Innholdsfortegnelse for March-April 2021 i Australian Geographic

ALTHOUGH THE DINGO is introduced, it’s been in Australia long enough to have become a functional part of the natural ecological system, functioning as if it’s a native species. It’s widely considered to have replaced the thylacine (Tasmanian tiger) as a top-order predator. In fact, it was once held solely responsible for the disappearance of the thylacine on mainland Australia. Research published in 2011, however, suggests increased competition and predation from growing human populations, combined with climate change, also contributed to the mainland extinction of the thylacine. A lack of dingo fossils in Tasmania indicates the species must have arrived after rising waters separated the island from the Australian mainland about 12,000 years ago. The 1969 discovery of archaeological evidence in caves on the Nullarbor Plain near Madura, Western Australia,…

SOME 900 BIRD SPECIES have been recorded in Australia. About 40 per cent are found nowhere else in the world. Around 30 per cent are considered common here. The rest occur only in specific habitats or geographic ranges, regularly migrate from overseas or simply show up in Australia as unannounced vagrants. Others are simply secretive or rare. Most people believe the further you are from human settlement the more birds you will see. While this can be true, you could spend more time driving than birding. Urban areas may seem less than ideal birding environments, but there can still be a good number of species found in them. A trip to the local park, botanic gardens or similar greenspace can be very rewarding indeed, and a carefully planned domestic garden,…

SARAH LLOYD HAS risen early every morning for the past 10 years hoping to catch sight of bizarre and tiny life forms in old logs and leaf litter in the gullies of the tall wet eucalypt forest on Black Sugarloaf Mountain in northern Tasmania, where she’s lived since 1988. These damp places provide the perfect habitat for slime moulds – organisms that exist only briefly in their most visible form. “They don’t last long in the field, so you have to be quick,” Sarah explains. Slime moulds are primitive, single-celled organisms that live mostly in moist terrestrial habitats where they feed on bacteria, fungi and decaying organic matter. For much of their lives they exist in microscopic form. But during what’s known as the plasmodial stage of their life cycle…

“THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN us mob and your average tour guide,” explains Uncle Hank Horton, “is we open ourselves up, bare bones and all.” He’s seated among Elders, guides and guests around a long table enjoying morning tea at the Aboriginal Elders Council of Tasmania in Launceston, where wukalina (Mt William) Walk begins and ends. “We don’t skirt the true history,” he adds. “You’ll learn about what it means to be Aboriginal and why being on Country is so important to us. We like to say that our tour is not a tour, it’s more a journey.” The walls of this 1927 building are adorned with framed shell necklaces and quilts that speak of the music, muttonbirding, shell collecting, cultural foods and returned service people of truwana (Cape Barren Island). Rows…

“THE AUSTRALIAN Light Horsemen and their legendary mounts are one of the greatest symbols of the Australian Imperial Force,” says Brad Manera, Sydney Anzac Memorial’s senior historian. But when WWI was finally over, this powerful symbolism was not enough to save the horses from the fate that had awaited warhorses since the beginning of Australian war history. “With the surrender of the Ottoman Empire in October 1918 the priority was to get the soldiers home,” Brad explains. “The British and French armies had to make economic decisions about how to dispose of war stores that were now suddenly redundant. Among those war stores were tens of thousands of horses.” What happened next has captured the hearts of many Australians, including Oliver Hogue in his poem “The Horses Stay Behind” and…

THERE ARE GOOD REASONS walkers come from all over the world to tread the red and rocky earth of the famed Larapinta Trail in the Northern Territory. The 223km route, which follows the grandeur of the West MacDonnell Ranges, begins at the historic Alice Springs Telegraph Station then heads west to the summit of Mt Sonder, at 1379m the NT’s fourth-highest peak. It’s a spectacular experience that’s capable of imparting more of the true essence of Australia in two weeks than perhaps anywhere else in the country. DESPITE ITS REMOTE Central Australia location, the Larapinta Trail can be experienced by a wide range of people of differing ages and physical capabilities. But it’s vital to be prepared for the challenging environment and weather in this part of the world. Temperatures…

LOOKING TO TRY something that’s both adventurous and educational? Join this small ship expedition to the remote outer Great Barrier Reef and help marine scientists observe, record and report on natural phenomena. With full access to the most respected coral experts in the world and the opportunity to mine their knowledge, energy and passion, this expedition offers a rare chance to learn and make a di_ erence in coral conservation. Also, $500 from your fare benefits Great Barrier Reef Legacy, a collaborative, coral reef, research and education not-for-profit initiative. Departure & fares 10 nights Departing Cairns aboard Coral Discoverer Date: 30 June 2021 | From $12,400pp Expedition highlights • Hosted by two of Australia’s foremost reef experts, Dr Dean Miller from the Australian Geographic Society, and Dr Charlie Veron, widely…

