T'was a Dark and Stormy Day?

Suddenly, a shot rang out!

A maid screamed!

A door slammed!

Snoopy smiled whilst perched atop his doghouse with his trusty typewriter.

Charles Schulz cringed.

His ghost snickered.

And since most of you have absolutely no idea what I'm writing about... I shall now show you.

When you look upwards at a sky that appears thusly:



and your first thought is "oh, so pretty" then you probably don't know this means to the non-city dwellin' folk, "Crap! Storm comin'!"

It wasn't long till the sun was blotted out by the rapidly approaching front...




This winter storm caused lots of flooding around Adelaide, various roofs were not-roofs, and a tornado hit one of the outlying communities.

We don't get tornadoes down here in South Oz. My feeling is that it was a water spout that not only made landfall but continued on for a long time. Just my opinion, of course.

************************************************************************

Anyone remember Highlander?


I am the one!
The only one!
I am the God of kingdom come!
Now gimme the prize!
Just gimme the prize!

And now, just...

Gimme the camera!



Do you remember when I was writing about yellow-tailed black cockatoos a few posts ago? I've got some pics of the Belair flock!

Yes indeedy, this'll prove that I've seen them!

I'm sure you can all tell that these aren't crows. Look at their wingtips and the head morphology. Yep, these are cockies alright. Trust me when I say (write) that they have a yellow tail and yellow wingtips.

Here's a much better picture of them.

This

pic

will

astound

you

with

it's

brilliance,

clarity,

and

whatever

other

crappy

adjective

I

care

to

use.



Are your seatbelts fastened?

Are your tray-tables in an upright, locked position?

Have you grabbed the flight attendants butt (male, female, doesn't matter)?

Check this pic out of a flock a yellow-tailed black cockatoos!




Ready?







Proof! Word, baby!

More Australian Critter Pictures AND Videos!

Ok, ok. I can take a hint. Sheesssshhhhhh! Y'all are quite obviously sick and, of course, tired of my 3d stuff. Or at least judging by the almost complete and total lack of reaction from everyone whilst I regaled the story of my totally true alien abduction.

Therefore, I will finish up the story in one or 2 more acts. I was going to really string it out if folks were enjoying it, but I think onl2 or 3 of you are --big shout out to Fizzgig!

So, hows abouts I show you some Aussie critter pictures and videos with, of course, my own unique capshuns? If you don't like them, then don't look at them. Oh, and I think I should be able to squeeze in a Conversation with Wifey-Poo too, also.

You know how there are times when you wake up and your hair is so unruly you can't do a damned thing with it? Or if you've been wearing a hat for a while and you get "hat hair"? Yes, you know what I mean. It usually happens when you have an important meeting or interview that day, right?

Well (and that's a deep subject) it can happen to me too! Yep, no joke folk!

This is what happens when you've a few too many homebrews and you pass out on a branch whilst sitting on your butt, naked --for a long time. You end up with what is colloquially known as "branch butt hair"!

You

think

I'm

jolking?

Fotografic evidence!





Of course when your butt hair looks like that and some hairless primate has captured it all on camera to show the world, you really need to climb higher to get away from the jerk.


Having your right buttock and leg still asleep really doesn't help!




Yeeeeaahhh... this looks like it'll support me!




I AM being careful, darnit! You don't see me doing anything stupid, do you? Of course not you stupid primate.




In Oz the critters ALWAYS have right-of-way:





Are you SURE this is my best side? And don't you dare make me look fat!







Damn! WP and I had a perfect conversation and this time SHE was the punny one. Neither of us can remember it now... Sh*t. Anyways, just think of WP and I chatting casually and phunnily back and forth, you'll really laugh cus it was funny so just imagine it.

Or imagine it and put it in the comments.

The thievesssss. The dirty, little Thievesss. They stole it from us, my Preciousssss.

*please take notice, anything NOT in italics needs to be read in Smeagol's voice. You'll figure out the italics on your own, I'm sure*



Nasssssty little creature stole it from us, they did. Yesssss, my precious, they did... But how? How can we find the nasty thief who stole it from us?

My


Prrrrrrecious...

Look! It's gone!




Who could it be, precious? Who could it BEEEEE?

I know, my precious. Let's askes the nasty crittersssssss...




No, no. Not THAT one, my precious.

Ohhhh, my precious. This one looks guilty, doesn't itsssss.

No, so sorry to disappoint my good fellow, but I was asleep the whole time you see.

Oh, perhaps. We shall see. Oh yes, we shall ssssseeeeee!


No, not these two tricksessss. We hatess their eyeses, we do!




Aaaaaagh! Get its AWAY!!!! Gets its AWAAAAAAY!




Aiiigh! The sunlight burnses us, it does my precious! Could not have been that one!

I say, my good fellow. Would you be so kind as to fetch us a crumpet?

Oh my precious... we must finds the filthy little thief! Yes, we must!

I say, my good man. I've been out here all afternoon and couldn't possibly have stolen anything.


Oh no, my precious. Not this one. This one couldn't possibly have stolen it!




But what about this one, my precious?

