The Breaking Point
Trip Start
Sep 04, 2007
1
12
18
Trip End
Feb 08, 2008
Wallaby Creek,
Australia
Monday, November 5, 2007
Additionally, rather than come back and unwind for a couple hours, enjoying some music, communal atmosphere, and a hot lunch, we spend the next four hours doing observations of bowers on a rotating basis, after which we will do the same routes, again switching tapes and batteries were necessary, and taking more detailed mapping and measuring data in attempts to quantify bower quality and later pair that with mating success information collected from the tapes themselves
beast of burden, loaded down
. The physical difficulty of all of this, as well as the personal isolation resultant from doing long hikes in the woods is always taxing to the field assistants, but unusually so this year, due to the extreme inclemency of the weather.For the first week of camera season we were inundated with storm after storm, reaching a climactic torrential downpour on Halloween Night. That night, after two people had been showered and hailed upon for two hours as they were still finishing their routes, the storm maintained a nearly constant intensity throughout the night. At around 9:00pm the dam (a raised pond) in the horse paddy where we have pitched our tents in the flat below the cabin began overflowing and pouring a swift stream of water right into our tents. One of the field assistants, Jenn, had all her belongings completely inundated as her tent was swamped in the sudden flash flood. For a moment she was afraid she wasn't going to be able to get out of it, after she woke with a start to find her sleeping back completely water-soaked and clinging to her, and as she frantically worked at the zippers, she cried out to Brendan and myself, though she was completely drowned out by the rain.
Though no one was injured, and I myself only got a little water in my tent, Jenn lost a lot of belongings and we were all shaken by the incident and spent the rest of the night sleeping in damp sleeping bags on the floor of the cabin. The next day we went to Warwick to launder our things
Trump tries to keep his nose dry
. While most of us were attending to this, Kate, the other assistant in a tent, who had not lost anything in the flood, simply took the opportunity to hop on a bus to Brisbane, without saying goodbye to anyone but Jenn. Four days later, Abe, the second in command, and Erin, another assistant who has suffered from several physical ailments for many weeks, both quit. As Abe was the first person I met from the group and has been my naturalist and field-experienced guid from the beginning, his departure has come as a shock to me. It does not come as a surprise, however, considering the reason for his leaving.The day after Kate's dissertion, Abe was given the task of walking her Eastern Route. He was taking a breather and tying a boot when he heard some rustling behind him. After a couple of checks, and finding nothing, he went back to tying it. Just then a tiger snake bit him right on the heel of the boot. Though it eventually let go and he was uninjured the fact remained that he had had a close call with one of the most dangerous snakes in the world and he was rightfully shaken by it. Two days later Linda went to Warwick and bought us all walkie-talkies which are quite effective despite the irregular terrain. Those of us who have decided to stick with the project to the end (Jenn, Steph, Brendan, and myself) feel that we have come this far to take part in some important science, and we are going to follow it through, however badly we have been neglected and despite whatever forces nature chooses to throw at us. This has been an intense week, but after a lot of thought and discussion among the (remaining) group, we feel that the rest of the season (must) go smoothly, and that in the end it will be worth it to see the research through. It has already been an incredible experience and I'm not willing to quit now when the effects of all our labors (the film and data collection) are just reaching fruition. Hopefully next time I will have some more insightful and uplifiting news. Till then.
Cheers,
Matt
