Australia, the return, part 4

On our previous (2019/2020) trip to Australia there were two parts we felt we'd 'missed': the top of WA, and the Kimberley in particular, and also the dry arid land between SA, NSW and VIC.  So having spent a night in Adelaide we headed to Broken Hill.

The land is very dry and farmed industrially for grain, there are some other crops but you'd be hard to put to find them over this brown arid landscape:

In some areas the land doesn't suit arable crops so the farms are cows or here mostly sheep, vast vast sheep stations.   This is a wind driven pump for ground water for an animal trough:

We stayed in Broken Hill, having one night heavily disrupted by a nightclub and then some 'hooning' at gone 3am, visiting various parks including the Living Desert state park, seeing Emu in the car park:

It is indeed arid, this is what it looks like after three years of above average rainfall:

The occasional tree stands out in the landscape:

A lizard warmed its back as we hiked up the sculpture trail:

We did find a Mulga Parrot, one of the principle grass feeding parrot species in the region:

It was well worth a visit but 'quirky' and Broken Hill itself, like a lot of inland Australia has very challenging social issues to grapple with.

From Broken Hill it was south to Mildura.  We did what we always do on arrival and first went to the towns 'I' or information centre.  Helen had been looking into a river boat trip on the Murray but the lady working there kindly ignored this and having been told we were birders directed us resolutely to visit Mungo National Park, the location of the oldest human remains thus far discovered in Australia together with man-affected objects, dating over 60,000 years back.

We got up bright and early to tackle the 100km dirt road to Mungo and were delighted on arrival to find Pink Cockatoo in the trees around the visitor centre.  Fair to say this was the one species of bird above all others i wanted to see on the trip so i was chuffed to bits!

It was even the sub-species with the yellow and red in the crest:

There were half-a-dozen around and I finally got one, distant, with the full plume displayed:

Happy days!  Mungo isn't listed as a birding location and if it hadn't been for that lady in the 'I' we hadn't planned on visiting.

As noted before it's famous for it's human artifacts and remains, this is quite interesting too, the scars of a river, long gone, in the land.  Alongside this baked river mud of 10'000s of years old are the remains of human fishing and exploitation of the marine life, remarkable:

From Mildura we headed on back into South Australia and a small town called Morgan where we'd hired a remote cottage.  We were staying there to visit the remote nature reserve at Gluepot, one of the key birding locations in all of Australia. 

We even got a lifer in the garden Chestnut-capped Babbler:

Another early start (04:30) for a drive along a long dirt road to the Gluepot reserve saw us arrive just after dawn.   There was little information and no one about, disappointing if were honest, however we set out on various tracks and trails, eventually seeing one of the key species, a Gilbert's Whistler, before walking further along and finding a water trough, buzzed by large numbers of grass parrots, including the star of the show, Regent Parrot:

Pairs of Mulga Parrots were there too:

Together with a mad-as-a-hatter Galah (they are born crazy and embrace it!):

We didn't see as many species as we'd hoped at Gluepot but it was still memorable for those we did see and having finally made it.

From Morgan we did a pit stop at Port Augusta as we headed West to Streaky Bay, which Helen kept mis-calling Sharky Bay.

We set out on our first morning to do one of the tourist drives, somewhat of a circuit taking in the rocky cliffs of the headland:

Visiting Murphy's Haystacks, so called by passing farm labourers, though really a form of post-erosion rock:

If you walk a little way from the first stones there's even more just over a small hill:

Passing some abandoned farm machinery:

Our last stop on the loop was at a place called the Granites.  We arrived in the instant after a shark attack on a surfer.  I'll not go into details here, i regret using my binoculars to look at the Great White as it emerged from the deep shortly afterwards.   They recovered a small piece of wetsuit and the board.  It was very strange day after that as you can imagine.

The next day. having shaken off some of the previous day's experience, we headed out again, stopping at the furthest point to overlook a Seal colony, the only mainland one in Australia:

Mum wanted some sleep:

It was weird having seen what we'd seen so hard to really relax into things again.

The sun set on a high tide in the bay with a long Australian Pelican in front of our hut:

From Streaky Bay we headed back to Port August, stopping at Kimba the home of the 'Big Galah':

As well as some remarkable artwork on the grain silo on the edge of town:

We enjoyed a lovely walk in a relatively new reserve, and frankly could have spent more time there, a very peaceful town and very pleasant surroundings.

We found ourselves back at Port Augusta  and ready to re-exlpore Mount Remarkable National Park.  One local had an innovative way of marking his driveway.  You can't park there mate...

Alligator gorge is a fantastic walk in the park, it's moderate to tough in parts but well worth it, Helen is towards the back of the image for scale:

As it was Spring in South Australia there were butterflies everywhere, some even stopped for a brief second...

In the trees on the gorge a male Rufous Whistler had captured some prey:

We really enjoyed our second visit to this area, more so than the first as it was a lot less dry and therefore more alive.

In the morning we revisited the Australia Arid Lands Botanic Garden, seeing Blue-winged Parrot at one of the water holes:

Last time we stayed here they were talking about removing the Wallabies and Kangaroos (this is a Euro i think due to the black hands), however there were plenty about so i think they've gone for a more harmonious approach to managing what is a fantastic reserve:

Onwards then to our final stop on this adventure, a stay in Point  Turton:

From our coastal hut we visited Dhilba Guuranda-Innes National Park, seeing Zebra Finch:

A dozy Kangaroo:

And lots of other widlife including more Australian Pelican:

Increasingly we were thinking about getting back home and having to say goodbye to Australia, having now spent the best part of ten months visiting over the last 4 years...

