Project 3: Portland, Victoria

“Make sure to tell the guys to roll their socks up,” Andrew said, a project coordinator with DSE, Department of Sustainability and Environment. “There’s leeches at Mt. Richmond.”

If the students aren’t annoyed enough by my sense of humor and knack for taking pictures of just about everything, then they are really going to have their hands full with both me, and Andrew! Andrew has that smart-ass humor that I, naturally, love, and he’s also a fine photographer with enough lenses and photo equipment and know-how to keep me following him around like a puppy.

At Mt. Richmond we gathered for our mandatory project orientation and weren’t really looking for leeches, not exactly; okay, I lie, I was looking. I was flipping over leaves, checking the underside of thick grass blades. Where would they be? I wondered. And what would they look like? Then, without warning, someone screeched, “You have one on you!” Only they weren’t screeching at me, they were screeching at the one English fellow, Chris. And then, just as suddenly, the ground seemed to shift, movement everywhere.

Leeches.

On our boots, pants, socks, and coming quick. Funny too, because instead of going somewhere else, maybe a safe place like sand or a road, we stood there like foreign fools, scraping leeches off one boot only to find another grabbing onto the other. We did this for maybe ten minutes before someone had the bright idea to MOVE! Talk about PARANOID. All day checking our pants, in fact, we kept our pants in our socks for the next eight hours, through three or four other tourist sites and even when we stopped for tea down along the coast. Though, the paranoia might also have come from what happened to my other Brit, Theo. After lunch (where we had bbq’d roo meat…yum) she lifted up her shirt a bit because she felt something “sticky”. She asked another student if she had a leech on her. What?? Of course we all looked. And there, my friends, on her white English belly, I beheld the grandest daddy of them all, engorged with Theo’s blood and looking for more. Whoa! Again, what kind of leader am I? First thing I did was run off to grab my camera! Andrew, quite thankfully, burned the bugger off of her. Do you know why you have to burn them? Because if you pull them off (oh, the temptation!) their little jaws will stick inside you and cause serious infection. Another fact: they inject a bit of anti-coagulant in, right before they start sucking, and poor Theo was still bleeding that night before she went to bed (on to nightmares about small sucking objects…)

What with it winter and all down here, I regret to never have any snake stories, only tales of bugs and other small creepy crawlies. And it is one such creepy crawly (at least I’m guessing) that I think snuck into my sleeping bag whilst I was staying at a seedy motel on Friday night in Melbourne. Bites my friends, at least 30 or so small ones, some as big as dimes and that look like hives/mosquito bites. Oh, and they itch! I have them across my neck, belly and both arms—which makes me think bugs because my legs and upper torso are fine. I feel fine physically but then just last night one of my girls said I had a funny shaped thing on the back of my neck. Great, I thought, here goes the beginning of my tale of woe and how I was bit by a red-back somewhere along the way. Not cool being ‘bitten’ by something and not knowing what the hell it is, especially in Oz. But, good news—Andrew said the ‘bite’ on my neck might just be an ingrown pimple. Hmm. How attractive am I now? Bites! Pimples!

Even if I’m a temporary freak show, at least the view is stunning. Victoria is the state smack on the southeast tip of Australia, directly over Tassie, with gorgeous dramatic coastlines and a healthy Koala population. I hate to brag but I had one of the coolest moments of my life on our first day in Victoria. At a place called Tower Hill Reserve, protected area akin to a national park, we took turns petting a real live, “wild” koala. The land was originally cleared and used for agriculture. Not a pretty site. 20 years ago or so the entire area was revegetated with native gums and wattles (trees) and now 180 Koalas live there. We were fortunate enough to find a slumbery fellow to poke and prod and photo not three meters off of the ground.

Victoria also boasts greener than green vistas. Its always a shocker to see this side of Australia. More than 70% of this continent is dry as bone and nearly inhabitable to those that don’t understand the land (i.e. most white folks). But the coasts, and in particular, Victoria, are quite green. It’s misleading though, traveling through all that lush veg, and in full view of the ocean, because its hard to imagine a water problem over this way. Much less everywhere else in the world.

Ah so much. We are working with the rare and endangered Mellblom’s Spider Orchid this first week. A truly phenomenal flowering plant that works symbiotically with a fungus in order to grow. If the fungus isn’t there to break down nutrients in the soil for the orchid, the orchid doesn’t grow. Its crazy and inspiring to watch a fully-grown man, like Andrew, chase these things down and treating them like (better than) children. A rare plant indeed that is getting lots of attention over this way.

I also think of early settlers often. What it must have been like to sail an awkward wooden vessel through the “Roaring Forties”, the name given to the winds that move across the Bass Straight. These winds are phenomenally consistent in their strength, coming off of the southern tip of Africa and the South Ocean. It’s no wonder that dozens of famous shipwreck stories pepper the southern coast of Australia. It’s been so windy most days (and I'm talking almost blow you over wind) that I hate to imagine trying to negotiate a safe landing against the shallow rocks and jagged stone cliffs that meet the sea.

But that wind is good for a few things. In particular, wind farms. Portland, my home for the next two weeks, is destined to become one of the premier wind farms in Australia. When all is said and done, the wind farms will provide electricity to more than 17,000 homes in Victoria.

All right, my head is spinning, once again. I’m also horribly out of touch (very little email access) and have been writing these notes on my computer and saving them on disk. I hope everyone is well. I can read emails but not send any (at least not many) until I’m back in the big city of Sydney.

Lastly, HAPPY (late) BIRTHDAY TO MY DAD!!!! I’ll bring you something back sweet! Thanks for all your love and support, you are the greatest and most generous person I know.

Much love to all,
laura