LORD HOWE ISLAND is a gem of the natural world. Its dramatic scenery, lush subtropical forests, rare _ ora and fauna, pristine beaches and colourful marine life are breathtaking and unique. So much so that Sir David Attenborough once wrote that Lord Howe is “so extraordinary it is almost unbelievable”. In 2019 a rodent eradication program on the island was completed and now Australian Geographic is delighted to announce an expedition for curious and energetic citizen scientists to work with experts to study populations of local and migratory birds. Departures & fares 6 nights Dates: 12–18 September 2021 From $4936pp twin share, excluding airfare. The rate includes a $450 contribution to the Australian Geographic Society. Expedition highlights • Six days of field research with a focus on local and migratory…

The Australian Geographic Society offers you a chance to hunt for rare opalised fossils. Guided by experts, you’ll discover new specimens for the Australian Opal Centre’s world-leading museum collection. Enrich your knowledge of opals and gems, opalised fossils and living opal field heritage. Help make new dinosaur discoveries! Dates & prices 7 nights August 2021 (two trips). Week 2 is available for return participants only. $2200pp; return digger $1980. Includes all activities and most meals. Contact us today dig@australianopalcentre.com Call 0427 904 587…

Questions 1What is Australia’s national floral emblem? 2 What is the name of Australia’s heaviest flightless bird? 3 What physical features in New South Wales are called Oaky, Oban, Orara and Oxley? 4 Mt Ossa is the highest point in which state? 5 In which WA Aboriginal language are there four words for “we”: ngali for “we two including you”; ngaliju for “we two excluding you”; nganthurru for “we all including you”; and nganthurraju for “we all excluding you”? 6 Who was the first Australian to climb all 14 of the “eightthousanders”? 7 Who led the 19thcentury expedition pictured above? 8 How could Stan and Damien have caused damage? 9 What tiny animal was found recently on Kangaroo Island, despite concerns that bushfires had wiped them out? 10 In which…

VIC Watch for blue whales, Portland Adult blue whales are massive; they can reach 30m in length and have a tongue weighing as much as an elephant. During summer, hit the cliff-top lookouts along the Great South West Walk around Portland for a chance to spot these graceful giants, which arrive to benefit from the seasonal Bonney Upwelling and abundant krill. Cape Nelson, and nearby Cape Bridgewater, are among the few places globally where you can spy blue whales from land. For more info: Call the Cape Nelson Lighthouse on 0428 131 253 or visit capenelsonlighthouse.com.au NT Enjoy a wet Red Centre, Alice Springs As Australia enjoys the rain brought by long-awaited La Niña conditions, head to recently drenched Alice Springs to spot such moisture-loving rarities as mushrooms and ducks…

1 Takara nipaluna “I’M OBSESSED with the idea that people think that you build a city and the [Aboriginal people] go. But, no, we were watching them build the city, we’re there as they build the city, the new settlers documented us coming in making demands and we continue to assert our voices within the city, 200 years later. It’s our city too.” This is Nunami Sculthorpe-Green in an interview with Ryk Goddard for ABC Radio’s On Breakfast program in March last year, right before COVID-19 put her plans on hold for a while. This year, Nunami will launch takara nipaluna – walking nipaluna (Hobart) – as the first palawa-led history tour of the city. Nunami will educate both First Nations and non-Indigenous guests about some of the many ways…

In days to come we’ll wander westAnd cross the range again.We’ll hear the bush birds singingIn the green gums after rain.We’ll canter through the Mitchell grassAnd breast the bracing wind.But we’ll have other horses,Our chargers stay behind. Around the fire at night we’ll yarnAbout the old Sinai.We’ll fight our battles o’er againAnd as the days go by.There’ll be old mates to greet us.The bush girls will be kind.Still our thoughts will often wanderTo the horses left behind. I don’t think I could stand the thoughtOf my old fancy hackJust crawling round old CairoWith a Gyppo on his back.Perhaps some English touristOut in Palestine may findMy broken-hearted WalerWith a wooden plough behind. No I think I’d better shoot himAnd tell a little lie.He floundered in a wombat holeAnd then lay down…

THIS AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC exclusive Kangaroo Island Wildlife and Conservation tour takes you behind the scenes to experience the best of KI. Hosted by local experts, the tour combines wildlife, landscapes, local produce and active conservation such as bird banding. Whether it’s meeting the world expert on the short-beaked echidna, Dr Peggy Rismiller, sampling delicious regional food and wine, or learning about the critical work of ecologists after the Black Summer _ res, this immersive trip will deliver a greater understanding of one of Australia’s supremely special places. Departures & fares 4 nights Dates: 10–14 May 2021; 28 June–1 July 2021; 30 Aug–3 Sept 2021; 6–10 Dec 2021 $2690pp twin share $575 single supplement Expedition highlights • Explore Flinders Chase NP with its wealth of native wildlife and dramatic scenery. •…

