The locals

The dawn chorus here is deafening. Somewhere around five in the morning there is an abrupt escalation of the night-long chirrups and churrups, into a positively ear-bending racket.

(apologies for the 'borrowed' images...bird photography turns out to be a dark art, and is one that I will almost certainly never master)

So here's a run-down of the primary offenders:

First up are the very large, glossy, healthy looking Australian Ravens. They don't offer much in the looks or song department - black, loud cawing - but they are a firm fixture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_raven

Sometimes there are Currawongs as well, they look similar to the raven but have a distinctive yellow eye, and an easily identified rather more complex call than the Ravens -  more likely to hear them than see them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currawong

This little fella is a Noisy Miner. There are lots of them, and they really are properly noisy. They hurl about in gangs and make tons of noise all day long. They're a kind of honey-eater, and notoriously territorial and fierce - not unlike the robin I guess, but the large numbers and boisterous behaviour reminds me more of starlings.

Despite their healthy contribution to the general and perpetual racket, I like these guys. They're really cheeky and they like to take a cooling dip in the swimming pool.

http://gretavanderrol.net/tag/swimming-pool/

I have tried and tried to get my own picture but they're just too quick for my camera (and my aging reflexes). It is very amusing to watch them do this - they fluff out their body feathers just before they hit the water and it always looks like they'll sink, but they never do.

I watched a large flock of Noisy Miners really gang up on a cat on the balcony below ours - they all gathered in the nearest tree and squawked and screeched at the cat for five full minutes (cat was entirely unmoved of course).


I thought these guys (below) were butcher birds but apparently they're actually magpies - they are in the same family so the mistake is easy to make. You see a lot of these. They will imitate other bird calls and songs with amazing accuracy, and sometimes even other sounds like dogs barking and machinery.

This here is the butcher bird, so called because they will store food - insects or small lizards - by impaling it on a thorn or stuffing it into some handy crevice. This is to hold the catch while the bird eats, or quite literally as a larder, and to attract a mate. You can see the little hook on the beak, which is how you know it's a butcher bird not a magpie.

These guys have a really complex and fascinating song, full of whistles and whoops and bubbling trills.

And here are the colourful and exuberant rainbow lorikeets. They're so jolly looking - and apparently utterly unable to fly any where without screeching their heads off as if they're in some great panic.

Of course I can't forget the much maligned Ibis, who are just everywhere; the Gold Coast equivalent of pigeon if you like. While they cut a pretty exotic looking figure, they are also faintly vulture-like, which is not necessarily particularly appealing once you've noticed it.

They are arch scavengers which is why (after some ill-judge breeding programmes back in the 1960s) they have thrived in an urban environment, and are now regarded as pests. They can get very bold, not unlike cheeky sea-gulls who will snatch your sarnie out of you hand, and as they are pretty large - much bigger than a large sea-gull - they can even be a touch intimidating 

So - that about covers the usual suspects. 

Now I know they're not birds but I've grown very attached to the flying foxes who swoop around as the sun goes down. It's wonderful and astonishing, as they really are big and rather stately as they whoosh past with a rather lazy flap, or land in the nearby trees with a great gallolloping, branch bending, foliage thwacking whump. And they do contribute significantly to the noise levels, so here's just one more picture...

Mt Tamborine

Mt Tamborine is a popular spot in the hinterland - the 'green behind the gold' of the Gold Coast.

It's a short car journey, and the mountain tops out at 525 m, which isn't especially high but certainly high enough to give astonishing views of the surrounding landscape - which will be why around 7000 people live up there.

Here's a map.

It's also high enough to be decidedly cooler than down below. Here's a view west and inland across the hinterland, from one of the residential streets.

And here is a big gum tree in the middle of the road. There are all sorts of gum trees (eucalyptus trees to you and me), so I have no idea what kind this is, beyond the obvious fact that it is very big. 

They do a nice line in tall trees here actually. We stumbled across the botanic gardens up there. It was getting a bit late, but we had a quick waddle around. 

