The Arrival - 27 April 2011

The day has arrived and I am off on my expedition after saying all my goodbye's to my family. I made my way to Southern Cross Station where I was meeting a fellow Nab Earthwatch Volunteer for our journey to Bimbi Park at Apollo Bay. The train ride to Geelong was great however, I struggled with the bus trip. Never having travelled to Apollo Bay I was not aware of the long and winding road that never seemed to end.  From what I saw the drive along the coast is breathtaking and well worth a visit down to this beautiful part of Victoria.



Upon our arrival at Apollo Bay we were met by Dr Desley Whisson (Deakin University),Dr Alistair Melzer (Central Queensland University) & Sara from Earthwatch. After a quick bite, we were on our way.

We arrived at Bimbi Park and made our way to our accommodation where we meet another volunteer who would be part of our team.  Once unpacked we commenced exploring our new environment. 



                 

Our location is a holiday park. The park is conveniently located within the study area.  It is sheltered amongst tall manna gum trees, far away from the wearing noise of towns and traffic and offers great opportunities for spotting wildlife such as Koala's, possums, kangaroos, echidnas, approx. 70 species of birds and many more other species.


On this day we spotted 6 koala's just outside our cabin little did we know how many more we would be spotting during our stay.  Dr Desley Whisson & Dr Alistair Melzer provided us information regarding Koala's ie how to identify the sex of a koala. The male has a brown stripe on its sternum where a female has white on its tummy, has a rounder and less buffy face.Koala's commence their breeding season in September. Koala's preferred tree is the Manna Gum and Koala's require to eat approx. 1kg of gum leaves per day. Most of the Manna Gum woodland in this area is either 50% dead or in extremely poor condition (Orlowski 2010).

 

We decided to set up a roster for the 10 days for preparation of Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner and the first evening we sat down to Stir Fry Veggies with Noodles and Chocolate brownies which was great. After dinner we went around the table and spent some time getting to know each other given that we were to work and live very closely together for the next 10 days. In addition both Desley and Alex spent some time talking about safety and navigation in relation to our work and environment that we would be working in.

 

The next day would commence our work of tracking Koala's. What would this involve it all sounded very interesting.