First Impressions

It is wonderful! But very hot। I don't do well with the sun and on our first camping adventure I managed to burn myself in a zigzag zebra strip pattern all over my feet. It actually looks pretty cool. So we've been out to the aborginal camp and up to Lakefield national park (where Steve Irwin worked). We were testing water quality in the national park and had to be very cautious because there are HUGE, as in 18-20 feet long with wide jaws that will swallow you whole, crocodiles all over the park. We weren't allowed to stand near the waters edge for more than a few minutes and we always had someone on the lookout for floating "logs" or eyes peeping out of the water. At one of the spots we saw some eyes watching us so we rushed through our sampling and high tailed it back to the car where we grabbed some binoculars to check out our first crocodile sighting. It was a little disappointing though when we realized it was a baby crocodile and only two feet long or so at the most.

That morning we ate breakfast with an inquisitive wallaby that rummaged through our fire pit until he found the burnt remains of a veggie burger from the night before. Can't imagine it tasted all that good. He hung out with us for a while and got close enough that we could see where something had taken a bite out of his left ear.

As we were driving out to our camp site through the park we passed large stretches of land that had been burnt down by controlled fires. They tend to regulate the land like we do in California by using controlled blazes to prevent wildfires from spreading through unmanageable distances but these fires were too early in the season to have been started by rangers. They start burning at the beginning of the wet season when there is some moisture in the air. Right now we are in the dry season and everything is brittle and very flammable. We asked some rangers about it and they said the fires may have been started by pig hunters who illegally hunt the feral pigs in the park and use the illegal fires to flush them out. Or they could have been started by the traditional owners of the park, the indigenous people. Just last year ownership of the park was handed over to the aborigines and now a power-struggle has begun between the mostly white rangers who have the resources and experience of running the park and the traditional owners who have a connection to the land but don't have the resources to manage it or the memory of how it used to be used by their elders. It's a really interesting political situation and one that we can learn from in the states.

There have been so many new sights and sounds and experiences that I'm still sorting through them all and will post more soon. Right now I'm really enjoying one Aussie custom of having a "cuppa." Before starting your day you have a cuppa. If you go to a friend's house you have a cuppa. If you're feeling peckish or bored have a cuppa. If you're off-roading miles from civilization and stuck on a sand dune and must haul your car out of the sand you stop and have a cuppa first. Which leads me to my favorite Aussie experience so far: Off-roading. Flying around in the back is good fun but next time I want to drive!