After a few meetings with the various projects ongoing at CWQRC, I was able to sketch out a sampling schedule for my next 5 weeks, which were to commence at Wanaroo Groundwater Treatment Plant this Friday and then continue on with a wastewater, water reclamation, and another drinking water facility over the next number of weeks. There are definitely a few challenges with sampling as the state of Western Australia (WA) is so spread out, getting access to these facilities is quite challenging as they are from 30 minutes to 10+ hours by car away. Water Corp, the group responsible for all water/wastewater needs in WA has a very strict protocol for sampling and facility access that adds an extra dimension to the sampling process, requiring more people, time, money and work. It’s a bit of a pain to make things happen in such a short time frame, but CWQRC has been wonderful helping facilitate such things.
Truly the most ideal thing would be to come back for 6months-1year to conduct a major study throughout the distribution network working with the fluorescent signature of drinking water quality throughout one of the most complex distribution networks known to man. Some of these pipelines extend over 600km in one direction (with points of disinfection and pumping along the way). The systems are incredible, including the source waters as they are typically a mix of surface, groundwater, industrial wastes (treated of course), desalination water, etc. These make for really exciting research opportunities which are why the R&D seems to be so well funded out here and why the industry is so well off. Australia certainly has some of the most interesting water quantity/quality issues (for a developed world) I’ve experienced. Enough about my off on a work tangent..
Basically I had a number of meetings and days continuously writing my thesis and preparing my seminar until the exciting first sampled trip happened on Friday. But before that I had a few nice evenings,
1. I got to know Vik (my roomie) Tuesday night. We watched Flight of the Concords – a New Zealander show which was hilarious, had a few drinks and hung out. Just like every other Aussie, awesome person, super easy to get along with, open minded and incredibly well traveled. Like most Aussies, they get out and take say 1-2 years and basically travel the world.. which makes it easy for me to get along with
2. I went to dinner with Steven (the other American guy) Wed night. We tried out the Brass Monkey, this multilevel bar, restaurant, pub. It was a sweet place, with a 13 AUD steak dinner special and 5AUD peroni beers (my favorite Italian beer). So we had a very good and filling dinner and a few beers Wed night.
3. Thursday, Vik and Marc (her boyfriend) took me to dinner at the Zebra’s Steakhouse which was an authentic South African restaurant and delicious – I had the best vegetable salad (beside my mom’s) and beef curry I’ve ever had. One of the cool things about Australia is although they have their own bit of culture, they are so loaded with immigrants that they have so many fine cultures here that you can truly experience firsthand (i.e. South African grub).
4. Considering I bought a gym membership, I’ve been biking over to the gym after work during the week to get some work outs in and attempt to stay in shape.
Friday, I went out to the Wanaroo Drinking Water Treatment plant and took an array of water samples throughout the drinking water treatment processes which was pretty exciting. The facility was impressive, at a daily water output of 225 million litres of water/day (however they were only operating at 70 ML/day). The plant was north of Perth about 60km and I was first exposed to the bush (outskirts of the city – but not quite the outback). I got to do a little bushwalking surrounding the facility and check it all out. I most definitely got inducted to the plant and inducted in snake safety school – “mate, if you see a big brown snake coming at you, don’t run…” Yet the big brown snake is only the most poisonous snake in the world my response was, “you’re telling me to stay still and let the sucker go by.” Knowing myself and my instincts, that’s highly unlikely but apparently snakes sense smell and motion incredibly well and will move to attack if you run. On the other hand, when approaching unknown areas, you are to make a lot of noise by stomping your feet so the snakes go in hiding mode and move away from you. I thought this was good info to know… The plant visit was great, I collected all my samples and got a full tour of the first world class MIEX (magnetic ion exchange) drinking water treatment plant, which was a pretty cool experience. I didn’t get to take photos unfortunately but nevertheless it was real cool.
*water corp sign
**Mick in our required sampling clothes at the Wanaroo GWTP. I had the same clothes as him on so you get the idea how silly we looked..
Saturday morning bright and early Steven and I had signed up for a day trip up north to the Pinnacles Desert (which is where the title comes from). The tour guide was lecturing us about getting lost in the desert and reminded us constantly that “we were going into a desert like situation” and that we needed to take it very seriously. Basically the pinnacles were the result of precipitation and soil erosion resulting in a bunch of sandstone/limestone formations in the soil (look it up online if you’re really interested). The total day was about 640km trip there and back with a few diversions from the major path. We stopped at Caversham Wildlife Park for a chance to feed kangaroos, touch a wombat and koalas. Refer to the following photos.
