The first fieldtrip: Daintree

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Back from my first field trip, finally! I will tell my story via the pictures but the main thing: I enjoyed the long awaited out-of-office-work, the atmosphere in the group was good, we worked hard but also laughed a lot (how can you else with a ukelele playing hippie in the group )

We stayed in one of the only B&Bs near our work place so bit more luxury than needed (I couldn’t even fill half of the bed) but a good shower and sleep feels good if you have to wake up again between 5 and 6 am and work until the cane toads start their weird woodpecker sound. There were also many curlews which really make a scary sound as if someone is in danger. But before these start their songs, the flying foxes of the island fly over when the sun just sets.

We worked in an improvised lab shed at the place of Marilyn’s friends’ Nigel and Catherine who also cooked very tasty lunches and dinners for us. They were wonderful hosts, bringing us coffees in between and GNTs before dinner. As you know I almost don’t drink alcohol but I had to stick with my saying “do as the locals do” so I always ended up doing my last measurements before dinner with a turning head [] I discovered rambutan fruits, delicious, I saw the lemon myrtle shrub in real (I already discovered the tea in Canberra) and…. I saw a bandicoot! Every evening it came eating oats at the veranda but one day we saw his friend being eaten by a giant goana, awful. There was also a couple of humming birds in their open-air kitchen of which Nigel explained to me that the male was telling the female where to built the nest but she clearly didn’t agree with his choice. He wanted the old nest but she clearly wanted to built a new one []

The work was totally different than in Kenya since you can’t go out of the boat because of the crocodiles (but I didn’t see one, what a pitty). So each morning at 7 Nigel took us with the boat on the river from where I sawed branches standing at the tip of the boat. Harris labeled them and put them in big bags. Around 8.30 am we were back at our work place, put the branches in water and covered them with dark bags and then we started processing these samples in the shed. That was mainly what we did for 14 days and what will hopefully deliver us some nice results.

In the evenings when Marilyn and I went home (the boys mostly went home bit earlier) we always did a bit of stargazing, amazing really. I saw fot the first time the milky way! Here, the night is really a night, dark with only the natural light of moon and stars, it makes you feel entirely relaxed and happy.

Now it is dark here too so I will have to leave you, since I still have to catch up some sleep.
See you!

Big hug,

Nele

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