2023 Austrailia Boris Yammy

Trucks are a little different here. In North America pretty much every pick up has a fiberglass canopy. In Austrailia it seems trucks are more utilitarian. They either have open pick up beds , flat beds or an open bed with a combination of steel  cabinets.  The overwhelming  truck of choice is some form of the Toyota landcruiser, usually decked out with winches, shovels , gas cans, a roll up sun canopy or a roof top tent. It will also have a pretty serious cow catcher front bumper to protect from kangaroo collisions. The front bumper will also have bars that wrap around the front quarter panels. For some reason all these high end trucks have a serious radio antenna attached somewhere. Anyways my hope is that when I get reincarnated it is as a person in Austrailia with an enough money to deck out a brand new landcruiser with masses of camping gear.

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.

We made or way over to the coast. And what a change. Things are greener, it seems less hot, the people not as friendly, harder to find free camping sites . Despite all that we have seen some interesting stuff. The bird life here is a little more prolific and we have been ramping up our bird list. We were lucky enough to spot a cassowary walking along the beach . According to the locals these beasts can get a little aggressive at times.  We spent a morning walking along Cairns sea promenade. We got to see a few shorebirds that make it it to the Yukon. Everything in its dull winter plumage. I was a little lost at first but some local birders pointed out the different species. Anyways we are not much for the big cities,  so we headed north . Now we are at a paid campsite on the lower Daintree. Tomorrow we head off on a river trip. And to get you in the mood.

We are in Charleville in the middle of the Queensland outback. We have survived two incidents.  While driving into the setting sun we narrowly missed hitting an adult kangaroo and her Joey. I jammed on the brakes and missed them by about 2 meters.  The other incident involved stopping for a quick rest break . I pulled on to the shoulder which appeared to be red gravel and which turned out to be red sticky mud. We got good and stuck. Our only resource was pulling the mud away from the wheels with our hands and stuffing tufts of grass behind the wheels.Two local women stopped and offered advice and then slopped into the mud to help push the vehicle on to firmer ground. Luckily there was a free campground nearby where we were able to remove the mud from ourselves and the car.

Mostly sleepless night, then two hour fight to Vancouver, then 12 hour wait, then 15 hour to Brisbane where we arrived two days later and not feeling too bad.  We are staying at the Brisbane Manor  built in 1900, an old rooming house located pretty close to downtown and a few hundred meters from a big park.  We marched downtown to get the bugs out of my new sim card , then a quick nap and then in the heat of the day we explored the park next door. Right away we saw some hot birds. Various locals befriended us. I think they thought we needed protecting as we stumbled about gazing at birds oblivious to speeding bikes and scooters. Sulphur crested Cockatoo and Galahs Bush thick knee Masked Lapwing Austalian Magpie

Here is Yammy testing some our recently acquired expedition gear. We have heard that the flies can be troublesome.

 It was a bit of a convoluted trip from Nong Khai to our last destination Pak Chong and nearby Kao Yai Park. After two cities , two minibus trips and an ordinary rail trip with endless stops, we arrived at Pak Chong and were picked up by a driver and brought to our simple guest house. From here we took a couple of tours into and around Kao Yai Park. It was our last little bit of birding and we were fortunate to see some good birds and quite a bit of wildlife.  The last hour before we left the park we were fortunate to see 5 gaur run across a field into the forest. They are a very large water buffalo like creature, the toughest thing in the forest. When the plunged into the forest they flushed out 8 asiatic elephants. Despite their size elephants are not that easy to see.    Gibbon Great Hornbill This picture does not capture it. This is a stream of 2 million bats leaving their cave for an evening outing. Anyways we had a great time at the park and then it was off to ...

 Across the Mekong River from Vientiane is the border town on Nong Khai. Unlike a lot of border towns it is very clean and has lots of amenities to attract tourists.