A final Currawong the afternoon before we packed up and headed to the airport:

Remarkably we've seen roughly 500 species of Australian bird, albeit some of them in PNG on our visit there in 2019, we've visited the principal cities and most of the towns, certainly in WA, SA, NT, and TAS.  QA, NSW & VIC are much more populous but apart from the very tropical top of QA we've visited most of the habitats and biospheres there too.  Now to sit back and think about where our next adventure should be...

Australia, the return, part 3

Broome is at the base of the Dampier Peninsula and is the home of the famous (if you're a birder) Broome Bird Observatory so i was really quite excited to finally arrive.

We stopped in at the observatory on the way in and booked a birding for trip later in our stay.

The next morning we strolled along Simpson Beach, being watched by this Osprey:

The colours in Broome are unforgettable, the sand white, the seas that special shade of blue when there's white sand underneath it, the soil bright orange to red in places:

We booked ourselves on a boat trip to see the dinosaur footprints, a strange trip but one that didn't disappoint:

The compressed footprints are the last things to break down as the sedmentary layers of rock are eroded by the sea, the wind and the sun leaving unexpected prominances that are very definitely dinosaur footprints, with traceable tracks:

Some footprints from the predator species are present too:

The boat also took us into Dampier Creek, apparently a large salty had been seen there recently so definitely no swimming!

Another morning we went out to Streeters Jetty, at low tide, to see what looks like a ninja crab, one of literally thousands coming out of their mud holes to feed:

The bird observatory trip was somewhat mixed in results, we did see a Yellow Chat, albeit somewhat distant, however as we were waiting for night to fall to look for owls, a small storm blew-in and started pouring rain, and being then on a very thin salt crust layer we had the strange experience of being driven in a 4x4 and then sliding at right angles to the road with no grip or traction whatsoever while making a hasty retreat to more solid dirt to then drive out.   So we didn't see any of the three owl species we'd been hoping for.  Hey ho, watching the storm blow over the salt flats and seeing the sun set through the rain clouds was still a spectacular, and highly unusual for the time of year, sight to see.

From Broome further West along the '1' for Port Hedland,or Dante's Inferno as i think it should actually be named, leaving the Kimberley and entering the Pilbara.  It is a huge industrial port with train lines stretching inland and all manner of Australian 'produce', from live and dead cattle to 2km long iron ore and coal trains, going into the harbour onto boats and off, mostly, to China.  The scale was breathtaking, as was the fine iron ore dust coating everything an eery shade of burnt red.  Also weird was the gourmet restaurant we ate at in our motel, the best food we've enjoyed down-under outside of Sydney.  Weird.

Moving on we headed inland past some of the mining operations to Tom Price and Karijini National Park, the 'home of the gorge' (I made that bit up), stopping on the way at a roadhouse which had kept some of the older equipement to one side:

Karijini literally is gorge-ous, with swimming holes, hard to get to gorges, open gorges, walking tracks around gorges, etc:

A fascinating spot that is well worth a visit.  The red dust from the proximate mining operations did get everywhere however, so while we enjoyed our visit it was a relief, especially for my lungs, to be heading out and back to the coast and to our next stop in Exmouth.

Exmouth was our last stop in tropical West Australia before we headed firmly South and the to-be depature point of Cath and Nortbert as they flew via Perth to the Christmas and Cocos Islands.

We headed out very early one morning to Yardie Creek, the furthest accessible point on land of Cape Range National Park.  Early enough to see the Short-eared Rock-wallaby in its natural habitat (they are endangered by habitat loss, hunting, disturbance, etc., the usual human stuff):  It's a beautiful setting for a beautiful animal:

If you've been watching Channel 4 and Bill Bailey's Aussie stuff he paddled boarded here, though by the looks of the programme he did it earlier in the year when it was cooler and so later in the day.  It was going to get to 38c+ for us as the day drew on...

Another beach, another tide, another cool looking crab:

The morning after we'd had to drop our roadmates off at the airport for their onward journey, we strted early again, this time to visit Charles Knife Canyon (ditto Bill Bailey)

The sunrise was beautiful:

The vegetation on the canyon typical with small trees, fire killed husks, spinifex grasses:

I'm really quite pleased with this landscape taken on my phone, they are getting better and better as time goes on:

The gorge is very serrated in terms of peaks and troughs, with paths on quite inaccessible looking ridges:

Another morning (we tended to hide from the heat in the afternoons) we went back into Cape Range and found these turtles relaxing in the surf, some pairs were breeding offshore and some were laying eggs higher up the beach with much swishing of sand as they did so:

A pair of Greater Crested Terns were conducting the same pair bonding ritual we can see in Sandwich Terns back at home:

Crested Pigeons look magnificent with the crests, eye and plumage colours:

Back in town, exploring the mangroves and the adjacent waterfront we saw this little beastie sunning itself:

From Exmouth we headed south staying in Carnarvon (the Space Museum is unexpectedly great and well worth a visit!) and then detoured, en route to Geraldton, via Kalbarri National Park with its iconic views over the Murchison River.  The colours!

Then it was on to Perth, to meet up with some family for dinner, to meet-up with friends up from Albany, to do a bit of shopping, and of course to pop over again to Rottnest to see our friends the Quokkas:

A few of them were on-and-off awake (being a nocturnal species by nature):

We explored as much of the island on foot as possible, seeing areas we'd missed the first time and making use of the hop-on, hop-off bus service.  The geology and colours are outstanding:

So that was the end of our mammoth journey around the edge of North and West of West Australia, next stop, South Australia!