Fitzroy R/Daly R Sampling Trip; early May 2010

payton abandoned his little family in early may for 2 1/2 weeks to go sample the fitzroy river in northern western australia and the daly river in the northern territory. nova and i visited the wildlife park and took bubble baths...

here's what payton did...

Its all boiled down to this. I've been to school for 26 of my 32 years of existence, and hold a couple advanced degrees - none of which is much help as I am helping Allistair rewire the govenor of the Jetranger, along the banks of a crocodile infested river in one of the more remote places on the global map. She'll be right.

It was a wild and wooly trip. 3000 km of outback tracks in behind the windshield of our trusty Cruiser. 1000 km of river travel from a trusty(?) Jetranger helicopter. We covered a good portion of Kimberly plateau, and sampled along the majority of one of its longest and most important river systems. It was amazing on a personal and professional level to work on such a large river system with essentially no white fella development.

It's a trip working in the north of Australia trying to conduct a scientific sampling trip in an area where the traditional owners have a culture ~60,000 years old, which embraces a paradigm that is um... the complete opposite from a western scientist's trying to push a very complicated, remote field sampling trip through in a short amount of time. Very cool, however, to meet some locals, and get a bit of feel of their world. The oldest continuous culture in the world - by a long shot. You got to respect.

The Kimberly is a beautiful area, reminds me a bit of Utah blown up to the size of Alaska and set in the sub tropics. As long as your there in the early dry season its paradise. After that it turns to a very hot hell, which then becomes submerged in a deluge making all travel impossible. Sampling was good and fun, but the details are only cool if you're a geek and therefore not cool by definition. After a hell of a trip in Northwestern WA it was time to catch a flight over Darwin, to sample the mighty Daly River in the Northern Territories...

We sampled the Daly via boat. A small, flat bottomed metal boat (or tinnie in Australian). I might mention here that the Daly River has one of the world's largest crocodile populations. It was a very small tinnie.

Now I've been on a river or two. In some respects traveling up and down the Daly was a lot like those other rivers I've been on, except that we generally didn't have a shot gun on board, and this one was not for shooting pidgeons or ducks. Oh yea, and this river had lots of animals which would like to eat you.

Crocodiles aside, it was cool to work on a truly tropical river. The river gage was amazing, the difference from the low water to high water mark on the gage was ~ 60m. To put that in perspective, flood stage on the Lochsa gauge in northern Idaho is around 5m. We sampled several springs which flow into the Daly and a number of bores in the area. Water allocations are just being drawn up on the Daly. Its different to be in there trying to help inform decisions on sustainable water budgets before the resource becomes over allocated.

After two and a half weeks in the field, I was tired and missed my girls quite a bit. It was time to finish my trip right across the "top end", and catch another flight to northeastern Queensland and catch up with ladies on the beach.

the kimberly, western aus

fitzroy river, wa

teeth marks from an estuarine croc (a "salty") - each hole is about as big as payton's thumb.

freshwater crocs, fitzroy r.

sampling the fitzroy r. via helicopter

no swimming! big crocs down there. fitzroy r.

in the jetranger, fitzroy r., wa

the iconic northwest tree - the boab

boab tree, wa

inspiration for the talking heads' "road to nowhere". kidding. the kimberly, wa

sampling a water well, fitzroy r. trip/the kimberly, wa

sunset on the fitzroy, wa

and on the daly river, norther territory - outside of darwin....

salty croc

hard at work

discharge from a spring on the daly r.

daly r.

sampling on the daly r.

