Wild Things

Maria Island

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Another ferry ride to an island, but this time as a passenger only. I am heading to Maria Island for the day so I can get an idea of why people talk about it so much. I was unsure if I would, as it is basically the ruins of a convict probation station (1842).

I was convinced by learning that there is no shop at all there … for anything, food, drink, souvenirs… and no vehicles allowed for visitors except bikes.

This young wombat was right by the road, setting my day off to a good start.

The road passes through an avenue of enormous and relatively ancient (almost 200 years) fir trees … the kind of settler legacy I have to be impressed by, as they are so very big.

A mature wombat ambles up the bank and across the road, ignoring me.

The windswept nature of the island was symbolised by this lone and humble little cottage, once Ruby Hunt’s, and its attendant struggling trees.

Not being a cyclist, I am only doing the shorter walks, like along Hopground Beach to the Painted Cliffs, where I learn that access is restricted due to geological issues.

We have been warned to leave any middens alone. The Puthikwilayti people of the Oyster Bay tribe visited this island over 40,000 years, until the whalers and sealers came in the 1800s. 

The British set up their penal probation colony in 1825. It wasn’t very successful, as prisoners could escape, and kept doing it… unlike from Sarah Island.

The scooped and scalloped layers are beautiful, although I cannot see the reason for ‘painted’. But likely they are further around, currently inaccessible; photos show quite stunning colours and patterns.

My walk takes me past the Oasthouse, where the remains of two round hop drying kilns demonstrate the bricklaying skills of the past. I am most interested in the patterns of the bricklaying.

As always, the higher and less fertile parts were less cleared, and the eucalypt forests, regrowth or not, are encouraging and calming.

I am struck by these teeny plants on the side of the track, looking like pale starfish, or daisy chain crochet stitches.

Buildings that were for grander purposes than Ruby’s home are still in fair or good condition. Many are used as basic accommodation; you can book to stay.

But for me the ones that attract are more for the patterns their ruins make than for the  elegance that the ruling classes enjoyed.

I want to walk to the Fossil Cliffs, but a gander from the island’s large population of Cape Barren Geese had other ideas, hissing and honking at me. Once the second rarest goose in the world, they were introduced to Maria in the 1970s and thrive here, helping the marsupials keep the native grass mown and fertilised.

I grew up with domestic geese, so I know to be wary…

After a picnic lunch in front of the convict barn, geese gone, I visit the desolate cemetery. Only one convict, a Maori, was buried here; the rest only got timber crosses elsewhere.

A small group of Forester Kangaroos, also introduced here in the ‘70s, are resting as I pass. I learn they are actually Eastern Greys, which I do know.

The Fossil Cliffs are wild and spectacular, and the part I can access was once a quarry.

It is hard to believe that such rich geological treasure was treated as a mere source of rocks. You cannot see a section that is not almost totally made of shellfish fossils. I know little about fossils, but as links to our distant pasts they have to be respected.

As our ferry leaves Maria Island, I am glad I came, so that I now have a concept of its mountains and cliffs, its bays and rolling slopes, but also feel the sadness that always follows such evidence of displacement, of colonisation and invasion, of clearing, of failed undertakings…

But I am glad it’s been a national park since 1972, and that it’s not been ‘developed’ as a tourism attraction in the way that Bruny Island has. Its natural beauty and its past seem enough to attract visitors.

A Gorge and Greatness

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Tourists are warned that Launceston’s Cataract Gorge is not to be missed.

And on this particular Sunday, in their hundreds they obeyed.

A few people were actually swimming in the ‘basin’ itself, but most seem to have come for the chairlift ride.

The Esk river is wild and the rocks are well tumbled. This gorge is as much about rocks as it is about water.

It is an old (mid-late 1800s) reserve, so I was not surprised at this shelter of ‘faux bois’, cement and wire made into fake wood, which reminded me of the older Katoomba shelters in NSW or those in Salso-Maggiore in Italy. It was originally a European Renaissance craze.

The path around the ‘basin’ had plenty of unafraid wildlife, like this young Bennetts Wallaby.

