This is not a travel entry. It is a home entry. A strange and fabulous aberration, a marvellous whim of mother nature, has come into my possession. Whilst eating Ernest Adams apricot choc chip cookies, I pulled from the bag nothing less than a Siamese twin cookie! Two cookies joined in the middle during the process of creation; two separate cookies and yet they are as one. Such a thing had possibly not been seen by the eyes of man before and millennia may pass before such a rare event occurs again. The stern forces of nature do not lightly permit [View Full Entry]

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"Queensland: where its beautiful one day, perfect the next". That's the tourism slogan. It was just bad luck that I arrived in Brisbane right at the same time as an unseasonable severe storm warning was announced. I left Brisbane for the Lamington National Park in the worst rain yet, monsoon-style rain. Lamington is a couple of hours south of Brisbane just near the border with New South Wales. It is roughly divided into the Green Mountains section which is mainly rainforest (that's where I would be), and the Binna Burra section which is mainly dry eucalyptus forest. As well as such [View Full Entry]

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After writing out my last blog complaining that the rain hadn't let up since I got here, I went outside and the sky had suddenly cleared up and the sun had come out. I had nothing much else to do so I went back to the Botanic Gardens to take photos. It was quite a good decision as it turned out because I found a whole mess of water dragons around the lily ponds, a boobook owl roosting in the mangroves, and a group of six bush stone-curlews resting in a plant island on one of the islands. Bush stone-curlews are [View Full Entry]

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Here are just some random photos of things that took my interest around Brisbane. I'm getting a bit peeved with all the rain, I'm hoping it won't be like this in Lamington National Park or my camping is going to be pretty miserable. [View Full Entry]

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Today probably wasn't the best day for a trip to North Stradbroke Island but when you're travelling you have to take the weather that's handed out to you. Let's just say that the day was basically rain interspersed with squalls. As may be expected I suppose, the weather cleared up a bit right at the end of the day when I was leaving back to the mainland again. Because that's just the way things go. On a fine day North Stradbroke Island would be fantastic, on a bad day its just sort of all right. Today was supposed to be a [View Full Entry]

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The start of a new little adventure, this time to Queensland. I was planning on coming over here around August and doing both the Brisbane and Cairns areas but it started to get a bit stretched out, so I made a bit of a last minute decision to split it into two shorter trips, the first for twelve days to Brisbane, primarily for the Lamington National Park, and the second to Cairns for maybe three weeks, primarily for the Daintree and Atherton Tablelands (that'll be in August). So here I am, in Brisbane (which has a river running through it, funny [View Full Entry]

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New Zealand has a lot of introduced animals. Some were brought here for hunting, like rabbits and deer; some were brought for often-misguided attempts at pest control, like the little birds and ferrets; some were brought for nostalgic reasons, like swans; and some were brought for no good reason at all, like wallabies and frogs. Most of the introduced species are now pests to varying degrees, from the possums that munch their way through an estimated 20,000 tonnes of vegetation every night, to the stoats that kill up to 95% of kiwi chicks every year. But some are to all intents [View Full Entry]

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In the middle of the Wellington Harbour sits Somes Island, also known by its Maori name of Matiu. In former times it was used as a quarantine island, not just for lepers and other diseased immigrants but also for farm animals. Before the arrival of Europeans the island's strategic position in the harbour made it attractive to warring Maori. Today Somes is an island sanctuary for native wildlife. My main reason for wanting to visit was to try and find a Brothers Island tuatara. There are only two species of tuatara in the whole world. The common tuatara is found on [View Full Entry]

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To the northwest of Wellington is the Kapiti Coast, named after big old Kapiti Island which lies just offshore. The island covers 1965 hectares and was once a stronghold for naughty Maori warrior Te Rauparaha. There was also farming on there by the pakeha, which is somewhat difficult to believe when clambering half a kilometre up the steep mountain that covers most of the island. Anyway, Kapiti became a nature reserve way back in 1897 and a number of rare native birds were released there over the years. Huia were discussed but nothing happened about it due to political bickering and [View Full Entry]

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Today I flew into Wellington. I rarely get up to the North Island -- the last time was in 2002 in fact -- so I thought we should make a trip up there and do some of the things that New Zealand's mighty capital has to offer. Its not often anyone states that they are excited to be going to Wellington, but I was happy to say it. On the cards were visits to the Karori Sanctuary, Kapiti Island, Somes Island and other birdy places. Because what else is there to do when travelling? So we picked up a rental car [View Full Entry]

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