Camping in The Grampians

Press play on the player above and listen while viewing the photo of our personal slice of ultimate solitude at our campsite in the Grampians Victoria.






So what's that horrific racket that nearly ruptures the eardrums? Nope, not the corellas (although 100 or so of them do make quite the racket,) but apparently the little fella to the left, a cicada. One cicada, no problem. 1000 horny cicadas and you have a sex infused concert that threatens to rupture your eardrums.

Birds Pt 2 - Katie Holmes & Tom Cruise Wedding

As Nico mentioned in the previous post we hit the Jerrihlinga wildlife reserve on the weekend where we met the talking birds included in this video.



Their repertoire also included "How's it going?" and a cat's meow...funny stuff.

The Birds, part I

What’s camping without your friends? Every mealtime, our neighbours arrived:




Harriet the Seagull, Crimson Rosella, Magpie (aka Computer Bird), Honeyeater, and hey, what's a picnic without ants . . . bull ants, that is.

monkey mia

Way back three, four weeks ago, we flew to Western Australia for our last two week holiday. One surprising highlight on our Perth to Exmouth tour was a visit to famed Monkey Mia for the feeding of the wild dolphins. I don't know why it was such a surprise that it would be so cool but I guess we thought it would be a bit hokey. Of course it wasn't--I mean, we got to see these beautiful creatures up close! For a prairie girl like me, they are like real life unicorns: a creature of mythology in the flesh.

We had to wait a while for the dolphins to make their appearance (much to the disgust of a German tourist who was quite angry that they didn't keep to their ETA of 8 am). Finally, five dolphins showed up--four females, one with her very lively and playful young son. The park has a policy of only feeding mature dolphins as, in the past, the baby dolphins would become so reliant on the fish that they never learned to hunt. They also ration the amount of fish so it is more of a snack than a meal but the dolphins still show up. Below, this one is checking us out--they can't see 'up' very well so they need to roll on their side to get a good look. Lucky Damo got choosen to feed one!



We also got to see my new favorite bird: the pelican. I just adore the way they look with their big black eyes and waddling steps on their flat paddle feet. They're very graceful in the air and while standing still but clumsy-cute walking on the sand. They are also quite aggressive if you get close, lashing out with their giant pointy beak, opening it impossibly wide to threaten a chomp.

punk rock pigeon