Trip to Straddie

So my Environmental Health Risk Management class required a 3 day 2 night field trip on Stradbroke Island. This class sounds really nice, but really it has nothing to do with caring about the environment. Instead it’s focused on how humans are the most important species. Sooo basically I am not a huge fan of the course and the forecast called for rain all weekend, but oh well you have to make the best out of what you’ve got.

So the first day we spent 7 hours in lectures by different professors and skill professionals…soooo boring! But in the evening it was all rewarded by guest on the research center’s courtyard! To everyone’s surprise (including the people that work there) a young koala was climbing around in a tree!!! It was my first wild koala siting so of course I got the nickname Paparazzi since everyone else in the class was Aussie. Later that day we had to do some water quality testing, so of course I couldn’t stop looking at the trees because I wanted to find more koalas. And in fact I did find 2 more a mother and baby! That night my class and professors sprinted down the street (getting chased by an insane thunderstorm) to the Little Ship Pub for dinner and drinks. IT IS SO WEIRD TO DRINK WITH YOUR TEACHERS! But that’s totally normal in Australia which is awesome relaxed culture.

The next day we spent a large chunk of the day working on projects and listening to lectures, but we got a 2 hour break to adventure Point Lookout and the sun actually came out! It’s officially now one of my favorite places in the world! It was absolutely incredible. I didn’t know where to aim my camera because there were Humpback Whales, Dolphins and Sea Turtles all at once! It was madness I was super excited. I saw a whale fully breach for the first time, there was a 2 pods of around 20 dolphins surfing waves and Sea turtles swimming around a gorge all at once. It was magical!

After all of this fun 3 friends and I went down to a beach in a different gorge and jumped in for a swim, watched a surf competition and then went for some gelato! Amazing! Overall the trip was a success simply because the beauty of nature!