Sensory overload!

So let’s see where I left off… I think I promised an entry about the Chillagoe trip… and then somehow I got distracted and too busy for life, and so I actually have way more entries than that! So we went to homestays, then took a botanical quiz, then went to Chillagoe, then took three exams, had a “mitigation threats” presentation, handed in our third field exercise, then went to the Yungaburra Folk Festival, then went to the Daintree, then handed in another essay for Rohan, took three more exams, finished classes for the semester, and went on mid-semester break to Magnetic Island. whew!

And so it begins…

Chillagoe

12-14 October, 2010

So we all piled into the vans at 8 am on Tuesday, 12 October and headed west towards the dry country. It took only about three hours for us to get there. We drove on a long dirt road dotted with cattle and wallabies, and through red dirt clouds from the vans ahead of us on the "highway". We stopped along the way to talk with two locals who are working towards protecting the Walsh River from being dredged by a local company who wants to take out sand for building purposes. They were very educated about the topic, and were totally against the whole project because of the wildlife that it would disrupt. That was a neat point of view to see...

When we got to Chillagoe, it was very hot. Apparently it was alot cooler than it had been in previous years, though, because it has been so rainy... apparently also the wettest dry season that Australia has seen in years. While in Chillagoe we got to swim at the Weir, which had a very shallow pool on one side, and then the water flowed over an edge to a faster flowing water spot on the other. It was great to get out of the heat, especially after a long day of driving. We played Frisbee and threw around a tennis ball with everyone and Tim and the interns. Tim made up a game called “weir ball”, which was fun.

We saw so many cool rock formations, and got to climb on some that sounded like metal when banged together, we saw other granitic rock formations and green ants that if you squeeze their butts it tastes like lime.

Over the next couple of days we had various field lectures. One was at an awesome cave formation that provides microhabitats and refugia for plant and animal species to go to. We explored the caves and climbed up the rocks and found passageways into other areas. It was very cool in there, which was a nice break from the heat. Also, we had a lecture at the old smeltering facility. That was a fun place to see how the town was once built up on mining and now is a ghost town because the economy couldn't support itself on mining alone... and there was nothing else around it to actually sustain it otherwise.



So now it basically is sustained on tourism and a little bit of farming. The old rocks and such are still at the smeltering place, because now it is deemed a national park. You could see the different colors in the rocks from where it was melted down, and all of the variations in the types of rocks. 

One field lecture that Siggy brought us on was called "snorkeling", but wasn't much snorkeling at all...we had to first climb underneath a barbed wire fence and then up a huge hill to the top of a dry, rocky lookout. All you could see around us were hills with dry grass, dry trees, the hot, shining sun and limestone rocks. This area was once covered completely by water, and the limestone rocks were 400 million year-old coral reefs. So this was the extent of our snorkeling trip... dry... hot... not wet... not refreshing... but still interesting. And, we could see the kangaroos hopping around all over!

The first night we had a basic barbeque... but the second night we got to eat at the pub, where they had all sorts of pasta salads, potato salad, tomatoes, and I got the barramundi on the barbie! it was SO GOOD! Then we stayed out at the bar and had some drinks.. and finally walked back to the camp site later on. Both nights we slept out under the stars with the flying foxes and the birds.. and the spiders... and the ants.  We watched shooting stars and just talked into the night. The first night of sleeping was great! It was warm, and I didn't get eaten by ants or mosquitoes or spiders! But then the next night... some people had been eating Pringles on the tarp that I slept on, and left them there... but I didn't know that.. and I woke up all night from ants swarming on my face and arms and legs! An also, at some point during the previous day I was bitten by something strange. The bite started off looking like a puffy bug bite, and then turned into a constantly growing pussing, swollen, infected mess over the next couple of days.
Leslie was constantly monitoring it by drawing an edge around it to see if it got bigger… and sure enough, it did! It grew until it was hot to the touch, basically consumed the back of my left upper leg and hurt to walk. Once I started feeling nauseous, Leslie took me to see the doctor. He didn’t seem too concerned about it, which was a good thing… but at the same time I was really nervous about my leg! So he gave me amoxicillin with some acid stuff in it, and it went away gradually… the picture isn't even the biggest stage...

I do still have a scar from where it was!

The drive home was pretty fast. Although before we actually exited Chillagoe we spotted a wedge tail eagle eating a dead kangaroo in the middle of the road! Siggy stopped the vans, got out and dragged the kangaroo by its tail off of the road and onto the grass, and checked its pouch to see if it had any babies... Siggy to the rescue!