Wild Places and Open Spaces

Click HERE for some pictures.

We had a great visit in the with our new friends on Australia Day in Tasmania. January 26, 1788 was the date on which the First Fleet, under Captain Arthur Phillip arrived at Sydney Cove and set up the Colony of New South Wales. In Devonport, there were no festivities going on, but everyone had the day off and many were celebrating quietly with their families near the beach.

The wind that day was really strong, and weather reports were calling for ‘gale force’ winds. Great….we were to sail to the mainland the next morning…

Athough the next morning it was still very windy, and was throughout the sailing, the boat ride was unexpectedly fairly smooth. I still took a couple of sea sickness pills, which settled my stomach. Apparently not all were well though…all the female washrooms had the putrid smell of vomit – almost enough to turn anyone’s stomach upon walking in.

We treated ourselves to another buffet on the boat, and watched the shearwaters and albatross flying at sea as we ate our meal. The shearwaters (which I have spoken of before) are truly amazing to watch at sea. They fly effortlessly, without even flapping their wings, up and down on the air currents all day long.

We had one more thing to find on the mainland before leaving Australia – the elusive Superb Lyrebird. We had kept our eyes peeled for this bird, but had never come across one. A fellow we had met about 2 months earlier, had recommended an area to visit where we may come across a lyrebird. So, on our way up to Sydney to catch our flight out, we made a stop at Tarra Bulga National Park.

Lyrebirds are mostly ground birds, and the males are known for having beautiful tail feathers – that look much like a lyre. They are also known to be great mimics – they do have their own call, but often mimic other birds or other inanimate objects! A ranger once told us a story about a lyrebird he had heard mimic the sound of a digital camera taking a picture!

It was a rainy day, but we were on a mission…we talked to a ranger and decided what hike to do on her recommendations. The forest seemed quite lifeless, other than the light rain hitting the flora and forest floor. That is, until Jim saw some movement out of the corner of his eye…it was a male lyrebird scratching at the ground for some food. He didn’t notice us for quite some time, but as usual, as soon as Jim was about to take a photo it ran away. We were lucky though, to have such a good, long look at a lyrebird, let alone a male one with its beautiful tail feathers.

The next morning Jim set out early to find some more lyrebirds. We had been told that they were easier to see at dawn, so he was going to give it a shot. I decided to stay dry and cozy in the tent, being content with the sighting the day before. So, a couple of hours went by, and Jim still wasn’t back – I started to get worried. We almost never do things alone, and this outing of his consisted of driving a windy dirt road to get to the area to hike in. So, of course all bad things came to mind, and as I was psyching myself out in the tent, deciding what to do, when the car drove up. He popped out and said, “Yeah, well, didn’t see much.” I wasn’t surprised, but then realized he was once again playing my gullable nature as he said, “yeah, I stopped counting at 14…!” So, in the span of a couple of hours, he had seen 14 lyrebirds! He did manage to get a couple of photos as they were running off, as all noticed him almost immediately. So, Jim walked around with a much deserved proud face for the rest of the day.

From here, we continued our way up to Sydney. On our way there we stopped on the way to do a few hikes. One in particular was memorable because it was our first encounter with a snake that stood its ground…

It was a sunny day, and on sunny days the snakes are usually out in full force basking in any bit of sun they can. Walking along the path, I stopped when I spotted a small snake making its way into the brush from the trail. Upon investigating the area further, Jim saw a bigger snake beside the smaller one….only this snake did not appear to be afraid of us at all. Usually, snakes are not much concern as they would much rather be on their way than have anything to do with humans. However, this one decided to investigate us further, which was new for us. The snake started slithering out of the bush onto the trail, and we started backing away, not taking our eyes off him. He came right out on the trail, and flattened his head/neck (many snakes do this when they feel threatened) right out as he moved toward us. It was a venomous tiger snake – we had encountered many along our journeys, but none as bold as this. We backed off far enough that he stopped advancing, and Jim snapped some great photos. The snake turned to go back into the bushes, so we approached it again. He wasn’t backing down, so he once again advanced, and I am sure would have had a go at us if we didn’t back up again. One thing we do have is respect for animals – especially ones that could kill us!! We thanked him for the photos, and were on our way, watching the bushes a little more closely the rest of the hike.

Back in Sydney we did some more family visiting – we saw all my cousins again and were treated to some wonderful meals once again. We visited friends of my mom’s and looked through old pictures they had of when I was young and pictures of my mom and dad – particularly noted were the funny plaid pants my dad used to wear. Was a really nice visit. We cleaned up the car, and left it with my uncle as he is going to sell it for us – a crappy job that he offered to do for us which helps us out tremendously.

In a nutshell, Australia has been a wonderful experience – the thing we will miss most is the amazing wildlife it has to offer. Words cannot express all of the feelings we have had when seeing such wonderful animals for the first time, and then continuing to see many of them on a nearly daily basis. If anyone has any interest at all in wildlife, we would urge you to visit the land down under – we can now point out the ‘hot spots’ for wildlife watching!

Okay….let me set the stage….

It’s our 2nd last night in Tasmania. We are feeling really lazy…trying to decide if we should eat, sleep or go for a walk. We finally agree that we should telephone a couple that live in Tasmania who we had met on the mainland a month before. So, we leave our humble abode (tent) and drive to the telephone (it was pretty far away…). We got in touch with our new friends and would visit them the next day, on Australia Day.

Across from the telephone booth was the trailhead of a hike that we had talked about doing…we just hadn’t got around to it yet (you see, the past 2 days we were taking a vacation from our vacation of exploring). The hike was to a bird hide (for those of you that don’t know what this is, it’s a shelter (often just a wall with a hole in it) that most often lies in front of a body of water so you can watch birds without them seeing you – like a tree stand for deer…same idea but with no shooting). So, after much discussion, we decided that we should at least walk to the bird hide for some exercise, and check out the bird life. Dusk was nearly upon us, and the bush was alive with pademelons. Nearly every step we took we scared up another, and after a while we were so used to the noises, we figured that every rustle must be a pademelon….

…until that is, when Jim turned to me with a dumbfounded expression and excitedly whispered, “I just saw a tasmanian devil!” I of course thought he was pulling my leg (he has been known to prey on my naivety) so I came up with the most obvious reaction…I hit him and said, “shut up, you did not!” He then proceded to convince me, as he pointed to the bush where he had seen it, then much to my surprise, the little tasmanian devil came trudging back into view! It appeared to be a young one – its fur was beautiful with no obvious scars, and his face looked free of any obvious disease. He was gone in a matter of 10 seconds, onto a search for his next meal, but we had a great look at him. This was an amazing finish to our Tasmanian adventure – many people had told us that we wouldn’t see a devil in the wild, so we had pretty much given up. Yet, by chance, a little devil graced our presence in a park that was known to have been hit hard by the facial tumour disease. We couldn’t wipe the smiles off our faces. We got no photographs, but the picture and feelings in our minds will never be erased.

Click HERE for some pictures.

