Innes National Park – stunning coastal scenery on South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula

Posted April 6, 2011 By admin and has no comments yet.

Stunning coastline on Stenhouse Bay lookout walk

We had never previously visited South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula.  We had always driven past the peninsula– heading either north or south, on our way to somewhere else.  This time, we decided to bite the bullet and see what it had to offer.

From Mount Remarkable National Park, we headed south-west, stocking up in Port Pirie before our drive onto the Yorke Peninsula proper.  Our destination was the Innes National Park, at the southern tip of the peninsula.  We knew virtually northing about the park, other than the availability of bush-camping, our preferred accommodation.

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Categories: Australian Flora, Birds, Marsupials, Our Favourite Places, Scenery, South Australia, Travel Blogs

Dakalanta Wildlife Sanctuary on the Eyre Peninsula – wildlife survey

Posted March 29, 2011 By admin

Australia's wildlife is in safe hands with the AWC. A juvenile Western Pygmy Possum, beautiful, irresistable and fragile.Nirbeeja and I were recently privileged to be involved, as volunteers, in the first ever survey of wildlife undertaken on the Dakalanta Wildlife Sanctuary, one of the properties owned by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC).  As many of you would know, we are passionate about our wildlife, but have no relevant academic training and limited experience in ecological field-work.  As a result, our involvement in the survey not only gave the AWC an extra couple of helpers, it also gave us some invaluable experience.

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Categories: Australian Wildlife, Birds, Marsupials, Reptiles, South Australia

Lincoln National Park & Memory Cove Wilderness Area – beautiful places on the Eyre Peninsula

Posted March 18, 2011 By admin

Memory Cove - a little piece of perfection

We left Buckaringa sanctuary, with a couple of weeks to spare before our next commitment to assist as volunteers at the first wildlife survey at the Australian Wildlife Conservancy’s Dakalanta sanctuary on the Eyre Peninsula.  For us, the choice was obvious; we’d head to the southern tip of the peninsula to re-visit the Lincoln National Park and a special region within it called the Memory Cove Wilderness Protection Area.  We’d visited those areas early in 2008 and loved them.

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Categories: Australian Wildlife, Our Favourite Places, Scenery, South Australia, Travel Blogs

More Adventures in the Flinders Ranges – Wallabies and Native Lilies – February 2011

By admin

A field of Garland Lilies

Our first stop after Scotia was Broken Hill – a rather gentle way to re-enter civilization.  After a couple of months in the remote Scotia sanctuary we certainly appreciated the cafes, galleries and interesting streets and old buildings of the silver city.  We intended a short stay but Mother Nature had other ideas, turning on the rainfall in a big way.  120mm or so in one afternoon and our short stay suddenly stretched to many days longer with highways cut in all directions.  We had planned to head up the Darling River to re-explore that area and re-visit Louth, but could cross that off the agenda for now.  We also planned to spend a week at Buckaringa Wildlife Sanctuary in the Flinders Ranges, but Katja, whom we met at Scotia and now planned to meet at Buckaringa, was stranded at Scotia after flooding there.  Okay – postpone that as well.

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Categories: Australian Wildlife, Birds, Marsupials, Reptiles, South Australia, Travel Blogs, Wildflowers

Scotia Wildlife Sanctuary – a ray of hope

Posted February 3, 2011 By admin

Woylie (Brush-tailed Bettong), seen during night-time distance sampling.

Scotia Wildlife Sanctuary, in the mallee country of far western New South Wales, offers a step back in time to an era when Australia’s medium-sized marsupials hopped freely across the landscape.  Nowadays, these beautiful creatures have all but disappeared in the wild, due to land-clearing and predation by foxes and feral cats.

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Categories: Australian Wildlife, New South Wales, Our Favourite Places, Travel Blogs

Mt Remarkable National Park – we return to the Flinders Ranges

Posted January 19, 2011 By admin

Nirbeeja, dwarfed by the River Red Gums, walks up the Mambray Creek track.

As we returned to the Mt Remarkable National Park, in the southern Flinders Ranges of South Australia, we realized that it was nearly three years to the day since our first visit.  We had loved it then, and wondered now how it would seem after so much travel in the interim.

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Categories: Australian Wildlife, Our Favourite Places, Scenery, South Australia, Travel Blogs, Wildflowers

Kata Tjuta

Posted November 28, 2010 By admin

The main domes of Kata Tjuta. Mt Olga at centre left, rises 546m above the surrounding plains. Kata Tjuta is beautiful, immense and imposing.

Kata Tjuta, meaning “Many Heads”, may be less famous than Uluru, but is equally spectacular.  Kata Tjuta consists of 36 steep domes rising abruptly out of the surrounding plain.  Formed at the same time as Uluru, in the same sedimentary basin, Kata Tjuta nonetheless consists of conglomerate rock rather than the fine-grained sandstone of Uluru.  The tallest of the domes, Mt Olga (we don’t know its traditional name) rises 546 metres above the plains, almost 200 metres higher than does Uluru.  A walk through this area leaves one in awe, speechless and certainly feeling a little less self-important.  It is one of nature’s places of power.

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Categories: Birds, Northern Territory, Scenery, Travel Blogs, Wildflowers

Uluru

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Uluru rolls out the Parakeelya carpet

We visited Uluru in September 2009, and like everyone else we were awed by its presence.  Nothing has changed on that front in a little over a year – seeing Uluru again up close still took our breath away.  But the countryside around Uluru has been transformed, and it is now surrounded by wildflowers and wildlife.  Its waterholes have been flushed clean and topped up; there are even frogs and tadpoles in Kantyu Gorge, a wonderful sign that its previously polluted waters are healthier now.

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Categories: Aboriginal Rock Art, Australian Wildlife, Northern Territory, Our Favourite Places, Reptiles, Scenery, Travel Blogs, Wildflowers

Recent photos, Alice Springs, October 2010

Posted November 1, 2010 By admin

Nirbeeja "feels the serenity" of Jay Creek

I know, you’ve seen and heard it all before – birds, wildflowers, rugged inland scenery, and me rabbiting (bilbying?) on about how much rain we’ve had in Alice Springs and how green everything is.  Well……tough.  Here’s a bit more. And in any case, we are leaving Alice next week to explore the broader region so I couldn’t resist one more opportunity to showcase the rare beauty of Australia’s centre in full bloom.

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Categories: Australian Wildlife, Northern Territory, Reptiles, Scenery, Travel Blogs, Wildflowers

Friends visit Alice Springs – we show them the Red (or was that Green) Centre

Posted October 3, 2010 By admin and has no comments yet.

Field of wildflowers beside Binns Track, south east of Alice Springs

Our friends Christopher and Janice from Canberra made a flying visit to Alice Springs last weekend.  It was Janice’s third time here this year, and Christopher’s second.  They almost consider themselves to be locals now.

Their visit had been planned for a couple of months, and we were hoping the area would still be as pretty as we assured them it was.  All year we kept reporting flowing rivers, regular rainfall, wildflowers and abundant wildlife.  In the end I think they visited just to shut me up!

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Categories: Aboriginal Rock Art, Birds, Northern Territory, Reptiles, Scenery, Travel Blogs, Wildflowers