By Laura Harms
The Wildlife Conservation Lab had our inaugural writing retreat at UQ's Moreton Bay Research Station on the beautiful Minjerribah this past week. The retreat was the perfect friendly shove back into the thick of scientific thinking and writing. It challenged us to tackle our work with gusto, but didn’t wring our brains too dry. There was a healthy amount of replenishing beach swims, walks and gelato.
The most useful part of the trip were our group Pomodoro writing sessions. Being surrounded by others who are all there to work made it a great deal easier to get words on a page. Another great aspect of the retreat were our discussions on research topics such as the steps of a systematic literature review, or how to do vegetation surveys. When you pool all the knowledge of a group of researchers and students, it turns out everyone can glean new ideas and solutions to issues they were stuck on. In particular, we are super grateful for the statistics and much-appreciated coding help.
As a growing lab group, we also got to know each other more on a non-academic level. For example, who among us thought the kids playing nearby at the restaurant were endearing, and who would’ve rather braved the rogue crocodile that had turned up on the island the day we got there. We had some great chats on strolls to get coffee in the morning, during lunch overlooking the water, and whilst spotting critters such as koalas in the trees near the station, or sea turtles from the gorge walk.
Overall the writing retreat was an inspiring, refreshing and very wholesome trip away. We wish we could have one every month.
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