Monday, March 12, 2012

Australia 2011 - Day 7, Part 2 - Alice Springs Desert Park

"Like its politicians and its wars, society has the teenagers it deserves." - J. B. Priestley

***

Australia 2011
Day 7 - 4th August - Alice Springs Desert Park
(Part 2)

Then we entered the Nocturnal House. Most of the lizards were hiding.

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Thorny Devil

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Spinifex Legless Lizard

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Desert Skink
"Arrente name: not known". Does this mean that Western Science is superior to native knowledge? Or that the Arrente don't disclose its name due to it being part of some secret ritual?

"Australian scorpions are relatively harmless". Somehow, this wasn't very comforting.

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Desert wolf spider
"Arrente name: Impe (generic name for all spiders with a big bottom". So much for the superiority of native knowledge: just as the Eskimos are reported (falsely) to have a gazillion words for snow

Since this was the Nocturnal House, many exhibits were too dark for me to take photographs, and sometimes even to see what was inside. There was even a Mala (the animal sacred down at Uluru).

A picture of the Mala:



A picture of the Mala I saw:



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A very cute Tawny Frogmouth. Luckily it stayed close to the glass and stayed still.

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Spinifex Hopping-mouse. This is the sign only - I couldn't find it (IIRC)
Again the arrente name is "not known"

There was a ghost bat. I'm guessing it was translucent but in the shadows I couldn't tell.

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Red-tailed Phascogale sign
"Extinct in Arrente country". Hurr so much for native peoples being good stewards of the land. The extinction was blamed on feral cats.

Australia has the world record for mammal extinction.

The audioguide narrator was very pissed off by cute rabbits, because they caused problems. A few years ago instead of the Easter Bunny one group used another, native, animal - the Aclilpa (or somethng like that).

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Acacia stick insect

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"Biological Septic System"
Biological = stinky

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Insulting Aboriginal Epistemology - how come they don't talk about the Dreamtime?

They introduced buffalo grass to crowd out native ones like lemongrass. THey had good intentions - to control soil erosion.

The audioguide talked about the medicinal uses of plants - as if they were as good as aspirin. Bah.

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Alcoholic moneyeaters

After the Desert Rivers and Sand Country was the last third of the park - Woodland.

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Masked woodswallow

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White-winged fairy wren

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"The Witchetty Grub Story"

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Kangaroos

There's a 5,000km Dingo Fence keeping dingos out of the Eastern states, so there're more kangaroos there.

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On Red Kangaroos

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Kangaroo

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Another one


Kangaroos


Kangaroos refusing to hop


Kangaroos refusing to hop 2

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"Togetherness"
This is a weird caption for a worm clusterfuck

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"Working together"

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Gneiss

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Layers of Landscape

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Walking on Ancient Land: "The wild dog then travelled a little way north and metamorphosed into a boulder (Akngwelye Thirrewe) embedded in the ground near the spot where the McDonalds hamburger restaurant now stands"
This was quite sad

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Quartz veins and gold reefs

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Toys strewn about. Huh?

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Buy one get one free - except it's VHS tapes. In Japanese.

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Amusingly instead of banning commercial photography they regulate it with a (presumably) light touch

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Mini dry river

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Bugs on car windscreen
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