I’ve been here a month now! I can’t believe how quick it’s gone! So what have I been doing all this time???Well, I’m doing my PhD within the ‘Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies’, which is based at JCU, but is a partnership between several coral-reefy type organisations in Townsville and Brisbane. My supervisor Garry is head of one of the main research programs, on marine reserves and connectivity, which is how I fit in. It’s a good thing to be a part of, as the Australian Research Council are throwing lots of money into it, there’s an impressive list of people involved, and tons of PhD students. Also, they have cakes and scones at their coffee morning, which is always a good sign. I thought that I’d stand out here being English, but as it turns out more than half of marine biology postgrads are international students! The other girls in my office are South African and Norwegian, and at the pub on Friday we could only find two ‘proper’ Aussies among us!So far I seem to have spent a lot of time jumping through various hoops to get on the JCU dive register, which basically allows you to do fieldwork underwater. They’re surprisingly strict! I’ve had to refresh first aid and oxygen courses, have an occupational dive medical and get a Queensland boat license. A week today, I start a week long Scientific Diving Course, which amongst other things involves learning how to use full face masks and drill stuff underwater! Sounds fun, and I get to stay on Orpheus Island for a week to do it. I’ve also got a couple of weeks in the Keppel Islands coming up, helping out a couple of Garry’s other PhD students with some surveys.It would be amazing to be an undergrad student here with time to spare… every day I get e-mails asking for volunteers to go and survey reef islands for months on end, or measure turtles or lizards or whatever.Sometime in between doing all that, I need to get thinking about my own project! I have a lovely new computer to work on, lots of colour coordinated stationary, and a long list of Things To Do… so there’s really no excuse now. Garry has done lots of work on marine reserves in the Philippines, so we’re talking to some people over there about getting datasets and hopefully working with them; as well as people closer to home in Townsville at GBRMPA. I think it will be really interesting to compare how reserves have been set up in the Philippines and Australia, as the approach is so different. So basically I still don’t know exactly what I’m going to be doing… but we’ve got a few ideas and it’s all quite exciting.
Archive for September, 2006
Townsville has just won the right to become a trial solar city, which means they’re going to invest loads of money in solar powered homes. How cool!
I have finally escaped from uni accommodation - hurrah for good food and adult conversation!This is my new house, it’s in riverside gardens, the trendy new suburbia close to uni. At the moment it takes about 20 minutes to walk in… but I’m hoping to get a bike so it will be even quicker. The area is really nice - lots of bikeways and paths in the wooded bits down by the river, picnic spots and public barbeques etc. I’ll put more photos up soon. The house is quite small, but I’ve found a spot for my hammock in the garden, and since I don’t really have any stuff it’s not a problem! I had to go on a major hunt yesterday for a down pillow and duvet… apparently they’re a European thing! The two girls I’m sharing with (both called Julia) seem really lovely, and, at the moment anyway, it’s nice and cool and breezy.The address to send all cards and presents to is:7 Lemonwood CourtDouglasTownsvilleQueensland 4814AUSTRALIABecks x
New entry at number 5 - Bush turkeys. Lots of them roam around by the cafe area at the union. One got its feet stuck a binliner while trying to steal stuff out the bin and fell off.At number 4 this week, Butterflies. There’s loads of really cool ones everywhere, but my favourite is a HUGE electric blue one with black edges, that was flying around outside my room yesterday.At number 3, the Rainbow Lorikeets (the colourful parrots). Sliping down the chart this week due to too much loud squawking and my inability to train one to speak OR sit on my shoulder.New entry at number 2…. a Kookaburra! He’s been sitting in the tree outside my office for ages and keeps looking at me. He’s very pretty. I don’t think its a gum tree though.Still hanging in at number one, it’s the Kangaroos! Stealing the top spot again for their jumping power and comic expressions.
Yesterday I was very good and went out and bought myself some fancy trainers, shorts, a sports bra and a t-shirt that says ‘just do it!‘ to try and make myself get fit. I got up early this morning to go for a jog around campus when no-one was around. Just as I was really starting to wheeze and beginning to think it was all a terrible idea…. two kangaroos jumped across the road ahead of me! Hurrah! I have been rewarded for my efforts! They stopped about 5m away and looked at me quizzically for a bit until I ran on.As a side note, apparently ‘wallaroos’ really do exist! And yes, it’s a cross between a wallaby and a kangaroo. Someone gave a seminar about them last week!
