Heron Island (September 30-October 5)

After a long and sweltering bus ride from Saddler’s Springs ENE to Rockhampton on September 28th, we spent a relaxing day recovering at the Tropical Wanderer Resort—sleeping in, doing laundry, playing soccer, etc—before our next adventure, to Heron Island. Rockhampton is about an hour north of Gladstone on the Queensland coast. At Gladstone, we boarded the ferry on the morning of September 30th for the 2 hour trip to Heron Island. This trip is infamous in the annals of the HWS/UC Australia New Zealand term abroad for causing much sea sickness. We were especially fortunate as the water was as calm as glass, and we all arrived at Heron Island with breakfast intact!

Heron Island is small—only about 500 m in diameter— in the Capricornia Cays National Park. Professor Ian Tibbetts and his tutors arrived the next morning by helilicopter (!), and that day and much the next 3 days were spent snorkeling (at least once each day) on the reef crest. The daily snorkeling trips, including one that circumnavigated the island and another at night (!), were probably the high point of our time there. Students were intensively engaged in projects for the Marine Ecology course that Prof. Tibbetts teaches. Students divided into teams and each team selected one aspect of the ecology of the coral reef that surrounds Heron Island to study. The teams, each supervised by a tutor, spent most days making observations and measurements on the coral reefs. Student presentations were made one afternoon, and students were then charged with writing a report on their findings, which was to be due after we returned to Brisbane.

Saddler's Springs (September 24-29)

Very early on the morning of Monday 24 September, we convened at Chancellor’s Circle at the University of Queensland for the trip to Saddler’s Spring. It was a long, long drive—about 12 hours. We traveled over the Great Dividing Range through the towns of Roma and Injune into the semi-Outback, and ended after sundown at the Ranch House of Lloyd Hancock and his family. Lloyd and his organization The Youth Enterprise Trust would be our hosts and guides for 5 days of life in the Queensland “bush”. We lived in huts about 7 km from the Ranch House in a camp designed for disadvantaged and troubled youths. Each spring for many years Lloyd has opened his camp to students from Hobart and Union College to show them what life is like in the bush, what it takes to live in this harsh country, and to learn a bit of the aboriginal history of northeastern Australia. From camp we hiked into Carnavan National Park to a spectacular overlook at Battleship spur, where we could look down into Carnavan Gorge. We also spent a day visiting Cathedral Rock and the Toombs to see some spectacular aboriginal stone paintings, after which we had a lunch at Dargonelly Rock Hole. Lloyd’s staff included his children Don, Eva and Cory, and Paul Cuskelly and Julia Chidgey; all were fun to get to know and were very helpful in all regards.