Post-madness

enjoying easter and footie around norwood...

ready to get easter eggs!

you get to find all the eggs when you're the only rabbit on the hunt...

grand prize chocolate easter bilby

mommy and nova wearing proper easter head gear. these actually became a little too popular and i sat at more than one public table having to wear large, yellow easter bunny ears while eating breakfast and drinking coffee.

fairy flying ballerina... look at that form!

went to a redlegs (our local norwood footie team) footie game with our friends the glasers - steph, kurt, eddie and casey (thanks for the introduction, laura!!) - and american family here for a year while steph does a teaching exchange. at three-quarter time, everyone gets to run onto the field and kick their footie balls... it is a special sight.

this is actually a throwback to nova's gridiron (american football) days - it's not really a move used in aussie rules...

eddie glaser ready to pass the ball with proper fist-bump technique.

casey glaser gets the ball...

nova intending to catch a pass from dad...

three-quarter time family mayhem....

pregnant lindsey before payton left for a 2 1/2 week sampling trip that ultimately afforded him a tour of a large part of northern australia, from west to east. lucky! i just got fatter (ok, more pregnant) and more tired!

our little ned kelly

March Madness + Whitehursts

mom and dad came for a nice visit during the month of march. i was so excited they got to be here for all the festival madness... and, as usual, we packed a lot in. payton and i were actually able to go out (gasp!) and see a couple of different venues at the fringe festival. we saw circus oz - a circus of human acrobats who were pretty incredible to watch - and "axis of awesome" - our personal favorite. the name alone was an attention grabber and it had the same (but cleaner!) flavor as tenacious d. laugh out loud funny rock-comedy. we actually each bought a t-shirt we liked it so much!

we took nova to a couple of venues too, but there was one in particular that just had her riveted to her seat (my lap) for the entire 50 minutes. i was so proud of her attention span! it was a three-person troupe of acrobats from tasmania and nova clapped and stared and cheered with every performer prompt. i think we all enjoyed watching her as much as she enjoyed watching the performance...

one of the events that makes march so crazy here is the adelaide cup, a high stakes horse race. payton and i got to go and had the dumb-luck of stumbling into the VIP lounge where we watched the races in comfort under a covered patio overlooking the finish line. we did not, however, have the dumb-luck of actually winning any of our bets... nonetheless, for the last race of the day, we thought we should go down to the "general admission" standing only area and join our rightful brethren. turns out they were all drunk and stumbling around plastic beer cups and broken bottles that were strewn across the grassy area. shortly after arriving in their zone, we realized we wish we'd left our brethren to heave it out on their own... but hey, the horses were beautiful!

an adelaide festival feature is "the northern lights" where they project all these beautiful, colorful images on the old buildings along north terrace that house the state library, the south australia museum, the are gallery, etc. the images change every five minutes or so and it is a fascinating stroll.

more of "the northern lights"

we all took a week long holiday to tasmania, where payton and i decided that had we ended up in hobart (tassie's capital city), we might be tempted to stay a little longer. it is a lovely little city with the best bakery (whose name i've forgotten! horrors!) i've found so far in australia. tassie is beautiful country, hilly and lush. we spent a day exploring hobart and surrounds. we took a drive to port arthur penal colony which has the awkward contradiction of being incredibly beautiful but shadowed with an ugly and violent history.

family portrait at the penal colony! boats in the harbor are a little different today than they were in the prisoners' day...

the ruins of the prison, port arthur penal colony. the quality of the buildings was quite impressive. this whole area was a functioning town that included homes for guards and their families as well as free settlers.

very creepy, roof-less church at port arthur.

we went from hobart to bronte national park in the interior - our only "mountain" part of the trip, and the only part where it really rained and nova was disagreeable to a hike. but even in the mist, it was beautiful. then we went to the east coast to freycinet national park and wineglass bay. beautiful weather and beautiful scenery. the only way to get to wineglass bay is via boat or hike, so we hiked to the lookout then dropped into the bay for a picnic lunch. the weather was a bit cool for a swim, but perfect for hiking. so perfect, in fact, that nova hiked 3/4 of the kilometer-long trail back up from the beach to the look out; she hiked - at a surprisingly good pace - some 150 meters of elevation! and even then, when she finally stated that she was ready to get in to the back pack she sang almost the entire way back down to the car. then, of course, she sacked out like only babies and puppies can and was not to be woken despite transfers from pack to car seat to hotel bed.

