A Continent-wide Zoo
Southern Cassowary
August 25-26 Qantas Airways #78 Singapore to Perth, Western Australia
Perth is a 29-hour stopover in the southwest corner of Australia. We arrive just after midnight and then for the first time in months we actually sleep in—until almost 7:30 a.m. Our goal for the day is to indulge ourselves in things that were once simple but now have become luxuries: hot showers, cold cokes, clean laundry and pepperoni pizza. Then at 3:30 a.m. we are up for a 5:30 flight to Broome.
August 27 Ansett Australia #390 Perth to Broome, Western Australia
We wore a jacket in Perth but a thousand miles later it is hot in Broome. We’ve come far enough north to make a big difference in temperature yet we are still in the state of Western Australia. This one state occupies a third of the entire continent. Broome with 11,000 people is the largest town around in this sparsely settled northwest corner of Australia. The land is flat and sandy and seemingly undistinguished until it comes to the sea. Suddenly the country is beautiful. Beaches stretch forever with bright white sand and mangrove-fringed coves lure a ranger-birder to slog in the mud at low tide to find new birds among the mosquitoes.
August 25-26 Qantas Airways #78 Singapore to Perth, Western Australia
Perth is a 29-hour stopover in the southwest corner of Australia. We arrive just after midnight and then for the first time in months we actually sleep in—until almost 7:30 a.m. Our goal for the day is to indulge ourselves in things that were once simple but now have become luxuries: hot showers, cold cokes, clean laundry and pepperoni pizza. Then at 3:30 a.m. we are up for a 5:30 flight to Broome.
August 27 Ansett Australia #390 Perth to Broome, Western Australia
We wore a jacket in Perth but a thousand miles later it is hot in Broome. We’ve come far enough north to make a big difference in temperature yet we are still in the state of Western Australia. This one state occupies a third of the entire continent. Broome with 11,000 people is the largest town around in this sparsely settled northwest corner of Australia. The land is flat and sandy and seemingly undistinguished until it comes to the sea. Suddenly the country is beautiful. Beaches stretch forever with bright white sand and mangrove-fringed coves lure a ranger-birder to slog in the mud at low tide to find new birds among the mosquitoes.
A town of 11,000 people is the right size for walking. One can walk from one end to the other in less than two hours and still have time to peer into alleys and look behind old buildings. Like a doctor with a stethoscope who quickly checks the heart beat of a patient to see if further examination is warranted, a walker with a couple hours and open eyes and ears can quickly check the pulse of a town the size of Broome. Here the ranger learns enough in two hours to know that it is worth spending several days more to check things out.
At first glance Broome is primarily a tourist center. Eighty Mile Beach and Cable Beach lure modern Australians to its blinding white sands and intense blue sea. Broome in the far north of the country is a now a winter getaway for Aussies living in more temperate climes who experience cool damp winters. This town of the jet age seems long past its original history when the town was so far distant from the rest of Australia that it was easier to get to the Orient than it was to go to Sydney.
Broome is a child of its location between the land and the ocean. The sea and its bounty of pearls was the reason for the founding of the town. The ocean is still the front door of the town. The land, at the back door of Broome, had a more subtle but lasting effect. The sea was a place to harvest. The land was a place to endure.
Broome, from its beginning in the early 1880s, has been influenced by the land, by the fact that there is so much land—a land that is so vast that hundreds of miles separate this outpost of humanity from any other part of Australia. Even today Broome is 1,300 miles from Perth, the capital of the state.
For the first quarter of its history Broome had no road connection to the rest of the country. The isolation of Broome bred an independent streak in its inhabitants, a trait common to most who live in rural Australia. Yet Broome appears to be a metropolis to those who truly live in the outback where the nearest neighbor may be fifty miles away. That is Broome’s back door, the vast inland. Jet-flying beach seekers aside, the future of Broome lies in being the gateway to the endless lands of the northwest.
But Broome’s past was in the sea and that’s what the ranger finds on his city walkabout. A Japanese cemetery draws his immediate notice. Until very recently Australia prided itself on being an all-white nation (conveniently ignoring the existence of its thousands of black-skinned Aborigines.) Yet here is a Japanese, non-white, cemetery, the largest cemetery in town. Therein lies a story.
Broome was established to harvest pearls and shells. The immense shallow bays had abundant pearl oysters just for the taking. Pearl shell, sometimes called mother-of-pearl, was also valuable and readily available. It was an important material for buttons in the days before plastics. Less than twenty years after its founding, Broome was home to over four hundred luggers—boats hauling divers to harvest the valuable pearls and shells.
In the first few years the boats carried no supplemental air supply and divers could stay down in the shallow bays only as long as a breath of air. Sharks were a problem and the death toll of divers was high. Pearlers at times kidnapped local Aborigines and forced them to dive for pearls in a form of slavery. But in less than ten years technology arrived.
By the late 1880s pearl divers were using air hoses and diving suits with heavy copper helmets. Experienced divers were brought in from throughout Asia. The town thrived with a polyglot population of Japanese, Chinese, Filipinos, Malays, Aborigines and Europeans. A large Chinatown housed 3,000 Asian divers in the off-season. Broome was a frontier town full of money. Boarding houses, brothels, gambling halls and taverns flourished. One old pearler wrote, “Broome in its early days was probably the most unique town in Australia. It was an affluent, sinful and tolerant community in which the clergy’s frequent references to Sodom and Gomorrah were regarded as appropriate tributes to civic progress, rather than warnings of future divine retribution.”
But pearling was not without its human price as the 900 graves in the Japanese cemetery attest. Hundreds of Japanese divers died of the bends and other perils of the ocean. In 1887 a severe hurricane hit the pearlers at sea destroying many ships and killing 140 men. On land a racial pecking order brought misery to many, particularly the native Aborigines.
The pearling industry fell apart with the onset of World War I. A revival was attempted after the war but a global recession made recovery slow. By 1939 there were only thirty luggers left and all of these were Japanese. In fact at the beginning of World War II there were more Japanese in Broome than Australians. After the war, pearling died altogether with the advent of plastic buttons in the 1950s.
A walk from the Japanese cemetery brings the ranger into old Chinatown, now a tourist district whose shops sell what else but pearls to eager tourists. These are the new Broome pearls. A nearby memorial plaque tells this story. Almost as soon as diving for natural pearls died out, a consortium of Japanese and Australian interests started a cultured pearl industry which now brings $80 million a year into the local economy.
A walk from the Japanese cemetery brings the ranger into old Chinatown, now a tourist district whose shops sell what else but pearls to eager tourists. These are the new Broome pearls. A nearby memorial plaque tells this story. Almost as soon as diving for natural pearls died out, a consortium of Japanese and Australian interests started a cultured pearl industry which now brings $80 million a year into the local economy.
The ranger’s walk to a park near the beach leads to the discovery of another kind of memorial—one with over seventy names, many of them Dutch. This memorial stone tells the story of another Japanese influence on Broome. By early 1942, the Japanese Empire had conquered much of southern Asia and was threatening to invade Australia. The Japanese residents of Broome, who were the majority of the town’s population, were rounded up and put into internment camps. Much of the rest of the town evacuated south and Australian and American military personnel moved in.
The Broome airport was a refueling stop for military aircraft and the bay was a stopover for huge flying boats (sea planes) evacuating Dutch refugees from Java and Timor, then being attacked by Japanese troops. On March 3, 1942, the war came to Broome. Nine Japanese Zero fighters roared in on Broome and destroyed sixteen flying boats on the water. Three of these were full of passengers and were just minutes away from their scheduled takeoff. Over seventy Dutch refugees and Australian flight crewmembers were killed in the attack. These are names on the park memorial along the ranger’s walk. The remains of the three flying boats can still be seen at extreme low tide.
A walk to a happier place in town brings the ranger to the movie theater built in 1916. Broome, where it is always warm, had no need for an indoor theater, especially in the days before air conditioning. So even today one goes to the open-air theater to watch movies from the benches and perhaps see the shadow of a flying fox go by across the screen.
But enough of town, Shirley and I have come to Broome to reach the gateway to one of the world’s great wilderness areas. The Kimberley of far northwestern Australia is a land of only 25,000 people in an area the size of California. So far on our trip we’ve traveled by plane, van, bus, canoe and dugout. Now we are off in a four-wheel drive SUV. The roads would be impassible without it.
We leave Broome headed east on the Great Northern Highway a hundred miles to Derby. From there we turn on the Gibb River Road, the only road through the Kimberley. The pavement ends after fifty miles. After that we are on gravel for another 400 miles on a road that is only passable for eight to nine months out of the year. The road is closed during the wet season when rainstorms drop close to forty inches in three months. The rest of the year there is little or no rain at all. In the 400 miles we pass only two stores/gas stations—and this is the main road through this part of northwest Australia. People and facilities are few and far between.
Other than a few communities of Aborigines, the only people in the Kimberley are those on ranches, which are called stations in Australia. The cattle stations are huge. One million acres is not an unusual size.
Our first stop is Mt. Hart, a former cattle station now incorporated into King Leopold Conservation Park. Tonight we sleep at the old homestead that has been converted into a wilderness lodge under an agreement with the Department of Conservation and Land Management. This agency has the most wonderful acronym of any governmental body. Every government should have a Department of CALM.
