97) Going north - "but it's desolate up there!"

A chipper thick-billed Grasswren strutting his stuff!

We talked to a number of folks as we thought about this trip. The general theme was "well, it's really desolate north of Perth. If you go south there are wineries and big forests and restaurants. The north is um, interesting, but it's just so...desolate!"

So we went north.

We drove straight to Shark Bay and Francois Peron National Park to escape the Easter hordes near Perth. We would have liked to have gone further north, but were limited due to time restrictions.

Once at Shark Bay we needed to take a walk to discover just who lived in this exotic area of desolate "acacia-dominated shrublands that feature chenopod plant species and recumbent shrubs where the foliage extends to the ground." So, we strolled along the Wulyibidi Yaninyina Trail (from the Malgana Aboriginal language for 'walking person') and discovered that it is home to this lovely bird who is quite endangered. They are present in only this miniscule area of their former range, but are said to be making a comeback here. The well-camoflauged, stick-striped, bird, of whom Dirk was diligent and patient about gaining trust to get this super-duper photo, is capable of "make a blurring run for cover" and "has a squeaky, reeling musical song and resembles a musical note itself, bouncing about rather jauntily with its long tail held high!" (nature fact sheet http://www.sharkbay.org/default.aspx?WebPageID=227)

During our autumn visit to wildflower land, the rock on a rope that was hanging below this sign was dry, cold to touch, still, and easy to see! (not raining, cold, not windy, and no fog). Sounds like weather here might be even more variable than Colorado?













Ye olde Billabong Roadhouse, complete with power by generator. Nothing much here but the outback for kilometers around! We had to time our petrol (gas for you yanks) stops to not exceed 350k (~200 mi) and the extent of the tank in our camper van. We barely rolled into one station when we cavalierly passed a petrol station where we didn't want to spend the extra 4 cents a litre. It's not unusual for petrol here to cost $1.47/litre (~$6.00/gallon to you whining yanks!).

The Francois Peron National Park is on a peninsula guarded by protective devices including a feral-proof fence with a motion-detector which triggers a barking dog recording, plus a locally-derived poison which is fatal to non-native animals. It is home for "Project Eden," a program to reintroduce and try to safeguard endangered native animals like the thick-billed grasswren (above) and some of the engaging marsupials raised in Barna Mia, (described in the NEXT blog) from feral cats, foxes, and other unsavory predatory creatures. Project Eden reports mixed success, depending upon the particular species. Project Eden: http://www.sharkbay.org/default.aspx?WebPageID=149

Monkey Mia is the end of the bitumen (paved) road on the peninsula and the overall tourist destination. Fishermen started hand feeding a pod of dolphins 40 years ago and the practice has now become a tourist draw with lucky folks (mostly kids) being selected out of the crowd to give the dolphins their small rations (they only provide 1/8 the dolphin food intake/day to encourage the dolphins to forage at sea). But they put on a good eco-talk, have all the dolphins ID-ed by their unique dorsal fin shapes, track the breeding patterns and are very careful about interactions.

Unfortunately, you must have a 4WD to really explore these parts. Our camper, although comfy was absolutely, under NO CIRCUMSTANCES, for ANY reason, including acts of nature, God or terrorists, to be driven on unsealed roads.

So much for getting into the outback ....

















"Shell Beach, as the name implies, is not your everyday sand beach. Instead, it’s a beach made of trillions of tiny shells, all from one type of animal. The shell, known as the Hamelin Cockle, lives in prolific numbers in the area because of the super salty water. The discarded shells have heaped into massive piles up to 10m thick! It is a sight to behold; tonnes of bleached white shells forming a beach up to 1km wide and many kilometres long!"(http://www.sharkbayworldheritagedrive.com.au/world_heritage_brochure.pdf)




Big skies and dramatic clouds over Shell Beach.









These stromatolites are found in Hamelin Pool Marine Nature Reserve in Shark Bay, a hypersaline lagoon that is a World Heritage site. The hypersaline conditions are created by a sill across the bay which restricts tide flow. The salinity reduces the growth of certain snails which in turn allows stromatolites to grow. A certain fascination in these algal formation resonates from the geology days. - these things are world famous!

Dirk gleefully surveying the stromatolites!



Known as "living fossils," these guys contain microbes similar to those found in 3,500 million year old rocks that are the earliest record of life on earth!

We stayed at the Hamelin Pool caravan park that was complete with a historic (1884) telegraph station, stromatolite museum, tea rooms, miscellani hodgepodge store, shell-brick quarry, noisy generator, bathrooms that had piped in radio coverage 24/7, and caretaker who couldn't understand Dirk's confusion about finding the check-in office in the building which had a sign in front proclaiming all the attractions except "check-in office." Quite the combination of odd amenities, it was interesting but a bit creepy.




