This week has passed in a bit of a blur, with work finished I thought I would find myself bored…..how wrong I was. Monday was a more quiet day, after getting home from Byron after midnight and being up for swim training at 4.45am I allowed myself a sorting out and dozing day. Cleaning the tent shell to remove the bush turkey poo that is had accumulated rather a lot of on the trip, thanks to the bush turkey sitting in the tree above our camp! Also, starting to seriously plan and think about New Zealand.... read more

I was picked up at 8am, the car already loaded with boards, tent, sleeping bags and very importantly….the esky (cool box). We stopped at Rainbow beach for a quick surf. When we got in the waves were a little larger and messier than it looked from the car, and it took a while for us to get out back (behind where the waves brake), so I got battered by the breaking waves for a short while, but soon made it out. I thought I would be nervous as it has been a few years and the standard of surfing is just a different level to home, but I wasn’t. It certainly helped to have people I knew and who can surf around me though! After a few years and a couple of good waves later we ... read more

I am feeling rather achy this morning after yesterday’s yoga. Today I am working on writing up the notes from several waste audits that Jae has been doing at one of the landfill sites over the last few days. Matching up the docket notes from the trucks coming in to the arrival times was a bit of a jigsaw but between Jae and myself we managed it. Luckily the lady in charge of providing the docket information at the landfill had kept the dockets for the different days separate else that could have proved a rather large puzzle! This evening was the launch of street food in Brisbane, with lots of fresh homemade food stalls and live music. Jae and some friends were going and he invited Rowena, Matt and myself along. Rowena didn’t fancy going, ... read more

Today I was working on a grasslands project I have been given. Researching and pulling information together about the different a) native and b) commercial grass species that are grown in the different bioregions on Queensland. This is proving quite a challenge, and drawing information from lots of different sources and trying to piece it together with my own knowledge to understand how it all fits. I really got stuck into this today and starting to make some head way, I found the best way to tackle it was to ascertain the climate, geology, rainfall, and sediment types for each of the 12 bioregions first, then research the grass species – native and commercial, then match the grass species habitat and conditions to the correct bioregion – then do some research to make sure its correct. ... read more

This morning I managed to lay in until 8am….late for here and much needed! Once Rowena was up we headed off to the Gold Coast, about a 50min drive to the beach at Kurrawa. The beach was lovely, white sand but the quite strong waves. We suncreamed up and settled down on the beach for a few hours, reading and snoozing. Around 12 we headed into the surf club for lunch, where I had a very yummy Asian prawn salad. I love the fish salads they do at the surf clubs; they are the best I have come across. After lunch we wondered round the market stalls selling lovely homemade things, then headed back to the beach for a few hours, finishing up braving the waves before heading home. The current was strong and the parents ... read more