The southernmost point one can drive to in Australia is on the south east coast of Tasmania. We couldn’t leave Australia and not go here! On the drive we got a great surprise…

At 11:30am, crossing the road in front of our car was a quick and agile spotted-tail quoll! A quoll is another carnivorous marsupial – this one acts more like a cat and is often referred to as one, although it does not resemble a cat in the least bit. This was an amazing find for 2 reasons: the quoll is nocturnal and very rare to see! 2 quolls exist: the spotted-tail quoll one we saw, and an eastern quoll – the latter being much smaller. About 100m down from that sighting we saw another tiger snake – we have seen a few of these venomous creatures now in our travels.

We checked out Lake Pedder in the south west – apparently once a beautiful, natural lake. But, in 1972 it was flooded for power, so we checked out the Gordon River dam and system there as well. Whenever we see a dam we are amazed by the engineering phenomenom that it is (whether right or wrong). Apparently the Lake Pedder issue was a huge environmental struggle, and we have been told it resulted in the birth of the green party here.

We headed for Mt. Field National Park – one of the oldest (if not the oldest) National Parks in Australia (1916). Inside the park are some of the tallest trees in Australia, a type of eucalyptus. However, the Styx valley, not far from the park, claims to have the tallest hardwood trees in the world. (The largest softwood trees in the world are the giant redwoods we saw in California, and they are larger than these eucalypts.) They truly are giants, and it makes one feel very small walking in their understory. Although we did some great walks in the area during the day (in the rain I might add), our best walk was at night.

At dusk we had a really close-up encounter with a platypus – before this we had only ever seen them at dawn. Then, when it was totally dark all the little night creatures were about – pademelons, brush possums, and a barred bandicoot! This bandicoot was the first ‘barred’ one we had seen – he was pretty darn cute with all his stripes and he didn’t mind us photographing him. Then we went spotlighting in the rainforest. We saw the regular creatures, but we were actually out to find something you don’t use a flashlight for…Glow worms! We came across an old hollowed out tree lying on the ground that was nicely decaying and had tons of moss and lichen in it. Looking into its hollowed depths we were presented with a twinkling light show – like the stars, only not in the sky. Amazing. Glow worms actually aren’t worms; they are a larval form of a mosquito-like fly. After building a horizontal tubular nest of silk and mucus, the larva attach vertical sticky ‘fishing lines’ from it to trap insects that are attracted by their light. Once some food gets stuck, they haul the line up and see what’s for dinner. They produce the light using waste products from metabolism, but it is under nervous control, so loud noises or predators, for example, cause them to turn it off.

After our successful wildlife finds in Mt. Field, we headed to Lake St. Clair National Park. This national park is at the southern end of the famous Cradle Mountain National Park. On the way there we saw our first Tasmanian Devil, dead on the road. We’d find 2 more dead ones on our journey. It was a rainy day upon arrival to the park, so we did short hikes and hoped for decent weather the next day.

Our night walk here proved to be quite successful as well…after much searching and listening, we finally found ringtail possums! They are much smaller and ‘daintier’ looking than brushtail possums (the brushtail possums remind us of our mischevious racoons at home) and they are found most often in the trees, rather than on the ground or low bush where the brushtails are. A great find, but didn’t manage a photo as they were too far away.

Next day, the weather came through for us, and we got a great 19km hike in to Mt. Russell. A good day hike that took us through rainforest, grasslands, eucalypt forest, and up mountains and we saw tiger snakes and echidnas along our way. Back at camp we got cleaned up and tended to our blisters, ate, then we were out again for our night walk. We had nearly given up hope seeing another ringtail, and had headed back to camp, when right near our tent we heard the whine-like noise we have learned is theirs. Flashed the spotlight, and sure enough, there were a couple ringtails – one even decided to pose for us! How lucky!

On our way north west, we came across a hike to Montezuma Falls. That is one of the great things about Tasmania; there are tons of walks to do everywhere – some seemingly in the middle of nowhere – that bring you through some fantastic bush/rainforest or to a spectacular site, just as this falls was. Montezuma falls at 104m, is the tallest waterfall in Tasmania, and it is a beaut – it’s even 3-tiered to boot. There is a skinny (one person wide) suspension bridge over the gorge at it as well, that if we had walked on at the beginning of our trip we probably would have freaked out. But, we have been fortunate to have been at many high places now, and thus only got a slight ‘wobbly knees’ sensation.

On through a town called Stanley, where we had read about a ‘Nut’ being there. The Nut is actually a 152m high volcanic rock formation, that offers amazing views from the top. The walk up it is quite steep, so there is a chairlift that the less energetic can take up for a fee. Us, feeling somewhat less energetic, however, cheap, decided to hike it, and it wasn’t that bad at all. I am sure it would have offered much better views on a clearer day, but we needed the exercise anyways!

We made it to the west coast at Arthur River, before heading to Cradle Mountain National Park. The day was overcast once again, and we decided that if the next day was good, we’d do a full day walk. At this point as well, we had pretty much given up on seeing any Tasmanian devils in the wild, so we decided to pay a ‘sanctuary/wildlife’ organization to show us them at night, feeding. Without getting into a long and drawn out explanation of this place – it seemed to be a legitimate place which is working alongside agencies to help the devils predicament, and to educate people. Anyways, after watching a film and slide presentation, we were introduced to a female devil that we got to touch, then anxiously awaited to see them feed. There were 6 devils outside in the enclosure, and as soon as the carcass was put out for them, they went at it furiously. Ripping and tearing voraciously, with lots of different noises as they all tried to get a chunk. Devils eat every part of a carcass – they have very powerful mandibles that enable them to pulverize bone. So, through all their noises also came the crunching and crushing of bones while they were eating. They are not the vicious animals that they are made out to be – they are simply opportunistic and jump on any food they find. They will kill as well, but do not work in groups – they are solitary animals. When one devil finds a carcass or makes a kill, other devils come by to try to get their own portion. They don’t work together, but they don’t really fight either – they just try to show who’s boss. It was all very educational and interesting, and I hope our money goes to a good cause.

The next day ended up being the clearest skies ever – perfect for viewing the famous Cradle Mountain. Pretty lucky for us, as on average it rains here on 7/10 days, cloudy 8/10 days, and the sun shines all day on only 1 day in 10. Apparently we got that one day in 10! We did a great hike across the face of Cradle Mountain, and managed to see a glimpse of what we think was a copperhead snake. At dusk, the park was absolutely crawling with wombats happily grazing without a care in the world.

After Cradle Mountain, we had pretty much done all that we had come to see in Tasmania, so we headed north towards Devonport where we would catch the ferry to the mainland. We stopped along the way to visit a cave – this one had a river flowing into it and beautiful sparkling crystal formations that we hadn’t seen before. It also had the most numerous, long and intact ‘straw’ formations we have ever seen in a cave. We also got a light show in the cave when all the flashlights were turned off…all along the ceiling above the water were glowworms! Although we were totally underground, we had the feeling we were looking up at twinkling stars in the sky.

We spent the majority of the next day in Devonport getting car stuff done – we bought a set of hubcaps because by this time in our trip we had lost all but one… We also got our car “serviced” – we have figured out this is what they cal a ‘lube, oil and filter’, but with this fancy ‘serviced’ name, they get to charge $120.00. Pretty darn expensive oil changes in Aussie land!

