Australia Day Two: To Kakadu!

On our second day in Australia, we slept in to make up for our sleepless night the day before. We finally dragged ourselves out of bed, checked out of our hotel, and meandered over to the Esplanade to check out the view. It was a lovely one.

View along the Esplanade at Darwin

It was a beautiful day - a little hot, but we're used to that! The birds were out in full force, making the most of all the sunshine. As we walked along the park near the water, we spotted a bright blue bird in a tree. It was the pretty forest kingfisher, which looks really similar to the collared kingfisher we have in Singapore.

Forest kingfisher

After our walk through the park, we stopped by the Coles Supermarket to stock up a few supplies - after lunch we planned to leave Darwin for the more remote Kakadu National Park (one of Patricia Schultz's 1000 Places to See Before You Die.) We ended up roaming the grocery aisles a long time, pointing out Australian brands we recognized (Vegemite, Milo, Bundaberg ginger beer) and exclaiming over American items that we usually don't see in Singapore. Eventually we moved on to find a place for lunch.

As we walked down Mitchell Street, we made touristy fools of ourselves when we stopped on the sidewalk in front of an apartment building to admire a bird up in a tree. We even photographed it while people looked at us oddly. I was glad we stopped though, because it turned out that we were looking up at a very colorful parrot! It was a male eclectus parrot, preening away up there.

"Pretty bird!"

So far, we'd been surprised at how expensive everything in Australia was. Coming from two people who are used to Singapore's high cost-of-living, that's saying a lot! But prices in Australia were certainly high - hotel rooms were outrageously priced. Going out to eat was a big expense, even at a little sidewalk cafe. So when we found a lunch place that was advertising $10 lunch specials, we stopped there. The restaurant was Cafe Uno, and I had a good pizza there. Bryan had a burger and fries, but agreed that my vegetarian pizza tasted better. When will he ever learn?!

After lunch, we hopped in the rental car and made our way toward Kakadu. We didn't really have a schedule, so we took our time, and stopped at the first nature-y place we saw, a place called Window on the Wetlands. We stretched our legs and walked a nearby trail.

This is my "YAY WE'RE IN AUSTRALIA!" face

 
The trail was nice. There were a lot of butterflies around, and a lot of the small skinks we'd seen before. Every few steps, we'd see one skitter off into the leaves. At the end of the trail was an old well and we could hear something big rummaging around in the brush. We stood there for a while, hearts pumping as we waited to see if a wild boar or a water buffalo (both introduced to the area) was going to burst out into our path. But nothing happened.

Nothing more dangerous than a butterfly around here!

We went up to the Visitor Center and enjoyed their scenic lookout point. Bryan and I got very excited when we spotted some water buffalo nearby. We thought they were the wild ones that had been introduced and become invasive, but we drove out toward them later and realized they were on a farm and bound in by fences, which made it all less exciting.

Anti-climactic water buffalo, with his egret friend

As we left the Visitor Center, I went into my apoplectic I JUST SAW A SNAKE mode, but I turned out to be wrong this time. It was a skink that looked remarkably like a snake! I wasn't able to identify it, though - apparently there are hundreds of species of skink in Australia! I did notice that it didn't appear to be making much use of its back legs. A lot of the skinks in Australia have evolved to not use their legs much any more, and in some species all that's left are little leg nubs!

A snake-y lizard.

After our snake-skink encounter, we hopped back in the car and moved along. It wasn't long before we were driving into Kakadu National Park!

Kakadu-dle Doo!!!

As we drove along the highway, we were alarmed when we saw a small fire burning in the brush along the road. You can imagine our surprise when, a few minutes later, we passed a guy in a forestry services truck intentionally starting another such fire! But we were visiting the area at the end of the wet season, just before the dry season really began. I'm guessing that they burn some of the brush while it's still relatively wet to keep it from burning out of control in the very dry season.

Ummm...is that normal?

It quickly became obvious that at some point in the past, a fire really had burnt out of control.

Yikes!

We'd gone quite a way into Kakadu when we spotted our first really exciting wildlife. A WALLABY!! It was right along the roadside, head down, eating. After our first one, we started seeing them every few kilometers. They were pretty skittish - if we slowed down, they bounded off into the brush. At one point, we stopped to top up our gas tank. When we pulled away from the gas pump and back on to the main road, we saw five or six wallabies gathered in a small open area. We stopped on the side of the road for pictures. They're just so cute!!

He's one of the species known as the "agile wallaby." I think they should be called the
"CUTIE PATOOTIE wallaby."

