Honeymoon #3 (Australia) - Crocodiles

While we were in nice, cool, Sydney, we discussed our plans of driving north to Darwin with our hosts, Peter and Elizabeth.  While we were having to wear jackets in Sydney, we were checking the weather in Darwin, and it was already getting to be in the 90’s (Fahrenheit) (around 32-ish Celsius).  I remember saying something like, “well, at least we can go for a swim.”  “But you can’t!” exclaimed Elizabeth.  I was confused – why not?  “Because there are crocodiles, there!”

And then, when we got close to Darwin, our Darwin friends, Dennis and Anne, told us about this lovely place, Edith Falls, where one could swim – they remove any crocodiles, periodically, so that people CAN swim. 

Here’s a shot of some of the falls in the park, on the trail that we went on to get to the pool just above these falls, to swim:

And here’s a shot of the pool that we swam in, with another waterfall behind me and the Cure JM (Juvenile Myositis) banner:

Dennis encouraged us to take a tour to see the crocodiles, even if it’s a bit artificial, as the crocodiles are in the wild, and they are rather spectacular.  Click here to see a 16 second video of a crocodile in action on our little tour on the Adelaide River.  Here are a couple of still shots.  First, the approaching crocodile; note the shape of the head:

Next, the jump – these guys are amazing – their tails are almost the same length as their bodies, and they use them to launch their bodies out of the water:

I love that you can see his back legs just at the water level, his left “arm”  with those long sharp claws down by his side as he also uses that to create momentum upward, and, those nice sharp teeth.  This next shot shows what it looks like with his back toward you:

And then this one, with the arm thrust down, and the full set of teeth:

And here’s a close-up of the teeth:

This next guy is much older, and bigger:

and he doesn’t have much in the way of teeth left:

(and he’s also missing his right front leg, and is known as “Brutus”).  Note how “gummy” his mouth is. . .

Here’s another beauty on the river shore:

And a close-up of a baby crocodile:

Oh, and while looking at this little guy, there were these other creatures running around in the mud:

They’re called mudskippers.  There are three of them in the above picture.  The above is a close-up – for size comparison, note the nearby leaf.

So, back to the crocodiles, they are wild, and while they don’t *depend* on these tasty morsels provided by the tour operators, they certainly are encouraged to show themselves and participate in the revelry. 

We saw one crocodile, completely in the wild, at this billabong (a pond):

 

for which there was the following warning:

Since we’d seen so many of these signs (pretty much, everywhere where there was water), we may have had a little bit of a casual response to the sign.  We had gone there to check out the gorgeous birds.  We weren’t at the water’s edge, but we were getting somewhat close to it, when all of a sudden, we all spotted a very large crocodile coming our way.  We all decided that we weren’t interested in being lunch for the croc, so moved away, without, I’m sad to say, a picture. . . 

So, with these crocodile images firmly in our heads, what better thing to do than to go some place for a swim?  It was, after all, very, very hot, with temperatures at least 95F (35C), and definitely reaching over 100F (38C), frequently.  We decided to do a hike to Jim Jim Falls, which required us to go on a road for 4 wheel drive cars, only.  Some roads specified whether the 4WD had to be high clearance or not.  This one required high clearance during some times of the year.  We thought that we would try it, and were successful in getting to the trailhead for Jim Jim Falls.  At the trailhead, we noticed the following two signs:

talking about how they manage the crocodiles so that we’ll be safe swimming in the pool at Jim Jim Falls, and:

that introduced the concept of two different types of crocodiles, which we only fully understood, later in our trip.

One of the first things we noticed on our hike was a crocodile trap:

This picture of the trap was on our way out – and it was sprung!  We wondered if a crocodile had, indeed, been caught in it, but we couldn’t tell.

Looking ahead to Jim Jim Falls:

Here’s a shot of where the falls would be if there were falls, from the pool of water in which we were swimming:

And then, another shot from that same pool, looking back to where we’d hiked n from:

We did a lot of climbing over rocks to get into this pool.  There is a pool with a nice sandy beach on the other side of the rocks just at the end of this pool.   And soon after we arrived, so did several families, some Australian, and one American family doing some travelling similar to ours.  We got some tips for other “must see” places, and headed back.

