This male Wallaroo never came close to the cabin, despite all the fences coming down. I never saw more than one couple, and usually only one of the pair. The females are paler and smaller, but still stocky and longhaired.
It rained a lot at the Mountain, as this bedraggled little Roo family could attest.
It was the Eastern Redneck Wallabies who made themselves most at home as the netting gradually was rolled out of their way.
But they were happy to share ‘my’ space with the Eastern Grey Kangaroos. The male Roo by the barbeque is on alert, as always when I appeared, but if I came no closer he would stay. The females and joeys were much more relaxed.
Here they are all lying about drying off in the sunshine after a rainy spell, with me well distanced.
Being the only human there, I was allowed to witness many aspects of macropod behaviour.
Like these young male Wallabies practice-boxing. They balanced on their tails as they ’stood’, clasping each other and cuffing faces.
The bravado often fell as they overbalanced and did the same, which would usually end the ‘fight’.
Or their methods of cleaning themselves, like sitting back with their tail stretched out in front between their legs, and carefully defleaing it.
Sometimes the joey would help its mother deal with awkward places for the process, repaying her usual role as cleaner.
Not that the young were slack about their own cleanliness, like cleaning their dainty black paws.
When I say the Wallabies were the most relaxed, I mean it! I simply didn’t count, and often had to step over one to get past. I put up a toddler-type gate at the top of the verandah steps, for fear those long feet would get them into trouble.
While there were plenty of these Wallabies at my place, I never tired of watching them, of photographing them. I especially loved the mother/joey connections, no matter how old the ‘child’, pouch-fitting or not.
It wasn’t only the gentle wallabies who took over my Mountain house yard once I’d let them in. The bigger Eastern Grey Kangaroos eventually used it too. The families became easy around me, but never the males. When a male stood erect, he was taller than my gate had been.
This one is clearly ready for chasing a female; their penises were always curved like this, although mostly not seen.
They were slower than the wallabies to venture inside my yard, no doubt concerned that the gates might shut them in. The females and young came first.
The kangaroo joeys were as cute as the wallaby ones, and gradually ceased to bother about me, the only human… and pathetically without a tail.
The next drastic step was taking down the netting fence altogether. As you can see, the kikuyu grass was long inside it. That’s a Wallaroo outside; they remained wary and never did venture in far.
That fence had been a labour to build, and mostly by me, so it was a painful step to dismantle it.
Taking off the netting and rolling it up was a sort of relief and a sort of defeat. I think the roos felt better without it there to possibly hem them in, as even the males seemed more relaxed, preening and cleaning as they usually would.
For me, having an uninterrupted flow down to the small dam allowed better viewing of all the wildlife who came to drink there. Once I saw a female roo even hop in to escape a persistent male! But that was rare.
I felt closer to the wildlife as the man-made barriers came down, while I still regretted the garden dream, the heritage roses…
The price I paid for the overwhelming task and trauma of writing Rich Land, Wasteland was actually incalculable.
On my Substack posts I am going through my archives, so I thought I might do the same here, in between trips elsewhere and posts about them.
I urge you to subscribe so you get an email notification when I post; it’s free.
When choosing my favourite photo, it had to be this one.
The mum (an Eastern Redneck, my most common wallaby there) had decided my western mud brick cabin wall, not far from my steps, was her spot.
I was overwhelmed when her joey and I locked eyes one day, as for it I was its first human, likely to be the only human it would ever see in its life here on my isolated mountain wildlife refuge.
So that meant that my theme was going to be wallabies, especially wallaby joeys. I never got over how small the mothers often were, and how big the joeys got and were still carried about in that cosy pouch. And besides, they are so very cute…
I watched them go from hairless and totally pouch-bound to hairy and venturing their front legs out, having the best of both worlds. They would nibble the grass as Mum levered herself along as she grazed.
Yet even when too big to fit in the pouch, they could still drink her milk. The mothers would tolerate this for a while, then cuff the young away. Final weaning steps, I guess.
I wasn’t so keen on some of the adults’ habits.
After I had to let them all into the yard, due to the pressure of writing ‘Rich Land, Wasteland’, they totally trashed my garden.
I’d foolishly thought they’d mainly eat the grass that I no longer had time to mow. Hah!
They didn’t eat the leaves of bulbs, so the naturalised jonquils and daffodils survived.
But it was unexpected that they’d eat strong-smelling plants like lavender. This was a rosemary bush!
Nor did thorns deter them, as they did the same to roses.
But they were a daily treat to watch. They could ignore me as the only human, and be totally natural. They knew it was their world.
How sweet is this young one? Even as it poses in front of a stripped heritage rose bush…
No wonder I miss the real world of my Mountain and the real wildlife with whom I shared it.
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.
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.
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…
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!
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.
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?
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.
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.
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!
