Earlier this week Eli and I went on a field trip. The intention was for us to watch horses walk through some creeks in the Gold Coast hinterland - part of a project I am involved in which aims to investigate the impacts of horse riding in streams in protected areas. Eli, a big fan of both horses and days off from daycare, was primed to help me out with my work, so off we headed to the upper reaches of Tallebudgera Creek.
We arrived to meet Jo and Pete, some of our colleagues from the Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM), only to find out that the horses weren't coming - apparently the weather was just too hot (we were expecting a 35 C day) and the riders weren't prepared to saddle up their horses and cross the creek (despite the obvious benefits to the horses in walking through a nice cool rainforest stream).
Thankfully, Eli wasn't too upset about this change in our plans - he just said that 'we saw some horses on the way here' and was happy enough with that. Jo and Pete drove their 4WD across the stream a few times, so at least we could examine the impacts of something crossing the stream, and then they headed off to another site. As for us, well we wanted to make the most of our trip so we stayed behind, got into our togs, and started exploring!
An added incentive, at least from my perspective, was that I'd just bought an underwater camera and wanted to test it out. Here are some pics of the bits of Eli that were immersed...
Of course an underwater camera is also good for photographing stream habitats too, so please indulge me for just a few more photos...
We spent about two hours in the stream, picking up cobbles and looking at aquatic insects, throwing the occasional rock into the deep pool (we are boys after all!) and enjoying the cool clear water.
Eli and I particularly liked spotting these bright blue damselflies, the Arrowhead Rockmaster (Diphlebia nymphoides) and the Sapphire Rockmaster (Diphlebia coerulescens), respectively.
And here Eli is becoming acquainted with a newly emerged adult mayfly, his first.
After talking up this field trip adventure with his daycare teachers, we had to find a few things that we could take home with us that Eli could present as 'news' the next day. Although we collected a lot of live aquatic insects, including a very hyperactive whirligig beetle, Eli was happy to return them to the water. For his daycare presentation, Eli collected some red leaves that had fallen into the stream and I picked up a few exoskeletons (like those pictured below) from recently emerged aquatic insects (that would hopefully make the journey home in one piece).
After a couple of hours in the water we were getting a bit pruney, so we hopped out and had a nice picnic lunch. Eli was pretty keen to stay at the creek, but I pitched to him the idea that we could go down to the mouth of Tallebudgera Creek, near the ocean, for a swim - and he leapt at the chance. About 20 minutes later we were in the water again, this time for a swim and run around on the beach.
Here are a couple of funny shots of Eli in the Tallebudgera Creek estuary - in the first he is mostly underwater and in the second you can see what his hair looked like immediately after the underwater shot.
All in all, and despite the lack of horses, we had a great day. Another difficult day in the office for me...makes me wonder what Eli thinks I do for a job now?
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