Environment Club Trip to Wildlife Sanctuary

This past weekend I went on a trip with the Enviro club at Deakin. I had joined the club and when I saw on facebook that they were doing a trip to a wildlife sanctuary, I definitely wanted to join. I had to get up bright and early on Saturday morning because we were meeting on campus at 8:00 a.m. to leave. We were only on the road for 20 minutes before a person's car broke down. We pulled off to a side street and had to rearrange people in cars before we could head off again. The person with the broken down car stayed behind to wait for some help. He met us later in the day. We took a pretty scenic route past an area called Kinglake. It was pretty but there had been bushfires there a year before, which was still evident. Many of the large trees were black and growth was starting to come back. But it did look pretty spooky. It was also foggy too. We made a short stop in Kinglake for groceries for our lunches. Then we headed off to our destination, which was a farm in a very hilly area. It was really pretty. We stayed with a couple named Trent and Vicky. They were nice enough to let us stay in their home. After we had lunch I was in the group that headed off to the wildlife sanctuary for the day. When we showed up we were able to go see the animals first before the hard work began. The sanctuary was called The Haven and it wasn't open to the public. They had all kinds of animals there, and I was able to see native birds, along with wombats and kangaroos. After we went and saw the animals the work began. I was able to help clean out a shed, and then I helped a group carry tree limbs to the avery for the birds. After a few hours of work we went to the back of their property were there was a really pretty river and we hung out there for a bit. That evening the club did a BBQ, which was good. BBQs in Australia tend to have sausage, compared to hotdogs and hamburgers. That night we hung out by a fire. We also went spotlighting for wildlife, but we didn't see anything and Trent said it was probably because of the noise. That night I got to sleep outside on a pull-out mattress on their veranda, while other people slept on the balcony upstairs and some people slept in the loft upstairs. Luckily I was under something because it started raining during the night and people from the balcony had to move.

The next morning I was woken up bright and early at 6 a.m. This was because a group of people were getting up to go take a hike to the top of the mountain to see the sun rise. Since I was woken up I decided to go with them. Man was it a morning workout! The hill was very steep and it was a long walk up to the top. It was pretty exhausting. And it was cloudy so we didn't get to see much of a sunrise, but it was really pretty up at the top of the hill. When we were going back down we also saw some kangaroo going through the property. We then had a big breakfast, which included some homemade jam, which was delicious. We then went and drove to a neighbor's house and saw a house that was completely sustainable through solar power. It was also a really pretty house, even though it wasn't very big. It was also sitting on a pretty piece of property. The house was doughnut shaped so there were windows everywhere looking out onto the gorgeous view, and they also had a pond right in front of the house. It was really cool to see. I was in the group that day that was going to do planting on Trent and Vicky's property. It was a lot of work. We were planting on a really steep hill, which was really hard. It was a few hours but we were able to get a good amount of plants in. It was exhausting but rewarding to see all the work we had done. That afternoon we then headed back to campus. The trip was definitely a fun experience, and I'm really glad I went.

Cheers,

Brittany