Tree House Challenge Day 22 : 28-08-2017

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This morning must have been the coldest for the expedition. I unzipped the tent on the ground and watched as my breath made trails of vaour in the still air. Breaking from tradition it was corn flakes for breakfast and then a long morning of catching up on some writing that was due for the Mercury over the weekend. 

The main goals for the expedition are complete with our three forest types explored and compared. Laying in the sleeping bag last night a sense of accomplishment bubbled up, mixed with a little dash of sadness. This adventure has been a long time in the planning and knowing it will be over in a few days is a mixed feeling. Lucky I'm in a mixed wet equcqlypt forest!

The fire was keeping one side  warm at a time as I wrote, so I had to turn around regularly. After lunch there was no excuse left to linger on the ground so up the tree I went. There were small flowers on the upper branches of the myrtle that I hadn't noticed before. They give it an orange tinge from a distance. It reminded me that the species of eucalypt that we're camped in here is the tallest flowering plant on earth. There was a photo of the Centurion Tree at the Airwalk that said it was the tallest of all the trees measured. It comes in at just below 100 meters. Surely the tape measure could have been stretched to get to three figures?

There are giant tree searchers who spend weekends looking for the elusive tree to knock the Centurion off its mantle. Some of our other eucalypt species grow almost as tall as this one too. Tassie is certainly the place to come for giant flowering plants.

Tomorrow will be the final flurry of forest activity as a full crew of climbers are coming down to say farewell to the wet eucalypt forest. We'll try to get a second tree house into the other tree I started climbing last week. It has a clear view back to the road so it would be a good chance to show you properly what the hanging tree house looks like. 

I also have to collect the pit fall traps that we put out last Friday and see if we snared any beetles or other interesting invertebrates. Dr Sue might let us go into the university to peer down the microscopes and see if we found a new species! If there are any individuals or classes from Hobart that are super keen, let me know and we'll see if we can organise a lab session.

T-shirt winner: dancer22 (the p.p.s in your comment and Dr Sue's reply made me laugh out loud)