Dennis and Anne had told us to tour Katherine Gorge, so that was our next day’s stop.  There are several gorges, here, and we didn’t have enough time to go through all 3 gorges, but we were able to do the ½ day kayak through the 1^st gorge:

That’s my back.  You might note that I’m wearing a long-sleeved cotton shirt – it was the only way I could be comfortable in the searing sun and heat: I’d soak my shirt and pants, and rewet them when they dried.  The kayak was for a couple of miles, and then we left the kayaks on the shore of the end of the 1^st gorge, and then went on a short little hike to the 2^nd gorge for a swim:

Rebecca and Ed were happily cooling off.

Jay swung around after the above picture, and took a picture of me with the Cure JM banner:

There are several things to note in the above picture.  Firstly, I was swimming in my long sleeves – enjoying being cool, and knowing that my shirt would be dry soon after leaving the water – so why NOT use it for sun protection, as well?  Another thing to note is the silvery boat to the right of the picture.  There were tour boats that were in this 2^nd gorge, and while swimming, we had to look out for them. . .  We could have kayaked, further, but just didn’t have the time.  And lastly, do you see that beach-looking thing to the right of the picture?  It is a nice sandy beach, and when Ed and I swam up to it, we discovered that it had a “keep off – crocodile nesting area” sign on it!!!!  Ok, so this beach, that is off of this pool of water that we’re swimming in is a crocodile nesting sight, but this pool is safe to swim in?  The mind is boggled. . .

 Here’s another picture looking up the gorge, and you can see that crocodile nesting beach on the left:

 

with beautiful red rock under foot. .

From the water, I took the following shot in the other direction:

I like the above picture, because it has Jay in it, looking at his surroundings, giving perspective of the size of the surroundings.

Ah, it was beautiful and cooling and pleasant, but we had to move on, so we took the short hike back to the first gorge, and got in the kayaks we’d left on the shore, and kayaked back:

Ed and Rebecca, enjoying the shade, and the current taking them back.

Later, as we drove west, but still in the Australia’s Northern Territory, we stayed in a cabin at a caravan park that pretty much constituted the entire inland town of Timber Creek.  Here, they advertised that every day, they feed the crocodiles, and here, the crocodiles were “freshies” – that is, freshwater crocodiles (the second type that were mentioned on that Jim Jim Falls sign, way above); and that is opposed to the “salties” that were pictured, above, which are salt-water crocodiles.

One of the most noticeable differences is the shape of their heads.  Here’s what the “freshie” head looks like:

The snout is much narrower than the Saltie’s snout.  One guy claimed that these guys wouldn’t be able to kill us – that if they did grab an arm, they’d break their snout, because it wasn’t as powerful as the Saltie’s snout.  I don’t know about that, but it does jive with that sign that suggests that Salties can maime and kill, but Freshies only maime. . .  However, I’m not sure that I’m going to ever test that theory. . .  Here, at this river, they tempted the freshies with much smaller bits of meat than what we saw used to tempt the salties.

Here’s one freshie making his way over to us:

And then another shot of one right next to the bridge where we were all standing, while the one person tempted them with meat:

These guys definitely didn’t launch their whole bodies out of the water as the salties did.

And with that, our crocodile adventures ended. 

Here’s to enjoying crocodiles from a position of safety!

Leora

Honeymoon #2

The purpose, and inspiration for our second big trip in 2015 was to hit a number of state high points (given that we’re now on a mission to reach the highest point in each of the 50 states of the United States of America).  I was hoping that we would knock off another 11 state high points, including all of the more difficult state high points, and the highest of the state high points in the west and southwest.  However, we met with weather issues for our very first expected high point, Utah’s Kings Peak.  And we had more weather issues, and wound up rearranging our trip several times to get in *any* high points, let alone the high ones.  We finally started to get some traction after taking a little “vacation” in Rocky Mountain National Park on the advice of a friend.  We then had a weather window to climb Colorado’s highest, Mt. Elbert.  After more storms, and more visiting, we decided to get some easier ones in Oklahoma and Kansas, and then Texas – went back to New Mexico, and then, suddenly, had extra time.  I plugged a whole bunch of high points around the states into my planning program, and discovered that if we *just* hit the high points, and didn’t visit anyone, we could knock out quite a few – and we did – we wound up visiting a total of 20 state high points this trip, bringing our total high points visits up to 39, with only 9 northeastern states, Hawaii, and Mt. Rainier to do!!!  (While we’ve both done Mt. Rainier a number of times, we have to do it, again, together, for this 50-state project. . .)

