So it's been what, 7 months since I've updated you all on my life? Far to long I imagine. Sorry to keep you all in such suspense. Right at this very moment, I'm sitting in a house on North Stradbroke Island, which is off the coast of Brisbane (still in Australia, for those of you who don't know where I am). I've been here for about a month now, "working" for the University of Queensland on a study involving migrating humpback whales. This island sort of creates a bottleneck for the humpbacks as they migrate north from Antarctica, so about 95% of the population comes within 20 km of the shore, which means we can see them with binoculars. Yay!! The "job" involves sitting for 5 hours a day on a platform, with binoculars, a theodolite and a computer (with three or four other people, of course) and counting and tracking the humpbacks as they swim by. It's pretty thrilling work.
Actually, that's not true. Sometime's it's cold, windy, and the sea state is awful, which means you're miserable and you can't see anything. Other days, like yesterday, it was beautiful calm seas, and we sat on the platform in our bikini tops, drying off after a surf in the two hour break between shifts (it's a hard life)!
At the peak of the season, we were getting about 120/130 whales per day, which made for some pretty busy shifts. Suddenly, within the past two days, the peak has dropped off and we've had a decrease in daily numbers (like 60 or 70 animals). I won't dwell on that, because if you search on facebook for "straddie humpbacks" our page comes up. You should become our fan. All the cool kids are doing it.
When we're not watching whales, we're hanging out and eating, and talking shit. Lots of cool folks here from all over the world, doing really interesting jobs, all sort of bumming around and working odd jobs like this for food and accommodation. Might even be joining Saras over in Fiji after this, doing the same work for food and accommodation (again). It's a pretty sweet way to save money I must say.
SO technically, Mike and I are currently living out of a garage in Noosa, but that will change when we return to the mainland. Probably a bit of climbing at Frog is in order, then perhaps Fiji before heading to south Australia to do more mammal work in the middle of the desert. (Bilbies better watch themselves! I plan on catching many). The guiding work ended in May, so I spent a month (3 may to 3 june) in Flinders doing some bush regeneration work (AKA killing African Box thorn, the most vile plant EVER)! Then drove up to Straddie, collecting road tolls along the way.
It's been good to get to that bigger island Tasmanians are always talking about, but I have to say that I'm missing Tassie a bit (not the cold or the dark, but the people and climbing, naturally). It's looking like I may have to leave the country though, do to some visa issues. Apparently, I was reading forms for a Working Holiday visa (which I don't have) instead of the ones for the Work and holiday visa (which I do have) because they are two very different things. Ergo, I can't get another Work and holiday visa, which means if I say in Oz, I'll stay on a visitor visa, which I can't afford to do if I can't work. Make sense? Please explain it to me then. Of course, this is all that I could deduce from the immigration dept website (which is awful) and I'm still waiting for an email that will answer my questions, because they don't see fit to respond until they've kept you waiting for at least a week.
Anyways, that's all. Photos will follow.... maybe on Friday when I can go to the library.
