Australia - The Land Down Under



Warning....this probably sounds a touch gruesome.....but it is real

WOW!

Just wondering how long it will take to get to my side of the world. And wondering if the opossums here are the same species as in Australia, but then if it's the mosquito that gives it to humans it doesn't really matter...

I need to look into this. 3 years of biomedical science studies is raising a lot of questions in my mind.
 
AUSTRALIA DAY 2024

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What is Australia Day ?....it is actually terrifyingly simple !

Australia Day


National holiday of Australia on 26 January

Australia Day is the official national day of Australia. Observed annually on 26 January, it marks the 1788 landing of the First Fleet and raising of the Union Flag by Arthur Phillip at Sydney Cove in New South Wales. Wikipedia
 
Each year, there is a 'Lamb' ad...celebrating Australia with a bit of tongue in cheek fun

2024 is no exception !!

 
Australia as a nation founded on Firm convictions.
 


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And you thought Australia Day was all about Arthur Phillip hoisting the Union Jack in Sydney Cove?.....Nah !...it's to celebrate the fact that we are (mostly) all still alive, after being chased around the country by all these critters, (and more...I didn't include the snakes)

I AM KIDDING !!!
 
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Happy (belated?) Aussie Day and congrats on avoiding the deadly critters!
 
Australia. The home of the free....

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Tasmania's 'piano man' Kelvin Smith says it's time to retire his instrument​

Click on the pic to spot the piano easier.....and its destination (red arrows)
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Australia’s Second Largest Monolith ... in New South Wales
Wallabadah Rock is, according to the local experts, the second largest monolith in Australia after Uluru.
The largest monolith in Australia is, as just about everyone knows, the awe inspiring Uluru which is spread across 3300 hectares and draws hundreds of thousands of tourists as though it was the world’s biggest magnet.
Wallabadah Rock is Number Two. And what is remarkable is that after gasping at the size of Uluru the average observer will be totally underwhelmed.
You see, Wallabadah Rock is the plug of an extinct volcano and while it is estimated to be around 45.5 million years old, at its base it only covers 61 hectares and it rises to 959 m above sea-level.
In October, so the women at the Murrurundi Visitor Centre told me, it is covered with flowering rock orchids and looks impossibly beautiful.
Why does no one know about it? Well, it is literally on a road to nowhere? You go to Blandford – a tiny non-town which exists only because Emirates have a huge horse stud which takes up most of the town – turn off towards Timor Caves (which the locals pronounce “tie-more”) and drive 19 km on a very windy, dirt road until, all of a sudden, you come around a hill and there, in front of you and hidden from the world, is this impressive, but small, monolith.
It is a magical journey in the spring. There are kangaroos everywhere. The skies and the trees are alive with avian wonder - sulphur-crested cockatoos, galahs, parrots of every imaginable glorious colour shouting and squawking at each other, and the ubiquitous magpies and currawongs.
You drive an obstacle course as tiny lambs gambol and rush, with all the stupidity that sheep can muster, along the road forgetting that simply getting off the road would be much easier.
Doe-eyed young calves gaze at you with indifferent and endearing curiosity. And oh yes, then there are wonderful, inland skies. Those vast, vast, vast vaults of blue – and in the highlands the air is crisp and clear and gorgeous.
Check out https://www.aussietowns.com.au/town/murrurundi-nsw - and here is a pic of Wallabadah Rock. Hardly Uluru. Still quite amazing.
May be an image of mountain, road and grass


Thank you to Aussie Towns
 
The interesting article on the Megabats of Adelaide Brian featured above includes

Nowadays they gather in a single, enormous colony in Botanic park – about 46,000 of them

For those interested in statistics, though, my home state of Queensland has figures which dwarf those of South Australia.

Through the 1970s I lived in the Brisbane suburb of Saint Lucia and visible from our house was the Indooroopilly Golf Course. The opposite side of the golf course was the suburb of Long Pocket, and beside it, in the Brisbane River, was Indooroopilly Island.

In 1995, Indooroopilly Island was gazetted as a Conservation Park.

Indooroopilly Island Conservation Park is home to one of Brisbane’s most important flying fox colonies. The park covers an area of about 6.34 hectares (16 acres) and is situated on the Brisbane River at Longpocket, adjacent to Indooroopilly Golf Course, about 7 kilometres (a little under 5 miles) west of the Brisbane CBD.

The area is used by three of the four species of flying fox on mainland Australia and is recognised as one of five significant maternity campsites in the Brisbane Region.

Indooroopilly Island is known as a ‘traditional camp’ because the black flying fox Pteropus alecto and grey headed flying fox P. poliocephalus occupy the site on a permanent basis. Numbers fluctuate between 3000 and 200 000 depending on the availability of flowering eucalypt and melaleuca species. The park is an important breeding site for the black and the grey-headed flying
foxes and peak numbers usually coincide with the birth of young between August and December. The little red flying fox P. scapulatus occupies the campsite on a seasonal basis generally between October and March. Their numbers range from 1000 to 100 000 although they do not occupy the campsite every year.

There are even more populous Camps in Queensland, being at Aramara west of Maryborough and inland from Fraser Island, with 175 000 grey-headed, and Burdekin Falls Dam near Ayr in Far North Queensland had (2021 figures) 20 000 black flying foxes as well as 250 000 little red flying foxes.

In conclusion, I'll give you a tip about living in an area under the canopy of multitudinous numbers of flying foxes.

If you have white sheets, white skirts or white shirts on the clothes line, get them off before dusk. Depending on diet, flying fox poo can be purple.

Wizard
 
You haven't seen a Goanna ??.....well, now you have...
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He is a big boy....no doubt about that




 
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Sunrise on the Nullarbor Plain, Western Australia

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Just carved from a gumtree stump, near Maryborough, Queensland, Australia
Credit:Shane Christensen,
 

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