​Australia a land where ancient species still grow.

​
I use the word ancient very loosely because its difficult to actually define what ancient means in relation to our continent. I am lost for words, in fact I don’t know! When I start delving back in the history of our land, I get lost in a labyrinth of continents, supercontinents, and eras tagged with almost unpronounceable names. I started out looking at some of the continuously living organisms in Australia and got side tracked but back to the topic, but I really do mean continuously living organisms.
Whilst in Tasmania, we travelled through forests which are home to some of the oldest trees in Australia. The Huon pine in the south west coast range are all male (Huon pines can be male or female) and are genetically identical. Some individual trees are believed to be over 1500 years old. Ancient pollen samples suggest that this clonal organism has continuously inhabited the region for at least 10,000 years.
Even more fascinating is Lomatia tasmanica a member of the proteaceae family. It is sterile and thus clonal like the Huon pine. In fact leaf fossils found in the south west date the species back over 40,000 years. Given the species is a clone it is possibly the oldest continuously living plant in the world.
Both these species reproduce vegetatively, ie., from the roots of old plants or from fallen branches which have then grown roots. We saw many examples of such reproduction in the dense wet forests of Tassie.

The Derby Prison tree. This is one of  many larrkardiy around Derby which are believed to be imbued with special mystical forces. 

Talking old trees leap to the far north west corner of Australia where Boab trees, believed to be related to the African species, have been been evolving in Australia for around 200 million years. They dot the landscape on plains, hills and gorges from Timber Creek in Northern Territory to the west coast. Some trees are believed to be hundreds of years old and a few trees at least a thousand or more years old. They are revered by local aboriginal communities.

The trees are said to flower for one night and are pollinated by the hawk moth and other insects attracted by their nectar. The flesh and seeds of the fruit whilst not all that palatable (to me) have many uses - the seeds were ground to make ‘flour’, steeped to make a drink, rich in Vitamin C they have had important dietary application explorer Augustus Gregory used the fruit to treat scurvy amongst his travelling companions.

The fruit of the Boab.  The seeds, ngibi, were used for food and medicine. They taste a little like almonds.

And then there are stromatolites whose origins date back billions of years to that time when photosynthesis and oxygen were dawning. These are cyanobacteria In WA they thrive in geothermally heated waters with high saline levels (which protect the organisms). The species found in Hamlin Pool differs from those growing in Lake Thetis which according to local aboriginal dreaming are the eggs of Wagyl, the Rainbow Serpent.

Seen through the water, some stromatolites give of bubbles of oxygen. 3 Billion years ago these amazing organisms produced atmospheric oxygen for subsequent oxygen-dependent life.

Stromatolites are extremely rare and are only found in a few localities around the world including Australia where there are both living colonies as well as one of the largest deposits of fossilised stromatolites in the world. But recently a new colony has been found in wetlands of Tasmania's south west wilderness. These wetlands are not saline or geothermally heated like other stromatolite habitats. That’s a subject for another time once I learn more of this new discovery. You can read more about this startling discovery here http://www.media.utas.edu.au/general-news/all-news/ancient-life-form-discovered-in-remote-tasmanian-valley
So much to know. It would take many life times to scratch the surface.

​The end of an awesome odyssey - October 2017

Our good old van, our home away from home for the last 8 months, has a new undercover home. Safe and sound. What a champ she was! She’ll be getting new undercarriage before we head back out on  the roads less traveled - not the Canning Stock Route but road/tracks such as Tanami, Buchanan, Strzelecki and  .....

We’re back! Our ‘odyssey’ was one hell of an adventure, long both in distance and time. Was it worth it? Oh, most definitely yes! My mind is still digesting all that we've seen and happily that will continue for quite some time. From remnants of the Supercontinent of Ur in the Pilbara dating back 3 billion years and living fossils in World Heritage Shark Bay to dinosaur footprints along the Dampier Peninsula. From ancient rock paintings depicting Yingarna, the Creation Spirit who emerged from the Arafura Sea to populate West Arnhem Land, fast forward to rich goldfields, stock routes, jasper deposits and European exploration and settlement. A history still in infancy which rests as light as a mist net on top the ancient history of our land. I have learnt so much!

