My Travels in Australia

We had a meeting at my wetland today about funding, etc. It went pretty well...still need to send off official proposals and that sort of thing. But it did give me a chance to check out the wetland after all this rain, and there's now water in the channel that collects stormwater from the freeway and the whole main part of the wetland! I wouldn't be surprised if a little more rain started a little bit of water flow through there. Plus as more rain comes people start turning off their irrigation bores, and the groundwater rises (as people stop taking away water, the groundwater gets refilled and kind of rebounds and fills up more of the wetlands). So I'm now going to be busy getting all of the equipment ready, because we don't want to risk having the rain come now and not later...we're going to get it all in and set-up ASAP. For the most part, the big deal is getting the ethics / risk management approval, and I can do that in the next one to two weeks. Since you can technically do "pilot studies" to learn about your study site, if I have to collect any data before the whole proposal is passed it can be used in a pilot study sense...i.e. I can use it to comment on why the study was happening/what the site was like before offical recording happened, etc. So I'm getting there, and almost started with the actual field work. Which, let's be honest, is the fun part. Although I've also heard the data analysis is the best part. I think most people dread statistics, but I'm guessing when it's your own work and you're playing with the data to figure out what was happening that it can be a lot more exciting trying to piece together all the parts of the puzzle!

This is the pinnacles desert. The "pinnacles" are basically limestone that "grows" upwards out of the ground. Kind of crazy. Not my picture. But hopefully I'll have some of my own soon! It's definitely a place to check from what I've heard...one of the only places this happens in the world!

P.S. Since, you know, involvement never ends...I'm apparently on the Orientation Steering Committee for the university...at least it's only a couple hours a month! Haha.

Labels: ECU, Research, Things to See