Lizards

We saw a lot of lizards in the Eyre Peninsula. They were prolific in the Gawler Ranges especially. We didn't notice them at first, but once we did, we couldn't help but see them everywhere. All the ones we saw were pretty small. Their bodies ranged from 1in to 4-5 inches in length. Duncan got most of these shots since I didn't have my long range lens the first day. Here he is getting shots of a small orange lizard:

A shot of the lizard. The way he camoflauges into the rhyolites is pretty impressive. He has similar orange, black, and white specs to the rock. I spent time trying to identify these guys and concluded they were all members of lizardus unidentifius.

We saw lizards with different coloring in several other environments.
Lizard on granite:
Lizard on sand:

I think this is a skink. We spotted him about 10 ft away from us. He nonchalantly headed towards us. When he was less than a meter from me, I moved which scared him off. He soon approached within a couple feet again. This happened about 3 times. If this were a dog, I would have considered his behavior as one of timid curiosity.

Yet another lizard:

Duncan got this cool shot:

The Gawler Ranges

The next morning we headed off to visit the Gawler Ranges. These were formed 1.5 billion years ago by large volcanic activity. The amount of lava expelled was some 30000 times that emitted by Mt Saint Helens. Over the years, the valleys have been filled in with silt.

To get into the park, we had to drive about 60km, mostly on dirt roads. The roads were scenic and not bad to drive on. Being his company vehicle, Duncan had to (got to) do all the driving.

Once we got into the park, we found slightly more exciting roads and were glad for the high clearance of our "ute". (Australian for pickup truck/utility vehicle.) We met a couple that were attempting to do the 4wd drive loop in the equivalent of a VW van.

The vegetation was a bit different. We saw a lot of spinifex (a type of grass), which we don't have much of in Woomera. This variety I believe is porcupine grass, named because its stems are sharp and quite stiff. Generally, spinifex grows in areas that are dry and often lacking nutritional content. Unlike the chenopods which favor dry but nutritionally rich soil.
Spinifex:

A mix of acacia, saltbush and spinifex: (the colors are a bit garish, but that is what I was seeing all day with my polarized sun glasses.)

Some startled kangaroos look back at us after fleeing. I have determined that Red Kangaroos may or may not be red and Grey Kangaroos may or may not be grey. These may or may not be Red or Grey Kangaroos...

We stopped at several places that would have waterfalls during the rainy season. They all had a trickle of water seeping down them, and some had small pools of algae filled water and even tadpoles. We weren't completely sure where all the water for the waterfall would come from as the fall's catchment area did not seem to extend beyond a single hill or two.

The second falls we stopped at had a very nice formation of rhyolites which are formed as large volumes of lava cool. As it is cooling, cracks develop perpendicular to the surface that is being cooled by the air (the cracks are generally vertical). The rock becomes an assembly of vertical columns. As they wear away and crumble, they break along the crack lines and take on a form that causes causes them to also be nicknamed "pipe organs".

Duncan on top of the pipe organs.

We stopped at one of the falls to eat our lunch out of the back of the ute before it rotted in the hot sun.

In one region of the park we saw areas in the distance that looked a bit blackened and that were full of dead trees. It appeared there had been fires across a number of the hills to the south of us. Eventually, we came to a region where the fire had burned across the road. Much of the brush was gone and all the leaves on the trees were dead. The fires are not supposed to be real intense in this type of terrain. The vegetation is not that dense and the salt content of plants like the saltbush acts as a fire retardant.

Once section of road we drove on had a line of dirt down the middle. It looked like one half the road had been grated and they had left a ridge right smack in the center of the road. Sure enough, several minutes later a grater passed us coming in the opposite direction. He was regrading the dirt road to keep it smooth. 

Kimba

We have two days off and Duncan I have headed down to the Eyre Peninsula. Our first destination was Kimba. It is also an arid area, but we could see the environment changing as we headed south from Woomera. Everything in Woomera is baked and dead looking right now. They had a couple weeks in the 110s Fahrenheit (up to 47C):

The first thing we noticed was the density of the ground cover was much higher and the plants were a lot more green:

Then we came to areas that had similar ground cover, but also had a canopy of eucalyptus trees. I believe these are Red Mallee. They have a beautiful red tinge to them, that shows up really nicely when wearing polarized sunglasses:

On the way down, we also passed a lead vehicle coming in the opposite direction with a "Oversize" sign. A minute later, there was a police vehicle with lights flashing, driving halfway in our lane. The passenger was waving us over to the side of the road. Next came another police vehicle completely in our lane. Finally, the oversize vehicle came through. It was a monster dump truck disassembled into two parts. We're guessing that it was headed for one of the iron mines in this area.

Kimba is another small outback town. It bills itself as halfway across Australia (from east to west).

It is a bit of tourist destination as evidenced by with this giant Galah:

Woomera Part Deux

Trip 2 is finally under way. I wasn't sure it was ever going to happen between all our company's turmoil and the surprise ice storm in Atlanta causing the first of my flights to be cancelled. I called Delta at 3:30pm to reschedule my flights and got put into a queue to be called back. At 3:42am, they finally called me back and I got a 7am direct flight to LA with a 12 hour layover in LA. Ugh! I never want to see terminal 5 again...

Columbus was -1 degree Fahrenheit when I left for the airport at 4:45am. I was hoping for the largest temperature differential possible between Columbus and Woomera. When I arrived in Woomera, the high was only in the low 80s not the 110s it was a couple weeks ago. Logic tells me I shouldn't be disappointed...

The other travel issue was that my bike got lost in transit for 3 days. I took it through customs in Sydney and consigned it to the Virgin Australia ticket counter. For 2 days, they did not know where it was. I didn't want to stay in Adelaide waiting for the bike so I went ahead to Woomera and they promised to send the bike along when they could. Yesterday, they flew it into Olympic Dam and a couple of us drove up there to retrieve it. The flight hadn't arrived when we got there so we waited at baggage claim:

On our last trip, one of the guys we work with went to get a bag that had come in the previous day and found it had been sitting outside in baggage claim all night.

The plane arrived and there was my bike box right in front!

 On the way home, we stopped by Lake Mary in the hopes that the recent rain had filled it with a little water. No dice. At most, it was a little damp.

In the process we managed to get our vehicle mildly stuck in the sand and two of us had to get out and push.