The dozen-plus adventurous souls will brave the rains and the heat of the outback of Australia. They will eat peculiar foods, come face-to-face with unique species of animals and work as teams to achieve awesome rewards.

Think of it as Survivor II, minus the backstabbing and bickering and plus plenty of hands-on learning and fun.

UC Davis researcher and lecturer Tim Herrlinger calls the class "Field Ecology of Australia." Meanwhile, participants from the a previous excursion of its type - offered in 1998 - call it the trip of a lifetime.

"It's one of my most treasured memories," said former student Paula Lin, who looked into moving to Australia after graduating from UC Davis. "It was honestly an opportunity of a lifetime."

Herrlinger can usually be found coordinating curriculum for the Division of Biological Sciences or maintaining labs and training teaching assistants. And the assistant research ecologist usually instructs introductory biology during the summer. But this year, August will find him leading his fourth expedition to his Australian "back yard."

The excursion complements his teaching philosophy, which regularly finds him coordinating trips to UC Davis for live flora and fauna from throughout the state. "We want students to be able to appreciate living animals and plants," Herrlinger said.

The trip runs Aug. 10--29 and includes four days in Sydney and the outback of New South Wales, five days at a rainforest near Brisbane and six days at the Lizard Island Research Station on the Great Barrier Reef. Free days are built in to the schedule as well. To prepare travelers, in late July and early August, Herrlinger conducts three all-day lectures - filled with slides and videos, and commentary by visiting experts on Australian ecology. Some people attend the lectures only.

Enthusiasm is key

As with the 1998 trip, Herrlinger hopes the 2001 excursion will attract a mix of majors. Staff and faculty members also are invited. "It's nice if they've had a college course in biology, but what I really want them to have is enthusiasm."

The latter has never been a problem, he said. "Once they get to Australia, they can't help but be thrilled and involved.

"You step off the plane, and it's phenomenal. It's a living laboratory. There are so many different species. And because of the isolation of the continent, there are just tremendous research opportunities there."

UC Davis grad Sania Fong counts herself among those thrilled by the 1998 trip. "You can learn everything you want in a lecture setting, but when you get to go out there and see it, it's so much more incredible," she said.

Herrlinger agrees. "There's no better laboratory than being out in the field."

The course will find team members working their way up the eastern coastal regions of the continent.

A typical day might find them waking between 7 and 8 a.m. They will breakfast, listen to a brief talk about the day's planned activities and then get down to field work. They might net and tag Eastern yellow robins or observe the pecking order of kangaroos. Some days they'll sample burned portions of a forest or portions of a reef where the voracious crown-of-thorns sea star lurks and compare those to unburned areas or coves protected from the predator. Data is collected for lunchtime or dinnertime discussions.

But don't get the idea that the trip is all work and that the discussions are all serious business. "We try to keep it light and funny, too," Herrlinger says.

"It never felt like a class," Fong said. "We were all friends, not teachers and students."

Lin said dealing with Nature's whims was an integral part of the adventure. "We got an insiders perspective of the place, and not just a cheesy tourist show. We actually got down and dirty in the Australian rain, muck and water."

Fong agreed. "We were able to see many places that are not open to the public. And our guides took us to places I would never have thought about going. At night we went out spotlighting and to see glow worms. Even if you can go to Australia again, you may not be able to visit these places, especially Lizard Island."

Ahh, Lizard Island

Located near the northeastern tip of Aust-ralia, near where Captain Cook once ran agro-und in the 1700s, Lizard Island is "the jewel of the Great Barrier Reef," Herrlinger said.

Few Australians get to spend any length of time on the resort island - a travel destination for the jet set boasting $500-a-night accommodations. But the island also is home to a research station operated by Australia's national museum. The UC Davis group will spend a week studying habitats in and around an aquamarine lagoon and the famous outlying reef - the largest living organism in the world.

Shane Breschini, another 1998 expedition member, said the time he spent at the Great Barrier Reef "was especially memorable."

"It's my favorite, too," Herrlinger said with a smile. "To me, it's the most special place on earth. It's something you never forget. It's a magnet; it just draws you back."

A subtidal ecology specialist and seasoned SCUBA diver with 2,000 dives under his weight belt, Herrlinger started leading trips to Australia in 1987, as a co-teacher of an excursion out of MiraCosta Community College in Oceanside. "To me that was sort of the Mecca - to go scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef," Herrlinger said. "When the opportunity came up - it was a no-brainer."

While diving just off the reef in '87, he found himself close up with a manta ray, a sea turtle, dozens of varieties of coral reef fishes and invertebrates and the sounds of humpback whales singing nearby. And that was just one dive. "It really is like being in the greatest aquarium on earth," he said.

Food for thought

The group also will travel within a few miles of the Survivor II campsite on the Herbert River in northern Queensland.

And while Survivor folks are dining on cow brains and tripe, hardly the fare of true aborigines, the UC Davis travelers might get to sample some more traditional Australian foods. Fong tried kangaroo for the first time. "And I think we also had possum," she said.

After five trips to Australia, four as an expedition leader, Herrlinger says the various lab site stopovers feel like "being in my own back yard. It's just a little longer commute."

And the group's research is exchanged with Griffith University in Queensland. So it's meaningful, not just busy work, he said.

The one thing Herrlinger said he would change about the course is the somewhat prohibitive price tag. The cost per person - including pre-trip lectures, airfare, food and dormitory-style lodging - will run between $5,291 to $5,476. He continues to seek avenues for future scholarships.

Dispelling misrepresentations

Herrlinger watched the first Survivor with some amusement. And when CBS set the sequel in Australia, Herrlinger committed to another 16 weeks of castaway capers. "I felt I had to watch, because I knew people were going to ask me questions." And he figures he'll have a few misperceptions to oust as well.

Prime example No. 1: marketing devices, like the teaser that implied last week's show would include a crocodile attack.

"They implied something that's nearly impossible," Herrlinger said, explaining that the aggressive, man-eating saltwater crocodiles pictured in the teaser would never be found where the castaways are camping. That's the stomping ground of the saltwater croc's more even-tempered and significantly smaller freshwater cousin.

Despite the discrepancies, Herrlinger counts himself among the millions of loyal viewers who tune in each week to find out who's next to be bumped - something his group of survivors won't have to worry about. •

The UC Extension course Field Ecology of Australia will be listed in the Summer 2001 catalog, publishing in May. The application deadline is April 2. For details, contact Tim Herrlinger, (530) 752-1117 or tjherrlinger@ucdavis.edu. Or see eve.ucdavis.edu/australia/