Straddie

What a wonderful way to start the term - a week on "Straddie", short for North Stradbroke Island. The Aussies like to shorten everything, so drop the second half of a word and add an "ee" sound and you've pretty much got the australian language. Chocolate gets converted to "chocy" and a biscuit or cookie becomes "bicky." But if you want a cup of coffee with milk, it's a "flat white."

Straddie was magnificent.  It's the second largest sand island in the world (the largest is Frasier Island just north of Brisbane). The students were kept very busy, which helped with getting them adjusted to the time change.  While on Straddie we took 4 marine excursions.  Our first was a trip to Brown Lake for a picnic and then to the east coast to collect bivalves and giant worms.  We didn't manage to find any giant worms, but we were surprised by  a large (3.5 foot long) lace monitor hanging out on a tree at Brown Lake and some humpback whales performing off shore.

The mudflats across from the research station turned up an incredible amount of marine life.. though the tide did come in on us pretty quickly!

Our next trip was a short 1 km walk to a collection of mangroves on the coast. We collected water and sand samples and took them back to the lab to examine under the microscope.  The students were skeptical, but soon we were seeing diatoms, daphnias, copepods, arthropods, nematodes.. it was so exciting! Our last day on the island we headed out to Lookout Point for a walk along the cliff and gorge. At Lookout Point we spotted a manta ray, sea turtle, humpbacks and a huge kangaroo grazing next to the trail.  Our walk ended at a gelato place - the caramel fig gelato was yummy!  Before heading for the ferry back to Brisbane, we stopped at the isolated Crystal Beach for a swim and a game of beach cricket!

Goodbye Straddie, great week!