The lawns near the Visitors Centre, which mainly seemed to be selling chairlift tickets, had naturalised peacocks wandering about and families of the endemic Tasmanian Native Hen, often called ’Turbo Chooks’ as they can run very fast. 

This handsome bird is flightless, like the mainland’s Emu and Cassowary, and only found here now.

I have seen them in plenty of places, close to humans, as they like cropped grass, so they are unlikely to become endangered.

They are a plump bird, and supposedly good eating, so I am surprised that the ’settlers’ didn’t wipe them out.

I was about to give the Cataract Gorge a miss, and the Queen Victoria Art Gallery, the latter being the whole reason I had come to Launcestion, because the day before I became hopelessly lost in the one way labryinth of Launceston (like Hobart).

I needed a camping ground, but the Info Centre had shut at 2pm. Buttonholing a passing stranger, I wrote down directions from his phone.

Now my task was to somehow get the maps thingy on my phone to give me directions. So far I had only managed to make it show me where I was but not tell me how to proceed.

Next morning that is all I did… and I succeeded.

I took no photos at ‘Gentle Protagonist,’ the Michael McWilliams exhibition.  I can only say that he/it is wonderful; quirky and moving and summing up all I feel about Tasmania: the Thylacine, the Devil, the fallen forests, the salmon, the sheep. Truly I was torn between laughing and crying; I did a little of both.

So fly there if you must, but do get to see this extraordinary collection. I am ashamed that I did not know his work before.

Weathering plans

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Next day I woke early at Waldheim to pack and drive to the start of my big walk.

Raining.

As I am no hardcore bushwalker, I changed plans and sat in the van at the Ronny Creek carpark to wait to follow the first shuttle bus out. Following the bus is mandatory as the road is only one lane in parts. 

A few intrepid souls did set off on the boardwalk start from there. It was wet and cold. Am I a wuss or what?

I have since been told by several people that I was very lucky to strike one sunny day at Cradle Mountain.

So I guess I’d better take back that whinge…

On the way to Burnie (where I wasn’t meant to go; lost again!), I drove past many, many kilometres of plantation forests, at all stages of growth.  Including the clearfelled acres of what I could only hope had not been native forest.

Plantations are good for the timber industry, but as monocultures they do not make good habitat for wildlife.

Burnie used to be the heart of the wood chip industry, so known as the town ’where the forest meets the sea’… in piles of woodchips to go off in ships.

Next whinge:

I also passed many, many dead animals, roadkill. They were black and they were brown and some were just dark red smears; bodies by the side of the road, semi-squashed or whole bodies on the road (I veered to avoid these), and so many flattened flesh and fur splats that I wondered if locals deliberately drove over the bodies. 

I know in Queensland that driving over cane toads on roads was almost a sport… and they were live toads.

There was often a roadkill every 50 metres or so. Staggeringly frequent.

And no, I didn’t stop and take photos of them.

Many of the bodies were small mammals; hard to say what they once were. I am told there is so much roadkill because there is so much wildlife. Not sure if this makes sense as an excuse.

There are black possums here, but I wondered how many of the black splats were the endangered and carnivorous Tassie Devils, who are fond of roadkill.

There was plenty of mixed farming on hills that ran beside the coast to cheer me up. 

I’d decided to get to Stanley that night, to the famous Nut. 

And there it is, an obvious standout in the low coastal land.

It turned out to be Touristville, but nevertheless charming and fascinating, historic… and sad…

Seeking the shy platypus

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From Mooraback campground in Werrikimbe National Park I take the walk to follow the little creek to seek platypuses/platypi in its larger pools.

But it is a very hot day and this walk passes through open paddock flat land before it reaches the first rocky hill. You can see the little creek at the base of those rocks.

From the 1830s until it became a National Park in 1975, this land was farmed, often for dairy cattle. A succession of families tried to make a go of it and the introduced trees, remnant orchards and paddocks remain obvious signs of settlement.

A few kangaroos keep watch as I trudge past, heading for the shade of that hill and its trees, where it has been too hard and rocky to clear or cultivate.

