Moar Photos
as promised, some living things. oh, and one dead thing so if that stuff bothers you, skip it.
we started seeing these signs pretty much right after Kalbarri (about 1/3 of the way there).
they intrigued me. land starts moving from 'little' farms (still cropping, so prob 2,000 - 10,000 acres) to stations measured in Kilometres squared.
In fact, some Australian stations are bigger than some European countries... Take Anna Creek Station, well known as the biggest Australian cattle station: this station in the Outback of South Australia covers 6,000,000 acres, or 34,000 km2. (Belgium by comparison is just over 30,000 km2, and the biggest American ranch is about 6,000 km2.)
Why this huge size? Most of Australia's cattle stations are located in the north and the central regions of the Australian Outback. The Australian continent is so dry and the vegetation so sparse that a large amount of country is needed to support enough cattle to make a living.
This style of farming cattle is very different from what you might know, especially if you come from Europe. It is a very natural way. The animals are basically wild. They are usually born and grow up without any human contact. They are grass fed and rarely require any chemical treatment. Trust me, you can taste the difference between a steak from the Kimberley and one from a grain feed lot...
When i was working in Merredin (3hrs out of perth) they talked about people from "station country" and how isolated life was. that was to the East of perth tho, exmouth is to the North.
anywho.
we slowed down every time we saw sheep/cattle/goats. BUT there were a LOT of them.
i'm pretty confident these are the black headed Dorpa - they're self-shedding sheep from South Africa. My dad has the white headed ones. they're GREAT meat sheep. and i guess if you've got self shedding ones, the pressure for yearly round ups to shear etc is greatly reduced. they may be good meat sheep, but they are complete assholes when it comes to caring for them. you basically have to have them in cells otherwise they escape, lol! and they're aggressive & difficult to handle - a bit too close genetically to their wild ancestors, compared to the docile & well trained Merinos that australia is famous for.
obviously there are daily tragedies. this guy was a big ram, and probably cost a lot of money to buy (unless he was bred on the station). my dad's stud rams cost like $3000 each.
sheep aren't the only victims - goats, kangaroos & even steers. a big semi could run into one of those & it wouldn't even dent the bumper. of course, it would WIPE OUT a regular sized car...
Rhiannon, in all her confidence, told me this was a Sturt's Desert Pea. i told her, "uhm no, no it's not."
she's a good person to travel with but she likes to be right all the time (as do i!) AND she likes to educate people (she's a teacher also) which can be very patronising. by the end of the trip i was slightly over it.
Due to the low rainfall, most vegetation is low to the ground, spiny & dry.
occasionally the odd tree will pop up tho.
Centipede. i found this in Rhiannon's fold up chair one morning. squealed like a girl & made her deal with it. i'm okay with things that have 8 legs or less! it was about as long as my hand.
Exmouth's famous wandering Emus. there are signs all over the place, "DO NOT FEED THE EMUS!"
they were completely oblivious to tourists taking photos.
Echidna. This guy was definitely one of my favourite things about the trip. We were driving back from Turquoise Bay when i saw him trundling out of the bush towards the road. i made rhiannon stop, then jumped out & hobbled over to him. Meanwhile he KNEW something was up & stopped his journey & backed into the bush. by the time i found him he was just a big spiny ball.
you can see his nose.
These sunflowers were just randomly growing on the side of the road near Kalbarri.
i *think* these are dead banksia trees.
some cool tracks. i wasn't sure if they were kangaroo tracks or not, as they're so close together, but my google-fu confirms that they are.
moi.