Wildlife Wildlife Wildlife!!!

On Friday our professor took the whole group to the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary! The day was basically full of hands on experiences with true Australian wildlife and three high ropes courses that tested our agility, strength and endurance.

Ridding the train through the sanctuary!

Hand feeding the Kangaroos :) :) :)

THEY WERE SOOOOO CUTE!

The baby Kangaroo was my favorite!

HOLDING A KOALA!!!

HEHE super cute kangaroo :)

They fed the Pelicans and Eels!

I had to hold the Crocodile :) he was a little feisty!

The group ready to do the ropes course!

Our awesome super attractive jump suits

Loved the ropes course :) climbing through tunnels and shimmying across wires...tested our endurance and team work!

We even got to swing on ropes and land on nets...I didn't make it this time :( so the guy had to help me haha

The weekend, Sat-Mon, was then spend at Woody Head for our wildlife biology class. This was our first field trip and was a great deal of fun! At first, when I found out we were not actually camping, I though it was a bit of a let down but in the end it wasn't a bad trip. We spent three days and two nights there with our wildlife biology professor doing hands on learning.

On day one we packed up the bus and the whole class of 17 students headed off for our weekend adventure around noon. As usual we started the trip without the knowledge of how to get there and as usual we arrived late but, as the Aussies say, No Worries! We met up with our professor and everyone unloaded at our camp site/cabin. I roomed with one of my usual roomies and we stuck together most of the trip. After unpacking and getting settled into our rooms we all gathered on the porch to discuss the plan of action for the weekend. Then we enjoyed some free time roaming around the camp until we started in on some work. First on the agenda...Set Traps! Our goal was to set a handful of traps to catch rats and other small marsupials. In the traps we put a handful of leaves (to keep them warm), a peanut butter and oats ball (to lure them in), and then we covered it with a plastic bag (to keep it dry). We places the traps about 10 meters into the woods and marked the spot with neon orange ribbon. After setting the small traps we went to another location to set up a bat trap. When all of the traps were set we all split up into small groups (mine was a group of four) to do some bird watching. It turned into a friendly competition to see what group had the biggest list and our professor collected them at the end of the weekend. Dinner consisted of Australian steak, sausage, chicken, bread, salad, and potato salad! They were not expecting us to eat as much as we did! 17 hungry Americans can go through a lot of food! When dinner was over our professor showed us a bat that our trap had already caught. It was quite small and we were not allowed to touch it because they are known to have rabies but I was allowed to touch its wings...they were very thin and felt like a rubbery tissue. Then it was time for lecture. Our first wildlife biology lecture was all about snails and was conducted by a post grad student doing his studies on snails that was with us for the weekend. It was a pretty interesting and insightful presentation and especially helpful for us on the next part of our trip...Spot lighting! We all piled into three cars are drove to a secluded spot. Then we got our flashlights out and some had huge spot lights. The goal was to shine the lights into the trees searching for eye shine. We didn't have much lunch in the trees but we did find some interesting critters. We found a semi snail...which we learned about in the presentation earlier in the evening, an endangered frog, and a huge spider. By this time I was exhausted! Some stayed up playing card games while others, myself included, headed to bed awaiting our early morning wake up call.

Our Cabin!

Our room :)

Our first trap setting lesson :) here we go!

Getting my first trap ready!

Heading into the woods to set the traps!

My second trap!

As if we were not seeing enough wildlife on this trip...wild kangaroos were chilling in the back yard!

The bat traps

On day two we all crawled out of bed at 6:15am to check the traps. Lucky enough 8 of the 25 traps were full. Some of the rats were large and others small but the smell was always horrendous! To get the rats out of the traps our professor put a plastic bag over the opening, opened the door, and shook the trap and out flew the rat! We identified them and let them go after recording all of the data. After checking all of the traps we reset them and headed out for another go at bird watching. This time we walked along the beach and rocky shores. I slipped on a rock and got my shoes soaking wet! I wasn't to happy about it :( By this time we were starving so we headed back to the cabins for some breakfast and a warm shower. Again the professor didn't think we would go through so much food and later had to make a run to the grocery store for the next few meals. The rest of the day was ours to spend as we pleased! My roomie

Our professor shaking the rats out of the traps

This was a big guy! and very smelly...YUCK!

On our free time...I decided to climb some rocks :)

Born to Climb!

The beach was beyond beautiful...but they did call it shark bay so we didn't go to far into the water haha

Loved the rocky beach and ocean spray

Day three was another early morning start the check the traps. We didn't catch many bats again due to windy weather but the rat traps were mostly full. A small group of us checked the traps and our professor followed in a car to collect the traps and data. The trap that I just happened to check had a snake wrapped around it...which I didn't notice until my had was on it...touching the snake! I calmly backed away and called for help...I was NOT about to get the trap now! It amazes me how the one person on the trip who is terrified of snakes...gets all the scary encounters with them. I am not enjoying all these snakes! But any ways...I recovered from the snake encounter and we headed back to the cabins to pack and clean up. Our bus was suppose to pick us up after breakfast...but when it was about 30 min late we called and found out that the bus never left to pick us up. So instead we headed to the beach and waited an hour and a half, playing cards, napping, and eating of course!

In the end it was a decent weekend and a beautiful place to wind down and relax!