Quick Update

I'm using dial-up at the camp I'm in now so this post is just an announcement.

There will be no new posts until I leave here. I just don't want to put anything up without adding photos because the sights I'm seeing here are breathtaking. You won't see anything from me for at least 10 more days. I'll make the post worth it. As a small teaser, I've seen my first croc (from the chopper), I've seen a few locations where they shot Crocodile Dundee and the 'resort' I'm staying at is brutal.

Take care back there. I'll catch you all on the flipside.

State of Origin

Try to imagine the Superbowl in the US. Now try to imagine the Superbowl played 3 times in 9 weeks. That is what State of Origin is for the Aussies. The game is played between the Queensland 'Maroons' and New South Wales 'Blues' (both on the east coast) to establish who reigns supreme in the rugby world. Serious bragging rights are on the line and the entire country rallies behind one side or the other. Even AFL fans get right into these games. The commercials are more about buying well bred bulls instead of movie trailer debuts or stock trading websites (not even kidding, there were two separate commercials showing where to buy the best bulls). One commercial actually took a side! If Queensland wins you get 20% off everything in the store. If New South Wales wins you only get 10% off.

The camp projector is set up in our main tent with a set of computer speakers. Cheering has gotten pretty heated in tempo with the emotions on display in the game. You can tell that these games mean a lot to not only the fans, but the players. Sometimes you can watch a championship game and after awhile the losing team will also lose its fire. Not so in these games. If anything it's the opposite. The losing team just gets dirtier, more violent and more desperate.

I think the game might seem more intense because they don't have any pads or helmets on. You see all the grimaces, all the cheap forearms thrown, all the neck snapping hits and all the trash talk. And there is a lot of jibber jabber out there.

To go along with the rugby, there's been a new wildlife spotting. It seems like I see something cool all the time. A couple of wallabies hang around our camp. Lately when I go to use our little makeshift gym they watch me from the bush for a bit before they hop off. Cockatoos and kookaburras are the birds that wake you up in the morning, not crows or pigeons. I mean, they don't wake me up, but they do wake most of the rest of the crew. I sleep like a rock in a soundproof basement though.... so I might not be the best example. Where was I again? Oh yeah, a new wildlife sighting. One of the fieldies found a legless lizard last night and brought it over for me.

"He was just a little guy. Since it was technically a lizard it didn't have much for teeth to worry about."

He barely moved in my hand. I wish I would have used my camera to take the closeup because it did have the tiny flaps where its legs should be."

 We're currently in the 65th minute and the score is 34-0 for Queensland and the announcer just said, "There are thousands of New South Wales fans sitting on their couch right now saying, 'I could do better out there'". The funny thing about this best of 3 series is even though Queensland will now be up 2 games to none there will still be a 3rd game played. The series itself is definitely about pride.

I have to ship out to Jabiru on Friday. It's on the eastern side of Kakadu National Park. I'll be there for almost two weeks and then it's a week out of the bush.

Until the next time.....

TimTams

Australia has given the world many things. Kangaroos, koala bears, Carlton Mid, Yvonne Strzechowski...... but none can compare to what I have just witnessed. A refrigerated Tim Tam. I'm quite sure that it's actually chocolate crack in cookie form. I'm not sure how the country stays supplied really. I've also recently learned of the Tim Tam slam. As told by Wikipedia:

"Opposite corners of the Tim Tam are bitten off, one end is submerged in the drink, and the drink sucked through the biscuit. The crisp inside biscuit is softened and the outer chocolate coating begins to melt.
Ideally, the inside of the biscuit should collapse but the outside should remain intact long enough for the liquid to reach the mouth. Refrigerating them helps to preserve the outside coating while allowing the inside of the biscuit to melt. The thicker chocolate coating on the Double Coat Tim Tam offers a more stable structure to prevent a premature collapse. The caramel centre of the Chewy Caramel variety helps to hold the biscuit together for a slightly longer time."

Clearly there's a lot of science behind the procedure. Perhaps one of the veterans in camp can show me someday how to achieve this feat.

In other news, Australians have no tolerance for mosquitoes (or mossies as they are referred to here). Our main after-work gathering area has no less than 4 mossie coils burning at any time after 5pm. When they're not burning everyone sprays themselves down with Bugsmack or something with 20% DEET. For those not in the know about DEET, it's still up in the air as to whether or not it causes cancer. Back in the day when they first started spraying fields with it children would play in the DEET mist as it poured out of the hoses. That same DEET killed many small mammals, birds as well as a shitload of insects. It also melts plastic. Repeat, melts plastic. I'm ashamed to say that I'm guilty of spraying strong repellant on back in Saskie, especially in the north. But we have a ton of bugs over there. Millions of them just waiting to suck out every last drop of blood so that they can go home, have more blood-sucking babies, die, then let their blood-sucking babies suck our blood again. Whereas here I can count the number of mossies I see on one hand at any one time. Seriously I think I've been bitten twice since I came out here and our camp is basically beside a large bog that provides perfect standing water conditions for mosquitoes.

