In Queensland it’s coal vs nature on the FrontLine Action on Coal (FLAC)

Jun 20, 2021Jun 20, 2021 by a piecemeal adventurer ♥ 5 Comments

In North Queensland only a few hundred kilometres inland from the World Heritage Great Barrier Reef is some of the most intensive coal mining in the world.

The Stop Adani Campaign has been the headline battle to try and stop the coal behemoth swallow up the fragile land water and wildlife churn it and just spit it out as tailing and pollution

And the fight still goes on at FLAC https://frontlineaction.org/

The west of Queensland is dry and outside the wet season the riverbeds are dry sand

And farmers, animals, birdlife and native flora rely on water stored underground.

It bubbles up in springs across inland Australia. The springs I swam in on the Oodnadatta Track, thousands of kilometres away are linked and fed water by the Queensland springs.

Springs like Doongmabulla Spings https://www.defendourwater.org/springs#:~:text=The%20Doongmabulla%20Springs%20complex%20is,very%20dry%20landscape%5B1%5D.&text=These%20springs%20are%20like%20oases,They%20also%20support%20remarkable%20ecosystems.

Source https://news.flinders.edu.au/blog/2019/06/12/groundwater-plan-flawed-experts-warn/

An oasis in the harsh outback of Queensland which could likely be drained to wash the coal extracted from The Adani Mine.

Water is essential to preserving the beautiful things of nature.

Beautiful birds

None of the birds above are threatened but at the Adani site, there are endangered species of birds that could be wiped out.

In outback Australia, water is life. For people, for food production, for Australia’s unique fauna and flora.

We don’t need to use it to waste it on a new coal mine when the future is in renewable energy not coal or gas.

If you can support FLAC. Visit https://frontlineaction.org/

Camped at Camp Binbee Under the Milky Way at Night

The Pacific Ocean Beaches of Northern NSW

Jun 3, 2021Jun 3, 2021 by a piecemeal adventurer ♥ 9 Comments

The ocean beaches of Northern NSW are the most beautiful I have seen.

The broad sweep of sand

The rolling blue ocean

Town beaches like Byron Bay (above) and Yamba (below)

The beautiful lighthouses on the capes

Sentinels for the sailors as sea.

But its the quiet,

The wild

The largely deserted

The hard to get to beaches on the coast that I love

Beaches like…

Ah you have to search for your own tranquillity!!!!

Where the surf pounds in

And the you can stand alone on the sandy beaches.

With a sea eagle circling overhead as a companion.

Set up the little tent

And at night be bedazzled by the Milky Way.

But the Pacific isn’t always peaceful

It doesn’t always contain its power

The a big swell expoding against the south wall at Coff Harbour a testament to the power of the sea.

It was beautiful spending the last of a mild Autumn on the NSW North Coast.

But the southern hemisphere winter is here and the temperatures are falling.

I’m sitting with my friend in South East Queensland

Tomorrow its time to head back north to the tropics.

Towards the start of the Savannah Way and the ride across the tropical North of Australia.

May 26 2021 -Southern Hemisphere Luna Eclipse – the start of a new adventure.

May 26, 2021May 28, 2021 by a piecemeal adventurer ♥ 11 Comments

The total eclipse is the big daddy of Luna shows

The stadium superconcert

All the wow factor

At Cape Byron, the Eastern most point of Australia

Sunset played the support act

Warming up the crowd

Luna finally emerged staying a little coy

Using the Cape Byron Lighthouse to tease the audience

Peaking cheekily around the stone edifice

Soon, though, the show warmed up Luna out on full show casting beams of gold and silver across the sea.

Dancing with her band the clouds

Then in the second set the magic started

The amazing disappearing act

The giant white orb shrinking away to a tiny orange sliver

To the eye no bigger than a star

Only to re emerge in a new red costume

With an edge of silver bling

What a show

The wind was cold on the Cape so I missed the final act of return to silver.

I sailed the coasts before the days of GPS

The light of the moon and the coded flashes of lighthouse welcome companions

Like a brother and sister guiding the night sailor.

But now I’m not on a yacht but on the Steinbock again, my BMW adventure bike

I’m on the Eastern most point of Australia, heading north then West and later this year will be at the continents Western Point

Traversing the Savannah Way right across topical Australia

Thanks Luna for your blessings and for a great show to start the new adventure.

