Australian Walkabout

After nine weeks of lakeside living, we are back on the black and making tracks! I have to say, it was a little sad to be leaving home, er, I mean leaving Lake Pamamaroo, but…we are very excited to be continuing our Australian Walkabout in Big Ears and Chunky Bum.

Here’s Peter working hard to make sure Chunky Bum is clean, and fit for the road. Big Ears got his bath the next day. FYI, just 280 litres of water (four tanks in the Ranger) washed the whole van – and it really needed it!

We made the most of our last few days here. We had our last morning coffees on the beach, our last camp cooks and our last kayaking expeditions and we continued to soak up the serenity. There are a lot more birds here now, and more seemed to be arriving each day. We had another visit from Stumpy, the Shingleback lizard. He just wandered through camp and took a few sultanas from me, the went on his way, and, we had an echidna in camp. He was very shy though, hid himself under a bush so we left him in peace. As much as I love to photograph our wildlife, I really don’t like to stress them out unnecessarily.

Menindee itself seems to be a friendly town. I say “seems”, because thanks to the lockdown, we only met the postmaster and his wife, the grocer, and the policeman, but it has certainly come alive since the lockdown ended. On the first day of freedom, we literally saw more cars, both travellers and locals, on the road than we had seen in the nine weeks we had been here.

I was disappointed in the lack of accessibility to the lakes. Even without the Covid restrictions, and with Kinchega National Park being closed, there are limited access points to the many lakes in the area. There are six lakes, Menindee, Pamamaroo, Tandure, Cawndilla, Emu, Wetherell and Bijijije. Now don’t quote me on this, as I said it was hard to move around with the restrictions, but from our little forays, we found that the only access points to Menindee Lake seemed to be via the two caravan parks and Sunset strip, and that was a bit of a stretch. We couldn’t get to Emu Lake as it was in the national park and that was closed, and I’m not sure about the other lakes. We had intended to visit Emu Lake after the lockdown was lifted, but…the park was still closed. Saying all of that, Pamamraoo itself was most definitely not a disappointment, and it would have been hard to find a better place for us to have spent the last nine weeks.

So, where to next? Well, our hope is to get into South Australia, but we don’t think that they’ll let us in from NSW. That’s why we are heading north, back to QLD. We will apply for our border crossing permit once we get to Tibooburra, just south of the QLD border, and hope that they will let us in. If that works, we’ll hang around outback QLD for a couple of weeks, in effect self-isolating, then apply for a SA permit. Fingers crossed.

In the meantime we have many happy memories of our stay at Lake Pamamaroo.

Before I get into this post, a few people have been asking if I get their comments?  And do I reply? The answer is yes to both questions. The tricky thing is that the comments are not shown on the post thread. But, if you click on the title of any post, this will take you to that specific post, scroll down to the bottom of the page and all the comments are there.

I hope this helps, and thank you. I really do appreciate all of your comments.

As mentioned previously, we are now well aware that the snakes are up and about, just like us they’re enjoying the warmer weather, so we wear jeans and covered in shoes, and we take care to watch where we walk. But it’s not just the snakes you have to worry about.

A couple of days ago I needed to have a tinkle, as I often do, and through the day I tend to do this outside.  Off I went to the little girl’s room (the area off to the right of the caravan) scanning the ground very carefully as I went. I found a spot, eyes still glued to the ground, dropped my dacks and did the deed. While I was doing the deed I heard, Thump! Thump! I figured it was one of the campers further up the lake, the sound sometimes carries on a calm day. Then again, thump, thump. I still didn’t think anything of it but casually did my paperwork and disposed of that in a doggy bag. As I tied a knot in the doggy bag I heard the thump, thump again and looked over to my right. Well, let me tell you, my tinkle was done but I nearly pooped my pants. Old man Emu and his six chicks were all standing staring at me, no more than eight meters away. While he stomped another warning on the ground, I backed off slowly, and very inelegantly with my trousers still around my knees, then made a bee line back to Chunky Bum.

