On Top of the World

June 4, 2010

Location: Stradbroke Island (Point Lookout)/ Brisbane

Today we checked out of the research center early and headed over to the northern end of the island. Finally we got to see the ocean and walk a real Australian beach. Point lookout was beautiful. We first walked main beach and saw the sand dune that used to gradually move every year. They used to dump the islands trash in front of the dune and the movement would eventually cover it up. However they finally realized the devastating effects of those actions and decided to stabilize the dune. We then walked up to point lookout. This spot (the highest on the island) is the perfect location to see the humpback whales on their yearly migration. We were hoping to see a few humpbacks but unfortunately we didn’t see any. We saw some whale watchers (those that document and survey the number of whale sightings, basically to track the population size). The journey to the top of point lookout and the journey through the rocky headlands to the different lookout points deserve a blog post of their own, however, I don’t have much time to describe the view. We followed a trail all the way to the top (basically hiking only most of us were in flip flops). The view was so beautiful. You could see the bottom of the ocean from a few hundred feet up. The shallower waters had a crystal clear turquoise color. There were rocky caves that the water waves crashed into creating the most wonderful sounds. We also saw some turtles and rays. One white spotted eagle ray that we saw in the second lookout point leaped clear out of the water twice. It was truly spectacular. Also we did see a couple of bottle nosed dolphins at the second lookout point. One was a little baby calf. After failing at spotting a whale we headed down to the beach. We followed the beach all the way around the point curve of the island. We eventually made our way to a swim beach (patrolled by lifeguards). We sat on the beach for awhile before lunch (a bunch of people were tanning) I went to play on a playground. We then decided to go to the other beach because of the way the wind was hitting the island the other beach was warmer and calmer. I fell asleep on the beach and woke up about a half hour before we were leaving. We started heading over to the barge to make our way back to the mainland for the night. We did stop at a freshwater spring because we were running a little early. The spring was beautiful and warm, my best descriptive analogy would be like ice tea. It was clear but brown. We caught another barge back to the main land. When we got back to Brisbane we all went out to dinner at Jo Jos. The restaurant was more like 5 restaurants in one. You were assigned a table number and went around the different restaurants to make an order, then they brought you your food. It was quite delicious. Never been to a restaurant quite like that before. We also saw a protest/demonstration (not sure what it was about but it was pretty crazy). A couple of us walked around the mall before making our way back to Tinbillys. It was a long but very much relaxing day.

Notables:
Popper: juice box (will be incorporate in my everyday vocab)