bobmcgee

Raft Point …

If you know the tides well enough you can take a raft from Montgomery Reef and make it to Raft Point. Get it wrong and you will vanish without trace. We took a ship.

Welcome to the traditional home of the Worrorra people.

Two nightjars fought, blood was spilled. The blood of one was a light ochre in colour, the other darker and so today the Worrorra paint mainly with light and dark ochre. They are one of the groups that share the Wandjina tradition. In the dream time the Wandjina travelled the earth, altered its shape, lived, fought their battles and when it was time to die entered caves and left their images on the walls. It is the task of the modern folk to maintain the images.

This is Uncle Donny, the current custodian of the tradition, the only person qualified to paint the figures. It his task as well to instruct the younger men and one day he will choose his successor. It will be a great honour for the person chosen, and it will not only be for their painting skills but also their knowledge of the stories attached to each figure.

As well as the Wandjina figures, always painted without a mouth, there are other dreamtime characters such as the Lightning Man and images of food animals.

At the back of a nearby beach there is the site of a great Wandjina battle. The losing army was turned to stone and can be seen to this day.

Click on the photo to enjoy it in detail.

Phillip Parker King …

The Poms began to arrive in Australia, to stay, in 1788. They were particularly concerned at that time about the intentions of the French regarding this newly available continent.

Naturally the early explorers were from Britain and Europe, the first generation of Australian Europeans had to be born and grow up for a while. Phillip Parker King was born in the penal colony on Norfolk Island in 1791. His father, Philip Gidley King was the commandant of the settlement and would later be the Governor of New South Wales. Young Phillip was sent back to England for his education and looked forward to a career in the Royal Navy.

In many respects his timing was abysmal. King entered the Navy in 1807, the war with France was at its height, he served with distinction and was commissioned lieutenant in 1814. The following year it was all over, Napoleon once a rooster was now a feather duster, Britain had an enormous navy and no one to fight. Naval officers were put out to grass.

Fortunately for young Phillip his talent for meticulous surveying and draughtsmanship had been noticed. He was sent out to Australia to fill in the gaps in the coastal charting. A number of Explorers had grazed the coast of Oz. Dampier and Cook perhaps the most famous and Mathew Flinders had completed the first circumnavigation by 1803 (although he was somewhat slow getting the results out due to his imprisonment in Mauritius on his way home … for six years. Those bloody French).

The notable gaps were the Kimberley coast, the northern reaches of the Great Barrier Reef and Bass Strait. Between 1817 and 1822 King meticulously filled in the gaps. And when he’d finished that he went to South America and sorted out the southern tip. He deserves to be right up there with Flinders but he is hardly known, a neglected native son.

Montgomery Reef was discovered by King in 1821 and named for the ship’s surgeon. It’s out in a bay about 22 km from the nearest point on the mainland. On a high tide you might pass right over it but as the tide falls it emerges and looks rather splendid.

It’s home to turtles and sharks and at low tide numerous Eastern Reef Egrets and wading birds that have to make alternative arrangements when the water rushes back to cover it all again. The reef is about 80 km long and covers an area of about 400 km². Small sand islands, called the High Cliffy Islands, were home to the Jaudibaia people, excavations reveal their presence as long ago as 6,700 years. They spoke a distinct dialect. They are unique among Australian aboriginals in living on such small islands but fish and turtles were stranded on the adjacent reef twice a day and provided handsomely. The Jaudibaia were reputed to be of impressive stature many reaching 7 feet in height. A film crew for Pathe News visited in 1929 when they found about 300 people. The next time anyone thought to look there were none. No trace and no explanation.

Our visit was graced by a flock of White-winged Terns in full breeding plumage, a stranded turtle and many in the water, close looks at Eastern Reef Egrets and other shore birds such as this Beach Stone-curlew …

King’s ship was His Majesty’s Cutter Mermaid. It had been cobbled together with iron not copper nails. As time passed and the nails rusted out it began to leak furiously. During 1820 King selected a suitable beach with easy access to fresh water and careened her. The work took six weeks, numerous holes being plugged with locally cut wooden bungs. The Mermaid still leaked when she was refloated.

Whilst at Careening Bay a memento was carved in a Boab tree.

Admiral Phillip Parker King, FRS, RN died at his home in North Sydney on 26 February 1856.

The Horries …

The cruise took us north from Broome, past the Lacepede Islands to the Buccaneer Archipelago and Talbot Bay.

