Innholdsfortegnelse for November/December 2019 i Australian Geographic

IF WE HAVE A central mission at AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC, it is to encourage Australians to connect with nature. Just about everything we do–from the stories we tell to the people we sponsor and the activities we promote–is underpinned by some enduring tenets. We are fortunate to live in a country with more than its share of wild places. And we should get out into them, cherish them and look after them, because they can’t be taken for granted. The benefits of breathing clean air and enjoying physical exercise in inspiring landscapes are obvious and immediate. Now, groundbreaking Australian research is proving that the benefits go much deeper than the simple joy and exhilaration we experience by taking a long bushwalk. Our physical chemistry alters in response to our surrounding environment.…

STRIPPING EUCALYPT bark to search for food, chomping on large gumnuts and screeching loudly as they fly by, black-cockatoos have some of the most distinctive behaviours of any of our birds. Australia is home to five species of these charismatic creatures–Baudin’s, and Carnaby’s, both of which are listed nationally as endangered, and the red-tailed, yellow-tailed and glossy. Baudin’s, like all of these cockatoos, is a large species–up to 57cm long. Found only in a small area of jarrah and marri forest in south-west Western Australia, it has the most restricted distribution of all the black-cockatoos. Carnaby’s occurs in the same area but its range extends slightly further. It’s known as the ‘rain bird’ because it migrates to higher rainfall areas after summertime breeding. Both Carnaby’s and Baudin’s are similar in…

YOU’VE MOST PROBABLY heard the saying, “Red sky at night, sailors’ delight. Red sky in the morning, sailors’ warning.” It often holds true for the midlatitudes, where weather systems usually travel west to east. (Note, however, that while that works in both the northern and southern hemispheres, it doesn’t hold in the tropics near the equator where weather patterns are different.) The saying relies on the Sun (when it’s below the horizon) being a ‘probe’ that tells you there are no clouds to your west and that often means fine weather. First, a bit of background. White light is made up of all the colours of the rainbow, from violet to blue. Raleigh’s Law of Scattering says blue light is scattered much more than red–more than three times more. And…

This charming term simply means “very happy”. The original source is not certain, but here’s what we do know. In the first place, this is definitely an Australian term. It has spread around much of the world, but it began here. Sidney J. Baker, in his classic book The Australian Language says that, while we can’t know for sure, it’s possible that it was originally associated with an Australian boxer named Larry Foley (1847–1907). The reason why he was regarded as a happy pugilist is lost in the mists of time, but apparently, he was. “Happy as Larry” was first documented in 1905, but was probably part of the spoken language well before that. There was an older expression–a “Larry Dooley” or a “Larry Foley”–meaning a fight. And, I guess,…

TRANSPORTATION to the Australian colonies was initially reserved for convicted criminals such as thieves, counterfeiters and murderers. But in the wake of political unrest in parts of Britain and nearby Europe, including the 1789 French Revolution, the influence of radical dissenters became widely feared. And so Britain began transporting political prisoners. The Irish Rebellion against British rule occurred in 1798. Among the many major battles fought during that uprising, one of the most infamous was the Battle of Vinegar Hill in County Wexford, during which rebels were mercilessly crushed by British forces and much blood was spilt. Many Irish men and women were sentenced to transportation for their role in the uprising. But once in Australia they remained desperate to fight against British injustice, with the intention of returning home…

Q: How predictable is the planet Venus? Does it usually appear in the same place in the sky? Hannah Webb, Winchester, UK A: The appearances of brilliant Venus in our morning and evening sky are dictated by the way its orbit relates to that of Earth. From our vantage point, Venus gradually moves through a cycle that repeats every 19 months, becoming alternately a ‘morning star’ in the eastern sky before dawn or an ‘evening star’ in the western twilight. Being in an orbit closer to the Sun than ours, it’s never far from the Sun in the sky (always less than 47 degrees).…

Naked eye The beacon of Venus dominates the early western evening sky. Two naked-eye planets pass close to this inner world (less than 2° apart) as they drop into the twilight. First, on 24 November, Jupiter and Venus make a brilliant double act, then Saturn has a turn on 1 Dec. Binoculars Stars are colourful and the brightest ones need only your eyes. For slightly fainter ones, binoculars are needed. In Aries, for example, the alpha star, Hamal, is orange-yellow but the beta star, Sheratan, is white. Both fit in the same binocular field. Small telescope Find the three distinctive stars of Orion’s belt. Just above the right-hand (eastern) end lies the star Sigma Orionis. Telescopes reveal a brilliant triple star with this bright blue primary having two fainter companions…

