Animals / Reptiles

"I was particularly attracted to all those things that might hurt me, which in an Australian context is practically everything. ...my guidebook blandly observed that 'only' fourteen species of Australian snakes are seriously lethal, among them the western brown, desert death adder, tiger snake, taipan and yellow-bellied sea snake. The taipan is one to watch out for. It is the most poisonous snake on earth, with a lunge so shift and a venom so potent that your last mortal utterance is likely to be: 'i say, is that a sn--'"

from 'Down Under' by Bill Bryson

What could I add? :)

For my relief we saw only 2 snakes though the second one was in the see and was yellow (cf.: yellow-bellied sea snake).

Though some sign indicated that the presence of reptiles is just normal:

Well, when you sitting down to the toilet you really need to hope that everybody has closed the lid before you... Fortunately only a cute gecko was all that we have found in a bathroom. 

Just to talk about more likable reptiles:

We have met a frog in a quite unusual place.

And we have seen lizards in surprising colors.

And look at this guy. It is the thorny devil of Australia.

This lizard (i.e. the devil below) was indicated by a sudden break of our camper van. Fortunately the vehicle behind us kept quite a decent safety gap -- about 100 km. :D

This strange creature might be a scincidae:

Ah, and talking about reptiles, I have almost forgot the crocodiles.

One day we looked for a hot spring and asked the direction from some lady. She told us the path and also added that she loved the place and also that we could swim there. For some seconds I found it strange that she emphasized the swimming option that is a kind of obvious in case of spring / river / lake. Only after that I realized: not in Austria. In Australia you better to anticipate crocodiles in any 'free' water. Written warnings are also remind you. 

Animals / Birds

Pelican chase away dolphin.

Cockatoos (and other parrots) are as common as sparrows in Europe.

Even the pigeons differ from the European ones.

And lots of other, never seen, colorful birds. (Er..., I mean: never seen by me.)

Oh, And did I mention the emus that could be dangerous if you go too close...

Animals / Sea Creatures

The most surprising for me was the whales. We can see them several times in the far but enough close to clearly see their blowing water and their back.

(Please believe me that this is a whale...)

It was also nice that we can see 'free' dolphins. I mean that they was not  closed into a cage or any artificial aquarium but they come from the open see. I understand that feeding them each morning 'supported' their presence but still it was their free choice to be there with us at the afternoon.

And we could see some more see creatures:

Animals / Terrestrial Mammals (and Emu :))

No, we did not see wombats as they live only in east-south part of Australia. So I cannot confirm nor deny that they poop cube. ;)

Instead we saw kangaroos and emus:

...er, i mean these:

And koalas:

Though koalas do not live naturally here they were just transported to the Kalbarri National Park along with some eucalyptus trees. As koalas are not extremely eager to move they stayed.

We saw wild dogs or dingoes at the side of the road:

They said not to attack people but we did not leave the car to pet them....

And we saw lots of cows:

Speaking of mammals: Look at that strangely smelling fruits on that tree. ...er, take a closer look ...even closer: the cutest animal for the cavers: bats.

(Just to make it clear: All of the photos are made by me, so we actually saw all these animals. And even more. Stay tuned. :))

(Note2: Hey, I do know that emu is not a mammal. Somehow it just comes together with the kangaroos...)

Termite Mounds

One of the most significant element of the landscape in northern and western Australia is termite mounds. I was surprised when I saw them close as there was no termite on the surface of the mounds (as opposed to the swarm of the European ants on their nest). Even where the mound was damaged and we can see the tunnels inside we cannot see any termites. So where do they live? And also lots of mounds was on flood land that is covered by water during the monsoon. Does the flood destroy the mounds made of clay? Do termites rebuild them each year?

After our return I tried to find out more about these insects. According to Wikipedia (and for my surprise) they are closer relatives of the cockroaches then ants.
As stated in https://creation.com/termite-mounds in dry season termites live underground where the temperature is almost constant. In flooded areas though they live in the mounds even in dry season. This implicitly means that somehow the water of flood does _not_ destroy the mounds though it is not explained why. Does anybody happen to know why does the termite mound survive the food?

inside the mound

Nothing

'Look at that!'
'What? I can see nothing.'
'That's it! The Nothing.'