The Buccaneer Archipelago consists of more than 800 islands and the vista is grand in every direction.

The tidal range is enormous in these waters, there may be as much as 8 metres between the height of high and low tide. Cyanobacteria colour the rocks in the intertidal zone so you can get a good idea from the next photo. This is the famous Horizontal Waterfall at slack water. As the tide changes the water pours through with such force that at peak flow there is a difference in height between the sea and the inner bay, it looks like a waterfall, but stick around, when the tide is roaring in the opposite direction what was falling in will be falling out.

While you’re waiting you can watch the sharks.

To be continued …

Sands of time …

A compromise title, I figured that the more obvious Geology of the Kimberley would get little attention in the blogosphere whilst Kimberley Gets Her Rocks Off might get the wrong sort.

The Kimberley that you see as you cruise past is what’s left by processes over eons. The time involved is almost unimaginable compared with a human lifespan and the processes seem extraordinary but they could not be more ordinary. It’s all a matter of some key events, time in abundance and weather.

The first key event happened two billion years ago when a little tectonic plate, the Kimberley Craton, smacked slowly into the North Australian Craton. The Kimberley Craton rode up over the other forming a mountain range that probably rivalled the modern European Alps in size. (Kimberley likes it on top).

Erosion commenced and the products were washed into the adjacent shallow seas forming sandstone which is up to 5km thick in places. Uplifting and the outpouring of basalt (especially in the Mitchell Plateau and Ord River region) followed by more erosion. Add a few volcanic injections of dolerite (especially the King Leopold Range). Take a great barrier reef and raise it well above modern sea-level as the Napier and Ningbing Ranges and all you need to do now is to add flora and fauna.

To summarise, on this cruise you will be seeing a lot of sandstone.

In the southern section it will be very impressive because it is folded. Further north it will be very impressive because it is not. It will be most impressive early and late in the day when the low sun falls on it.

And where conditions are right the uppermost blocks can undergo further weathering to produce beehive like structures. This can be seen on a grand scale in the Bungle Bungles but also occurs on the coast …

If you are inclined to study this topic more thoroughly here are a couple of handy links …

kimberleycoast.com.au/kimberley-geology/

sciencewa.net-kimberley-alps

Or just continue the cruise …

Broome …

I first visited Broome in 1996. I played a small part in an Australian Wader Studies Group expedition that caught and banded birds like these …

If you click on the picture it will fill your screen and you can test your diagnostic skills. The back arrow on your browser will return you here. (This is true of almost all the photos on this blog).

It’s a place that has a great magnetic pull. A couple of the guys on the expedition stayed on and made it their home. I have been back many times and usually stay with one of them.

Most of the waders nest in Siberia and come to Oz to escape the winter snow of their breeding grounds. Roebuck Bay is a key resource for enormous numbers of them. It is the premier site for shore birds in Australia.

William Dampier explored the northern coasts of Western Australia back in the 17th century. The bay is named for his ship. By the 1880’s the surrounding waters were being exploited for pearl shell. In 1883 John Forrest chose the site for a port town that would serve the pearlers as a base. He named the place after Sir Frederick Broome who was the Governor of WA at the time. Sir Fred was not much impressed to have his name associated with such a humble outpost.

Quite an assortment of humanity worked in the pearling industry. The Japanese were especially prominent and there is a cemetery that provides a last resting place for many of their dead.

They also exerted their influence in the Second World War when they bombed the place four times killing 88 on one occasion.

The pearl industry is still important but has changed considerably. In past times it was all about pearl shell which was used extensively for buttons. Nowadays buttons are made of plastic and the industry makes its money out of pearls, mainly cultured.

Broome is the administrative centre for the Kimberley and is a base for the mining and gas extraction industries.

Above all, though, it’s a tourist destination. It boasts an international airport, an open air cinema, dinosaur footprints, camel rides, spectacular sunsets and a nude beach that extends some 17km from Cable Beach to, believe it or not, the mouth of Willie Creek.

This visit was part of a package with Zegrahm Expeditions so I got to stay at the Cable Beach Resort, such luxury. Nonetheless I played hookey the first day and went birding with my good friend Chris Hassell who is a professional ornithologist with Birdlife International and the Global Flyway Network.

A splendid day was had and at the end of it I was deposited at the port and embarked on the Oceanic Discoverer for a voyage to Darwin via the Kimberley coast.

And a splendid vessel she is.

