Sounds, Smells and Strange Sights

I completely forgot to mention the sounds of the birds that we woke up to every morning. They were incredible. We had Magpies with their beautiful song that is so different from other Magpies from different areas of the country, very complex and so lovely to listen to. It was awesome. We heard Peewees, it's a smaller bird that almost looks like a Magpie, their song was sort of a shrill sharp tweet, peewee! peewee! peewee!... There was usually always the screech of the white Cockatoo, or the multicoloured Cockatoo, which is called a Multi.... go figure..... Then, the cream of the crop, which we didn't hear a lot of, but is the best of all, the Kookaburra... It's song has to be the most hilarious thing we have ever heard in our lives... It makes you think of a wild monkey in the jungle having a long cackle at some predator.... Kookookookookoo ackackackackack kookookookookoo ackackackackack kookookookookoo ackackackackack, on and on and on for about 20 seconds, so incredible, and you just had to stop what you were doing and listen and laugh in wonder... So amazing.... And such a beautiful bird, quite plump and solid, about 12 - 15 inches tall (30 - 40 cms).

In Hervey Bay we encountered the Dusky Moorhen, initially we were calling it a Coot, just because we didn't have a clue what it was until I just looked online this minute, lol. It is a water bird and has the funniest hoot/screech/bleet, it was more of a shrill bleet that anything.... Too funny.....The bird life was so wonderful and it was somehow comforting just to have them around... There were so many different kinds of birds and only a rare few are the likes of what we have here in Canada.... In this picture, we have an old coot feeding the pretty birds, some ducks, some Dusky Moorhens and a couple Ibis's...   ;-)

I think I mentioned before about the smells of this country.... I guess initially it was the smells of the people, or rather, the products they used.... It smells just like it did in England, Scotland and N. Ireland. Now that in itself is not a big deal, but it's just so prevalent. I was really surprised by it.... The season of course was autumn so most of the spring time blooming of flowers was done but there were still lots of flowering bushes. There were a few plants that had a scent, but not a lot. The gum (eucalyptus) trees, on the other hand, had a wonderful mentholyptus smell that reminded me of having a cold and the Vicks Vapo rub that would be used to sooth your throat.
Speaking of trees, we saw so many new types of trees. It was amazing. The eucalyptus was of course expected, and so many of them!! Forest upon forest, never ending, in some places. We each eventually had a favourite in each area of the country... Mine was the Desert Oak, we only saw it on the Lassiter Hwy on the way to Yulara..

 Then there were the ferns and palm trees! Unbelievable! I thought we had seen every kind of palm tree just from what you see on tv.... Total bunk!!!! Even when we got to the coast and went to Cairns, we saw so many... Every day after that, when we took a walk down a street or on a path, yet another type of palm tree would show itself. We were blown away by it... So diverse, so amazing.... I'm planning things for the new front yard already, lol....

The smells of the food cooking was also different as they cook such different things than we do. I am not sure I can eat any more french fries for a few months... Everything down there comes with chips (fries)... It started to get maddening after awhile. You would order this classy meal, like a t-bone or other expensive steak, and it comes with chips.. No vegetables, no option for rice or baked or mashed potatoes. One night I ordered pork chops, with chips.... It was horrible.... One time in an RSL (Legion), I ordered chicken parmesiana and it came with chips, in a pub one afternoon, I had lasagne, with chips.... Those Aussies really love their chips...


Another strange sight we saw was all these cars just abandoned and burnt out and just left on the side of the road or dragged off into a field a few yards... It became quite a novelty to see them and we laughed at each one and started to say "car!" each time we saw one, just like you did when you used to play street hockey as a kid......

The stars were cool to see. We have a formation up here that to me, looks like a Yield sign, (actually called Orion), down there, it's upside down!!!! Go figure.... Mark even saw the Big Dipper - upside down of course.... We really didn't get a good chance to be out of all the light pollution to see the Milky Way, other than at Yulara, and then it was at 5:30am. It was not at spectacular as was hoped. But still it was fantastic to see...

This is Orion - i think...

One, or rather many of the disturbing things we saw constantly was the lack of removing the roadkill on the sides of the roads... It was a bit upsetting... We saw skeletons, I repeat, skeletons of kangaroos still on the side of the road... There were all sorts of varying states of decay left on the roads... Then there was also the scavengers that were killed as they were hit while feeding on that roadkill... It was somewhat disgusting to see. We are thinking of writing the highways department and giving our opinion.... So much death and no one seems to care if there is more carnage.... We just don't understand......