Telltale green denotes domestic survivors; I spot apple and plum trees.

I keep an eye on the creek wherever the walk takes me near it, but the water is murky and the sun is high. I am not here at the preferred ends of the day where a shy platypus might be out and about.

On the way I see some plants I don’t recognise, like this sole bush with its red stems and pretty white raggedy blossoms. The boffins tell me it is Prostanthera lasianthos.

I had been bypassing the many small lilac flowers in the grass by the track, appreciative, but dismissing them as the familiar Wahlenbergia. But then I realised that the flowers on these clumps were different — a single pendant lilac petal with a white eye.

The boffins sent me to PlantNet where I learn it is Slender Violet-bush (Hybanthus monopetalus). ‘Monopetalus’: one petal!

A lilac flower I do recognise is this Purple Flag (Patersonia occidentalis). They are as shy as a platypus, and daintily disposed amongst the tough grasses on this stony hill.

After my last walk and post, I now know the Grass Trigger-plant, of which there are plenty here, but am delighted to spot this caterpillar. I wonder what it will become?

I reach the mid-point of the Platypus walk, and the larger pools, but see no platypus. It is almost noon; too hot to venture out: ‘mad dogs and Englishmen’ as Noel Coward sang… and me … but not the smarter platypus.

On the way back I see one plant with which I am very familar, as it surprised me (and Ludwig Leichhardt, incidentally) at my Mountain with its beauty: the Pink Hyacinth Orchid (Dipodium variegatum). Showing no leaves, no sign of its existence, most of the time, when it would suddenly send up its thick stem, usually in summer, it was always a treat for me. And then the showy burgundy-speckled pink flower!

So while I didn’t see a platypus, probably due to my poor timing, I did see some special plants.

But the main impression of this walk was a sadness, brought on by the remnants of its settlement time; all those families striving to beat this high and often harsh climate, making a life for their families for a time, and then having to move on. I don’t know if they cleared the paddocks or if they were natural, with the bracken-covered slopes above them more likely, so I won’t blame them for that; I can only empathise with those lives of hard work.

Yet I am determined to see a platypus, so I will return and set out on that walk at a sensible time!

Here be dragons…

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My new place has families of Eastern Water Dragons (Intellagama lesueurii lesueurii).

They mainly sunbake, even in the middle of the road, or perch on raised plantings in the garden.

Liking water, they do swim; I have seen one here jump into a bucket half-full of water– incidentally scaring the daylights out of me!

Often mistaken for a Frill-necked Lizard, they are beautifully patterned, with the most elegant long toes and fingers. Their heads are always up, questing, curious?

Last week a visiting friend, Jane, seemed to have special appeal as the largest Dragon, the male I assume, came up onto the verandah where we were sitting. He was almost under our chairs, pointing his spade-shaped head this way and that. 

They are mainly insectivorous, but like all sorts of delicacies as they mature, so maybe he thought we had cake — we didn’t, just coffee.

While unafraid, these Dragons are wary, so I wasn’t game to get up to fetch my camera. But Jane had her phone camera, so took these great pictures.

I am very grateful to have them as my resident wildlife.

Goodbye, Blinky Bill?

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Just next to historic Roto House and its café is Port Macquarie’s famed Koala Hospital.

Started in 1973, and now with 200 volunteers, this special facility treats rescued and injured koalas, runs a vet clinic and a conservation breeding program, and offers up close and informative experiences for visitors.

The first time I went was near midday and all I could see were furry balls, fast asleep. Koalas do naturally sleep a lot,  to save energy.

Next day I was there at opening time (8.30) and it was quite different. Here helper Geraldine is feeding a medicinal paste to CW, hit by a car, and left with only one eye and brain injury. He will never be able to be released into the wild. 

CW was more than eager to take his treatment, and Geraldine wiped his mouth when needed, just like a mother would.

The pens are roomy, with cleverly designed and shaded structures; fresh gum leaves are placed in each every day. About eight food tree varieties, like Swamp Mahogany and Tallowwood, are grown on a separate property.