*King koala, I got to touch him, but not hold him unfortunately. He was very soft
**the 'roos came out of nowhere once you had food in your hands. they were the friendliest guys and soo cool
***up close and personal. He was my best friend, Frank. The most friendly 'roo
****as close to a wombat you can possibly get. This one is about 2 years old and was really antsy when I sat down next to her
*****the pinnacles desert
******the road through the desert. it was so beautiful. the rocks were everywhere and in every shape imaginable (Queen Elizabeth's head included)
Then we went for lunch on the way to the desert hike and stopped at the sand dunes in Lancelin for sandboarding and dune driving in a 4X4 (but not your typical 4X4) on the way home. I had already done sand boarding in Brazil last summer so I wasn’t that crazy about it especially considering its winter and was probably a high of 50 degrees. Regardless, The desert hike was gorgeous, the beaches we stopped at along the way were gorgeous and the sandboarding was surprisingly real fun, minus all the sand you get in your shoes and on yourself when you finish (at least it was colder and therefore faster and we weren’t sweating so it didn’t stick all over your body).. I ended up sneaking out with the roomie and some of her friends after dinner in the city for a few drinks before calling it a night. Sunday I went to a youth mass at the major cathedral (home of the Bishop of WA) in Perth, before starting another week.
*my new parish
**this cathedral is only 100 years old
Sunday I happened to plan the rest of my free time in Australia on my way back home to the states which includes the following,
1. 5 days in New Zealand!!! One of my old hockey teammates and good buddies (Nick D’Onofrio) is playing hockey on a team in Christchurch and convinced/invited me to visit for a few days. So, Cory (one of the other EAPSI Fellows from U of Florida) and I booked some flights to NZ to visit Nick and check out the Southern Alps. We plan to explore Christchurch for a day, Ski Mt Hutt (near Christchurch) for a day, take a bus trip through the mountains (including the highest peak in NZ Mt Cook at +12,000 feet) south to Queenstown (one of the outdoors capitals of the world), ski Coronet Peak (apparently the best ski resort in NZ) and visit Fjordland National Park!! This will be 5 slammed packed days, but I’m really looking forward to checking out all the awesome outdoors stuff I can in NZ.
2. Then I return back to the oz and fly to visit an old friend that studied at Illinois for a night in Brisbane on my way to Longreach (which is the real outback where I’m visiting my other friend Nikki that studied at Illinois) for the weekend. Longreach is a town of about 3000 people in the middle of the state of Queensland.
3. I plan to then spend another day or two in Brisbane before down to Sydney and back home to the states, all in 10days after my program expires in Perth.
4. **I might throw a trip in to Bali, Indonesia for a weekend (its only a 3.5 hour flight from Perth) if I can squeeze it in to experience beaches, culture and true relaxation…which everyone seems to rave about in Perth, because flights anywhere else are super expensive. Its nearly closer and cheaper to visit places like Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia than to go to Adelaide, Darwin, Melbourne, Sydney, etc.
The next week was again another slow start with a few meetings, thesis writing until finally I was granted access to the fluorometer. I was able to do some standard tests and get the instrument up and running for our applications..or at least I think its looking good to start EEMing. The PhD student, Emma in charge of the instrument is from the forensic science group has been real helpful in getting me started and help find the chemicals and stuff I need to get it going. The CWQRC wants to start using our approach on some of their systems and projects so its nice that I’m here to help get them up and running while learning about some of their research approaches. Basically I played with the instrument all week, modified some matlab code to help generate some figures I need for my thesis and continue working on my seminar to be given next Tuesday (July13).
The week was the same all week: work, work out, dinner, a movie/TV show, bed…Until now! I’m currently in the car road-tripping in Vik’s new car down to Margaret River (the wine country and most popular holiday spot in WA). Apparently the vineyards down here have some of the best wine in all of Australia as well so the all day wine tour tomorrow should hopefully prove that. It feels like we are currently driving on an African safari through the country side on our way southbound so hopefully the rest of the weekend will be as cool. We have a personal villa booked 120 meters from the beach so it should be a pretty sweet spot..
The wine tour was a great success, from making a series of new friends, tasting different wines all day from the 4 wineries, trying homemade chocolate at the chocolate factory, and fresh cheeses from the cheese factory before we wrapped it all up at the microbrewery and a dinner in town. The day was very long, with a combination of crazy rainy/ranbowy weather and a bit of drinking. The tour seemed to be more of a couples thing as it obviously makes sense as a fun thing for couples to do, but everyone was certainly welcoming of me being the 21st wheel and quite entertaining. We did have another America which helped ease the tension with the American jokes by out lovely tour guide Brian.. The wine tour was definitely one of the best things I've done down here in Australia and is highly recommended for anyone in Perth (bushtucker wine tours are where its at). Its back to the real world, and in lab bright and early tomorrow morning before I present a seminar on Tuesday afternoon and my mom arrives on Thursday evening. This should be an eventful week that I'm most definitely looking forward to as we're going right back to Margaret River again and doing another wine tour with my mother too!
*the 3rd wheel here but the 21st wheel on the entire wine tour..still worth it. I'm starting to grow up more and more and appreciate finer things more than ever like good wine, good company, etc
**rainbow over a vineyard
***Brian (or as I 'unintentionally' kept calling him Ryan because he kept calling me Cory..). He was an incredible tour guide and a lot of fun. One of my favorite Aussie's yet (that hat is calling my name, btw. I need to buy one...)
Love the pictures! Sounds like an awesome adventure!
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