We hung around for a while, watching the wallabies eating the grass. They were positively adorable, but they didn't seem particularly intelligent. If we made any noise, they would look up in a panic, but if we sat quietly for a few seconds they would go back to eating, only to panic again if we made another noise, as though they'd totally forgotten we were there. Silly wallabies.

When we saw a car coming up behind us, we pulled back on to the road and continued on our way to the Aurora Kakadu. We'd been traveling and wildlife-watching all day, so we were getting eager to stop and check in to our hotel. But we made another stop when we saw a sign for a lookout point at the Mamukala Wetlands area. We stopped again, and took in the lovely scenery in the late afternoon sunlight.

In the hide at Mamukala

This is perfect! I love water lilies AND dragonflies!

Dainty water lily

After Mamukala, we pushed ahead, planning on not stopping until we reached the Aurora Kakadu. Unfortunately, what we reached instead was a sign informing us that we'd almost reached Jabiru, which is about 40 km beyond where we needed to be. Somehow we'd driven right past our hotel! AGH!

We turned around and drove back. A somewhat frustrated half hour later, we pulled up at the Aurora Kakadu, which happened to be...EXACTLY WHERE WE'D STOPPED FOR GAS EARLIER! We'd even been in the area with the reception desk and bought our Kakadu park passes there, and never realized that we were standing about 20 yards from where we'd be sleeping that night. Duh. I guess we were just too distracted by wallabies and brush fires!

Anyway, we were grateful to finally be checked in at our destination, and we were happy to be staying so close to a place where we'd earlier seen a lot of wallabies hanging around. After we checked in, we hopped back in our car to drive it to the parking spot in front of our room. On our way, we saw...(ready?)...A DINGO!!!!!

Poor baby

This dingo certainly looked like he'd seen better days. He was hobbling pathetically along with his ribs sticking out, and I really just wanted to put pick him up, take him home, and feed him some Bil-Jac.

As soon as we parked our car and dumped our bags in our room, we went for a walk around the grounds. We quickly spotted some new birdlife - a large, very impressive sulphur-crested cockatoo!

He was keenly interested in us, and looked more intelligent
than the wallabies we'd seen!

We also spotted a bar-shouldered dove and (of course) some more orange-footed scrubfowl. Those guys are everywhere!

KOOKAWOOK

In our explorations, we even ran across a frog! That almost never happens! Unfortunately, I'm not sure what species it was. Any suggestions?

What a cute little guy!

As we walked, it began to get dark, so we headed over to the on-site restaurant for some dinner. It was pretty good - I had roasted vegetable pasta and Bryan had beef pie, but it was very expensive for such simple food. But at least the Bulmer's cider was reasonably priced! And we couldn't help but laugh at the portion sizes of the food - they were what we call "American-sized," that is, more food than a person should reasonably eat in one sitting. No wonder the Australians are up there with the U.S. on the obesity rankings!

We asked the waitress if it would be possible to order a couple of ciders to go. She said yes, but mentioned that she had to scan our IDs. When we curiously asked why, she explained that Australia has a database of "banned drinkers" - people who have gotten busted for alcohol-related offenses and are placed on a drinking ban for a number of years or for life. While banned, they can't purchase alcohol anywhere. I thought that was a pretty cool system!

After dinner, Bryan and I headed back to our room to get some flashlights. We were going to try our hand at spotlighting some wildlife in the area around our room. We hadn't done much night-time wildlife watching, so we weren't too sure what kind of luck we'd have.

At first, all we saw were what seemed like millions of spider eyes glinting in the beam of our flashlights. The spiders were all over the grass, and I felt like I was stomping on five of them with every step I took. Eventually we spotted much bigger spiders up in the trees.

This big, fuzzy one looks like a bumble bee!

And this one was about the size of my hand! Just what you want to see before
bedtime. Sweet dreams!

We had one more interesting find that night - the big, fat cane toad. It was kind of neat for us to see the cane toad in the wild, since we don't see many frogs and toads in Singapore. But for Australians, the cane toads are nothing but a headache.

Like an obnoxious relative that just won't stop crashing on your couch.

The toads were introduced in the 1930's in a misguided attempt to control the population of cane beetles. But the toads quickly proliferated and became an invasive species that threaten the livelihood of native frogs. Because the toads are poisonous and dangerous to many animals, they aren't commonly preyed upon. Australian wildlife agencies encourage people to catch and kill them - we saw a sign instructing people to put them in a plastic bag and stick them in the freezer overnight. It seems ruthless, but Australia has major invasive species problems, not just with the toads, but also with rabbits, foxes, feral pigs, and many more. They must take drastic measures to protect the local biodiversity from being overrun by these introduced species.

