I have always loved seeing the Jacky Lizards here, but the other day, for the first time in over 30 years, I saw a different Dragon lizard on my place. It was bigger, with a different head and different colouring. It looked even more prehistoric than my Jacky, not really able to called ‘cute’ at [...]
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After almost a month away, I half-expected the critters to have taken over the last bit left to me, the cabin. They hadn’t, really — just the usual antechinus invasion, persistent but not escalated. The verandah wasn’t so lucky. The spiders had tied the cane chair to my dad’s coffee table, with a densely woven [...]
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Much of this winter has been spent at the computer, writing more book talks. It’s cosy inside my cabin, with the slow combustion wood heater going all the time but fully banked down, as once the mud brick walls have heated up, they hold the warmth. No heat transfer at all. But I am also [...]
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Just when I thought it was cold enough for any sensible snake to have gone to sleep, so had relaxed my vigilance around the house yard… Out of the kitchen window, I spied my old mate, looking quite spry and healthy and not all sleepy. It was sniffing around the tankstand overflow pipe, which is [...]
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After all the initial rushing about and media interviews for the new book — ongoing and more to come — I was glad to have a few relatively peaceful days at home with my fellow inhabitants. As I am still without 240v power until my solar system’s inverter is fixed, I am to-ing and fro-ing [...]
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With the rain holding off and a thin warmth coming through the uniformly grey cloud cover, my share tenants were making the most of it. The gypsy camper had its usual coterie of lollers and lazers, even though they hardly needed its shade this day. Habit, I suppose, or fear another might claim their spot if [...]
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The last days of July have been warm and calm. With a month of winter yet to come, it feels like Spring. The ground is still very damp, but the locals don’t seem to mind. This wallaby mum lazed in the sun for hours until the treeline shade caught up with her, while her joey [...]
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Kids on boring car trips used to play a game of looking out for a designated and usually uncommon item — like a purple car, or a Palomino horse — and ‘Spotto!’ you’d yell if you spotted one. If you read my excited posts about my several sightings of a lone White-headed Pigeon, you can [...]
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As you may know, snakes have a certain effect on me that I have not yet overcome. However this one, found under a log by a visitor, I can cope with. In fact I can say I almost find it cute. It’s a Common Eastern Blind Snake — sometimes called Worm Snakes for obvious reasons. [...]
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A few warm days, a fat black snake with a lunchtime bulge basking in the sun, and then five degree mornings again. I know to keep an eye out now, but I have been watching the wallabies and roos accept the snake’s presence, and even close progress, and show no sign of anxiety. I must [...]
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I have more to tell about my trip to Western Australia, but in between I have to keep you up-to-date with the ongoing news on the mountain. On the second day of Spring, the Diamond Python arrived. The day was warm and sunny; I was hanging out washing. Out of the corner of one eye, [...]
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As if I hadn’t had enough trouble with the older generation of red-bellied black snakes, the established adults, I now seem to have a new, cheekier generation. The other day, over the top of my glasses, and my computer, I caught a dark movement amongst the leafy verandah screen. A fluid, flowing dark movement — [...]
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Here's the cover of my new book — Rich Land, Wasteland — How coal is killing Australia — which is now in bookshops.
A candid meander through my life up here on my remote mountain wildlife refuge, answering the oft-asked question 'Why do you live way out there?'
Stories about the wild things who allow me to share their living space — and a plea to look after them before it's too late.
