bobmcgee

Home Safe …

Next stop after the coast was Northam home of the sublime Mute Swan …

and also the decision point. Two roads lead from Perth to Broome, an inland route 1970km or a coastal route 2368km.

The inland route has the advantage of being 400km shorter and in the event of a cyclone there would be a greater chance of the caravan staying on the ground. We’d have chosen the shorter route but it was closed by flood.

In particular, the Fortescue River near Newman was close to setting new records. The coastal route was open but what falls inland then sets off towards the sea. We decided to put in a couple of very long days in order to get north of the Fortescue and the De Grey.

There is a roadhouse overlooking the Fortescue River and we stopped for a yarn. A young lady working there had been looking for the water coming down for a couple of days but not a trickle so far. A local elder was of the view that the desert would swallow it all on the way and there’d be little or none to see. It just hadn’t rained for long enough. A trucky taking a break had caught the arrival of a flood in 2021 and recalled how impressive it was on that occasion. When we crossed the bridge there were just a few puddles to be seen.

On the second long day we crossed the De Grey. It too was underwhelming. That night we stopped at the Sandfire Roadhouse. Home of the ridiculous Peafowl.

Last night we slept in our own bed. It was a bit on the warm side!

Albany …

Because we made good time across the Nullarbor we have had four nights in the Great Southern region of WA. The first was on the edge of the Sterling Range National Park and then three on the Kalgan River just outside Albany. The birding has been excellent, Two Peoples Bay and Lake Seppings especially. My target species was Western Whipbird and, once again, I managed not to see it. Regional endemics such as Red-capped Parrot and Red-eared Firetail have been easier to find but not prepared to pose for me. Here are some of the photographic highlights …

Our decision not to travel north via the Stuart Highway then west through Fitzroy Crossing was a good one. Flooding has closed roads in a number of places and it will be a while before they reopen. Not that we are completely out of the woods. Our intended route was closed by fire a day or so ago near Newman. That problem is solved – the road is now closed by flood. Hopefully that will soon reopen. No cyclone brewing off the west coast presently. We head north tomorrow, only 2000km to go.

Day 8 …

We made good progress on the Eyre Highway. Kimba is very much a wheat growing area. The next sizable town is Ceduna on the coast. It has a more mixed economy. Going west from there you encounter a few more small wheat growing towns until at Penong you find a store that declares that it’s the last shop for a thousand kilometers.

The mallee woodland slowly peters out until you’re on the treeless plain that is the Nullarbor. There is practically no surface water out there partly because not a lot of rain falls but also because the limestone lets it all run straight through. In the summer of 1841 Edward John Eyre set out to walk from Fowlers Bay to King George Sound – the modern day Albany which is just down the road from where we are camped on the bank of the Kalgan River. He covered the 1368 km trip in about 5 months, five men set out, two arrived.

Eyre found water at Eucla. The modern day traveler finds a quarantine inspection site. The rules are complicated but basically fruit, vegetables, honey and soil can’t go with you into Western Australia.

From there west the landscape changes back into patchy woodland, then the trees become taller and more continuous and, once you’re off the Eyre Highway you enter wheat country again.

Day 3 …

… is often the day on our travels when tempers tend to fray. This time it has passed without incident bringing us to Kimba in South Australia’s wheat belt. Established in 1915, population 1,300 it took its name from the local aboriginal word for bushfire. It’s now the home of the big Galah, some silo art and the Kimba Tigers footie team.

Our first day out took us to the Victorian Goldfields for a farewell dinner with some of our good friends there. Gayle and I have an association with the district that stretches back more than three decades. We have never seen it so green in January in all that time …

The next day we crossed the border into South Australia and spent the night at Tailem Bend. The day had reached 38°C but overnight rain cooled the world down considerably.

We made an early start this morning and drove through Adelaide (founded 1836, population about 1.4m about 1.2m of whom have hyphenated surnames.) 77% of South Australians live in Adelaide because most of the rest of the state is covered by salt lakes.

Tomorrow we will be on the Nullarbor proper.

Homeward …

Google tells me that I have 5,978 km ahead of me, 64hours of driving and warns me that my destination is in a different time zone. It’s not the most direct route, that would be via Alice Springs and the Tanami, shorter but not quicker because an enormous chunk of that is not on sealed road. We decided against going up the middle and across the top because that would expose us to the inland heat for much longer and increase the risk of being stranded by flood. Of course we don’t have to go via Albany – there just happens to be a bird there I want to see. From there it’s pretty much due north finishing with a dash up cyclone alley.