mom and dad on the hike up to wineglass bay lookout

wineglass bay from the lookout

team gardner enjoying the sand of wineglass bay

nova with gran and grandaddy on wineglass bay

payton turned 32 on our trip to tassie, so i surprised him with a tour of the cascade brewery. mom and dad played with nova in the beautiful cascade gardens while payton discovered his new favorite aussie beer.

the lovely brewery nestled under mt. wellington.

mom and nova playing while mommy and daddy learned about brewing beer in large quantities and where vegemite comes from... (it is, in fact, the leftover yeast scraped from the brewing barrels)

we spent one day at brighton beach in adelaide where nova made fast friends with jack and anna. payton and i enjoyed a long chat with the parents while the kids played around, eventually to be interrupted by their screams of "we want chocolate ice cream" - so the bond was further cemented at the ice cream stand.

we love chocolate! (this makes me think of the scene in spaceballs where the stunt doubles accidentally get captured - and it's some bearded guy with a cigar that stands in for princess vespa...)

later, anna invited nova to her fairy birthday party. i'm so glad mom was there to dress her, as she otherwise would have been the very non-fairy dressed girl in shorts and a t-shirt. thank goodness for gran! nova, of course, loved it, and we have since been frequented with sudden presentations of nova in a tutu and fairy wings.

alas, all good trips come to a close. but first! mom and nova baked some australian animal sugar cookies and talked about all the things they'd do when gran and grandaddy return!

baking with gran

big girl, happy gran.

March Madness

well, what HAS happened since new year's?!? i can tell you it has all gone VERY fast. february is just hotter than a... well, i have plenty of inappropriate metaphors to put there and it's too late for me to think of a clean one, so i'll just let you insert your own. and i hardly remember february anyway because my brain was melting, both due to the heat and to early pregnancy (which largely left me useless and lethargic on the couch...). so that's february.

which brings us to march. march is festival month in adelaide. and the weather is a perfect 25-30 deg c. beautiful late summer/early fall days (think september). we are visited by the adelaide festival, the adelaide fringe festival, world music adelaide and clipsal 500 (stock car races held in the city - interesting)... the adelaide festival and fringe festival overlap each other and both offer a huge variety of venues including visual art, performance (from street to cabaret to opera to musical to comedy to burlesque to circus, etc). it is a very fun time to be in adelaide.

mom and dad whitehurst came to visit for the month, but before they got here (as adelaide festival and fringe both started before they arrived) we went to a few incredible events.

an incredible pyrotechinic show, called "a little more light" kicked off the adelaide festival. we went early with brian and jessica and had a picnic dinner on the grass. nova, as usual, loved the party. we got better seats than we realized and the loud bangs and eerie, live euro music freaked out our usually fearless nova. she finally turned to me and said, "i gotta get outta here!" so i spent the last 30 min of the show walking away from the grounds backward so i could see as much as possible while carrying nova with a blanket over her head singing her a lullaby. finally, when i got an acceptable (to nova) distance away, i was able to sit down and and sing and rock her in my lap. i'm afraid i might have looked like had more on board than bbq chicken legs....

more of the pyrotechnic show.

one of the fringe venues, amacoco, included this wild blow-up structure that you walked around in. the structure is hand made and has strategically placed pieces of color material so you get a wild light effect inside. all these pictures look like i changed them in photo shop, but this is the original exposure... obviously all these pics are of nova, but it reminds me of "alice in wonderland".

nova in amacoco

amacoco.

this is NOT amacoco or anything that has to do with adelaide festival madness... nova and i visited cleland wildlife preserve, an area up in the adelaide hills full of native animals. you can feed kangaroos, wallabies and emus (which, being raised in a country with national parks full of bears, wolves and buffalo where you most decidedly can NOT feed the animals, it took me some time to overcome my childhood conditioning... especially when you have a look at the toenails/claws on these creatures. it's like feeding a deer head attached to velociraptor feet. sort of). anyway, nova loved it - except for the green-beaked geese that chased us for the food. for once she didn't care to wander too far from mom...

wombat!

nova feeding a wallaby.

next up, festivals and traveling with mom and dad whitehurst.

