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).
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| Leo with his new toolset |
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| 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!).
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Peanut farm |
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Old International tractor -
still used to run an elevator at the peanut farm |
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| Chickens in the milking shed |
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| The easy way to move lots of baby pine trees |
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| High-tech roller/track system |
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| LOTS of baby trees |
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| Macadamias - the only Australian species ever domesticated |
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| Macadamias on the tree |
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Want free power for your macadamia factory? Build
your own power station, and burn crushed shells and nut pulp! |
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| 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.
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| Settling tank |
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| Sludge drying pond |
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| 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!
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| Whyever not? |
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| Well, some parts were still kinda stinky! |
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| Little microbes doing their thing |
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| Looking pretty clean by this point |
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| Extra zapping to kill off remaining nasties |
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Nasty stuff for killing nasties or
WW I terror weapon - your choice |
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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).
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| Only Elizabeth missing |
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| Love the hat Pete! |
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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.
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| Trucks at the quarry |
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| Very bendy rocks |
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| Geological sampling is different to what I'm used to |
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| 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!
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| Chantelle and Bree cooking up a storm... |
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| ...a very yummy storm! |
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| Dexter plays solo Uno |
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| The mighty meat man |
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| 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.
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| Greg, Jillian and Phil |
