Innholdsfortegnelse for September - October 2020 i Australian Geographic

IT’S SPRING. And despite our mild winters, there’s always something invigorating about the time of year when the days grow longer and the temperature rises. This time around, however, it’s considerably harder to invoke the sense of anticipation and hopefulness that usually comes along with the season of reawakening. As the global pandemic rolls on and on, life shows no sign of returning to normal, or even of finding that “new normal” we were all squaring up to about mid-year. With no end in sight, we need to find that inner resilience more than ever before, and to do that we need hope. Hope springs from many sources, and hearing stories of courage in the face of adversity can help us tap our own resources. In this issue we share…

GHAN QUERY First, let me congratulate you on a magnificent magazine. You have a wide range of excellently researched articles, and every issue is eagerly awaited and avidly devoured! However, in AG 156, you featured coins celebrating the Ghan. I know the general thinking and the official railway brochures say that the name originates from the Afghan cameleers. There is, however, some conjecture on that subject. In his 2014 published book Australia’s Best Unknown Stories, Sydney author Jim Haynes has a different slant. He says the train was nicknamed after rail Commissioner George Gahan. I have no idea which is the correct story, but it does go to show there are mysteries everywhere, doesn’t it! Please keep up the excellent work! GRAHAM PICTON, EARLWOOD, NSW SIZE DOES MATTER I found…

ON A FOGGY morning in January 1966, George Pedley, a banana farmer from Euramo, near Tully in far north Queensland, was driving his tractor past a lagoon on his property when he suddenly heard “a loud ear-piercing hissing above the noise of the engine”. Thinking he’d sustained a puncture, George immediately stopped to check the tractor’s tyres. But before he’d had a chance to even step down from the cabin, “a flying saucer rose at great speed from near the lagoon”. “My body was frigid with fright,” the flustered farmer told reporters soon after his encounter. After the so-called saucer vanished “in a puff of blue vapour”, George cautiously went to investigate. What he found changed his life forever. Unlike the vast majority of UFO reports, where there is little,…

MEGAPODES are medium-sized birds with large feet (mega = large; podos = foot), which they use to dig burrows or construct large mounds of rotting vegetation and soil. The purpose of these constructions is to incubate their eggs. This type of nesting behaviour is unique among birds and gave rise to the other common names of this family (Megapodiidae) – mound-builders and incubatorbirds. The large feet are also used to forage among ground litter for food and for roosting in trees. Although megapodes are mostly ground-dwelling, they are capable of short, rather clumsy, bursts of flight. Fossil evidence suggests they first roamed the Earth about 25 million years ago. The 22 species that survive today are distributed within the Australo-Papuan region (mainly) and the south-eastern Pacific. Each of the three…

1 JEMMYS POINT AND KALIMNA LOOKOUTS At Jemmys Point, 2km west of the town on the Princes Highway, several impressive lookouts offer excellent views of the lakes, Bullock Island and the entrance to Bass Strait. It’s certainly the best place to get a panoramic overview of the entrance to the Gippsland Lakes. 2 GRIFFITHS SEA SHELL MUSEUM This attraction at 125 Esplanade has operated since 1962. Among its impressive exhibits are nearly 90,000 shells, the head of the largest marlin ever caught (almost 616kg), some unusual corals, sponges and an aquarium containing sea snakes, blue-ringed octopuses and many unusual marine creatures, mostly from Bass Strait. Ph: 03 5155 1538 or check facebook.com/GriffithsSeaShellMuseum 3 WOODEN SCULPTURES A series of impressive wooden sculptures along the Esplanade were crafted to “honour the memory…

THE FLYING KANGAROO: 100 YEARS OF QANTAS By Neil Montagnana-Wallace IN CELEBRATION of our national airline’s centenary, this remarkable new book features never-beforeseen photographs and previously untold histories from the Qantas archives. The Flying Kangaroo is a richly illustrated timeline of history of Qantas, charted alongside the social and cultural context from the 1910s through to today. The airline launched in the aftermath of World War I and the Spanish Flu, and now in its centenary year, has come to the rescue of Australians stranded overseas in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. A fascinating read for not only aviation buffs but anyone interested in Australian history. PUBLISHED 13 OCTOBER RRP $49.99 EXPLORE AUSTRALIA BY CAMPER TRAILER By Lee Atkinson Unlike caravans or motorhomes, camper trailers can travel on rough…

