This is the first in a series of blog posts summarising the sections of our FLUIDATA journey throughout Queensland. Departing in February and returning in March, we (Suzon and James) set off in our red Toyota Hiace for Yeppoon and Gympie. In Yeppoon we stayed at the Poinciana Caravan Park and enacted and captured durational performances, took photos and gathered data on boardwalks, in mangroves and along the banks of Ross Creek and Fig Tree Creek, during tidal changes and at dusk when the flying foxes take off. We met fishermen on the creek’s edge and at the “Beach Bar”, a boat-shed where locals catch up. We conducted a FLUIDATA Workshop held at Fig Tree Creek and Yeppoon Library, organised by the Livingstone Shire Council, during which the council put us up at the Coral Coast Flashpackers. We met people from the Fitzroy Basin Association, the Fitzroy Basin Environment Centre and the North Keppel Island Environment and Education Centre. It was heartening to hear stories of successful creek restoration and care programs, and indigenous and non-indigenous fishing tales. We were gobsmacked by the size of the Fitzroy Basin Catchment, and wondered how environmental concerns can be properly dealt with by organisations funded mostly by mining corporations.

In Gympie we stayed at the homestead of local art gallery co-ordinator JG and partner L in the hills just outside the town. We captured durational performances, photos and data in Deep Creek and Gympie Creek, and conducted a Fluidata Workshop held at the Mary River and Gympie Regional Gallery, with local artists from Gympie, Noosa and Tin Can Bay.

More media from the workshops in Yeppoon and Gympie can be found in the following blog post.

As a result of the workshops, participants from both places went on to create and present live online presentations in the international Waterwheel World Water Day Symposium, March 17-23, 2014.

FLUIDATA Creek walks in Yeppoon.