Tales of the Empire

Very near Hobart is Mt Field National Park, where we saw Tasmania's groves of mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans), the tallest of all flowering plants, rivalling coast redwoods; froze our butts off circumnavigating Lake Dobson in wind-blown sleet; and unsuccessfully searched for platypus, reputed to be common there. We stayed too late on our platypus hunt, and had failed to book accommodation, so as the afternoon turned into evening, we drove the country lanes, hoping to find a cottage or a B&B with space for the night. After striking out at 6 or 7 places, one cuter than the next, we were forced to retrace our steps to New Norfolk. The rain was beginning again, and dusk was falling, as we checked the signpost list of lodgings on the edge of town. Explorer Lodge was the closest, so we headed there. Success at last! The lovingly restored former home of a pulp mill engineer from Canada, built in the Greek Revival style, offered us just the cozy space that we were looking for. During breakfast the next morning, we discovered that the owners had once lived in Botswana, where we traveled in 1987. Even more surprising, they had owned the Nata Lodge, on the edge of the Makadagadi Salt Pans (another end of the earth kind of place), where we stayed on our way to Chobe River National Park. The wife said she thought we looked familiar! Sometimes it really is a small world.

One more Strahan memory

We have met many Aussies, and because this is a county of immigrants, most of those we've met were born elsewhere. However, watching the sunset at Ocean Beach near Strahan, an elderly native-born Aussie engaged us in conversation while he and his wife waited for the muttonbirds (short-tailed shearwaters) to come in. I will not forget the tears flowing out of one of his eyes (perhaps from the wind) as we talked about Sarah Island and he told us his great, great grandfather had been transported for "nothing more than stealing. They didn't deserve such a terrible punishment." I suspect there are many others who feel the same.

Tasmanian adventures continued

Strahan and Sarah Island: In spite of what we had been told about the west coast's foul weather, and in spite of all the rain we were experiencing, we made the trek out to one of the end's of the world, to Strahan, on Macquarie Harbor. To learn a bit about Australia's convict history, and see World Heritage Site-quality temperate rainforest/wilderness, we took a catamaran cruise on the Gordon River. Through rain showers, we headed out to Hell's Gate, then entrance to Macquarie Harbor. Only 75 m wide, it effectively limits entrance to a harbor 5 times the size of Sydney's. The rain ceased just as we reached the rainforest, where we disembarked to take a short trek through dripping "pines" of several species. Huon Pine is the most famous - actually a Podocarpus, it grows very slowly for 1000s of years, forming dense, hard wood of great longevity. One of the best timbers for boats, it was harvested by the convicts confined to Sarah Island, a 12-acre dot within Macquarie Harbor, where the worst of the worst convicts endured the weather of the roaring forties. We had a guided tour of Sarah Island, where we learned that after the early, most horrible years, when convicts formed suicide pacts to "escape," and 1 escapee who headed overland with 6 others but was the only one to make it to Hobart (he ate all of the other 6 during the effort), things actually got better for the convicts, many of whom were convicted originally of nothing more than stealing food. A ship builder came to Sarah Island, taught them a trade, and they built many ships. it was so much of a success that the Motherland shut down Sarah Island - expensive to maintain and totally ineffective in deturring crimes of convicts elsewhere. I guess we haven't learned much since then! To be continued ...

Summer in Tasmania

1 Dec: breezy, cool, clearing
2 Dec: clear and fine
3 Dec: cloudy, then rain in the afternoon, and overnight
4 Dec: overcast in the morning, then rain and sleet in the afternoon
5 Dec: overcast, some heavy showers. Clearing at sunset
6 Dec: broken clouds to start, then mist and drizzle, rain off and on, clearing later
7 Dec: overcast, some drizzle and showers, then clearing
8 Dec: broken clouds, then clearing, one stray shower

On 2 Dec, one of the nice days, we had arranged a guided day of birding on Bruny Island, in the far south of Tasmania. It worked out perfectly, considering what it could have been. Bruny is carved into bay after spectacular bay with intervening farmland and forest land. Our guide led us on a very compact day of birding and botanical sights, leading us to all 12 species endemic to Tasmania, and a bunch of new birds for the trip. One highlight was an evening stop at the little penguin and short-tailed shearwater colony on the island. At dusk, shearwaters begin swirling over the nesting colony in groups of hundreds or more, and just at dark, groups of up to 30 or so penguins (these guys are only 2 lbs each) come out of the water and, huddled together for protection from predators, scamper across the beach into the dune grass. An avian spectacle for sure.