As ever, my camera was not really up to the task of capturing just how tall the trees were. Towering fits quite nicely. 

It was lovely and shady. And stuffed full of kookaburras, all chuckling away like loons.

I liked this little bottle tree. 

And there was plenty of other nice stuff going on.

Then we doodled along to Eagle Heights, mainly for the view... but also for some Hummingbird Cake.

Here is a view to the North (east-ish). More of that endless rolling hinterland basking in the late afternoon sun. 

Here are a couple of views to the east, out towards the coast and there in the background, our beloved Goldie. 

One of the strange things about here is the length of the day, which runs at around 12 hours of daylight all year round. This is very different to the gradual shortening and lengthening of the days that we're used to in the UK. The day always ends (and therefore starts) somewhere pretty much between about 5 and 6 O'clock. For this reason, Queensland does not participate in daylight saving as they have little to gain. 

Here are a couple of sunset shots, over the hinterland. 

I could wander around Australia just looking at it, and being in it, for a long time I reckon. 

Out at the Spit

I thought it might be interesting to show you this...because you can clearly see how much of the city is 'on' the water. In fact, this is only part of Gold Coast City, it spreads quite a way further north and south, but this is where I am - pretty much bang in-between where it says 'Gold Coast' and 'Broadbeach Waters'. Officially, the address is Surfers, but it feels more like Broadbeach, which is to say less commercial, more residential, and generally rather 'nice'.

Living on the waterways which can see go quite a way in-land, is of course highly desirable - and it does look nice..but apparently bull shark attacks are becoming more and more common in the waterways. Seems that sharks can adapt fairly well from salt to freshwater. Go figure.

Anyway - Georgie and I took a little trip up to the Spit (No...I'm not losing it...it just so happens that Nelson's gorgeous girl is also called Georgie...but before you go getting all Freudian on me, she is elegant, slim, blonde and entirely gorgeous in every way..see the Moreton posts...not to say that I'm not gorgeous, but different strokes right?)

Anyway. The Spit is that bit with Sea World on it. Sea World would probably have been fun, but not $80 worth of fun.

We took a little looky at all the swanky boats in the Marina instead.

And as it happens, we found some real sea life bobbling around in the harbour, which we could look at for free...

...and take very arty photos of them, even if I do say so myself.

These are blue blubber jellies, like the one we found on the beach near Surfers.

Then we took a stroll along to the even swankier Versace hotel. Aussies seem to like their swank, and I think I'm right in saying that Gold Coast is the capital of Australian over-the-top swankiness (or maybe the antipodean version of Essex...).

Here's the outside.

It wasn't exactly heaving, but there was a doorman, who very swankily opened the door for us.

Inside the foyer was like a FRIDGE. It was a very hot day, granted, but this place went for overkill on the AC. Positively icy.

And opulent.

And oddly empty. I expect everyone was out messing about on their yachts or something. But I'm starting to sound churlish...they were classy enough to not seem to mind that we wandered in, took few pics and wandered out again. We didn't check out the prices or anything. Some things are best left unsaid.

Then we drove to the end of the Spit and took a stroll all the way to the end of the sea-wall.

I've no idea what's on top of this little white tower...a light probably.

Here's the view to the right, looking south towards Surfers. That rather industrial looking structure is actually sucking up sand and pumping it back to around South Stradbroke Island...

...which is right here, a stone's throw to the north across the sea-way.

You can just see the tip of the opposite sea-wall, which juts off the end of the island. Here's an aerial view which gives a better idea of how close it is to the mainland, bottom right is where we are.

Gold Coast basically has a string of tropical islands just - swimmable just at this particular point - off shore. Bonkers.

If you are a keen and confident surfer, then you can either paddle across the seaway or there's a chap who'll give you a bit of tow/ride over and does a very nice trade thank you.

We didn't swim across to Straddie. I expect you already guessed that. But we did see a turtle, doing what turtles do, which is doodling charmingly about in the water.

There's a large turtle in there somewhere, honest. Who needs Sea World huh?

