Online Friend in the Kimberley

It’s interesting how the Internet has contributed new ways to meet people. I have developed a number of friendships over the years that are entirely online—though I’d certainly look these folks up if I landed in whatever country they’re in.

One such online friend is Flemming Bo Jensen. He is a photographer from Denmark who shares my love of Australia and attraction to the continent’s wilder places. He just finished a photo shoot in the Kimberley and created a gorgeous little video of his experience. I visited the Kimberley on my third trip to Australia, and I was there at the end of the dry season, so the waterfalls were a bit diminished from those in Flemming’s video. Plus I was traveling by land, camping in the remote wilderness, rather than cruising along the coast—though we did have the lovely opportunity of a helicopter ride out along the rivers and over the coastline, so I did get to experience many of the vistas in the video.

Though our trips were quite different, it was the same area, and it was an area that I loved. The video captures enough of what I experienced that it’s worth sharing. I’ll have more about my own trip through the Kimberley as time progresses, but I thought it worth sharing this now.

The Bungle Bungles

Before Western Australia is left behind, I thought I’d mention that I have gotten back. On my third trip to Australia, I enjoyed a remarkable trek across an even wilder and more remote landscape than before, when I traveled through the Kimberleys, an area about three times the size of England located at the top of Western Australia. This region is so remote that they haven’t even named all the plants yet—and aren’t sure they even know everything that lives there.

In this region of astonishing beauty and strangeness, the Bungle Bungle Range is a standout. The size of the Bungle Bungles underscores the area’s remoteness: they cover about 173 square miles, but were only discovered by Westerners in 1983. The towering (600 to 900 feet tall), bizarrely eroded, banded range of rocks was named a national park in 1987 and was made a World Heritage site in 2003. While these formations are widely known as the Bungle Bungles, their official name, and the name of the park that contains them, is Purnululu, which is the word for “sandstone” in the language of one of the region’s Aboriginal groups (Kija).

It was a simply glorious area, though not easy to cross. Most of the area has no roads, and the road that does exist—the Gibb River Road—is almost proverbial as car wrecker. But with a good guide, it was possible, if not always comfortable.

I’m hoping to write a sequel to Waltzing Australia, to share with you more of what I discovered in this astonishing region. And, of course, I’m also hoping to get back to WA, as there is still more to see. But there must always be something for next time.

Bungle Bungles

Last Day in WA

It had been three weeks since a Greyhound bus had carried me across the border from the Northern Territory into the far north of Western Australia. I’d certainly covered a fair bit of territory in those three weeks, from the top of WA to the bottom. There were still things I’d like to have seen—things I’d still like to see, next time I get to Australia—but it was time to pack and get ready to say farewell.

I spent most of the day hiking around Perth, taking a last look at all the places I’d enjoyed and photographing places I wanted to remember. Once again, I was delighted and amused by the juxtaposition, in the realm of architecture, of traditional Australian with modern international, often within a block of each other or on opposite sides of the street. It added a lot to Perth’s charm, this blending of old and new. It was (of course) a splendidly sunny day, as it so often is in Perth, so it was perfect for that last impression of this lovely city.

The images below show off both the contrasting architecture and the blazing blue sky of this westernmost Aussie capital.

The traditional...

and the modern

Wave Rock

As noted in earlier posts (most especially the post on Standley Chasm), much of what you see in Australia, as far as landforms are concerned, has been formed by erosion. From the sea-battered coastlines to the rain- and wind-sculpted interior, this place is paradise for those who like nature-carved rocks.

Near Perth, I had the opportunity to wander through the crystalline wonderlands of extensive underground caves and visit fascinating formations a bit farther out of town. One day, I booked myself on what was billed as the longest day tour in Australia—the 430-mile round-trip drive that took me out to Wave Rock.

The whole day was a delight, and not just because of Wave Rock. We saw amazing wildflowers (often stopping for photographs), flocks of cockatoos, farms, and charming towns. We also learned an immense amount of Aboriginal lore and tales of Australia’s past. So the transit time was well spent.

