Tag Archives: Volunteers

Gladstone, Queensland – the placement continues

So i arrived in Gladstone In December, a little while after i had originally planned, and was greeted at he airport by my supervisor Sarah. It was so nice to see her again and to be back on the project. After a whistle stop tour through town and some much needed food, Sarah took me the her university (Central Queensland University) where i met some of her fellow PhD students, CQU staff and also her supervisor Owen. I was lucky enough to find some accommodation with a lovely couple, one of which worked at the university. I met Mary that same day and she took me back the their house where i was to be spending the next 2 months.

View from my bedroom window
View from my bedroom window

I really lucked out, the house was beautiful and Mary and Adrian were awesome to live with. The next day was when the work began. So my job for the first few weeks was to analyse some of the thousands of images that were still to be analysed. This job sounds like it would take no time at all, but from previous posts i assure you it does not. Each image has to be analysed to state how many individuals are in the image; that is then split into how many people, dogs, horses or Grizzly bears are in each images; what species is in the image (hiker, bike rider, horse rider, runner, Grizzly Bear or unknown bear); which direction the subject was moving in; whether the image is to be exported (if there is an image of a Grizzly Bear or a clear photo of another carnivore); and finally whether the images were consecutive or not. So as you can imagine, having to do this on every image with a subject in it was very time consuming.

Timelapse program
Timelapse program

As well as data entry, i was checking emails and liaising with volunteers that were still working on images back in Canada, making sure that they were getting on OK and saving any completed image folders to the appropriate place. A couple of weeks into the placement Sarah gave me a little more challenging job where i was to help clean the data that was analysed.

So here is a quick explanation of how/why we cleaned the data; When the analysed data is sent to us, it is automatically laid out in an excel sheet. My job was to combine all the folders from each trail network. For example Cascade Amphitheater was split into 5 excel sheets; CAA1 – 5. I needed to combine all 5 spread sheets into 1 master spreadsheet called Cascade Amphitheater. I then needed to find all the images that had been sent for export and make a note to find the images at a later date. All the blank photos needed to be deleted from the spreadsheets as well as the time and date being checked. Using a number of complex formulas (which Sarah had already created) some of the data had to be combined to generate totals for statistics. It was pretty complicated so i wont bore you with too many details. But once i got the hand of it i was on a roll.

So this is what i was working on for my 2 months in Gladstone, i assure you it wasn’t all work though. I had a great time and learnt a lot about data gathering/cleaning and also statistics (which is definitely not my strong suit).

It was quickly dawning on me that it was nearly time to go back home. After being so home sick for so long i was now at a place where i would have been happy to stay out there for another good few months. But all good things have to come to an end, and lucky for me i was having a pit stop in Sydney before home….

My first back country experience – McArthur Creek/Otter Trail

So the nerves were building for my first back country hike. I was feeling so unprepared it was scary. I was hiking with a very capable hiker, Mary, but I don’t know if this made me feel any better!

I headed into town for a few last minute items… food… What food are you supposed to take on a back country hike? Well anything light! So i headed to the local outdoor shop, Valhalla, in Canmore and purchased some dehydrated food (BBQ rice with chicken and lasagna).

Now i am ready…

  • Tent – check
  • Rucksack – check
  • Food – check
  • Waterproofs – check
  • Spare dry clothes – check
  • Stove and cooking utensils – check
  • Torch – check
  • Water – check
  • Bear spray – check
  • Cameras – check
  • Confidence and sanity – not quite sure where they had gone!

Everything else that we needed, Mary was going to bring. I was a mix of excited and a feeling of pure dread. I knew that this was not going to be an easy couple of days by any stretch. I was just hoping that i was not going to pass out before the end.

So we decided to meet in Canmore at 7am. We drove to Banff to pick up the camera kit and the 6 cameras we were to be setting up around the area. Then off we went to Yoho National Park to start our hike. Now this hike was supposed to be done over 4 days, but due to the weather forecast for the last 2 days, Mary and I decided to hike for as much as we could over the first 2 days so we wouldn’t get caught out in the rain.

We arrived at the trailhead and sorted out all of our kit, leaving behind anything that wasn’t needed that just added unnecessary weight. I will say that even so, the packs were still heavy! Then we began. It was a 15km hike to the camp ground. The hike wasn’t so bad, it was a gradual uphill climb and in the end took us around just over 4 hours to reach the camp, even with a 10 minute stop to set up the 1st camera. By this time it was around 2pm, we had some lunch and then set up camp.

After camp was set up, we hung all our food/smelly stuff on the bear hand (a big metal pole with a winch to keep you food away from the bears!) and off we went to Otter Falls and Good Sir Pass to place 3 of the cameras. It didn’t take us too long to set up the cameras according to the maps that we had. Along the way there was a lot of bear and wolf scat which was exciting/scary. We ended up getting back to camp at around 6.30pm.

Then it was tea time. We headed down to the creek where we had a delicious meal of soup (for starter) then salmon pasta (for main). It was just what we needed after the 20+km we had hiked. After washing up, it was time for bed.

The second day was painful. I was sore from all the hiking the day before and from sleeping in a tent (never comfortable), and we still had to put 2 cameras along McAurther Pass, which was an un-maintained trail. With the last nights rain still looming on the trees it was a very wet hike through bushes to get the 2 cameras up. But we got there, 3km in and 3km back out again. Then it was time to hit the road and head the 15km back to the car.

Those 15km were the most painful 15km I have ever hiked. My feet were wet and sore and my legs were aching from the weight of the pack and all the hiking. I cant say how long it took to get down but I can say that it took longer than on the way.

At last we made it to the car. The journey was over, I had won! 40+km over 2 days, brilliant. I was so happy. And what made me even more happy was the thought of a bath and my own bed for the night.

(sorry for the lack of photographs on this blog entry, the weather wasn’t great and the thought of carrying my massive camera as well as everything else was too much!)