We had 3 more nights to go, so we thought we’d spend 2 at a National Park somewhat near Devonport. The park had beach access as well as forest, and we spent much of our time lazing around, walking on the beach, watching roos, wombats and pademelons, and reading. Did I mention how expensive books are in Australia? A regular paperback novel goes for about $16.00, and anything larger is at least double that! We had even visited a couple of used book stores and found their prices to be outrageous. Finally we found a ‘Vinnies’ (St Vincent de Pauls) with cheap used books, and bought an armful for $5.00, so we are no longer in withdrawal for something to read. Interesting what things are more or less expensive in different places in the world.

On the second night at the park the most amazing thing happened…so amazing that it deserves its own section….read on…..

Driving off the boat we found ourselves in a traffic jam at 7:00 in the morning. We finally found out why – we were going through the agricultural checkpoint where they had dogs sniffing out cars! We opened all our doors and hatch, and he had a go, but apparently didn’t find anything of interest. It is a good idea that they do this in Tasmania – they don’t need any more problems from the mainland!

Yet another car issue….the first thing on our agenda was to get a new tire and a muffler job. Our right rear tire was bald and our muffler needed to be replaced badly…it sounded like we were trailing tin cans along behind us, and the vibrating was pretty annoying. So, off we drove to Launceston – a large enough town we figured we could at least get the tire done.

First things first though – we needed a nap, so we found a park just outside of town to set the tent up at and got a few winks that we didn’t get on the boat. Once refreshed, we ventured out to find the wherabouts of the local garage. Because it was New Years Day, we ended up having to wait a couple of days until it reopened. No worries, we needed it done, so we’d have to wait. We explored around the area, and found we really liked it. On one of our walks we were introduced to the huge freshwater crayfish they have here. The one we saw was a foot long, but apparently they can get to 10lbs! Also, they are so protected that if you are caught disturbing them (deliberately or accidentally) you risk a $10,000 fine!

We also met an interesting American couple during our stay – they have been travelling the world via bicycle for 5 years, and plan to continue to do so for as long as they physically can. They have written a book on their travels so far which they sell to keep the $$$ coming in. Check them out at www.DownTheRoad.org (we think our Palinka family friends will be especially interested!).

We got our tire replaced ($75.00) but were unable to get the muffler done due to lack of parts. The garage however, set something up for us in Hobart (the capital) where we would be in a few days time, which helped us out. So off we were again, trailing our tins, to find some adventure. We found it a Freycinet National Park. Unfortunately, it was terribly busy, and we were afraid that this maybe the case everywhere on the island. Anyways, we hiked to the famous Wineglass Bay and Hazards for some beauty lookouts and some exercise – 11km worth of it. One more thing about the weather in Tassie – it can be cloudy, then rain, then turn into the most beautiful day all in the span of 20 minutes, which is exactly what happened to us this day.

Unfortunately, at our next destination of Port Arthur, the weather didn’t change from rain until after we left. Port Arthur is the home to the largest penal colony on Tasmania. It operated between 1830-1877, and over 12,000 convicts served sentences here. The prison is on a peninsula, and the peninsula is connected to the rest of the island by a very narrow isthmus called Eaglehawk Neck. This isthmus used to have dogs along its width guarding it to deter ‘would be’ escapees. It was very pricy for admission ($25.00 each) but well worth it. (As an aside, the bicycling Americans that we met said that if we walked to the prison from the caravan park we could get in for free…they forgot to mention the sign as you enter the prison grounds “admission cost $25.00, if caught with no ticket you face imprisonment”. Kinda funny seeing as we were visiting a prison, but I guess the Americans didn’t mind the risk!) Many of the buildings are moss covered remnants of what they used to be, but this makes it even creepier when walking around places such as their solitary confinement cells.

On a sad note, you may have heard a few years back (April 1996) of a mass shooting in Tasmania. It was here, at the Port Arthur prison site, where a gunman opened fire on staff and visitors, killing 35 people and injuring many others. It was just a normal day – the employees got ready to go to work as usual, and the tourists were excited to see the historical site on their vacation. Who knew that a mad man would create such a tragedy that day…

Jim went on a lone walk one rainy night in Port Arthur in the campground and saw a potaroo – a miniature pademelon looking creature. Shy and nocturnal, it is the only one seen yet this trip.

We did a couple short day walks in the area, and on one of which Jim took a dive down some slippery steps in the rain while walking down to see a cave – it was hilarious, but he actually buggered his shoulder a bit – it is healing, but it has given him quite a pain in the neck, so to speak.

Waterlogged, we left Port Arthur to make our way to Hobart to get our tinny, vibrating car fixed.

We spent some time at the free, amazing Hobart museum while we waited to hear the damage the car would cost us…$279.80. OUCH, but could have been worse I guess.

Sounding much better now, but not smelling any better – have I ever mentioned that our car stinks as well? Might as well now…you see, living in small quarters as we do (a two man tent and car) can be difficult at times due to the, err, smell of things. We don’t do laundry until we really need to, so our dirty clothes sit in a bag in our car. Our garbage also sits in our car quite often because many campsites don’t have ‘rubbish bins’ they want you to take your garbage home with you. However, this is hard when since we don’t have a home. We also sit in our car, which is not pretty after a long, stinky hike and we take our shoes off, which, you guessed it, have to stay in our car as well. Makes for one ‘hellova smell. The foot odour/problem is probably the worst. They are quadrupled if sea water ever gets on your shoes – if that happens you might as well throw them out – except, you guessed it, we don’t have the cash to buy new shoes if this happens. And yes, it has happened, much to my nose’s dismay. Needless to say, we are both pretty comfortable with all the smells, but that doesn’t mean we like them!

Okay, where was I. Oh yes, we were now headed to Bruny Island – an island off the southeast coast that we took a $25.00 ferry to. South Bruny National Park is here, and we did some good hikes and some rock pooling here (playing around, looking for creatures in the tide pools when the tide is out). But, the most incredible thing we did here was watch the shearwaters and penguins come onto land from the sea at night.

The Little (Fairy) Penguins we have spoken about before but the Shearwaters are also an amazing bird. The Shearwaters fly out at sea all day and come onto shore into burrows on the ground at night. They are Australias most numerous species – they have 23 million of them in colonies all over the continent off shore. Their wing span is a phenomenal 1 metre across, and yet they weigh only 500 grams! The parents produce only one egg and both the mother and father help to feed it. The chicks grow, doubling the weight of their parents within a few months. In April, the parents fly to the Arctic, leaving hte fat downy birds in their burrows deprived of food. All the young birds can do is wait and hope that their flight feathers come in before their fat reserves run out. 2-3 weeks after the parents have left, the young bird tries out its wings – in an amazing feat of animal instinct – they fly to the Arctic with no guidance at all. They return with the adults to the same colony in September. The oldest known shearwater was 38 years old!

This one night we waited patiently for dark to come. A still, quiet night turned into a noisy, mass confusion. Dark birds began circling above our heads, before dive bombing the ground at their burrows. They don’t land well, so it literally looks like they crash on the ground before fumbling their way to their burrow (they are built to be great flyers, not walkers, as their legs are really far back on their body). As all this is happening, the Little young penguins are emerging from their burrows, knowing that with dark, comes their parents in from sea with food. Once most of the shearwaters were put to bed, the adult penguins started making their way up to the beach, up the hill to their burrows. The young usually would call for them, directing them where to go. It all seems like a disorganized mess, as the adults look like they have no idea where they are going, not to mention how awkwardly they walk on land, and the babies are crying out in desperation for the food they are bringing. It was such an emotional, magical reunion to watch once they actually found one another. The fact that the shearwaters and penguins share the same colony is actually quite rare as well – adding to the amazing evening. We camped for free both nights we stayed on Bruny Island – that is something that is quite prevalent all over Tasmania – lots of free camping. Works for us!

