Arthur River Expedition - Day 7

Friday 11 March
Ahh! A sleep in until 7 am! We packed, breakfasted, sorted the houses out and left our home of the last 6 days by about 9:30 am. Our challenge for today was to write a poem that started "O Zebedee..." and reflected the issues and adventures we had with this novel piece of  lidar technology. There would be a poetry reading at the pub tonight.

On the way Gail decided to visit Dismal Swamp and the giant slide there. It has quite a good set of boardwalks through tall damp forest, such a contrast to the areas we've been in for the last week.

Back into the car and straight through to Elizabeth Town to collect our order from the bakery, arriving at Trowunna Wildlife Park in time for lunch (a little late) and a talk by Androo Kelly.

I have now been to Trowunna three times and it is quite amazing every time. It has a breeding colony of disease free devils and others of spotted-tailed quolls, eastern quolls, forester kangaroos, wombats and more. They also take in injured wildlife and nurse them until releasing them back into the wild.

Back to our accommodation to settle in and write a bit of poetry before we all headed for the Mole Creek Pub for dinner. We doubled the clientele at the pub and had a great social time down by the creek. No platypus this year but huge eels and some good fish.

Poems were read and there was much laughter over all the various takes on what people thought of the Zebedee and associated vegetation survey project that was a major component of this year's science at Arthur River. My naive offering ...

O Zebedee, our Zebedee
Needs a battery, a charged battery
Then Menna, Chris and vollies three
Can traipse through heath that's far too tall
With hidden holes in which to fall
To estimate what devils see
When out hunting for their tea.

There's lots to carry too, you see,
The pole of doom the size of a tree
Star pickets, rope and long sticks three
The womper stomper and mallet be
Carried there most carefully
By Menna, Chris and vollies three.

Oh woe is me, oh woe are we
When ants and leeches come to see
New juicy meals on neck and knee
Of Menna, Chris and vollies three.

But Sebastian and Gini
Keep trapping on with wicked glee
And only smile when we can't see
The camera hidden near a tree.
The GPS, our GPS
Needs a battery, a charged battery
For Menna, Chris and vollies three
To find that camera near that tree.

When at last the transect be,
The photos needed meant that we
Must stand and the 'diangularity'
So we don't go down in history
As part of each survey-y
With Menna, Chris and vollies three.

Thanks to Ian and to Gail-y
Who organise these trips so we
Can find devils and quolls, both free
With Menna, Chris and vollies three
And learn to listen and to see
Such details in nature there be;
To carry loads that heavy be;
And laugh when we return for tea.

Thank you Gail, and thanks to Ian
Thanks to Sebastian and Gini
From us all who hope to see
You soon to work again with thee
And Menna and Chris, as vollies three

A toast to all and Zebedee!

Home to bed by about 9 pm (when the pub closed). Some sat up socialising but Dianne and I were too pooped to do anything but sleep.

Arthur River Expedition - Day 6

Thursday 10 March
We had a delayed departure this morning as our ute had a flat battery having been left all night with the keys in the ignition. After phoning about 7 people in Arthur River the shop keeper yelled to the firies who just happened to be in the shop if one of them had jumper leads. We were rescued by the National Parks fireman who drove over to jump start the vehicle. Amazing that in a town so small no-one has jumper leads.

Eventually we headed out with Greg and Mike to their micro fossil site near Balfour. We drove through the Temma fire area which was still smoking in parts. The road was still closed but we had been given permission to travel on the road prior to our visit. It was amazing to see the burnt areas.

At our final site we found fossil leaves but also some interesting living plants - two species of Drosera and a trigger plant and Greg pointed out two interesting heath plants.

We drove back to the house for lunch and then I did data entry with Joy for the afternoon session while others continued with the habitat surveys.

This evening's talk was by Seb which included a little about the work he is doing now but lots about the work he has done in Switzerland with some stunning scenery shots.

Mel provided dinner again - wallaby curry and other Indian style dishes.

