AUSTRALIA TRIP REPORT PAGE 1 of 7
Dates: September 18-28, 2004
Location: Central-Eastern Queensland, Australia

My wife, son and I took a long-needed and awaited vacation “down-under” last month and while the trip was not specifically targeted toward herps, etc. This being my first trip to Australia, I certainly took every chance to explore the area and find as many interesting things as possible. I will try not to get into too many details that are not related to herps or at least to flora and fauna of the area. I have broken this down into enough sections (I hope) so that those on non-broadband connections still can load the pics in a reasonable amount of time! My apologies if I cram too much into a page and bog you down… The following are edited excerpts from my daily trip notes, So, here goes…

September 18, 2004

We arrived in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia early in the morning on Sept. 18th after a very long plane ride with a 3 hour layover in Auckland, New Zealand (took off from San Diego, Ca. on Sept. 16th, then to Los Angeles, etc.). My brother-in-law has lived in Australia for the past 15 years, he lives in a place called Hervey Bay which is about 220 miles north of Brisbane on the coast, this was our first destination and would serve on and off as “base camp” for the duration so after clearing customers and getting the car rental we were on our way. It had been a while since I have driven on the “wrong side” of the road which is what they do down there so the first hour or so was a bit challenging but you get used to it pretty quickly.

Nothing of note on the way north other than tons of bird life and some spectacular scenery. I noted several areas that I’d like to stop and take a look at but that will probably be for another trip. The temperatures the entire trip were mild, it was the last few days of winter and the first few days of spring in Australia and the temperatures ranged from about 85 as an absolute high during the day to the low 60’s at the coolest at night. The humidity wasn’t an issue with it being just a slight bit sticky early in the morning and late in the evening and only a smattering of rain at night on 4 occasions plus one late evening thunderstorm.

After arriving at Hervey Bay, settling in and visiting, dinner, etc. and leaving my wife to reminisce with her brother, I walked out on our hosts patio and had my first herp of the trip, the first of many Green or “White’s” treefrogs. Great frog, very large by our standards and seem to not at all be disturbed by human presence.


Green (White's) Treefrog - Litoria caerulea

We saw at least one every night and on the nights that it rained there were always several perched at various locations around the house. A few minutes later I had my second herp of the trip, the dreaded Cane Toad. These voracious toads were introduced to the Queensland area back in the 1930’s when the local sugar cane crop (which is still huge by the way) was being devastated by the Cane Beetle. The Australian farmers imported Cane Toads with the thought that they would eat the beetles… They didn’t… However, the Cane Toad certainly did like the environment and have multiplied prodigiously ever since. They are a pest and are everywhere, you cannot escape them in the evenings, they have a highly poisonous secretion from their parotid gland that is deadly to small animals if ingested. There are several species of snakes in the area that prey on frogs and toads and are regularly killed by ingesting Cane Toads, such as the Red-bellied Black Snake.


The infamous Cane Toad - Bufo marinus

I continued to look around and soon spotted these small geckos on some of the trees in the yard. They were fairly common, seemed to prefer paper-barked eucalyptus trees or trees that were similar with loose, flakes of bark to hide under.


Dtella House Gecko - Gehyra dubia

September 19, 2004

The next morning I got up early to take a walk around the area, again, tons of bird life including a lot of brightly colored ones (see last post in this series for some pics). In this area Magpies are another life form (along with the Cane Toad) that you cannot avoid. They are on every electric line, in every yard and every tree in the area. They are noisy, large and sometimes aggressive, the locals didn’t seem to care for them too much but I found them rather amusing. Anyway, the next herp seemed to appear from nowhere, as the morning warmed up all of a sudden I saw these little coppery colored heads darting around trees, they were quite abundant, I counted 15 on one tree trunk alone, they would also be a consistent find throughout the trip.


Wall Skink - Cryptoblepharus virgatus

The next day was going to be our first big adventure of the trip, a day of exploring Fraser Island so the rest of the day was spent in preparation, making arrangements, renting a 4x4, etc. It rained that evening and we saw about a half-dozen White’s Treefrogs and a dozen or more Cane Toads around the property.
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- Thanks! - Brad Weinert -