The ferry ride across the Bass Strait that I had been very worried about, turned out to be a very calm ride. (Don’t get me wrong though – if you went on deck, you were almost blown off due to the winds…) The boat – The Spirit of Tasmania – was quite a luxurious boat for us. We treated ourselves to the buffet to celebrate New Years Eve, and were totally stuffed at the end of it. We took a night rossing – the boat left at 8pm and arrived in Tasmania at the port of Devonport at 7am. We had purchased regular tickets – the cheapest way to go – so we ended up with seats that didn’t recline meaning that there was no chance of decent sleep, if any at all. Jim actually ended up getting some winks on a couch at the bar. So, we brought the new year in on a boat on the other side of the world! One we won’t forget anytime soon.

Tasmania is a state of Australia, and lies south off the mainland coast. Dutch navigator Abel Tasman arrived on the island in 1642 and named it Van Dieman’s Land. It wasn’t until 1798 that Matthew Flinders circumnavigated Van Dieman’s Land, proving that it was an island. Many exploreres before him – including James Cook – apparently believed it was part of mainland Australia.

Originally, the Europeans used Van Dieman’s Land as somewhere to send their convicts – a land far away and totally isolated. In recent history Tasmanians (and Australians in general) seemed to be somewhat embarassed of their convict ancestry, but now it has turned into bragging rights, and something people try to trace back to. It wasn’t until 1856 that Van Dieman’s Land was renamed Tasmania in order to try to get rid of some of the stigma associated with its penal reputation. It was this same year that the last convicts were sent to jail here from overseas.

The aboriginies in Tasmania suffered greatly when Europeans got here – it seems even more so than the aboriginies on the mainland. Many battles eruputed, but by 1834 all remaining aboriginies were shipped to Flinders Island to be ‘civilized’. The last full blooded Tasmanian aboriginal died in the 19th century. The stories we have read about what the settlers did to these people are absolutely horrifying.

Although Tasmania is an Australian state, don’t mistake it for being warm. Its summer days are pleasantly warm when the sun is out, but they can also be bitterly cold as well. I have had to wear a toque and long johns several times, and even Jim has been cold at night. They are currently in a drought here, but since we’ve been here it has rained numerous times – 3 days straight at times (which may not sound like much, but it is when you live in a tent!). We think that we could start a business…it would be called ‘Drought Busters’ and our motto would be, “invite us to your country and we’ll bring the rain”. It sure seems like that at times!

The aboriginies of Tasmania were not the only ones to have gone extinct in recent history. The Thylacine – the tasmanian tiger – is also now extinct. This carnivorous marsupial used to roam both the mainland and Tassie (short for Tasmania). It went extinct off the mainland after the introduction of the dingo, as the competition for food was too much for the tiger. However, Tassie does not have dingos, so they persisted here. Unfortunately a bounty was put on the tigers in Tassie because they were eating some sheep and poultry that were introduced here. The bounty didn’t include the over 2000 government and unknown number of private payments that were also made to people to kill the tigers. The last Tasmanian Tiger died in a Hobart zoo in September 1936. 2 months after it died it was declared a protected species. A little too late I’d say. There have been sightings of the tigers over the years, but no conclusive evidene has ever been shown. No pictures, no road kill, no foot prints, no droppings. So, officially the tiger is extinct. However, there is another apparent bizzare twist to the thylacine story. A Tasmanian Tiger pup preserved in alcohol since 1866 may be the answer to cloning the tiger. Scientists have allegedly scraped some DNA off it and have successfully replicated it…the first cloned Tasmanian Tiger could be ‘born’ in a decade… See http://www.austmus.gov.au/thylacine for more details.

Now the largest carnivorous mammal is the Tasmanian Devil. A few years ago one would have said they were abundant and healthy here. Now unfortunately they may go the way of the tiger – although for different reasons. A contagious caner is now being spread throughout the devil population. It appears to be spread via biting when fighting or mating. The cancer starts as a small lesion in and/or around the mouth and grows into large tumors around the face and neck. So far research has shown that mothers do not pass it onto their offspring and no cancer has been found in devils 2 years and younger. The cancer has been found nearly everywhere on the island except in the northwest population of devils. The cancer alone would likely not drive the devils to extinction. However, the fact that there is now an ‘increase’ in foxes on the island will likely be devastating for the devils.

This brings up another interesting tidbit about Tasmania. Foxes were deliberately brought here (maliciously) not too long ago. The state has spent millions on a “keep Tassie fox free” program, while in fact they have only seen road kill and captured a few foxes to date – it seems less than a handful. Many Tassies are upset about how much money goes into the program yearly. But, I tend to agree with the parks and wildlife people – the wildlife (not to mention agriculture) of Tassie would be devastated if foxes were able to multiply. It may seem like a lot of money up front, but I don’t see any other logical choice. The flipside would be a larger loss for the state. For more info on the facial disease, go to http://www.dpiw.tas.gov.au/dft

Now for the people of Tasmania…we were told that they are a ‘bit different here’, and the most ‘British’ of all of Australia. We have met several nice Tasmanians, however, for the most part we find them to be quite abrupt and often this abruptness appears to be rude. There is also a strange ‘head shaking phenomenom’ here in Tassie – although now when Jim thinks back he did see it in Victoria too. When a man passes by and we say ‘hi’, the man (more often than not) will shake his head at us, rather than say hi. The first time it happened, Jim though he had done something wrong – as if the head shaker was disappointed in us. But now we have realized it is just one of those ‘quirky’ things that goes on. I’m sure us Canadians have such quirky things ourselves…..

All of the roads in Tasmania (other than in Hobart area and a couple of other towns) are single lane with no shoulder. The single lane is barely wide enough for a car, so there is no room for error. Add the facts that most roads are very windy, and the speed limit is 100km/hr and you’ll understand why driving here an be treacherous. The Tassies don’t slow down for anything – they would sooner drive into your lane when taking a tight corner than slow down before it. It means that half the time we are pushed off the side of the road where there is no shoulder, so basically we are driving in a ditch or the bush. Oh, and they wonder why there are so many accidents?! Why wouldn’t the government just reduce the speed limit a bit? It’s not like it is a huge island to get around – it would take only about 7 hours or so to get from the top to the bottom…

Stay tuned for more about our travels….

We were to meet our Canadian friends, Kathy and Steve, in Brisbane for Christmas. They had booked an apartment in ‘Surfers Paradise’ (just south of Brisbane on the Gold Coast) that they had generously told us we could stay at! The apartment turned out to be quite a luxurious place with a view on the top floor (31st floor) of a highrise! We had an ocean view, and it was only a 2 minute walk to the beach.