Just getting to Mt. Hart is an experience; the driveway is thirty miles long off the Gibb River Road. A radio is located at the turnoff to call ahead and let the manager know that someone is coming up the driveway. Although we turn off long before sunset, we stop to so often to look at birds that it is dark by the time we arrive.
Taffy, the manager, greets us and takes on a quick tour of the homestead and our rooms. The tour just barely starts when the ranger stops dead in his tracks. There are owls all around catching moths in the yard lights. It is a family of five owls called Boobooks for their distinctive calls. Taffy wants to show where the bathrooms are but the ranger says, “Hold on! These are life birds!” Taffy retorts, “You can watch owls all night long but if you want to know where to go pee, come on along.” It is hard to argue with good logic.
The rooms are basic; the showers and toilet are down the path but there is running water. The nearest store is 150 miles away by gravel road so the last thing we expect is gourmet cooking. But oh, Taffy is a cook. His gateau au chocolat and blackcurrant ice cream are to die for. There is fresh-baked bread, great salads and fresh fruit from the garden. Bearded, forty-something Taffy Abbotts looks like a grizzled outbacker but he can cook! Ms. Annabelle a young woman from Sydney, at the other end of Australia, is now living here. She arrived two months ago on a three-month holiday and now has no expectation of leaving. She has fallen in love with Taffy and the outback. She’ll have to love it. Rains close that thirty-mile driveway almost five months a year.
Night after night we stay at one cattle station after another. There is no other place to stay in the Kimberley. Hosting four-wheel drive visitors is a way for cattle stations to make outside money beyond the vagrancies of cattle prices. Some stations such as Mt. Elizabeth are far off the main road and have separate buildings that are almost motel-like but all meals are served family style in a large dining pavilion adjacent to the owner’s home.
Drysdale River Station is only 300 yards off the Gibb River Road and functions like a roadhouse. The quarters for travelers are prefab metal buildings with rooms that are tiny and basic. Shirley has to sit in the middle of the bed while the ranger moves around the room. The room is so small that there is not space for two to move at the same time.
Under the shade of eucalyptus trees is a camping area for tents and caravans. A travel trailer in Australia is a caravan. The station has a full welding shop and tire repair. These are here primarily for the cattle station but both are in big demand by travelers on this rough road. Pumps offer the only diesel for 150 miles and there is no gasoline available at all. Luckily our 4-wheel drive like all vehicles here is diesel powered.
A small store sells basic supplies for travelers. Ice is always a big seller. Dinner is in an outdoor cafe with a dozen choices on the menu, all beef or lamb. I suspect the big moneymaker is the pub. Aussies are noted for their prodigious beer drinking. Here on the weekend the pub is lively with locals, ranch hands and campers. Obviously not everyone is a birder. These people party much too late for anyone who is going to get up before dawn to chase tweeters. While we are trying to get to sleep, we can hear their off key singing of Waltzing Matilda.
Theda Station is a “middling” ranch of 750,000 acres founded in 1959 when the road opened up this part of the Kimberley. Theda runs six thousand head of cattle, a Shorthorn/Brahman cross. Mustering of the cattle takes place from June to September. Cattle are mustered (rounded up) by helicopter and bull buggies which are modified Suzuki four-wheel drives. About five thousand head are mustered each year of which two thousand bulls and steers are separated out for sale. When ninety head of steers are in the corral they are loaded onto a road train for transportation to the sale yards in Katherine or Darwin, 600 - 800 miles away.
We have run into these road trains several times on the Gibb River Road and we always give them wide berth. A road train is a truck and semi trailer like in the U.S. but then two more long trailers are attached on beyond that. The whole rig can exceed 150 feet long. When they charge down the gravel roads at 45 mph they raise such a huge cloud of dust that they are impossible to pass unless they slow down for a hill.
When we meet a road train coming from the opposite direction, we are enveloped in the dust cloud and can see nothing for several seconds while we are barreling along at 55 mph. If one road train of three trailers will haul 90 head of cattle, how many road trains does it take for a station to ship off two thousand head per year? A lot!
Road trains don’t just haul cattle. All sorts of supplies for the stations come by truck. Station vehicles need diesel and the helicopters need aviation fuel. Much of the diesel and all of the jet fuel comes in 200-liter metal drums and that all comes on road trains.
While at Theda Station we see another fact of life of living in the remote Kimberley. A fellow traveler staying at the station has taken ill. It might not be serious but on the other hand he had a big operation six months before and this may be a follow-up complication. The nearest doctor is three days away unless the traveler wants to hire a private airplane to take him out. If this had been a member of the family that lives at Theda Station year round, the problem would be even bigger during the wet season when the road is closed and even the dirt runways are often too soggy for landings. A military helicopter would be used only for the direst emergency.
So what is the ill traveler to do? Why call the doctor, of course—by radio. The doctor does an interview and examination by radio and prescribes medicines. In the U.S. that still wouldn’t solve anything because prescriptions can only be filled at a pharmacy—and there are none in the Kimberley outback. But here in Australia, the Royal Flying Doctors Service has stocked medical chests at remote stations throughout the country since 1942. Each chest is identical and contains numbered drugs, bandages and other first aid materials. The medicines include a number of widely used prescriptions for most illnesses and accidents. The doctor may say over the radio, “Take pill number fourteen twice a day for the next six days and call me again.” Medicine chests are refilled periodically to renew materials that are used up or gone out of date. The system works well and many lives have been saved. Doctors are available to fly to stations under certain circumstances but in general one or two radio calls saves the day.
As with any new system there was some education to be done. The story is still told of a station manager in the early days who was told to give his wife a number nine tablet. Later he told the doctor, “We’d run out of number nines but I gave her a number five and a number four and she came good right away!”
Cattle stations have families and there are children who need to be educated. The government offers schooling over the radio during certain hours. When it is Theda Station’s turn, the children can interact with their teacher over the radio to recite their lessons and ask questions.
Pregnancy is something to be planned ahead in the Kimberley. If the baby comes due during the wrong season, the new mother will not be able to get to a hospital for delivery. At one of the stations a woman who had given birth the year before had spent the last three months in Broome rather than be caught out in the Kimberley during the wet season.
Road travel is slower now. The well-graded fast track of the Gibb River Road is far behind us as we shake and bounce on the rocky, sometimes-bladed Kalumburu Road. If we meet more than one vehicle every two hours, we call it a busy day. Every rotation of the Land Rover’s wheels raises billows of dust that follow us like a shadow. Dust is a fact of life here just like air. We breathe dust. We wear fine dust like a second layer of clothing. This powder is our facial makeup, smeared around the eyes by perspiration. Our luggage piled atop the Land Rover is the same hue as the road and has to be beaten like a dirty rug before we can take in at night.
This land is endless eucalyptus woodlands, now dormant and sere in the September heat. It has not rained for six months. The land waits patiently for the summer monsoon. October, November, December, when will it start? The land will wait, just as it has waited every September for 100,000 years. Almost every year the monsoon comes in the wet season with deluges to flood the creeks and much of the land. Almost every year it comes but there is no guarantee. But there is a guarantee that every year the dry season will come. It has always come. And the land will wait it out.
For miles and hours and days I often feel deprived of any sense of color. If forced to look carefully around me, I would have to admit of a number of soft hues and shades but in a general way it feels as if all color has been erased. There is nothing here that jumps up and says, “I am red; I am blue; I am green.” The cloudless sky has faded to almost white with only the faintest hint of blue in the heat and pre-monsoonal humidity of September. The eucalyptuses are sparingly leaf-covered but there is no green. Their leaves are a soft gray-green that blends in with the earth and offers little contrast to the soil. Fallen leaves dust the ground and are in turn dusted by it, leaving everything the same colorless shade. Tree bark is not brown; that would be too bold. Eucalypts have thin, gray papery bark, which flakes off like dandruff onto the ground. The sparse grasses are dusty, straw-colored, and winter-cured.
Color is gone and even contrast is missing. Gray bark, gray-green leaves, dusty ground, straw-colored grass, and whitish sky are all shades of a soft continuous hue. No one tint stands out against another. The sky has no clouds to break the expanse. The ground has no shadows to give a sense of dark and light. This is a forest with no shade. Eucalypts have leaves, of course, hundreds of leaves and they have them year round. But because the trees live in a waterless land half the year, the leaves are small and droop down parallel to the sun’s rays. This minimizes evaporation from the leaves. It also means that little of the sun’s light is blocked as it passes through the tree’s canopy. Therefore there is no shaded ground. There is only dappled ground beneath a tree and undappled soil elsewhere. Standing beneath a eucalyptus I find no shade to shield my eyes and no coolness from blockage of the sun’s heat. For miles and days there is no color, no contrast, no shade and there is no sound. When the wind is still, I can walk for an hour through eucalyptus woodlands in the Kimberley and hear nothing.
