RSPCA, Fraser Island and Whale Watching

I just got back from walking Hercules the husky. He is so, so nice! I don't understand why he would ever be at the RSPCA. Actually all of the dogs I've met there have been so lovely, it's hard to understand why anyone would give them away. I'm really enjoying my voluntary work but I keep finding dogs to take home. Hercules would be ideal for you Laurie! I ended up just walking him for about 45mins as he was so amazing. He was moulting ridiculously though, bits of fur were flying off as he ran along. I brushed him a bit and ended up with a huge ball of hair but he was still all tufty looking where he was losing his coat. I walked some some other lovely dogs as well but Hercules was definately my favourite.

So lately I havn't got up to that much as I've had loads of deadlines. But in midsemester break I did go to Fraser Island on a field trip. It is really, really beautiful there. The lakes are amazing and wierdly all have different coloured water -red, green and clear. My favourite part was definately sand dune jumping. We had been trekking for what seemed like hours and then we're told to climb up a huge sandy bank. When we got to the top you could see huge sand dunes it was so beautiful. We walked along to the edge of the dune, where it suddenly drops off steeply. The idea here is to just run and jump off the dune. Scary, huh. So I was feeling pretty nervous as it looked like it was gonna hurt when you thudded down on the sand. But me and Louisa conquered the fear and jumped together. I think I was the one of the only ones that screamed. Flying through the air is pretty scary to be fair though. It was so much fun though, and did not hurt at all. Everyone had a few more turns and then the whole class jumped together! I'm not sure if the photos are up yet but I'll try to put one in when I find it! From there we trekked on a couple of km to the first lake we went to. It was a huge red lake in the middle of a forest. The swimming was so good there because it was so humid and after trekking you just feel disgusting.

I really enjoyed Fraser Island. We spent the mornings doing field work but then in the afternoons we would go to a lake or creek for swimming. One morning I even got up at 5.45am to go tracking. This is where you look for, and try to identify animal tracks in the sand. We saw loads, including snake tracks, dingo tracks and even tiny millipede tracks.



There were so many dingoes there! One of them came right up to us on the beach and was only a couple of metres away! There pretty tame because tourists feed them. But this is bad because then if the dingoes attack people they get put down. When it is really the peoples fault for trying to play with wild animals! There were the cutest dingo pups on our campsite though. The campsite was fenced to stop the dingoes getting in but the puppies are small enough to fir through. They are so sweet! We also saw a couple of snakes, a huge spider, a little scorpion and many, many bugs.



Another really fun thing about Fraser Island is driving on the sand! I would love to drive there but I'm sure I would nearly definately get stuck. You get bounced around like crazy in the back of the 4WDs. It was v.v. funny.

Everyone was really nice on the trip, and we all ended up going to Down Under on the tuesday after we got back :).

So, the weekend before Fraser I went Whale Watching down at the Gold Coast. It was AMAZING, literally the best thing I've done here. The whales were actually really close and we saw loads of them, like maybe 20+!! And they were jumping out of the water, slapping their fins and blowing through their blow holes. It was amazing to see, and something I think everyone should do if they ever have the chance.



While we were at Surfer's Paradise I somehow managed to lose a shoe in the sea. I'm not really sure how this happened but it was nowhere to be found. So if you go to the beach, please look out for my shoe. It is a grey lace up dap in size 4.

I think that is all of my news....On Sunday I am going to Stradbroke island though, which should be exciting :D.

Lots of love xxx