Snowy Mountains Field Trip

Its mid-semester break at last...

And I'm finally getting the time to post these pictures i took during the Human Ecology field trip to the Snowy Mountains.

Basically, it was a 4 day survey done from March 30- April 2 on the various human and environmental impacts in the Snowies.

The highlight of the whole trip was the in-depth (and physically challenging) analysis of parts of the Snowy Hydro Scheme.

The scheme is a massive system of dams, aqueducts, tunnels, weirs, turbines etc, spread across New South Wales and Victoria, capturing snow melt from the Snowy Mountains, and at the same time, diverting west flowing waters of the Snowy, Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers into the east for use for irrigation and electricity generation.

Needless to say, the scheme continues to curtail environmental flows needed by the original ecosystems deprived of their flowing waters. The challenge therefore presented is the proper management of the scheme which would allow human and environmental interests to be realised.

Yes, the details were quite complex for a naive outsider like me, who, still remains unfamiliar with the landscape; but the whole trip was nonetheless educational as it taught me how crucial systems thinking is in the business of social and ecological change--where different actors and different interests have to be considered with any attempt to instigate transformative processes.

Anyway, here are some pictures I'm allowed to put up...

Snow Water: giving life to Australians

The Scheme: networks of diversions

The details and the myth

Mindy, the Thai-Australian

The bridge at Dalgety, where the water from the Snowy river below used to overflow up to the white line

(pre-)water analysis and sampling at the Snowy by Dalgety

the polish explorer at Jindabyne

the artificial lake at Jindabyne

Rod Mason, the Tidbilliga (aboriginal term for the "Snowy Mountains") shaman and park ranger

(l-r) Amy, James, Toby, and Mindy chalet (cabin) mates and bluff losers

Boxhead: the Australian drinking game

Friday night footie, pretending call time was not 4 hours laterMama Kanga and Baby Ru with nose sticking outGuthega Power Station

Pipes running across the whole scheme

Lecturers Rob Dyball and Dave Dumaresq, with David the Kosciuszko expert

all covered up and ready to goAscent: 2000 feet here we come! (and believe me it was not easy at all)The Peri-glacial boundary: pertaining to the greenery admist the burnt herbageremnants of what used to be a 100 sq. m subalpine fen bog depleted by grazers
a snowy capped mountain i forgot the name ofat the peak of Kosciuszko

breathe lungs, breathe

the Dicky Cooper rock formation: where Tidibilliga boys were made into Tilibiga men

Snow, and unfortunately, the only picture i took with a part of my body in it

rest at the bottom
Flightless female Mountain Grasshopper, Acripeza reticulata (c/o debbie)


In the peri-glacial boundary: home of the endangered mountain pygmy possums hiding beneath the rocks...still thanking God it slid to the left

Rob and David

Big Trout in Cooma: Becc wondering what's in her sandwich

Tantangara dam: as vandals believe "is *bleep*ing unnecessary!"

SRES 2011 2007 (c/o debbie)

Dale wearing my nameHome on the mind: sick of hiking, sick of getting wet, sick of listening, sick of sitting in the bus

but loved every moment of it....

Cheers.

An illustrated walkthrough on how to appreciate and survive the ANU

An illustrated walkthrough on how to appreciate and survive the ANU (when you still don't have much academic hullabaloo to worry about yet)

(this is, by the way, my first and, therefore, uncreative attempt to take pictures without being noticed)

From the bus stop, in order to get to anywhere, you need to tread through a really bushy track. Once you've braved that, you will be greeted by a pleasant looking phallic sculpture...

when you see this, you'll know you're on the right track (and that physics students are queer)

Walk straight through the grass, and remember not to be intimidated by students walking faster than you...after all, they really might have somewhere urgent to go, or they just might have really long legs unlike yours and mine. As you trod through

the path made famous for its various metamorphoses during the year (for now, its fashioning the summer look)

first be aware that, no, you are not in China as the loud majority of superiority complexed Chinese hooligans to your right, left, front and centre may suggest...you are actually soiling what is ranked the 22nd best university on planet earth...

and did you know filipino students enrolled in this institution are confirmed to be the smartest human beings to ever exist?

Keep on going and you'll see the famous union court, a gathering area where a lot of students are able to go about their daily routine of eating, making out, and bashing their favourite arts or law students.

this is a picture of the union court (at 6pm, believe it or not) on what had supposedly been a very successful and exciting celebration of international women's day

try sitting on the steps and see why they say the ANU is a microcosm of 'multicultural Australia'...

only here will you get to see...

...happy sri lankans

...flanked by a lonely australian

...who happens to be sitting across a fixture of mixed colours on the wall and on top of each other.

if you're lucky, a singaporean secret agent with the codename of 'vanness' will hopefully come up to you and ask you to play basketball with him, of which you'd be better off politely declining and instead challenging him to badminton the next day, of which you will bitterly lose but of course will redeem yourself when you find out that you actually play basketball better than him

while you're in the whole socialising mode, why not forcefully bump into an irish-australian and start a conversation about the middle-east? you'd probably be surprised that she can both speak and write arabic and is almost certainly going to jordan next year all by herself to learn to deal with the problems that have plagued the world since 9/11. I'd advise a rebuttal consisting of some esoteric knowledge about Muslim burials recently excavated in Southeast Asia that instead of pointing to Mecca, as they should be, shockingly point to South China; and that archaeology is cool.

If that doesn't work, shut your mouth and your camera and just be content that you've been blessed with the fortitude of good experience and company. And that at least now you know the reason why australian beef doesn't taste as good because here they don't drain the blood of the cow before they butcher it, which leaves the smell of old blood and spews up an awkward smell when you fry it for tomorrows baon.

God bless.

Paintball and Nicolle's 23rd

Went down south of Canberra today to play some paintball with a bunch of old (coffee club) and new friends (there were 23 of us). At round 6, we all headed to Nicolle's place for her birthday BBQ.

Paintball was surprisingly awesome. Got to raise the flag in one of the games, not to mention shoot a lot of people dead. It hurts more than it should theoretically but who cares. It was heaps of fun.

Here's some pictures prior to the 4 hours of relentless shooting, when we didn't know as of yet what we were getting ourselves into.

Caitlin and Helen

Tony

Frank

Pep talk (and yes it was 38 degrees hot that day so the cover-alls didn't really help, not that they even lessened the pain)

Then we headed to Nicolle's place for her 23rd birthday. Nothing too rowdy, just the usual small amounts of alcohol, barbeque, and extremely good company. Here's some of the faces to the names I've been mentioning before.

Che-yeers

John and Suzanne

The boys with the girl

Suzanne, Joey, Kathryn, Nicolle, Terri, Deb

Barista, Manager, Taxation Officer, Ring Leader and Friend

Good times.

The Long Weekend

It rained pretty hard last night. But i didn't think it rained that hard to have caused 'extensive damage to 60 buildings in the ANU'. Apparently, a freak 'hail storm' hit the city last night with raindrops as big and hard as golf balls. And to think it's summertime. Global warming strikes again.
Notwithstanding, its no classes for me for the rest of the week.

Obviously, someone didn't venture too far beyond familiar territory to take these shots of the usual garden effects.

aftermath 1

aftermath 2

aftermath 3

local colloquial

Back to reading! (the only thing i ever really do here...)