Townsville to Lizard Island

Townsville

It is now almost a week ago I said goodbeye to Eefje and the children at the airport in Townsville. I spend the following week wrapping up my experiments and preparing for my next trip. My stay in Townsville was very successful. I managed to do the experiments I wanted to do and I am pleased with the results. I can definitely publish this data in the future (publishing is the core business for us scientists).

The greatest thing was to share this experience with the family. We all loved the nature out there and it was great to me as a biologist to see the kids so enthusiastic about cockatoos, wallabies, cukabaras, triton snails and of course starfish :-)

It was a little sad and boring to be in the house alone, so after saying goodbye to my friends at the marine station, I was happy to go on to stay at my hosts house over the weekend. There was an art exhibition at the beach which was great to see and I hiked over the hill in Townsville centre, Castle Hill. On Sunday I took the train to Cairns. This sounded rather unusual to my host and the other Australians, but it was a very comfortable train ride to Cairns. Six hours of work mixed with relaxation. They had video screens in the seats in front you. Just like in air planes! The trains only goes five times a week. It departs from Brisbane and travels a staggering ~1600 km up to Cairns, not leaving the state of Queensland. This shows you how large Australia actually is. The train left two hours late because there was a small earthquake around Brisbane the day before when the train left. This forced the train to go slow. The second incident happened when we drove into Cairns. A couple of kids threw a rock at the train and the outside of the window of the people in front of me shattered.

Cairns

Now I am back in Cairns. I spend a short holiday here with the kids and it felt familiar to be back. I bought some last supplies for my trip to the Island, since it'll be a lot harder to get supplies on the Island. The hotel was great and now I am waiting in the waiting room for my flight to the Island. We'll be 2 people on the plane, so it'll be a small airplane :-)

Lizard Island

I'll write more about the Island later. First some pictures from Townsville, Cairns and the first glimpses of  Lizard Island.

A nice art display along the beach in Townsville

A shattered train window

Flying foxes in the city centre of Cairns

My pilot and my plane

Nice views from the window

Lizard Island, straight ahead!