Quicksand: the very definition of aventure.

I dont want to talk about the last couple of days, but I will tell you about the days before that. As you all know, I spent two days doing intensive invertebrate sampling over the last week. The operative word in that sentence being 'intensive'. I'm sure that all of my volunteer helpers would say that it was a pretty intense couple of days.

On Tuesday, it was, of course, Australia Day and my parents had the day off and decided to devote it to helping me out with prey sampling (aren't they lovely). Mum and Dad went camping the night before so that they wouldnt be too far away from Bicheno in the morning and we could get started nice and early. Unfortunately, their lilo let them down (literally) and they didnt have the best nights sleep, but they managed to be pleasant company anyway. I left Hobart a little after 6am and Mum and Dad joined me on the beach at 9am.

The way intensive prey sampling works is that at 6 locations along the beach (at 2 Hoodie territories, 2 Red-cap territories, and 2 sections of the beach between territories that is unused by either species) 40 sand cores are taken, seived through a very fine mesh sieve that lets most of the sand through but keeps all the tiny little creepy crawlies, and then the bugs are picked from the sieve using forcepts and put in a sample bag labeled with the date, territory and location. 40 samples are taken at each of the six sites; 10 in the swash (where the waves are lapping on the shore), 10 in the lower beach, 10 in the hight tide mark, and 10 in the upper beach. All in all, I took 440 samples over 2 days.

Here, have some photos.

These are taken at Denison beach just north of Bicheno when Mum and Dad were helping me.

On Tuesday night I returned to Hobart after hanging out with Mum and Dad for a while (and having a very nice BBQ, seeing an Orca, and having a very much appreciated cup of coffee or two). We didnt finish sampling until after 6pm, but I dont remember how much after that it was. I dont know if Mum and Dad enjoyed themselves, but I actually did. I like being able to share my wonderful beaches with people - they are far more enjoyable that way. Unfortunately, it took so long doing the sampling that it was cold and windy by the time we finished and Dad and I didnt get to go snorkeling around the awesome rocks near Diamond Island.

On Wednesday I had to repeat the whole process on Friendly Beaches in the Frecynet National Park with two of my friends for volunteers. With only just over 4 hours sleep, I was very glad that Moose was doing all the driving and all I had to do was talk enough dribble to keep him awake. Rob was completely useless in this regard and snoozed in the backseat on the way up and back down. We stopped at Macca's in Sorell for breaky on the way and got to the beach around 10:30 and set to work.

We sampled all day (well, I did - the boys had a bit of break in the middle), but still had time to have a slight adventure and get eaten by quicksand on the edge of the lagoon. I knew there was quicksand at the lagoon from a previous experience getting my foot eaten, but I thought that it was only at that one place on the edge of the lagoon so I was telling the boys all about it, standing at the edge of the lagoon when suddenly I disappeared up to my waist - I really wish Moose had been quick enough to get some photos, but I was pretty quick to get out incase I got eaten completely. Then Rob decided it was his turn but he only disappeared up to his shins. The awesome thing about quicksand is the fact that you can stand there for a few minutes before you overcome the surface tension and then *slurp* you're gone. If you struggle you'll just break the surface tension more and sink further so you have to stay calm and try to increase your surface area in contact with the surface of the sand (eg you lie down and crawl/wiggle gently away until you're safe again). It was awesome, though, because, as you know, quicksand is the very definition of adventure.

Moose took some photos of us working and playing around and stuff, but I dont have them at the moment. I will, however, put some up if he sends them to me.

We got off the beach at around 7:30 (I think) and headed back down to Swansea for a BBQ, followed by chocolate biscuits and junkfood all the whole way home. We eventually got back to Hobart at 10:30ish, but it felt more like 2am. I was very glad to have a bit of extra sleep that night, I can tell you.

Anyways, I had a good couple of days and am very grateful to all four of my volunteers (Mum, Dad, Moose, and Rob) for coming and helping me and being good company despite long days, early starts, not enough sleep, quicksand, wet shoes, and marsh flies. Cheers guys, let me know when you need me to return the favour. I hope it wasnt too horrible for any of you, and I'm glad we're all still talking to each other.