| If you’ve seen one grasshopper, you’ve seen them all. Or so we thought until the last month in Alice Springs. Unusually heavy rainfall in January and February has led to an explosion in insect numbers in the region. Grasshoppers have been particularly noticeable among those insects, and have gone into a breeding frenzy, leading to a plague that threatens serious damage to local agricultural interests. (more…) |
Happy New Year everyone!
Our previous blog finished as we left Louth, on the Darling River in New South Wales. From there we followed the Darling downstream as it meandered past Tilpa to Wilcannia, then departed the river, heading west to Broken Hill for a few days.
At last, and with a sense of relief, because we, and no doubt some of our family and friends, were starting to wonder whether we would ever leave NSW, we headed further west and crossed the border into South Australia. (more…)
The following article was inspired by the CD “Firestone” by Tonchi McIntosh and Andrew Hull and the present-day people of Louth. The material is derived largely from a paper written by John Huggins following the “Back to Louth” Reunion of 1985. It also draws on discussions with Wally Mitchell, a long time resident of Louth, and material and articles provided by Shindy’s Inn. Information concerning the fate of the ship “The Great Britain” was sourced from Wikipedia.
Our experiences of Louth have been constantly blessed by a sense both of serendipity and synchronicity. Time and again we’ve had chance encounters with people connected to the story of Louth. The latest occurred as I prepared to upload my photos of the Louth monument, to this site. With perfect timing, we received a kind message from Sue Huggins, a complete stranger to us, but whose research had gone into her husband John’s booklet, which formed the basis of most of the following information. John is a direct descendant of TA and Mary Mathews. Sue has been most generous in providing us with some early family photos, sketches and letters relating to this fascinating story about some of our pioneers. Thanks Sue for your help, generosity and very kind words of encouragement.
Hello everyone. We are sitting in our camper trailer on a cool day, writing to you from the Red Banks Conservation Park in South Australia, near Burra. It is trying desperately to rain, but so far not with any great success. Rain would be somehow appropriate, because it was while sheltering from torrential rain at the Warrumbungles that we wrote our last blog entry.
We’re not quite sure what happened. We had great intentions of updating the blog more regularly after a belated first entry. Then we blinked, and somehow nearly two months had passed!
So, where do we start. We are writing this entry in the Warrumbungle National Park after a day of torrential rain, with rivulets running through our campsite and at times our living area. This was followed, thankfully, by late afternoon sunshine that revealed sparkling clifftops through shrouds of mist. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
We are constantly amazed at the number and variety of insects lurking in the Australian bush. Some bite, while others love to invade campsites and homes. Whatever their shape, size and colour, they all form an essential part of a healthy environment.
We will add photos of some of these strange and beautiful creatures to the site. Macro photographs provide a grimpse into their world and also show some of the colours which are often not apparent to the naked eye.
We will post photographs of Australian native birds to this website. Most of those photos will have been taken of wild birds in the Australian bush. We hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed seeing, listening to and photographing the birds.
