In keeping with the fashion of how I documented Girraween, here is a mini journal of my stay in Lamington National Park. ( and I apologize for taking so long to post my newest entry)
Day One
We arrived at Bina Burra, a camp in Lamington, around 11 Monday morning. After a brief lecture and inadequate lunch of soup we made our first venture into the rainforest. The rainforest is pretty much what you'd expect; wet, green, shady. There aren't many brightly colored plants or animals like what you might find in other parts of the world, but Lamington is no less breathtaking.
Day Two
After breakfast and a short lecture, we were separated into three groups. My group headed off with two of the teaching staff, Michelle and Ayesha, on a 17 K hike through the rain forest. We spent nearly 7 hours walking through the forest which was beautiful, but really made me feel trapped after a while; it was nice to finally emerge from the forest and see the open sky.
One of our assignments over the course of our ecology field trips is to find insects and draw them in our field books with brief descriptions of their behaviors and what we think the function of their physical features might be. Michelle is an entomologist so about every 10 of 15 minutes someone would find a bug and yell "Michelle!! What is this?" then take a picture so they could sketch it later.
Day Three
Again, after breakfast and a short lecture, my group headed off on a 12 K hike with our professor, John Hall. The path we followed took us through rain forest, cool temperate forest, wet sclerophyll forest, dry sclerophyll forest, and heath land. I was amazed at how rapid the vegetation would change; in a twenty minute span of time, we had walked through four different types of forest. I could give you a long explanation as to why this occurs which would be fascinating to me, but most likely boring to everyone else so I'll just say that the reason for all the variation is that nutrient richness varies in different parts of the forest and leave it at that. I am more than happy to give anyone who cares to know a more detailed explanation.
We stopped for a little break next to a creek and John surprised us with some Australian cakes called Lamingtons. We all had a giggle at the fact that we were eating Lamingtons in Lamington then continued on our way. John took us to a cliff in the middle of the heath land for lunch. We pushed through a narrow over grown path until we found ourselves in a little clearing over looking miles upon miles of forest to the right and the ocean in the distance to the left. It was a little cloudy that day so as I ate my lunch, I watched the clouds roll over the mountain tops.
At one point, we came across a massive Gum tree that had fallen to the forest floor. The whole deadwood center had been eaten out by termites so we crawled into the trunk via the roots and took a bunch of pictures. In wet sclerophyll forests, the gum trees are the tallest things around. I guess they're comparable to redwoods, so you can imagine the size of the trunk we were sitting in.
Day Four
Woke up at 4:45 in the morning... yes, MORNING! EW! to take a survey of bird calls during the dawn chorus of the rainforest. We followed John through a dark abyss of trees and vegetation, lit only by the narrow beams of our head lamps until we came to a look out. Again, we could see miles upon miles of mountains covered in forest as well as the ocean in the distance. I camped out on top of a rock as the sunlight started to grow brighter and listened for the distinct call of the Karrawong. There was a dense mass of mist looming over the river down below that slowly faded away as the the sun rose. With each passing moment, the birds grew louder and louder until the sun finally showed itself and blanketed the canopy with its warm beams. And as if a conductor had motioned for the end of a song, the birds became silent except for a few occasional cockatoo.
We had the rest of the day "off" which really means instead of going on a compulsory hike, my group spent the day doing our assessments in our field books. The work wasn't too difficult, though since we're all science nerds and find sciency work interesting.
After lunch, we went on a little walk with Michelle and saw a koala! I had seen koalas at the zoo earlier during my stay in Australia, but it was so much more exciting to see on in the wild. We were super lucky too, because the koala was actually moving around. To give you an idea of just how lucky, koalas spend 20 hours a day sleeping, so we really did walk by at just the right time.
That night, we headed up to the main lodge for a bush dance, which is much like a square dance. It was so much fun; everyone joined in. Afterward, we attempted to have a campfire, but our wood was wet so it never got going. We sat around the would-be campfire passing around a guitar and singing.
Day Five
After spending a week in the rain forest, with sunny skies and a gentle breeze, it finally rained. When we woke up, the whole forest was engulfed in cloud. Walking around was eery. We spent most of the day finishing up the remaining bits of our field books and left around six that night. Everyone was exhausted and very keen to head straight home, but we had one more stop; Natural Arch to see the glow worms. We got off our bus and hiked down a path through the forest in the nearly pitch dark, since light is detrimental to the glow worms. We eventually felt our way down a flight of stairs and ended up in a cave dotted with tiny faintly green lights. I felt like I was in the night sky, completely surrounded by stars. It was the most amazing thing I have ever experienced and it was hard to leave. I don't actually have any pictures to show you, because cameras are not allowed in the glow worm (actually, they're glow maggots) cave so you'll just have to take my word that it was amazing.
I'm currently doing research on Australian deserts in the UQ library. I have a paper due Friday, but a few of us are heading down to Melbourne tomorrow (Wed) night for our long weekend, so I would like to have my paper done today and not have to worry about it. If I actually get my paper done today, you should all be immensely proud of me; I don't think I've ever finished an assignment more than a few hours before it was due. :)
Cheers,
Jessie
ps the latest pictures will be up before monday.
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