Day 2 Lake Argyle

A helicopter store... for arial cowboys.

A black kite, one of the major raptors in Australia.

A rock wallaby with joey.

Golden orb spiders in their webs between the branches.

The male is hiding on the same web waiting for his chance to mate before he is eaten.

Lake Argyle at sunset,

The dreaded cane toad at our campsite. This is the only place I saw them and we saw about a dozen.

Sunday, September 11^th

We were up by 6:00 and drove to the Katherine Hot Springs just outside the town. It was a very pretty spot. There was a small river running out of the ground with warmish water. We all got in and floated around for a bit enjoying the temperature.

After that we drove for a couple of hours to the small village of Timber Creek for lunch. Then we drove for a couple more hours to the border of Western Australia where we had to declare that we weren't carrying fresh fruit, vegetables or honey. This is to protect the agriculture of WA and to save the honey bees which, so far have not been affected by the blight that the rest of the world has seen. Damien said that if they thought we were they could rip the whole truck apart and we could be there for a while. Luckily, we had no problems.

As we were driving Damien said, “You know you are in rich cattle country when you see a helicopter store!” I have seen this method of 'mustering' the cattle on the TV. On this trip I have already seen cowboys on horses with dogs, and cowboys on four wheel drive vehicles, but in this area the ranches are so vast that those methods are useless. He also told us about the Durak family who were immigrants from Ireland who set up the first cattle and sheep stations in northern Australia. They are celebrated in Australian history as pastoralists but Damien told us a different version wherein they pushed the Aboriginals off their land and when they killed a couple of slow moving easy to kill sheep and cows (the Aboriginals could not understand how anyone owned animals) the Durack farmers retaliated by killing Aboriginals.

All along the road it was evident that fire had recently gone through here. Damien told me that the government routinely burns off the scrub and natural litter from the trees to cut down the chance of a real wildfire and the the road being cut off. By doing this they hope to create a fire break.

We continued on to Judbarra/Gregory National Park. We went on a five kilometre hike into a canyon surrounded by tall cliffs of red sandstone. The weather was hot with a light dry breeze. Oliver and I struck off ahead of the group. We both enjoy the quiet and hiking at the clip we want to go at. We followed a steep rocky track to the base of the escarpment wall that is has some aboriginal paintings on it. We stopped periodically to wait for the group and to make sure we were going in the right direction. The canyon has a lot of livistona palm trees growing in it, that from a distance look like 'truffala' trees from the Dr Suess book the 'Lorax'. Along the route were signs telling the story of how life emerged according to the local aboriginals, the Nungali mob, which was both entertaining and informative. The hike was beautiful and serene as we walked up and down the side of the canyon to the far end and then back down and through the middle to get back to the truck.

Once we crossed the border we drove to Lake Argyle and met up with our tour boat guide, Matt, for a sunset boat cruise. Lake Argyle is a man made reservoir. They dammed the Ord River where it flows through a gap between two hills and flooded a huge area of Aboriginal land creating a 700 square kilometre lake that holds three times as much water as Sydney Harbour! This caused huge changes to the environment but created a huge new wetland which harbours thousands of fresh water crocodiles, as well as a large variety of fish and birds. The water is used primarily for agriculture and growing crops like bananas and other crops that are not native to the land. This too has caused environmental damage to the area. While there we saw short eared rock wallabies, fresh water crocodiles and golden orb spiders. Scenically the lake is nice, but holds nothing on Ontario lakes as the shores are mostly barren rock. But it was beautiful and rugged especially in the late afternoon sun. The sunset was nice too although the sun disappeared behind clouds.

When got back we unpacked the truck, put up the tents and got out the bedrolls, or swags. Swags are an Aussie item. It is a canvas bag with a thin mattress inside. Then you put your sleeping bag inside and zip the whole thing up. I had purchased a sleeping bag from Intrepid for $35 for this trip. The tents and swags are kept on top of the truck. The first tent I put up had the wrong poles and it wound up being saggy and more like a lean-to, but I slept in it okay. Because of the heat we also don't put the rain cover on because that impedes the flow of air. So we sleep in tents that are more or less see through.

The whole group pitched in and helped Damien make dinner. The participants on this tour are expected to help out with set up of meals and clean up as well as loading and unloading the tents, swags and their luggage and setting up camp. After dinner we relaxed around the campfire and enjoyed a very warm evening. I talked to Ollie and Anna and we photographed a few cane toads that were hopping around the camp.

Cane toads were imported in the 1930's from South America to eat beetles that were eating the sugar cane crop. Unfortunately, the sugar cane here grows taller than in South America and the cane toads could not reach the beetles. In addition they are poisonous and the native Australian animals were defenceless against them. Large numbers of reptiles, snakes, birds, and mammals died trying to eat them. They multiplied rapidly and have invaded almost all of Australia, from Queensland in the east where they were first imported all the way across the continent to Western Australia where they arrived in 2008. Damien called them one of the biggest blights on native animals, along with feral cats and dogs. I asked about rabbits and he said that rabbits and camels and other species have been a problem too but toads cats and dogs have decimated native species of animals and birds and driven some into extinction. He also said there has been evidence lately that crows and other birds might be learning to turn the toad over and gut it, thereby avoiding the poisonous skin on the back. He was quite adamant that the sugar industry should be made to pay for the damages and to help eradicate the toads. 

There were bats in our campsite overnight. You could here them land just over our heads (it sounded like they were crashing) in the trees over our heads and John and Lucy got sprayed by a couple above his tent!