Brief update: After spending one week at
Drysdale River National Park (flying in via helicopter), we had a few days back
in town and then returned to the Mitchell Plateau to do two weeks of exciting
sites during which I met several species of bandicoot (or bandi-“cutes,” yeah I
went there) and finally got pretty good at quoll-wrangling and microchipping.
We just had a week back in town and will head out to Bachsten Creek tomorrow
for our longest trip yet (18 days, yowza!). We’re
supposed to catch a lot of animals the first week, maybe even the adorable
monjon, and then will have meals provided for us the second week, which will
make up for us not having as many animals in our traps (we’ll be trapping at a
cattle station, and the small mammals don’t tend to do so well when the large
ungulates are around).
But before I catch up on the backlog of
posts about the Bungle Bungles, Drysdale, and the Return to Mitchell, I thought
I might spend a bit of time on Kununurra itself, since this was my last week in
town (I’ll be heading for Darwin right after our last trip, to continue with my
travels). Here goes, in stream-of-consciousness style, not in any order of
preference:
1.
The giant green tree frog that
has taken up residency in the shower curtain. I try to remember to move him out
of the way before I shower, so he doesn’t get blasted with hot water and soap
(frogs are so sensitive, and he has those big glossy eyes…I could seriously
kiss him).
2.
Visiting “Swim Beach” on Lake
Kununurra (which is really just a long wide section of the Ord River bounded by
two dams) and maybe jumping off the half-submerged tree in the middle of the
swimming area. It’s lovely during the day when it’s freakishly hot, or in the
evening just after work, when the chances of getting sunburned are reduced. In
July it could be quite chilly but it’s now really easy to walk right in, partly
because it’s frequently upwards of 38 degrees C during the day (that’s the high
90s F, 40 degrees Celsius is 104F, by comparison). And people only see
crocodiles there occasionally.
3.
Entering data and sorting
through camera trap videos in my little “donga” room, which is basic but has a
desk and air conditioning, so what more could you want? Normally I sniff at
energy-guzzling “air-con” and try to endure with just a fan or something, but
in a poorly insulated room without a fan, and that super-heat I just mentioned,
it becomes necessity. Viewing endless camera trap videos could be tedious, so
over the course of my data entry, I listened to a lot of Harry Potter, the
entire book of Ender’s Game, a dozen or so episodes of That Mitchell and Webb
Sound (a hilarious radio show), and a fair few Human Behavioural Biology
lectures (a class I’d wanted to take at Stanford but couldn’t fit in, so I
downloaded all the tapes of the lectures instead).
4.
Housesitting for Ian for a week
(did this in July) and baking bread and pumpkin pie, watching fun Aussie movies
(“The Castle” and “Brand Nue Dae”) and Glee, walking the dogs (Tubo, a big
happy one with a very friendly nature, and Bronte, a small slender grey dog
who’s quite old and doesn’t last long on walks, but does enjoy snapping at the
two cats), ogling at the cute finches in the aviary (double-barred finches,
Gouldian finches, painted finches, and one more…crimson finches? Have to check
on that), jumping on the trampoline (OMG awesome!) and trying not to step on a
chook (chicken) in the backyard.
5.
Visiting Richard’s place for
morning tea (I also stayed there the night we got back from the Bungles) and
admiring the bowerbird in his backyard that has constructed a lovely twig bower
with two thick walls and a collection of broken glass, Styrofoam, plastic
straws, and other treasures to be found around Kununurra. Also feeding the wild
finches in his backyard (double-barred, crimsons, and something else with the
word chestnut in the name). They’re super cute and bounce around, and then they
get spooked and frantically fly up, except for a few who are like “Meh, I’m
eating, can’t be bothered flying up at nothing” and stay on the ground.
6.
On that note there were three
tawny frogmouths living in the roof of one of the dongas (they’re not there
anymore, maybe it got too hot sitting there – Tennessee Williams’ less-successful
first attempt: “Tawny Under a Hot Tin Roof”) and dozing during the day. I saw
them hunting at night once, too, which was cool to see their eyes open. One
yawned at me and then hacked up something. It was very romantic.
7.
The Saturday markets where you
can buy various melons, pumpkins, papayas (extra yum), and other seasonal
fruits (the Kununurra dry season is the best growing season for most things, so
it was cool to have summer and autumn food continue into the normal “winter”
time). They also have souvenir stands with cool rocks, fancy jewelry, even
fancier rough-cut diamonds that come from the nearby mines (the pink ones are
the most expensive), and other Kununurra specialties. The frozen mango stand,
the customized frozen yoghurt stand, and the smoothie/lassi stand were also
highlights. I always meant to add a bit of music to the scene by playing my
penny whistle, but I never made it out early enough, because of...
8.
