What is a Flying Fox, Really?

Emu

Everyone knows Australia has odd animals. Torn from Gondwanaland 50 million years ago, it developed the kangaroo, wallaby, wombat, echidna, emu, and other curiosities. But few people know how dangerous these creatures can be. Australia has the most species of poisonous serpents (32 varieties of venomous sea snake alone), including the world’s deadliest, the taipan, whose bite is 50 times worse than a cobra. Salt water crocodiles, exceeding 20’ in length, stalk small motorboats. Poisonous cone shells await the beach collector, deadly box jellyfish speckle the surf, blue-ringed octopus haunt the reefs, and in the deep water prowl great white sharks. While sharks and snakes generally avoid suburbia, this cannot be said of red-backed spiders, whose tiny bites are also lethal.

Rainbow Lorikeet

But there are also endearing animals down under. Real Tasmanian devils, sadly, don’t whirl like my memories from Bugs Bunny; they amble like playful puppies with cute rat faces. Mostly black and adorned with a white striped midriff, their large ears are so thin that backlight burnishes them blood red. When I asked a zookeeper about adopting the adorable creature as a pet, he told me that its eerie nighttime scream would conjure terrifying images and likely trouble my neighbors. The kookaburra’s cry is also unexpected; how can a mere kingfisher sound like a troupe of gamboling monkeys? Rainbow lorikeets, seemingly as common as robins, have no unearthly cry, but they dazzle one’s eyes.  The shy, nocturnal platypus is surprisingly cute, but top honors go to koalas. They don’t do much besides savor eucalyptus and snooze, but boy they beg for hugs.

Koala

Let me end by mentioning the flying fox, a creature owning an exotic name. But what is a flying fox, really? I imagined something like a flying squirrel, a bit bigger, and with a cute whiskered nose. I was wrong. The flying fox is a gigantic bat, whose wingspan can exceed six feet! At sunset, thousands launch over the Brisbane river, and the sky fills with their spooky silhouette. Last night dozens soared close above our heads, crashing into nearby trees and squabbling over fruit and nectar.

Australian Weather Forecast...

Hogwarts Academy...?

No castle; no potions or parseltongue, but as Adam, Galen and Leah walked to their first day at Brisbane State High School (surrounded by 100s of other uniformed kids) it seemed closer to JK Rowling's universe than to Seattle Schools.

Ok, we all know that it's really just the British influence on Australian schools, which also flavored Rowling's writings, but I couldn't help myself. There really are prefects with extra privileges and responsibilities and special coats with status-denoting "pockets." All the other schools have their own uniforms and their own color schemes; each group of kids was bustling to their own school at roughly the same time in the morning. So as we passed a mob of girls all dressed in green, I muttered "Slytherin!"

Empress Canyon

On 1/27/11 we did our third canyon, Empress, near Wentworth Falls - overhanging walls, dripping with prehistoric ferns and stunning grottos with deep pools.  We were overtaken early-on by a group whose friendly guide clearly knew the canyon by heart. He did some spectacular parcour-inspired moves, bouncing dynamically high through a narrow chasm and ending with a high flip into a shadowy pool. Alas, the canyon was sadly short; a 100' abseil through Empress Falls marked its end.  The overhanging start through rushing white water was awkward, but the buffetted ride into a deep, blue pool was fantastic.  A guided group of 30 Chinese tourists cheered our arrival and marveled at the ingenuity of my dry keg.  The fog parted making the hike out almost as pretty as the canyon itself; I wished we had time to hike the cliff-top loop trail.

 

 

Leeches! (in Wollongong 2)

1/26/11 - Leeches! 

Ah, yes. Don't want to forget the one _small_ annoyance, which interrupted the fun of our second canyon. Don't want to forget  Galen's squeal of discovery nor the panic in Margaret's voice as she repeatedly failed to prise the bloody parasite off him... 

And as we soon discovered, there were _lots_ of them...

 For our second canyon, we chose a nontechnical trip which required "lilos" (inflatable rafts) due to the vast amount of swimming.  It was super-fun, except for one thing.  The leeches got us on the hike in and out.  Craftily, they slimed their way up shrubs and to the tops of tall grass and waited for us to walk by.  I never saw one pounce, but I'm sure that's what they did, before oozing into our socks and under the waistbands of swimming trunks to gorge themselves. 


Once we reached the canyon, put on  wetsuits and got in the water, we were safe. But we knew they'd be waiting for us on the hike out...

Just inflated the"lilos" - now it's time for fun.

Three technical canyons entered the river along the length we swam - they were quite tantalizing!  This is the mouth of  Serendipity.

The mouth of Whungee Wheengee was incredibly dark and narrow!  I so wished we had more time for exploration!

Waterfall of Moss ends in an abseil, so we couldn't explore this side canyon.

This is the view from the hike out at sunset

The Eucalyptus were especially pretty in the afternoon light.

Grand Canyon (Blue Mts)

With our apt in Brisbane uninhabitable from the floods, we flew to Sydney, and drove to the Blue Mts for three days of canyoneering.  It was fantastic!

As we approached the "Grand Canyon" the shrub transformed into incredibly verdant rainforest.

Adam starts to abseil into the canyon

Margaret starting the descent

Galen looks down the overhang

The canyon was incredibly lush

Swim, scramble, repeat.

At one point a slender beam of light illuminated a tiny corner of the canyon.

After the long hike upwards, we enjoyed expansive views from Echo Point.

...and an amazing sunset on our drive to Lithgow.

Brisbane at Last!

1/23/11 We arrived in Brisbane about 5 days after the flood peaked and it was incredible to see how much work had already been done to clean up the city!  In most areas, you could see nothing amiss. In our West End neighborhood, however, cleanup was still progressing.

From a trail near the river, I'm pointing to garbage and dead foliage stuck high above my head in the foliage of a tree. The water crested 4.5 meters over the top of the gage.

This sign was knocked over by the flood and has detritus stuck up high.

But the Australians seem to know how to take these knocks in stride - tomorrow is Australia Day, apparently time to celebrate by drinking vast quantities of beer.

This is just a random piece of street art (on a power transformer) which captured by interest during our walk around Brisbane yesterday.