It breaks My Heart

The Australian Emu is not a smart bird...

They are much like the Ostrich except not quite as large, if you've ever hand fed an Ostrich you will know just what it's like to feed an Emu.. they peck the heck out of you. 

They have a cavernous beak but the aiming system is a bit wonky and they slam that huge beak into your hand like a mental, oversized Woodpecker. 

Even so they are a nice animal in most other respects and I have a soft spot for them.

Each year we get a lot of these huge birds come down from the waterless desert areas for food and water, they work their way South as the Summer heats up then work their way North again during the Winter.

This year these two young birds got trapped between the low coastal salt flats and the wire fence that keeps animals off the roads. The food supply in this area is along the road where the sparse rains flow off the roads and keep the nearby bushes growing.

I stopped to film them a couple of times when I was going to and from my favourite fishing spots. Over the weeks they tramped up and down a short stretch of highway but couldn't work out how to get to the other side of the fence... I had great fears for them.

 

You can see why they tend to get run over, their colour is perfect camouflage for the Aussie bush and if you don't see them moving you just don't see them at all.

One day I saw one dead on the side of the road, clearly hit by a vehicle.

A few days later the other one was dead not a kilometre away from his mate. 

This makes me very sad, these poor dumb but innocent birds killed by cars and trucks during the annual migration that's been happening for centuries before cars were ever invented. 

I tend to agree with the radical greenies who insist that there should be no fences in the outback except around Sheep and Cattle stations.

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Honeymoon Hilton

Geocaching

Some of you will know what Geocaching is, others will have no idea until now. Basically it's a game of hide and seek using GPS units to find the hidden treasures. Typically Tupperware style containers but sometimes large ammo boxes or tiny vials like you might use on a carrier Pigeons leg.

I've got just over 100 Geocaches hidden in Southern Australia which help to make up the over two million worldwide.

This latest cache is the hardest I've made and easily the hardest to find in this area.

Carefully bored into a rock and covered with an *auto filler cap held in place by a super magnet, this rock is then placed among many others in a typical bush fireplace. The whole thing is then blackened with flat black paint (it's total fire ban here so I'm not allowed to light even a small fire) to make it look used. To add further to the difficulty there are an array of camping items for potential finders to search. To make it worthwhile there is a dry milk tin full of trinkets and swaps and a hidden bottle of (fake) gold nuggets so Geocachers can take one as a memory. Add a plastic snake and centipede to make you jump and lots of bits for you to search, with the area cleared a colony of ants moved in and made it home adding further to the difficulty.

I've built the entire camp in the local fauna park, carting in every single thing to make it look entirely authentic. It's a copy of an historic camp now on army land and therefore out of bounds for Geocaching. The Honeymoon Hilton was used when the 85km trip from the next town was a two day Bullock cart ride through the bush, the camp was once the overnight resting place.

The cache became active a few days before Christmas 2012 and has caused much head scratching and more than a few phone calls from people looking for clues. The first finders took 71/2 hours to find it and two calls for clues

*car bog

 The camp as you approach it.

 Even things like this Shotgun cartridge is there because I placed it there and must be searched. One of my other caches is a Shotgun cartridge so this makes a few people think they have found it.

 An old milk can full of swaps, bottles and a fire blackened fire prod. (Painted not actually fire blacked)
On the log above the can you can see the small plastic snake.

 Even a bottle cap is a possible Geocache, every piece of wood may have a drilled hole for a tiny cache and must be searched.

 An old roll of Barbed Wire to search, under the bark is a small container with my phone number for clues and the special tool for opening the cache when you find it

 The Gold is stashed in the crook of this tree

The real hiding place..... 

Under a lower rock here. Again painted rocks and sticks to make the fireplace look used.

This rock.....

Turn it over..

Can you see the Geocache?

 How about now the special tool is inserted?

..and now the cap is removed? 

The hard sandstone rock was drilled out and the cap moulded to fit exactly. (What do you know, those years of moulding my own fishing lures finally paid off)

The metal rod holds it firmly in place with a super magnet glued into the bottom of the hole.

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