This is an old quarry of the local building material - calcium-cemented shells (same stuff that is on Shell Beach 30 km away)! The original building are made of big blocks of this stuff.













Interesting seats up front on this classic outback truck!









It turns out that the world didn't end when we took our vehicle on non-insurance covered "unsealed" roads to seek a quiet camp at the end of the rainbow!

Vehicle hire tip #1 - make sure you can take it on unsealed (not necessarily 4WD) roads. Or you are stuck staying at expensive caravan parks.

After exploring the peninsula as best we could in our granny-mobile we started to head south at a leisurely pace. Nancy was VERY psyched that we would NOT be driving at night due to hordes of jumpy, and VERY large, kangaroos ready to test their agility by leaping about in traffic. That was the biggest warning we got from everyone -unless you have a beater truck with a bull-bar or are driving a "road-train" (huge 3-4 container long-haul truck rigs that stop for nuttin') DO NOT drive at night. So she was happy that we would be in a camp, feet up, sipping WA wine by dusk. At- the- latest......

Dirk risked his life on slippery rocks with certain-death cliff fall into frothing pounding ocean waves and no escape potential to capture the Nancy frolicking on the natural bridge across before-mentioned watery death that luckily didn't collapse with her weight and repeated jumping both feet airborne action photo.

We drove through Kalbarri National Park to get out to the coast. A tableland riven by gorges along the Murchison river that carves up the landscape out to the coast.








Here Dirk became envious of the kite potential (and skill level). This part of AU (Pt Lehmen down to Perth) is said to be the most constant winds in AU. All small kites (due to windspeed).

Along here we also learned Vehicle Hire tip #2 - DO NOT rent a TALL vehicle (like our Hi-top camper van. Comfy to walk around in but hey are misery to drive in the wind. Which is all the time. Except at night.. see tip #1 ( kangaroos) above)





Fabulous coastline with numerous overlooks and small canyons providing access to micro-beaches.






















The Kalbarri coast at sunset is quite spectacular.

























Gorgeous sunsets!!

But, many "No Camping" signs all over the place Ah, what to do? Break the "no night driving" rule or break the "no camping rule". Do they even patrol these out-of-the-way overlooks?

60 km is a LONG way to go in the dark while scanning the encroaching trees for bonzai 'roos. What was the insurance deductible on this thing? Bigger than the fine for illegal camping I bet......



A small part of the Hutt Lagoon at Port Gregory. A large scale aquaculture project. Pink in color due to the Dunaliella bacteria which is harvested for Beta Carotene. They also harvest brine shrimp.






These peculiar limestone formations that are standing in yellow sand are the Pinnacles of Nambung National Park, located near the town of Cervantes just off the coast of the Turquoise Coast on the Indian Ocean. Now how exotic is that?! It gets even better, check out Dirk's night time photos of the Southern Cross and the Pinnacles, below!

This place is a photographers dream... sand dunes on the edge, clouds, spectacular rocks, good critters at some times. I could spend days here...we broke our no night driving rule to stay after sunset and come back before sunrise. Spectacular!

























These are menhirs if I have every seen one!!!










































The theory about formation of the pinnacles is still hotly contested. But, there were hundreds of these tiny (AU $2 gold coin for scale) 'pinnacles' sticking out of the sand - one theory is that these are rootlets which changed the pH enough to precipitate calcium carbonate along the roots. The tall pinnacles are formed around buried trees.

Pretty strange stuff!











Along the way were constantly stopping at Nancy's small list of birding spots. We had good success in many spots with dozens of species identified. I continued to practice the Zen of Bird Photography - which consist mostly of patience, dismissal of aggravation, did I say patience? constant philosophical shrugs at the UEs, the blurs, out of focus, the "almost got it".. and much muttering......

Grey fantail, enjoying his morning bath; relative of Willie wagtail.














a Nankeen kestrel on the lookout for his dinner.
















I'm improving at identifying the small waders, and I can tell that this bird is a Red-capped plover!












A Bar-tailed Godwit in breeding plumage, chowing down for his imminent journey to central Siberia in the northern hemisphere! Some Godwits participate in one of, if not the, longest non-stop bird migrations--up to 11,000 km in over approximately 10 days (from NZ to Alaska)!















My kind of bird to photograph! These emus just stood there - no manic flitting about, they are too big to hide in the center of dense shrubs, they are calm and simply go about their eating and scratching about in the litter.