New Year's 2010 Plus

ahh, february going on march and i'm just getting to the new year's blog... of course, it doesn't really matter since its been summer all along - i don't feel like i've missed anything. these "usually winter" holidays - new year's, valentine's - just pass by, barely a blip on the screen, because the next day it's 40 degrees and your brain is melting. besides, i'm pregnant. so, my lethargy and lack of brain cells are completely explainable/excuse-able.

BUT, we still had a blast on new year's. and, in fact, it wasn't that hot. actually, it got quite chilly and breezy where we were. team gardner travelled southeast to the coorong (anyone seen "storm boy"?)/kingston area (if have been REALLY paying attention, you might remember that kingston is the home of the giant lobster) to "the block". the block is about 98 acres of land that belong to our friends nikki and glenn harrington (with daughters zara and laila) which abut the southern ocean. a pretty impressive place - their own "bonny dune" (that is my second reference to globally obscure, but nationally (australian national) famous movies - the first was "storm boy" and you'll recognize bonny dune if you've ever seen "the castle"). anyway, glenn and nikki have hoisted a very nice, large shed on their block, part of which they've turned into a room for the family, and the rest of which houses necessary toys and tools... and their friends' tent when it is too windy outside to set one up. yeah, we "camped" in the shed (more like a four-bay warehouse). it was much quieter and the tent wasn't getting flattened by the 20-30 knot winds at night. a sea breeze can be a hell of a thing.

glenn, payton and i were the only ones to make it to midnight, and after the first watch struck twelve, we pretty much high-fived, then high-tailed it to bed. one of the days we were there, we drove down the beach one morning and hung out until it got too windy and cold and the boys did some surf casting (no luck). we also visited the little town of robe, a very cute tourist spot with a great local coffee roaster. and of course, we spent some well-deserved r&r time just hanging out on the block while the girls played on glenn's old spring-horse and boris (the yellow lab) ate our watermelon.

tent in a shed.

nikki feeding laila. glenn and payton willing the coffee to heat up more quickly.

just another view of the shed - nova at her classy "esky" dining table and still in her pj's.

driving down the beach while babies napped...

a seat with a view.

nikki and laila.

lindsey and nova on the beach behind the block.

surf rods without fish attached.

the girls (zara and nova) riding boris. he's too full of our watermelon to move.

The other most exciting event in January was the Tour Down Under, where we were graced by Lance's presence. Payton has been getting more and more into road biking (already his mythical aerobic strength is being recognized by his fellow biking co-workers who, despite being clean-shaven and lycra-clad, cannot keep up with payton's billowing t-shirt, baggy mountain-bike shorts and hairy legs on the uphill). We all flocked to the criterion - the opening event of the tour - where nova's attention was held captive for at least three or four laps - she clapped, she cheered, she waived - before it was time to spend the rest of the event sprinting around the park that served as the holding pen for spectators. Payton and some others caught some of the other stages (all the rides are around adelaide) on long lunchtime bike rides.

the starting lap of the criterion.

lots o' lycra there.

a tour down under inspired nova. hilary and joe, i'll have you know she wore her spider t-shirt, "future cyclist" to the criterion. although, currently she is fully embracing the winter olympics (not quite as popular down here as they are in north america) by jumping of the couch when the ski jumping is on and completing short program interpretive dances with the figure skating (though in lieu of sequined costumes, nova prefers to perform in the buff). so it appears we have some sort of future huckster on our hands - which, i suppose - could ultimately be on a bike as well. yikes.

i'll get back to ya'll after march. mom and dad are coming for a visit and march in adelaide is festival month - fringe festival, adelaide festival, adelaide cup (horse race), womad (world music adelaide) - and the weather is supposed to be (at least has been, historically) a delightful 20 - 30 degrees (70 - 80 deg f).

cheers, all!