For the sake of chronicling our adventures, I like to write about the exciting stuff, not the long, boring drives that we did to get to there. But just so you know, there’s more downtime in the form of driving on a birding trip than anything else. Sometimes driving feels like all we do. If I always stopped to say “then we had a 5 hour drive, a two hour drive, a 7 hour drive, a 3 hour drive, another 5 hour drive” this blog would be pretty boring so I skip over the long drives and we suddenly arrive at our destination! I’d rather write about the locations we are visiting, what birds we are seeing, or what I’m thinking at the time. But don’t worry, any successful birding trip, especially one where you are covering a lot of ground, requires ALOT of driving. For the things too simple and mundane to bother writing about in a blog, I write in my “Thankful Journal” — a small project I started in 2012 where I write down at least one thing I am thankful for everyday. A friend from Pittsburgh and I started this together and it can be a great reminder that even on the worst days, where everything looks bleak and it feels like nothing good happened, there’s always something to be thankful for if you stop to look for it. (If you are looking for a way to boost your mood without the use of drugs, might I suggest bird watching) or just going outside!) and being thankful for the little things!)
Our time in Adelaide felt like both the most relaxing and most challenging portion of our trip due to how much we were moving around. While we didn’t spend much time in Adelaide specifically, I’m calling it the “Adelaide portion of the trip” because we were flying in and out of the same city, Adelaide. One of the best birds of our entire trip happened right after we landed, Scarlet-chested Parrot, and Adelaide was our hub for going in and out of “the outback.” Keep in mind that a large portion of Australia is a gigantic desert ecosystem and very unique. But before venturing into quintessential Australia outback territory, we worked our way west of Adelaide, down the Eyre Peninsula; number 5 on the map below.
The Eyre Peninsula is almost dead center in the middle of Australia and we worked our way down the coast where the peninsula tips at the small town of Port Lincoln. To drive from Adelaide to Port Lincoln is just over 7 hours with no stops. This is a bird blog and normally I wouldn’t mention the food we ate along the way, but we stopped in the small town of Tumby Bay to grab a bite to eat and because we were travelling with a baby I just have to shout out to the cafĂ© we stopped at, Seaspell Cafe Tumby Bay, that had an entire play room to eat in. It’s nice if long drives with a baby can be broken up with time spent crawling around and we always tried to factor stops into our drives to give Roger a break. Roger could play with toys while we could eat in peace and after this experience I wish more places did something like this!
It was nice to be along the water and we birded several coastal areas, like Lincoln National Park, seeing targets like Western Whipbird. At the lighthouse point in Lincoln National Park we had amazing views over the water, saw hundreds of Sea Lions basking on rocks, got to show Roger kangaroos, and our number one target, Rock Parrot. Back in town we had the most delicious oyster and seafood meal of the entire trip while in Port Lincoln.
More than 85 percent of Australians live within 50 kilometers of the coast. As you move away from the water however, the towns in South Australia become fewer and farther between. The towns also can be very, very small. Some towns are so small it feels like you are venturing back in time to a simpler place. These are towns where all stores (including the grocery store) close mid-day on Saturday and are closed completely on Sunday. Ross dropped Roger and I off in the small town of Wudinna (pronounced wood-nah) and set off on a very remote adventure to the Nullarbor plains.
I mentioned earlier that there was already a lot of driving taking place on this trip (without actually mentioning it) but I wanted to shield Roger from the absolutely insane driving journey Ross was about to go on. I was lucky to snag the only Airbnb in the town of Wudinna while Ross went away for two days. The Airbnb gave me access to an entire kitchen, living room for Roger to play in, a separate bedroom to sleep in, and a washing machine. The only thing it was missing: Wi-Fi. No trouble I thought, I’ll have my sim card and I can always find Wi-Fi in the local cafĂ© or something. So naĂ¯ve. Upon my arrival to the small town I learned that no establishment offered Wi-Fi and my sim card (a Vodafone sim) read no signal. Suddenly my two days in Wudinna became a chance for me to unplug completely from the world. It also meant Ross and I would have no way to communicate while he was gone. I wasn’t upset but was, oddly, looking forward to it. Another way to boost your mood? Abstinence of social media. Man, now I was really set! (Although, I will it admit, it would have been nice to keep in touch with Ross who was alone and in the middle of nowhere.)