Melbourne

Bright lights, big city. Did a winery tour today, not something we have ever done in California, but hey it's a different country. Varietals have different expressions here. Several merlots we tasted were almost unrecognizable as merlot, with less juicy fruit and more complexity. Pinot noirs are more familiar, some with what we call 'old tire' on the nose, a kind of burnt rubber aroma that is not as unpleasant as it sounds, an aroma we know from Santa Barbara pinots for example. Cabernets tend to be softer, and less oaked than what Napa fruit can handle. And the food scene here is a happening thing. We went out on Saturday in the pouring rain (yep it's still raining here) to a place that specializes in wood-fired pizza, and had fabulous thin crust pizza, done the way it is supposed to be done, and with a lot of very interesting, innovative, but 'within the tradition' topping combos. It was a trip, as we sat at the bar and watched this place buzz.

Music in the background has been entertaining too. In the last two days, we have heard The Doors - Light My Fire, Janis Joplin - Break Another Piece of My Heart, Creedence Clearwater, Neil Young - Heart of Gold, Bob Marley - No Woman No Cry, and Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra dreaming of a white Christmas.

Climate change & politics downunder

We just happen to be here for a possible "meltdown" of the Liberal party (read conservative) over the issue of climate change. Said to be the biggest dustup of Aussie politics in a generation. The Liberal (opposition) leader is supporting the position of the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to do something active to fight climate change. Imagine the Republicans fully supporting Obama on this to get an idea what this is about. The Liberal base harbors many non-believers on the subject (in spite of Sydney's hottest temps ever right now and bushfires blazing everywhere). A large contingent of Liberal party "senators" have walked out and are after Turnbull's head. He remains defiant and gave an impassioned speech about fighting climate change being the right thing to do for Australia's (and the world's) future. Aussie politicians call a spade and spade - no pussyfooting around, no spin, just what they truly think and why. Refreshing, to say the least! Tuesday is showdown day - we can't wait to see the results of all this!!

Around and about

Left the Stirlings several days ago, and, since the weather finally cleared, decided to work on the sunburn, and chase down some rare birds, so off to Cheynes Beach for a night. Success on both counts, the sunburn at a nearly deserted two-mile crescent of azure water, the birds at a roadside stakeout for the noisy scrub bird, an elusive denizen of the coastal heathlands, that sings vigorously, but won't come out of the scrub, except at Cheynes, where one or two are known to cross a particular road at particular places at particular times, namely near sunrise and near sunset. We were rewarded with two one-second glimpses. Better than nothing.

Working our way back to Perth, through Albany, a former whaling town, but not that much former. Whalers from Albany took 1200 whales a year as late as 1975. Now there is a whalewatching ecotourism industry instead. Albany is also a port for transshipment of wood chips to Japan, and grain grown in the Wheat Belt.

Melbourne next,

DnA

From Stirling Range National Park

G'dye mates. We are finishing up our visit to the Stirling Ranges, which is a biodiversity mini-hotspot with 1700 or so species of native plants, including many endemics. The vegetation here is mallee scrub, eucalyptus woodland and a low, dense "alpine" scrub on the mountain peaks. We have had a lot of rain, but we lucked out yesterday on our climb to the top of Bluff Knoll, the highest peak in all of Western Australia -- at about 3,600'! (Did we mention it's a flat country.) A very steep climb - 700' elevation gain per mile - with craggy outcrops at the top and steep slopes below. We saw the peak of the alpine flowers, and a view over the wheatlands to the north and strange oval lakes (salt?) south towards the coast. Met a young Norwegian guy who is appreticed to a local farmer that asked David to take his picture again and again as he inched closer and closer to the precipice. Thankfully, we all survived. Plantwise, I have been photographing so many unknown species, then searching my picture books to identify - when I'm lucky! One high point was seeing two species of mountain bells - Darwinia - in full bloom. These are endemic to the Stirling Ranges, a different species on each peak. Now I just have to identify the ones we saw!

David here. On to the birds. My count is up to over 120 species. Here's the list:

On second thought, how about a few highlights, in "Best Of" categories. These are candidates, and any suggestions on categories gladly considered.

Most Beautiful: any of the tiny little fairy-wrens, which come in an array of iridiscent blues, and have names like splendid, superb, and lovely.

Biggest: I think the pelicans win here.

Noisiest. Well kookaburra would seem like the obvious winner, but the birds here can be very noisy. We have heard noisy flocks of black cockatoos, big and black and the size of a red-tail hawk, noisy flocks of magpies, noisy flocks of ravens, noisy flocks of noisy miners, and noisy flocks of noisy friarbirds. You get the idea.

Most tuneful noisy flock. Magpies, with these unexpectedly bell-like, ringing, melodic choruses.

