Cirque 2 Sea Day 3 : 03-08-2016

Today's 'Plan A' was to cross the river between the lagoon and the main lake and search for burrowing crayfish in an unexplored (for crayfish) valley on the far side. We were slow out of the tents as light drizzle continued after sunrise but there were no complaints as wet socks and sodden raincoats were put back on for our day walk.

Even the smallest streams were overflowing and deep and when we reached the river crossing it was obvious we couldn't get across safely. Time for 'Plan B', for the third day straight! On the map we identified another valley where we could help Dr Alastair collect mountain shrimp. He has a permit to collect three specimens for scientific study. After many attempts with the net we had no luck with mountain shrimp, but we did find more water bugs- caddisfly and stonefly larvae and a small amphipod. We also spotted three wombats. They weren't close enough to photograph but Chloe, Yasmyn and Kate recreated one out of snow. It even had authentic wombat scat for eyes. Our very own poo-eyed snow wombat. It has to be animal of the day.

Paul and Charles tested out the waterproof camera (it still works) to get right into one of the many steams we jumped across. All this clean fresh water eventually makes it way past Hobart and out to sea through the River Derwent. In the skies a flock of yellow tailed black cockatoos screeched past to add to our bird list. Can you guess any others we might see up here in the upper catchment?

There has been some experimenting with food. Yasmyn was quietly pleased with her Deb potato and Pepper steak and mushroom sauce/soup combination. I'm sharing questions and comments from the discussion boards with the team and we're all enjoying them. Just check that you're posting questions for us in THESE report pages and think of some really curly science questions for Dr Jason, Dr Sam and Dr Josie in the CONNECT pages.

Also for those of you wanting to know a little more about what's in my back pack check out the movie in the next page of this report. After watching it perhaps you might like to write in and let me know your thoughts!

Today's t-shirt winner is: Bieber94

Cirque 2 Sea is a partnership project between the Bookend Trust, the Derwent Estuary Program and our supporters.