And there were lots of surfers. It may not look too fab, but actually the water was clear as glass, and the sea wall creates a great point-break which makes for very surf-able waves apparently.

I think these guys may have got a close up turtle encounter too - I hope so.

We did go in the water (...even though I didn't have my swimmers with me, or rather I did have my swimmers, but they were in the car and you can see it was a fair old schlep back...so it was crazy middle-aged lady in her undies time...nobody blinked. Not a one...not even Georgie. Lovely lovely day out with a lovely lovely girl).

By the way: they suck up the sand to stop the sea-way getting all choked up, so that the marine traffic can get in and out. It basically just gets circulated round and round.

There is currently a strong community movement to prevent the building of large cruise ship terminal on the spit and, having been there and experienced the natural glory of it... I wish them the very best of luck.

Wildlife and where to find it (pt 2...still at the zoo, with the cuddlies this time)

This is how to do living on the Gold Coast. 

 Koalas are not the only critters to have very thick soft fur (as you will shortly see), which seems like an odd thing when the climate is so blinking hot. But in fact it keeps them from getting both too hot or too cold.

Interestingly, it's very popular here to have sheep skin car-seat covers - again it seems counter-intuitive but it does actually seem to work in the same way (..and as it happens, I've just bought a wool filled duvet at home for the same reason).

There was a 'cuddle the koala' thing available, but actually I didn't want to. Poor little thing being passed from tourist to tourist to tourist... though they do make for a very satisfying armful that much is obvious. But I was happy just to watch them chilling out, which they do with supreme style and confidence.

For more on Koalas go here.

Koalas are closely related to Wombats. This here is Heather. She's pretty much a pensioner at roughly 25 years old. She's a southern hairy nosed wombat, so not a local native. The northern hairy nosed wombat is critically endangered, and can only be found in the Epping Forest National Park in Queensland, where there are only around 160 of them.

She has that very thick dense fur again, and full of dust. Wombats love to dig, and make spectacular burrows. The keeper told us that they periodically fill the burrows in for what they call 'enrichment' activity.

They are pretty sizeable - thick set and powerful - maybe growing up to 80 cm long. She does have a companion, Eddie. But apparently she'd been giving him a bit of a hard time of late, so he was relaxing in his own enclosure.


These guys are CUTE. Tree kangaroos. They really look cuddly, and what an amazing colour. I'm not sure what type these are - Australia has two, native to Northern Queensland, and both very rare.

You see some nice footage of these guys here.

They are very sensitive creatures, and poignantly will try to remain in their territory even when all the trees have been cleared. Obviously this doesn't go well for them, and conservation is a high priority.



Here's a 'roo and an emu. Please note, the photographer is INSIDE the enclosure. And that 'roo was more than happy to have some ear scratching and general up-close friendliness. Such a nice thing to have had the chance to tickle a kangaroo. It's a grey eastern, not too big and very relaxed. There was a whole mob of them out in the park, doing exactly what this one was doing.

There were these fellas too. Big red 'roos.

Much bigger, and in an enclosure. They tend to decimate the grass as you can see, and maybe they're less amiable than the slightly smaller greys. They share the tendency to loll around though.



Not cuddly I know, but rather magnificent I think. The original mucky duck. Not as big as the white swans I'm used to seeing at home, but very handsome.

This chap is also not cuddly. But he is the closest I've come to knitting for some time, so I had to include him. He's a merino ram, and very impressive he was too. Mainly I was amazed at how big he was...heading towards small pony big, but much bigger boned. That's a lot of wool.

There were lots of other things too - all sorts of birds and snakes, and lots of water dragon lizards scuttling about all over the place, as well as wild bush turkeys. Plenty of actual wildlife cashing in on the free food opportunities.

There were dingos too. Also bigger than I expected, and the enclosure was well back, across a creek and up a hill. They looked very much like blonde alsatians, and stared at us in the most discomfiting way...probably not cuddly then.

On which note, I think we all need another 'ahhhh' moment. One more koala then....

...totally baked or what?

