The Great Wall of Lantana!!
Trip Start
Sep 01, 2003
1
4
9
Trip End
Oct 07, 2003
Gold Coast, Australia
Wednesday, September 24, 2003
its great to be back in the trailer park which is across from the beach. Im with a smaller team this week, 2 other English girls - Clare + Pauline, Eun Ju - Korean girl, Hong - Korean guy and Shun Pei - Japanese guy.
Monday - we cut down xmas trees in the bush to make way for local plants to grow, just the same as my first day but harder because it was 31 degrees and we were cutting them on a hill side.
This has to be the hottest day I have had so far in Australia and when you are working in the outback we have to wear long sleeve cotton shirts and wide brim hats (very attractive). It was great to get back to the trailer and go for a dip in the outdoor pool - bliss.
brisbane cva
Tuesday - our first day of attacking Lantana - an african tree brought over many years ago, this tree is a bugger because it just grows and grows into massive walls of white branches.
I had dealt with Lantana a small bit in my first week, but even that didnt prepare us for the massive weed we were faced with. I made the mistake of wearing a cotton shirt with short sleeves, I now have small cuts all down my fore arms - but it was worth it because I wasnt as hot as the previous day!
I had heard tales from one of the other teams that it was such hard work that they hated it, but surprisingly our group had a really good day. Cracking the lantana branches made the same sound as "bubble wrap" and had the same satisfying feeling!!
Cinema in the evening - Bad Boys 2.
Wednesday - In the morning we had to move some dead trees that had been cut down by local company and dumped in a stretch of land in a residential area. The locals feared this was a fire hazard and had asked for the councils help, so we were asked to move the trees into a large pile near the round - surely this was a fire hazard!!!
In the afternoon we finished clearing the lantana from the previous day, once we had finished you could look back on the long pathway we had cleared ready for the council to move in....good job all round! plus we finished early because of the heat and went to the beach.
Thursday - This had to be one of the best days so far, we erected a fence to protect some huge trees from the grazing cattle. I was responsible for marking the supporting poles to make sure the wire was set at the right height, while the others nailed in u-nails to hold the wire in place and then I ran through with the wire.
In the afternoon we collected seeds from the big trees for the council...a proper day of conservation, this is more like it...
This week we have gotten into a routing of finishing before 3pm to make sure we are back at the camp by 4.30pm to watch "the bold & the beautiful" our group leader Jane is fanatical about the show and its quite addictive. In the evening we always watch " Neighbours" (I swore I never would!) and Australian Idol!!
Today was a bit of a sad day because my korean mate Hong was off to Sydney Friday morning, so we had a couple of beers (pronounced makju) and compared words (as you do!).
Friday - as usual Fridays are half days, which is great because by the end of the week we are so tired that if I wasnt woken up I would sleep until Monday.
We went back to fences and watered trees and weeded abit and then went home to Brisbane via Mount Tamborine. We didnt really get to see much because we were all piled in the troopie van, but it was a spectacular site from the top.
My best week overall, I really like being in the Gold Coast
