Field locations you have loved

In this thread I want to hear about field locations YOU have loved, and WHY.  Here's a couple of mine to get the ball rolling:

Kedron Brook, Brisbane, Australia.  A choked little stretch of suburban creek on the north east side of Brisbane Australia was a key field location for my PhD research, which was all about introduced (exotic) species and their parasites in rivers and streams in Australia.  At one point just above the tidal influence - stylishly named KB216 for its map reference - this creek is basically completely exotic: plants, invertebrates, fish, the whole shebang.  There aren't many parasites there, but those that were present were introduced hitchhikers.  Not sexy, but a veritable Shangri-La for a student on the hunt for ferals...

Heron Island, Queensland, Australia.  Where I met and fell in love with marine biology.  A patch of sand and guano-reeking Pisonia forest 800m long, on a reef 10 times that size, crawling with noddies, shearwaters, turtles, grad students and squinting daytrippers or more wealthy sunburned resort guests.  Too many firsts for me there to even list (but no, not that one - get your mind out of the gutter!).  Absolute heaven, hands-down.  How do I get back?

Throgs Neck, NY, USA.  You generally wouldn't think of the junction of Queens and the Bronx as a biologically interesting in any way (except maybe on the subway), but actually the western part of Long Island Sound was the epicenter of a lobster holocaust that started in (well, before, if you ask me) 1999.  When we were out on the RV Seawolf, the Throgs Neck bridge marked your entry into the East River and the start of one of the most unique and strangely beautiful urban research cruises around, right down the East side of Manhattan, past the Statue of Liberty and out into the Lower NY bays.  We would pass through on our way to do winter flounder spawning surveys off the beach at Coney Island (its that or go around Montauk).  Proof that not all interesting biology takes place in Peruvian rainforests...

In the comments, tell us about a field location YOU have loved and why.  Post links if you can find them.

Comments

[Elliott]

For pure scientific research, coral research of the Gorgonian recruits in the Bahamas is fantastic. For personal enjoyment, the deep black corals, bottom dwellers, and incredible topography 270'+ in the red sea can blow your mind! Let's not forget about the incredible amount and diversity of sharks off the extensive coast of South Africa as well. This is not an easy one!

[Al Dove]

270 feet? I am sure it would blow my mind; or implode it anyway....

[Tavis]

Had I not attended an introductory parasitology field course (Cribb, Whittington) on Heron Island, I think it likely I would be doing something very different today.

But rather than telling the obvious story - who wouldn't love working on the Great Barrier Reef - I'll nominate the Hackensack Meadowlands in New Jersey.

About 8000 acres of wetland/salt marsh directly across from Manhattan. Probably more famous for being the dump site for decades of NYC rubbish, the area is undergoing a revival and I would argue that it is, quite simply, absolutely beautiful.

There's a blog, driven by birders, documenting some of the fantastic diversity in the area http://meadowblog.typepad.com/. The invertebrates and fishes are also nothing to turn your nose up about.