When I do find contrast, it is harsh and the color is unpleasing. Sometimes a dirty black covers the ground and the forest looks violated. It is the ash of burnt grasses and twigs. For 40,000 years, since man arrived in Australia, he has set the land afire every few years. Fire has always been a part of this dry land. For millennia lightening ignited the grasses in a natural cycle of regeneration. Eucalypts and the native animals evolved to deal with fire and are generally not harmed by it. But man speeded up the cycle by setting frequent, sometimes annual, fires to the grasses and undergrowth. Aborigines set fires to speed the growth of new grasses in the wet season to attract kangaroos for hunting. Modern ranchers burn to bring green grass for cattle. Even national parks are burned here. Scientists say that since the land has been burned so often for 40,000 years, the native plants have evolved to adjust to it and now require that frequent burnings continue—so man must give a helping hand. There may be wisdom in this; I do not know. I only know that mile after mile of blackened ground in a sere forest removes any sense of wildness from the wilderness especially when it is man-caused.
I am a lover of wilderness and solitude, yet this land is hard for me to love. It is hard to feel wilderness when I can’t feel anything alive. And the quiet that should connote solitude feels more like emptiness. It takes days for this land to grow on me. Then rather than grows, it seeps onto me like the dust that penetrates everything.
As usual it is the pursuit of new birds that gets me in touch with a strange land. Yes, I’ve walked through the dry forest for more than an hour without hearing a sound, yet I can’t quit. I have bird books that tell me there are jewels out here somewhere if I can just locate them, so I keep walking and looking.
Far away from the road there is no dust except what I scuff up by walking. I can breathe clean air again. A movement through the brush reveals a dingo, the wild dog that arrived in Australia with the first Aborigines. If the dingo is here—if there is a predator about—then there must be game for a predator to eat. There is life in this forest after all.
A bird calls! It sounds like a bell. That must be a Crested Bellbird, one of the birds I want to see. Finding this bird by following its call may be a challenge. Bellbirds are noted ventriloquists.
Finding the bellbird breaks the illusion of a dead withered ghostly land. There are birds here; they’re just not numerous or closely spaced. I’ll just have to keep looking. For the next several days I alternate between driving through dusty road corridors that appear lifeless and hiking off the road and finding small quantities of unusual and special birds.
Tiny finches only four inches long destroy my illusion of a land with no color. Star Finches have bright red faces and white stars sprinkled on green breasts. Long-tailed Finches have a bright blue head and dark black throat. The Chestnut-breasted Munia, smaller than most finches, has black, white, chestnut, golden-brown and gray all on the same body. But the showstopper is the Gouldian Finch. It’s a six-inch, grass-green bird with a black face, lilac breast, lemon-yellow belly, cobalt-blue rump, an ivory bill with a red tip, and a long black tail drawn out into fine, thin wisps.
There are larger birds in the open woodlands too, once I start looking beyond my original misjudgment of the land. The Bush Thick-knee, a foot high and almost two feet long, hunts insects, lizards, toads, and small rodents at night. Like most nocturnal birds, it has large eyes that seem penetrating. I see them occasionally by day but more often by night in the headlights. In the middle of the night I can hear their eerie mournful whistle “wee-loo, wee-loo” in the distance. The call starts off low-pitched and slow. It rises in both tone and speed and then descends again. It ends with a sharp “wee-wiff, wee-wiff, wee-wee”
Larger still is the Australian Bustard (check the spelling!) a bird over three feet tall that slowly walks in open forests and grasslands with a dignified air, head and bill tipped upwards slightly. If I get too close, they walk away slowly as if trying to sneak away in plain sight. But if pressed, they run or fly heavily away on six-foot wings. In the northern Kimberley I find an owl that barks like a dog; cranes that dance for their mating ritual; a hot-pink parrot called a Galah; lorikeets and parrots that zip past with flashes of green and red; and flocks of budgies, the wild ancestors of the parakeets sold in American pet stores.
If I had not been intent on finding new birds, I probably would have stayed in the dusty vehicle and driven on by and missed the whole show. That’s why I am a birder; it makes me get out of the car and into the wilderness. And once I’m out, it’s not just birds that cross my path. Did I tell you about the four-foot long monitor lizards, called goannas? Or the lizards that can “fly” from one tree to another just like the giant flying squirrels in Sumatra?
If I had not been intent on finding new birds, I probably would have stayed in the dusty vehicle and driven on by and missed the whole show. That’s why I am a birder; it makes me get out of the car and into the wilderness. And once I’m out, it’s not just birds that cross my path. Did I tell you about the four-foot long monitor lizards, called goannas? Or the lizards that can “fly” from one tree to another just like the giant flying squirrels in Sumatra?
Some experiences I keep to myself. There is not point in worrying Shirley about the water python I found at a billabong while out hiking by myself or the death adder hiding in the leaves looking like a twig. But she does see the king brown, one of the most venomous snakes in the world. Brave Shirley even has a picture to prove it.
Obviously the Kimberley is not all parched land in September. There are billabongs that still hold water and isolated permanent streams with tall stream-side trees and pandanas growing at the stream edges. Here we look for Purple-crowned Fairy-Wrens and let our eyes rest on bright green-colored plants. A few billabongs have blooming water lilies that tempt the photographer in Shirley and jacanas that get my attention. At stream crossings we can dip our dusty toes into cool water in the middle of the day.
At each crossing the Land Rover must ford the shallow streams. In all of the Kimberley there are no bridges. In the wet season any bridge would wash out when all streams fill their banks and overflow into the surrounding forests. Along some streams we see flood debris twenty feet up in the tree branches.
In the northern Kimberley we descend off of the Mitchell Plateau (pla-TOE in American English; PLAT-oe in Aussie talk) and drop to only a few hundred feet above sea level. Here, when we walk down to a stream with inviting swimming holes, George gives us new survival rules: No swimming. No wading. No putting your hands in the water. No going into the brush along the stream bank where you can’t see ahead of you. These lowland streams are the home of the dangerous Australian saltwater crocodile. There is no saltwater here but salties come upstream more than a hundred miles from the ocean. In fact, the only streams that are safe from salties are those far enough inland that an intervening waterfall prevents the crocks from going further upstream. People and even horses and cows have been caught and eaten by crocodiles. Once again we are not at the top of the food chain.
This great wilderness of the Kimberley is truly amazing. What had first seemed a dry, lifeless place is full of life. I just have to search a little harder here to find it. I’m told that this land has over 60 species of mammals, 120 reptiles, 280 birds, 50 freshwater fishes, 10,000 insects, 25 frogs, 1,300 plants—and some very hardy individuals who can herd cattle all day and drink beer all night. I still remember their distant off key singing mixed in with “wee-loo, wee-loo, wee-loo, wee-loo, wee-wiff, wee-wiff, wee-wee.”
Once again we have gone to a remote corner of the world to look for new birds. We certainly do find birds but also snakes, frogs, crocodiles, mammals and water lilies. There are also kangaroos and wallabies and something in between called a wallaroo. But the most fun is the people we meet. The people of the remote cattle stations in the Kimberley all have stories to tell and we love to listen. Things may be isolated at the stations but life is never dull. The ranger loves the great homemade pies too!
September 7 Ansett Australia #377 Broome to Perth, Western Australia
Perth may have the most beautiful cityscape in the world with the Swan River in the foreground and the superbly planned downtown in the back. The city is noted for all of its green spaces. Birding is good even in the city with parrots and cockatoos flying overhead.
Perth is our first chance for civilized shopping since leaving St. Louis five weeks ago. It is time for toothpaste again. When one travels light, only the smallest tube will do. For the ranger there is even more serious shopping to be done. The hiking boots have given out.
Once again we have gone to a remote corner of the world to look for new birds. We certainly do find birds but also snakes, frogs, crocodiles, mammals and water lilies. There are also kangaroos and wallabies and something in between called a wallaroo. But the most fun is the people we meet. The people of the remote cattle stations in the Kimberley all have stories to tell and we love to listen. Things may be isolated at the stations but life is never dull. The ranger loves the great homemade pies too!
September 7 Ansett Australia #377 Broome to Perth, Western Australia
Perth may have the most beautiful cityscape in the world with the Swan River in the foreground and the superbly planned downtown in the back. The city is noted for all of its green spaces. Birding is good even in the city with parrots and cockatoos flying overhead.
Perth is our first chance for civilized shopping since leaving St. Louis five weeks ago. It is time for toothpaste again. When one travels light, only the smallest tube will do. For the ranger there is even more serious shopping to be done. The hiking boots have given out.
At first there was only a little crack in the rubber over the toes in Borneo. Then a little flap, flap, flap in Sumatra that could be fixed with the same super glue Ms. Shirley used on a broken fingernail. But mud, rain, slogging and bogging, and the rocks of the Kimberley took their toll. Repeated super glues could only temporarily slow the steady march towards destruction. The sole of the right boot was coming off millimeter by millimeter, day by day. Finally on the last day in Broome, after ten days in the Kimberley, the ranger was hiking in the mangrove mudflats three miles from the hotel. With a giant sucking sound the sooper-dooper, heavy-duty mud grabbed the sole and ripped it free from the boot halfway back to the heel. Like a poor wounded soul, the sole hung limply at half-staff.
Exiting the mud with limited grace, the ranger had a three-mile walk back to the only other shoes he possessed. To walk normally meant stepping down on a boot with the sole bent backwards creating a bulge under the arch of the foot that was hard to walk on. The ranger figured out that if he did a little flip of the foot just before stepping on the right foot, the limp flap of sole would fly out straight and he could step down on a flat sole. Of course, when he flipped the flap, it came up with a slap. Every step of the right foot was a SLAP! The left boot was still fine so when the ranger started out on the left foot, the cadence was step, flip, SLAP! step, flip, SLAP! For three miles—step, flip, SLAP!—right through town. This certainly generated plenty of stares from passersby. An hour later at the hotel the boots were worn out and the ranger was done in.