This conversation was happened several times in the car when we were driving through the ...'Nothing'. The 'Nothing' does not mean desert without any vegetation but semi-desert with small bushes or grass or even scattered trees. The type of the plants are continuously changed but one thing remained constant: that we can see far above the bushes or among the trees and we can see how vast the 'Nothing' is. And travelling hours and hours through this constant and constantly changing infinite 'Nothing' provided a strange feeling of freedom with us.

Kangaroo Steak

Along the road we had seen dead kangaroos hit by cars. We felt sorrow about them. Though we did not felt sorrow about the one we ate as steak. Both at rest places at the road and in camping there are barbecue facilities. So we used one in our camping. The steak tasted nice.

Red Bluff

Red rocks formed by the salty water, blue ocean, huge waves. It is more special to be here and see than see in the photo. :(

(photo by Csilla Chlebik)

People

An other day at the camp fire we were chatted with a half Croatian, half aborigine guy and a Papua New Guinean. The former one talked about his childhood when his abo cousine was able to catch scorpion and poisonous snakes with bare hand. He also showed a trace of a snake's byte. He was lucky as he get into the hospital in 10 minutes.

He was also talked about that abos keep their habits and way of hunting even when they live in towns and wear clothes like us.

He was also talked about the goats on the peninsula that were spread recently and damage the natural flora.

Geysers and Whales

On Thursday we are travelling along the ocean. Strangely the land is quite dry with rare vegetation despite of the nearby ocean.


Sandy seacoasts alter with wild, rocky ones. Fake geysers. There are holes in the limestone and the waving of the ocean push water into them, that burst out vertically like a geyser. Whales in the fare. Nothing special.:D

(photo by Csilla Chlebik)

Karijini National Park

Karijini Eco Retreat is a special camping area in the national park. The camping slots are fare from each other, scattered in the tropical semi-desert (that I believed to be a savanna...). It provides a special feeling if we would be alone in the nature.

There are picturesque, deep gorges in the park. Red rocks, free trees with snow-white trunks, blue sky. In the bottom waterfalls and pools makes the cool rivers even more attracting.

(photo by Csilla Chlebik)

Road Trains

Imi's father was a truck driver and brought him for some trip when Imi was a child. So Imi is fond of truck and the no.1 reason for him to visit Australia was that he wanted to see Road Trains.

Road Trains are huge tracks quite common in Australia. They could exceed 50m. And it is said that they were robust enough to hit even a cow without getting damaged. (As a contrast: our car could be damaged even by hitting a large kangaroo.)

On the road we are travelling there are a lot of Road Train along with 4WDs and campervans. So Imi is contented.;)


(photo by Csilla Chlebik)

Problems with the car

We spent the Saturday morning at the car mechanical. Rather useful use of time. During our travel from Darwin to Broome we collected an error list of 6. It turned out that one of them was a 'false alarm', caused by our lack of knowledge. But the others seemed to be valid and resulted to change both(!) of the batteries.

In case you are not familiar with camper vans: There are a battery in the front that starts the engine. And an other one at the back that operates other facilities: fridge, water pump, inside lights in the 'living' area, etc. The second one is charged both by the engine and the power cable in camping places.

So we were a bit surprised that the hire company let us take the car with bad batteries though they were fully aware that we travel to Perth. We even reported that the car hardly start and we suspected that there could be problem with the battery but they convinced us that this is normal.:(

But fortunately we reached Broome even with this conditions. And the staff in the service was really kind and helpful and started to examine the campervan promptly and I believe that they did whatever they can for us. Thanks for them in this way as well.

Spring

1st September. The first day of spring. So some warm 35 degree Celsius changed the chilly 32 degree that we had before.:)

Indeed there is no spring in the norden area, the seasons are: cold (June - July), hot dry (Aug. - Sept.), pre-monsoon storms (Oct. - Nov.), monsoon (Dec.- Mar.), knock'em down storms (April), cooler bot still humid (May). So we are in the middle of the dry season. We can see huge river beds without water. We can see simply disappearing rivers. I mean there was a 'proper' river in one side of the bridge and only 'lakes' in the trace of the river and in the far no water at all.

There were lots of 'floodway' warning sign along the road and I could hardly imagine that this dry land is covered by water at some season.

An other day we just passed by a wooden shelter at least 5m above the present water-level of the nearby creek. The shelter was cca. 6-8 m tall and it was signed on the roof which year where was the water level. The this year (2017) sign was quite close to the top...