It proved rather difficult to sleep in at all though, because the sun literally rose at 4:30am and there were so many windows in the place we woke up sweating and burning to death by 5am! It took us a couple days to figure out if we drew the blinds (Kathy was the brains behind this one) we might be able to get a bit more sleep…

The week together was full of fun and lots of laughs. We did a lot of relaxing and beaching it – Steve and Jim tried out their surfing skills which I am sure would have been great if they could ever get past the waves to begin with! The waves were so fast and constant, pounding at the shore, that they were virtually impossible to get by in order to catch them on the way back in.

We travelled one day to the Glass House Mountains, just northwest of Brisbane to visit Steve Irwin’s zoo. The zoo was smaller than we had envisioned, but very well done. We watched the famous croc show in the ‘crocoseum’ and watched Steve Irwin on the big screen talk about his crocs and zoo as if he were right there with us. A tribute to him was set up at the zoo – khaki shirts like the one he wears were lined up with people’s messages from all over the world, flowers, drawings, stuffed animals, letters etc etc. I couldn’t help but shed a couple of tears. Animals and nature in general have lost an incredible and much needed ally.

Another day we went snorkelling. The Great Barrier Reef does not extend as south as Brisbane, so we decided (after much discussion) to go off of North Stradbrook Island. Hopped on a car ferry, hiked on the island in the am and went snorkelling in the early afternoon. The dive company that took us out to the snorkel site boasted seeing large sea life – especially manta rays. It was because of this that we had decided on this particular island.

The boat ride out to sea was, well, pretty darn exciting. There was about 12 of us in a Zodiac boat, and the driver of the boat had no fear of speed or waves! We figured that if we didn’t see anything snorkelling, at least we had the ride of our life out there! When we got to the site the water was extremely rough, and we figured it would be difficult to snorkel. But, once in the water, it wasn’t that bad… at least at first.

The site proved to be amazing. Not long after being out there we saw a magnificant Manta Ray! I knew what they were before, but I had no idea how huge they are – this one must have been 600 sqft in total – a gentle giant flying effortlessly through the water. A definite highlight and eye opening experience. During our time in the water we saw wobagong sharks, bull rays, leopard sharks, sea turtles and another giant manta ray.

At one point we heard a loud gagging and looked over and saw Steve trying to cough up a lung. We figured he got a mouthful of salt water and was gagging a bit on it. A few minutes later he motioned to us that he was going in because he felt ill. Kathy, Jim and myself kept going, but not for much longer as no sooner did I get stung by a jellyfish, so did Kathy, then Jim, then me a second time. Suddenly it seemed like there were hundreds of jellyfish surrounding us and dodging them was difficult (these jellyfish luckily for us are NOT the deadly kind – their ‘sting’ was more an irritating/scratchy feeling that left your skin sore, bumpy and red). It was at this point that I noticed I had a slight feeling of nausea coming upon me…

So, we headed back to the boat, and found Steve clinging to the anchor line trying his best to keep staring at the horizon as he bobbed up and down – the gagging before was actually him trying to vomit from sea sickness! We all clambered into the boat, including Steve, and he immediately started puking over the side of the Zodiac. At this point, the nausea that I had felt earlier overcame me and I found myself assuming the position alongside Steve, puking my guts out. So, Steve and I took turns vomiting over the side, one after another, me silently and Steve as if he was trying to tell the entire world that he was not feeling good. It was pretty hilarious.

Although it seemed like hours, it was probably only about 15 minutes we had to wait until all the others got back on board and we were off. Remember that great, exciting Zodiac ride out to the site earlier? Yeah, well, not so great going back in. My teeth were chattering uncontrollably because I was cold, not to mention it is kind of hard trying to control where your vomit is going to end up when one is going 40 miles/hr!

Steve and I kissed the ground when we reached land and he almost immediately recovered. I on the other hand was knackered for the rest of the day. But, regardless of the stingers and puking, it was well worth the trip to the sea to see the amazing wildlife we encountered (not to mention the laughs that I now have when I think back to it!!).

Christmas day was very different from home – we spent the majority of it sunning on the beach and playing in the waves. Our Christmas dinner was just as unique as the day – we ate Kangaroo. Kathy and Steve – and their New Zealand friends in the next apartment – had never eaten Kangaroo, so Jim made it for them on the ‘barbie’. We had a really nice meal, the 7 of us, and got to know the ‘Kiwis’ a bit better – Dave, Liz and their son Kayden (who are actually Canadian and moved to NZ last year, so they aren’t true “kiwis”). They have invited us over to visit when we travel there in February.

Although Surfers Paradise was wonderful in many ways, it was somewhat(okay, totally) lacking in any wildlife whatsoever. Even the most common birds were no where to be seen in the “miami beach like” area. We really wanted to show Kathy some of what Australia is really like….because Surfers Paradise doesn’t represent it at all. So, while Steve, Dave and Kayden went to a Warner Brothers theme park, Jim and I took Kathy on a search for some kangaroos. The day unfortunately was rainy, but we managed to get a good walk in. We went to an inland national park (Lamington, but not too far in from the coast. We were excited to hear from the visitors centre that they had spotted pademelons earlier in the day. (pademelons are marsupials that look like tiny wallabies – click here for more information.)Jim and I had not yet seen these, but had been on the search for them. We drove to where the trailhead was, and we were greeted by about 10 pademelons grazing on a patch of grass! Very lucky indeed, and we were glad to be able to show Kathy a small, but incredible part of wild Aussie wildlife.

Shortly after we began our hike we spotted yet another sight Jima nd I hadn’t seen before – a big fat skink (the name eludes me right now). May not seem too thrilling, but it was to us. We also stopped at one point to marvel at a Monarch caterpillar (although they call them the ‘Wandering Butterfly’ here), and as most of you (should) know, they are quite a beautiful creature. It was shortly after this that Jim felt something crawling up his leg – he looked down and saw a leech! He flicked it off(with some effort to get it “unsucked”) then noticed he had a couple more around his feet and ankles. This prompted me to look at my own feet – and low and behold I was covered in them. They were everywhere – even in between my toes. I managed to flick them all off – about 15 in total – and then proceded to bleed from the sites for about 10 minutes. (To this day -Jan 12- both Jim and myself have small lumps where they were ‘chowing down’ on us….) Kathy was smart and had on socks and boots so she didn’t have the pleasure of being lunch, but Jim and myself have become somewhat lackadaisical in our hiking attire – we both had sandals and barefeet. We continued, but checked our feet every few minutes.

Along the trail we met a couple who were staring up into the tree tops – they were looking at a koala! At this point we wanted to keep Kathy with us for the rest of the trip, because she was obviously packing a lucky horseshoe somewhere… Sure enough, high up in a gum tree (eucalypt)there was a koala…not only that, he was moving and eating! We tried to portray to Kathy how lucky a sighting this was, not only to see a koala, but actually see it move! Then, low and behold, it started groaning for her! This was just too lucky, we couldn’t believe it. It didn’t do its full-out guttural call we had heard before, but at least she had a taste of the noise. What a successful hike! After de-leaching once again, we were on our way back to the beach and the cozy apartment.

Our time with Kathy and Steve was full of fun, laughs and ice cream. (We are now going through withdrawal symptoms because we ate so much ice cream and now we can’t because we have no freezer to keep it frozen…) We can’t thank them enough for letting us stay with them and for spending their vacation with us. Definitely a highlight of our trip. We can only hope they had as much fun as we did! We miss having them around!

