long day of transportation, and we were very tired, so we got kebabs and had the best shower ever. We were laughing at ourselves walking back to college from the kebab shop, we looked pretty haggard. Very dirty, sleepy, and stumbling back home with kebabs. It was a really funny weekend, I'm glad I went, but it really made me happy I do not live in a rural environment. There were a few conversations where you could just feel yourself getting stupider. I was reading my macro textbook that morning when we were just bumming around because of an upcoming test, and one of the bile brothers came up to me and was like, "Woah, macroeconomics! What's that, a cookbook?" I think it's pretty crazy that a ton of people live in these rural areas in Australia and most people that visit here (or even the Aussies that just grow up in cities) don't see what it's like at all. All the tourist areas are completely different from being out in the bush with bogans (what they call rednecks here), some may argue it is the 'real Australia' as opposed to life in the cities. It definitely is different. I don't think I need to go to another B&S, it was pretty draining, but a lot of fun at the same time and a good experience that I doubt very many study abroad kids go through. I'm sure there's something like it in the US too...


Pix: pretty self explanatory, just hanging out mostly. One is of a ute with a pink 'bull bar' and the last one is a burning couch.

Union Ball and Recovery

This past weekend was the Union Ball, our formal event for the year. It's funny how they call these things 'balls' here, it has a goofy sound to it, similar to the 'swim carnival,' instead of 'swim meet'. They just sound so festive! Anyways, it was a ton of fun, much better than I had expected it to be. I borrowed a dress from my friend Laura and my friend Amy messed with my hair and makeup and they were pretty excited about it because I am usually pretty lazy about stuff like that. The venue was good, it was a golf course a ways off the river. We got 5 drink tickets each, but some people definitely scored many more drinks. They had a pretty lax bar set up, and the servers soon learned that you couldn't just fill up glasses of beer on the bar and turn your back. The boys were pretty quick to grab glasses and take off. My friend Gretchen thought she could be sneaky and get some wine bottles sitting behind the bar, so she grabbed 3 and ran off, sad to find out that she had taken them straight from the recycling crate and that they were all empty. I thought it was pretty amusing. Anyways, other than people stealing drinks, dinner was good and my table was fun (mostly friends from my floor plus a few others). Everyone looked really good and there was a dancefloor too, Tom and I got up and did the soulja boy dance when that song came on, always good times. So very American.

Tom and I also went and talked to Jill's husband (Jill is the head of college that nobody likes), who was playing solitaire by himself at a table. We thought, wow, how bored is this guy? Tom offered to play 500 with him, but he was like, no. That's ok. He was a bit cold and serious. We talked to him a bit and found out he is a migration official for the government and his job is to choose who gets to come and live here from overseas. I was like oh hey, awesome, I'm migrating here! Tell me the secrets! We were joking earlier on the bus that I should get randomly married to Rob or someone else to get a green card because my friends here don't want me to go home. He took me quite seriously though, and asked what I was studying. I said business, and he was quiet for some seconds. I said, yeah you don't want me do you? You just want doctors! He just looked straight at me and said, yeah, I didn't want to say it, but you should either do that or engineering or learn a trade. So I guess I shall take up carpentry if this is to happen. I read an article in the paper today about a woman that was trying to encourage more females to enter the plumbing profession. There have been only 10 woman plumbers in Queensland in the last 10 years! So yeah, their tradie shortage is real, I could be a plumber in Australia...

The rest of the time at the golf course was cool, they had a fire dancer performance with tribal drumming, it was really neat. They had fire hula hoops and fireballs on strings they swung around and they would swallow the fire. They also had lighter fluid on the drum heads and the drums would be on fire while the guys were beating them. There was also a fireworks show on the river that night because of the River Festival, and we got to see all of that. It was sweet. Some people also got too drunk and kicked out, this one girl threw up over the balcony right next to a security guard, it was classy for sure. We had buses that took us out to a bar afterwards called the Caxton Street Hotel, and it was an okay place, but some really funny stuff went on there. This one fresher girl was being stupid and called my friend Laura a lesbian, and an argument started up about it. Laura was like no! I get this short haircut and everyone is making stupid stereotypes! The best part about it was that this security guard comes up to her where she was sitting on the stairs. We thought he was going to tell us off for something, but he just leans over and very seriously says, "you have to get up now, there are no muff divers allowed on these stairs, I'm going to have to ask you to leave." It was awesome, so many security guards are so serious and pissed off all the time, it's nice to talk to one that will joke around. Laura also got tired a bit later on in the night and decided that the logical decision would be to go sleep in the toilets for an hour. We were wondering where she went, and when I went to go wash my hands later on, she came out of one of the stalls and was like hey! I just had a great nap. Totally ridiculous. We danced and hung out til pretty late and then caught a ride home with these guys that had been at the River Festival, was very nice of them to drive us home. We then hung out in the 'fatbox' vending machine room talking for a long time until the Union security guard told us to shut up and go to sleep. Was a great night, although some people went a little overboard and were pretty sick by the end of it. I heard some stories of people sleeping the whole night in the shower, not so fun.

The next day after the balls here are traditionally known as 'Recovery'. While one might think that recovery would include sleeping or having a relatively quiet day, it is quite the opposite. It usually is held at a bar, but apparently our social coordinator could not find a single place that would have us, something about last year's Recovery not ending well and us being black listed for these daytime events across the city. I'm not sure what happened, but they guys at my college fight almost every time we go out at night, so it was probably something like that. Anyways, we all went outside on the oval and hung out there all day. It was awesome, people dressed up crazy and played soccer and frizbee or just hung out on couches we dragged out there. There was a lot of rude picture drawing on each other with sharpies. Mom you will be happy to know that some people tried to tag people with vaginas as well as penises. The penises were definitely more prevalent though. My favorite might have been the full facial hair and sideburns that we gave my friend Emily. It was just a really fun day, everyone was outside and hanging out in this huge group. We should have huge hangout days like that every week, it's way better than being at a bar too. The day finished off when I went to go play water polo. I jumped in the pool and my team was like, why is there a giant penis drawn on your back...? I was like umm why isn't there a giant penis drawn on your back, hmm? It was a bit embarrassing, but hey these things happen sometimes. Anyways, that was my ball experience, a bit different from the fairy tale image conjured up by the word 'ball', but it was for sure the best formal event I have been to. Sorry if some of these stories suck/are possibly offensive, some of them you probably had to be there for them to be funny, but I thought it was a great couple days all in all.

Pictures are: bus ride over, some of my table, Laura and I posing with random car outside the bar, recovery photos of hanging out and tagging people. That is not my foot on the bottom by the way...