Naked eye The evening sky is a delight for bird lovers! Low in the north you’ll find the constellations Aquila the Eagle being chased by Cygnus the Swan (looking like an inverted crucifix). In the south the brightest ‘bird’ is Grus the Crane, with fainter Phoenix the Phoenix, Tucana the Toucan and Pavo the Peacock. Binoculars Bright, wide, double stars are very attractive targets for binoculars. Check out the double Delta Gruis, one of the ‘neck’ stars in Grus the Crane. Although visible to the naked eye, binoculars make the two stars stand out and allow you to see their colours – one yellow, the other red. Small telescope In October, Mars is at opposition, seemingly located opposite the Sun. Being closest to Earth at this time, it looks larger,…

EVERY SUBSCRIBER to this journal automatically becomes a member of the not-for-profit AG Society. Your subscription helps us fund Australia’s scientists, conservationists, adventurers and explorers. To subscribe, call 1300 555 176 Who are the Australian Geographic Society? Patron: Dick Smith AC Chair: David Haslingden Secretary: Adrian Goss/Page Henty Directors: Kerry Morrow, Jo Runciman Advisory Council: Chrissie Goldrick, John Leece AM, Tim Jarvis AM, Anna Rose, Todd Tai THE SOCIETY runs sponsorship rounds in April and November, during which it considers applications and disperses grants that are funded by the Australian Geographic business. The Society also awards the Nancy-Bird Walton sponsorship for female adventurers and hosts annual awards for conservation and adventure. Each year it gives in excess of $100,000 to worthy projects. Funding support Applications are now open for round…

DIG YOUR FEET into the sand along the wild, windy Coorong coast, south of Adelaide, and you’ll step into history. “For us there is no better feeling than getting back on country in the fishery that our ancestors have fished for thousands of years,” says Arthur Walker, a young Ngarrindjeri man who leads the latest commercial pipi-harvesting team on the beach. He is part of the new Indigenous-owned outfit Kuti Co that, with the support of the Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation, has bought a stake in the local seafood industry. Named after the Ngarrindjeri word for pipis, Kuti Co has joined forces with Goolwa PipiCo, the leading pipi processing and marketing company in Australia. Goolwa PipiCo is an association of six local family fishing companies that transformed their catch…

The edge of the world The Northern Territory’s Gulf Country is one of this country’s most rugged and remote regions, but one that is surprisingly accessible to adventurous vehicle-borne families and explorers. Here, visitors have the chance to immerse themselves in a rich and thriving Indigenous culture and an ancient landscape, along with spotting some of Australia’s more unique fauna and flora, overnighting at a selection of the world’s most amazing campsites, and retracing the steps of early European explorers. In short, it’s a wild land but one that can be experienced relatively easily and memorably by well-prepared travellers. If you’re fortunate enough to have a couple of weeks or more to disappear and go off-grid with your family, then exploring what is one of Australia’s most pristine and remote…

TRAVELLING in remote regions of Australia means you need to ensure you are fully prepared and self-sufficient. As much as the wonders of technology (mobile phones, etc.) have brought humanity ‘closer’ together than ever, a lot of Australia is still seriously remote, with no phone reception, and, in the case of mechanical failures or medical-related incidents, help is far away. This means ensuring you’ve packed all the equipment you need to cover both of those (and any other) potential incidents that may occur. Fingers crossed, they won’t, but it’s best to be prepared for them just in case. Here are our top 10 essentials for remote-area travel in Australia. 1 A serviced vehicle. If you own a 4WD and intend venturing off sealed-surface roads, make sure your mechanic is experienced…

IF YOU ARE a subscriber to AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC you are automatically a member and supporter of the Australian Geographic Society. A portion of each subscription goes towards supporting scientific and environmental research, conservation, community projects and Australian adventurers. Benefits include: ✓Substantial savings off the magazine’s retail price ✓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…

FROM THE frontlines of Australia’s Black Summer of 2019–20 comes BIG WEATHER (and how to survive it), a new ABC TV three-part series. Presenter Craig Reucassel charts the season as oppressive heatwaves set temperature records and lead to Australia’s worst fire season on record. More than 18 million hectares of forest go up in flames – a fifth of the continent’s forest and an area twice the size of Belgium. Then, in a violent contradiction, catastrophic fire is followed by severe storms and flash floods. Sharing stories from frontline disaster crews, experts and communities dealing with the effects of our escalating climate emergency, BIG WEATHER seeks to answer big questions: Why are these events becoming less predictable and more intense? What can we do to prepare, survive and adapt into…