Cutest. A leading candidate is spotted pardalote. Never heard of them? Neither had I. Think of a bird the size and shape of a jumbo egg, and that has been decorated for Easter by a skilled aboriginal artist, with bold reds, yellows, blacks, and lots of spots.

Weirdest. Musk duck, all black and with this bladder like wattle hanging down below its bill. Weird!

Best performance in a comedy role. Willie wagtail (*yes this is the actual common name), based on name and behavior. A ground based flycatcher, wagging its tail to scare up bugs, then darting off in every unexpected direction to catch its prey.

Birding moments. While talking to a fisherman, actually a retired farmer, clean his catch, we watched as he tossed the fileted carcass to a pelican, who caught them on the fly, using his pouch like a lacrosse basket. Following the progress from too big for the nest to fledging of a nestful of restless flycatchers. Having parrots land on our hands as we tried to eat a shortbread in the car park at one of the national parks.

More to come on the awards nomination front I am sure.

Darla, save a few persimmons for us!

Hoping to get a sunburn,

D and A

Big Trees

G'dye, mites. Got our campervan, and each night we pop off the dual carriageway, look for a caravan park with a clean ablution block, community kitchen with gas barbie, and park the camper. Next day, we look for a local bakery, where we choose among caramel slices, hedgehog slices, and melting moments, to name a few, and wash those delights down with the long black or flat white previously noted. Then grab a couple of the ubiquitous meat pies (there are veggies versions too) for dinner.

Working our way along the coast of South Western Australia. We have spent the last several days looking at Big Trees. The karri trees, a gum, or smooth-barked eucalypt, are claimed to be the third tallest trees, behind redwoods and Australian mountain ash. They get up over 300 feet high. A karri wood has this special feel about it, with all the stems ghostly white, straight up for many feet and then branching to a full crown. There are also jarrah-marri woods, rough-barked species. The wood is deep red and used for fine furniture making. Lots of logging in these parts, with virgin forest going for gold mining needs, railway sleepers (ties that is), wood chips, and more. Painful. Yesterday we did the Tree Top Walk, in red tingle forest. It soars 40 meters into the treetops on a suspension bridge type of construction, sways in response to walking, and offers great views into the forest.

We have had rain most every day, a surprise. We are in a rainsoaked country!

Margaret River and more

Down here in the far South corner of Western Australia, where surfers rub shoulders with winemakers. Lots of wineries have restaurants with menus designed to match and showcase their wines. And great wines they are. The cabernets are especially tasty, with nicely balanced cab fruit and oak, with these very distinctive earthy, flinty, chalky qualities. The wine country is not all grapes as Napa and Sonoma have become, but rolling country with mixed ag, including sheep, cattle, even deer, with the odd kangaroo mob spotted from time to time. And the Indian Ocean surf crashes in the background.

And now for a few words on food. It's surprisingly good! The days when Australian ethnic food meant spaghetti from a can are, thankfully, over. On our flight from the States, our tickets said "Refreshments." Not sure what that meant, we brought sandwiches and See's candy, only to be served a complete dinner and breakfast. Can't remember when actual meals were last served on US airlines. Even better, there was a snack bar, open 24 hrs (good thing, cause that's about how long the flight lasts), with fresh fruit, health bars, juices, chocolate, etc. In Sydney we found a deli with 100s of great Australian wines - none we had ever heard of - and Tasmanian cheeses, which are excellent. Sydney and Perth are multi-cultural cities with endless food choices, and coffee is not hard to find. You just need to know the lingo - will that be a flat white or a tall black? Here in Margaret River we have just had one of those over-the-top dining experiences - a "winemaker dinner" with many courses and paired wines at one of the top wineries of the region. All of this wonderful food is not inexpensive. In fact, Aussies seem to pay much more for food than we do - approx. double it seems, although the calculations require higher math to factor in kgs vs. lbs, etc. But it is much more expensive. And that seems strange in a country that produces everything it needs right here. Eating local is not a problem. Most products are labeled Grown in Australia. Macadamia nuts? Avocados? Seafood? Lamb? Beef? No problem. It's all grown right here. Right now we are going on a scone hunt to have with our (locally produced) Harvey's thickened (think Devonshire downunder) cream! Pants still fit but who knows for how long.

Climate News

Qantas international flights offer a huge selection of entertainment options, including audio books.  In scanning the list, we noticed that Tim Flannery's The Weathermakers was listed -- in the fiction section.  Also in the non-fiction offerings.  All perspectives honored I guess.  The headlines and conversations along the way tell a different story.   Here's a  selection

Researchers have reported on finding a gene that can make plants more drought tolerant.

The federal government intends to move away from disaster relief for drought stricken farmers to an approach based on risk management.  Farmers will need to change practices in response.