There are pens for the permanent residents and closed-off, more private pens for those being rehabilitated, to be released back into the wild when ready. With free entry, the Hospital relies totally on donations.

Visitors do get to see how cute and furry are our iconic koalas… and they also get told how at risk they are. From habitat clearing, from disease, from dogs and cars – from our ‘progress’ in fact.

Australia holds the world record for the extinction of mammal species. How shameful is that!?

In 2022 the koala was officially listed as endangered.

How shameful is that!?

John Williamson was so ashamed when he visited the Hospital and realised the koalas’ plight that he wrote and recorded the song, ‘Goodbye Blinky BIll’, which included the lines: 

‘I don’t think I could stand the shame, knowing that I could
Have saved the world from losing something beautiful and good.’

And yet, despite the enormous bushfire loss of native forests, our governments are still approving the removal of large areas of koala habitat, be it for logging or coal or gas or housing.

As for the Moolarben coalmine expansion near Munghorn Gap Nature Reserve north of Mudgee. Or the Vulcan South mine in QLD. 

With coal and gas mining spreading in the NSW N-W, the Independent Planning Commission said, ‘If coal mining and koalas are to co-exist, then a robust strategy for koala conservation is essential.’ 

Indeed, but that cannot mean the sham get-out-of-jail system of offsets.

Well may koalas turn their backs on us, given we are doing that to their desperate declining situation. It is predicted they may be extinct by 2050 at this rate.

Where are our priorities?

Who will dare say NO to the developers?

Or who will explain to our grandchildren… and to the world;… how we let this happen?

Goodbye Blinky Bill?

Local lorikeets

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My verandah railing was obviously the watching point for feeding time by the previous owners, and the pigeons, brush turkeys and lorikeets took a few weeks to realise that I was not going to be doing the same.

Only the lorikeets have kept trying their luck.

There were hundreds of lorikeets at my old place, noisily loving the paperbark blossoms. But I rarely saw them still and up so close. 

Their colours are ridiculously bright and beautiful, compensation for their unmusical screeching.

In the recent wet week, pairs have taken to sheltering on the verandah. While there, they take it in turns to preen each other.

I know it was likely fleas they were after, but it seemed affectionate and charming, to be mutually grooming even when their feathers were somewhat bedraggled and damp.

Amazing Bald Rock

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Bald Rock National Park is near Tenterfield and this mightiest of the many mighty granite domes in our tablelands region is truly impressive. In fact, it is the largest granite dome in the southern hemisphere.

For once I was able to screw up my courage and brave the slanted walk across the top surfaces, leaning uphill and trying hard to ignore the downwards pull I always feel.  White dots tell you where is safe to walk, but they don’t know my imagination…

Yes, the view is 360 degrees, but for me more fascinating is that these huge boulders are ranged in a neat row on top — by whom and how?

Or that in sheltered cracks and dips, surprising plants manage to grow up here.

Like these aromatic shrubs of Prostanthera petraea, White-flowering Mint Bush, as delicate in appearance as any pampered garden plant; only found in such granite pockets in this region.

I admit I took the easier option of getting to the Rock, taking the Bungoona Walk which was gentle and extremely varied. While wallowing in the scent of masses of wattles, I loved the dominance of purple Hardenbergia, climbing shrubs and sticks or rambling over the ground.

Clumps of Flag, from pale lilac to deep purple, appeared now and then. Shouldn’t our national colours be purple and gold instead of green and gold?

Another special regional plant I spotted on the way was the perennial Coronidium boormanii.

Of course the track eventually had to encounter these Granite Titans, tossed like marbles to balance at the foot of Bald Rock itself.

I not only fear and avoid heights, but caves and looming overhead rocks, and yet the track leads you through many tight spaces like this.

I know they have poised like these for eons, but still I duck and scurry through, hoping they do not choose to move at last… not right now.

I found Bald Rock National Park one of the most interesting for me. The campground was good, apart from the sad sight of a very ill quoll, probably blind and perhaps dying, (once rescued, likely from a dog attack, and released here) who came nosing around.

