Laura Hines on Mt. Strzelecki (photo: Laura Hines)
Laura Hines - Travel Award Recipient Repor t It was the middle of my final exams of my bachelor’s degree when I received an email from a lecturer about the Hamish Saunders Memorial Trust Flinders Island trip. After reading the application I was immediately interested, it didn’t take long before I found myself writing an application letter, getting my C.V. together and arranging referees. To my astonishment a few days later I received the email from David Saunders reading I was one of the successful applicants. Time seemed to fly by, it wasn’t long before I was packing my bags and heading for the airport. After a stopover in Melbourne I had landed in Hobart, Clare one of the team leaders picked me up where I was whisked away to complete the risk assessment paperwork with Gary our supervisor which was extremely thorough. We then met with Ali, the other successful New Zealand volunteer of the Hamish Saunders Memorial Trust and Sally, a bird expert. The following day the greater adventure began, destination: Launceston where we would pick up Andrew, Hamish’s brother and camera man and board a small plane, our transport to Flinders Island. Flinders is beautiful, I hadn’t had the opportunity to travel much before so I found this trip even more special as there were so many things that were new to me. After unpacking our gear we headed up to Walkers Lookout to search for butterflies with Jo, the butterfly expert, in particular the chaostola skipper. Andrew filmed us throughout the hike, gaining footage for the Trust website. On night fall the search for frogs with Annie began, we left armed with torches in the hope of hearing and seeing a green and gold frog. We searched a few ponds but only found tadpoles.
Every morning while on Flinders Island I bounced out of bed ready for the next adventure, no matter how late at night or how early the alarm clocks sounded. There were many highlights of this trip, many included seeing animals I hadn’t seen before including blue tongue lizards, tiger and copper head snakes, mountain dragon lizards, much of the bird life and wombats and wallabies which were present in great abundances. Climbing Mt. Strzelecki in search of the Furneaux burrowing crayfish saw many laughs with the challenge of finding such a crayfish. This is harder than it would seem and required much digging and sifting through mud when a chimney was spotted near a stream. With burrows being up to 1.5-2 m in depth it wasn’t long before we found ourselves covered in sparkly mud as it was filled with weathered minerals from the granites forming the mountain range. A day with Sally and Matt, both bird experts of the trip saw us tramp through Strzelecki National Park in search of the forty-spotted pardalotes within the canopy of the surrounding forest. It was here I had my first encounter with a wild snake, a tiger snake was basking in the sun very near to the track and blended in well with the surrounding forest floor. Seeing how well they blend in with the surroundings made me wary where I put my feet for the rest of the day, even so Andrew still had to warn me of a copper head snake not too far in front of me a few moments later. We also had the opportunity to see and film two mountain dragon lizards which were very accepting to our cameras. Around midday Sally spied a fortyspotted pardalote, not one but two a pair flying to and from the nest feeding their young. The cameras were whipped out and the filming and screeds of photographs began. Ali and I were fortunate enough to survey shearwaters on Fisher Island with the Wildlife Management Branch team. Upon reaching the island we were shown around an old hut and told the
Flinders Island • Natural Values Survey • 2012
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