Eden

So I've spent the last week down on the coast around the town of Eden, close to the New South Wales/Victoria border (about three to four hours drive from Canberra, five taking the long route).  I was demonstrating on the first-year undergraduate field-course.  It was a lot of fun.  It was sunny all week, and warm, we spent most of it by the coast, frequently on nice beaches, a few swims in the ocean (much much warmer than a month ago!) and there were lots of interesting rocks.  But not too complicated, just difficult enough for me to work it out pretty quickly and the undergrads to puzzle over for a while! Plus there was some not so excellent, followed by excellent, followed by not so excellent followed by excellent cricket going on!

There were three of us postgrads demonstrating (myself, EG and BH - both of whom I get along very well with) along with a plethora of some big names in geology, which was rather cool. One thing that was disappointing was the undergrads reluctance to drink.  Having a beer or two during the evening session's lectures and work is pretty standard for geologists.  These kids need to learn! They were a good bunch really!

We finished the week by driving back up the coast for a beach party to celebrate LB's (another departmental first year grad) birthday.  And a good time was had by all. In the morning it decided to rain, so we fled back to Canberra, where it genuinely hasn't stopped raining since.  Its meant to be summer now.  Sigh!

Loads of photos, enjoy!