Trail Log 1995-1997 - Lamar at Colorado State University

Seminar at 2.15 p.m Chris Mortenson, John Chalmers, from the University of Adelaide, were at the
lecture and stayed to talk. He incorporates some environmental ethics into a moral philosophy
course.
Evening. pizza at Pen Horner's home.
On the Adelaide trip, I probably should have gone to Kangaroo Island, but did not know this in time
to arrange it. The kangaroos there are a subspecies of the Western Gray. One reason for the
wildlife there is that there are no foxes, rabbits, cats, and other European animals, also it is
relatively free of weeds.
August 10, Saturday. left hotel 10.00 p.m. With Lawrence Johnson, we drove down the coast to
Aboriginal Spring site. The folk tale is that a boy killed an emu and died under a curse. His
maternal uncle carried his body to Kangaroos Island, shedding tears when he stopped to rest.
Hence the springs.
Then, we went on further south to a geological site. Glacial striations and the rock column. Quite
a contrast of the folklore and the science.
Flight Adelaide to Perth at 1.40 p.m.
Adelaide to Perth by road is 2,700 km, over the Nullarbor Plain. Null-arbor is bad Latin for no-trees.
The Nullarbor Plain road, a transcontinental highway, was finally surfaced only in 1976. It is the
only transcontinental highway, east to west, in Australia.
We flew over the Great Australian Bight, a cloudless day.
Then we flew over land, looking like a scrub forest, and many hundreds of dried salt lakes. Few
signs of human habitations, though there were occasional roads. Flight path is over Cape Arid
National Park.
Route 1 runs around the perimeter of the nation, supposedly.
Western Australia is 1 million square miles, four times the size of Texas.
It has 8,000 miles of coastline. The nearest big city to Perth is Adelaide, 1,700 miles away.
Met by Andrew Brennan.
Dinner with Felicity Haynes, Dean of Education, Jeff Malpas, Murdoch University, and his wife, a
librarian, and Victoria Morgan, a student of Felicity Haynes.
August 11, Saturday. Drove to Darling Range. To Jarrahdale, then to Sullivan's Rock. Hiked there
for lunch under pine trees. Drosera erythrorhiza. Red ink sundew. In bloom. Also one is a vine,
Drosera spp., with small cup-shaped leaves.
Drove to Mt. Dale, and walked up firetower. Lots of grass trees in the forests. Especially lovely
in the evening sun. Some lovely wattles. Drive to John Forest National park and looked about dusk
for kangaroos. None seen. One wallaby glimpsed alongside the road in the dark, on return.
Spotted turtle-dove. Galahs. Australian ringneck parrot = Port Lincoln parrot. pied cormorant.
Long-tailed black-cockatoo, seen at twilight.