I’ve got a work address now, so if anyone wants to send me stuff (yay!) you can post it to me at:School of Marine and Tropical Biology,James Cook University,Townsville,Queensland 4811,AUSTRALIA.I’ve got a ozzie phone now too but I won’t put the number on here, if you want it you gotta ask!
I saw parrots today! Real I’ve-just-escaped-from-the-zoo, green and red and blue and yellow parrots! And they were flying around in the tree just outside my office. All the other birds seem rubbish now… except for the little fat ones with long curvy beaks that hop around. I still like those (as you can see my zoological knowledge is flourishing).I’m beginning to find my way around campus now, without even looking at the map! I was given a tour of the marine biology department today and have been allocated work space in room 007 (theres a really good Bond joke in there somewhere but I haven’t quite worked out what it is yet). I’m sharing with a couple of other postgrad girls, but I haven’t met them yet as they’re both in the field. The department looks a lot like Sheffield - I guess universities are the same everywhere. Except there are ‘Emergency Showers’ in all of the corridors… which just seem to be inviting trouble!I’ve had a couple of meetings with my supervisor, Garry, to try and decide what I’m going to do for my project. We’re still not exactly sure… but it’s looking like something to do with the implementation of marine reserves on the Great Barrier Reef and in the Philippines. Which I think should be pretty interesting. I also met the university dive officer today, to organise getting on the dive register so that I can help out a couple of other PhD students doing surveys in the Keppel islands (barrier reef a few hours south of here) in October. I can’t wait to get back in warm water again! Tomorrow I get to choose a work computer and get my personal account set up, so I can start buying stationary and decorating my office 
Must stop laughing at men in shorts! At home its only postmen that can get away with it, but it seems men of all professions here can wear shorts, as long as they also have socks pulled up to their knees and a silly hat. It really does look rediculous.
I went adventuring today and caught a bus into town. Townsville is either very camp, or has some kind of sports team called the cowboys… as there are ‘I love Cowboys!’, ‘Go Cowboys!’ etc posters everywhere.The city has a very odd layout, its like lots of smaller towns stuck together, each has its own mall-like shopping centre etc. and a different style. Along the main road into town shops seem to favour the splashy-trashy look I’d associate with America, huge oversized neon signs, giant revolving golf balls on the roof of a sports store etc. Turn off the road however and you end up in perfect Desperate Housewives-style suburbia, colourful houses with picket fences and pools and palm trees in the garden, on steets with names like waterdragon close, or riverbend drive… I want to live here!Some of the shops in the town centre look rather cheap and scruffy and by lunchtime the pubs were reassuringly full of guys with ponytails and short shorts swigging VB infront of the rugby (I know this from glancing through doorways… I didn’t dare go in!). I got a bit lost and came across a variety of drive thru liquor stores (!!!) and club boasting to host australias first wet-t-shirt competition. A couple of streets away and you end up in the smarter end of town with lots of trendy looking bars and cafes, expensive looking apartments overlooking the marina and uplit footbridges across the river. I found an amazing noodle bar called chilli jam for lunch. Theres also a massive aquarium and museum thats spost to be good to, I’ll have to go there soon.The road crossings are scary, and sound as though you’re in a video game… they bleep contsantly once you press the button, then a siren goes and you have approximately 6 seconds to dash across the road till it goes red again.I then wandered down to ‘the Strand’ which is the beach strip. I expected the cosatline to be crammed with hotels and bars etc, but buliding has been strictly limited, theres hardly any high rise buildings, and the seafront is really lovely and unspoilt. Just back from the beach theres a shady row of palm trees and then a path which, if I was more energetic, would be great to jog along, with chin up bars etc placed along it. Theres then communal areas with barbeques and a water park which are all free to use. Thers fantastic views out to sea and over to Magnetic Island all the way along. I didn’t have my camera with me, but I’ll put some piccys up on Flickr next time.On the way back I went to the shopping centre nearest uni, which looks really new and is supposedly the best. Lots of great clothes shops, will need to be buying flipflops and shorts soon now we’re coming into Summer. I was most upset to discover that you cant get Aussie shampoo in Australia! Apparently it’s not as authentic as it seems, I feel so cheated… Despite being called Woolworths the supermarket was pretty good too, loads of fresh fruit and veg and good fresh meat and fish counters. Only forseeable problem so far is that nowhere seems to sell down pillows!Bex x
Becks is a marine ecology PhD student, living in Queensland (Australia), Dumaguete (Philippines) and London (UK). Marinegirl is her online alter-ego. She dreamt her up as as super-gorgeous superhero saving the underwater world (if you've seen Captain Planet, you get the idea). She is not, and never will be, in the marines.