what happened to the smallest goanna in the world?

Well, here I am, sitting alone in a house (with 3 small children) in far Western Queensland. Dust storm blowing up a gale outside, lightning strikes predicted, all the fire crews down at Ethabuka, hours away...The fires were contained on Cravens yesterday, and we were all heading off to camp the night at a perrenial waterhole on Ethabuka, for a meeting. Happy to be out of the house and with the promise of checking pitfall traps and fish traps, the kids dusted off their bathers and excitedly piled in the car. A 4 car convoy led us over many, many dunes, until arriving finally at the ratcatcher camp (otherwise known as esteemed scientists.) They were able to display the smallest goanna in the world to the kids, which looked much like an Aboriginal painting it was so decorated and beautiful. We then approached the house, where we needed to check on a small fire approaching from the South. The small fire was by now a horizon filled with smokestacks, piled up in great mushroom clouds bursting with explosive heat. The kids and I just as rapidly got back in the car, and got the *#*##*#* out of there. 'Sorry kids, now we have to travel over 50 or so sand dunes and a couple more hours back again....this time mostly airborne'. So the fire now has raced with massive gusts past the homestead down there, no-one is hurt, but many many many hectares of just recovering arid zone are now torched. It's fast approaching the neighbours, after cutting a clear swathe through the property. At times like this, in this weather, all people can do is stand and stare as it goes past, and feel as insignificant in this landscape as we truly are....

crispy kangaroos

Alright I'll through some stats at you, just 'cos everyone loves them?

Our neighbours to the North have lost about 250000 acres, to the West have lost nearly 1 million, the property to their west lost over 1 million acres. Our neighbours to the South have lost most of their back paddock, which is about 300 000 acres in total. The entire Simpson desert National park in Qld bordering Ethabuka has been burnt. There are currently fires alight on Cravens Peak burning the NW section. Crews were out all through last night backburning. It hasn't come too close to our homestead yet luckily, and hopefully there won't be more lightning strikes....Tasmania's looking pretty good right now!

wasp faces and sand lessons

'Did you know that wasps have such scary faces and legs because they lived a long time ago with the dinosaurs? I know 'cos Asha told me so.' This is words of wisdom from Clay this morning in our school lesson. He is coming along in leaps and bounds as he sits alongside Asha in our school lessons. He has really picked up on the reptiles here. His attention span is probably typical for a 4 year old, but he will sit and study the reptile ID book for ages, entranced with working out which snakes live in 'our' desert. Quite often there is a photo of a reptile which was taken on one of the reserves here. We did school this morning up on the dunes. We spotted a sandy goanna on the way and Clay and I got close enough to touch it. He was so excited to see it wiggle as it ran away. Up on the dune we looked at different patterns, the dunes in the distance, wind ripples on the sand. Then Asha proudly spotted a snake track, moving right across in front of us. Luckily the kids learnt how to tell if it had moved through before or after us, and it was before. We checked out some cool bugs and rocks with a magnifying glass, picked some flowers for the new Field officer arriving today, then went back to the car as we were all starting to sweat. It was about 9am, and too hot to enjoy being outside. We then went back to the house and made posters of what we'd seen. Don't get stars in your eyes though, most of my days for the last month have been very long and in 4 walls as Al has been out chasing fires...and they're still burning....

lightning strkes and flat tyres

Al had just gotten back from a long stint at Ethabuka battling the fires when lightning again struck, this time at Cravens Peak where our homestead is. The storms were awesome, we both jumped out of bed at two in the morning at the lightning crack that sounded as if it was on our doorstep. Checking the internet the next morning, fires covered the properties surrounding us plus our own. It's all been on since then, trying to fit school in around the constant phone calls, radio calls, e-mails and internet checks has been mad, besides feeding extra people who have come to help. Luckily for us, (not for her) lovely Helen has been visiting. The kids and I picked her up last week. There was a dust storm blowing so luckily we decided to stay in town the night. The next day found us hours from anywhere when a tyre blew. Not just flat, but ripped to shreds. I managed to pull over in one piece but was a bit shaken. We found the jack, but nearly shed a few tears when a bolt snapped off the wheel. I tried to radio out but couldn't raise anyone. I had no satellite phone on me as they were in use for the fires. We hadn't seen a car. It was hot too, and all the kids were starting to whinge. A night in shining armour appeared in a fuel truck. I jumped in front of him and begged for help. Didn't take much luckily. Much to my feminist disgrace, he helped enormously, and told me I could drive without a wheel nut. More disgrace and potential disaster to come when the car fell off the jack, missing my head my millimetres. I started shaking a bit then! Finally we got back on the road and limped the couple of hours home. The fuel truck was incredibly coming to refuel our station (10000L of diesel), so I knew he'd come back through eventually which eased our minds a bit. Tail between my legs, we eventually arrived home to give him a carton of beer and much gratitude!

a peaceful night camping...

At what point should you be concerned that dingoes are going to eat your babies? I'm not sure, but I was fighting sleep listening for them the other night as we were camping on the western side of the property. Zave was in a portacot, but I ended pulling him in to my swag with the excuse that he was cold, but I secretly didn't want anything to snatch him. Then I woke again later hearing a whoop whoop whoop, getting louder. What the hell? Theres no way it could have been a vehicle, was it a mad wind aproaching, a whirly whirly? We were camped on the outside edge of a big gorge that is engraved everywhere in petroglyphs which are ancient aboriginal rock carvings, caves and tool remains. We were going to stay closer to the gorge, but it didn't feel right. As we pulled up into it the day before after some mad 4WDing, a barn owl swooped up out of the rocks in front of us. We figured we should leave the spirits in peace and camped further down in an old creek bed. So was this noise from old Aboriginal spirits awakening. I actually remember thinking that this was more feasible than a vehicle out here. I sat bolt upright and bravely called out for Al to wake up. Sound asleep, he didn't stir. Finally, I realised the noise was moving beyond me, and craned my head up to the myriad of stars above, to see a tiny light flashing across the sky. God, its a plane! I felt like I was from 'The Gods must be crazy' movie. Still, it was just so silent there that the noise of the plane made this weird vacuum like whoop through the air. I woke up a bit bleary eyed the next morning...

fire... or floods

The fire that was threatening has all but gone out. After a long couple of weeks, we can relax until the next lightening strike. Now there is actually rain forecast, should we start thinking about being flooded in? It can happen any time, earlier in the year managers were stranded here for 3 months...

blood on my boots

We had a good trip down to Ethabuka last week. We were a bit stressed about the bushfires and were heading down to the other property we look after to clean it up a bit in case the fire hit. Soon after we left our homestead 2 feral cats ran across the track in front of us. They didn't run much further! As they were shot with a camel gun, it was easy to see what was inside one of them, small lizards a bird and 2 rats. Thats all by 7:30 in the morning! It felt good protecting the thousands of native animals these cats and their offspring would have consumed in their lives. Two hours later we were nearing Ethabuka homestead when we spotted camel tracks, these soon led to 7 majestic beasts in the gidgee forest. It's always a bit sad getting rid of these proud creatures, but again, very good for our land. We also took the time to cut some meat out of them, massive slabs of backstrap were loaded onto the back of the ute. Karma got me later though as I was trimming off the plentiful fat from the meat, the knife slipped and I sliced my thumb to the bone. On reaching the Ethabuka house a rabbit ran out, soon to end his life also. Al picked up the rabbit and we talked about saving the meat, then we compared it to the massive slabs of camel in the back and realised it probably wasn't worth our while.