2023 Austrailia Boris Yammy

Did not really get into posting on this blog. Now we are in New Zealand and I can't figure out how to create a new blog.  Some parting comments on Australia. I think we should have come in.one of the shoulder seasons and for a longer period and buy our own vehicle vehicle. I would stay away from the cities even more than we did on this last trip. I must say it is a great relief to be in New Zealand where the temperatures are more moderate. Anyways we have just arrived in NZ and are still figuring things out. Our rental outfit though the same company as Australia seems more casual and loose about things.The only thing they have warned us about is theft. We have made a major upgrade and  have a table to go with our two chairs. Yammy is over the moon with this latest upgrade.

Yesterday we got a tree kangaroo. Yes it was at the top of a tree. Yes I have pics but not good enough to share. Last night bush tailed possum. Also pademelons , a nocturnal wallaby type creature.  The star of the show yesterday were two platypus. Hundreds of kangaroos and wallabies and a few days ago a fleeting glance at a saltwater crocodile. On the bird front we are up to 144 species. A decent birder would probably have double that. The koala is a piece of unfinished business. Oh I forgot we saw some sort of snake swimming across the river yesterday.

Getting used to driving on the left hand side was relatively easy. All the roundabouts and google maps interpretation of them was a little more confusing. The first big general impression I get is that everyone is driving about 20 kph faster than what I am confortable with. Most two lane highways are 110, school zones are 80. In the outback we have seen one lane bitumen roads where to pass a vehicle both drivers have to put their wheels in the gravel or sometimes mud shoulder. Speed limit 110.  If you meet a truck or road train you have to get completely off the highway. Road trains are trucks with one , two , three or four trailers to a maximum length of 67 meters. If you head across a pedestrian crossing expecting the vehicles to stop you will end up in the hospital or dead. While having coffee in a small town we watched a man pushing a wheelchair stopped at a pedestrian crossing. He waited for about thirty cars before someone stopped. Then there are flood zones. On a...

On our day trip to Magnetic Island , a short hop off the coast from Townsville. We were fortunate to spot two koalas.  Now our work here is done and we can start working on our tan.

I think we only added one species of birds to our list here. They did have a good exhibit explaining how the continent of Australia has drifted around. Five hundred million years ago Australia was glomed onto a single land mass called pangea What I did discover, was that Australia was the last continent to touch Anarctica. Fifty million years ago they separated from the rest of the land masses and fifteen million years they briefly touched up against New Guinea.  The aborigines have been here for fifty to sixty thousand years.  Anyways they have had a lot of time to evolve plants and animals unique to this continent. And they share a bunch of animals and plants with New Guinea.  Stay tuned for the next post explaining why hopping is more efficient than running. This blog is being composed at a rest stop where we are waiting for a torrential rainfall to ease up.

We have had three fabulous nights of sleep in our van so far.  The camping part is basically composed of two big boxes with hydraulic lids. Both have extension brackets that come out and hold a small sheet of plywood. The box in back holds a small fridge and all your kitchen supplies. The box in the front basically holds cargo. Then there are three cushions that make up a cozy bed. Your head is to the back door and there is just enough room to shimmy forward into the front seats or out the side doors. It is getting harder and harder to imagine us reverting to our tent. This is our kitchen area. All the pots ,stoves ,water and fridge are tucked in there. You can sleep with the back down or with the tent over the back door. There are screens that go over the middle door windows and the back tent has three screens . The air circulation is quite good. Anyways this is our home until the new year.