Desert gives way to Rainforest in the Bunya Mountains

Apr 15, 2021 by a piecemeal adventurer ♥ 4 Comments

The Bunya Mountains are west of Brisbane in Australia’s Great Dividing Range and house the world’s largest Bunya Pine forest.

The Bunya Pine is one of the few plants surviving from the Jurassic period -200 million years ago these magnificent trees developed and the Bunya Mountains is the place on the planet where they are still prolific.

What a place to camp for my last nights before reaching my destination.

I love the Bunya’s droopy branches and leaves.

To me they resemble giant rastas with their shaggy dreadlocks towering above the forest.

Walking in this beautiful cool rainforest wa such a contrast to the hot dry heat of the central Australia.

Walking amongst the trees

Walking through the trees.

Gardens on the ground

And in the trees in the shape of ferns and moss on the trees.

The gentle wallabies are in the camp grounds and on the trails.

At the northern end of the range at Mt Kiangarow, the forest is drier and grass trees prolific.

The view from Mt Kiangarow magnificent

By day

And at sunset.

That is just over 10,000km completed since I left Melbourne on 1 March 2021

What a ride:

Along the Great Ocean Road

Through the Coorong

Into the Flinders Ranges

Up the Oodnadatta Track

Immersed in the Red Centre

Across outback the Northern Territory and Queensland

Climb into the Bunya Mountains.

And now it’s the wedding on Saturday and I made it on time.

Time to make miles as I hear wedding bells

Apr 10, 2021Apr 12, 2021 by a piecemeal adventurer ♥ 10 Comments

Did I mention that this wild adventure is taking a 10,000km detour to the wedding of a very close friends daughters!

No missed that point

The nearly 1200 km of rough dirt roads had destroyed the bikes rear tyre and drive chain.

So new tyre and chain and time to make miles to the east coast of Australia

Past the Devils Marbles

Over the Queensland border.

And along hot straight outback roads

To Longreach

Some call Longreach the capital of the Outback

The home of QANTAS now Australia’s national airline.

It’s also the centre of the Chanel Country that funnels the water of the tropical monsoons into Lake Eyre in the centre of Australia.

Which I has passed only a few weeks past

So I took a friend for a ride

To see the water lillies on the flooded Thompson River as the precious water makes its way to the desert

I was going to take a swim but the river was full of mud from recent floods and not inviting.

Tomorrow I will start to make miles again. Four days of riding in temperatures of 37c ( nearly 100F) had zapped my energy.

An air-conditioned hotel a respite. My blogs up to date, I’m refreshed and tomorrow offers cooler weather as I head south east toward the Pacific Ocean.

Central Australia Adventure 12 – Uluru and Kata Tjuta

Apr 10, 2021 by a piecemeal adventurer ♥ 15 Comments

The Uluru – Kata Tjuta National Park in many ways the centre of Australia

Uluru the largest monolith in the world.

Constantly changing colour and tone as the light hits it.

To see it shine red during sunset it amazing

To see it at sunset with the March full moon rising on the equinox truly spiritual.

The walk around the base of Uluru is approximately 10.5 km.

Uluru is a sacred place for Aboriginal Australians and being close to it one feels the sacred power of the rock that is ever changing in colour and mood.

Each crevice, crack, cave and stain tell part of an Aboriginal dreamtime story.

Stories often told in drawing in the rock caves.

Kata Tjuta is approximately 40 km from Uluru. A series of sandstone rocks through which valleys wind.

The Valley of the Winds walk is an approximately 7km walk through the rock outcrops

As I sit in a hotel room in Longreach, Queensland, reflecting on the two weeks spent immersed in the Red Centre a shiver still goes down my spine.

It took me almost a lifetime to get here but I may yet be back.

Central Australia Adventure 11 – Watarrka or Kings Canyon

Apr 10, 2021Apr 10, 2021 by a piecemeal adventurer ♥ 15 Comments

There are two ways to travel between Alice Springs and Kings Canyon. The long way down the Stuart Highway or the short rough way on the dirt Mereenie loop road.

Road both but only the loop road was worth a picture!