The 47-foot-high, 300-foot-long granite “wave” that is Wave Rock (pictured below, on the left) is the superstar rock formation in the area that was our destination, but there were numerous other formations nearby that were, though less stunning, still fascinating. Among those, I was particularly amused by one called the Hippo’s Yawn (at right, below), because it really did look like quite a bit like the open mouth of a yawning hippo.

Wave Rock

Hippo's Yawn

Cockatoos

Australia is sometimes called the Land of the Parrot, and wherever I went, from the tropics to the deserts to chilly mountaintops, I could always find (and was always delighted by) at least a few species. I’ve already written of the stunning crimson rosellas and nearly ubiquitous galahs in earlier posts, but there are vastly more species than these.

Among parrots, few are more iconically Australian than cockatoos. (However, though primarily found in Australia, there are a few species that live on nearby islands.) There are 21 species of these handsome parrots, which are best known for the crests that they fan so expressively.

Cockatoos are fairly large birds, ranging in size from about 14 inches (including tail) up to the nearly three-foot length of the great black cockatoos of the north. Cockatoos have powerful beaks for cracking nuts, digging up roots, or prying grubs from wood. They are sometimes seen singly, but are usually seen in groups—and sometimes in large, noisy flocks, which can actually include two or three types of cockatoo. Like most parrots, cockatoos live long lives, with life spans generally running around 40 to 60 years, depending on the species—though some in zoos have been known to live close to 100 years.

Cockatoos are tree nesters, so even though I saw some in the desert, they only live in areas where trees exist—even if the trees are dead. In fact, I have often seen dead trees in arid regions covered with cockatoos, looking from a distance like a springtime floral display.

On my third trip to Australia, in Windjana Gorge, I was overjoyed to see thousands of cockatoos gathered for the breeding season. The courtship rituals we witnessed were charming—heads bobbing, small gifts being offered and accepted. Just adorable.

Of course, being adorable is one of the reasons cockatoos are popular pets. Being clever and affectionate is also appealing. Not all species adapt well to human company, however, and some are difficult to train.

One of the ones that are difficult to train is the glorious Major Mitchell cockatoo, also called a Leadbeater’s cockatoo. Pity, as they are so lovely, with their pale, rose-colored bodies and splendid yellow-and-red striped crests. But they are aggressive birds, and they don’t make particularly good pets. The aggressive nature of the Major Mitchell cockatoo pictured below manifested itself in its unwillingness to let me spend too much time photographing other birds, as I wandered through the aviary in Perth’s Cohuna Wildlife Sanctuary. It chased off its rivals for my attention, and then posed while I took several photos.

Major Mitchell Cockatoo

The Antipodes

The word antipodes comes to us from Greek. It literally means “against the feet” or “with feet opposite our feet.” That is, it was the folks who were on the opposite side of the world from where you were standing.

For the British, that meant Australia and New Zealand, and Australia and New Zealand are still often referred to as the antipodes, even by people whose feet aren’t opposite them.

Australia never fails to present those who visit with delightful “opposites” that make it seem only natural that it would seem “opposite,” or at least startlingly different, from what Europeans knew and expected. Back on October 15, 2008, I showed you the kangaroo paw, a wonderfully “opposite” flower with red stems and green blossoms. In the book, I wrote about Babakin’s famous underground orchid—an orchid that does, in fact, grow underground. There are, of course, the famous monotremes—egg-laying mammals—the platypus and echidna. And to top things off, in Australia, the swans are black.

Perth perches on the banks of the Swan River, a river named for the myriad swans gliding on its waters when the site was first explored and chosen for establishing a settlement. And all those swans were black swans. Just one more reason to love Australia, I reckon.

Black swan near Perth

Sunshine City

Though Queensland is called the Sunshine State, Perth apparently holds the record as sunniest capital city in Australia. Despite a mild rainy season, Perth manages to score an average of 8 hours of sunshine per day for the whole year. Certainly, there are a few rainy days, but there are few that offer only rain, and those days are balanced out by days with 12 hours of sunshine, giving Perth that impressively sunny record.

Note: we are speaking of capital cities here, not all of Australia. There are definitely remote, inhospitable stretches of desert that get more hours of sunlight (and fewer of rain), but Perth is in a charming, attractive area that actually supports life quite comfortably. However, among the biggest cities in Australia—and, unlike the United States, the state capitals in Oz are also each state’s biggest city—this one wins the sunshine contest.