Hiking boots are to a ranger what a horse is to a cowboy, his most important thing in life—next to his favorite girl of course. One day after putting the mortally wounded boots to permanent rest at the edge of the wilderness, Ms. Shirley and the ranger are now in Perth, the third largest city in Australia, and on the hunt to restore the ranger’s manhood with a new pair of hiking boots. With shopping perseverance, wonderful luck and Australia’s healthy worldwide trading relationships an American finds perfect Italian boots in an Australian city. The ranger is reshod. Let the adventures begin again.
To the east of Perth (there is nothing west of here except Africa) are large areas of sheep and wheat—miles and miles of wheat. I have never seen wheat fields this large and I grew up in Kansas, the Wheat State. There are miles between farmhouses. On trips out of town Shirley, the photographer, is quick to snap picturesque historic towns and unusual rock formations. She is fascinated by Wave Rock, a locally famous sandstone formation that looks like a petrified ocean wave thirty feet high and a hundred yards long.
To the south of Perth is wine country, some of the most beautiful country we’ve seen all year. Among the many vineyards are pastures with sheep grazing with kangaroos. An Emu in one paddock adds to the birdlist. This Australian equivalent of the Ostrich is almost as tall as I am.
To the east of Perth (there is nothing west of here except Africa) are large areas of sheep and wheat—miles and miles of wheat. I have never seen wheat fields this large and I grew up in Kansas, the Wheat State. There are miles between farmhouses. On trips out of town Shirley, the photographer, is quick to snap picturesque historic towns and unusual rock formations. She is fascinated by Wave Rock, a locally famous sandstone formation that looks like a petrified ocean wave thirty feet high and a hundred yards long.
To the south of Perth is wine country, some of the most beautiful country we’ve seen all year. Among the many vineyards are pastures with sheep grazing with kangaroos. An Emu in one paddock adds to the birdlist. This Australian equivalent of the Ostrich is almost as tall as I am.
One morning a storm comes in and we experience our first rainy day in quite a while. The wind is strong but luckily we are in a scenic area and can find a quiet country road to motor slowly and enjoy the countryside in the rain. Once when the rain quiets for a while, there is a chance to stop at a lighthouse where Cape Leeuwin separates the Indian Ocean from the Southern Ocean. The wind-driven waves are gigantic and explode on the rocks in huge sheets of spray. The salt water turns to foam; its energy spent. Then the water is sucked out to sea in time for the next wave to explode in again. There is something wonderful about a storm on the ocean. At least it is wonderful if the ranger is on land at the time. He doesn’t do oceans well even in the best of weather.
At Cape Naturaliste the ranger can hardly stand upright in the wind. He dodges from one boulder to another to work his way to the edge of the sea cliff. Here he finds a site and a sight to gladden his birder’s heart. At a stony point he hides behind rocks to escape the storm and watch the ocean immediately below him. The near gale blows directly towards shore and brings seabirds in close. From his hideout he watches Black-browed Albatrosses, Antarctic Giant Petrels, White-chinned Petrels and Red-tailed Tropicbirds all soaring within binocular range. He doesn’t need a spotting scope and couldn’t use one anyway because of the storm. It is the kind of place a birder dreams of and wishes he could stay for hours to enjoy these seabirds that seldom come close to land. In reality, the ranger can barely last ten minutes before he is thoroughly chilled by the rain and his binoculars are rendered opaque by the wind-blown salt spray.
The ranger knows the best way to warm up. The end of the stormy day brings a candle-lit dinner with a warm fireplace, glasses of Australian wine and his beautiful bride. Yeah, the ranger likes retirement. It has its moments.
Only a half hour’s drive from Perth is Freemantle, the premier port in western Australia. Americans know the town best as the site of the America’s Cup yacht race in 1987. At the harbor we book passage out to Rottnest Island, the home of quokkas, small wallabies that the early Dutch explorers mistook for rats, hence the name Rottnest (Rat’s Nest in Dutch). The island should be great for hiking, swimming, finding birds and enjoying the sun.
While sitting on the breakwater waiting for the boat’s departure, the ranger suddenly sees the one bird he has been looking for the whole year. Seemingly from out of nowhere, a pair of large white seabirds zips past and begins to dive for fish. These huge birds are beautiful. The ranger has been looking for #2,000 and here it is. Number 2,000 in the year 2000 is an Australian Gannet, a large bird related to the boobies of the tropical oceans. It is September 11, 2000, and the millennial goal is officially reached at 7:27 a.m. for those who count such things. Now Ms. Shirley wants to know if the game is over.
“No, I think the rules say that one keeps going until the year 2000 is over.”
“What rules? I didn’t know there were rules about such things,” says the practical one.
“You want to see rules? Wait a minute. I’ll make some up.”
In the next three days another 22 species are added to the year’s list including two more kinds of parrots, two new ducks and several colorful tiny birds called fairy-wrens. The game goes on!
For 2,000 in 2000 a celebration is certainly called for. Remember the warm fireplace and the glasses of Australian wine? Yeah, birding has its moments too.
There are many things to like about Australia. It is Shirley’s favorite country. Here are some of the things that impress us:
All the people we meet are warm, friendly and helpful. It is a real pleasure traveling here. The roads are good and it is easy to drive providing one can drive on the “wrong” side of the road.
If you put a sign on your mailbox that says no junk mail, the post office will not deliver any junk mail to you. Wouldn’t that be great?
Australia has no one cent coin; the smallest is five cents. Grocery prices, etc., are figured to the exact penny and then the total is rounded off to the nearest five cents. No one has to mess with pennies and the government saves money by not minting one-cent coins. I wish the United States would adopt this. The coins here are 5, 10, 20 and 50 cents as well as $1 and $2. Coins are different sizes, shapes, colors and thickness so there is no confusion. I have to get accustomed to a 20-cent piece instead of a quarter. “Paper” money is not made out of paper. It is a flexible plastic no thicker than American money. Plastic lasts longer and is harder to counterfeit. There is no $1 bill. The smallest is $5. One and two dollar coins are used in place of small bills.
I always get a smile whenever I open my mouth and talk to an Australian. The Aussies think Americans talk funny. I’m convinced it’s the other way around.
Speed limit signs mean what they say. At least here in Western Australia if a road sign in the city says 60 kph, everyone drives 60 kph. Out in the country if the sign says 110 kph, that’s what people drive. There is no driving five or ten kilometers over the limit as in the United States. Frequent use of radar, speed cameras and strict penalties curbed (kerbed in Aussie talk) the fast drivers. The legal alcohol limit for driving is 0.5% not the 0.8% in the U.S.
September 15 Qantas Airways #922 Perth to Ayers Rock, Northern Territory
One cannot visit Australia without going to Uluru (oo-LOO-roo) the largest monolith in the world. Mono = one; lith = rock. In other words this is the largest single rock on the planet. This huge sandstone mass, or at least the part that sticks out of the ground, is over two miles long and more than 1,000 feet high. It is six miles in circumference at ground level and yet the visible part is much smaller than what is underground. Uluru really is just one rock. There are no cracks or fissures that divide it. Uluru was formally called Ayers Rock until the name was changed back to the Aboriginal name. The same thing happened in the United States when Mt. McKinley National Park in Alaska was changed to Denali.
September 15 Qantas Airways #922 Perth to Ayers Rock, Northern Territory
One cannot visit Australia without going to Uluru (oo-LOO-roo) the largest monolith in the world. Mono = one; lith = rock. In other words this is the largest single rock on the planet. This huge sandstone mass, or at least the part that sticks out of the ground, is over two miles long and more than 1,000 feet high. It is six miles in circumference at ground level and yet the visible part is much smaller than what is underground. Uluru really is just one rock. There are no cracks or fissures that divide it. Uluru was formally called Ayers Rock until the name was changed back to the Aboriginal name. The same thing happened in the United States when Mt. McKinley National Park in Alaska was changed to Denali.
Everyone has seen pictures of Uluru with its famous red color. This sandstone rock is red in any light but it is even more red at sunrise and redder yet at sunset. This and the Sydney Opera House are the two most recognizable symbols of Australia. With 2000 being the year for the Summer Olympics to be in Sydney, Australia all the TV coverage makes Uluru the most famous rock in the world.
To the Aborigines Uluru is sacred, the center of the universe. Almost every hole and alcove in the monolith has a name and a sacred purpose. To other Australians Uluru is the red heart of their country. When the Olympic flame was brought from Greece earlier this year, the flame was first brought to Uluru to light the torch that was carried throughout Australia before the Sydney games.
Ms. Shirley and the ranger are in the Northern Territory, an area twice the size of Texas at the center of Australia. All the rest of Australia is divided into six states but the Northern Territory is so sparsely populated that it has not yet reached the status of a state.
Its nickname is the Red Center and with good reason. For hundreds of miles around the land is desert—red sand desert. Yet this is not a desert of nude sand dunes. Many trees, bushes and grasses have adapted to living in a desert with less than twelve inches of rain a year. Some sand dunes do exist here but even these have bushes on them. Ms. Shirley and the ranger spend early mornings hiking the desert watching Uluru change color with the sunrise.
