23 February 2009
In Wasilla
I have just spent the morning setting up a travel blog for my dad: In Wasilla. A great combo of pics and musings from Tierra del Fuego. My favorite? The bits about Magellanic Penguins.
18 February 2009
The Onion
Timor-Leste has made the (fake) news!
Great FRETILIN shots. I also liked the names of the interviewees (Merpati - Indonesian airline, Natelegawa - Indonesian Foreign Minister), and their decision to make the accents South Asian. Priceless.
Great FRETILIN shots. I also liked the names of the interviewees (Merpati - Indonesian airline, Natelegawa - Indonesian Foreign Minister), and their decision to make the accents South Asian. Priceless.
17 February 2009
Snapshots: Backyard II
It turns out that the passionfruit vine that has turned the laundry line into a trellis is a wild variety - Passiflora foetida or bush passionfruit - which gets its Latin name not from the smell of the fruit (which is lovely), but the scent released from crushing the leaves.
Alice Redux
I just got L's photos, so here are some more pics from our expedition to Alice Springs:
Rainbow Valley, sunset.
Rainbow Valley, sunrise.
This was our buggies spot, and although the flies calm down after dark, they start again at daybreak. Our traveling companion, J, offered to cook us a pancake breakfast, but seeing that they would have been filled with 'sultanas' (the little raisins sold here) we opted to eat at Stuart Wells, a roadhouse up the highway: bottomless cups of instant coffee, and eggs on hamburger rolls with grilled tomatoes and fatty bacon.
It was good choice. The back room was plastered in newspaper clippings about the family and the outback lodge they had once run. There were faded pictures of tourists 'yabbie' (crayfish) racing and smiling for the camera under rafters strewn with undergarments. A large section gives tribute to Dinky-Di, the world-famous singing dingo, who used to stand on the piano and yowl.
As the articles thin, one can piece together the story of the original lodge's demise. The proprietor, faced with the expiration of his 30 year lease, protested by returning it in the state in which he first found it. The final pictures are of the family tearing down the lodgings, their daughter's grave visible in the foreground. A small glimpse of outback grit and grief.
Out of Stuart Wells we headed up the Finke river, with an ill-fated detour into the desert looking for the springs at Ilpara. We found them in the end - little clumps of rushes in a small gulch - a far cry from the gushing cenote that my sun-addled brain had so sorely hoped for. That night's campsite, however, more than made up for it.
Our campsite the next night, Finke River. Beautiful swimming.
Crossing the Finke.
Rainbow Valley, sunset.
Rainbow Valley, sunrise.This was our buggies spot, and although the flies calm down after dark, they start again at daybreak. Our traveling companion, J, offered to cook us a pancake breakfast, but seeing that they would have been filled with 'sultanas' (the little raisins sold here) we opted to eat at Stuart Wells, a roadhouse up the highway: bottomless cups of instant coffee, and eggs on hamburger rolls with grilled tomatoes and fatty bacon.
It was good choice. The back room was plastered in newspaper clippings about the family and the outback lodge they had once run. There were faded pictures of tourists 'yabbie' (crayfish) racing and smiling for the camera under rafters strewn with undergarments. A large section gives tribute to Dinky-Di, the world-famous singing dingo, who used to stand on the piano and yowl.As the articles thin, one can piece together the story of the original lodge's demise. The proprietor, faced with the expiration of his 30 year lease, protested by returning it in the state in which he first found it. The final pictures are of the family tearing down the lodgings, their daughter's grave visible in the foreground. A small glimpse of outback grit and grief.
Out of Stuart Wells we headed up the Finke river, with an ill-fated detour into the desert looking for the springs at Ilpara. We found them in the end - little clumps of rushes in a small gulch - a far cry from the gushing cenote that my sun-addled brain had so sorely hoped for. That night's campsite, however, more than made up for it.
Our campsite the next night, Finke River. Beautiful swimming.
Crossing the Finke.
12 February 2009
Refugee
Living in the tropics I have gotten used to the permeability of houses and apartments. I am accustomed to lizards and ants in the kitchen, geckos behind doors, and in Dili, cats in the ceiling and vermin in the drains. But tonight, as I walked into the dark apartment, just home from yoga, I was surprised by the sticky thwack thwack of a large green tree frog jumping across the floor.
Too zonked to take care of it right away, I went ahead with my shower. He joined me in the bathroom, taking a place next to a discarded sponge. I don't fault him really. The rains tonight were torrential, making small rivers of the roads. And heck, we have plenty of ants to spare. I think he can stay.
Too zonked to take care of it right away, I went ahead with my shower. He joined me in the bathroom, taking a place next to a discarded sponge. I don't fault him really. The rains tonight were torrential, making small rivers of the roads. And heck, we have plenty of ants to spare. I think he can stay.
10 February 2009
Alice in Wonderland
Just back to Darwin after five days in and around Alice Springs: the hot, empty center of Australia. The first two days I spent birding - a fraught enterprise. As soon as I would decide to get out of the 100+ F heat, I would see another new species and chase it down. Down into the Henbury metiorite craters. Through Simpson's Gap and Redbank Gorge. Up to the very edge of Alice's sewage ponds.
The dessert was hot and dry. Oven analogies are too common but remain apt; my soggy pita bread, out of the bag, crisped as if in a toaster as it waited for liquid peanut butter and jam. There were feral camels, flocks of budgerigars, and apocalyptic numbers of flies, each seeking moisture from ears, tear-ducts and lips. The flies make for an odd, funereal scene in town, with tourists walking around shrouded in black gauze hoods.
I headed down on Thursday via Cairns, an odd route necessitated by flight changes. The map at left shows the way; please click to enlarge. All in all, a great trip.
Above: Eucalyptus - the most common type of tree around Alice.
Below: Magpie Larks feeding young (Telegraph Station, Alice). Almost half of the new species that I saw had juveniles nearby. The recent rains seem to have set off a great frenzy of successful breeding.
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