After three months in the Daintree, I'm finishing up my project with four weeks on the Sunshine Coast. The aptly named region is just north of Brisbane, and home to a beachy, hippy, surfer vibe. Just half an hour inland are the Hinterlands, which are hilly and full of eucalypt rainforest. It's a very nice region, but quite different from the remote Daintree.
To get here, I drove 18 and a bit hours from Cairns, stopping in Mackay (pronounced like it rhymes with sky). That was a very interesting drive, because the rains were chasing me as I went. Several major roads closed just hours after I went through them. But I made it, and spent the first week getting things set up. My host, Dr Christofer Clemente, helped me get connected with the Sunshine Coast snake catchers*, and one of his students, Nicole**, let me use her property as a base of operations.
My work here has become dramatically easier because, with so much more development, the tree snakes I'm studying end up in people's houses all the time. This means that I get nearly daily calls from the snake catchers when they find tree snakes. Then, I just borrow the snake for a day of testing, and return to the snake catchers to relocate just as they normally would have. So far I've collected data from 5 snakes in just a couple weeks. That saved time allows me to get out and sight-see a bit, which in this area means checking out the beach for some surfing and the Hinterlands for some hiking :)
*Snake catching is a big job in Australia: people call the snake catchers to come relocate snakes that have got into their homes and move them somewhere more appropriate.
** Nicole has an awesome company where she makes beeswax wrapping for food storage. I bought a pack while I was here, check them out!
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