Getting to Kununurra airport was a comedy of errors, but finally I made it. Barb was already there, so I sat down in the café and had a drink with her. By the time I had bought my drink and sat down, she’d already convinced a random lady to go on an Earthwatch expedition. She’s some saleswoman! After Barb had caught her flight, Vic turned up to join me in the café. We noticed the café was selling Roadkill beef jerky, which had been a source of amuseme...
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It was hard to sit in the cars today, knowing that this was our last glimpse of the Kimberleys… We all had our cameras at the ready, hoping to catch that last perfect scenic shot. I did get finally get a photo of a kapok tree, the name of which always reminds me of that Kevin Spacey movie K-PAX. :) We also had the opportunity to stop at one last Aboriginal rock art site. We made it in to Kununurra with only one flat tyre (our second of the whole trip). Vic, Rose, Barb and I were al...
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Today was another method of catching turtles. At Ellenbrae, there were two reasons we didn’t snorkel – poor water visibility, and the chance that there may be saltwater crocodiles around. So we set traps in the water. These traps are similar to those used to catch crabs, but Nancy and Tony have modified them to provide a long net ‘snorkel’ where the turtles can come up for air, but not escape. We also checked each trap every two hours to further minimize any risk to t...
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This morning after we finished processing the last of the turtles, Cam, Rose and I were given the task of releasing them all. Cam and Rose paddled and I had the privilege of releasing two crocodiles and about 10 turtles that had had laparoscopies. One of the turtles took great objection to this and bit me on the hand. Hard. Bloody things hurt like hell. To make them let go, all you can do is lift your hand up and wait for them to let go of their own accord. You can’t just yank them...
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You can thank Tony for the title. :)
We left the Mitchell Plateau this morning and headed for the King Edward River. This is the second time we’ve snorkeled on the King Ed River, but this spot is further downstream from the previous spot. Barbara and I canoed while Nancy and Tony got out their radio tracking gear. Eventually Nancy got in the canoe and Barb and I had to chauffer her around so she could pinpoint the location of the two turtles that had radios on. When she ...
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