Eventually we made our way back to our room. It had been a long day, but a good one, what with all the awesome birds, frogs, and wallabies. We couldn't wait to explore Kakadu some more the next day!

Australia Day One: Happy Bird Day

Visiting Australia has been a life-long dream for Bryan and me. With our time remaining on this part of the planet limited (more about that later), we decided to make it a reality. We only had time for a short trip, so we decided to head to Darwin, which is relatively near Singapore.

We went to the airport late one Friday night, and confidently queued up to check in for our Jetstar flight. We got to the counter and handed over our passports. The ticketing agent asked distractedly, "Do you have visas?" Bryan and I exchanged a look. "We don't need them," I said, more confidently than I felt. She looked up. "Yes you do," she said, "Every country except New Zealand needs a visa." Bryan and I were dumbfounded. How could we have missed this major detail?! Our flight was leaving in 90 minutes, and here we stood like a couple of idiots. We then had this frustrating exchange:

Me: Well, is there any way we can GET a visa?
Agent: (stare)
Me: Can we get one online?
Agent: Yes.
Me: Well, is there a way we can access the Internet? Can we go in there? (pointing to the free Internet, in sight but beyond security).
Agent: (annoyed, not looking at us) No, you can't go in there. You'll have to figure out how to get Internet access on your own.
(Bryan and I stand there for a second, feeling stupid as our dream vacation slips slowly away from us).
Bryan: (very politely) Well, do you have any suggestions?
Agent: (finally looks up at us) Oh. Yeah. You can go down to the Qantas counter. They issue Australian visas. (scribbles on a sheet of paper) Just go down there and ask for this. But you have to be back before we close the ticketing counter.

Bryan and I looked at the clock. We had 25 minutes. We ran over to the Qantas counter and joined an annoyingly long queue. We were both flabbergasted that this option was available and the ticketing agent had failed to mention it until asked. But we had bigger fish to fry now. We stood in that line, fidgeting and stressing, for the next 20 minutes. Then we got to the counter and told the agent the situation. She rushed through the process and we ran back to the Jetstar counter with about 3 minutes to spare.

It was definitely the rockiest beginning to any of our vacations. I guess we've traveled so much over the past few years that we've gotten kind of careless about the little details. And we're spoiled as Americans: we often get visas on arrival. Of all places, we didn't think Australia would require us to have them beforehand. Oh well. We were just SO grateful that we were still going to make it! A public service announcement for our fellow Americans:

AMERICANS: YOU NEED A VISA TO TRAVEL TO AUSTRALIA! FOR REAL! YOU CAN GET ONE HERE: http://www.eta.immi.gov.au/

So our trip certainly began with a bit of a headache, but it got better after that. We made our flight and even had an empty seat next to us. We read and dozed all the way, and landed safely in Darwin at around 4 in the morning. By 5 AM we'd picked up our rental car from Hertz and we were on our way!

It was still pitch black outside and there wasn't much traffic on the roads. We took the opportunity to drive around and get acquainted with Darwin, while Bryan got reacquainted with driving on the left side of the road. We were hungry, so we were hoping to find a breakfast place open early. The only place we found serving breakfast so early was the SkyCity Casino. Well, why not? We went in and had a buffet breakfast. I was super excited by two things (don't laugh): 1) tater tots!!! Not a common staple in Singapore and 2) VEGEMITE! I love it.

We ate and drank coffee and lounged around until the sky gradually began to lighten. There was a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows next to our table, and as the sun began to rise we realized that we were looking out over the ocean! Seabirds began flying around, squawking loudly.

We'd been up all night, but we were still eager to explore. Now that it was daylight and our stomachs were full, we decided to head for the nearby Darwin Botanical Gardens. As soon as we pulled into the carpark, we were greeted by two funny-looking birds. Our handy guidebook (Watching Wildlife: Australia)easily identified them as orange-footed scrubfowl.

They remind me of smaller, less pretty peacocks!

Sleepy birdwatchers

The gardens were peaceful early in the morning. There weren't many people around, but there was a staggering quantity of birds. Everywhere we looked we saw a type of bird we'd never seen before!!

Magpie-larks were all over the place! They're like magpie wannabes;
they spend a lot of their time hanging around the real magpies.