Pieces of ancient earth crust engraved with over a million petroglyphs, Burrup Peninsula/Murujuga, WA

Rock painting of the female Creation ancestor, Yingarna. Photographed on the sacred Injalak Hill, Arnhem Land.

Board walk over some of the stromatolites, living fossils, in World Heritage Shark Bay.

Deep glorious veins of jasper at Marble Bar, WA

We joined in the Malandarri aboriginal cultural and arts festival in Borroloola. Everyone joins in!

The ancient ‘lost city’ in the Carabirini Conservation Reserve, NT

Once done on the hoof so to speak, cattle droving has in the main been replaced with huge road trains. This one was coming in from Finke, NT.

Buchanan Highway a stock route forged by Nat Buchanan and ‘Greenhide’ Sam Croker in the late 1800s. Routes like this criss-cross Australia.

What started out for me as an interest in flowers and plants became quite a challenging and exciting experience. The more I looked, the more I saw. The more I delved for answers or identification, the more and deeper I learned to look. I will now go back and back and back again to my pix because there are many plants I didn't identify and some, perhaps quite a few, I got wrong. I identified almost 150 different species during a short period of a couple of months. Not too shabby for a novice. And of course there’s the fungi!

And we came home to this! Our beautiful orchid after 8 months of fending for itself, truly! What a valiant plant is it and quite lovely. My father potted it for me more than 20 years ago and I have done little to it since. Must love neglect. And our birds were back the morning after we arrived home. They have obviously cruised by every day looking.

Sadly the cupboard was bare else we would have celebrated with champers - again!!

Lindsay and I are determined to learn more about this amazing country and have already quite a list of places we want to explore in the future. People who I discovered, or rediscovered, on this trip. People such as John McDouall Stuart, Alfred Canning, George Goyder, Augustus Gregory and Len Beadell, all surveyors, explorers and history makers - inspire and fascinate me (and I’m no history student). Hopefully we can trace more of the routes they established and/or explored in some of the most arid, inhospitable and remote regions of Australia. Water! Springs and native wells punctuate many of those tracks - I now know. Boy how gruelling, albeit exciting, it must have been!
But to return to more urbane pursuits ........ I will miss the quiet sound of the winds hustling across the plains, waking to the dawn chorus - and so much more! Thank you for being such marvelous travel companions. I hope to share some of your journeys.

What’s on the cards for us next year? We will be gypsies again albeit this time in Ireland and Scotland, but in a much much smaller van. And we will also be heading out to sea in a wee expedition ship to explore the remote islands off the Scottish coast - must read up about the Norsemen! The trip back home from the cool climes of the UK will be via ......... ? well I'll leave that until next year except to say that on my current reading list is ‘Book of the Marvels of the World’ ....
Travel well and let questions be your guides!

A challenge!

​Cobar to Hillston - October 2017

The pits at Cobar! This is deep but who knows how far the tunnels travel underground. I do know that it took 8 -10 mins for an ore truck to cart its load to the top.

Copper, lead zinc and gold! West and east we continue to gouge out the bowels of our land of Oz. Minerals and, to a lesser extent, cattle - our mainstay still it seems. We traveled from Cobar to Hillston on the Kidman Way, a stock route linking cattle stations many of which were owned by Sir Sidney Kidman.

What a feast but it didn't last long.

For us Hillston means peace, quiet and yabbies/gilgies/marron! A delightful spot along the Lachlan river where Lindsay always puts in his net and pulls out a feast. Fecund is a word that springs to mind for Hillston. The area produces so many varieties of fruits, vege, seeds etc. and John Oxley said it was ‘uninhabitable and useless ....’. Boy was he wrong! The river and ground water make this area hugely productive.

This board hangs in the dining room of the local Clubhouse Hotel

But we were southward-bound for home under a gibbous moon.

From dawn chorus and baby pink clouds in the morning to a gibbous moon at night. Glorious!

Of no significance, probably a weed but .... it's sweet. And the insect! What’s a post without a flower?