***Note to self: while Australia has a ridiculous amount of insects in a ridiculous amount of varieties, some of which can kill you.... almost none of them are out for your blood. I'm cool with that.

Bonus pic of the day, a Skink. These guys are everywhere with good reason. There's an endless supply of insects to be eaten. They're fast, harmless and best of all, they eat all the little creepy crawly things. I'm pretty sure I've seen spiders large enough to take these little lizards down...... that could be a deathmatch in the making for the future.... but I digress. Keep in mind that from nose to tail this little guy is only about 3" long.

This just in, Australia is hot.

It's been a busy couple of days here lately. Thus the lack of posts after the rapid fire ones fed to you previously. I've seen some pretty cool stuff in the last couple days. A few things that made me shake my head and say, "really?" and a few things that made me say, "wow".

I'll maybe lead off with the oddities. The lights in our wash car (showers and toilets) naturally attract a lot of flying insects. Something else came to play tonight though, a praying mantis. He just flitted around up there and nabbed the smaller flyers, pretty cool to watch. I always thought mantis' were bigger but this one was only about 2.5" long. I lifted the seat of one of the toilets and saw the biggest grasshopper I've ever seen. With it's legs out it easily measured 3" long and the body itself was a good 2"..... I used a different stall. Oh and I just about touched a tree frog that was sitting right by the handle to the wash car. I don't know if he was poisonous or not. I didn't lick him to make sure.

One of the cooler things I've seen lately were the wild horses (or brumbies in local speak). I haven't been able to catch them on camera yet but I vow to by the end of my time here. You wouldn't think that seeing horses in the wild would be cool, but it is. You'll have to check out this link for now. It's amazing how fit and healthy they are up (can't believe I just used up, I already consider Sydney and Melbourne down) here.

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

Something that isn't getting old for me is the landscape. We've been mapping outcrops in hilly areas that overlook vast valleys with sharp cliff walls formed by sandstone escarpments. While not the easiest going it certainly provides some candy for the eyes while you're out there.

"That was a ridiculously steep hill. And about 200+ m high. At least we had a good view."

"Myself and Misty (she went to UofR a few years after me) posing by one of the outcrops that we mapped. The sandstone escarpment is in the background.

Oh right, the big title of the post was about the heat. It's safe to say that I won't be totally acclimatized to this heat by the time I leave. I think it'll get easier, but it will never be easy. I sweat a lot usually from exercise....here I sweat a lot from standing. Muggy air and +30C days just draw out all the moisture you thought you had and leave you feeling like a wet sponge. But, you may say, what about at night? Doesn't it cool off at night? Well sure little fella, it sure does cool off at night.... to +20C. Seriously, it doesn't get any colder than that over night now. I'm using a shitty Walmart sleeping bag (that was a throw in with a tent) that wouldn't work in Sask on a night after our hottest day, but I barely need it here. Something I've found during our little excursions into the bush is that the bush here is very different from home. It's sparse so it's easy to walk through, but there's no shade because even though you may have some trees around you the sun is so damn high (only 11 degrees latitude from the equator I think, Bengough is just above 49) that you have to be right under the tree to get any shade. Top that off with almost no wind and it makes for a difficult trek. So far I have only found 2 things that suck about the bush in Northern Territory: needle grass and green tree ants. The needle grass comes to such a fine point that it pokes through your pant leg and the tip snaps off just under your skin making it itchy and annoying. I've talked about the green tree ants a little bit before but basically they're the most aggressive ant down here and they're all over the place. But I digress.

So if anyone was wondering if they wanted to try out the Northern Territory during the dry season, know this, I've been sweating like a manatee in heat. If you're ok with that kind of sweat, you might be ok. Then again, you probably won't be hiking up huge hills in the middle of Arnhem Land. You'd probably hit up Crocodylus Park in Darwin and stay in an air conditioned hotel room. Basically because when it comes right down to it, you all have more sense than I do.

Tomorrow's forecast is super hot with a mix of hot. However, it's back to camp work so no worries about facing the heat on a big hike.

And if it seems like I'm bitching about the heat, it's only because it's the only thing I have to complain about here. I f@#$ing love Australia. And mark my words, this will not be the last time I come here.

