Road Trip Through Queensland

Shortly before Christmas my girlfriend Simone arrived here in Townsville after having spent half a year in Indonesia. In the meanwhile I had bought a car as it is almost a necessity here in Townsville. We celebrated Christmas with some good friends by having a barbecue and pool party. It felt a bit awkward so far away from family and home and was not exactly what a European would expect for Christmas but none the less a really nice substitute.



Past the Christmas days we set out on a little Road Trip through Queensland over the Christmas holidays. Already a few miles north of Townsville the lush green of Queensland’s countryside starts to turn into tropical rainforest. The rainforest here in Northern Queensland is one of the oldest on the planet and exhibits an array of exotic wildlife. There are lots of beautiful little creeks, rivers and waterfalls nourished by the heavy rain falls driven by winds from the Coral Sea that ascending against the mountains of the Great Dividing Range. The Wallaman falls close to Ingham pour down over 250 meters in a refreshing pool at the bottom of a scenic jungle walk.


Wildlife is just stunning and we saw amethyst pythons sneaking directly over the street in front of us, tame tree frogs that did not really care if you were a tree or not, spiders the size of a an outstretched palm and others that pretended to be some kind of spiny beetle, fungi the color of cherries and creatures out of science fiction I am still not sure what they really were……








After camping and hiking in many of the national parks and a few days the in the beautiful rainforest village of Mission Beach we arrived in Cairns the capital of Northern Queensland.
The slogan of Cairns matches its character perfectly – ‘Rainforest meets Coral Reef’.
The Great Barrier Reef lies as close as 30km of the coast here which makes it the perfect spot for diving and snorkeling trips. Inland the rainforest touches the coast in some places where it has not been cleared by sugar cane fields yet. The only thing Cairns is missing are nice beaches, but the city made up for it by creating a free access swimming pool directly on the shore esplanade including its own little beach.
We went out on a diving trip with one of the liveaboard ships for 3 days to explore the reefs. The outer-reef is stunning and consists of a myriad of spurs and groves that waited to be explored.


After that we went all the way west inland to the so called Atherton Table Lands. These highlands are a perfect hideaway from the very hot and humid weather along the Queensland coast. The highlands have a much cooler climate with extended grass lands making it a perfect place for horseback riding and bird watching. From here we travelled on further west into the outback. Unfortunately the road got flooded and we were stuck in the middle of nowhere and had to camp out in the open for a night till the water level of the surrounding creeks sank again.


At our final destination in Chillagoe we had the chance to explore 3 magnificent limestone caves. Chillagoe itself is an old outpost of the gold rush and a real Ozzy town in the middle of nowhere where ‘Kangaroo and Cockatoo say each other good night’! It is the last dwelling before the long dirt road along the Gulf of Carpentaria.
However the big adventure of our ‘great northern safari’ had to be postponed to one day in the future……..

AIMS

So the actual reason why I am really here is to do my Masterthesis at AIMS. AIMS stands for the Australian Institute of Marine Science. In other words it is a governmental marine science institute based here in Townsville. It focuses mainly on tropical sciences with a strong emphasize naturally, due to its close proximity, on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR).

My project is about a coral disease called the ‘black band disease’. This disease is caused by consortia of microorganisms including so called ‘cyanobacteria’, little unicellular blue-green algae that pretty much ‘eat up’ coral tissue and lyse the coral polyps.

The institute is probably one of the most beautiful institutes I have ever seen in my whole life. Centered on Cape Cleveland about 50 km west of Townsville in a Conservation Park area it is surrounded by lush semi-tropical forest, nice beaches and eucalyptus woods. As it is so remote you can see wallabies (little kangaroos), possums, cockatoos, wild turkeys (they even enter the cafeteria!) and lots of other wildlife everywhere around.

Nature and wildlife is just stunning here and part of everyday life. Even though this might sound awkward but I am happy from time to time not to have a window in my office because I would probably just be looking out of the window and watching wallabies all day.

A few weeks ago whole AIMS got excited because we were told that there is a stranded marine mammal down at the AIMS wharf. After we went down to check what it was we saw nothing less than a dead blue whale! It had died in the small wharf the night before and has now been carried away for autopsy and later exhibition of the skeleton to the museum of Brisbane. After a few minutes of watching we even saw a big tiger shark (4 – 5 m) two meters below us swimming under the jetty to feed on the carcass. Sometimes I am a bit sad that I do not need to go to the field to dive and to collect samples to make my analysis, however that moment I wasn't!

Thanks a that point to Yui Sato San, the bravest Japanese Phd AIMS has ever seen for doing the sampling of BBD and CP for me on Orpheus Island (actually I think he is the only Japanese PhD student AIMS has ever seen)!