Now I know I’ve told you I take my camera almost everywhere; well the little girl’s room is not one of the places I take it. So, by the time I got back to the van and told Peter what had happened and grabbed my camera, the emus had moved to the road and wandered off. They were back the next day though, walking along beside the lake so I got a couple of better shots then.

This brings me to our illusive Goannas. We’ve seen plenty of tracks around camp and on the beach. We even tracked one big fellow under the caravan, but we had never seen them. That is until yesterday. The little fellow made a quick exit into the bushes and was not seen again, but the big dude, well he was interested in the Fairy-Wrens’ so I was able to stalk him for quite some time, and I have to say, what an impressive creature.

As mentioned in my last post, Macro Photography is my passion. The bees have been more active lately and they always make for good, if challenging, macro subjects. They are tiny, 10 – 12 mm, infuriatingly fast, and most shots seem to be of their bums. A couple of weeks ago, while shooting the common Honey Bee, I noticed something very unusual, a blue bee. I kid you not. I got a pretty cruddy shot of it, but was able to ID it online. It is a Blue-Banded Bee. After that, Miss Bluebee became my own personal challenge, and I was determined to get some good shots of this wee beastie. So, day after day I would grab my kit, head off into the scrub and set up on the ground near the only patch of purple flowers where I had seen her.

After two weeks of stalking, I got lots of Honey Bees.

…but none of Miss Bluebee

Photography is not good for the waistline, nor the knees, nor the bum. It can also a bit of a strain on the nerves. I was using a tripod while shooting the bees, but because the camera was so low to the ground, I found myself squatting or lying on the sand in order to see through the eyepiece. That is, until the day that I nearly got run over by a snake!

This is how it happened. One day, whilst lying on the ground, I just happened to look up as I shifted my position, and there staring right at me, was a juvenile Eastern Brown snake. Truth be known, I didn’t know what it was at first, the band around its neck threw me, but I was able to ID it later. I started to move slowly, getting into a sitting position, and so did the snake. Move slowly that is, not sitting upright. It began to move towards me, then changed its mind, did a 180, and headed back the way it came. Needless to say, after that I spent more time looking for the snake than I did the bees.

Next day I changed my position. I used my larger tripod and took the foot step to sit on. This way I was off the ground and in a better position to move, if needed. I still kept a look out for all things slithering, but felt more at ease being off the ground, and returned to my challenge.

The Blue-banded bee is considerably different from the other bees in the area. Hold in mind these are just my observations, not scientific facts.

• They move differently, much quicker and in straight lines, up down left right
• They have a higher pitched buzz (I guess that’s consistent with faster moving wings and moving more quickly)
• Apart from the obvious colour difference, their faces and body segments are different
• They have a very long sheath that protects their tongue, which they tuck under their body in flight and extend when they go in for the pollen
• They are more nervous of humans; the slightest movement and she was off. A single click of the shutter and she was off, whereas the honey bees just don’t care.

Other interesting facts, courtesy of Google are that the Blue-Banded Bees are solitary, living in a hole in the ground, and that the males have five bands while the females only have four, and they collect pollen differently. A technique called “Buzz Pollination”. Some flowers hold their pollen in minute capsules, the Blue banded bee will wriggle inside the flower and shake its body to release the otherwise unreachable pollen. And, even though I had never seen one before, they are quite common all around Australia.

For the first week, of focussing on her, I got…zip. But while waiting for her I did get a few other bugs.

After two weeks of sitting in the sun with my knees cramping and my bum going numb, I worked out that for every twenty minutes waiting, I was rewarded with, on average, ten seconds to try and catch her. I know…why bother? Well for one thing, she is super pretty. For another, I never give up on a challenge.

Finally, in my third week of stalking Miss Bluebee, I got her. It seemed she was finally getting used to me and was hanging around a bit longer. So, without further ado, swipe past this first image and meet the elusive Miss Bluebee.

Now I’m not too sure what my next challenge will be, but I do hope it will require me to stand up.