One in the Bush: November 2019

Road trip

I'm always saying it but sorry once again for the delay in getting the old blog updated. I blame work which is a bit full-on at the moment and is leaving me somewhat exhausted. Of course this is entirely my own fault as nothing we do at work is remotely important in the grand scheme of things.

It's now been two months since my parents came to visit and we set off on the great road trip across the bottom of Australia. Flying into Adelaide we picked up a car and after a couple of days based in Glenelg (my favourite palindromic suburb) we headed west to the Bight and Ceduna and then on across the Nullarbor. And because I had other people with me I couldn't be bothered taking any pictures and so the fabulous photos you see in the following posts are taken by Dad and Emily.

We stayed at a couple of road houses and two nights at the Eyre Bird Observatory before continuing towards Kalgoorlie where we visited the rather impressive 'Super Pit' gold mine. We then dropped back down to the south coast at Esperance before staying a few nights in Albany and then flying back from Perth. Just over two weeks all up.

'Super Pit', Kalgoorlie

Frenchman's Peak, Cape Le Grand

The Nullarbor is, perhaps surprisingly, not the desolate and isolated place you might think. A good road all the way with regular road houses and fuel stops made travel very easy.

Major Mitchell's Cockatoo

It's also a bit of a misnomer. There are loads of trees on the Nullarbor. Apart from some spectacular flat open plains on the eastern side of things, there's plenty of vegetation and topography providing changing scenery throughout.

The biggest problem was probably keeping track of the time zones. They're not full hours and some of them aren't even official. Adelaide was half-an-hour behind Sydney - weird but ok. Heading west you then come across the bizarre and unofficial Australian Central Western Standard Time which lasts for 350km across the Nullarbor and was 45 minutes behind Adelaide. In the middle of this zone the Eyre Bird Observatory operated it's own independent time zone which was 15 minutes ahead of ACWST.

SW WA

Back on the road and leaving the Nullarbor gets you into the general Western Australia time-zone which was another hour back and so an hour-and-a-half behind Adelaide and 2 hours behind Sydney. Simple!

It appears that this series of posts may be too large to appear together is some instances and so if this is the case then please check out the individual links on the right-hand-side under 'Recent Posts' to see our exciting adventures with 'The wildlife', 'The golf', 'The caches', and 'The mountains'.

The wildlife

Emu

I had high hopes of adding a few birds to the list and was able to get some pretty detailed tips from a couple of birders who I met down at Leeton on my recent failed Shoveler twitch. In the event things didn't quite go according to plan.

Australian Bustard

After dipping on Barbary Doves in Adelaide I missed all of the Nullarbor specialties such as the Nullarbor Quail-thrush and Naretha Bluebonnet although there was a report of these parrots in exactly the same spot a week later!

Tawny Frogmouth

Brown Goshawk

I wasn't too down-hearted at this stage though as the Eyre Bird Observatory was next on the list but on arrival we discovered that a bushfire had ripped through there relatively recently and so all the Mallefowl had moved on. There were no other mallee specialties either.

Major Mitchell's Cockatoo

New Holland Honeyeaters

I had to wait until we reached Esperance to get the list moving with Western Wattlebird #503 and then Western Spinebill #504 at Cape Le Grand. About 60km east of Albany is the legendary Cheyne's Beach which holds the triumvirate of rare Western Australian skulkers. I was lucky enough to find Western Bristlebird on my last visit to WA but a dawn raid on Cheyne's Beach this time around completed the set with Noisy Scrubbird #506 and Black-throated Whipbird #507 added to the list. Regent Parrot #505 and Purple-crowned Lorikeet #508 completed the scoring.

Singing Honeyeater

Apart from the omnipresent Shingleback skinks, the wildlife wasn't too thick on the ground although there was still plenty to get excited about.

Shingleback

At that time of year, the Head of the Bight is one of the best places to see Southern Right Whales as mothers and their calves come up from southern polar waters and congregate close to shore.

Southern Right Whales

We also managed to save a couple of reptiles from certain death over the course of the trip. The first was a poor Shingleback that had got it's head caught in a fence which required a painstaking two-man operation to feed the individual scales on it's head and neck back through the wire without garroting it.

Oblong Turtle

Masters' Snake

The second was an Oblong Turtle that foolishly decided to cross a busy highway. It thanked Dad by sticking a claw into his hand! Being winter there wasn't much in the way of larger reptiles but we didn't draw a complete blank with regards to the snakes as a small Masters' Snake was spotted at the bird observatory.

Red Kangaroo

Koala

It's always nice to see the iconic Red Kangaroo and we also came across Koalas in Adelaide, a single Dingo and plenty of Emus. Maybe not so nice were the feral populations of camels, goats, brumbies, and a cat!

The golf

The first challenge was always to find the hole - identified by the green tee shelter

The Nullarbor Links is the world's longest golf course stretching 1365km from Ceduna to Kalgoorlie. Not only is it long, it's also long. The par 5 'Dingo's Den' is a fairly substantial 588 yards.

The length of the course and my general lack of skills were not the only handicaps to overcome. Quite apart from the lack of fairways, the tiny rock-hard artificial 'greens' and a limited bag of clubs consisting of only four assorted irons and a putter (the 6 iron being a left-handed club for the first two holes!), we had to cope variously with wind, heat, swarming flies, low-flying aircraft, thieving crows, and the ever-present threat of deadly snakes. In the event we managed to play down the landing strip on the 5th before any planes required the use of the same space and the only reptiles that we encountered were the ubiquitous Shinglebacks.

Mum was a wonderful caddy and provided a much-appreciated calming influence on course but even she could do nothing on one hole when the crow swooped. It was always going to be impossible to guard two balls at once and despite valiantly dashing across the scrub to try, the crow picked up my ball and disappeared into the distance.

Emus on the 13th green

We had good holes (both shooting par 3 on the 175 yard 6th) and bad holes (I ran up a 9 on one of the longer par 5's) before we eventually ended the round at the PGA course in Kalgoorlie. After scrapping through the bush for a week or so that was a real treat and we both finished the last two holes like pros!

Kalgoorlie golf course

We'd not been thinking about scores for the whole time but once the numbers were added up I walked away with a round of 105. Dad's superior short game ensured him the win by a single stroke!

The caches

Caching under a random tree on the Nullarbor

Of course there's always time for a bit of caching and even though there wasn't any phone reception for most of the trip, we managed to pick up a few caches along the way. In hindsight we walked right past a load more as well.

Fake bolt

Drilled rock

Non-structural wood

It seems that the caches are a bit more innovative in South Australia and Western Australia with people going to great lengths to maufacture custom caches to blend into structures or the environment.

Fake metal-work on a ship

Hinged log

Fake bolts, brackets, electrical boxes, logs, and rocks appear to be the order of the day. Of course there are a few normal Tupperware containers as well.

Stirling Ranges

The mountains

There was time left after the road trip to spend a few days up in the Blue Mountains at my in-laws'. This turned up some surprisingly good critters and also arguably the toughest cache of the holiday.

After dark, off-track, and in heavy rain which battered the phone so much it somehow changed the map to a jungle in the DR Congo, Dad and I still managed to find the ammo box hidden under a small rock ledge. It took a while though.