It’s easy to see from this photo why the brown tree snake is sometimes called a “night tiger”. This widespread Australian species with characteristically bulging eyes comes in a huge variety of brown-based hues in banded patterns. But northern specimens, such as this one from the Northern Territory, usually have distinctive rust-red stripes, reminiscent of a tiger. Not to be confused with the highly venomous tiger snake of south-eastern Australia, brown tree snakes have very small fangs, making them harmless to humans. QLD SEE LOGGERHEAD TURTLES NESTING, MON REPOS CONSERVATION PARK The South Pacific’s largest nesting colony of loggerhead turtles is at Mon Repos, 15 minutes drive east of Bundaberg. In the evening here from November–March, you can join a Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service ranger-led tour to experience the…

2019 AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY GALA AWARDS ANYONE OVER THE age of 40 who grew up in Australia is likely to remember the Leyland brothers, the pair of tousle-haired adventurers who pioneered outback filmmaking through the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. Together Mike and Mal Leyland–who were true brothers, Mike being older by three years–made more than 330 hours of Australian film and television. Their work included feature-length documentaries and television series and they became national treasures. The brothers are best known for their weekly television show, Ask the Leyland Brothers, which aired from 1976 until 1984 and, at its peak, was watched by more than 2.5 million people. It saw the duo travel to far-flung places across Australia and New Zealand. The program’s premise was that people could write in and…

AS PART OF commemorations to mark the centenary of the air race, AG Adventurer of the Year 2016 Michael Smith (no relation) will undertake an AG-sponsored journey in his new custom-built plane, Southern Sun. He will retrace the epic flight, visiting as many of the original cities as geopolitics allows, and he’ll carry a bag of commemorative mail, including Australia Post and Singapore First Day covers, from the West London departure point to be posted upon arrival in Darwin. Michael will share his story through an online journal, updating pictures and stories from each city visited. Southern Sun will depart White Waltham airfield, London, in early November and land in Darwin on 10 December at 3.40pm, 100 years after the Smith brothers landed their Vickers Vimy, which led to the…

THE GIANT ‘beehive’ mounds of the Bungle Bungles are memorable from any angle. But from above, their trademark stripes become almost hypnotic. This sandstone range began as a compressed river bottom 350 million years ago that was uplifted through volcanic activity and shaped and weathered by wind and water. The darker bands have a high clay content, which supports a layer of cyanobacteria that seals the underlying rock from the air. Having less clay, the lighter layers are drier and unable to support algae, allowing them to ‘rust’. DJI Mavic Pro | ISO 200 | 5mm | f/2.8 | 1/25 sec Drones. Love ’em or hate ’em, there’s no doubt they are changing the way we do and see many things. You may baulk at the sight of a drone…

Benefits include: ✓ Substantial savings off the magazine’s retail price✓ 10% discount off all product purchases on our online store✓ Invitations to exclusive AG Society events✓ Discounts on travel and accommodation through AG partners✓ 25% off selected cruises with Coral Expeditions✓ A complimentary Paddy Pallin membership, entitling you to 10% off their full-priced items in-store and online…

In August, we reported on some little-known facts about our rainbow lorikeets, such as their meat-eating habits and occasional drunkeness. Here’s what you had to say: DAN EDWARDS Eat meat, get heavily inebriated–definitely an Australian species: Lorikeetus barbequs uninvitee. MAGGIE GALBRAITH The drunken thing explains a heck of a lot about my rainbow-spangled kamikaze feathered neighbours. JONATHAN RICHARDS I watched one chew on a meat bone in our backyard around this time last year. LYNNE LEVEY Not just a pretty face, lorikeets are fantastic at training cats not to chase birds! Mine are petrified of our lorikeet. SHIRLEY ATTWELL The one thing that concerned me was that people put mince out for birds. Mince can build up in the lower part of their beak and cause infection.…