This unique Aboriginal light festival will go ahead in September with 10 days of events around the theme “Lifting Our Spirits”. It will feature breathtaking light installations, live music, workshops and talks that will proudly showcase the oldest continuing culture on Earth. The must-see event of the festival this year is undoubtedly the 2km illumination of the MacDonnell Ranges, called Ebb and Flow of Sky and Country. This will be accompanied by a dynamic soundscape and narration by traditional owner Benedict Kngwarraye Stevens and first nations festival adviser Rhoda Roberts. Other highlights include artist Greg Adams’s huge glowing sphere Grass Seed and Werte, inspired by a Kumalie Kngwarraye Riley artwork. This takes as its central motif Werte (pronounced Woord-da and pictured above), the concentric lineal work that speaks of meeting…

JUMPING SPIDERS in the genus Portia can remember, plan and count. And they attack other spiders up to twice their size! In a revealing series of lab experiments, scientists put one of these Portia spiders on a tower on a tiny island in a tiny ‘lake’ (a puddle, really), surrounded by dry land. The distance between the tower and land was too great to bound across in a single leap. And Portia spiders hate getting wet. So the researchers put two floating pathways across the lake. Then, outside the lake, on dry land, they put a meal of another spider on another tower. When the Portia went down its tower, it lost sight of its potential dinner. So as a series of experiments revealed, it had to use memory. First…

There are now more than 400 families of flowering plants on Earth, encompassing at least 13,000 genera and 300,000 species. These form the basis of most land-based food webs, which support most of Earth’s terrestrial animals, including, of course, humans. THE APPEARANCE of flowering plants, the angiosperms, on Earth was a monumental ecological event. So much of the life we see on land today is underpinned by plants that reproduce through flowers. Now, new research by Australian and Mexican scientists is shifting our understanding of how the early evolution of angiosperms progressed to transform the planet. By investigating all of the world’s angiosperm families on a scale that’s never been done before – using both the DNA in living plants and fossil evidence – they’re retelling what we know of…

Ian Morris This zoologist, educator, conservationist and author has worked with traditional owners in Arnhem Land, NT, for decades and speaks local languages Djambarrpuynu, Warramirri and Gupapuynu. Today, he works as an environmental consultant and teaches children Aboriginal science and knowledge. Bradley Moggridge A Murri man from the Kamilaroi Nation (in NSW) and water scientist, Bradley has dedicated his life to finding ways, imbued with Aboriginal knowledge, to better manage Australia’s water in the age of climate change. Angie Scarth-Johnson At age seven, Australian rock-climbing sensation Angie was already climbing grades that other rock climbers spent years figuring out. Today, the 16-year-old is in a league of her own and keen to represent Australia at the Tokyo Olympics. Joe Bonington (pictured) A master adventure fitness trainer and son of legendary…

Big plans for little creatures YOUR AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC Society has consistently provided essential funding to thousands of small-scale projects for more than 30 years. As we enter our fourth decade, we are responding to the dire situation of Australia’s crashing biodiversity, including the long-term effects of last summer’s bushfire crisis, by further developing the very good relationships we already enjoy with a number of major Australian conservation organisations. We aim to scale up the effectiveness of our fundraising through strategic partnerships with key organisations, and we will harness the reach of our many channels of communication to help them achieve their ambitious goals. Among the organisations making great headway in achieving measurable outcomes is Aussie Ark (AA). Spearheaded by the energetic and passionate Tim Faulkner, AA has pioneered captive-breeding and…

When to go: May to September is the best time to visit the Top End and Gulf Country. The weather is more settled, and the wet season has (usually) finished so most roadways will be clear of floodwaters. What to drive: We’d recommend a 4WD for this road trip – and ensure it is dieselpowered (for better fuel economy and fuel availability; petrol is not always available at remote communities), has been recently serviced and has appropriate tyres fitted. If you don’t own one of these vehicles, hiring one is the go. Britz has an excellent Toyota LandCruiser-based 4WD camper that includes a rooftop tent and annexe (for up to five people), portable shower, all kitchen gear, fridge/freezer and heaps of other equipment. There’s also a 4WD van for couples,…