Here’s our state high point collage:

For some reason, this seems to be the year of the turtle.  We were seeing them all over!  On this trip, we sighted our first, a box turtle, in Missouri, and then, in Michigan, we saw a snapper laying eggs, and then a couple of painted turtles, a couple red eared sliders, and another snapper.   All the eggs had been raided by some predator or another.  Here is a collage of most of the animals that we saw on the trip:

In order of the photos in the collage –

Row 1, Picture 1: we managed to see the lizard that a sign told us to look for while we were checking out the Valley of Fire State Park in New Mexico [not to be confused with what appears to be a more famous Valley of Fire in Nevada].  Alas, I can’t remember the type of lizard. . .

Row 1, Picture 2: we saw this tiny little fellow in Guadalupe Mountains National Park.

Row 1, Picture 3: bighorn sheep in the Taos Ski area of New Mexico.

Row 1, Picture 4: a bear in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina.

Row 1, Picture 5: longhorn cow and her calf in Mount Rogers National Recreational Area

Row 2, Picture 1: another longhorn cow and her calf in Mount Rogers National Recreational Area

Row 2, Picture 2: one of the many wild ponies that we saw in Grayson Highlands State Park, which is part of the Mount Rogers National Recreational Area.  It seems that most of the visitors we saw were trying to get a glimpse of the wild ponies.

Row 2, Picture 3: box turtle in Taum Sauk Mountain State Park in Missouri

Row 2, Picture 4: Canada geese with their brood, commanding the secondary highway in southern Wisconsin.

Row 2, Picture 5: snapping turtle in Stony Creek State Park, Michigan

Row 3, Pictures 1 and 2: painted turtle in Stony Creek State Park, Michigan

Row 3, Picture 3: crawdad in Stony Creek State Park, Michigan

Row 3, Pictures 4 and 5: 2 different red eared slider turtles in Stony Creek State Park, Michigan

Row 4, Picture 1: Moose running through our campsite at the trailhead for Gannett Peak, Wyoming

Row 4, Picture 2: Some of the horses that we saw packing in (with mules) both people and supplies to Big Meadow in Bridger National Forest near Gannett Peak, Wyoming

Row 4, Picture 3: some bucks hanging out on Froze-to-Death Plateau on the way to Granite Peak, Montana

Row 4, Picture 4: goat at our campsite near Tempest Mountain on the way to Granite Peak, Montana

Row 4, Picture 5: pika near Mystic Lake, Montana

Not pictured were all of the wild turkeys that we saw in the Blue Ridge mountains, the cave swallows swirling around the entrance to Carlsbad Cavern before dusk, and the many bats swirling out of it, as soon as dusk actually arrived.

With a two month trip, and so many fabulous sights, I could probably give about 10 slide shows.  For this, though, I’ve chosen about 20 different things that I thought were interesting to share.

Here’s a sample of us getting ready for a climb:

In this particular case, we were at the trailhead for the Mt. Elbert climb in Colorado.  We had this HUGE tarp that we were able to put everything onto, and still have room to have an area for sorting gear, another area for packing up what we were taking, and enough tarp to cover everything during the night while we slept in the back of the truck.

We were pleasantly surprised that we could get as high as we did on Mt. Elbert (I think that we got to around 10000ft in the truck, and were amazed that there wasn’t much snow around) before we had to go on foot.  By about 12000ft, we had to don snowshoes, though, so you’ll see that I have them on in the picture.  At the tops of all of these mountains (especially for these state high points), I’ve been flying the Cure JM (Juvenile Myositis) banner:

I liked this picture because it clearly shows the snowshoes, and has such a wonderful, wonderful view of the surrounding mountains.  The Cure JM Foundation wrote up a nice article about this endeavor (see the 2nd article at this link).