Danger :)

We have met the most dangerous animal in Australia. Noo, not a crocodile, snake or spider. Guess what: a 15cm long greenish-pinkish gecko. In the ladies room. Indeed she seemed to be innocent and quite frightened by the girls' screening but we all knew Tha she plans to jump into our neck during having a bath. (Of course she is a 'she' as she was in the ladies room.) Fortunately Zuzmoka was able to convince her not to attack us. He also wanted her join us but she refused and stay for relief of the girls.

Arrieved (kind of)

Tamed kangaroos eating eucalypt leafs on the camping side, big bats are hanging like fruits from trees, half meter tall black cackadoes and a lot of unknown birds with unfamiliar noises. I am starting to comprehend that I am in some totally different continent.

Aboriginal Culture

On Sunday and Monday we have visited rock painting sites and an aboriginal center where we learned a lot about the aboriginal culture. Here is some pieces:
The Rainbow Serpent is one of the main ancestor of the aborigines. She tends to swallow people.
Mimi Spirit was the first who started rock painting and taught this art to some of the aborigines. She is quite thin and tall. There was a painting cca. 6-8 high from the ground. And this was Mimi's art. She just took the rock, painted it and placed back to its original place. It is also said that Mimi is invisible by the non-aboriginals, that must be true as I did not see her.
It is said that the act of painting is more important than the result. A painting is forbidden to damage as that could hurt the spirit. Though it is ok to paint on the top of an other painting so several layers of paintings are created.

Jumping Crocs

On Sunday we visited the 'Jumping Crocodiles' at Adelane river. The 'show' was run by 2 biologist who knows crocs as they friends. They told that the crocs has personalities. We saw cca. 6 of them and the biggest one was over 5m. The lady hanged fresh meal on a pole above the river and the crocodiles jumped to catch it, showing their chest and sometimes front legs. And tooth, of course. At the end the lady let them to catch the meat as their reward for the performance. We cold see the nest of one of the female one -- though without anything in it this time. We can also see the biggest bird,of the continent: macmac, that was also feed by the lady. And some smaller predator bird.

(photo by Csilla Chlebik)

Home, sweet home

So a campervan for 6 will be our home during the following 16 days.

Arriving to Darwin

Bus stop decorated with aboriginal motives. Unfamiliar trees along the street. And eucalyptuses. Driving on the 'wrong' side.
Waiting for the campervan renting company to open.
Tired. Happy.

Dubai Airport

Have you ever been in a prayer room at the airport? I was, in Dubai. And I was surprised experiencing the following: two woman was lying on the floor, most probably sleeping. Two other was sitting around silently. After a little while a phone was ringing and was answered and a conversation was started on normal voice-level. Shortly after a conversation was finished a mother with 3 little children entered. The children started to play and chat and run and this made the place feels more a kindergarten than a mosque. Soon a cleaning lady appeared and started her work.
I hope I did not disturb anyone by not covering my head in a mosque...

Later I checked the 'rules' on the wall and -- for my surprise -- there was nothing about keeping the silence. So my assumption seemed to be false. Neither was there any restriction regarding clothes -- for my relief.

Upside Down

Australia was not on my bucket list. But my friend convinced me.

Imi (my friend) is in love with Australia. He has been preparing to visit since his childhood. Eventually they (he with some of his friends) spent a month there last year and traveled the middle part of the continent ending up with visiting the most populated area and big cities like Sidney and Melbourne.

As appetite comes with eating he wanted more. This year he is visiting the remote and abandoned north-west area. Er..., did I say 'abandoned'? Indeed it is populated with 'cute' animals like poisonous snakes, gigantic spiders, scorpions, crocodiles and tiny jellyfishes that can go through the net installed against them and can kill you. Appealing, isn't it? Well, for me it is. I was always attracted by remote areas fare from the hordes of tourists and where the trace of human being is almost invisible.

So I joined the adventure to travel from Darwin to Perth in 16 days. A distance and places of interest that would worth 3 months. It will be dense...

This time Imi arrange & organise almost everything so I can lay back and enjoy the ride. ;)

With Zuzmóka we are preparing seriously as you can see in the picture.

(Zuzmóka is a plush salamander, who I usually travel with as I was warned that travelling alone might be dangerous.:))

Report about my visiting Mexico in a Hungarian radio

Some local radio of Budapest made the following interview with me. In Hungarian.
(Izgalmas, hogy ki mit lát belőlem egy órás beszélgetés nyomán.)
Report about Mexiko (in Hungarian)