Out into a farm paddock after dinner where Gini had set up for a devil banquet. It was raining heavily and getting darker which meant that we would not see anything through the windows of the bus. Luckily there was a nearby hay shed so the site was moved and we were able to park in the shed with lots of shelter.

It was amazing that a dozen people can be so quiet! The silence was magic. Unfortunately the devils did not appear by 10pm so we made the decision to return home to bed.

Arthur River Expedition - Day 5

Wednesday 9 March
Today I went out with Seb in the morning to investigate the animal traps. We found devils, quolls, a brown rat and a bandicoot. When we were at the furthest trap I heard and Paul saw a Peregrine Falcon swooping and it actually caught another bird in mid flight.

The afternoon activity was a trip to Premingana where we volunteered to remove a patch of gorse on the aboriginal lands. After the stint of gorse-busting by cutting and painting we were invited to walk up Mt Cameron but I declined as I really thought it would be the end of my walking for a week if I did. I therefore strolled back down to the cars and did a little sightseeing along the road.

While I was waiting Greg Jordan (botanist from UTas) and Mike MacPhail (from Canberra and who was in my botany class at uni) arrived to join us so I sent them up the hill to find the others.

Back to base for dinner hosted by Jason and Victor who are rangers on Premingana.

Our way home was slow as we dodged the many animals coming out onto the road.

Arthur River Expedition - Day 4

Tuesday 8 March
This morning I was on Gini's team checking traps. Out at about 7 am with the car warning us of low fuel. There was not too much bush bashing this morning and I survived the whole morning without using my stick!

We found a total of 4 quolls and 1 devil. The devil and two of the quolls were new to the study so had to be microchipped and hair and tissue samples taken.

We took a detour to Marrawah for fuel and had finished our final site when Gini received a phone call from the habitat group that they could not find the camera trap. Joy and I waited at the car while Gini and David walked the 2 km to find them and lead them to the camera.

While we were waiting (just over an hour as apparently they had walked well beyond the trap) Joy and I did a bit of botanising then she sat on a log. I found another log, checked for critters, then sat down. Within minutes my back was covered in bull ants ("inchmen") and they started to bite. Joy saw them and I had to strip off vest, shirt and pants so we could shake them off. Luckily no-one came back as I was down to underwear. Joy got one bite trying to help and I got about 10 bites - ouch!

Eventually the others returned and we went home for a late lunch, removing leeches from some of the others (one about 2 inches long and 1/2 inch thick).

The afternoon for Joy and I was spent on data entry and washing while the others all went out on various work or sightseeing teams.

Our pre-dinner talk was by Gini this evening and Leslie from the boat yesterday came to listen too.

Dinner was followed by a bit of star gazing and admiring Jupiter at its closest point to earth, rising as the sun set beautifully yet again over the mouth of the Arthur River with huge waves blown upright by the offshore wind.

One of the best parts of these expeditions is hearing about the experiences others have had during the day. It is also interesting to see that even the younger ones get exhausted and need their "nanna naps" or even more comatose catch-up sleeps during the day.

Arthur River Expedition - Day 3

Monday 7 March

Our 6 am alarms start today and probably go for the rest of the week. Out in the car by just after 7 am with Menna to do a raven count, bird counts on 4 x 200 m transects and setting up 2 more habitat transects with Chris's group.

This last activity means I often get drowned by scrub that is over my head and extremely dense.

Back home for lunch followed by a quiet afternoon of charging batteries and data entry while others did the hard slog bush-bashing. Joy also stayed back and did some data entry so we had a chance for a chat.

When Seb came back from setting up camera traps he offered to take Jess, Joy, Di and I out to Sunset Point to see the aboriginal petroglyphs and huge midden that cars now park on. It was great down on the beach in the late afternoon and we even found stone tool shards on one of the midden areas but of course left them all there.

Back home in time for Chris's talk about food webs and the effects of extinction of the Australian magafauna and fire, cats and dingoes on Australian wildlife.. The interesting point was that cool burns and dingoes are really important for keeping the balance on the mainland and minimising extinctions.

This was followed by a barbeque dinner whilst watching the sunset over the Southern Ocean.