The institute is state of the art and people from my working group and fellow students are very easy going, cool and friendly.

The start of my project turned out to be quite tricky and I stay late at work most days of the week. However I really enjoy being at AIMS and the challenge of the project.

And as you can see at AIMS you never get bored!

Arriving in Townsville

My flight took over 8 hours of transit and 4 stopovers. When the propeller machine of Qantas landed on a little red dirt sand strip in the middle of nowhere called ‘Gove’ and a yellow-crested cockatoo flew right beside my window and the security guard at the check-in greeted me with ‘Hey dude’ I finally actually believed that I AM in Australia!


First time setting foot on this continent everything felt quite exciting, however I was a bit anxious about the uncertain next 6 months and also quite sad about leaving Simone and Indonesia behind. Standing like this with my luggage tired and brooding about everything at the airport in Townsville I did not feel quite as excited and thrilled as I expected to be.

However after a short time my jolly English mate Bry picked me up with the car. He showed me around Townsville a little bit and even prepared an awesome dinner for me and my supervisor David at his home the same evening. Thanks a lot again Bry the dinner was deluxe you made my entrée into Townsville and AIMS much easier! I promise I will make up for it with cold beers and some good German Schnitzel and Kartoffelsalat in the near future : )
When I arrived here in Townsville I still had no place to stay. Fortunately my supervisor David offered me to stay at his place, so I moved in with him for the first week.



After that I moved in with two Phd students from Sheffield (England) and Melbourne (Cheers Chris and Matt and not to forget Pauly our Mundingburra swamp tiger!). We live in a typical Queenslander, that’s what the wooden old houses (in Victorian style) that sit on stilts are called here, with a big back yard and a nice little veranda on the front.



I don’t want to bore anyone here with details, and I think everyone who has tried to built up a living in a foreign country without actually knowing many people before arrival, limited budget and especially in a place where everything is so vast and so far apart (without a car) knows what I am talking about. I can just say at this point it wasn’t easier than Miami. But I had even learned quite a fair bit this time Georg and Stefan. No more share with crazy Italians (No personal offence meant here Roberto ; )
Start here wasn’t really easy but I had great help from so many nice people that made it much more convenient for me.

Thanks a lot at that point to everyone David, Bry, Verena, Matt, Chris and all others that helped me out some time, you were awesome.
It is great to have such good mates!

Australia here we go

This is a new episode of Martin’s life around the globe. After having moved to the north of Germany and living for over one year up in Bremen I finally left good old Germany behind again. This time the journey took me even further. After 3 weeks of travelling and strolling with Simone through the Indonesian islands of Java and Bali I eventually arrived here in Australia where I will be staying for the next half year.

It is a little town called Townsville in the state Queensland at the north east coast of Australia. This nice little town lies directly on the on the South Pacific Ocean (or Coral Sea) at the Great Barrier Reef. The reason why I am here is to do my Masterthesis with a marine science institute called the Australian Institute of Marine Science or shortly AIMS.

Townsville itself is a nice typically Ozzi Queenslander town. It’s a major mining and military base but also famous among backpackers due to its close proximity to surrounding islands like Magnetic Island (called Maggy in Oz) and the great barrier reef. Even though it is not Sydney or Melbourne Townsville got everything you need from an own Sea aquarium up to notorious bars like Molly Malone’s (right) and Zolli’s.

As everything in Australia the towns is quite far spread and public transport is not the best. The city surrounds a nice hill called Castle Hill (right) which offers a superb view over the city sometimes as far as Magnetic Island and nice sunsets. There are nice beaches here as well. Unfortunately during summer time waters around the Queensland coast aren’t easily accessible due to major marine hazards. These include the so called box jellyfish, Irukandji jellyfish, salt water crocodiles and all kinds of sharks. For this reason Townsville beach is fenced with a protective net to keep all dangerous marine life out. They even constructed the so called ‘rock pool’, and artificial basin of seawater to pump and filter seawater in and out to give people the possibility of a save swim.

The climate here at the gold coast is pretty good at the moment with 25° to 30° degrees C during the day and a nice constant breeze. However summer time is rainy season here and it will get much more rainy and humid during the next months.

This semi-humid climate has led to a rich wildlife in the area. You can see swarms of Ibises flying above you, while you are sitting on the veranda, watch gigantic fruit bats going out for late dinner right after dawn, check out some sea turtles that swim up to the beach or jetty to catch a glimpse of those lazy tourists or even see a group of humpback whales that migrate up north during this time of the year from their feeding grounds in Antarctica.

Queensland got lots to see and I am more than eager to explore!