​Dry country beauty - late September 2017

Eremophila bignoniiflora - Bignonia emubush. Although eaten by emus and sheep, the fruits and leaves have a strong laxative effect on humans and were used as such by Aboriginals.

Eremophila sturtii - Turpentine bush. Gorgeous! Branches are reputedly fly-repellent and were used on outback stations for thatching meat-houses. 

It was an Eremophila kind of day - in fact many days! Everywhere I looked round Bourke, Byrock, Cobar- all dry country. Eremophila just thrive. Quite pretty driving along with bushes big and small in full bloom beside the roads. And in stark contrast dark-leafed White Cypress started to appear. But enough of flowers - for now. We spent a few days in Kidman Camp, North Bourke, just hanging out before heading further south. It's a lovely, relaxing spot on the mighty Darling river.

The water hole in the foreground was created by the local council for recreational use out of respect for the sacred nature of the aboriginal rock holes. The area looks desolate but no no no!

While there, we took a very interesting day-trip out to Byrock - and surrounds. This is dry country and it might look rather desolate - apart from the Eremophila and mulga and and lots of other plants - but .... you just need to look and voila! Let me tell you a little about this area.

Not a particularly  good photo but the flower of this Wavy Marshwort is a very pretty fringed lily and comes in yellow or white; I have seen both.

Ah another in the Eremophila story. This is longifolia. Yep long-leaf emu bush. It was used for food and medicinal purposes. The flowers were eaten and the leaves were boiled and the water used to treat skin ailments and stomach ulcers.

Cassias are wide spread in the dry country. This is commonly known as Punty Bush; its botanical name is far too long!

Byrock is the place of the Ngemba people, Stone country people and home to some important natural rock holes carved into a large granite outcrop. It was an important source of water for the area. According to Ngemba mythology, their creator Baiame started his journey near Cobar chasing after a wild bee. On his feet he put bird feathers. His eventually found the honeycomb and it is believed there is still a bee's nest there in a deep crack in the rocks but mortals can't reach in far enough to get it. He dug the rock holes with his stone axe. Obviously there's more to it than this, but it's a charming story. What interested me was the diet of these stone country people. We think the country looks empty and inhospitable but they had fruit such as quandongs, wild bananas, mistletoe, currant bush, wild plums and bush oranges. They ate wild spinach, yams and reeds, and seeds from native grasses, kurrajong and mulga trees. And there was a good source of meat - kangaroo and wallabies, pigeons and bush turkey, snakes and tree goanna, and crayfish - and when they met up with River people they ate freshwater fish. A fascinating peek into another scrap of history and another way of living.

Geijera parvifolia - Wilga tree. Its seeds were ground to make flour and its wood was used to make boomerangs and other items. The leaves were chewed to relieve gastric and were also mixed with the leaves of the sandalwood tree, boiled and placed over rashes

We spent quite some time there wandering over the rocks and checking out the plants and birds. And then we went to the pub for a cold one - as you do!

The bar and furniture in this pub are all made from local Mulga. The pub stands on the site of a Cobb and Co Staging post dating back to the 1800s. There are many old stage coach post locations up through the centre of NSW - and elsewhere.

​We visited Stonehenge - 26 September 2017

The colour is Kharki! The dirt, grass and trees are all shades of kharki. Soft and subtle. The gidgee trees forming clouds of silvery green-grey along side pale curly Mitchell grass.

And always the trucks! What happened to rail!? Wide road eh!?

No we're not in the UK but still right here in Oz. We're in The Barcoo - look it up!! We spent an hour or so on a much too quick visit - a deliciously icy cold drink in the pub talking to the publican, then a visit to the community/information centre - the people there were a mine of information.

The Stonehenge bar.

What drew us to Stonehenge? the OTH (Over The Horizon) radar system which was installed in the 1950s as part of an early warning radar system. There are three installations - here, Laverton and The Alice. This sophisticated system was evidently invented by Australian physicists! Did we know this?! The totally off-limits base 10 or more Km out of town is now controlled by the UK and the US - I ask you!! I am constantly gob smacked at how much I/we simply have no idea about and what we seem to have let slip from our grasp.

Eau de Nil. Gorgeous colour of the Mitchell Grass downs.