At this point I should probably say that I have had no Australian wine for four days, so alcohol played no part on this particular day. While hiking out among the sand dunes and desert trees, I stumbled upon some unusual round footprints in the sand—footprints the size of dinner plates. This was no desert lizard I told myself. I started to follow the footprints but a colorful bird soon distracted me and the footprints and I went different ways.
Later there was a large sandstone rock among the small trees in an area where there were no rocks, just sand. Suddenly, the rock was moving—and it had a long neck and four legs! It was a camel, a wild camel here in the middle of the Australian desert, thousands of miles from its Arabian home. Birds or no birds, I saw no need to cuddle up to a large sandstone rock with four legs that was much taller than I am. I decided that I should look for birds in a different place.
Later I learned that camels were imported into Australia’s Red Center in the late 1800s for use as transportation and pack animals when this part of the continent had no roads and not enough water for horses or mules. When motor transportation arrived later, the camels were no longer needed and were turned loose. This desert is a camel’s paradise and they do nicely here. There are now over 200,000 camels wandering around the middle of Australia, startling the bejeebers out of unsuspecting birders.
The year 2000 is Australia’s chance to shine on the world’s stage. The Olympics are here and much of the world’s media attention is on Down Under. This is only Australia’s second time to host the games; the first was in Melbourne in 1956. Everywhere we travel in the country, the upcoming Olympics are front-page news as the Olympic torch journeys around the continent.
The year 2000 is Australia’s chance to shine on the world’s stage. The Olympics are here and much of the world’s media attention is on Down Under. This is only Australia’s second time to host the games; the first was in Melbourne in 1956. Everywhere we travel in the country, the upcoming Olympics are front-page news as the Olympic torch journeys around the continent.
When the torch reached Broome, it was so important that all the prisoners in the city jail were permitted to go outside to the street to watch the torch go by. When I asked if they weren’t concerned about a jailbreak, I was told, “No mate, with a thousand kilometers of outback in all directions, where would they go? Besides if anyone tried, they wouldn’t get to watch the Olympics on the telly.”
The Sydney games begin while we are in the Ayers Rock Resort. Big screens are placed outdoors so that visitors and staff can watch the games on television. Pubs are filled with cheering fans.
By this time Ms. Shirley and the ranger are honorary Aussies. Since we have no permanent residence, our home is where our duffle bags are and that’s Down Under. We cheer along with our fellow Aussies. On Australian television we see a very different Olympics than what TV viewers in the United States see. In the U.S. viewers watch primarily the events in which Americans are expected to medal. Here in the Red Center we watch Olympic events that feature Australians. We cheer when Australia beats Argentina in women’s hockey. Americans missed a great game.
The big television treat is watching the opening ceremony. Australia is so proud to host the Olympic games that the network televises all four hours of the opening ceremony without a single commercial interruption. Hooray for the Aussies!
September 18 Qantas Airways #922 Ayers Rock to Cairns, Queensland
September 19 Cape York Air Cairns to Violet Vale Station, Queensland
Now we travel by mail plane. Cape York Air makes two mail stops at cattle stations along the way before dropping us off at Violet Vale Station. It is an “exciting” ride. There is a strong wind blowing and the small airplane bounces frequently, much to the discomfort of the ranger’s stomach. Ms. Shirley is cool as always.
September 18 Qantas Airways #922 Ayers Rock to Cairns, Queensland
September 19 Cape York Air Cairns to Violet Vale Station, Queensland
Now we travel by mail plane. Cape York Air makes two mail stops at cattle stations along the way before dropping us off at Violet Vale Station. It is an “exciting” ride. There is a strong wind blowing and the small airplane bounces frequently, much to the discomfort of the ranger’s stomach. Ms. Shirley is cool as always.
Violet Vale operates Lotus Bird Lodge, a collection of eight cabins on a billabong. Here is great food and an eager naturalist who loves taking birders out in the eucalyptus forests. Our target bird is the Golden-shouldered Parrot but there are plenty of kangaroos and other animals to leaven the daily excursions.
An Australian Brush-Turkey catches Shirley’s attention. This is a large black bird with red bare skin on its head and neck and a bright yellow wattle on the lower neck. It is not related to the American turkey but it does superficially resemble one. The brush-turkey has a most unusual method of incubating its eggs. The male first builds a large mound of decomposing vegetation mixed with sand and dirt. These mounds are quite large, ten to twelve feet in diameter and three to six feet tall, and are made by raking the surrounding ground with powerful feet. The female lays a large clutch of eggs in a depression in the center of the mound and then covers it up. The heat of the sun as well as heat from the decomposing vegetation warms and incubates the eggs over a seven-week period. The male brush-turkey visits the mound several times a day and regulates the temperature by adding or subtracting vegetation on the mound. A male’s work is never done! When the young hatch, they dig themselves out unaided and then live independent of the adults.
A walk to the backside of the billabong finds the bower of a Great Bowerbird. Like many species of birds the male bowerbird will go to great lengths to attract a mate. A male mockingbird sings beautifully all day long. Male grouse dance and prance to attract a female. Hummingbirds fly loop-the-loops to show off for a potential mate. Manakins in the Amazon jungle grow fancy plumages and dance on tree limbs. Some male birds build nests and then invite females to come inspect them but the bowerbird is the greatest architect of all. The male Great Bowerbird doesn’t build a nest; he builds a bower to attract a lady. With grass and twigs he’ll construct on the ground an arched avenue of love, two to three feet long and eighteen inches high. At each end of the bower he’ll adorn the ground with flowers, smooth stones, shiny pieces of glass, small green fruits or red objects that he collects. It all works and he finds a mate who likes what he has done.
An Australian Brush-Turkey catches Shirley’s attention. This is a large black bird with red bare skin on its head and neck and a bright yellow wattle on the lower neck. It is not related to the American turkey but it does superficially resemble one. The brush-turkey has a most unusual method of incubating its eggs. The male first builds a large mound of decomposing vegetation mixed with sand and dirt. These mounds are quite large, ten to twelve feet in diameter and three to six feet tall, and are made by raking the surrounding ground with powerful feet. The female lays a large clutch of eggs in a depression in the center of the mound and then covers it up. The heat of the sun as well as heat from the decomposing vegetation warms and incubates the eggs over a seven-week period. The male brush-turkey visits the mound several times a day and regulates the temperature by adding or subtracting vegetation on the mound. A male’s work is never done! When the young hatch, they dig themselves out unaided and then live independent of the adults.
A walk to the backside of the billabong finds the bower of a Great Bowerbird. Like many species of birds the male bowerbird will go to great lengths to attract a mate. A male mockingbird sings beautifully all day long. Male grouse dance and prance to attract a female. Hummingbirds fly loop-the-loops to show off for a potential mate. Manakins in the Amazon jungle grow fancy plumages and dance on tree limbs. Some male birds build nests and then invite females to come inspect them but the bowerbird is the greatest architect of all. The male Great Bowerbird doesn’t build a nest; he builds a bower to attract a lady. With grass and twigs he’ll construct on the ground an arched avenue of love, two to three feet long and eighteen inches high. At each end of the bower he’ll adorn the ground with flowers, smooth stones, shiny pieces of glass, small green fruits or red objects that he collects. It all works and he finds a mate who likes what he has done.
Silly bird! The ranger would never try to attract a mate with flowers, smooth shiny rocks like diamonds, or red objects like valentines. Not him! Well, at least not the part about the pieces of glass.
September 24 Cape York Air Violet Vale Station to Cairns, Queensland
“Winds 25 kilometers per hour with gusts to 40 kph. Sea swells 1.5 to 2.0 meters high.” This is not a weather forecast to delight the heart of a flatland boy ready for a boat trip out to the Great Barrier Reef. The wind has been blowing strong for two days and yesterday’s snorkelers came back greener than a parrotfish.
September 24 Cape York Air Violet Vale Station to Cairns, Queensland
“Winds 25 kilometers per hour with gusts to 40 kph. Sea swells 1.5 to 2.0 meters high.” This is not a weather forecast to delight the heart of a flatland boy ready for a boat trip out to the Great Barrier Reef. The wind has been blowing strong for two days and yesterday’s snorkelers came back greener than a parrotfish.
Here I am at the dock in Cairns in the northeastern state of Queensland. The wind is blowing fresh. I’ve paid for this trip and this is the only day I can go out because of our schedule. I’m going to do it come hell or high breakfast.
I pick up my swim mask and flippers as I board the catamaran and station myself in the center of the bow looking over the wide deck with people already sunbathing at 8:30 a.m. “Just bring your towel and swimmers and we’ll supply everything else,” says the brochure but I sneak in a pair of binoculars anyway along with my towel. I have no idea what “swimmers” are but I just assume that they are people, your friends, the members of your swim team, so to speak. Being a visitor to Australia, I can’t be expected to have enough friends here to make up a swim team so I don’t worry about bringing my swimmers. Imagine my surprise when I find out that swimmers is Aussie talk for swimming suit! Well, I had already brought my swimming trucks. I never assumed that this was a nude cruise. But maybe I was wrong.
