Somboon Khositanont

Chiang Mai University, Thailand
Exchange to University of Tasmania, Australia

Unforgettable Tassie!

I am an Endeavour Cheung Kong Fellow from Thailand carrying out research in geology and geochemistry at the University of Tasmania from the middle of March 2007 to fulfill my PhD study at Chiang Mai University, Northern Thailand. My 10-year old son and I have settled down at Hobart, the capital of Tasmania. My most unforgettable experience in Australia was when I had the chance to travel by boat to Brunei Island in the southern part of Hobart. The boat trip started early on Sunday morning when we were picked up by a policeman friend who works at the Hobart Police Office headquarters and drove us to Kettering Port approximately 40 kilometres south of downtown Hobart. We first had to check the boat for safety on board to make sure that all of us would return to the mainland safely.

When the boat started to take off from the port heading to Brunei Island, we were extremely excited and a little bit scared since we had never experienced traveling on the open sea in a boat before. In the meantime, fishing equipment was prepared for five of us. It took a little while before we got out of the bay to the open sea. We looked southward on the journey to the middle of nowhere when we were told that we could be in reach of the South Pole, Antarctica. The sea was not smooth – strong winds hit our bodies hard and of course, it was cold in the sea.

Eventually, we reached the northern part of Brunei Island and stopped at the quiet point of a small bay. The anchor was thrown to the water down to the bottom of the sea. Yes, we were ready for fishing.

A small piece of fresh squid was put on to the hook, and then thrown to the sea, down to the bottom. A few minutes later, a fishing rod was shaken hard. I lifted it up quickly a seven-inch flat head fish followed. Oh yes, I was the first one who caught a fish on the trip. We continued to do it over and over from noon until three o’clock and then we left the small bay of Brunei Island to head back to mainland Tasmania.

On the way back, the captain was busy talking to another friend, therefore, I was asked to control the boat as a supplementary captain. The steering wheel was light, the boat was moving smoothly and eventually, we arrived at Hobart safely.

Another visit was made to the Zoodoo Tasmania, an open zoo. A passenger car was provided by the zoo to look around the area. We first stopped at the emu bird farm to feed them with bread. The emus came and took bread flour from our hands before we left them with a bucket of bread flour. Then we moved further to the ostrich farm. The ostriches were more aggressive than the emus. The tour guide put the bucket of bread flour in the middle of the car and a number of ostriches moved their heads with their long necks to take the bread flour from the bucket. Next, we moved to the sheep farm and also fed them with bread flour. The trip finished with the camel farm but many passengers were scared of the giant animals. Then we had a walk in the wallaby farm where my son shook hands with a number of wallabies – it was amazing. We finished the zoo trip with the horse racing. The staff gave us seats with tickets that already had numbers for a racing horse, but unfortunately we did not win.

The traveling in the past two months has been an unforgettable experience for me and my son and we would never have had the chance without the support of the Endeavour Cheung Kong Research Fellowship.

© Copyright 2018 CK Group. All rights reserved.