Back from the bush

Just got back this afternoon from a week camping in a remote part of Alpine National Park above Dartmouth Lake. What a great way to spend the holidays! We left the morning of Christmas eve, drove 3.5 hours to the campsite, and then sat on our butts, read books, drank beer, slept, and bug hunted for the rest of the time. Very relaxing.

The campsite was actually only around 200km from Wodonga, but the last 50 or 75km is on a four wheel drive track, so it took quite a bit longer. When we arrived, we were the only people there – one of the benefits of having a crappy access road. The weather was actually chilly – I had to wear my long johns that night. Each day gradually got warmer though, and by the time we left, it was in the upper 30’s during the day. It was 39C in Wodonga when I got back – blech.
We had a totally luxurious camp, complete with nice big sleeping mattresses, a large screen gazebo with a folding table and a bloody kitchen sink, and a BBQ. It was great!
The Dartmouth was created by damming up the Mitta Mitta River, and was constructed as a backup reservoir for Lake Hume. While 99% of the time I think dams are a bad idea because of the ecological consequences, if they hadn’t made the Dart, Lake Hume would probably be dry and the farmers downstream would be totally screwed by now because of the drought. For the last several years they have been drawing pretty heavily from the Dart, as can be seen from this photo:

That large brown area is where the water used to be. That road in the bottom of the picture was under water 15 years ago. Our campsite was located where the water was when the dam was full. Now, to get to the water, we had to walk 25 minutes through an eerie landscape of dead tree weathered by years of submersion.

At the bottom of ‘the brown zone’, on what used to be the bottom of the lake

At the top of ‘the brown zone’

Weird, but strangely beautiful.

Saw some great wildlife there, including baby bearded dragons, tons of skinks, a family of emus, and a huge diversity of beetles, especially scarabs. In Australia, virtually all scarabs are called ‘Christmas Beetles’, just like how in North America we call them ‘June Beetles’. I took lots of insect pictures, but most are crap – I have to work on my insect photography skills, and maybe invest in a macro lens. I will filter through them and see what I can post.

Oh, and I never shaved the whole time I was away. I can’t grow a beard…

Won’t be here for Christlessmas, I’m going bush

I’m going camping for the next week up in the mountains above Dartmouth dam, so I won’t be able to call anyone on Christmas. Sorry.

I meant to do some calling this morning, but I got sidetracked by these interesting online riddles. They’re quite addictive and tough to figure out. I started on them, and before I knew it, several hours had passed. So, I will have to call everyone after christlessmas when i get back. sorry again.

Wine Review #1

I tried this wine tonight, while I was configuring my internet connection.

It was….intoxicating.

HOT DAMN!!!!!

It’s like being reunited with a long-lost love: After 7 weeks of living here, I finally got an internet connection at home. It has been absolute hell without a connection – I had no idea what was going on in the world, and have been reduced to playing solitaire every evening for hours at a time. Now I can do things like watch The Daily Show at home, read the news and my email, and spend hours wasting my time/learning. My life is complete again.
For the last week, I have had access through a dial up account, but that doesn’t really count. It is sloooooooooooow. What makes it even worse is that when I compiled my Linux kernel, I didn’t include any support for modems (because who the hell uses modems anymore?), so I had to use Windows in order to use the modem. Interestingly, I wasn’t able to get my DSL connection working in Windows – the configuration of the modem/router wouldn’t work, BUT in Linux it worked like a charm. I love Linux, have I mentioned that before?

Another advantage of having a broadband connection at home is that now I can use Skype (telephone over the internet for those unfamiliar with the program). If you want to try and phone me, my Skype contact name is jmw975.

Upgrade from Vista to XP

I came across this humorous review of upgrading from Windows Vista to XP. Well worth the read.

You go where the water is

Found this White’s Tree frog in a unique habitat at the Mt. Barney Lodge:

Silly thing.

Back from Brisbane

Got back from my trip to Brisbane the other night. I was there for the combined Invertebrate Biodiversity and Conservation Conference and the Australian Society for Systematic Biologists meeting. It was a great conference – there were only around 100 attendants, so it was easy to ‘network’ and they set it up so that there weren’t any concurrent sessions. There were some great talks, ranging from big international collaborative projects trying to document and describe the biodiversity of megadiverse taxa (such as parasitic wasps, plant bugs, spiders, small marine snails, etc) down to studies on individual species.
The conference was held on the Queensland University campus, which is absolutely beautiful. This lake, right outside the dorm we stayed in, had lots of tame water birds, turtles, and the occasional water dragon: