In the Land of Oz

I should probably start off by saying that no Australian would call Australia "Oz" but seeing as I'm not Australian I'm going too, at least for this post.  Plus all of the Kiwis that we knew called it Oz, so I have been thinking about Australia as such for about 10 months now.

Sunset over Morten Bay

I'm coming up on almost a month in Australia at this point and I'm still really enjoying it here.  Work is keeping me very busy but it's going well.  The project that I'm working on is really big land-area-wise and the site has a really long history but I feel like I'm starting to get my head wrapped around it.  Because we have long field days every day and it's winter here (i.e. short days), during the week I don't see much besides the site during daylight hours.  I haven't seen any kangaroos yet though I have seen kangaroo tracks on site and the project manager saw one when she was on site in mid-May.  I have seen a bunch of cool birds, a Koala, turtles, lizards, spiders, and snakes at the site.  I haven't seen any venomous snakes yet (thank goodness!) but I did see a ~2 m carpet python last week and I got my first Australian tick on the same day.  There is no lyme disease here but, given that it's Australia (everything is more deadly here!), these are Paralysis Ticks.  Luckily I got mine off quickly enough that I didn't have any ill effects.

This guy was trying to help us groundwater sample.

Kangaroo tracks!

While I am very busy during the week, I have been able to get out exploring on the weekends.  My second weekend in the Brisbane area, I took the train down into the CBD (aka downtown) and explored Brisbane.  It is a great walking city with a bunch of interesting sculptures and the Brisbane River, which flows through the middle of the city, giving Brisbane it's nickname of the River City.  I went through Anzac Square, the City Botanic Gardens, wandered along the South Bank, and hit up some used book stores.  It was not super sunny on the day that I was there, but the overcast skies kept it cool enough to be very pleasant wandering weather.

City Botanic Gardens

Bougainvillea covered walkway along the South Bank

The River City

Australian White Ibis
These are all over the place in Brisbane

This past weekend I went exploring both days. On Saturday I went to Bribie Island which is located about 45 minutes north of Redcliffe (where I am) and is the only barrier island by Morten Bay that is connected to the mainland via a bridge.  There is a large national park on the island (basically the northern two thirds) but I just stayed in the part that didn't require 4WD - I have a decent truck for work but I am not super comfortable driving on sand.  I did some bush walks, checked out some birds, and had ice cream on the beach - all in all, a good day in my book.

Bicentennial Trails

On Sunday, I went to D'Aguilar National Park which is just west of the CBD.  The park is broken into two sections that aren't connected, so I stayed in the southern section for this trip.  I stopped by the Visitor's Center to get trail recommendations from the rangers and ended up doing a couple short but nice hikes.  I even saw a wallaby on one trail but it was too fast for me to get a picture of.

Jolly's Lookout - looking east toward Brisbane

Greenes Falls

West ridge outlook - looking west

Enoggera Reservoir

Ross is coming up to visit this weekend and we have some hiking adventures tentatively planned.  I will make sure to report back as we're planning on exploring a new national park in the area.