In the Blue Mountains towns, where water is pumped up the mountain from Sydney's main water supply reservoir, most toilets we saw were dual flush, or even composting toilets at the lodge we stayed at.  All new development must have roof catchment water systems, and the government provides generous subsidies for retrofits of existing buildings.

Adelaide currently harvests stormwater, and is planning to expand their system by a factor of 3 to 20 billion liters a year.  The water will be used for parks and playing fields.

And Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is an outspoken and forthright leader on climate change issues, and is working to get various alt energy facilities - ocean wave, solar, geothermal and others - funded and built.  

Perth weather is very reminiscent of SF, temperate, with a nice afternoon breeze.  King's Park, a large park and botanical garden right next to downtown, is a jewel, with fine views, beautiful plantings.  I am now drowning in a tsunami of botanical Latin, new common names, and the bizarre life forms those names catalogue.  Tree names include yarri, karri, marri, and jarrah, and there are many tingle trees too.  It feels like another planet.  Even what I thought were familiar genera, like acacia, got here, and became something unrecognizable over time.   This little corner of the continent has, if I have the numbers right, some multiple of species more than CA, and in a much smaller area.  Where's my life preserver?

Driving on the left and other forms of excitement

Who needs coffee? Driving on the left in a big city on a work day is a rush not to be missed. We were headed west to the Blue Mountains, and started out headed east, couldn't figure how to turn around, finally did, wrong turned into the Cross City Tunnel, where we were charged a real toll as we passed a virtual toll booth for which we lacked the requisite digital account, and eventually, after several near misses (why are these drivers making such crazy turns?), got out of town. I felt much more confident on the way back, after practice on country roads, until, once again in the city, realized that dutifully retracing our route as we left town was only going to duplicate the error we made on the way out. Map reading skills and marital relationship put to severe tests before regaining the rental yard.



In between, full days of new birds and new plants in new landscapes. From the east, the Blue Mountains present a front of box canyons eroded into an uplifted sandstone tableland. It took the new colony 25 years to find a way across. We did it in 2 hours. The towns on the tableland live in mist and rain this time of year, not what we expected after all the stories of red dust storms in Sydney from last month. Many kinds of parrots and cockatoos and honeyeaters to be seen. The parrots and cockatoos are especially widespread, in forests, farmland, parks. Brilliant splashes of color.

We happened to meet a couple of guys starting an arboretum west of the Blue Mountains, who heard our accents and wanted to talk redwoods and sequoias, which are centerpieces in their new project. Their arboretum borders a lake that is used as a cooling water source for a coal-fired power plant. The lake sits on the site where Charles Darwin collected platypus on one of his expeditions.

Oh, let me report that kookaburra does in fact sit in the old gum tree. Actually, kookaburras, in family groups, sit in gum trees, and make the most outrageous cackling and ooohing noises.

First Day

First day is all about getting realigned. We got here yesterday, ahead of our bags and our room. A too short connection at LAX got us separated from the luggage, which was somewhere over New Caledonia when we touched down. And of course there's time realignment too. Anyway, we have been reunited with our razors and hiking boots, got a good night sleep and are ready to learn how to drive on the left side.



For birdwatchers, the first day in a new place means even the most unremarkable and unlikely places are full of unexpected possibilities. Pigeon! New for the Australia list! We sat for a bit yesterday, waiting for our room to be made up, in a little postage stamp park nearby, and besides pigeons, saw some birds new to us, including silver gull, Australian magpie, and Australian white ibis, all ready to make a run at the unguarded baguette. The ibis especially were a surprise, as big as geese, with a long black decurved bill, and regular parts of the park avifauna it seems. Our continent list is up to 5 and climbing!



Yesterday was the running of the Melbourne Cup, the nation's biggest horse race, and apparently one of the biggest sports events of the year here. We saw many people here in Sydney dressed for a day of picnicking the racetrack, and this is a long way from Melbourne. Women sported fancy hats which ran to ichiban-like constructions of bird feathers, or brimmed hats perched at the jauntiest of angles. Everyone gambles on the outcome, work stops, much beer is consumed. The Cup has corporate sponsorship these days, and is actually called the Emirates Melbourne Cup. I wonder how it would feel if the World Series were called, say, the Credit Suisse World Series, or the Mitsubishi World Series.



Off to the Blue Mountains and the countryside this morning. More soon,



David

Testing out the technology

This is a test post, for this blog on David and Ann's soon to begin trip to Australia, wherein we will visit Sydney and surrounds, Perth and South Western Australia, spend a few days in Melbourne, a week in Tasmania, and end up back in Sydney. We are looking forward to new plants, birds and other animals, good food, good wine, new sites, and more.