***Bonus pic of the post. I set up my camera to long shutter speed that drew in a ton of light (for those in the know I had it set to 15sec). I wanted to get a view of the stars over my tent for you. The stars here are super bright (as they usually are in an isolated setting). I wish I could sleep with a mesh roof because the view would be spectacular. Sidenote to Tyler, loving the G11.***

"

"The trees really lit up too from because of the lights nearby in camp, but they definitely didn't look this bright to the naked eye."

Camp Tour

Before things get crazy around here I wanted to take you on a tour of the camp.

"The tents are laid out all over the place. Underbrush was burned out weeks ago so that it doesn't catch on fire later in the dry season. My tent is sort middle right closest to the camera."

"My humble abode. Probably measures 10'x10' at the base, but stands high enough that you don't have to duck down when you're getting dressed. The bed is up on long legs to get it off the ground."

"We're going to have such a big crew here we'll likely end up needing all of these tents during meal times. The main one is on the left. The designated smoking area is on the right. There's a dart board behind the bush on the right hanging from the end of that white container. It hangs at regulation height and has a foot board that is at the regulated distance. Apparently darts is serious business around here."

"Our top notch gym facilities. To the left of this picture is a chin-up bar, swiss ball, and a lat pull down bar rigged with pulleys and rope."

"The billabong where we get our water. Obviously it's purified before we drink it. That's a croc trap in the foreground. Turns out that one they caught the first time was a female saltie. Maybe there's a male still in there somewhere."

I have more photos but it takes forever to upload these as it is. Hope you enjoyed the mini-tour.

Footy and a Deathmatch

Some of the fieldies are obsessed with Aussie rules Football (or AFL). The guys from the Northern Territory are huge AFL fans and they look down upon rugby… that’s a southerner game (aka New South Wales and Queensland). I have to admit, AFL games are fun to watch, especially now that I know most of the rules. The game basically seems to involve frantic movement of the ball by punching it, kicking it or slapping it. One of the things that makes it more fun to watch than rugby (and there are many) is that the ball can move in any direction at any time. This leads to utter chaos, or at least it looks like utter chaos when in fact it’s somewhat organized chaos. Then when you get close enough to the goal you kick it between tall posts for 6 points. If you miss to either side you still get 1 point and if you miss the outside posts altogether you get nothing. You have to have a pretty terrible kick to get nothing. As one of the fieldies said, “It’s the only game out there where you get 1 point for trying.” I guess it would be similar to our missed field goal when it’s grounded in the end zone. Or is that a punt? I can’t remember. I’d imagine I’ll be watching a fair bit more of the games before the summer is done. I’ve even joined in with the fieldies after work to practise kicking the footy properly. So far I’ve got a typical North American punter’s kick. Maybe eventually I’ll get the Aussie footy kick down.

http://www.afl.com.au/

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

By this point you’re probably wondering what the hell I meant by ‘Deathmatch’. Last night we saw a boar make its way around the edge of the camp. An odd thing about the encounter is that boars (or feral pigs) are well known pests in Australia. However, as a company working in the field we are not allowed to hurt them. We have to get a ranger in to kill them. I’m not sure what sort of sense that makes. I mean, we have a golf club handy for cane toads. A golf club (a 3 wood I believe, gives the shot a bit more arc)! Anyway, that was close to sunset. Later in the evening one of the fieldies found a half-dead dingo in front of his tent. Turns out it had a run in with the boar out in the bush and it had crawled as far as his tent. One of the boar’s tusks caught him in the neck and ripped a large gash. The fieldie ran for a shovel to finish off the dingo.

Ironically that fieldie is our safety officer. You go to him if you need access to the advanced first aid supplies. It’s been debated if we should add the shovel to the first aid supplies now.

Just kidding.

p.s. Dingo howls are eerie. Wolves can make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up a bit, but there’s just something about the sound of a dingo howl that seems a bit off.

p.p.s. I have taken a few videos. I'll be posting any better ones once I'm back in Darwin and I have a better internet connection.

Quick Biological Update

I've got some great photos of a couple critters.

First up is the Golden Silk Orb-weaver. It's a spider I saw today that measured about 8-10 cm long with its legs stretched out. It's body isn't as thick as the huntsman spider but it was more elongated and more colourful.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_silk_orb-weaver

"She has a lovely underbelly. Cool patterns and bright colours."

 "The large female occupies most of the photo. The male is the small spider above her. Balls of the food are above."

"One of the guys ran into the web after forgetting that it was there. She wasn't happy. As you can see from all the bunched up bits, she's been well fed."

The other guys I got a picture of were the Green Tree Ants. They're annoying little f***ers that bite you whenever you come close. Especially if you disturb a nest. They're not very big but they swarm quickly.

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

"These things are everywhere on treed slopes."