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| View of Stradbroke from Point Lookout |
What a wonderful time we had at Strattie. I know this was not the stereotypically fantastic island and location like Heron Island, but I believe that the activities, the environment and the surroundings catered so much more to my needs. We arrived in Strattie after spending a day in Brissie, where we all used the internet and basically tried to connect with the world in 24 hours. But, wonderful news, we also had a good internet source at Stradbroke. It took us about 40 minute to cross from the Brisbane Marina to Strattie. We arrived at the University of Queensland Research Station, a nice place I must say. Per chance, maybe it is because I was very fortunate to share a 4 person bedroom instead of the usual 8 people bedrooms. It was very comfortable, and for the first time on this trip, I had a wonderful night's sleep every day.
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| Beach Walk |
The first day we arrived, we were divided into three groups, the Sharks, the Turtles and the Dugongs. I was with the Sharks, and on the first day, we had to go out into the waters on a field trip about Dugong grazing. The boat ride was so much fun, well maybe depends on how you define "fun." Unfortunately, I was on boat # 1, the boat with the luck of the Titanic. It was so low in the water we basically were splashed with cold salty water for a solid 40minutes as we went out. Our boat filled with water, at one point I was afraid we would literally go down under. By the time we arrived for the experiment, we were all cold and not very excited to get into the water. However, I was lucky as I could not get into the water, but was able to record data for my teammates who were in the water. Afterwards, we were back to the station, all cold and wet, and were welcomed to a nice, warm, and wonderful dinner. I fell in love with Strattie right then. The following days were filled with activities out in the field with our water proof papers - furiously taking notes (not really).
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| Pandanas Field Trip -The group that did not get the ice-cream :( |
On day 2, we had our coral reef lab and we went snorkeling again in the waters. Strattie did not have such clear waters like Heron, so the snorkeling was different albeit interesting. We followed this lab by a hike into the Point Lookout in the afternoon, where we studied the Pandanas Trees. Omg!! there were so many mosquitoes that day and we had not known to put on bug spray, so yes, we made for wonderful dinner for mosquitoes, and this was unfortunate for all of us. But, after the lab, we had a wonderful beach walk, with wonderful Italian gelato and ice-cream. This was followed by a swim at sunset on the beach. It had been an awesome first two days at Stradbroke Island and I had a good feeling about it!!!
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| Sandhill |
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