There are about a hundred tourists onboard. I am one of only a few Americans and there are very few Australians. Most passengers are European, probably here as part of their Olympics tour package. As I look around at the almost nude passengers, I can only conclude that there is a great fabric shortage in Europe. Swimsuit fabric is obviously not sold by the yard but by the thread. Some of these poor people can only afford a few threads. But I digress. I am here to look at fish and birds not swimsuits, so I get down to business as the boat leaves the Cairns harbor. The wind is now so fresh that it slaps me in the face.
We leave the protection of the bay and the waves pick up. The boat begins to do wonderful gyrations—the two ends of the boat go in opposite directions. One end goes up and the other goes down and then they reverse. I am on a bucking bronco that would be a $10 ride at the amusement park. Within five minutes I am almost the only one left on the front deck. All of the swimmers with their skimpy swimmers have fled inside to escape the waves that are splashing over the sides and over most of the deck. These mere snorkelers don’t know what the average sea birder knows. Sometimes the driest part of the front deck is the center of the bow. There I am, feet firmly planted and leaning forward in a Titanic pose. “Come on albatrosses! Come on shearwaters! Come forth into my binoculars and be counted!”
For two hours not a single bird appears but after a while the wind lessens and lessens and lessens and the waves grow smaller and smaller and smaller. Soon we are sailing on a bathtub sea and the huge sails on our catamaran fluff in a gentle breeze. Sometimes I just love it when the weatherman gets it wrong. Today is one of those days. So with bright blue skies, a blazing sun and gentle waves we slip into anchorage at Michelmas Cay.
A cay is the same thing we call a key in the United States, as in the Florida Keys. Michelmas Cay is a small sand island perhaps 200 yards long and sixty wide rising no more than two yards above the surf. It is made entirely of sand with a strip of foot-high grass occupying the middle third of its width. The snorkelers use a roped off beach that is perhaps 20% of the cay. All the rest is preserved for the birds and off limits to people. But of course we can look over the rope and there are even birds sitting on the rope. Just to say birds doesn’t convey the picture of twenty thousand birds, each the size of a pigeon or larger, sitting on and flying over this tiny island. The noise from the cloud of birds can be heard a half mile away.
There are thousands of Sooty Terns, hundreds of Brown Noddies, a couple hundred Great Crested Terns and Lesser Crested Terns, a couple dozen Bridled Terns, several dozen Silver Gulls, two Black Noddies, a Black-naped Tern and a Common Tern all yelling at the same time. Also present but silent are a dozen Brown Boobies, a Masked Booby, three Great Frigatebirds and a dozen Ruddy Turnstones. I spend a wonderful hour on the small people beach watching all the commotion on the larger bird beach and watching the clouds of birds overhead.
Then putting birds aside, I’m off into the water for fish watching. With swim mask, snorkel and flippers in place I enter into a new world under the ocean. The Great Barrier Reef, off the northeast coast of Australia, is by far the largest coral reef in the world. Just seeing all the different shapes and colors of coral is a treat in itself but oh, those fish. I’m a birder not a fisher, so I don’t know the names of all the fish. I can only say that there are green ones and bright yellow ones and even brighter blue ones. There are purple ones with yellow stripes and green ones with red dots. Almost any color or color combination one can imagine is represented somewhere in these fishes. Some are bigger than a football and some only the size of my thumb. Some are fat and almost round. Others are a foot long and not as big around as my index finger. I swim around the coral watching a whole different world just a few feet from my face. After three hours I am still finding new discoveries. Did I mention the bright purple starfish? Or the giant clams? There is something eerie about looking down into the open shell of a clam that is larger than I am.
I spend two hours snorkeling and finding something new every minute and still I don’t have a full picture of the diversity here. Back on the boat I read the national park brochure and find some eye-opening numbers. The Great Barrier Reef is actually 2,900 reefs all very close together over a 1,250-mile length. I can’t learn the names of all the fishes because there are more than 1,500 species of fish here, along with 400 types of corral, 4,000 species of mollusks like the giant clam, 500 species of seaweed, 200 kinds of birds, 16 species of sea snakes and 6 types of sea turtles. Wow!
All too soon it is time to return to Cairns. Finding Hutton’s Shearwater, a life bird flying along the bow of the boat, makes the return trip interesting. As we near shore, the wind and the waves pick up to the point that I am glad to finally reach the harbor. It turns out that the weatherman was right after all. Cairns had a very windy day but the winds stayed on the coast and did not extend out to sea. Even though the weatherman turns out to be right, I am glad that I didn’t listen to him. The moral is sometimes you get the best information that you can and then you just ignore it and go for it come hell or high breakfast.
While the ranger is off bouncing his breakfast on a catamaran, Ms. Shirley is in town for some serious girl shopping. This is not just window shopping or curious tourist shopping where one wanders through stores to see what’s available. This is down and dirty serious shopping with a plan and a goal.
For six months Ms. Shirley has worn khaki—khaki shirts and khaki hiking pants, even a khaki hat. The only variety in her wardrobe is a dark green shirt and a middle green rainsuit. For hiking and birding in the forests muted tans and greens are the color of preference to blend in. But now, most of the forest birding is behind us and enough is ENOUGH! Ms. Shirley is going to find color.
The ranger may count up life birds for the day but Ms. Shirley’s trophies are more tangible. A pink top, white shorts and feminine sandals are now part of her traveling wardrobe. There will be no more of always looking like a brown tree in winter. At the end of the trip, if not before, there will be a ceremonial burning of the khaki.
One look at the new look and the ranger is most pleased. Even he would have to admit that khaki is not a particularly sexy color.
In Australia people take the threat of skin cancer very seriously. The hole in the ozone layer is large here in the southern hemisphere. In the state of Queensland there is a law that all school children must wear a hat whenever they are outside on a school activity, be it recess or a school trip. So wherever we see school children, we see colorful hats on all the children and teachers. Even away from school, mothers are now putting hats on their children when they are outside—and not just baseball caps but real hats with a brim all the way around.
Throughout Australia it feels like we are living in a zoo. We find strange animals wherever we go. Tonight there is a sugar glider on our cabin’s balcony. This is an eight-inch marsupial that glides through the trees like a flying squirrel. At dusk we watched a duck-billed platypus feeding in the small stream just below our cabin. Earlier in the evening there were several red-legged pademelons in the meadow. These terrier-sized animals look like miniature kangaroos. One had a baby in her pouch with its head sticking out as the mother was feeding. This afternoon we were admiring a particularly large fig tree when we spotted a tree kangaroo on a branch twenty-five feet off the ground. Yes, it is a real kangaroo and yes, it does climb trees.
There are rabbits here that look familiar because they are introduced into Australia from Europe. Other small animals are not so familiar to us but they are all marsupials of some sort. A few days ago farther north in Queensland we saw dozens of wallabies every day. Here a seven-foot black-headed python in our walking path is a treat to see.
My favorite Australian bird is the Southern Cassowary, a large flightless bird that stands almost six feet tall. It has primitive black feathers that look more like fur than feathers. The bare head and long neck are bright blue bare skin with a bright red waddle. The back of the neck is also red. A tall bony crest tops the large head and looks like a helmet. The male hatches the eggs alone and shepherds the chicks for a year or more unaided by the female.
While we visit a home in Mission Beach, a big male cassowary and three chicks wander into the backyard from the forest, searching for table scraps. The young are the size of full-grown chickens and are striped brown and white. Although wild, these cassowaries are accustomed to people so I able to walk up to the big male. Up close and personal I am very much aware of his big feet, as large as my spread hand. Each foot has three toes and the toenail on the inner one is a five-inch spike used as a weapon. When attacking, the cassowary kicks forward with both feet and those long spikes will slice open a person or animal. I am certainly within this male’s striking distance but I try not to frighten him or play footsie. It is a surreal experience to be talking to a bird as tall as I am.
This is our third rainforest this year—South America, Southeast Asia and now Australia. Each rainforest is a special place full of wondrous animals and plants. Nowhere is the diversity of life so evident as here in the tropical heart of the planet. We must do everything we can to save these green treasures.
October 1 Qantas Airways #647 Cairns to Melbourne, Victoria
Where are we now? From Cairns (pronounced Cans) in Queensland in the far northeast we flew three hours to Melbourne in the southeastern corner of the country. Melbourne is Australia’s second largest city and the capital of Victoria. Here we rent a car and plan to drive on the “wrong” side of the road for two weeks in a big loop 500 miles to the west as far as Adelaide, the capital of the state of South Australia. By now I have the hang of right-hand steering. The windshield wipers no longer come on with every turn.
Ballarat, Victoria, seventy miles northwest of Melbourne, was the center of the goldfields of Australia. Two years after gold was discovered in California, gold was found here in Australia in 1851. Just like California, people rushed in from all over the world to find their fortune. In the first year fifty thousand came from England alone. Large numbers also arrived from China and Ireland.
October 1 Qantas Airways #647 Cairns to Melbourne, Victoria
Where are we now? From Cairns (pronounced Cans) in Queensland in the far northeast we flew three hours to Melbourne in the southeastern corner of the country. Melbourne is Australia’s second largest city and the capital of Victoria. Here we rent a car and plan to drive on the “wrong” side of the road for two weeks in a big loop 500 miles to the west as far as Adelaide, the capital of the state of South Australia. By now I have the hang of right-hand steering. The windshield wipers no longer come on with every turn.