Wildlife welcome

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House-sitting for a week on a property that is designed to welcome wildlife, I was treated there to the songs of some of our most melodious birds, like this Pied Butcher Bird, whose young was heading to join it.

The other glorious songs came from possibly my favourite songster, the Grey Shrike-Thrush.

All day honeyeaters jostled and swung as they fed in the native small trees and shrubs planted to attract them.

To my great nostalgic delight, a family of Eastern Red-necked Wallabies grazed unconcernedly below.

On the young banksia tree one bloom stood out, demanding attention in its rich green amongst the creams and browns.

On the verandah a large skink sunned itself. I had thought it to be one I was used to, an Eastern Water Skink, but the colours were too dull. Perhaps at a different stage of its life? I’d appreciate any further clues…

So I had my wildlife  treats… as well as reminders of how very slow young kookaburras are to get their adult laugh right, and how very repetitive are their efforts!

Cats – the enemy, not the musical

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My Mountain wildlife refuge was 90 minutes from a town, so too far for lazy folk to drive up into the forest and dump their unwanted pets… like cats.

In my decades there I never saw a feral cat, and only once did I see a wild dog. No danger of confusing the latter with a dingo, as sadly, after the government’s bounty on dingoes, and ‘the dogger’ visiting the area, I no longer saw our regular big ginger one or heard the distinctive howling from up the far valleys.

I did have Spotted-tailed Quolls, even nesting in my shed, so maybe they kept the cats away. Small mammal and reptiles and birds abounded, so the thought of my fascinating fellow wildlife being creatures being devoured by an invasion of cats is appalling.

My most plentiful parrot was the Crimson Rosella, beautiful and musical.

Cat eating a crimson rosella. Copyright C Potter

The Bimblebox Nature Refuge seems a long way from towns in our coastal hinterland NSW terms but it is surrounded by ‘farms’: large scale cleared grazing properties where it mostly seems neither trees nor Nature, distances nor environmental responsibilities matter much.

A farmer like my late father would say of Bimblebox, ‘It’s just bush.’ It was the accepted rural attitude. When Dad visited my mountain forest block in the 70s he said, ‘It’d look all right if it was cleared a bit; especially with a few fat Herefords on it…’

And the price of cattle is high right now, so what price a small and rare Squirrel Glider possum which needs old tree hollows for its nest?

I want to share these thoughts from Ian Hoch, at the ‘coalface’ caring for Nature at Bimblebox. Those who have read the Bimblebox book will know that Ian is a philosopher and poet as well as deeply committed to caring for the Refuge… to doing that hard work it daily involves. Last time I shared was mostly about efforts to halt the exotic flora invasion.

Below he talks about the feral fauna, on seeing this Frogs Friday infographic featuring the Squirrel Glider. The ending will resonate with me forever…

The Cat Wars

Enigmatic this little fella; don’t think he’s supposed to be here. I found one dead up on the netting and pretty sure it was Sonya (Duus) who sent it away to be identified as a Squirrel. Didn’t have the white tip which distinguishes him from the Sugar Glider.

From what I read and understand, these more delicate and vulnerable mammals were doomed from the day Cook claimed possession and liberated his pigs on Cape York and explains why Conservancy and Heritage go to all the trouble with exclusion fencing.

I’m as sick of finding bird feathers around water troughs as I am tired of shooting and trapping cats. All my efforts only create a temporary void for another tabby. After 150 years, predator and prey must have established an equilibrium of sorts with the native species either cat- savvy or exterminated, and populations of both being sustained by availability of food and refuge. 

I don’t know what to do about it but do know (as child of a cat lover mum) that top of menu for moggies is small birds and gliders. The rarer the tastier. A fluffy tail usually the only reminder of the delicacy that was. 

I have to fence roos and rabbits from this native plant nursery to tackle the same problem in the floral realm. The sweetest species don’t get a chance to reproduce. Especially those already on the edge of their range and resilience.

You might say hardly makes any difference, we’ve never really noticed their presence nor lament their loss and that’s true until you’re holding a Sugar baby or watching them glide in the moonlight between tall ghost gums, and it’s then you know what you’re missing.