Underwater man lives his dream, AG 87, Jul–Sep 2008 THE PLAN OF marine biologist Lloyd Godson to live under water in a dam near Albury, New South Wales, netted him the $50,000 first prize in AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC’s 2005 Live Your Dream competition. For 12 days Lloyd breathed oxygen produced by algae, generated electricity by riding a bike and held daily internet classroom sessions, while having his cognitive and physiological health monitored using software designed for NASA astronauts. He became a global sensation. The steel BioSub in which he did all that measured 2.4m wide by 3 long by 2 high and took 18 months to design and build. It was an experiment in biospherics, the science of ecological systems, and Lloyd set out to prove it was possible to survive…

“WE WERE gobsmacked!” says Dr Ray Pierce, from the Queensland Gouldian Finch Study (QGFS), of his first encounter with a large flock of Queensland Gouldians. Ray, a conservation scientist, and wildlife guide Patrick De Geest lead the QGFS, whose small band of citizen scientists is studying new-found Gouldian finch populations inland from Cairns. I felt equally stunned when, while volunteering with the QGFS, I witnessed a flock of 25. I never thought I’d see so many together at once because Gouldians had all but disappeared from Queensland, where the species is listed as endangered. Expanding pastoralism, altered fire regimes, trapping for aviculture and air sac mites have been implicated in the Gouldian finch’s decline across Australia’s northern savannahs since the 1940s (see AG 79). Happily, since 2018, QGFS volunteers have…

THE PICTURESQUE WATERFRONT town of Lakes Entrance is both an important fishing port and a popular holiday destination. It’s located at the entrance to Gippsland Lakes, a vast inland waterway in eastern Victoria, and at the north-eastern end of Ninety Mile Beach, a pristine strip of sand fronting Bass Strait. The lakes were formed when deposits from the Tasman Sea created long, narrow sand spits and low-lying sand islands and dunes, which eventually became Ninety Mile Beach. The beach now separates Bass Strait from the lakes, which cover 42,000ha. The region, known as Lakes Coast, is characterised by a minimal annual variation in temperature, meaning it’s relatively warm in winter and cool in summer. It is particularly popular during the summer school holidays as a place for family escapes that…

WHAT PICTURE DOES the title “public servant” paint for you? Is it of a pen-pusher inside the Canberra bubble living off taxpayer dollars? Well, the next time you’re caught in a web of red tape, and feel like cursing all public servants, it might give you some comfort to know that in Australia the term public servant originally meant a convict! In her book Convict Words, Amanda Laugesen explains that a public servant was “a convict assigned to public labour or work for the government”. When “public servant” was first coined in 1797 it was a euphemism for convict. Even in those early years, everyone hated to be called a convict, so all kinds of other expressions were coined to soften this harsh word, such as “government man”, “prisoner”, or…

Act now to help stop the extinction of the critically endangered plains-wanderer (see page 18 for full story). Habitat loss and land cultivation have led to there being fewer than 1000 plains-wanderers left in the wild. Help the AG Society to help Trust for Nature partner with local landholders to protect precious grasslands, and give this unique bird a place to live forever. The species’ particular habitat is at risk of being cleared, and the Trust’s work, in collaboration with many other organisations, helps farmers protect and manage it. Conservation covenants are the only way to guarantee that nothing happens to plains-wanderer habitat in the future and to ensure the species doesn’t become extinct. MAKE A DIFFERENCE. PLEASE DONATE TODAY Funds raised will help save this very special and critically…

WHEN WE MET in Wollongong, New South Wales, in 2007, Guy Baker had just a few days to live. He was a big man, but his 86-year-old, once-powerful rugby forward’s frame was by then a useless burden. His breathing was fitful, and, tethered to an oxygen cylinder, he sat slumped in a chair by his hospital bed. Guy had heard me on ABC Radio a couple of weeks earlier, and although in terminal decline he resolved that we must meet. The ABC facilitated contact and so it came to pass. It was an unusual first meeting; I arrived a stranger, yet an hour later we parted as friends. My presence somehow helped a dying old man tap a reserve of strength, and, as if there was some magic elixir circulating…