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.