The Kimberley revisited …

Back in 2013 I made a 4WD trip to the Kimberley in search of the Black Grasswren. It was a splendid adventure which I described on my return.

The Kimberley is a remote and sparsely populated part of Western Australia. It is located entirely in the tropics. In summer it’s hot and wet, in winter it’s hot and dry.

Here is the red bit in a little more detail …

As you can see, between Derby and Wyndham the “main road” is always more than one hundred kilometres from the coast. The Gibb River Road is a modest expedition in itself but to really get to grips with the Kimberley you have to do battle with situations like this …

and from time to time you pass the skeletons of the vehicles that didn’t make it …

Your rewards are the bush, the waterfalls, the wildlife, the rock art and the exhilaration of getting out intact. All of which just makes you want to see more … and the way to do that is by ship.

Flame …

Update …

The year rolls along. My Aussie birdlist for 2015 currently stands at 212 comfortably ahead of the days elapsed. The addition of new species has slowed. That’s inevitable, but the change of seaons brings its own rewards. The first Flame Robin of the winter turned up on the farm on 11th of April, a lone female plumaged bird. Numbers are building. I’m looking forward to Swift Parrot.

A change of scenery will also help. I think I’ll head to the Kimberley … I’ll tell you about it when I get back.

Yesterday …

… praise Gaia, was Earth Day.

Must confess, I missed it, but it’s never to late to say thank you.

The very first Earth Day occurred on April 22 1970 at Fairmont Park, Philadelphia. According to Ira Einhorn it was organised by Ira Einhorn. This tends to be played down these days.

Certainly he was there. He gave a rousing speech for 30 minutes or so before introducing the keynote speaker Senator Edmund Musky, sorry, Muskie. Musky comes later. I wonder what Ira said in that 30 minutes. A Google search made a little but permanent mark on my metadata file but yielded nothing.

We can speculate that he spoke about the crisis that beset that particular time. The following day the New York Times editorial page warned, “Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.” Were they quoting Ira?

In that same month Paul Ehrlich wrote …

Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.

… but before we jump to the conclusion that he was quoting Ira we must remember that the year before Ehrlich had predicted an Eco-Catastrophe that we would cause mass starvation by 1975. For the Earth Day edition of The Progressive he predicted the great Die-Off. He dismissed as optimists other experts who thought we might hold out as long as 1980.

It was a time of extreme crisis. Predictions were dire. Ehrlich alone had predicted the imminent loss of nine tenths of the world’s rainforest, that air pollution would claim hundreds of thousands of lives, 200,000 in smog disasters in just LA and New York in the single year of 1973. He declared that the life expectancy of Americans had fallen to just 49 years.

A whole bunch of journalists citing experts and experts citing each other were in on the act. The world’s resources would be gone, the world’s food would be gone, the oxygen would be gone. Even the daylight would be gone. You can find a catalogue <HERE>. A couple of my favourites …

Kenneth Watt warned about a pending Ice Age in a speech. “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years,” he declared. “If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”

and another, it has always troubled me that Carbon Dioxide got such a bad rap whilst Nitrogen got off scot free ..

Ecologist Kenneth Watt told Time that, “At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.

If you are reading this it’s clear that we dodged the bullet, and we dodged the bullet thanks to Earth Day.

And thanks to Ira. Whether he was the founder or merely the Master of Ceremonies at Earth Day number one he did his bit.

Holly Maddox was Ira’s girlfriend. She left him and moved to New York. Ira threatened to toss her remaining belongings if she didn’t pick them up. So she went back to Philadelphia to do just that and was never seen alive again. The police did interview Ira who said that the last he saw her she was on her way to buy some tofu and bean sprouts.

Eighteen months later the guy in the apartment below complained of a brown liquid seeping through the ceiling and a musky smell. Police found the badly beaten body in a trunk in Ira’s bedroom. The body was surrounded by news paper.

Ira made bail … and immediately skipped town. After 23 years, he was extradited from France and put on trial. Taking the stand in his own defense, Einhorn claimed that his ex-girlfriend had been killed by CIA agents who framed him for the crime because he knew too much about the agency’s paranormal military research. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

The moral of the story is clear. The Earth can be saved by composting bullshit … but it’s not the best way to recycle your girlfriend.

Sadly …

More evidence of my own advancing age, Percy Sledge died this day

My own favorite is this one …

Recorded in 1966, back in the days when the bari sax was essential.