I’ve seen 3 or 4 other elusive marsupials that I don’t think are listed on those sham EIS. And whether they’re listed or not is hardly the point. As the designation implies — we’re a nature refuge. The idea is to maintain habitat for wildlife for its own sake, not just for the things we happen to notice.

At the same time we wouldn’t kid ourselves these ephemeral or vulnerable species will be here for much longer. Or not without our concerted efforts to cater for them. 

Huge counter influences are at play out there now (at sister property Kerand) in the wake of the regional scale, near complete transition to full-on production. We’re in that shakedown period  and in 20 years we’ll know what’s been able to cope, and so far it doesn’t look too promising. At Kerand, it’s likely to have been 90% reduction in 50 years. I think that’s called decimation.

Can’t see how we can avoid the same from happening here. Or not at this rate. Not without ridding the place (or select parts) of pigs and cats and rabbits, buffel and secca. Ironically and cruelly those highly adaptive foreign species, unburdened by co-evolutionary checks and balances, are just way too strong for the unique niche and specialist natives.

It’s been that way the world over for centuries. Just so happens the tail end of the colonial frontier has swept through the central west in our lifetime. The ecodynamics are in continuous flux, goes on by the minute – and much we never know. Foxes and deer and goats and hares and cane toads have all come and gone from here but pigs and cats and rabbits found a perfect home and pick the eyes out of the local smorgasbord. 

As I understand, cats are at their most populous and gargantuan right across the arid zone. They’ve evolved into pumas and devastate what’s left of all those wee dainty bopping bundles of fluff that live out there in the spinifex.

We might yet get to appreciate the bunny and the tabby, and not torment ourselves with reminders of squirrel gliders.

Pumas indeed! A feral cat carrying a sand goanna in its mouth. Picture: Emma Spencer

Rare sighting

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Strolling through Wingham Brush Reserve on the slightly elevated walkway, looking from side to side, I spotted a reptile in the leaf litter.

This was the first time I have ever seen a critter other than bats, brush turkeys and an occasional small bird there. It’s the massive strangler fig trees and the dim dry rainforest world around them that most attract me.

So was this a bluetongue lizard? There was something odd about the shape, the scales… and the head.

Moving to see the head more closely, I decided it wasn’t. But what was it? It was remaining absolutely still, despite our voices and footsteps… and a fly hanging around its face.

I was very excited to look it up and see it is a Land Mullet (Egernia major), one of our largest skinks, reaching up to 60cm. I had only ever seen one once before, at my Mountain.

It is called a Land Mullet because of its large shiny fish-like scales and because when it moves, it does look like a mullet swimming.

Preferring rainforest or nearby, it apparently often lives in burrows, so I was lucky to see it out sunning itself, unblinking, unswimming.

Pays to stay observant on a walk!

Water wanderers

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After my last odd waterbird visitor, the Royal Spoonbill, I thought I had spotted another strange long-legged, long-beaked bird down there in the wetlands.

But when it settled its ruffled feathers and assumed a more familiar stance, it revealed itself to be not really odd at all.

Perhaps oddly out of place, as there are no cattle here, and I think it is the quite common Cattle Egret.

I have usually seen it in groups around cows in paddocks, some often perched on the backs of cows.

Native to Africa and Asia, they were introduced to Australia in 1948 – as was I! – and have spread successfully into new territories, including America.

Equally common, and perhaps equally out of place, was this Long-necked Tortoise, seen wandering in my dry back yard, heading uphill from the wetlands.

As it still had damp mossy patches on its back, it can’t have been lost or misguided for long.

I stood very still as It looked about carefully, fixing my feet at least with those gimlet eyes.

Then it turned itself about and, very purposefully and surprisingly swiftly, headed downhill towards the water. 

There is a low old paling fence to be negotiated but, as I later saw, it found the worn parts and dug away until it was on the watery side where it belonged.

But why had it left and what led it to think there’d be water up here?

These wetlands are a boon in attracting wild creatures; after all, water is life.