I thought I had the best Spring Break ever last year when I went to Florida. And then this year happened. Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Byron Bay Bluesfest, and the Great Barrier Reef.. all in one week.
Maura Connolly/Old Gold & Black
The first half of my week was a little something like this: almost drowning in a rip, watching the moon rise over the ocean, learning to surf Easter morning, playing “Bunny Bunny” at a train station, spending 12 hours at a music festival watching Newton Faulkner, Zac Brown Band, Bonnie Raitt, Ben Howard, Xavier Rudd, and the Lumineers (front row!), breakfast on the beach, sleeping in the sun, and lots and lots of hot cross buns.
And then I went to the Reef.
8 hour overnight bus ride with breakfast at Maccas (McDonalds)… and then a 2 hour ferry ride to paradise. Pulling into Heron Island you could see straight through the turquoise water and spot sharks and rays on either side of the boat. These were the very waters I was about to spend the next 5 days snorkeling in.
We stayed at the Heron Island Research Station, since we were there on a field trip for my Australia’s Marine Environment class. This meant I had to do actual research project work like observe fish behaviour, count species, and identify live and dead coral. Tough life man.
Each day on the island I went snorkeling 1-3 times. Sometimes we would just wade out, other times we would take a boat out. No matter where we went, we were
Maura Connolly/Old Gold & Black
bound to see some combination of fish, sea stars, sea cucumbers, eels, sea snakes, sharks, rays, and sea turtles. While the fish were beautiful and the rays majestic (and the sea cucumbers turd-like), the sea turtles were my favourite. They did not mind if I swam above them and followed them for 10 minutes like a psycho stalker. They also did not mind if I dove down and attempted to pose with them as they nommed on the coral. Nor did they mind if I stroked their shell, their legs, and their butt. Regardless of what I did, they just gave me a look and did their own thing.
The second best parts of the day were meal times. Our caterer Maggie was a boss. She gave us an intimidating introduction to her kitchen, but man was her food good. Homemade bread all day, every day. Plus we had traditional Aussie tea times, which meant delicious cinnamon cake for morning tea and fresh fruit for afternoon tea. Love that island living- 5 meals a day.
Maura Connolly/Old Gold & Black
At night there was little to do, seeing as the island consisted solely of the research station and a resort. So we roamed the beaches with red lights looking for turtle hatchlings. Never found any. But we did find the Milky Way! Stars on stars on stars. And one night a couple students from Lewis & Clark University put on a concert for us. With a guitar, a mandolin, a fiddle, and an ukulele they serenaded us with “When its Hog Calling Time in Indiana,” “Wagon Wheel,” “Gin and Juice,” and “All Star.” Not quite island music, but solid sing-a-longs.
Our last night on the island we decided to go out with a bang. Our lecturer organised for all 50 of us to go to the resort bar after dinner. So we dressed up as best we could in our beach clothes, bought cheap wine off Maggie before we were faced with $16 cocktails, and headed to the bar in shifts so as not to overwhelm the resort guests too much. We slowly took over the dance floor, chasing resort guests off to bed as the night progressed (unintentionally of course). The band was an older couple who played classics along the lines of Fleetwood Mac. Until they announced their last song and started playing “I Come From the Land Down Under”. The crowd went wild. Everyone who wasn’t already on the dance floor quickly made their way there. Although that was supposed to be the finale, our encore chants persuaded them to play one more song- “Shake Your Booty.” They knew their audience. When they left we switched to someone’s iPod and continued to dance for another hour or so, until the resort staff had to kick us out.
Maura Connolly/Old Gold & Black
We thought that was the end of the night until back at the research station our tutors (TAs) led us through the woods (I got pooped on) to North Beach. It was low tide and the water was maybe a meter deep, but before you knew it everyone was stripping down and headed to the water. Skinny dipping in the Great Barrier Reef- would not have guessed I’d be checking that one off the list, but it happened.
Another fun part of the trip was talking to all the international students. I met Wayne from Thailand, Emmi from Finland, Sandra & Therese from Sweeden, and 3 girls from Britain. The British girls loved to practice their American accents with us. For whatever reason, Lucy’s favourite American personality to quote is Randy Jackson, so her go-to American phrase was “Yo girl, that was wack.” And Sandra taught Karen and I some classic Sweedish phrases such as “my name is,” “how are you,” and “what do you want: an umbrella or a parasol?” All in all, a very educational field trip!