Next stop, Tasmania. We really needed to “boot it” to Melbourne where we’d catch the ferry to Tasmania on New Years Eve. On the way south we stopped at our friendly farmer friends (that we met earlier in our trip) house and spent the night. They showed us around their sorghum farm, and took us to their friends farm where they have cattle and a gravel pit along with their sorghum fields. It was a terrific learning experience – especially about how they irrigate their fields when they are in a drought – not to mention they fed us very well and we had a bed to sleep in again!

After Canberra, we were excited to once again visit my uncle Rolf in Manly, Sydney. My cousin’s wife was very pregnant and due to pop any day. With any luck we’d be there to see the new baby.

Sure enough, on the way there I received news that Vanessa did indeed ‘pop’ and while in Sydney we met ‘James’, the newest Edler in the family. A beautiful, healthy baby boy.

While in Sydney, Rolf and Marion took us to the famous Bondi Beach. Bondi is known for its good beach; popular with surfers, young people and topless women. Jim needless to say, had a good time as every couple of feet was a new spectacle to behold. What was strange though, was the gay beach we came across later that day on a walk – I must say I found it very odd seeing men, completely naked chatting to one another on the beach.

Later that night Marion got a phone call – she was asked to go on ‘penguin watch’. You see, there is a small troop of Fairy Penguins that call Manly their home, and this troop is endangered simply because the area is urbanized. It really is a silly place for them to keep coming to, as there are much safer areas for them to go, but I guess they like to call it home. Anyways, the residents of Manly look upon the penguins as their family and take their safety very seriously. So seriously, that every night a group goes down to the waterfront to watch them and make sure they ‘go to bed’ without harm. So, at 8:30pm we ventured to the water and not long after we sighted 3 penguins. See, the silly penguins try to walk up the boardwalk which eventually leads to the road, which obviously would lead to certain death. The job of the penguin watchers is to make sure they stay down a the beach and nobody disturbs them. After about 2 hours of watching the antics of one particular penguin, who apparently was not tired and liked the way the boardwalk felt on his feet as he danced along it – we decided they were safe and went home.

While we visited in Manly, our car was in the shop once again (we had already got the leak in the gas tank sealed in Queensland) – this time we had apparently hit one too many potholes and had really messed up our front tires. $200 later, we had 2 new tires and a front end alignment…not a bad price considering oil changes go for $90 a shot here!

With new wheels, we were on the road again, heading north. This time we drove out of Sydney ourselves, as Jim is a pro and we didn’t need my uncle as an escort.

Next day was a driving day, and we ended up camping in a small town of not much significance. Here we met 4 English kids who had just finished University and were travelling Australia. They had only done ‘city things’ so were quite interested in hearing our stories of wildlife – that is until we started talking about bugs…namely spiders. We had the girls on edge, screaming every time something moved, and then as if on cue, June bugs started flying into the cook shelter ….literally hundreds of them, flying into sinks, onto the tables, and most notably at the English kids and in their hair. They ran, screaming all the way to their van, and I trust that their Australian adventures remained in the city from then on! They were pretty funny people, and they were cheap entertainment for us for the night!

Next stop was Nimbin – a town we were told to visit by a fellow we had met in the Yukon. Nimbin is a ‘different place’. It is set amongst a beautiful backdrop of lush valleys and hills – a truly wonderful looking place. The town is populated by hippies – if you don’t wear dreadlocks, bare feet and smoke weed, you simply don’t fit in. Many of the people’s philosophies are posted around the town, and most of them are great ideas. Unfortunately, by just walking down the street in Nimbin you can get ‘high’ and because of this I am sure that their voices are not well heard in any parliamentary sense, as even I have trouble taking them seriously. It is too bad, because all of them seem to be quite environmentally aware.

Next stop, Hervey Bay Queensland, the launching point for Fraser Island. Fraser Island boasts to be the largest sand island on the planet, and apparently has the most pure strain of dingos anywhere. You probably remember hearing a few years back about “the dingo that stole my baby” story – it was here that this infamous tragedy took place.

Fraser Island is on the ‘tourist circuit’, ie. everyone that visits Australia knows about it and most visit it. Almost the entire island is National Park, so were were enticed and coughed up the cash to rent a 4×4 Suzuki to get around the island. The cheapest rental was not available for a couple of days, so we stayed put in Hervey Bay at a great caravan park. The owner of the park flies planes as a hobby and is quite an interesting bloke who was a source of tons of information. He and Jim had many funny stories to swap about dumb things they had done when they were younger – namely involving motorcycles and snowmobiles. While in the cook shelter at night we got talking to some really nice farmers, who ended up inviting us to their place to stay if we got the time (more on that later). We also met another couple from Tasmania that were full of info and also invited us to their place (at this rate we’d never have to camp again!). Late at night we hung out with two really young couples with children and compared ‘Canadianisms and Aussieisms’ and went to bed with sore stomachs with all the laughing we’d done. By the time it had rolled around to leave the park it felt like we were leaving a second family!

But alas, 4 wheel driving was in our future, so we were off at 6:30am to pick up the truck and get on the ferry.

We had been through our ‘safety intro’ about what to do and what NOT to do with the truck, and the video had showed us some major bang ups and trucks getting literally stuck in the sand when the tide comes in. You see, much of the driving on the island is on the beach and is obviously ruled by the tide. No driving for 2 hours before or after high tide. Apparently a young fellow did not heed this warning a few weeks ago when he took his dad’s brand new Land Rover there and got stuck in the water and basically started sinking. When they tried to tow the truck out the frame and body completely collapsed…..sorry daddy!

Our truck was less than ideal: dirty, greasy, gauges that didn’t work, didn’t like to start – but, it would be an adventure.

Once on the island we understood why no 2WDs could drive it – the sand, especially through the forest is quite difficult to get through. It made for some fun times as Jim loves to 4WD, but I on the other hand caught myself a couple of times hanging on the door for dear life while closing my eyes…

Gas on the island was very dear…$1.79/L! And yes, we had to get a bit of gas once because our gauge dropped to below empty, but upon filling it we only needed 1/2 a tank……yup, the broken gauge I mentioned earlier… The only place we saw a dingo was in town, and you guessed it…at the garbage bins. We didn’t even take a picture because we felt it would have been cheating. We never did see on outside the towns – why would they go anywhere else when they can just rummage through garbage bins that are so recklessly left available for them to rummage through?

We hit all the ‘hot spots’ on the island, helped a couple with a flat tire, camped on the beach, camped in the rainforest, spotted a beauty azure kingfisher, and headed to the mainland again. Our trip to Fraser was a fun adventure, but it was a bit too touristy for us.

Before we went to Kangaroo Island, a couple of blokes we bought fries off tipped us off about a secret hot spot called Deep Creek. So, once we were back on the mainland we figured it was logical to check out this ‘hot spot’!

It was a decent spot, but nothing more spectacular than anywhere else we’ve been. We were however informed by the park ranger that in case of fire make sure we got ourselves out of the woods to open country or we’d be overcome more quickly than we realized. But, with luck we’d probably be all right and we were.

