Day 1
We had to meet at UQ around 7:15 Tuesday morning in order to hop on a bus and spend three hours driving until we made it to the bush. For the most part, much of the land we drove through looks like the Central Valley; open space, cows, houses widely spaced apart, intermittent trees. As we journeyed closer to Girraween, the scenery shifted to forest. There were a few open spaces along the road and can you guess what we saw grazing? Whole flocks or herds (I can't recall the proper term at the moment) of Kangaroo! The sound of the bus was enough to send them bounding across the meadow into the shelter of the forest, which in turn caused shrieks and shrills of enjoyment from not only the girls, but the guys as well, on the bus. Kangaroo would become such a common sight during the trip that even over the course of four days, we've all gone nearly numb to the excitement of seeing a Roo in the wild.
When we arrived, we promptly set up tents and had a quick lunch before going on a short hike to a nearby creek. There, John Hall, our terrestrial ecology lecturer, started teaching us about the ecology of the environment that surrounded us. We started our first assignment then went on a hike to the Granite Arch; the pictures will go up soon for you to see. Afterward, John assigned small groups to specific areas of the forest where we had to measure a 30 by 5 meter plot and record tree heights, girths, density, and conditions as well as profile the other plants and ground coverings in our plot. I guess we spent about five hours away from camp that first day before heading in for dinner. Oh. My. God. Dinner. We had some pretty amazing cooks and they fed us enough food for the entire Steelers football team to eat until they were stuffed and still have leftovers. After dinner, John gave us a lecture and then we all scooted straight off to bed. I think everyone went to sleep before 10:30. But damn was that THE coldest night I've ever had to endure. The weather forecast was entirely wrong so we were expecting chilly, but not just barely above freezing during the night.
Day 2
After breakfast, John separated us into two groups; my group went off with John and the other spent the day with Billy and Aeysha, our PHD student assistants. My group surveyed areas of forest gathering data on the types of plants that tend to grow shortly after a brush fire vs. long after a brush fire. Our data will actually be used by the Park Rangers in helping them to better understand the importance of fires in a forest ecosystem. Once our field work was done, John lead us on a massive hike visiting many of the park's magnificent natural structures of granite made during the triassic period. Millions of years of weather have eroded the stones into what they are today. We basically sprinted up a large amount of stairs until John realized that we didn't need to rush, because we would have plenty of time to see everything he wanted to show us. The hike to castle rock took a little over an hour, maybe a bit longer since John likes to stop every so often to explain various plants to us. Anyway, we arrived at Castle Rock, or so we thought, and John says "it's just a bit further." So we made our way through a crack between two giant boulders across a perilously steep smooth granite sheet and up the sides of a few more boulders and ended up with a view rivaled by next to nothing. I could see miles upon miles in every direction. We ate our lunch perched atop Castle rock then headed back down to make our way to the Sphinx which was not too far away. The Sphinx is a large almost oblong granite (everything that isn't forest at Girraween is granite) stone with a smaller, rounder one sitting on top of it. Our last stop was turtle rock, which looks nothing like a turtle, but if you use your imagination, and I'm talking about the one you had at the peak of your childhood, you can maybe understand why someone thought it looked like a turtle. Again we were away from camp until about five ate dinner went to lecture then straight to bed. Temperature wise, the second night was not much better than the first, but we managed to cram four people on cots into one tent which made for added heat during the night. Only one downfall, we ended up having to touch the sides of the tent. Generally speaking, you don't want anything to touch the sides of the tent, because those things tend to be a bit damp when you wake up in the morning. And that night... it poured. We were fine when we went to sleep, but about halfway through the night until a bit after we woke up for breakfast there was a steady waterfall on the tent so my sleeping bag and pillow got a tad damp and by default lost some of their ability to keep me warm.
Day 3
Aside from waking up chilly and slightly damp, I was excited to start the day. We split off into the same groups as the day before and did what the other group had done the day before. We went to the creek with Aeysha and Billy to set yabby traps. (Yappy's are a type of crustacean smaller than a lobster but bigger than a shrimp.) Then we took samples of the sediments at the bottom of the creek to find out what sorts of creatures live there. We found baby shrimp, dragon fly larvae, and nymphs, to name a few. A while later, we set off for the Junction, a place where two creeks meet up. Lunch time at the Junction was beautiful. After lunch, we went back to the yabby traps to see if we caught anything. We did! One of the traps had a large red female yabby in it. She had fairly large pinchers and spines along her sides. Her tail was curled under protecting a batch of eggs from predators. Of course, we let her go as soon as everyone took multiple pictures of and with her. Then we took another hike to the Pyramid. Pyramid is the "next to nothing" that rivals Castle Rock. You have to walk up a ridiculous amount of stairs before you get to a path that takes you straight up the side of a massive granite boulder with nothing to hold onto but the solid rock beneath your feet. We followed a dotted white line painted on the rock by the rangers some years ago that apparently shows you the best path to follow so as not to slip and fall all the way to the top. We were so over come by sheer amazement at our accomplishment and the view that everyone started cheering. I couldn't believe how windy the top of Pyramid was. Again, we took heaps (the aussies love to use the word heaps) of pictures before heading back down the rock. Heading down is, hands down, waaaaaayy more frightening than heading up. Probably because you can see exactly where you'll go if you manage to fall. As always, we went back to camp, ate dinner, went to lecture then went straight to sleep. This night managing to stay decently warm and dry.
Day 4
This morning we partially broke down camp then drove to another part of the park to do a bit more field work. We did some more sampling of creek sediments and took some data on a type of plant called a banksia. The creek we worked at is called Underground Creek, which made no sense when we first arrived, but after about an hour we found the "underground" portion. A while ago, part of a granite boulder that hung over the creek collapsed on top of it, but did not obstruct the flow of water. It was really awesome to stand on the rocks above the creek and hear it running beneath my feet. Of course, having already conquered Castle Rock and Pyramid, the little boulders that lay on top of the creek seemed like mere play toys to us so we spent a good half hour climbing up and down and around until we were called to poke and larvae and count banksia pods. (which is actually fun if you are a science nerd like me) We went back to camp and finished packing up then drove back to Brisbane.
I had a lovely dinner with my homestay tonight. Needless to say, I am exhausted. But, I am waking up early tomorrow (saturday) morning to meet up with a bunch of friends so we can caravan down to Byron Bay for some more camping during our three day week end. Pictures will be online at the start of next week!
~ Jessie
No comments:
Post a Comment