Ballarat, Victoria, seventy miles northwest of Melbourne, was the center of the goldfields of Australia. Two years after gold was discovered in California, gold was found here in Australia in 1851. Just like California, people rushed in from all over the world to find their fortune. In the first year fifty thousand came from England alone. Large numbers also arrived from China and Ireland.
For a little while finding gold was easy as men picked out the gold nuggets in the streams by panning. One famous bucket of river gravel had over forty pounds of nuggets. When the easy gold was all found, men dug down 30 – 100 yards underground to find old buried riverbeds that had gold nuggets in them. Later yet, they worked the source of the gold by digging deep mines that followed veins of quartz that contained gold ore. A few miners made money but in general it was the merchants and suppliers who pocketed the gold money in the long run. It was the same story around the world wherever there were gold rushes.
Some miners did strike it rich of course. The museum at Ballarat has a replica of a gold nugget that was found in a mine working one of the buried riverbeds. This one nugget weighed over 160 pounds. It would be worth millions of dollars today and this was only the second largest nugget found at Ballarat.
Sovereign Hill is a replica gold mining village at Ballarat. Here the ranger appreciates the well done educational program with costumed townspeople, lots of old stores, a chance to go into a gold mine and plenty of still-operable machinery in the stamping mill where rocks are crushed to release the gold ore. There is a place to try gold panning and of course the ranger has to try. But the only thing he finds in his pan of sand and gravel—is sand and gravel. He is quick to see that this is going to pay off even less than the stock market.
When he gets to Arizona the ranger hopes to try his hand at gold panning for real in the mountains near his new home. However, he’d better be a realist. He read in the museum that all the gold that has ever been found in the whole world would fit in a single cube nineteen yards on a side.
A fascinating demonstration is the melting down of pure gold and pouring it into an ingot about as long as the ranger’s hand, three fingers wide and about two fingers high. This inconsequential-looking metal bar is worth $50,000.00 Australian or $30,000.00 U.S.
Gold is nice but the ranger’s favorite demonstration is at the confectionary where he watches the candy maker cook lollies—hard candies. Since these are red ones, he has to buy some for today’s travels. The ranger learned long ago that red is always the best flavor. Whether it is candy, Jell-O, or jelly, one just cannot go wrong with red. So with their sack of raspberry lollies, the ranger and Ms. Shirley hit the road and put the gold pan aside. All the gold is long gone from Ballarat anyway.
Most of Australia is relatively flat. Not tabletop flat like Delaware or Illinois but in reality much more horizontal than vertical. I am a lover of mountains myself so it is a relief when I find some relief—to make a bad pun. The Grampians are the first real mountains we’ve seen in Australia. Here we enjoy rocks, cliffs, steep inclines, waterfalls, big trees and wonderful forest hikes to fantastic overlooks. Grampians National Park is a great place to spend three days. We dodge rain showers here and there but that is part of the fun. We have not seen much rain this year except in Ecuador and Sumatra.
On the internet Shirley found a bed and breakfast owned by Royce and Jeanne who are retired schoolteachers. They bought seven acres on the border of the national park 28 years ago when their land was just a pasture with two big gum trees on it. At the time they were living in Melbourne, three hours away. Driving up every weekend with their three children they built the house themselves. The oldest child was under six when they started. As they built they also planted—huge gardens and lots of the trees. Jeanne and Royce are native plant enthusiasts and they ended up planting over a thousand species of Australian shrubs, trees and flowers on their seven acres.
Now 28 years later we get the benefit because October is spring in the land down under and all of the bushes and flowers are blooming. It is a treat to walk and look for birds around the garden. The ranger finds seven varieties of parrots and cockatoos just within the yard. An eight-foot fence surrounds the property to keep out kangaroos that would love to eat the flowers. One morning before breakfast the ranger counts 68 kangaroos in the neighboring pasture. Emus by twos and fours and sixes are nearby.
Now 28 years later we get the benefit because October is spring in the land down under and all of the bushes and flowers are blooming. It is a treat to walk and look for birds around the garden. The ranger finds seven varieties of parrots and cockatoos just within the yard. An eight-foot fence surrounds the property to keep out kangaroos that would love to eat the flowers. One morning before breakfast the ranger counts 68 kangaroos in the neighboring pasture. Emus by twos and fours and sixes are nearby.
This part of Victoria has numerous sheep pastures. Since it is springtime, all the pastures are luxurious shades of green and full of flowers. Our favorite is a yellow one called Cape Flower. Many fields are carpets of these flowers, golden yellow and plush. The gold may be gone from Ballarat but it is still here in The Grampians and it is scattered all over the pastures! Here King Midas would feel at home.
Our newest form of transportation is a ferryboat as we sail out to Kangaroo Island in the Southern Ocean just off the coast of South Australia near Adelaide. This is a good-sized island, eighty miles long and thirty wide with its own species of kangaroo. These large kangaroos are plentiful during the late afternoon when we arrive on the island but when it turns dark smaller kangaroos called wallabies become more common. While driving in the dark to our lodging we come to an area where many bushy-tailed possums are crossing the road. This is only one of several species of possums that we’ve seen in Australia and each seems so much prettier than the opossums in America.
Early one morning a dirt road with colonnades of eucalyptus leads us to koala bears. There must be more than twenty in the length of a city block. Several are mothers with young in their arms looking like teddy bears holding smaller teddy bears.
Early one morning a dirt road with colonnades of eucalyptus leads us to koala bears. There must be more than twenty in the length of a city block. Several are mothers with young in their arms looking like teddy bears holding smaller teddy bears.
Koalas are not really bears; they are marsupials just like the possums and kangaroos. They have a limited diet, eating only the leaves of a few varieties of eucalyptus. They never drink but get all their moisture needs from leaves. Koalas live an arboreal life and seldom come to ground except to change trees. Often they can move from one tree to the next without coming down. Because eucalyptus leaves are a low energy food, koalas sleep nineteen hours a day and spend the rest of the day eating.
The most common view of a koala in the wild is that of a sleeping teddy bear. Koalas wedge their bottoms into a fork of a tree and sleep sitting up without holding on. They eat the same way, wedged into a fork. They reach out with their arms and bring small branches to their mouth where they nibble the leaves and tender end shoots.
Since koalas sleep so much, we never expected to see one awake. Imagine our pleasure at finding six feeding and moving around. It is fun to watch as they carefully bring in branches to nibble on. Some are climbing trees to get to new branches and one mother with her baby on board crosses the road in front of us. It is interesting to see the mothers climb around on the trees. Somehow the babies know, either by instinct or by uttered command that we cannot hear, when to ride on the mother’s back and when to ride on her chest to avoid becoming entangled in a branch as the mother moves around.
Kangaroo Island has lighthouses with the requisite crashing waves on the rocks below. Once more I can enjoy albatrosses from shore. While we watch, hundreds of Short-tailed Shearwaters are flying past the cape, migrating to nesting grounds farther east on the coast. These seabirds spend the Australian winter as far north as Alaska.
Since koalas sleep so much, we never expected to see one awake. Imagine our pleasure at finding six feeding and moving around. It is fun to watch as they carefully bring in branches to nibble on. Some are climbing trees to get to new branches and one mother with her baby on board crosses the road in front of us. It is interesting to see the mothers climb around on the trees. Somehow the babies know, either by instinct or by uttered command that we cannot hear, when to ride on the mother’s back and when to ride on her chest to avoid becoming entangled in a branch as the mother moves around.
Kangaroo Island has lighthouses with the requisite crashing waves on the rocks below. Once more I can enjoy albatrosses from shore. While we watch, hundreds of Short-tailed Shearwaters are flying past the cape, migrating to nesting grounds farther east on the coast. These seabirds spend the Australian winter as far north as Alaska.
At night we journey down a quiet dirt road at dusk and park next to the sea to wait for some special island residents. At 8:00, long after dark, they came marching out of the sea and across our road on the way to burrows on the hill slope beyond. These are Little Blue Penguins, the smallest of all the world’s penguins. They stand barely twelve inches high. Rather than black and white, these are a soft blue and white. It is fun to watch these fairies with our flashlights as they waddle across the land in their special penguin walk. The parade comes out of the sea for nearly half an hour and then heads up the slope to nearby burrows. We’ve had a special treat; now it’s time to bid them good night.
On another day in South Australia we visit a nesting colony of Australian Gannets, the same birds that became number 2000 a month earlier. These large white seabirds are the size of a goose. They nest on the ground by the thousands, so close together that the edges of their nests almost touch one another.
While walking out to the nesting ground we find another surprise, an echidna crossing the trail in front of us. The echidna is sometimes called by its other name, the spiny anteater, but the echidna is not related to other anteaters in the world, even though it does eat ants and termites. Most people know about the duck-billed platypus, the mammal that lays eggs instead of giving birth to live young. The echidna is the only other mammal in the world that also lays eggs.
The echidna in the trail in front of us feels that our presence on the trail is a threat so he waddles over to a thick bush and huddles up against it with only his spine-covered back facing us. He is well protected, a bit like a porcupine.
Everywhere we go in Australia we find more strange and wonderful animals. It feels like we are in the middle of a continent-wide zoo.
