Best $5 Trip of My Life

We drove sometime like five minutes and found a few birds, then suddenly I spotted a large bird bedded down in a tire rut in the sand. I pointed it out and was slightly ignored by the professor (who just kept driving) so I repeated myself. At this moment I didn’t know what happened because suddenly my face was smashing into the seat ahead of me. The professor had SLAMMED on the brakes and started exclaiming about this bird I found. He said “I thought you were talking about a coconut, but that’s a Beach Stone Curlew….that’s the most rare bird in all of Australia!!!” Meanwhile I am recovering from the impact (this is why you should wear a seatbelt…but I couldn’t see the birds with it on) and thinking about how I had no idea what I just pointed out because I have never gone bird watching before and definitely not for Aussie birds.

So basically the professor told me that “I’ve seen it all now and all bird watching from here on would only be downhill.” He explained that he has only ever seen three of this species in his entire life and another professor said her mother was a professional bird watcher and had never seen one. So I felt quiet accomplished and figured it was a good omen what was to come with the rest of the trip.

Continuing on we bounced along the surf and beach in the back of the 4WD spotting and recording birds. We ran into some pretty interesting stuff along the way too!
1. We found a ship that washed up from the January Brisbane floods.
 2. We ran the carcass of a dead Dugong (a aussie species of manatee…it was quiet comical when everyone said it was a cow and Corinne and I were sooo confused because it didn’t have legs and was laying on a beach that had no cattle…we didn’t realize they mean a sea cow)
3. A few minutes we found another dead Dugong, but this one was fresher and you could see all the gashes on its back from propellers. It’s somewhat unbelievable to see the harm we cause these creatures.
4. The last of random discoveries was a dead washed up Sunfish. This is by far the biggest fish I’ve ever seen. 7ft tail to mouth 5ft dorsal to pectoral fin. CRAZYYYYYY
5. DINGOSSSSSSSSSS!!!! Sooo amazing! They are such a beautiful wild dog! Second favorite animal i've seen in AU, behind kangaroos.

We finished up our bird sampling for the day and went back to camp… The Uni owns a bunch of cabins on the island for students and staff while on research trips. We moved our stuff in and headed out for a little off roading fun! We jumped in the 4WD and took off through this entirely sand track wide enough for only a single car. We blazed through deep sand trails bouncing all around. It was sooooo fun! (We were flying might I add, Aussies don’t believe in driving slow! A moments I was trying to hit the brakes from the passenger seat!)

We stopped at few lakes which our professor informed us were some of the world’s cleanest lakes and were unique because they are some of the world’s perched lakes. Meaning the lakes occur above the water table. And are depressions with a hard, impervious base of organic matter and sand, form a catchment for the rain eventually creating a freshwater lake. They were beautiful and crystal clear.

At the end of the day we had a bonfire and hung out for a while and hit the hay. In the morning we continued our adventure counting birds and looking for unique sightings. We spotted some dolphins and a couple of rays. We completed our sampling and stopped to climb Indian Pointe (named by Captain Cook). It was a beautiful climb to the top of a cliff that over looked beaches on either side, massive sand dunes 100’s of feet high and the ocean! We could look out and see the stunning clear water and WHALES! The whales are migrating this time of year and they passed by just in time for us to get a great view! Finally we stopped a massive shipwreck from the 1930's that was taken in a cyclone.

The trip was truly amazing and one of my most memorable trips since I’ve been here in the land down under!