We went on quite a steep hike down to the ocean and met an older fellow in unlikely hiking attire – a dress shoes and dress shirt – making his way back up the hill with a hundred flies in tow. Anyway, we chose the hike because of its moniker ‘the blowhole’ …but as it turned out there was no blow hole to speak of. Turns out it aquired its name through a series of spelling mistakes?!

After our uneventful trip in deep creek – which didn’t exist either – we followed the coast of South Australia then diverted inland to the east to see the Grampians National Park.

We took a good hike up Mt Williams and saw a small snake which we were unable to identify. But mostly, we saw a lot of closed areas due to recent fires which roared through Victoria and still are. The park did have an excellent aboriginal information centre which never pulled any punches describing the atrocities to the natives in the hands of Australia’s original settlers.

We headed back to the coast and came across a place called Tower Hill, just outside of Port Fairy. Tower Hill was a very pleasant surprise. It is an extinct volcano crater with a lake – with water (which is hard to come by in Oz) – and full of koalas and emus! We spent a couple of hours there photographing animals , especially the koalas which are tough animals to find. We even managed to photograph koala joeys which made our day!

Next stop(s) were the wonderous views of the Great Ocean Road. It would definitely rank up there in my best scenic drives. The water in South Australia is azure blue and has cut hundreds of interesting land formations out of the soft sandstone.

When approaching Melbourne and its 3 million sporty/artsy inhabitants, we opted to drive right around it. Sporty and artsy or not, 3 million people are something neither of us want to contend with. We simply aren’t city people.

Our next stop would be Wilson’s Promontory National Park to find the common, but elusive nocturnal wombat. Wilson’s Prom had some lovely beaches and fortunately the weather was perfect. We spent the day on the beach and swam in the cool southern waters basically just killing time until we could go spotlighting for wombats in the evening. Just before dark Kris needed to use the dunny (toilet in Oz) so I just sat in our campsite sipping on some wine waiting for her and low and behold doesn’t a sleepy wombat stumble right into our campsite, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and scratching all his itchies away. By the time Kris got back to camp I already found and photographed our little wombat friend. He hung around and entertained us for a short while before he went on his merry way. We went for a short walk and spotted four more of the funny little creatures so we had success at the Prom!

The next morning the clouds rolled in and the temps dropped by about 10 degrees, so we cut our visit to the prom a little short and once again headed along the coast – east then north – to Eden, New South Wales where we spent the night. In the morning we had ashes on our tent from the huge fires burning all through the south west. We took a chilly walk down to the beach to find a pod of bottlenose dolphins frolicking near shore for our own personal show.

Before heading to A.C.T. (Australian Capital Territory) we stopped at the Bega cheese factory and sampled some tasty cheese…yum. We also stopped at an australian Christmas store to see if we could purchase some Aussie decorations to send home as souvenirs. Much to our amazement this huge Christmas store only had the standard fare as well as a North American assortment of animals!? Worse than that, they had a small section of U.S.A. decorations including a moose decorated in stars and stripes with “I Love USA” written on it!

We weren’t sure when we were going to visit Canberra ACT, the nation capital, but after several weeks tentingin the desolate interior we decided we could use the change of some civilization.

Canberra is a thoughly planned city. In 1901 when the colonies federated the plan to build a national capital was actually written into the constitution. In 1908 the site was selected and in 1911 the land was purchased. An international competition was held to find an architect and of 136 entrants, Walter Burley Griffin – an americann – won.

In 1913 the foundations were laid and baptized “Canberra” thought to mean ‘meeting place’ to the Aborigines. In 1927 Canberra officially took over as the nation capital – which was Melbourne before then.

Planned or not, we got in our typical arguements over navigating an urban environment, but soon found the information centre and a caravan park which was only a 10 minute drive from downtown.

One could spend a full week in Canberra looking through galleries, museums, shops and the capital building. We spent one entire day in the brand new National Museum – free of charge. We spent another day split between the National Art Gallery – free – and the War Museum – free – but easily could have spent the whole day in the very impressive National War Museum and Memorial. We took a guided tour of the capital building on our final day which was very interesting and you guessed it – FREE!

There are a ton of other free attractions to visit if one had the time and some other attractions which have only a nominal fee. We may pass through again during this trip, but if you ever come to Australia be sure to save enough time to explore their capital city thoroughly!

Needless to say, we left Flinders Range first thing in the morning to try to get away from the flies. We headed to Adelaide, which was on the way to our next destination of Kangaroo Island. However, before departing Adelaide we caught up with an old aquaintance of Jim’s. George Hayward, a hockey coach of Jim’s when he was a kid lives in a suburb of Adelaide. George and his wife Margaret invited us in and we had a wonderful lunch and lots of laughs.

So, off we were to Kangaroo Island. The island lies 13km off the coast of the Fleurieu Penninsula south of Adelaide in the state of South Australia. The island boasts Fairy Penguins (aka little penguins), seals, koalas, kangaroos, wallabies and the endangered glossy black cockatoo. Too much to pass up, so we bought our tickets for the isle, and camped on the penninsula before departing in the AM. That night was possibly the windiest one we’ve seen yet. Although our tent did not blow away (which has happened before) we nearly did when we walked out onto the wharf at the ocean.

The wind didn’t let up and the tent flapped like it was going to take off all night. With weary eyes we packed up our tent the next morning and I started worrying about the rough waters we were about to cross.

We certainly got a taste of the turbulance of the Tasman Sea – dishes crashing, people vomiting, and crew members discussing how rough this particular crossing was – hopefully this is not a forecast of how the waters will be when we do the 10 hour crossing to Tasmania later this trip….

After kissing the ground after docking, we ventured to the visitors centre where we were a bit disappointed by what we were told. It seemed that to see much of what Kangaroo Island has to offer is only available via a tour. Now, as far as we are concerned, taking a tour to see wildlife is kinda cheating, not to mention bloody expensive. So, we left the centre discouraged, but in turn it fueled us to try even harder to see stuff all on our own.\

The first day we saw an echidna, a flock of glossy blacks, and wallabies and kangaroos by the hundreds before settling down at a “dodgy” but free campsite by the rocky beach.

The next 2 days were spent in Flinders Chase National Park. After a long walk in the morning where most of our exercise was from swatting the flies, we drove close to the shore to see some seals. Sure enough, after a short hike down to the rocks, we saw hundreds of sea lions and fur seals happily basking in the sun.

Still, we had seen no koalas, and it wasn’t from lack of trying. We mentioned our ‘lack of koala’ situation to a park ranger and she walked us out the doors of the ranger centre and pointed up to a tree…our 1st wild koala! It turns out we had been looking in the wrong type of eucalyptus trees all along. We got chatting more, and the ranger either trusted us or felt sorry for us, because she told us her secret spot for spotting Fairy Penguins! We promised her the secret was safe with us, and ventured out into the parking lot where we spotted ~ 5 koalas in trees, and petted the wild, but tame kangaroos.

That night we heard possibly the most frightening noise we’ve ever heard before. It was like any other night – we went walking to see what night creatures we could find. Then, suddenly from the trees came the most gutteral, evil sounding holler…it took us a moment to realize what it was – a Koala!! It is too dificult to describe the sound…kind of like a cross between a pissed off bear and a horny ape. Go on the web and Google ‘koala sound’, and I am sure a site will come up that will let you hear for yourself. We couldn’t believe such a blood curdling call could possibly come from a cute and cuddly looking Koala!