L: Australian white ibis; R: straw-necked ibis.

The bar-shouldered dove is also known as...are you ready for this?...
the kookawook! Best alias ever.

Little friarbird, also known as a leatherhead, which seems apt.

We pretty quickly realized that the orange-footed scrubfowl really wasn't too special. They were everywhere. Every time we heard a rustling in the leaves, we turned around to discover a pair of orange legs!

They spend a lot of time foraging in the leaf litter

We spent a long time in the gardens. We were pretty worn out from having been up all night, and aimlessly wandering the gardens suited our mental state pretty well. I even had time for tree-climbing!

Up a tree.

As we meandered along a boardwalk on the edge of the park, Bryan put his hand on my arm to stop me. "Look," he whispered intensely. I looked up ahead, and to my complete surprise I saw that there were about 10 huge birds in the brush! They were only about 10 yards away, and each one was almost 2 feet tall, but they were so supremely camouflaged that neither Bryan or I had noticed them until we were almost on top of them!

Bush stone-curlews are mostly nocturnal and are excellent at fading into the background!

Birds definitely dominated the wildlife scene in the gardens, but we did see a few other things, including  a lot of spiders.

Tent-web spider

Wrapping up a delicious snack for later

Orb-weaver spider

We even saw this cute little lizard, who was very preoccupied with trying to disappear under some leaves where he'd be safe from the big scary people.

Cute little Aussie skink.

My favorite thing that we saw all morning was a set of very colorful, elegant birds. They're rainbow bee-eaters, and they're lovely!!

The beautiful rainbow bee-eaters are a relative of the kingfishers!

Another favorite was this seed pod. At first glance, it looked like a tiny rowboat on the water, haha.

Tiny rowboat

After we'd covered the entire garden, we went back  to the carpark. On the way, I swung by the restroom. When I shut the stall door, I almost peed my pants. There was a HUGE grasshopper on top of the door, and a spider in the corner! AH!

Bathroom Grasshopper is watching you.

After my big scare, we headed back to the car and took a nap in the carpark! We were so beat from our all-nighter that we didn't want to start another adventure without a little catnap. It was peaceful there, lying in the warm car and listening to the birds all around us.

After a couple of hours, we got up, drove back into town, and checked into the Holiday Inn near the ocean, mostly because it was one of the first hotels we came across. It had already been a long day at that point, so we lounged around in our room until around dinner-time, when we walked and explored the town a bit, mostly along Mitchell Street. We got some dinner at a tiny place called the Souvlaki Bar. I had good falafel, and as usual Bryan liked my vegetarian dish better than his meaty gyro!!

Walking around Darwin at night was interesting. Unlike in Singapore, there were a few homeless people hanging out on the streets. We had a tense moment when a particularly disheveled guy got up off the sidewalk and started following closely behind us, repeatedly mumbling, "You gotta do what you gotta do," but we hurried along and eventually lost him. We stopped for a few ciders on the patio at a bar called Monsoons. Drinking relatively inexpensive booze in a bar full of young white people sure made us feel right at home!!

We went back to our hotel pretty early that night, still sleep-deprived, and eager to rest up for what we hoped would be an exciting next day!

Things We Find in the Woods Part Six

It's been awhile since I've posted about the fun and unusual things that Bryan and I encounter on our ramblings through Singapore's wild spots, but never fear.  Your dose of wildlife is back.

Let's start it off with the creepy crawlies!!  On one day in Bukit Timah, Bryan and I found two spiders we'd never seen in Singapore.  This one is some sort of orb weaver spider, but I couldn't find it in the guide to common Singapore spiders that I typically use to ID the spiders I find around here. The web was really eye-catching, and I can just imagine being mesmerized as I flew directly into it, trapped myself, and got swallowed right up by the crafty spider.

Fancy web stitching.  Well done, little guy!

The other spider was impressive as well, because of its size rather than its handiwork. I found this one when we were standing on a path.  The massive web was suspended about eight feet in the air, and when I saw its huge inhabitant, I exclaimed "WOAH!" causing Bryan to back up right underneath it, just as a stiff breeze caused the web and the spider to shake, making me deeply concerned that Bryan was about to have a spider for a hat.  Luckily it hung tight and he managed to scoot out from underneath it.  No luck identifying this one either.  Any input?  Any arachnologists out there?

What Bryan saw when I said "Look up, honey, but don't freak out."