You've got to like big skies and distance horizons to appreciate this country, part of the Lake Eyre Basin

Love this. A car looming on the horizon looking disproportionately and ironically big in this vast setting

Aaaaanyway ..... there we were in the heart of Barcoo country, a Shire bigger than Tasmania but with a population of less than 500 residents.
Temperatures soared to over 40 today - not my kind of weather! The publican told us that the aircon is now on and won't be turned off until Easter and it's not even summer yet! Their temperatures are in the mid to high 40s in summer - note to self 'Do NOT Visit Here in the Summer'! Step aside Marble Bar, I think you've got a challenger.

The wind has been hot and bone dry (stop - where did that phrase come from? as a biologist/physiologist I have to tell you that bones are not dry but ...) and in the words of a local, enough to blow your freckles off. Love it. Hate the heat, but I have found a place I want to come back to.

This poor little female kestrel looked so heat-stressed. A few other birds fluttered in after she took off when I got out of the car with water. But she came back. Birds - you wonder how they survive in temperatures like today but not far down the road we saw gorgeous little orange chats and then flocks of crimson chats. They are so tiny but perfect.

On the way here from Longreach, we saw lots of wild willy willies picking up 'tumble weed' and hurling it into the air. Hop out of the car and the heat - and beautiful silence - rush in and engulf you. This is dry country! When we pulled over for lunch at one of those 'picnic' stops, we found a nankeen kestrel sheltering in the shade beak open trying to cool itself. It took off as I took a bowl of water over to it, but it had returned by the time we took off. Summer has come early! 41 degrees today as we pulled into Windorah - in aircon relative comfort close to sunset. I reckon the car was working a bit too hard though.

I captured part of the solar farm as we mozied on by. Plenty of solar energy out here!

And just another sunset to finish the day. Believe me it got more brilliant as the earth swallowed it up. Such are outback sunsets.

​Mountain ranges to Channel Country 24-27 September 2017

A view over the great expanse of the Thomson flood plains from Swanvale Jump Up.

From driving through wrap-around ranges and iron ridges in the east Kimberley to driving long dry stretches in the Lake Eyre Basin and Channel country. The contrasts on our homeward journey have been quite spectacular.
For days we have driven through Mitchell grass downs, the vista changing every 30-40km with Jump Ups popping up on the horizon every now and then. These are remnants of a very old landscape and have survived because they are capped with very hard rock rich in iron and aluminium. Add water and high temperatures and voila! Solid caps. Terrific vantage points to look out over vast plains and near Stonehenge the Swanvale Fault, centre of earthquake activity in the area.

We're in desert country and here's an Eremophila! As we drive along I was reading about the various species one of which is the Eremophila polyclada - Flowering Lignum so named because it looks like Lignum. And voila there it was! I was shocked. We screeched to a halt and I jump out - in the 41 degree heat. What some people will do for a flower.

Lovely isn't it!? I think that's an ant who met his end wandering through the labyrinth of tiny hairs in the throat of the flower. I am on a hunt for more species. It's hard when they're not in flower but I reckon I've seen a few with green fruit along the way.

This beauty which provides much needed shade, is an Acacia cambagei, Gidgee. Very hard wood but a bit smelly it seems.

This is a dried out native well. Obviously no longer protected

Place names which have intrigued me for ages - Quilpie, Cooper Creek, Thargomindah were places happily discovered with solemn promises to return. It's an area of massive rivers at flood but drought affected most of the year. Stonehenge gets about 300mm pa and that falls over a few weeks. When their river, the Thomson, floods it reaches 22km wide and is over 6m deep in places. This river joins the might Cooper as it meanders and braids its way towards Lake Eyre. Yet they reckon that only 1% of the massive water front of the Thomson reaches Lake Eyre; they lose ~3metres of water to evaporation. And as we passed over these now quiet rivers, the words of Banjo Paterson echoed in my head and 'visions come to me of Clancy gone a-droving down the Cooper' .......
it's a region of earth quakes, rain, flood and drought - and white ghost gums which leap out stark white infrequently enough to surprise you. Did I say I love a sunburnt country! Indeed I do.