After our nerves had been shot from being awoken periodically through the night, we were up for a relaxing day. We drove to another part of the national park called West Bay – a beautiful beach surrounded by cliffs that we had to ourselves all day. It meant sunning parts of the body that otherwise remain white as a ghost and listening to the waves all day. No swimming was done though – the water was freezing!

Can’t sit for too long, so the next day we headed for the secret Fairy Penguin spot. On the way we stopped at a sheep dairy farm. Yup, you read right – they milk sheep at this unique farm. The sheep are raised from little lambs to get them used to going in and out of the milking facility just like cows. Apparently in Mediterranean countries sheep dairy farms are very popular, so this is what the Island farm has modelled themselves after. It truly is a funny sight to see sheep run to their favorite milking spot and have the milking equipment set up on them as they happily eat away as the whole process takes place. After tasting some sheep cheese and yogurt, we headed for the secret beach. The campsite turned out to be another ‘free but dodgy’ place, but worked just fine for us.

The penguins only come on shore after dark, so while it was still light out we scoped out the bay. It was huge, and we really had no idea where the birds would go. There was lots of sand, lots of rocky areas, but none looked sheltered enough for our feathered friends. Around the pier was very rocky, and it would be well lighted at night because people fish off it and we figured it would be too noisy for penguin habitat. So, we were at a loss. Nightfall came, we went looking, and came up empty. No penguins. Discouraged, we walked back to the campsite. Then a voice from the darkness came…”Did you see the penguins?” It was an older fellow, camped near us. “No” we replied, obviously upset by this fact. He then told us we need to go down to the pier, that there would be lots of them. Surprised, we did as he said, and we were thrilled when we saw dozens of penguins fluffing up and stumbling across the rocks. We watched them in fascination for a bit, and were happy that we saved $30 by not going with a tour!

Now that we had seen all the wildlife we came to see, we decided to head off the island. ON our way to the ferry we stopped in at 2 farms – a(n) eucalyptus distillery and a honey farm. Both very interesting, sustainable and produced wonderful products. After sampling the honey ice cream (which by the way may be the best ice cream we’ve ever had) we headed for the ferry. Of course we didn’t have return tickets, because we never have solid plans, so we waited in the ‘standby’ line and watched as the ferry got filled. It really didn’t look like we’d get on, but with our small car we just squeaked on. Lucky us!

The ride returning to the mainland was a much smoother crossing, and I spent most of the time watching the sheep on a transport truck – there was about 500 all crammed on a huge truck – and watching military planes flying over the ferry doing training exercises. Kangaroo Island was an expensive trip – the ferry was $150 each way – but it was a successful venture as we saw all the wildlife we went for, and got a taste of their island culture.

View pictures HERE

So, with the desert behind us after Coober Pedy, we looked to the Flinders Ranges National Park as a place of refuge from the monotonous flatness, fierce flies and flaming heat of the outback.

Let me just say right up front that the flies were over the edge ridiculous and the heat was turned down barely a notch to the mid to high 30’s. Regardless, we were after the sighting of the rarely encountered Yellow Footed Rock Wallaby which are no longer found anywhere else in Oz except Flinders “Range”. I use that word loosely as the word “Range” itself conjures up visions of high, craggy, snowcapped mountain peaks. At 1500ft elevation, they are not what I expected. They are merely highlands – but in retrospect the word ‘Ranges’ does have several meanings (for example: there are mountain ranges, shooting ranges, ranges you cook stuff on, not to mention home, home on the range(s)) in our glorious english language and the aussies will most definitely make use of the alternative definitions. At any rate, I’m not sure what range they had in mind, but in relation to the vast tracts of the world’s flattest continent, maybe they actually did mean mountains!? Who knows.

We wended our way to the visitor center which is a novelty in an Oz National Park and enquired about the usual; where to camp, where to spot wildlife and the condition of the roads. The friendly ranger behind the desk told us we couldn’t go wrong camping in a remote area of the park to get a good chance at spotting the yellow foots. She also assured us that all the roads in the park are 2WD roads, unless otherwise posted which kept our minds at ease.

So, it was decided we’d venture into the park to the remote campsite, but first we’d camp locally and have a shower, relax, take in a sunset at a local lookout and hike in the morning before heading out.

We picked out a spot amongst the gum trees and both took showers, had some dinner and sampled some of my bargain wine – $9.00 Australian for 4L! It was 6:30pm, so I was in a hurry to take in the sunset so we made haste to the local lookout. The only problem with that was – due to the southern latitude – the sun didn’t set until 8:30pm or so. We killed time wandering around the prickley spinifex, looking at the kangaroos, sunning ourselves until the sunset occurred, very unexceptionally I might add. No harm done, as we didn’t have anything else to do anyway.

Once we arrived back at our campsite I was alarmed to see my bargain wine had been mauled, chewed and sampled by some party-roos! No worries, I salvaged what was left and put it into whatever containers we had and I’m still here days later, so there was no transmisson of ‘kangaroo-fever’ – at least that I’m aware of.

In the morning we made a hike up to the Wilpena Pound – Flinders geological highlight. I guess we’ve been spoiled iwth geological splendour and were in less awe once we set eyes on the Flinders attraction. Oh well, it was a good hike and thankfully we did it early as things were starting to heat up!

We broke camp yet again, and began our drive to the northern reaches of Flinders Range. Let me say; if an aussie tells you the road is a 2WD road, it doesn’t much mean the same thing in Canadian! If hte road was any worse we never would have made it. You would have had to see it to believe it!

We made it to our campsite – barely – and as soon as we exited the comfort of our vehicle’s airconditioning we realized the Flinders Ranges were well below the requisite altitude to reduce the temperature significantly – actually at all! It was blazing outside and the flies were over the top!

A word on the outback flies – every fly one encounters will make at least 10 attempts to land on your face, particularly targeting your ears, nostrils, eyeballs and mouth. It truly is enough to drive you bonkers. As a matter of fact, even though it was a bit hotter than a Finnish wood fire sauna outside, we set up our tent on a dried up creekbed – which are not in short supply – in the little shade we could find and sat in it to escape the bombardment of flies! No worries, as the flies would settle down at dark 4 1/2 hours away. The good news at this point is we got our first fleeting glimpse of the yellow foots!

After an hour or so, we realized that we couldn’t bare 3 1/2 more hours in the tent baking, so we braved a short hike to attempt to find some shade, solace from the flies and some rock wallaby habitat. Before exiting the tent, Kristin devised a mask using her bandana which made her look like a terrorist but she assured me it was working against the flies!

We found some shade and a slight respite from fly activity. Whilst sitting in the shade doing basically nothing other than waiting for night and ultimately morning so we could get the heck out of there, we were approached by 15 feral goats! Funny thing is we had just read a sign that said this area of the park was closed the previous weekend – to shoot feral goats! Guess they missed these guys…..

That evening we were fortunate enough to encounter and photograph some yellow foots and as a wildlife bonus, encountered a red backed spider in the mens outhouse. So, all in all it was a successful adventure and one that we will not forget anytime soon. We will not miss the dry, hot, fly ridden Flinders anytime soon either.