LC Australia Program 2011: Australian Salute

By Sara Rangel

Hello from Kinchega National Park! We arrived here after an hour and a half drive from Broken Hill on Saturday, February 19^th. During our bus drive past the Menindee lakes, we experienced the effects of the recent floods. There were many spots on the road that had been washed over and were now covered in mud, or even in some places still had large water holes covering the pavement! The bus went through a spot of water that was quite deep. We stopped once we got through it and got out to look at the water, which was covering the flood plain as far as the eye could see. Luckily, none of the roads was completely flooded and we were in the trusty hands of Tex, our bus driver, who got us through safely! On a brighter note, we saw many wild emus during the drive as well.

On our way we stopped at the Menindee lakes which are part of the Darling river system. There we were met by Barry Philp, who works on water management at the lakes. We started our tour at Lake Wetheral, where Barry explained the lake systems and how they manage them in times of flooding, such as right now. There is a system of man-made waterways between each of the four main lakes that allows for them to fill and drain each lake from the Darling river when deemed necessary. The largest of the lakes, including lake Menindee itself, were completely bone-dry from 2003 until 2010, but as of right now the system is full beyond capacity. Menindee lake alone contains two times the volume of water than Sydney Harbor right now. It is amazing how much water the floods have dumped into the Murray-Darling river system!

While at Lake Wetheral we climbed up 30 feet to the top of the main weir to catch beautiful views of the waterway. We later learned from a Menindee local that he never was able to go up on top of the main weir and he has lived in Menindee his whole life; and Barry our guide is even his cousin! We were obviously very lucky to get this experience. Since the waterways and lakes have been dry for so long, lots of vegetation has grown in the basins. Now that the floods have filled them, there are many trees and shrubs that have been partially or fully flooded. It is both beautiful and eerie to see so many trees waist-deep in murky-brown flood water!

After that stop we continued on to Lake Menindee, where we stopped for a short while at a nice public access area. Lake Menindee is the source of the local towns water, but it is still public access so boats and jet skis still use it for recreation. We then went to the town of Menindee and had a wonderful lunch at the local pub/restaurant. In between each of our stops, it seemed like everyone on the bus fell straight asleep, even if the ride was short. We were all exhausted!

After lunch we made our last drive over to the Kinchega National Park Sheep Shearing Station. The shearing shed on the property was built in the 1870s, so now it is a historical site within the National Park. During the afternoon we met the national park ranger, Julianne, who is here to help us with our field work projects. These projects are aimed at studying some aspect of the natural flora and fauna around us in this arid desert. We broke up into four groups of four people each, then took time to wander around the property and observe plant life. Our goal was to find a certain plant characteristic that we could ask a question about and later form a hypothesis around. Our guest lecturer for the week, Derek Ball, explained to us the idea of the scientific method, which delineates exactly how to go about field research. Though I am sure this was a repeat lesson for all the science majors on the trip, it was nice for us humanities majors who feel completely out of their element! Once we decided on our project topics we made a list of our methods for executing those tests. After that we were done with academics for the day!

We had a wonderful dinner prepared for us by a group of locals from the town of Menindee. It seems on this trip that whenever we are in the most remote of areas, we get the best food! For the rest of the night we hung out. Some people threw around a frisbee, which is a common pastime with this group! The sunset was amazing, it looked unreal. Many people took a walk out along the dirt road during the sunset to catch a glimpse of wildlife. There were heaps of red kangaroos all over the vast desert plains. It felt amazing to be in the outback, during the most beautiful sunset, hanging with the largest kangaroos in Australia. Really a wonderful experience! I feel so lucky to be here!

The next day we got up bright and early to start on our field research observations! For the first half of the day each group went to its specific observation site and began working. Ryan, Anna-Brook, Emily and Katie studied the Black Box Eucalypt to see if its proximity to the flood plain had any correlation to the trunk size. Kathryn, Dick, Jared and Marni compared the size and height of the Blue Bush plant in the red sand and the grey clay. Rebecca, John, Hanah and Alison studied the density of shrubs around trees. Delaney, Drew, Melanie and I studied the competitiveness of the onion weed and the velvet tobacco to other plants. Everyone seemed to have a fun time going out into the bush and collecting all of our data, despite the flies. The flies here in Australia are absolutely obnoxious; they are everywhere and I am positive that their only job is to annoy us! We were told by Nat that Australians call the action of swatting a fly away from your face with your hand the Australian salute because it is done so often here. All day long we seemed to battle the flies with our Australian salutes, but the flies still won every time. We must have looked pretty patriotic though!

After we collected our data we made presentations based on our results. Later on in the afternoon we started brainstorming for our second project, which was to study animal behavior. After the project planning we all hung around, ate dinner and had some free time. One of the Uncles from Wollombi surprised us and showed up at our camp that afternoon. It was great to see him! During sunset we all went on a walk out to the open bush. We saw lots of kangaroos, and of course a breathtaking sunset which touched a full range of emotions! It was so relaxing to be in the middle of nowhere, with no worries, surrounded by a great group of people.