Somehow, I’m always struck by the oil pumps – these were in eastern Colorado:

There were sooooo many.  Ultimately, they feed the truck. . .

After taking in Mt. Sunflower in Kansas, we headed down to the SW corner of the state, where there are some National Grasslands.  When I was trying to touch every state a couple of years ago, I stayed in these same Grasslands, only in a different spot.  Our camp in this one was simply excellent, and not another soul around:

We planned on seeing Carlsbad Caverns National Park (New Mexico) as part of the trip, since I’d heard so much about them (all bad) and we were going to be so near them when going to Guadalupe Mountains National Park.  I continued to receive more “it’s not worth it” opinions from anyone I told.  Well, the ruse worked!  We were pleasantly surprised – we got there in time to see the “bat show” – the thousands of bats exiting the Caverns at dusk, swirling out, and the next day, we went back and walked all around the parts we could go without being in a tour group.  The caverns were amazing – in form, and in size:

With the above picture, I tried to give some idea of just how huge this thing was – the one cavern (and they’re all connected to one another) was over a ½ mile long.  Really, really impressive.  And the curtains, stalactites, and stalagmites were all really, really impressive.  So, go there, but expect it to be a waste of your time, and then you’ll be pleasantly surprised, as were we!

We also stopped at Three Rivers Petroglyph National Site (New Mexico), where there are thousands of Petroglyphs (or as some people call it, old time graffiti).  Below is just a sampling – the place was  absolutely littered with them:

In Texas, from the top of Guadalupe Peak, we looked down on this – it looks like a carving, to me:

I was impressed with some of the artwork, I have to admit – this saguaro cactus imitation just struck my fancy:

Barbed wire!!!  And it looked sooooooo good!

Jay was trying to capture sunsets, especially from my travel buddy, Ed’s back deck.  He snapped this one and no, it is NOT photo-shopped!!!!

The mountain providing the backdrop is the Sandia Mountain, east of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Can you see me in the middle of this photo, climbing up Wheeler, in New Mexico?

Oh, and while in the Taos area, we had to check out the “earthships” - off-the-grid houses built into the ground using various materials (for example, old tires):

In nearby (ha, ha) Louisiana, we saw many of these very, very long sheds/barns.  We never did figure out what they housed –I’m hoping that one of you will know. Maybe mushrooms?

Going in to climb Kings Peak (13,528ft) in Utah had us going through a huge basin with mountains all around.  The basin, itself, was at 9,000 to 10,000 feet:

And, yes, that’s me, hiking along. . .

This next one is from our campsite, looking toward the mountain that we would be hiking up the next day.  Kings Peak is in the middle, with snow on it, although the top is not quite visible.  And, while we did descend by going through the chute between the other two peaks, we went up by going around the peak on the left.

And, by going around that peak, we saw another basin, with more mountains all around it:

After having climbed both Kings and Gannett Peaks, we drove on to meet up in Montana with our climbing friends for Granite Peak.  On the way, we took a really fast tour through Grand Teton National Park and saw the Grand Teton:

It was a rainy/cloudy day, so we were lucky to have seen it!

We then took a fast tour through Yellowstone (we got to see Old Faithful!), and saw little fountains like this one:

Both Gannett and Granite deserve their own little slide shows – both very spectacular, however, I thought I’d leave you with a couple of shots from the Michigan wedding reception.  I wore the same flowery t-shirt that you can see in some of the easy high point pictures and jeans, disappointing many, I’m sure.  However, I had a plan. . .  my friend, Rebecca, while we were visiting her place on the west side of Michigan, had shown me this nice Bavarian dress that she’d purchased years ago in Germany.  It happens that the restaurant where the reception was taking place was a Bavarian restaurant, so, in the middle of the reception, I slipped out, and put it on, and now, none of you can ever truthfully say that you’ve never seen me in a dress:

(Rebecca is the one who is half-shown, laughing, in the background.) 

And for the final picture, since, this was, after all, a honeymoon – is of the two of us, from that Michigan reception:

I do feel as though I’m inside a fairytale. . .

leora