Our comfort will depend very much on the weather and the only certainty there is that the Bureau of Meteorology will get it totally wrong.

Coming Out …

The story starts with a small and inconspicuous hole in a River Red Gum …

from which the colourful head of a Rainbow Lorikeet emerges …

It’s a tight squeeze …

and there’s limited space on the veranda.

Which won’t stop another one making their debut …

but one of them will have to make way.

I knew they were in there because I saw them go in. Given the size of the hole I was surprised when the first one disappeared. Even more surprised when the second one disappeared. The cavity inside must be bigger than the opening suggests. There may be a nest full of baby lorikeets in there. It was a good five minutes before the adults reemerged.

Here they are again in a gallery that you can run through at bigger scale. Enjoy.

Dagging About …

I was born in a big city, I’ve lived most of my life in a big city but me and the big city are not a match made in heaven. I’m currently dagging about in Melbourne looking forward to the day when I can set off home to Broome.

My spell checker is objecting to dagging and some of my non-Australian readers are probably equally mystified – in this context just substitute hanging. It’s complicated. The noun dag refers to the lump of wool and feces that tends to form at the rear end of a sheep, best removed if you want to avoid fly strike. It’s also used, affectionately, believe it or not, for someone who is not smartly dressed or a little odd, your wife or husband may be a bit of a dag. If you’re working you are not dagging about, if you’re bored you probably are.

To relieve the boredom this morning I headed off bright and early to Braeside Park, one of the best places for bird watching in the eastern suburbs. I made a circuit of the main lake. The birding was good.

Happy New Year …

Long term readers will know that this blog is a strange eclectic mix. I do the research largely to satisfy my own curiosity, the photography because I just can’t help it. Travel, variety, novelty all help to push up the output. When I’m not on the move the output falls off. The blog is not monetised in any way, I just enjoy doing it. That anyone reads it is a bonus … and, amazingly, it does get read. There were 2,591 page views in 2023. And not all of you are my aunts and uncles – the USA and China figure prominently in the readership.

So to all of my readers I say “Thank you” and I wish you all a safe and successful New Year.

Wedding Dress …

I was lucky enough to come across this Great Egret in all its breeding finery the other day. I don’t know whether this is the bride or the groom but the dress is absolutely splendid.

Regular plumage is devoid of the lacework, the bill is yellow and the bare parts of the face are also mostly yellow. You can see this in a photo that I took in WA a few months ago. The remaining photos were taken at Braeside Park, Melbourne, Victoria. The sufficiently obsessed can confirm the ID by looking at the angle of the mouth, it is behind a line dropped from the back of the eye.

Great Egrets nest in trees over water often in association with other egrets, Ibis or cormorants. They lay two to six eggs.

Gulls …

A number of rare birds have shown up in Broome since I went wandering. “How come they only show up when I’m not there?”, I asked. A good friend replied that “They’re there all the time but we only tell you about them when you’re not around.”

One of the current blow-ins is a Black-tailed Gull more at home in coastal China and Japan. It wanders south in the northern winter but rarely as far as Australia. Some parts of the globe are richly endowed with gulls. They are often challenging to identify and some take three years to reach full adult plumage. Their appearance can vary between seasons. In gull rich parts of the world there are keen birders that specialise in gulls. You couldn’t really make a hobby out of them in Oz. We only have three regular species and identifying them is reasonably straight forward. Kelp and Pacific Gulls are large, have black backs and take three years to reach maturity and can be aged reasonably accurately by their plumage as they make that journey. Silver Gulls are smaller, have light grey backs and reach adulthood in one year.

Silver Gulls …

Pacific Gulls …

the red tip to the massive bill extends to the upper mandible, there is a black bar in the tail. The adult legs are a richer yellow colour than Kelp Gulls.

Kelp Gulls …

The bill is less impressive than the Pacific Gull and the red spot is confined to the lower mandible. There is no black in the adult tail. The legs are a washed out yellow.

The bill is the best starting point when deciding which large juvenile gull you’re looking at.

Click on the galleries for a better look.