…Friday nights at the local
Tavern, especially when there was live music, because Richard knows how to
swing dance (only he calls it “jive” and it starts on the off-beat). Also one
of the guys in our department is big into lindy hop, apparently, so one Friday
we did some lindy on the slick tile floor of the outdoor patio – it was a bit
hard to keep my balance, but still fun.
9.
Wednesday’s Karaoke nights,
which featured several regulars, such as Chopsie, who freestyle raps during his
songs, and the aboriginals who occasionally sing Australian bush songs that I
don’t know, as well as Brown-Eyed Girl and I Will Survive. In fact, most of the
songbook was obscure Aussie artists or bands (well, only obscure to me, I
guess) or very recent tunes with only a few classics (they had almost no
Beatles and a weird selection of Michael Jackson songs that did not include
Billy Jean – sad). Over the weeks I sang a bit of Lady Gaga, Pink, Adele, Abba,
Madonna, and Wham (I realized they changed the pitch of a lot of songs to be
lower, which helped with female artists but unfortunately messed up my
relationship with “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go”). Favourites included Bohemian
Rapsody (dueted with Christina, a German girl studying linguistics and working
at the language centre in town) and Footloose, which brought down the house
both times I sang it, as well as amusing Richard who always hints that I should
be related to Kenny Loggins.
10.
Hanging out with various locals
and travelers that Richard knew, usually at the pub for karaoke or dancing,
including Christina, Cindy (originally from Thailand, now working at Coles),
Kristal (also working at Coles, but Australian), Amy (originally from China,
now working at the souvenir shop), John (works on/off again at the mines, has a
jetski, but more on that later). I also met a few more people working at the
language centre, two from Australia (Steph and Tom) and one girl from Montreal,
Vivian, who goes to McGill and just started here this past week though she’s
been in Australia nearly as long as I have. We bonded over mutual love of the
TV show “Community,” and the fact that we had both couchsurfed at Michael’s
flat when we were in Perth, albeit several months apart – how bizarre is that?
11.
Meeting some random travelers
one Saturday while at Swim Beach and joining their guitar and drum circle
briefly and playing with their dogs. Heard a Jamaican version of “Country
Roads” that was quite good. It’s hard to describe, but the best bit was in the
chorus: “Country roads, take me home, to the place, I belo’ong!” with a bit of
reggae rhythm. It was fortuitous that I befriended these guys because they
later helped me jumpstart the ute battery which had mysterious died when I was
trying to drive home.
12.
Thinking of the office,
occasionally there would be super fancy morning teas with birthday cake or
strawberries and cream or doughnut delicacies – always a pleasant surprise and
good wake-up in the morning. It was fun to chat to department people other than
Richard and Ian for a change (no offence, but we do spend a lot of time
together in our various field trips and planning sessions).
13.
Enjoying the outdoor movie
theatre (there’s no other one in town) on a Saturday night with Christina,
Steph, and Richard (we saw Despicable Me 2, and it was pretty cute – they
should make guacamole hats for real!)
14.
Hash walks on Sundays among
various beautiful Kimberley scenery, and the subsequent beer and snack
ceremonies at the end, complete with silly songs. On the last walk I did we saw
all these amazing boab trees of different varieties and then relaxed with a
“sausage sizzle” (an Aussie classic) and a swim in a hashers’ pool. I was sad
to never reach my 5th hash walk, which is when you get your official
hash-name. Alas.
15.
Attending a few dinner parties
at Ian’s house, which always featured amazing food, tasty drinks (I think I
mentioned the mango daiquiris in the first Kununurra blog post – yum!), nice
conversation, and entertaining background music (usually Glee and other current
stars or divas, it always surprised me). The dogs and cats running around your
feet could also be quite hilarious.
16.
Going shopping with Richard
multiple times before each field trip and visiting hardware stores, office
stores, stock supplies (my favourite, they had animal food, really nice Akubra
felt hats, and baby cockatoos), and Coles (many many times, and we always ended
up with more food than we’d planned).
17.
Getting creative with meals as
I struggled to use up leftovers from our various trips (waste not, want not).
Sometimes I did get a bit sick of cheese sandwiches, sweet potatoes, bruised
apples, and pumpkin, but I very rarely had to buy food, so it was a win most of
the time.
18.
WATER SPORTS!! This deserves
its own post, will write it momentarily.
I hope I have
characterized my time spent in town to the fullest extent. Though I ultimately
preferred being out in the field because of the animals and gorgeous locations
(at least until the long hours and waking at 5am thing would wear me down),
Kununurra is not a bad place to spend a decent part of the season (at least,
when it’s the dry season and it’s not terribly hot all the time, it’s getting
closer to the wet season now, so it’s building up to be really hot without
breaking until November). I owe a lot of my fun adventures to Richard, who from
the beginning included me in his invites to hash walks, karaoke night, and boating
trips, and introduced me to pretty much everyone I know now. Good times.