Shirley takes a bath. It is her first one in over four months. No, this is not a comment on her personal cleanliness but this is truly her first bath since South Africa in early June. During all these months there were hot showers in hotels and cattle stations. There were cold showers in places too numerous to mention. There were showers from the holes in the bottom of a suspended bucket at a tent camp in the Australian bush. There were showers by pouring a pan of water over her head. And there were a few unforgettable nights with no shower or water available. But through it all there was not one bath in over four months. Tonight’s the night.
Not just any bath, you understand. There is a candle beside the tub. It gives soft light and heats a dish of lavender-water which fills the room with a delicate scent. After four months a bath should be slow and hot and long lasting with just the right oils for a feminine skin. Afterwards, a dressing gown is just the thing for enjoying the sitting room with a fire in the fireplace and more candles on the mantle. As I write by the light of a corner lamp, Ms. Shirley is curled up on the couch with a warm comforter over her feet watching the fire and enjoying her book. I am enjoying watching her.
We are staying in an 1895 Victorian house and have a suite of rooms on the second level, which is really the main floor. We are up on a hill overlooking the small town of Lorne, Victoria, and overlooking the ocean. It is one of those storybook houses with plaster-mold ceilings around the chandeliers and ceilings at least thirteen feet high. Yes, there’s a fireplace with fresh flowers on the mantle. There are three-foot wide window seats with cushions for watching the sea. There are antiques everywhere and the bed is the size of a baseball diamond with comforters piled up high. This is a delightful B&B owned by an interior decorator. Yes, this the perfect place for a leisurely bath and lounging in front of the fire.
I like the picture in front of me—and here you thought that I only looked at birds. All is right with the world.
October 15 Qantas Airways #405 Melbourne to Hobart, Tasmania
Fresh out of the airplane we are grabbing coats. October is springtime in Australia but this far south it is chilly. An Avis rental car awaits us at the airport. Surprise, it’s a white Toyota Camry. We have rented from Avis in five different cities in Australia and each time it’s the same white Toyota Camry. At least we know where all the knobs and switches are.
October 15 Qantas Airways #405 Melbourne to Hobart, Tasmania
Fresh out of the airplane we are grabbing coats. October is springtime in Australia but this far south it is chilly. An Avis rental car awaits us at the airport. Surprise, it’s a white Toyota Camry. We have rented from Avis in five different cities in Australia and each time it’s the same white Toyota Camry. At least we know where all the knobs and switches are.
A short ferry ride takes us to Bruny Island. At fifty miles long, it is the fourth largest of Tasmania’s offshore islands. Tasmania is itself an island. On the map it is that large tear-shaped island at the lower right hand corner of Australia. Tasmania is the name of both the large island and the state in Australia that includes the large island and a number of smaller islands.
Bruny is beautiful with rugged coasts and crashing waves. Three-fourths of the island is still forested and there are areas of temperate rainforest with fifteen-foot high ferns. Mountains in the center of the island stand over 1,700 feet tall while numerous bays and inlets indent the coastline. Some of these coves have calm waters and long sandy beaches. On such a cove Ms. Shirley and the ranger walk the beach at the edge of Adventure Bay.
There are twelve species of birds in Tasmania that are found nowhere else in the world. Today’s goal is one of them: the Yellow Wattlebird, named for the wattles that hang from the sides of its face. This wattlebird is part of a large Australian bird family called honeyeaters. They love flowers and seek the nectar. Here at Adventure Bay there are blue gum trees flowering just behind the beach, so this is the place to look for wattlebirds. The light is best if we walk on the beach and look shoreward towards the big trees. First we find two kinds of parrots and then our target bird. “Mission accomplished! Let’s walk further and enjoy the beach.”
We, of course, are not the first to walk this beach. Aborigines were here on Bruny Island for thousands of years, perhaps tens of thousands of years. They are all gone from Bruny now. Europeans first walked on this beach in 1773 when the ship Adventure landed here. Adventure Bay is named after this ship. Captain James Cook, the famous South Seas explorer and discoverer, walked this beach in 1777 when he anchored his two ships in the bay to take on fresh food and water. Captain William Bligh walked here in 1788 and planted fruit trees on the island for the benefit of future sailors. So Shirley and I are walking in famous footprints as we walk the beach of Adventure Bay.
The problem with following someone else’s footprints is that sometimes they go in a direction that we shouldn’t go. The famous Captain Cook walked here on his last Australian landfall before going on to Hawaii where he was killed by Hawaiian natives. He may have been the first tourist to get mugged by the locals. The equally famous Captain Bligh also walked here on this beach. Remember Captain Bligh? He was captain of H.M.S. Bounty. Remember Mutiny on the Bounty? Yes, that Captain Bligh!
Certainly I don’t want to follow the footsteps of either of these ghosts too far. However, first mate Shirley tells me that her captain is free to take her to Hawaii at any time and she promises that the natives will not be hostile. She says that they will welcome us with open arms—and probably open palms. And the first mate promises that there will no be mutiny as long as the captain follows good directions—from the first mate of course.
I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain.
I’ve seen hail and I’ve seen snow.
I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end.
…and that’s just in the first three days.
The fire is in the fireplace but everything else is in the changing weather outside. We arrived on Bruny Island on Sunday in light rain and blustery winds. A strong cold front was following us ashore. This is, after all, early spring and cold fronts are still possible this far south.
I’ve seen hail and I’ve seen snow.
I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end.
…and that’s just in the first three days.
The fire is in the fireplace but everything else is in the changing weather outside. We arrived on Bruny Island on Sunday in light rain and blustery winds. A strong cold front was following us ashore. This is, after all, early spring and cold fronts are still possible this far south.
We drove twenty miles down the paved and gravel roads of the island and came to Inala, our cabin in the meadow. Tasmanian Native-hens (a life bird) led us down the long gravel lane and Flame Robins saluted us from the fence posts.
The cabin had not been occupied for several days and it was COLD. The temperature outside was 48 degrees with a north wind and the inside wasn’t much warmer but the wood box was full and the wood stove was ready to be lighted. We had it toasty within the hour.
The rest of the day is a series of rain followed by bright sun. Neither lasts more than fifteen minutes at a time as they alternate. Between raindrops there is time for a little birding around the cabin. I quickly find Tasmanian Thornbill, Tasmanian Scrubwren and Green Rosella all of which are life birds and only found in Tasmania. With dark comes more rain and a roaring fire in the living room fireplace, in addition to the wood burning in the stove in the kitchen. We have electricity and hot water but all the heat comes from wood. A comfy couch, a big bowl of popcorn, a romantic fireplace and the sound of a storm outside—this is a great way to spend an evening. We have the only cabin in the meadow. There are no neighbors and no need to close the curtains.
Monday continues with wind and as I split wood in the woodshed, it hails and the grass turns white with pea-sized ice pellets. No rain comes today but now the sun alternates with small hail for most of the morning. In the afternoon I take a mountain trail and get snowed on for a while. My jacket feels good and the birding is going well. It’s a good day to be alive.
Tuesday we wake to, surprise, no wind and no clouds. The sun is shining with the full intensity of an April morning. After all October is like April here in the reversed seasons of the southern hemisphere. The lilac and the pear tree outside our kitchen window are in full bloom, as are the hundreds of daffodils along the entry lane. But our green grass is gone; all the ground is white. The storm departed in the night taking the winds and the protective clouds away. The backside of the cold front left a quarter inch of frost all over everything. Bright sunshine sparkles on the ice. The air is so fresh and crisp, it is fun to chop wood this morning. It has all the markings of a beautiful day. This sun can defeat any frost and it soon does. We have a wonderful day of 65 degrees.
Our cabin has a kitchen. That may seem like a small thing but it is the first kitchen we’ve had in over six months. Shirley is cooking—for the first time in over six months. Hot pasta for a cold night is just the ticket and I can smell a chocolate sponge cake baking in the oven. Later it will be my turn to cook. I think I’ll make popcorn.
We have been many places this year and have seen wonderful things. Yet our cabin in the meadow will certainly be one of the highlights of the year. For a few days we have our own home with fireplace, big sofas, a cheery wood stove and a kitchen. We could relax here for a good long while and let the rest of the world go by. I think I was born to be in a little cabin, with a full woodshed, in a big meadow, down by the brook, next to the pear tree, across from the hills and forest, and up the road from the ocean within sight of snow-covered mountains. Maybe the ferryboat will break down and we won’t be able to leave for a year or two. Such are the things that dreams are made of.
October 21 Qantas Airways #612 Hobart to Melbourne, Victoria
Australia has given us a wonderful six weeks and now it is time to leave. At the Melbourne airport in the international lounge while waiting for our flight to New Zealand there is time to update the numbers:
October 21 Qantas Airways #612 Hobart to Melbourne, Victoria
Australia has given us a wonderful six weeks and now it is time to leave. At the Melbourne airport in the international lounge while waiting for our flight to New Zealand there is time to update the numbers:
Tally for 2000
Eastern & Central United States 162
Cayman Islands 49
Ecuador 669
Africa 490
Asia 381
New South Wales 87
Western Australia 169
Northern Territory 15
Queensland 79
Victoria 9
South Australia 25
Tasmania 14
Total 2149
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