Editor’s note: Professor Roberts became the department’s Chair two months after his return from Down Under. He gave a Geography colloquium on the above subject on December 3 which was given rave reviews by faculty and grad students alike. The photos accompanying this article are from the Powerpoint slide show that Dar used to illustrate his talk.
As 2008 approached, I had to make a decision where to spend a year on sabbatical. One option was to work in Spain, hosted by Dr. Emilio Chuvieco, where I would work on remote sensing of fire danger. Unfortunately, this option was not as popular with my family, who expressed concerns about attending school in a country that did not speak English. Another option was Australia. The latter was first considered when I was teaching a short course on imaging spectrometry in Florianopolis Brazil in 2007, where I became reacquainted with Dr. Thomas Cudahy, a CSIRO scientist based in Perth. CSIRO is the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization; it is a government organization that is roughly equivalent to all of our major government organizations under one roof (i.e., USGS, USDA, DOE, DOI) but also with a very strong link to industry. Tom suggested that I might consider a sabbatical with CSIRO as an option. This suggestion ultimately led to my being awarded a CSIRO MacMasters Research Fellowship, an effort that was largely inspired and coordinated by Dr. Rebecca Handcock, a research scientist in Perth in the Pastures from Space research group of the Center for Environmental Life Sciences (CELS). The decision to spend the year in Australia was also highly popular with the family, because Australia is widely considered an English speaking country (although there are conflicting opinions on the subject), and the family was truly inspired by the potential of seeing so many odd animals.
We left for Australia on July 31, 2008, arriving in Perth on August 2nd, 2008. Thanks to the assistance of CSIRO, we had already arranged a one year rental of a house in a wonderful neighborhood called Woodlands, in the Perth suburb of Stirling. The Woodlands neighborhood was ideal, located less than five minutes from a local, highly rated school, five minutes from a small shopping center and within less than two minutes of Jack Adder Lake. We were also fortunate to have the help of Karen Holmes, a former PhD student from our department, who gave us a place to stay over the weekend a warm welcome and lots of important advice about setting up a house in Australia. My entire family came with me, including my wife Marianne Wampler, my 10-year old daughter Elizabeth Roberts, and 7-year old son Alex Roberts.
My official duties at CSIRO included collaborative research with Dr. Rebecca Handock of Pastures from Space and collaboration with Dr. Thomas Cudahy’s research group in CSIRO Exploration and Mining, located “south of the river” in the Perth suburb of Kensington.
In addition to research, I was scheduled to give a professional talk at the 2008 Australian Remote Sensing and Photogrammetric Conference in Darwin, Australia, scheduled to give a number of professional talks on diverse subjects at Canberra and Perth, and scheduled to teach at least one extended short course on Viper Tools and Multiple Endmember Spectral Mixture Analysis (MESMA). Ultimately, I gave nine professional talks in a number of places, including several in Perth (University of Western Australia, CELS, and AARC), two in Canberra, one in Sydney, one in Wollongong, one in Brisbane, Queensland (for Stuart Phinn’s research group), and the talk in Darwin. I also taught short courses at the University of Queensland and in Perth and gave a short Viper Tools Demo at North Ryde, a suburb of Sydney. Research collaborations included the use of Viper Tools to improve seasonal estimates of cattle forage in Victoria using SPOT-4 & SPOT-5 data (with Dr. Handcock), the use of MESMA to map salinized soils and quantify impacts of salinization at Toolibin Lake (with Dr. Ian Lau of AARC), the use of MESMA to quantify mine damage at Ravensthorpe Mine (With Dr. Ong of AARC), and the use of MESMA to map two Eucalyptus sub-genera in the Canberra area (with a PhD student from Australia National University, Kara Youngetob). Kara’s research focused on using remote sensing to map Eucalypt subgenera eaten by specific types of arboreal foliovores (animals that eat leaves).
In addition to professional activities, we also spiced up our Australian sabbatical with quite a bit of personal travel (some linked to professional meetings). We traveled quite a bit to different parts of Australia, including:
- One trip to Kakadu, Litchfield, and Katherine Gorge, linked to the ASPRC meeting in Darwin, Australia.
- Two trips to the North-west Cape Region to visit Hamelin Pools and Ningaloo Reef (strictly personal).
- Short trips to various locations within a days drive of Perth including: a) Cervantes, northwest of Perth; b) Kalgoorlie, 600 km east of Perth, including a visit to the Super Pit; c) Albany, ~ 600 km south-east of Perth, including the Porongorups and Pemberton area; d) Margaret River and Cape Leeuwin, due south of Perth (including visits to several wonderful limestone caves); e) Dryandra, a nature reserve southeast of Perth; f) Lake Clifton, Avon Valley National Park, Walyunga, Yanchep, etc., etc. – there is an immense amount of things to do within an hour or two of Perth; and g) two trips to Rottnest Island.
- One long trip to Eastern Australia, including official visits to Sydney, Wollongong, Canberra, and Brisbane and unofficial visits to the Blue Mountains, Snowy Mountains, Lamington, and the Great Barrier Reef.
- One trip to the Red Center, including visits to Uluru, Kings Canyon, Alice Springs, the MacDonnell Range, and Coober Pedy.
While the entire family enjoyed the visit, our one year stay in Australia was particularly special for Elizabeth and Alex. The kids absolutely loved it. They loved the Australian school system, including a much lower amount of homework, a greater emphasis on sports, and plenty of interesting kids to meet. They were not particularly fond of wearing a school uniform, but certainly appreciated the hats they had to wear during recess. Both kids were part of the Tuart faction, which made us feel a bit like we were in a Harry Potter movie. Alex participated in several sports, including T-ball (Very popular with young Australians), Aussie Rules Football, and Cricket. Elizabeth joined a ballet class. However, without question, their favorite part was camping and traveling where they got to see so much, including over 30 different kinds of mammals (including two monotremes in the wild, Echidnas and Platypuses), at least 300 bird species, and over fifty reptiles and amphibians (including a python and a two meter long monitor). The ocean was another area that was particularly popular, including plenty of chances to swim in warm water and snorkel over sub-tropical reefs. Alex was particularly excited to get the chance to visit living stromatolites, including populations at Hamelin Pool, Lake Thetis, Lake Richardson, and Lake Clifton.
In terms of highlights, there are too many to even think of one. However, several really stood out, including Ningaloo reef (without question the most impressive reef in Australia) and Coober Pedy where we stayed two nights in an underground hotel. We were also deeply impressed by the rock art in Kakadu, the cute rock wallabies, and the amazing animal life every place we visited. In terms of low points, I would say receiving my third speeding ticket in less than a year was a pretty low point (in the US, I have received only 1 in 33 years of driving). Australia uses automated speed cameras and gives you a ticket if you exceed the speed limit by as little as 8 kph (5 mph). These systems are placed strategically at places where you are likely to be slightly above the speed limit because you are either leaving the freeway or have just topped a hill and are now heading down hill. I received my third speeding ticket just north of Wollongong after driving several hundred kilometers, diligently keeping my speed to within a few km of the limit.
After one year in Australia, we sadly left for the US on July 30th, 2009.
