The Doc gets a guided tour of Waulinbakh Wildlife Sanctuary this week, provided the rain holds off. Mate Steve Young wil be looking for myxos in the field. Waulinbakh is privately owned but some conservation efforts are undertaken by AWC.
Category Archives: Plant
Flinders Island flight
When The Doc visited Flinders Island in late 2023 for a photography course, the group went on a plane ride. The plane took off from Lady Barron airs strip and flew over Cape Barren Island, Green Dog Island and a few other islands all part of the Furneaux group. The images were taken through Plexiglass, so the images are soft and they had heavy colour casts. The Doc got rid of most of the colour casts with some recent techiques, and has salvaged a few images. Not inspiring images but better than nothing.
Arnhem Land Revisited – medium format style
The Doc took two cameras on the helicopter, including a Pentax 645Z Medium format camera. The Pentax gives massive files which The Doc can crop how he wishes. The files have eye watering details, not always appreciated when you can only post small images on a blog.
The Pentax renders very accurate colours, more so than the Canon 1DX which was the other camera used. These images are a very accurate representation on what you see from the helicopter.
To be precise, these images are from the West Arnhem Region.
Madagascan boababs
On the recent visit to the Northern Territory, The Doc visited the George Brown Darwin Botanic Gardens. The Botanic Gardens have a large selection of boababs trees from Madagascar. Here is selection of 4 species.
Bullo River Cruise
At the recent AWC Supporter Event at Bullo River Station we had small groups doing guided tours along the Bullo River, with a cold breakfast supplied (fresh fruit, quiche, yogurt, nuts, freshly squeezed OJ and muffins).
A few images are below. Click on an image to see a slideshow at full size. Enjoy the beauty of God’s creation.
The Doc is still writing the longer Bullo report.
Derby helicopter trip – medium format style
The Doc also took his Pentax medium format camera on the helicopter. A selection of a few images from that camera are below.
The original images are massive in size (around 250 megs), and have stunning details even when heavily cropped. Not an easy camera to use in a helicopter because of its size and its slow autofocus. Plus you do not want to take too many images with large file sizes, which are slow and hard to work with. But the images, when they work out, are just gorgeous.
Click on an image to see the slideshow. It is worth it. Enjoy.
Plus some assorted images from Yampi Sound Training Ground, Charnley River Gorge up in The Artesian Range and the Buccaneer Archipelago.
The Buccaneer Archipelago, with a little of Yampi Sound thrown in
Below is a satellite image of Derby, King Sound (that great big “harbour”) and on its northern edge a group of Islands known as the Buccaneer Archipelago. The Derby mud flats are obvious on the southern edge of King Sound, near the Derby township. Towards the top right is the Walcott Inlet, which leads into Charnley River and its gorge, yesterdays spectacular post.
The helicopter trip continues. Here is small selection of images from the Buccaneer Archipelago. Wikipedia states “The archipelago, covering over 50 square kilometres (19 sq mi) is located at the head of King Sound and is composed of about 800 islands found between King Sound and Collier Bay near Yampi Sound.”
Yampi Sound also has a major Army training base inland from the Sound itself. The images towards the middle with a burn off taking place, from memory, is part of Yampi training grounds. Often Yampi is boring open grasslands. The Australian Wildlife Conservancy helps the Army conserve part of the training grounds set aside for conservation along the coast.
The massive tidal flows are obvious in several images, with the disturbed water during a tidal change.
To see a larger image click on a thumbnail.
Charnley River Gorge, Artesian Range, The Kimberley
When posting some Kimberley images recently The Doc realised he has not posted images from his 2-day helicopter trip out of Derby in 2015 (better late than never!) – except 2 or 3 images.
Starting with Day 2, here are images from flying along the Charnley River Gorge, Artesian Range, The Kimberley, Western Australia. It was a thrill of a lifetime, breathtakingly beautiful place. We had permission from Australian Wildlife Conservancy to do the trip over their property and land. With both the pilot and the passenger being AWC supporters helps!
The Artesian Range is the only part of Australia that has not suffered any mammal extinctions since European settlement, but the cane toads got into the area in the last few years. So that may change.
Where the river bed is a muddy light grey, the river is tidal. The clearer water is beyond the tidal zone and is fresh water coming down the river.
We landed and took pictures of Aboriginal art, which had some very rare figures. The Doc may post one or two later.
Make sure you click on the image to see the full size slide show.
Eromanga & Outback Queensland – St George, Dirranbandi, Goondawindi – the trip ends
The Doc drove straight from Stanthorpe to Eromanga, with an overnight stay at Cunnamulla. The return trip was over a week, starting with an alternate route out of Eromanga. Two nights were spent at St George where The Doc went exploring especially around Dirranbandi, which a mate raves about. Driving down the Castlereagh Highway south out of St George was nice but terrifying anytime a roadtrain came the other way on this narrow road. Dirranbandi is a road hub with heavy roadtrain traffic. Uninspiring so far.
The Doc refueled, took a rest, visited the bakery, and headed back a different way using the Whyenbah Road. A road that services stations and farms. Suddenly the mood changed and became a magical road trip, almost no traffic, beautiful afternoon light, storm clouds and great scenery. The road is not fully sealed, but is slowly being sealed. You rejoin the Balonne Highway just west of the St George Township. The Doc needs to get the exact location of the riverside stop his mate uses and drive on the Whyenbah Road, not the Castlereagh Highway, when heading to Dirranbandi.
Next stop Goondawindi and Boggabilla. There was some local exploring but the main purpose was to visit the Goondawindi Botanic Gardens (Botanic Gardens of the Western Woodlands). A few nights there and then back to Ballina. More time is needed to cover the extensive Botanic Gardens grounds but here are images from the visit:
Most topics are now done. My favourite image of the trip? Peglers Pond at sunrise.
Cunnamulla, Eulo, Thargomindah – Outback Queensland
After leaving Stanthorpe, The Doc travelled along the Stanthorpe-Texas Road. Then through Texas and heading northward to Inglewood (along the Inglewood-Texas Road), which was a great drive early in the morning. Time to visit the local bakery and get some warm bacon and cheese topped rolls, which was the food for the day (nice rolls they were). The last roll later in the day was warmed up in the Travel Buddy Oven.
The Doc drove all day and stayed overnight at Cunnamulla. It was a long day’s driving. On the way The Doc fueled at a Roadhouse outside Goondawindi. From memory, it was time for a Magnum ice cream.
Leaving Cunnamulla early the next morning The Doc travelled west out of Cunnamulla via Eulo (Eu-lo) and Thargomindah (Thar-go-min-dah) along the Bulloo Developmental Road. Here is an interactive map of the trip from Ballina to Eromanga.
Eulo is a place where many of the Australian Megafauna, like the Diprotodon, are found.
Previously The Doc had always travelled north out of Cunnamulla along the Mitchell Highway, but a change was in order.
The Doc visited Noccundra and then turned northwards onto the Cooper Developmental Road and up into Eromanga the back way.
The traffic was light all the way. It turns out had The Doc gone the normal way (Cunnamulla, Charleville, Quilpie and then Eromanga) he would have run into many cars heading to the Big Red Bash at Birdsville.
On a back road, The Doc came across a little oasis in the in the middle of nowhere in this semi arid landscape. Enjoy.
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