One thing that delighted me in Perth was seeing how drivers accommodate such relentlessly cheerful weather. Granted, I saw these in other parts of Australia, but never so commonly as in Perth. And I haven’t seen them in the US (though granted, Chicago is not known as a place of endless sunshine—perhaps sunnier locales have imported them by now). But whether they ever make it over here or not, I did love these auto-blinds.

Car Blinds

On to Perth

We ended the wildflower tour in a frenzy of collecting, photographing, labeling, and, as evening approached, saying farewell. We rolled into Perth at 6:15, and I grabbed a taxi to my hotel. When I awoke the next morning, it was time to discover Perth.

Perth is a great town for walkers, with a number of pedestrian malls in the central downtown area that make wandering about easy and delightful. These “malls” are streets that are blocked off and available only to foot traffic. It was a work day, so most of the folks around me were in suits and dresses, but even on a work day, there were a few musicians, groups of teens just hanging out, and others simply enjoying the sunshine and delightful surroundings (as well as, no doubt, others like myself who were just there to look).

Among the pedestrian malls I visited that first day were the Tudor-styled London Court, on the left below, and the larger Hay Street Mall, which is lined with a blend of traditional Aussie architecture and modern chrome-and-glass constructions. In the picture of Hay Street Mall below, you can see the carillon rising above bright, glass-faced Carillon Center.

Perth's London Court

Hay Street Mall

Featherflowers and Grevilleas

Though I have photos of hundreds of flowers from the botany tour, I’m going to spare you from having to see them all. (Though I do hope you get to see them all in person someday.) But I thought I’d show you a couple more before moving on, out of the splendid wildflower fields of the southwest corner.

Among of the most stunning of the flowers we saw were the Verticordias, also known as featherflowers. It’s not hard to see how they got their common name, when you look at their delicately feathered blossoms (see the photo on the left, below). These flowers, which come in a wide range of colors, grow in luxuriant masses, like large, dense bouquets. They are a delight to the eye from a distance, but they are better appreciated up close, where you can see the feathery structure of the small blossoms.

The bright, red Grevillea on the right is just one of more than 300 species (some estimates top 360 species) of this flower. Though wild specimens are abundant, Grevilleas are widely cultivated, as well. Aside from being visually appealing, their abundant nectar attracts members of the large and diverse group of birds known as honeyeaters. (The nectar is so abundant, in fact, that some species of Grevilleas were traditionally gathered by Aborigines as a sweet treat.)

Grevilleas exist primarily in Australia, but can also be found in Papua New Guinea and a few other islands to Australia’s north. The plants occur in a wide range of shapes and sizes, and the flowers come in numerous colors: red, pink, orange, gold, white—and probably others I didn’t see. Grevilleas were named for Charles Francis Greville, who in 1804 helped found the Royal Horticultural Society.

Featherflower (Verticordia)

Grevillea

The Stirling Range

On the move again, we headed northeast from Albany, bound for the Stirling Range. These low, rolling mountains are the location of flowers that are astonishing even for this astonishing corner of Australia. Here, there are flowers that grow nowhere else—some of which, in fact, won’t grow anywhere else. One species, the Darwinias, or Stirling bells, are so specialized that each variety of the species has its own specific mountain in the Stirlings.

But it is not just the rarity of the flowers that is remarkable—it is the abundance. The flowers spread in unbroken blankets for miles around us, on all sides. In places, they were waist deep, and in others, they actually reached overhead. The scarlet Banksias (see the Oct. 22, 2008 post for more on Banksias, including a photo of the scarlet Banksias) were present in stunning numbers—miles and miles of them. Color undulated in waves across the landscape, breaking at the foot of the dark mountains. It was intoxicating.

All the flowers delighted me, but the one I thought I’d share with you today is the smokebush. The puffs and clusters of smokebush shimmered amid the dense, dark foliage surrounding me. The smokebush I was admiring was the Conospermum distichum variety, which grows to about three feet in height and has fuzzy, blue-gray flowers that don’t look much like flowers.

Smokebush