Just how safe is Emu

Hi Motherhen
The desert out there is not dry, with wild flowers starting to spring up right through the desert from good rains. The little daisies were still opening and they are deformed, no questions asked. The same type of flower in other parts of the Anne Beadell Looks like this.

Cheers

Stephen
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Dont make me laugh...really..flowers at all locations, everywhere, wither at the same time for the same reason ? Never seen a dead flower anywhere else...your conclusion then? Bit of a beat up I think. Will see what this results in...a Royal Commission.. he he :)

Cheers
Greg

Hi Alan
Found some other very interesting things out there along the Anne Beadell as well. If we had extra time, we could have followed the Aboriginal direction stones form many kilometres which were heading south into the desert.

Cheers

Stephen

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Hi Phil
I know you are involved with the Friends of the GVD. One very strange find that left us for words was a very healthy clean skin cow, about 20 kilometres west of Vokes Hill. There are no Aboriginal Homelands few hundreds of kilometres and we were wondering where it had come from. I was going to ring National Parks to see if they were aware that it was out there. There must be a good water supply out there, as cattle need regular water.

Any Thoughts??

Cheers

Stephen

Hi Stephen,
Yeah, its interesting where stray cows can end up. We saw a few healthy ones around Camp 17 on the Madigan Line in 2004 - thats a long way from known water, but there had been good rains. Maybe its the same out in the GVD. There was pooled water along the Anne Beadell about 4 weeks ago after a thunderstorm. Definitely no livestock normally out there.Oak Valley Community is about 100k's from Vokes Hill as the crow flies, but they don't have cows.

We saw heaps of camels and huge rabbit warrens between Maralinga and Emu. And came back with 171 plants in the press from 5 days of veg surveys - its definitely an outback botanic garden out there. Found fresh Mallee Fowl tracks at Tallaringa. Also found Sturts Desert Pea in a couple of plots, which we haven't found out there before. But Maralinga had stacks of Sturts Pea.

I guess you would have copped a lot of the wind and a bit of rain that we did 2 weeks ago.

Hi Phil
The day to Vokes Hill was very windy and rained on and off for most of the day with a very wet camp and the coldest of winds at camp that night. The winds at Emu were very severe and would could not put the swag out until last thing when the wind died down at night. From what we saw, there were better displays of wild flowers in the WA side but from all the new germinations in SA I would say in about a months time, the whole AB will be covered in wild flowers.

Cheers

Stephen

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Thanks for that phil
the last one the only thing I could think of is no long hair out the back of your hard hat

And here's the current sign at Maralinga, reeflecting the new ownership:
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We saw lots of rabbits and very large active warrens like this:
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And lots of camels further south:
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Hi Phil
You had a perfect display of wild flowers, that is for sure. Having seen yours, it makes the WA side look dismal. It sounds like you had a ball.

Regards

Stephen

Judging by a recent visit there by my daughter, the good folk at Hiroshima are faring quite well, in a most attractive city. They copped a bigger hit than Emu.

But, if you have come away from there and you glow in the dark, I might suggest you get some medical advice.

Jack