Mereenie Sandstone formed in Central Australia about 400 million years ago.

By the size of the corrugations on the loop road that was the last time the road was graded!

The loop road leads directly to Watarrka National Park which includes Kings Canyon

The Rim Walk is a spectacular walk of around 8 km around the rim and into Kings Canyon

The views looking out from and across the top of the Canyon rim are amazing

Looking into the Canyon one can only marvel at the power of nature to cut so precisely the ancient sandstone with only water and wind as tools.

And when walking down into the Canyon floor

Where water flows and plants flourish there is a beautiful cool calmness silent away from the heat of the Rim.

Kings Canyon is one of the major destinations in Central Australia. I think you can see why.

Central Australia Adventure 10 – West MacDonnell Ranges/Tjoritja

Apr 9, 2021Apr 9, 2021 by a piecemeal adventurer ♥ 15 Comments

To ride through the West MacDonnell Ranges is to travel in a landscape created before time began

Mountains and rivers formed over 300 million years ago.

What an experience to camp beside and swim in the oldest river in the world.

The Finke or Larapinta River.

Ormiston Gorge at sunrise is a spectacular site from the Ghost Gum Lookout

The colours changing on the red rocks as the sun rose

The recent rains had filled the gorge with flowing water

So much water that on the Ormiston Gorge Pound Walk at one crossing it was strip off and carry packs high across the creek

But from this small inconvenience was worth it as the views from the walk were just beautiful

Ocre is prized by Aboriginal Australians for a range of purposes but primarily rock and body painting.

The Ocre pits here have provided this precious colouring for millennia

Gaps and chasms fill the length of the ranges.

Some of the creeks that run through then provide big swimming holes.

Like the Ellery Creek Big Hole

Or are a trickle that over the millennia have carved a chasm.

Tjoritja is vast and I visited only half of its amazing gorges. Maybe another visit is required

Central Australia Adventure 9 – the red/green centre – East MacDonnell Ranges

Apr 7, 2021Apr 7, 2021 by a piecemeal adventurer ♥ 10 Comments

For the last couple of weeks I have been immersed in the Red Centre of Australia.

Literally immersed as the rivers, creeks and waterholes in the MacDonnell Ranges are brimming after recent rains

The MacDonnell Ranges flank Alice Springs to the east and the west.

A line of rolling mountains, as old as time itself,
Punctuated by, gorges, gaps, passes and chasms

Red and ocre rock forged into mountains by rain wind and salt over the millennia.

This journey of discovery of the Red Centre starts and finishes in these ranges so let’s start the story in the east MacDonnell Ranges.

To the east the ranges run out to the Trephina Gorge Nature Reserve.
Emily and Jessie Gaps/ Yeperenye are only a short 22km ride east of Alice Springs.

These sites have important cultural rock paintings that tell the dreamtime stories of the local Central Arrernte people.

Their dreamtime stories are represented in rock paintings at these sites. People are requested not to photograph them. So you will have to go and see them yourselves.

Corrobaree Rock was formed hundreds of millions of years ago

When central Australia was covered by sea and sand and salt formed a motar to bind these rocks into a new form.

The ghost gum is such a symbol of central Australia and this one at the entrance to Trephina Gorge is over 300 years old.

Trephina Gorge really was a perfect first taste of the magnificent canyons and gorges that were to come.

As an addendum for those following my actual where about. I left Alice Springs yesterday and now on the way to Queensland. The next few posts will be reflections on the Red Centre.

Central Australia Adventure 8 the end of the Oodnadatta Track and into the NT

Mar 22, 2021Mar 22, 2021 by a piecemeal adventurer ♥ 9 Comments

The northern section of the Oodnadatta Track are in the traditional lands of the Arabana people.

It also contains some relics of the Old Ghan line.

Such as the Algebuchiner Bridge and the old station area at Oodnadatta

An attempt to ride north to Dalhousie Springs ended in a bog and inglorious retreat

So it was another night at Oodnadatta the as the desert dawn sun lit the road in front in front of me it was time to complete the final 200kn of the Oodnadatta track

And onto the Northern Territory

And head to a very lush and green red centre.

piecemealadventurer

Tales of the journeys of a piecemeal adventurer as a discontinuous narrative

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