Pictures from Australia

[Al Agnew]

As promised, although very late, here are some pictures from out trip. Australia in this batch, New Zealand to come...

The Toolangi Rain Forest...huge tree ferns Huge trees, too...this was a dead stump of a mountain ash. Some of the live ones were a little bigger. They went up to 150-200 feet, but most of the biggest ones had their tops broken off The trees, almost all eucalypts, were really impressive. This one is a river gum along the Murray River And here is what eats eucalyptus leaves Here is what passes for alpine territory in Australia. Highest point on the continent, 6000 feet, is within sight here. The trees are snow gums, gnarly, twisted, and with very pretty trunks Some more mountain scenery we came upon on one of our hikes Here's one of the two trout streams I fished...water looks trouty, foliage does not Australian magpies get kinda bold...this one was a wine and cheese kind of bird Canberra was a beautiful capitol city, and it was planned that way. Atop the highest hill at the edge of the city, you could look out over the city and in this information sign, see the original drawing and how well the city followed the drawing. Down right below is the War Museum, then a long open space with sculptures depicting soldiers in all the wars along the sides that leads to the river and then across the river to the parliament building at the far end They eat some strange things in Australia More to come...

[BilletHead]

Neat Al,

Thanks for the photos,

BilletHead

[jdmidwest]

Nice.

[Al Agnew]

The last one above is a wild parrot, I forget the species, that was a common sight in the forested areas. The one in the photo came a water garden right outside the window at the first place we stayed. Here are some more Australian photos:

One of the very common doves A spectacularly beautiful little songbird Kangaroo in the wildlife park with park visitor A real Tasmanian devil From the time I was a kid, I always thought dingos were one of the most beautiful of the wild dogs. The dingo was about the only non-marsupial wild mammal the European settlers found in Australia; it's assumed the aborigines brought them when they arrived, and the dingos became wild. They are very close kin to the typical dogs found on the island of Bali, but nobody knows where the dingos are the bali dogs' descendants or vice versa. Just one of the huge fruit bats that were hanging in the trees in the town we stayed for a while along the coast And as it got dark, the whole "flock" began to leave the trees to forage for the night...thousands of them Catching little catfish on the Noosa River Part of our back room tour of the War Museum...a huge warehouse jammed full of every kind of war machine imaginable Here is one of the odder ones...a motor scooter designed to be dropped from an airplane, used by the resistance fighters and occasionally by spies... But Mary was most fascinated by the concrete tree. The trunk seen in the middle of this photo was made to be a lookout post during the trench warfare of WWI. Since most of the trees were quickly blown to bits, leaving big snags here and there, the strategy was to pick out a remaining tree trunk just behind the line that was about the right size, blow it up or saw it down under cover of darkness, and put up the concrete facsimile before dawn, so that the enemy, who knew all the trees still standing, would mistake it for the one that was removed...you couldn't just put up a new tree trunk or the enemy would smell a rat. The trunk was hollow, with a tiny ladder going up the inside and a couple of knotholes in the top, from which the enemy trenches could be observed. Next, New Zealand.

[jdmidwest]

Nice. Bring me back a platypus egg.