TAKE A JOURNEY to the Red Centre and immerse yourself in the extraordinary desert landscapes, mountain ranges and some of Australia’s most sacred sites, including Uluru and Kata Tjuta. Australia’s pioneering heart beats in Alice Springs – you’ll get a glimpse into the unique history of the Old Telegraph Station, marvel at the e_ orts of the Royal Flying Doctor Service and meet with the traditional owners and learn about their culture. Travel through the stunning West MacDonnell Ranges, visit the Aboriginal settlement of Hermannsburg and walk in Palm Valley, an extraordinary oasis. Departures & fares 8 nights Dates: 11–18 May 2021; 13–20 July 2021; 10–17 August 2021 $3275pp twin share $851 single supplement Expedition highlights • Enjoy the Sounds of Silence dinner. As the sun sets, listen to a…

Join Tim Faulkner for a unique hands-on experience with this breeding program for the Tasmanian devil and eastern quoll in the beautiful Barrington Tops of NSW. You’ll see devils up close as you help with feeding and monitoring individuals. There’ll also be opportunities to explore the region’s natural treasures and spot local wildlife at night. Don’t miss your chance to get involved. Dates & prices 2 nights (3 days) Dates: 22–24 September 2021 From $1400pp Contact us today admin@aussieark.org.au Call 02 4340 8610…

Elspeth Callender has been a travel writer for more than a decade but has devoted very little of that time to her home state of lutruwita (Tasmania). “Being confined to the island for much of the past 12 months has really shifted the way I understand the place. wukalina Walk (page 50), and my research for the piece, introduced me to many of the broad range of people who make up lutruwita’s First Nations community. They are beautiful, determined, strong, fascinating people who, against all odds, maintain culture and are developing innovative ways to connect with and share that culture,” Elspeth says. “In an effort to create a piece of writing that’s culturally sensitive, appropriately nuanced and respectful to all readers, I consulted with Jam Graham-Blair – a Trawlwoolway and…

STUDENTS FROM MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY, Sydney, have been helping to rewrite the history books by uncovering ancient artefacts at the 3000-year-old site of a long-lost city in the Middle East known as Khirbet el-Rai. The site, surrounded by farmlands and orchards, occupies just 1.7ha of a hilltop in the foothills of a mountain range in southern Israel that leads up to Jerusalem, near the town of Kiryat Gat. A team from Macquarie, the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem began excavating there in 2015, carefully extracting dozens of complete pottery vessels dating back to the 11th century BCE. The antiquity of these finds was initially indicated by similarities in shape and form of the pottery pieces with those of known ages from elsewhere throughout the region, but the…

HAVE YOU BEEN shaking the cobwebs out of your umbrellas in recent months? For much of the country, La Niña has brought much-needed rain and lots of it. After years of dry weather, it’s a mixed blessing for some, with a few areas inundated, leading to floods. In some parts, drought conditions continue unabated. As this graph shows, the southern mainland states have seen the most significant increases in water storage levels. Percentage full by state/territory SOURCE: BUREAU OF METEOROLOGY WATER STORAGE DASHBOARD bom.gov.au ML= Megalitre…

DUST IS inescapable. Travelling in Earth’s atmosphere, it’s simply solid stuff that’s been ground very finely. Rocks can be rubbed against each other by wind or water and, surprisingly, biology can also be involved when snails and bacteria break down rocks. Not even oceans are safe. In 1846 Charles Darwin, while travelling on the British ship Beagle, recorded that “the quantity of dust which falls on ships in the open Atlantic is considerable and…the atmosphere is often rendered quite hazy”. Each year about 2 billion tonnes of dust is lifted into the atmosphere, often after being stirred up by big storms. It comes mostly from the world’s arid regions, including deserts in Asia, Australia, North and South America and, of course, North Africa’s Sahara. These and other drylands cover about…

BY THE TIME you read this there may have been big news from Japan about the analysis of soil from the interior of a nearby asteroid. Excavated in 2019, the samples were spectacularly returned to Woomera in South Australia last December, with the Australian Space Agency and other local organisations working closely with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Why is this such a big deal? The target asteroid, Ryugu, is of a type known to have survived from the Solar System’s infancy, 4.6 billion years ago. Along with rock, minerals and ice, it’s rich in carbon-containing compounds, raising the possibility of finding life’s building blocks in its soil. The interior sample returned to Earth in December is a first in the robotic exploration of asteroids. It’s significant because the…