The mighty Cooper Creek. When did you ever see a creek this side - and it is not at flood at the moment. Look carefully and you can see a few dots in the water. People swimming. I am guessing from the house boat but there were also some people camped along the bank.

The Cooper from the other side of the bridge. I so want to be there when it floods.

No idea what this is. Pretty delicate flower but deadly prickles and a prickle coated 'fruit'. We saw them on the edge of newly sealed roads obviously come in with the road material. A weed I am guessing?

Anyone have any idea what this is. The 'fruit' looks vaguely familiar but I can't find it listed. Any clues? I found it at Windorah

This is the tree. A very young one I think.

​Heading back to Kununurra- 19 September 2017

This is the Carr Boyd range and just over the range us Lake Argyle. You'd never guess but that's what my clever phone told me!

Heading back to Kununurra from Halls Creek in the wake of TCI ( 'the caravan incident'), we traveled though and passed many significant ranges Muellet, Duran, Bungle Bungle, Carr Boyd and O'Donnell. And humongously wide rivers albeit dry beds at the moment. The river beds are flat, wide, rocky and sandy punctuated with river gums and paperbarks. Some of the larger ones are flanked by large stone groins. One can only imagine the amount of water that gushes along their lengths. Flowering kapok everywhere added splashes of brilliant yellow between the trees as the vegetation changed from desert, through mountainous rock and spinifex to the relative lushness of the east Kimberley.

When we cam through Kununurra back in July, this crossing, the Ivanhoe Crossing over or rather through which the mighty Ord River flows, was closed. This time water levels had dropped but it was still a bit water-wing territory. Great fun!

I had my water wings on but I'm still in the car - really!!!

This is the lovely Silver Box which only grows in the wild in the very northern parts of Oz. It is quite beautiful close up and at a distance in a woodland the entire tree layer appears silver. Stunning!

When we hit the turn off to Kununurra (the hwy goes north to Wyndham), we completed the Great Northern Highway, the longest hwy in WA (it was built to bring cattle to the south - more of that later). As a matter of interest albeit probably only to us! we've actually completed a number of hwys in this trip - Route 1, the Gibb River Road, Stuart, Barkly, Tablelands and Savannah Way which stretches from Broome to Cannes. But back to the story ....

We're on the Victoria Hwy (Route 1) but here is is also the Auvergne Stock Route. A rose by any other name eh!?

A couple of days and the van was fixed, thankfully and we headed east towards the Stuart hwy. About 150 km after crossing the NT border we stopped to help a young German couple who had a flat - they didn't have the right lock key to get the wheel off. After 40 mins or more on our sat phone to RAC in the searing heat, the phone battery went flat. Reluctantly we left them there as they decided to flag a car and return to Kununurra - there were plenty passing. We're now waiting to get the phone bill. Gulp!!

I think this is Razorback in the Pinkerton Range north of the Judbarra NP (Gregory NP).

As we approached the Victoria River valley we were driving the Coolibah Stock Route (Victoria Hwy)

Still on the Coolibah Stock Route, the cliffs cut over millennia by the Victoria River, loom deep auburn along side the road. Spectacular!

We headed on through Timber Creek and Judbarra National Park along Victoria Hwy and what I have since discovered a couple of stock routes. Que? One of the brilliant things the iPhone does is give you the location of your pix - which you probably already know. I was puzzled that a couple of mine had stock routes as the location so I looked it up. I was floored! The country is criss-crossed with a dense network of stock routes. https://www.dnrm.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/99624/stock-routes-map.pdf check it out for Qld. All quite formal and gazetted. I knew about the long paddock as travelling stock routes but this blew my mind! State by state, they are all carefully regulated and monitored, permits for this and that. And of course it is the truckies who want roads like the Tanami track sealed to make their transporting of cattle easier (and cheaper). Well I never! So I started delving as you do and came across the story of the Canning Stock Route. I'll leave you to read more about that along with me http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/canning-stock-route. Who said travelling was an education? This city girl is learning heaps.

This little pet stood guard at No 7 Bore on the Stuart Hwy. We were heading south for the Barkly and Qld border - 3 States in a few days! Way too fast!