Ok so I’ve actually been back a week two weeks, and I’ve been somewhat tied up in the lab working on my DNA extractions so I have only just had the chance, nay, the motivation to blog. And it’s an excellent form of procrastination! I don’t really want to start writing my thesis; yesterday I spent a good two hours working on the template for my chapters, but didn’t actually write anything…needless to say I will attempt to get onto that tonight…
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I’m still in two minds about the trip; on the one hand it was an incredible experience and I saw some pretty amazing things (from a geeky scientist’s point of view, anyway), but it was also much more stressful than I remember my Arid NSW trip being, especially the inevitable cabin fever. The problem with covering such a big area (2600kms total, from Coolangatta to Sydney and everywhere in between) is that most of the time you’re just driving along at 100kms an hour, stopping at random to look at plants that seem a little different – a practice I have dubbed Drive By Botany. The whole experience wasn’t helped by the fact that I got molested by MAF on the way back in because it was my supervisor’s name on the permit, and not mine.
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Anyway, there are some amazing sights in that part of the world; most people spend their time in NSW either in Sydney, or on the Pacific Highway travelling up to Brisbane, without having a look at the landscapes that exist only 100km or so westwards. These areas have some incredible subtropical and temperate rainforests, with the last remnants of ‘Gondwanan’ plants, including the Podocarpaceae (eg. rimu, kahikatea, miro etc in New Zealand) and Nothofagaceae (i.e. southern beeches) which dominate New Zealand’s flora and some amazing Araucariaceae such as the hoop pines, the same family as our kauri. In most other parts of Australia, these once dominant families have been marginalised by the sclerophyllic plants that have evolved in situ in response to changing climatic and soil conditions – genera such as Eucalyptus, Grevillea and Acacia. The Eucalypts in particular have come to dominate many of the wetter and dryer environments to produce wet and dry sclerophyllic communities, which are quite different in terms of their composition from the rainforests. Nonetheless, both are quite striking, and hugely different from the arid landscapes we encountered in the Far Western Plains.
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I’m still in two minds about the trip; on the one hand it was an incredible experience and I saw some pretty amazing things (from a geeky scientist’s point of view, anyway), but it was also much more stressful than I remember my Arid NSW trip being, especially the inevitable cabin fever. The problem with covering such a big area (2600kms total, from Coolangatta to Sydney and everywhere in between) is that most of the time you’re just driving along at 100kms an hour, stopping at random to look at plants that seem a little different – a practice I have dubbed Drive By Botany. The whole experience wasn’t helped by the fact that I got molested by MAF on the way back in because it was my supervisor’s name on the permit, and not mine.
.
Anyway, there are some amazing sights in that part of the world; most people spend their time in NSW either in Sydney, or on the Pacific Highway travelling up to Brisbane, without having a look at the landscapes that exist only 100km or so westwards. These areas have some incredible subtropical and temperate rainforests, with the last remnants of ‘Gondwanan’ plants, including the Podocarpaceae (eg. rimu, kahikatea, miro etc in New Zealand) and Nothofagaceae (i.e. southern beeches) which dominate New Zealand’s flora and some amazing Araucariaceae such as the hoop pines, the same family as our kauri. In most other parts of Australia, these once dominant families have been marginalised by the sclerophyllic plants that have evolved in situ in response to changing climatic and soil conditions – genera such as Eucalyptus, Grevillea and Acacia. The Eucalypts in particular have come to dominate many of the wetter and dryer environments to produce wet and dry sclerophyllic communities, which are quite different in terms of their composition from the rainforests. Nonetheless, both are quite striking, and hugely different from the arid landscapes we encountered in the Far Western Plains.
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Dry Littoral Rainforest
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Wet Sclerophyll Forest
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Dorrigo National Park – one of the last remnants of Podocarp Rainforest in Australia
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The fauna was also quite different – huge golden orb web spiders (Nephila edulis) that just hang there, only to be noticed the second before you plough head long into their webs. For an arachnophobe, not the best experience. But there were some amazing thorny spiders (not sure of their taxonomic affiliation?)
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Golden Orb Web Spider Nephila edulis
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Thorny Spider Cudman Reserve Dry Littoral Rainforest
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Thorny Spider Wollemi National Park
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Of course there were the usual reptiles such as the skinks and snakes. Sadly, no photos of the snakes that we saw – a juvenile Eastern Brown Snake (Pseudonaja textilis) which hightailed as soon as it heard us coming and a Red Bellied Black Snake (Pseudechis porphyriacus) that was dozing on a track on the Watagans National Park before dashing off quickly just after I missed stepping on it!
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The highlight of the trip, of course, was my first run in with the the hirudineans – leeches! New Zealand has a few native leeches, but they aren’t really known to parasitise humans. Their Australian counterparts, however, are another story…I ran into my first one in the wet sclerophyll forests of Kyogle and the Richmond Range, and ran into them consistently all the way down to Sydney. They either ‘walk’ along the ground and then up your leg, or stand on leaves and wait for movement, before falling onto you and attaching for a bit of blood sucking. The annoying thing is that they bite with an anaesthetic, so you usually can’t feel them attach. then when they finally do drop off, or you rip them off, or burn them off with toothpaste, you continue to bleed due the fact they they also inject you with an anticoagulent. They grossed me out at first, but you tend to get used to them!
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The highlight of the trip, of course, was my first run in with the the hirudineans – leeches! New Zealand has a few native leeches, but they aren’t really known to parasitise humans. Their Australian counterparts, however, are another story…I ran into my first one in the wet sclerophyll forests of Kyogle and the Richmond Range, and ran into them consistently all the way down to Sydney. They either ‘walk’ along the ground and then up your leg, or stand on leaves and wait for movement, before falling onto you and attaching for a bit of blood sucking. The annoying thing is that they bite with an anaesthetic, so you usually can’t feel them attach. then when they finally do drop off, or you rip them off, or burn them off with toothpaste, you continue to bleed due the fact they they also inject you with an anticoagulent. They grossed me out at first, but you tend to get used to them!
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A leech after my leg
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My leg after a leech
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There were some other awesome sights – huge beautiful moths, Hibiscus plants that look like Cannabis sativa at first glance, impressive epiphytic ferns and the beautiful chaotic flowers of the mistletoe Amyema congener. The sad thing is that these areas are under huge threat from introduced weeds, specifically Lantana and Madeira vine which form massive inpenetrable thickets that prevent forest regeneration. Considerable effort is being made to remove these and other weeds, which is vital to prevent the final loss of some of these ancient systems.
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Random Beautiful Huge Moth
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Young Hibiscus heterophyllus plant…hmmmm…suspicious looking
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Hibiscus heterophyllus flower
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Epiphytic ferns – Richmond Range National Park
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Amyema congener flowers
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Me
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