Wildlife and where to see it (pt 1)

There's a lot of wild-life in Australia - much of it terrifyingly and fatally venomous or equipped with the kind of teeth that can sever limbs in single 'never-even-saw-it-coming' sort of chomp.

Luckily, there is also a vast - unimaginably vast - amount of space (be it bush, beach, sea or other types of water) in which this rather threatening wild-life can exist. As a result you don't necessarily come across that much of it in the normal run of things. This is a very good thing.

We did inadvertently disturb a large green snake on Moreton, sunning itself near the path, but it cleared off of its own accord at a reassuringly swift lick. None of us spotted it till it moved though, and it was CLOSE to the path, pretty much 'could have easily been stepped' on close.

Even the delightful and comical platypus - though only the males - have a venomous sting that, while it won't kill you, is reportedly excruciatingly painful, and toxic enough to kill dogs.

On that basis, going to the local zoo sounded like a solid sort of plan, so we took an afternoon dandle around Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary.

The saltwater crocs were impressive. Chillingly so.

Here is Boss Hog. He is HUGE. Nearly five metres long.

He was captured up in the far North of Queensland, having lived in relative harmony with the human farming population - until he took a prize bull. Saltwater crocs are protected in Australia, and if they pose a threat will often be moved, rather than culled. I guess they decided Boss was quite a specimen so off to the zoo it was. I wouldn't fancy having to catch him though.

This is Lily, his companion. A delicate slip of a thing at a mere 3.8 metres.

You know crocs have those ridged knobbly backs? Those ridges mean that when it moves through the water there's barely a ripple to be seen, so they can sneak right up to you...

But not that many people get attacked. Roughly one a year. It seems that mostly it's people ignoring the safety advice that get got.

I was very keen to see a cassowary - they do live in the wild, but a quite a bit further north where it's much hotter, more humid and basically rainforest. They are dwindling though - mainly due to shrinking habitat, dogs, and urban encroachment particularly roads and cars.

Meet the less-than-imaginatively name 'Cassie'.

These big flightless birds are pretty amazing. Not as big as emus, they can grow up to 1.8 metres tall. I reckon Cassie was close to that kind of height. And see that inner toe? Mostly talon, about 5 inches worth.

That said, cassowaries have an undeserved reputation for being very dangerous.  Notably, at least two large emus were wandering about freely among the zoo visitors. Cassowaries certainly can do very serious damage to a human or other animal if they do attack - which they sometimes do. But there is actually only one documented human death due to a cassowary attack, and it was a clear case of self defence on the part of the bird. Even so, I would hesitate to get too close.

We may yet take a trip to Tasmania, and while the famous devils do exist in the wild there, they are quite rare. So, here is one of the funny little fellas for you to enjoy.

He was exceedingly well fed, with a very round tummy...

And, had he not looked like an undeniably strange mix of small bear, large rat, and piglet, he really would have been cute. The pig bit is the least obvious feature in this photo - it was something about the very short hair letting his skin show through, and his very very narrow hips. He was better than cute, he was brilliant and full of character.

As he trotted about his enclosure he reminded me of a rather disgruntled looking chap who, having been slim in his youth, has put on quite a large amount of weight in the form of a beer belly and heavy set of shoulders...which explains this I guess: Tas' shape being pretty much the only aspect of real devils that the cartoon retains.

Anyway. The real devils have been in a bit of fix since the late 1990s, when a transmissible facial tumour disease began to decimate them. They've been officially endangered since 2008. The Aussies love their wildlife though, and they're busy doing all they can to keep them going.

I had assumed that echidnas were rare, but apparently they are actually 'common', and live pretty much everywhere. They're fascinating...as far as we know, they're the most ancient mammalian species on the planet. They lay eggs and have a pouch. The babies are called 'puggles'...I could go on. If you want to know more, look here.

This was a she I think...size of a large hedgehog, but because the spines go in different directions it also reminded me just a bit of those guinea pigs that have rosettes in their fur.

It's not all weird or pant-wettingly scary though. Next post: light relief with some antipodean cuddlies.