ERIKA BERGMAN isn’t your average Uber driver. She’s been a submarine pilot for the past 10 years and has explored the world’s oceans as a National Geographic young explorer. But earlier this year, the company she works for was engaged to take part in an unusual assignment. As chief pilot and director of operations at Aquatica Submarines, a submersible manufacturing company, Erika became part of a team travelling to the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) to pilot an underwater rideshare vehicle–a scUber. “It’s funny, you spend 10 years learning to be a submarine pilot and now I’m an Uber driver,” she says. “I get a real kick out of it.” Aquatica was brought on board to provide the submarine capability for a Tourism and Events Queensland–Uber collaboration. The scUber is a…

WHEN MISTLETOE is mentioned most of us think of the European species, with its white berries and yellow-green leaves. But Australia has more species of this parasitic plant than anywhere else in the world–more than 90, including about 70 that are native. These plants rely exclusively on birds to spread their seeds and are often seen hanging from eucalypts. One of Australia’s most stunning mistletoes is the West Australian Christmas tree. Its fiery orange flowers bloom in summer. Being hemiparasitic, it stands as a tree rather than choosing a host, as most other fully parasitic species do. It nevertheless thrives off the roots of any plant that grows within 100m of it. Sometimes it even causes internet outages when its roots wrap around fibre optic cables. The wireleaf mistletoe of…

Want to merge gaming with the great outdoors? Then QuestaGame is for you. Your mission: save life on Earth. Submit sightings of animals and plants in your backyard, local park, a hiking track, anywhere, to receive identifications, expert feedback, plus in-app rewards. Join groups on quests and compete in challenges. Playing helps researchers record and protect your region’s biodiversity. Available though Google Play and the App Store. Watch The Mind, Explained Delve into the fascinating cerebral world with this bite-sized documentary series, which breaks down areas of the brain with informative graphics and engaging content. Discover the answers to big questions on: memory, dreams, anxiety, mindfulness and psychedelics. The 20-minute episodes are available to watch on Netflix. Read Valerie Taylor: An Adventurous Life Valerie Taylor Hachette Australia, $34.99 This autobiography…

Dr Sylvia Earle Legendary deep ocean explorer, marine scientist and Rolex Testimonee Sylvia talks to Chrissie Goldrick (right, at right) about her hopes and fears for the planet and her wish to inspire a new generation of female oceanographers, engineers, inventors and ocean conservationists. Dr Rebecca Spindler The passionate conservationist talks about the impacts of Australia’s deforestation crisis and how to stop it. Ron Allum Ron is a pioneering cave diver, an inventor and the man who helped Canadian film director James Cameron reach the deepest-known point on Earth’s seabed. Fred Watson As Australia’s first Astronomer-at-large, Fred knows all too well the negative e.ects of light pollution and how we can stop it. Lesley Hughes This “rock star climate-change scientist” talks about what it is like when planetary catastrophe is…

CUCKOOS ARE typically secretive birds, hiding in dense foliage or emitting soft trilling calls from obscured perches. Most are heard well before they are seen, if seen at all. They are famed for their ‘brood parasitism’ reproductive strategy, laying eggs in the nests of other bird species and leaving unwitting parents to raise alien chicks at the expense of their own. Despite this reputation, about two-thirds of the world’s cuckoo species do build a nest and raise their own young. And yet, the only Australian species to do so is the pheasant coucal. Australia has 12 species of resident and migratory cuckoos. They range in size from the diminutive little bronze-cuckoo, which at just 15cm long is the smallest of the world’s cuckoos, to the hulking 66cm-long channel-billed cuckoo, the…

AG SOCIETY HOSTED EXPERIENCES Come on an adventure with us while raising funds for the AG Society at the same time. LIKE SO many adventurous, natureloving Aussies, I’ve long wanted to see and experience the legendary coastal location of Ningaloo. So, when I was asked to represent the Society on the 12-night Ningaloo and the Bluewater Wonders of Australia’s West cruise with Coral Expeditions, I jumped at the chance. I’m just back from this 12-night experience and let me get straight to the point: what a superb trip! We set out from the pearling and tourist town of Broome, on the Kimberley coast, and cruised north-west to the spectacular Rowley Shoals Marine Park and then the Dampier Archipelago. There, on a visit to Dolphin Island, we saw ancient petroglyphs and…