As the skies opened up in the small town of Wudinna and the sounds of rain plummeted against the metal roof of the Airbnb, I had a chance to simply relax and when the rain let up, take a stroll with Roger around the ghost town (it happened to be the weekend and all stores were closed). Meanwhile Ross was driving 7 hours in one direction, sleeping in the car, sustaining solely off of a loaf of sourdough bread, seeing his target birds, Nullabor Quailthrush and Naretha Bluebonnet and then making the long drive back.
When Ross returned, we continued into the middle of nowhere, together this time. We stopped at Gawler Ranges NP on the way to see if we could connect with Yellow-footed Rock-wallaby and just get out of the car for a bit and break up the drive but all we got to see were “the organ pipes” and no rock-wallaby sitting on them; fortunately “the organ pipes” were still really cool to see! The views of Elegant Parrot as we were driving out were a nice bonus. Originally we weren’t planning to go to Mt Ive Station but we added it into our trip because it looked like a really nice place for me to experience the true Outback for the first time, see one of Australia’s inland saltwater lakes, and tick Western and Short-tailed Grasswrens. As we walked up the small hillside I couldn’t help but think about how lucky I was to be where I was, doing what I was doing with the people I loved. In that moment it was easy to feel extremely thankful. There’s something about looking out over “nothingness” that gets you feeling nostalgic. Our first evening upon arrival was very successful and we had a pair of Short-tailed Grasswrens running around at our feet offering spectacular views of a normally sulky species. We also took a drive and saw Western Red Kangaroos and visited the stunning Lake Gairdner, an inland saltwater lake where the salt can be up to 1.2m thick in places and due to its thickness, the surface is hard even when covered in water.
I loved Mt Ive, but the whole experience was soured after we received some absolutely tragic, heart-shattering news. The next morning we woke up to learn our good friend, Tom Johnson, had suddenly passed away at the age of 35. It was unexpected and unimaginable. I wrote a whole blog post dedicated to him because Tom truly was one of the best. The rest of our time in Mt Ive we numbly walked around and mourned the death of someone too good to be gone so soon. While we did eventually connect with Western Grasswren, it was hard, in more ways than just the grasswrens themselves being so secretive and uncooperative. Tom really was someone special and it was hard to think about anything else with death at the front of our minds.
Days like this it’s extremely hard to feel thankful because all you really want are answers to how and why this could happen to someone so young and healthy. It’s also hard to appreciate the beauty around you because you are too distracted by feelings of guilt, anger, sadness, and pain. But death is also a reminder to be thankful that you still have a heart beating and air in your lungs, and an opportunity to do something, anything. So maybe even on the worst days, there is still something to be thankful for: living. I don’t have the true answer for how to boost your mood and be happy, all I know is that being thankful helps. Life is short and we were happy to report we were living it to the fullest. Tom would be so proud but we were going to miss him.
This birding occurred on 20-26 July 2023. Yes, I summed up an entire week into a very short post! (Honestly it was more driving than anything else.)
Here’s a few sample eBird checklists: Rock Parrot, Bluebonnet, Nullarbor Quail-thrush, and Short-tailed Grasswren.
Been reading your blogs for awhile now and I have to say they’re all fantastic.
Thank you!!
Another great blog, thanks! Having met Tom and Melissa for a few days in 2016 I was terribly sad to hear the news of his death. It makes no sense. In the end, I guess, all you can do is make the most of the time you have and you are both definitely doing that!. PS so impressed that Roger is always smiling!
What a wonderful post! Even in the face of sadness, it’s all about gratitude.