ON 10 JANUARY, the Victorian government announced that the platypus is officially recognised as a threatened species in Victoria, and would be listed as vulnerable to extinction under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988. I first applied more than two years ago to list the species as threatened because I believed they were, based on research and various projects I’ve been involved with (see AG 140 and AG 150). “Most of the evidence from multiple independent sources is showing declining populations across Victoria mainly due to altered flow regimes, from climate change and water diversion, and from habitat degradation from land clearing,” says environmental consultant and platypus expert Josh Griffiths. And that was before the 2019–20 Black Summer bushfires burnt a lot of prime platypus habitat in eastern Victoria,…

THE HEALTHY, NOT QUITE fully grown, female southern brush-tailed rock-wallaby is unusually calm in the heavy hessian sack resting on the lap of Annette Rypalski, biodiversity director at the Mt Rothwell Biodiversity Interpretation Centre. This extremely rare wallaby has just been transferred into the sack after being coaxed from a safe trap she entered while foraging. She’s lived at the centre, located at Mount Rothwell near Geelong in Victoria, since being rescued from her usual home at Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve, in the Australian Capital Territory, which was threatened during the Black Summer fires of 2019–20. Annette unfurls the sack, revealing attractive ears and a black face with white cheek stripes. Nicknamed ‘The Shadow’ for its habit of hiding in rugged rocky habitat, this wallaby is among Australia’s rarest mammals, one…

IN APRIL 2019 JESS LISTON sat in the shade of a gidgee tree on the edge of the Simpson Desert in the Northern Territory and watched as horse hooves kicked up brick-red dust not far from where she rested. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and cast her mind back a month to the telephone call that had brought her to this remote place. “I can tell you where there’s a wild herd of the horses you’re looking for,” the stranger on the phone had said. Jess, an equine therapist who’s spent her life around horses, opened her eyes and saw startling blue skies, sparse vegetation and dusty red horizons. Her arrival in the desert had marked the end of a whirlwind month in which an already busy…

GLIDING IN MY KAYAK across water the colour and lustre of turquoise, I wonder how anyone could ever have called this place a mistake. In 1800 William Reid was intending to sail his schooner Martha north from Sydney to the mouth of the Hunter River to load coal. He came to an indent in the coastline with a protruding island and apparently figured he’d reached his destination. He was about 12 nautical miles short. Instead, he became the first European to sail into the entrance of what would become known as Lake Macquarie. However, before the lake was named after the fifth governor of colonial New South Wales, Lachlan Macquarie, this stretch was commonly known by a mariner’s miscalculation: Reid’s Mistake. However, the lake has since provided good fortune to…

AUSTRALIA: Inga Clendinnen, Dancing with Strangers Sophie Cunningham, City of Trees Alice Duncan-Kemp, Our Sandhill Country Tim Flannery, The Future Eaters Bill Gammage, The Biggest Estate on Earth Rebecca Giggs, Fathoms: The World in the Whale Tom Griffiths, Forests of Ash Vicki Hastrich, Night Fishing Co-ed. by Ashley Hay and Julianne Schmidt, Griffith Review 63: Writing the Country Ed. by Leah Kaminsky and Meg Keneally, Animals Make Us Human William J. Lines, Taming the Great South Land Kim Mahood, Position Doubtful Barbara York Main, Between Wodjil and Tor Bruce Pascoe, Dark Emu Angela Rockel, Rogue Intensities Eric Rolls, A Million Wild Acres Deborah Bird Rose, Dingo Makes Us Human Harry Saddler, The Eastern Curlew Inga Simpson, Understory Victor Steffensen, Fire Country Mark Tredinnick, The Blue Plateau Annamaria Weldon, The Lake’s…

COME AND JOIN US on one of the best outback wildlife experiences in Australia. Discover the animals and history of the Australian outback at Lake Mungo in the Willandra Lakes Region World Heritage Area. Your private nature tour is conducted by an experienced wildlife guide who reveals Mungo’s arid landscape, wildlife and Indigenous heritage. Walk in the shade of desert pines searching for brilliant parrots and sleepy lizards. Climb mighty dunes for expansive views over the desert. Experience the peace of the Australian outback at remote Lake Mungo. Departures & fares 5 nights Dates: 19–24 April 2021; 23–28 October 2021 $2132pp twin share $665 single supplement Expedition highlights • Aboriginal people have lived and hunted beside Lake Mungo for 50,000 years, and the region has been continuously occupied by Indigenous…

Explore the lush farming district of Gloucester, the pristine wilderness of the magnificent World Heritage-listed Gondwana Rainforest region of Barrington Tops, and picturesque Nelson Bay. Quaint country towns, meandering rivers, fresh mountain air and beautiful coast wait for you on this journey to discover the hidden delights of NSW. Plus visit Aussie Ark, a safe haven for threatened native wildlife. Departures & fares 6 nights Dates: 14–20 February 2021; 14–20 March 2021; 17–23 October 2021; 21–27 November 2021 $3349pp twin share $650 single supplement Contact us today travel@australiangeographic.com Call 0413 560 210…