WHEN I FIRST heard of a freshwater crocodile that lived for some years in the Wilsons River at Lismore, in northern NSW, I thought it was a prank. It couldn’t be true, could it? It’s generally accepted that on the east coast, crocodile habitat doesn’t extend much further south than the Mary River, near Maryborough, Queensland. Lismore is more than 350km south of that. Digging through old newspaper files, however, reveals that a freshie did once live here, from 1967 until 1974. The town’s local paper, The Northern Star, even published a photograph of ‘Hector’, as locals called the 1.2m-long out-of-place crocodile sunning itself on the muddy banks of the river. How did a crocodile come to be there? That’s where details get murky. According to one version of local…

THE FERTILE ALLUVIAL plains of the Hawkesbury River in New South Wales were the breadbasket of early colonial Sydney. Without the agricultural efforts there of those first farmer settlers, the desperate fledgling colony would have starved and collapsed. In 1792 Dr Thomas Arndell, assistant surgeon to the First Fleet, retired from his medical post to take up a 600-acre (242.8ha) land grant where Cattai Creek flows into the Hawkesbury, about 10km north-east of Windsor, on the traditional lands of the Dharug. Arndell cultivated mainly wheat at first and erected various farm structures including a family homestead, workers’ cottages, a granary and a windmill to grind wheat and corn for flour. Dating from 1804, the 4m-tall convict-built stone tower was the first flour mill in the Hawkesbury region. Its ruins, standing…

• Before the arrival of Europeans, the area around Robe was home to the Boandik Aboriginal people.• In 1802 Guichen Bay was named after Admiral De Guichen (left) by French explorer Nicolas Baudin.• Governor Robe (below) chose the site for the town and later in 1846 it was surveyed by Thomas Burr.• By the 1850s Robe was the second-busiest SA port.• In 1855 large numbers of Irish and Scottish immigrants reached the port.• In 1856 the town became a landing point for Chinese goldminers trying to avoid taxes imposed at Victorian ports. They walked to the goldfields.• Between 1856 and 1866 more than £1 million of wool was shipped from the port.• The barque Koenig Wilhelm II was shipwrecked in Guichen Bay during a gale in 1857; a cannon located…

ON FOOT, IN a rowing boat and by bike, this year’s adventure awardees are all about celebrating people power. Along with TV legend Mal Leyland whose edge-of-the-seat outback adventures alongside his brother Mike opened up the Australian continent to a whole generation back in the 1960s and ’70s, this cohort of intrepid Aussies embodies that rugged spirit of adventure that is at the heart of AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC. Our conservation awardees are equally inspiring and show that innovation and change begin with passionate individuals from all ages and walks of life. For more on our marvellous awardees, visit australiangeographic.com.au/issue153 YOUNG ADVENTURER OF THE YEAR Jimmy Ashby In April 2018, 18-year-old Jimmy Ashby began the trip of a lifetime cycling around the world in 393 days, covering 39,100km across 32 countries and…

CHRISTMAS beetles were said to be so numerous 100 years ago in the Sydney region that they could be found floating in the harbour in huge numbers at this time of year. These iridescent insects were known to swarm in such quantities that the boughs of eucalypt trees would regularly bend under their weight. Once common in summertime–particularly at night around streetlights or as visitors at barbecues in eastern Australia–these large and often colourful scarab beetles comprise 36 different species, nearly all of which are endemic to Australia. They’re all in the genus Anoplognathus, with the common names of some species including king, queen, and campfire beetle, washerwoman and furry tailed prince. But you may have noticed that they are less common than they used to be, with these metallic…

G-1000® ECO DURABLE, ADAPTABLE, TIMELESS Fjällräven’s own fabric. Made from organic cotton and recycled polyester with fluorocarbon-free impregnation. Adaptable with Greenland Wax AS YOU’RE READING THIS, the outdoors is ready for you. Limitless skies are expecting you. Fjällräven’s Greenland Jacket was born in 1968 and since then, only three changes have been made. In 2006 it received side pockets due to popular demand, in 1972 it came in a winter version with pile fleece and in 2018, it went from using the G-IoooOriginal fabric to using G-Iooo Eco, made from recycled polyester and organic cotton. It seems that function, comfort and durability don’t go out of style. And neither does the compulsion to wander about in stunning surroundings. Nature is waiting. What are you waiting for?…