*snore*



This one lookssesss guilty, my love.

Nope, not me.



Coulds its be this one, my precious?

Yo Adrian!



Ahhhh, see my precious? We've founds its! Yes, the thief!

If I had done it then I wouldn't have left evidence.



But who? Who could it be, precious??? Aiiiiigggghhhh!

No, not this one silly...

*pppphhhhbbtbtt*



Oh my precious, we are close, yes we are!




Ah! The Thief! The nasty, little THIEF!





*Editors note*

In order to keep my drumstick-like calves attached to the rest of my body --as opposed to being inside a panther's belly, I decided to give the cat a nice meal of fish that evening.

Immaculate Ibis Images

I had a huge post planned about just how rich I've just now become, BUT I just had to post these pictures of a Skeksis invasion of Playford Lake. Of course we don't call them Skeksis here on Earth; we instead refer to them as Ibis.

As we all know the 42 books of ancient wisdom (hey, where do you think Douglas Adams got his research from? ME!) written by Thoth were the precursors to the books I'll be writing in a thousand years... But, more importantly, Ibis is the modern translation of Thoth (okay, I just made that last part up).

There ya go; 3000 years of history is one short paragraph.

Before I post the Ibis pics, I have to ask you a question. I do know the answer so don't think you're smarter than me, hmmph.

What is the name of these birds, what did they used to be called, when was the name changed, and why was the name changed?

Well, alright, I'm sorry. That was 4 questions. But I'm sure that some biologist up in Squarebanks will be equal to the task. BTW, no biologisteses from Alaska are allowed to use google or wikipedia. The rest of you can, no worries.

Oh, and feel free to add a caption to any of the photos in the comments, no worries!

And if anyone wants a fullsize wallpaper (optimised for your screen size) of any of these, just drop me a line, no worries.

alaskandavedownunder(at)gmail(dot)com

Heeeeeeerrrrreeeeee we go! (We'll start with the crappy ones first)





























Yeah, I can't think of much else to say either. Except, of course, BLOODY GREAT PICTURES DAVE!!!!!!

The Journey Home: FINAL LEG!!!

Wow! I'll bet y'all never thought you'd finish this trip on down to the Limestone Coast and back. And what a loooooonnnnnnng, strange trip it's been...

I really didn't plan to drag out the whole thing this long. I did plan on this many posts but I thought I'd be posting every day or every-other day. However, when you've got almost 3000 pictures to sift through, lot's of research to do, beer to brew, bread to bake, cheese to make... and a pool to clean... Well, I hope you understand how it just sorta got away from me.

To make up for that (and to thank you for your neverending patience on this seemingly neverending story) I'm putting up 3 pics of local aussie wildlife before starting on the final leg of the journey.

This bloke was just too cute not to post:


The next two pics are purposely posted to give Fishsticks nightmares





Ok, now for the final leg of the Naracoorte trip!

Let's start with a map:



Well, as usual, that stale, generic, BORING, map won't do. Lemme see if I can fix it up a bit. Hang about while I break out my crayola crayon box...

Hmmmmm, where the hell did I put them?

Damn, someone straightened up my desk! Hate it when that happens; can't find a darned thing...

Aha! Here they are.

Give me a sec to do some scribbling...

.
.
.

Tada! This looks much betta:




Notice that long boring stretch betwixt Meningie and Wellington? Guess what? There's no pictures from that part... flat, boring...really boring. So the first pic is when we arrived at the ferry crossing over The Mighty Murray at Wellington!

We just missed it...


Poor little car, has to wait


Buh-bye!



But that's ok, gives us a chance to look around. Hey cool! Lookie what supplies the power


And it's free! 24 hours a day!


I'd say that the cables are pretty darned well secured.




On our side of the river we could hear a rather large flock of parrots that were on the other side. This is the 5600 on full zoom.

Anyone bored enough to count them all?



Yea! Here's comes the ferry!



I hope that rig knows which side of the road he's supposed to drive on




This is halfway across the river. Maybe about one fourth of the flock.

Cool lens flare, eh?

Driving up the far ramp




How's abouts we drive around to take a look at the flock? I'm sure my regulars can identify what kind of parrot it is.


Head count anyone?


Try this one




Notice that long boring stretch after Wellington on the way to Strath? Yeah, no shots from there either. In fact, we didn't even break out the camera till we got to that park in the middle of town.

You'll notice the huge flock of parrots isn't around... THAT'S CUZ THEY'RE ALL AT WELLINGTON!!!



There's also "Public Facilites" there. That's a fancy way of saying "crapper". But oh what a crapper it is! How many country towns do you know that decorate the outside of a public crapper like this:


Let's zoom in a bit


I stupidly neglected to that a picture of the commemoration plaque, my bad.

But here's a few closeups of the artwork:








Coming up next is meself bein' back to me normal self! Which means pretty much anything I want to post along with a whole buncha cool parrots, birds, roos, koalas, lizards, and whatever other "exotic" critters I can find down here.

Thanks for reading about the trip and I hope I didn't bore too many of you over these last couple of months.