Spinifex Pigeons

Despite the fact that much of the Pilbara is dry to the point of crispness, there is a surprising amount of flora and fauna, particularly close to places, such as the gorges, where water is available much of the year. Wildflowers, eucalypts, acacias, and spinifex dot the landscape and offer homes to birds, bugs, lizards, [...]

Hamersley Gorge

If you know anything about plate tectonics, you know that the surface of the planet is not static. It is, rather, in constant, if slow, motion, with continents moving, seas opening and closing—and earthquakes and volcanoes along the edges where the plates meet. Over the ages, land has been repositioned, created, destroyed, pushed under, and [...]

Dales Gorge

The region through which we were now traveling is called the Pilbara. The Pilbara is a large (197,000 square miles), rugged, and remote region of northwestern Western Australia where both the Hamersley and Chichester Ranges are located. It is arid and can be on the warm side. In fact, Marble Bar, a town in the [...]

Water Buffalo

The water buffalo found in the northern part of Australia are impressive and fascinating, but they are not indigenous—and they are, in fact, something of a menace. Introduced into Australia in the 1800s as work animals and as a way to supply milk and meat to settlers in remote, northern settlements, these heat-tolerant mammals from [...]

Paperbarks

I love the trees in Australia. Of course, the eucalypts are my favorite and are by far the most diverse and most ubiquitous. But paperbarks are high on the list of other trees I fancy. I love the willowy leaves and the soft, pale, tattered bark that peels off in thin layers. Of course, I [...]

Goannas

If you saw the movie The Rescuers Down Under, then you may remember that the villan, Percival McLeach (voice of George C. Scott) had a pet lizard he called Joanna. This would make anyone familiar with the Australian lizards called goannas smile (as opposed to story elements, such as a young boy walking from Ayres [...]

Standley Chasm

It is sometimes said that Australia is the oldest continent. It is just as often countered that this is impossible, as all the continents must be the same age. In a way, both of these statements are true. Sure, all the continents—or rather all that became the continents, either by breaking apart and drifting or [...]

Spinifex

As you’ll know if you’re reading my book, I was quite delighted with the appearance of the spinifex grass that I saw growing everywhere in the Red Center—and that I would see so many other places in Australia. I described it as looking like “herds of golden hedgehogs.” Of course, the golden part depends on [...]

Palm Valley

Finke Gorge National Park covers an area of 46,000 hectares—which somehow sounds a lot more impressive than 177 square miles, though the two figures represent the same area. At the center of the park is the ancient, rocky, and usually dry Finke River. The river is wonderful, but the real reason we bounced and lurched [...]

Southern Cross

Back to writing about Australia and my adventures there.
It was while in the Centre, camping near Ayers Rock, that I first saw the constellation known as the Southern Cross. I have always enjoyed stargazing, and the Australian nighttime sky is astonishing, but this constellation delighted me beyond simply being a nice grouping of stars. Of [...]