Back to a Sunburnt Country

In February, I flew back to Australia for three more weeks of Uni (=University, or "School" for our North American readers). The vast majority of my time was spent on school activities, but I got to spend some time with my cute nephews (and their parents and grandparents).

Leo with his new toolset

Archer somewhat uncertain about his new shaky dog

One thing that made my time on campus a bit more interesting was that I managed to spend quite a bit of time off-campus: my first week was a week-long field trip for my Agricultural Science course, a day-trip for my Environmental Science course in the second, and in my third week, another day-trip for my Geology and Geomechanics course. Our AgSci trip included a visit to the Oakey Abattoir - where apparently the ambulance was once needed on a fairly regular basis (not so much any more!).

We also had an interesting (if somewhat damp) visit to a feedlot - who knew you could feed chips to cows (not by themselves, of course, even bovines shouldn't live solely on junk food!).

Mmmmm... tasty chips!

The first night of the field trip we stayed in the Bunya Mountains - somewhere I haven't been in many years - and got to touch base with some native flora and fauna.

Lotsa wallabies

For the rest of the trip we saw a variety of farms and agricultural enterprises - I was continually impressed with the incredible levels of efficiency at most (not all!) of these operations.

Peanut farm

Old International tractor -
still used to run an elevator at the peanut farm

Chickens in the milking shed

The easy way to move lots of baby pine trees

High-tech roller/track system

LOTS of baby trees

Wollemia pine - thought to be
long extinct until 1994

Macadamias - the only Australian species ever domesticated

Macadamias on the tree

Want free power for your macadamia factory? Build
your own power station, and burn crushed shells and nut pulp!

Mmmm... fresh ginger!

My second week of EnviroSci was mostly spent in a lab, playing with water and poo (or poo in water!).

However, they did let us outside to visit the Mt Kynock water treatment plan - which supplies Toowoomba (the city where my university is located) with most of its drinking water.

Settling tank

Sludge drying pond

Fluoride injection

More interesting however, was our visit to Toomooba's wastewater treatment plant - or more properly, the Wetalla Water Reclamation Facility. This new, state-of-the-art facility was extremely interesting to visit - and mostly not very stinky!

Whyever not?

Well, some parts were still kinda stinky!

Little microbes doing their thing

Looking pretty clean by this point

Extra zapping to kill off remaining nasties

Nasty stuff for killing nasties or
WW I terror weapon - your choice 

Large piles of dead microbes -
sold off to farmers for soil improvement

Most of the time I was in Toowoomba, I stayed with some old friends of the family - Elton and Lynn.

Awesomely, one evenly we managed to catch up with (almost) the entire family - which was great as I grew up with these guys (and one of the wives is an old friend of Anna's).

Only Elizabeth missing

Love the hat Pete!

Hmm... pretty sure his
dad was never that cute!

My third week on campus was a little less hectic, as due to course re-engagements over the past few year, I had already completed nearly half of the course during a previous residential school - some perks to taking so long to finish a degree! We also had our geology field trip - which, while not quite as interesting (to me at least), did let us see some big trucks and cool rocks.

Trucks at the quarry

Very bendy rocks

Geological sampling is different to what I'm used to

Now that's what I call a water pistol

My final few days were spent back in Brisbane, where I had a chance to catch up with some of our old (and not so old) friends. This generally involved yummy food, various games and much hilarity - thanks again to my awesome hosts!

Chantelle and Bree cooking up a storm...

...a very yummy storm!

Dexter plays solo Uno

The mighty meat man

This game may be lasting a little long!

After a great couple of days, it was off to the airport early Sunday morning to collect the parentals (on their way home from New Zealand), and jump on a plane home to see my lovely wife again. However, that wasn't quite the end of the adventure, as some of our Australian/Canadian friends were also at the airport preparing to return to the frozen north - Greg and Sandee beat me home by about 40 minutes! It was also great to meet up with my old mate (and former fellow-Vancouver-tromper-arounder) Jillian, and her hubby Phil.

Greg, Jillian and Phil