They are quite used to people and cars. We were quite excited about seeing these birds in the outback, until we saw one walking down the main street of Denham, just down the road. A bit like elk in Estes Park! But still, nice to see them wild.



A Singing Honeyeater. There weren't too many honeyeaters around this time of year except for these guys. Given the diversity of flora in Australia, there is also a diversity of nectar feeders. I was wondering why there weren't any hummingbirds--well the honeyeaters are the antipodean version--and there are almost 70 species of honeyeaters!


These are Crested pigeons in their native habitat of inland and western Australia. They have a fancy black crest. Their range has expanded coastwards with settlement, and they are now widespread and much more common. We even have a pair of these living in our neighborhood in Queensland. They apparently like suburban golf courses and sports-grounds, so they fit right into the Gold Coast.





A glass of WA wine and a salade of watermelon, mint, lime and Feta cheese for an outback campervan dinner in the rain, anyone?










An uncommon Southern Scrub Robin. We only saw one of these birds, also along the Wulyibidi Yaninyina Trail. They are ground-dwellers like the scrubwren, and are vulnerable to feral cats, and so they survive best in protected areas. Pizzey describes them as "spirited" and "inquisitive." (and very challenging to photograph as they scurry from one dense bush to the next. I think this one was momentarily stunned at the language I was using....)







An ubiquitously-distributed Welcome Swallow. These birds seem quite adaptable to a variety of habitats, and we saw them swooping around alot of different places.

A pretty Silvereye, distinctive because of the ring of small white feathers ringing his eye.
















A white-browed babbler. These birds travel in small family groups, cheerfully chattering amongst themselves. They are quite endearing as they go about their daily business (which is mostly hiding in very dense bushes with occasional dashes to the litter at the edge for just long enough to ALMOST get focus....).







A beautiful mistletoe bird. Dirk is a pro at spotting the unusual red birds here in AU!


















The ecosystem service provided by these brilliant birds is well known. They dine on mistletoe fruits and then spread the parasitic plant to new branch sites by wiping their bum and leaving the sticky seeds behind! Although mistletoe is a parasite, it usually doesn't kill its host, and it provides good bird tucker (food)!










Careful of bilbies crossing the road!

According to the Barna Mia expert, there is actually only a diminished miniscule of a chance of encountering a bilby by pure chance as implied by this road sign. A recent three-week intensive exhaustive survey/search for bilbies in previously known locations in WA revealed absolutely no evidence whatsoever of bilbies still existing in the wild (except known nature reserves)...But lots and lots of evidence of feral cats...... Nancy was smiling until she heard this story.







We saw a little boy gleefully leaping from the pier into cool turquoise ocean, and Dirk was unable to resist doing it himself. More than once! (Yeah - but did he check the water depth first ? huh? that was a very little kid we saw jump!)




On the docks in Port Gregory









A pair of black-winged stilts, these are the Australian race of a widespread cosmopolitan species (Pizzey). Their extraordinarily long legs make them look quite delicate, but any bird living in the wild has gotta be tough to make a living.











I think this is a juvenile Rufous Whistler. The males are real lookers when they're mature, with a strong mask and rufous underparts. I'm sure you're all loving my convoluted bird descriptions...











Dragons in flight......










Ancient Aboriginal art and people of unknown age (Some Australian art is reportedly up to 65,000 years old?!)
(Ages of some expats haven't been noted in some time.)

http://www.aboriginalartonline.com/art/rockage.php







Nancy demonstrating prevailing wind velocity

An antipodal form of a krummholz tree (in the back ground) growing in accordance to the prevailing winds.

See Vehicle hire tip #2 above.......

It was such a joy to see sunsets over the ocean (or lagoon in this case)

So we continue to weave our way south towards Perth. The goal is to get down to the Southern Ocean. There may not be lots of great wineries and fine restaurants up here but this is hardly what we think of as desolate....

Just the lonely distance of the long road.

But...




On a remarkable note, we chatted with these two geared out bikers at a roadhouse (500 km north of Perth) we just rolled into burning fumes. Helene and Jardar are from Norway and are doing a little trip. The conversation went like this:
me: "Where are you coming from?
them: "Brisbane"
me [incredulous]: "You mean Brisbane Queensland????"
them [calmly]: "Yes, south across the Nullabor Desert".
me: "Where are you going?"
them: "Brisbane - through the Kimberlies and the Great Northern Road"
me [astounded]: "You mean Brisbane QLD????"
Them: "yes - 15,000 km in 7 months"

No shoulder on the road, huge road trains, 'roos jumping out of the bushes, circumnavigating the wilds of Australia. Wow!