On that same day, Bryan and I encountered what was certainly the biggest, fattest skink I have ever seen.  It was a common sun skink and when we saw it, it was about a foot away from another, normal sized common sun skink, just emphasizing the fact that the fat one was absurdly large.  After we got home I looked it up in our very worn Wild Animals of Singapore book to see if it had any notes on size differences between males and females.  It did not mention any sexual dimorphism, but it did say that these skinks bear live young, so maybe our fat skink was just pregnant!

Suzie was always proud of her slim physique...

...but Bertha's friends were always telling her to go easy on the grasshoppers.

OK, for the sake of my mother, I'll move on from lizards and spiders now.  How about something furry and cute?  How about a teeny baby monkey, less than a week old?  You might recall Camille's last little girl, Dora, who almost broke my heart when she was killed by a car.  Well, Camille has a new baby now, a little boy and she is very protective.  So far he's very healthy, and I hope to see him grow safely into adolescence.

Mama's Boy

I think he's just as cute as can be, and so do the other monkey ladies.  That's why they're always trying to snatch him away!  Macaque females frequently try to touch, groom, hold, or outright steal young infants.  As you can imagine, the mothers of the infants generally disapprove of such behavior, and often try to snatch the baby right back.  Sometimes this results in a bit of monkey tug-of-war, with a screaming baby as the rope.

Everyone wants the baby but it's pretty clear where he wants to be- look at him clutching to his mom!

Camille's baby is the youngest in the group.  Izzy had the first baby of the recent baby boom,  so her little one has grown quite a bit...but that hasn't stopped him from continuing to act like a helpless little soul.  He clings on to Izzy for dear life, even though he's almost half her size at this point, and whenever she tries to lay down or rest, he's always rooting around to get at her milk.  She's pretty laid-back, so she seems to take it all in stride, but sometimes I anthropomorphize and think she looks really tired.

Izzy's pretty much a milk factory these days

OK, just a few more monkey photos and then I'll move on.  But we haven't seen any of the monkey teens yet, and they're my favorite.  Bryan's been getting in lots of practice taking monkey photos lately, and I think his skills are really improving.  It's not easy to get good photos of the energetic, always-moving juveniles, but he's gotten some good stuff.

Macaques jump super long distances and sometimes just barely reach their goal, but seeing one fall is pretty rare.

People often think "smiling" monkeys are happy, but they're actually expressing fear or submission.

No, I'm not interested in sharing my banana peel.  Go away.

Well, now we have the ladies and the babies and the juveniles, but I can't neglect those big males.  Here's Achilles, the most photogenic male, in my opinion.

What big teeth you have, my dear...

If you've spent much time hiking in Singapore's nature reserves, you probably know that it's quite common to find the macaques, but much less ordinary to encounter any other kind of mammal besides the ever-present squirrels.  That's why Bryan and I got so excited last weekend when we saw this colugo!  The colugo is also referred to as a flying lemur in wildlife guides, but a lot of the locals call them flying foxes, which is really confusing, because flying foxes are actually a type of large bat.  I've never tried to correct them though- not when they call colugos "flying foxes" or when they call changeable lizards "chameleons" or even when they call monitor lizards "Komodo dragons," because if I were a Singaporean that had lived here my whole life and some sweaty little ang moh started correcting me, I think I'd feel pretty annoyed.

Is it a mammal or an alien?

Naturally, we were pretty thrilled by the colugo sighting, but it got way cooler when... a little BABY colugo popped its head out!!!!  LOOK AT IT!!!  It's sooooo cute!!!  How do you not go crazy for a baby whose eyes are half the size of its head?!

I think I'm in love.

Notice the awesome colugo camo.

As we stood there and watched, the baby ever so slowly inched back under its mother's skin flap, completely disappearing from our sight.  The colugo already does a pretty neat job of blending in with the trees, so I was impressed to see how totally and completely the baby could disappear.

Of course, we can't forget our feathered friends.  Sometimes I go for awhile feeling like I must have seen most of the animals in Singapore, because I see the same ones (macaques, bronzebacks, mynahs, monitors) over and over again.  And then some days I see a whole bunch of new things and I realize that I could spend the rest of my life in Singapore and still not catch a glimpse of every species that calls the island its home.  On this particular day, Bryan managed to photograph three bird species he'd never had the opportunity to get before.

Pink-necked pigeon

Olive-backed woodpecker

Black-naped oriole

Well, I could probably stay up all night posting wildlife photos and blathering on about the extreme cuteness of baby animals, but I should really get some sleep.  If I got you in the mood to oooh and awww over baby animals, don't stop here...http://babyanimalz.com/