For any of you who have read every single page on my website plus ALL of the comments (congratulations!) you will have come across some comments made by Pravdaseeker.
Prav, if I may call him that, arrived in this country December of last year having moved from the USA. He also bought his dogs with him and my wife and her (now, sadly, no longer able to offer the service due to new regulations from quarantine) Dogwalks team looked after them while they were in “doggy prison” as Prav called it.
It’s not a prison! It’s more of a four-legged friends detention centre. It’s not that bad…
His arrival here though, really was a baptism of fire! When he got here, it was very hot and bushfires were raging in both Tasmania and New South Wales.
Prav has copied me in on some of his emails to his mates, I hope he doesn’t mind doing this, but here are some of his quotes…
“…walk outside and honest to God; in 5 minutes you are SOAKING wet with sweat, and the clothes have now become the flypaper from hell sticking to you!”
“The rainforest here is almost on the edge of being TOO DRY…our monsoon season, which was supposed to begin in January, (17th today here), hasn’t done SQUAT for rainfall so far.”
“Neighbourhood lawn mowing commences at 0800 hours.. before it gets too hot.”
“I no sooner got that last update sent out to you all, when the storm decided to go into overdrive for the hinterlands.”
“The wind cranked it up another 30 to 40 mph… and in about 5 minutes, we were back in the 1800’s… No power, no phone line…”
“…late Sunday afternoon, all of a sudden a great big final gust of about 85 mph, then…. DEAD CALM! Not a breeze! Needless to say the silence WAS DEAFENING! 5 days of wind and massive rainfall, was now just rainfall.”
“The neighbour, where the one tree in our yard came from..lol ALSO had 2 other trees down…”
“All roads up to and off the mountain were closed due to flooding, and damage, trees across roads etc..”
“Well it rained for 6 days without letup at my place.. got close to 18 inches of rain..650+ mm.”
“It is O dark thirty here, frogs singing like nothing ever happened…”
He’s only been here 4 months!
But that doesn’t tell the real story, because the emails I have taken these quotes from are just two weeks apart. The first one, when it was hot, from 17 January and the second one from 1 February.
Welcome to Australia Prav!
My favourite quote from him though, came from a comment on this website…
“I LOVE MY NEW COUNTRY!!! Quite proud of our little mountain area here, and great community. Good people.”
Now, I must explain that this isn’t the sort of thing that new migrants usually have to put up with, Prav just had a faster introduction to Australia’s extreme weather for most of us get.
Prav also chose to live in Mount Tambourine which is rainforest. Extreme weather conditions do tend to have more extreme outcomes in those kinds of areas. But the beauty of living in such places is that nature is all around you.
Because he is where he is, Prav has been able to take some much better photographs of some much better things than I have been able to do in all my five years here.
Oh, and he probably has a better camera.
Um, maybe he’s better at taking pictures than I am as well. Perhaps his hand is steadier? I suppose it’s possible he has a better eye for a shot?
Look, I don’t know what it is, OK?
Whatever it is though, I’m pleased to present you with 18 pictures from the rainforest (or thereabouts) sent in by Prav and gratefully received by me.
It’s competition time!
Prav had identified most of the subjects of his photographs in his email to me, but some not. So, rather than me spend time messing around trying to put names to the remaining pictures, I’ve decided to remove the names from all pictures and have a competition.
Here’s how this is going to work:
If you think you know any or all of the subjects in these pictures, pop the names down in the comment boxes below, I’ve numbered the pictures so you can easily let us know which one you’re talking about.
The person who identifies the most pictures wins!
The rules
Here are some guidelines:
- Flower would not be a correct answer; Lepidagathis royenii Bremek might be.
- Bird would not be a correct answer; White-browned Scrubwren could be.
- Lizard would not be a correct answer; Ctenotus arcanus would be more likely to succeed.
Enough of these rules, let’s get on with the comp. Please do click on the pictures directly to enlarge them, apart from the black swan (doh! i mean pic 2) and then hit the back button to return. Oh, one more thing.
The prize
Absolutely nothing!
So let’s get started, you lucky people, name those pictures…
Picture 1
Picture 2
Picture 3 
Picture 4 
Picture 5 
Picture 6 
Picture 7 
Picture 8 
Picture 9 
Picture 10 
Picture 11 
Picture 12 
Picture 13 
Picture 14 
Picture 15 
Picture 16 
Picture 17 
Picture 18 
Too easy, isn’t it? Please put your answers in the comments below…
g,day bobinoz,
i think your page is amazing. i might only be twelve but wen i am older i would love to move to Australia, that would be my dream and i hope that i will move to Australia and have a happy life there. Ur amazing and so is ur family. hope to speak soon
bye from Michael
Thanks Michael, ur amazing too 🙂 Dreams can become reality and you are very young so you have plenty of time to work out how best to get here.
Cheers, Bob
Alright, i had to have a crack at it cause i was surprised how many i actually could name off the top of my head.
Here goes:
Picture 1: Wedge tail Eagle ( I think )
Picture 2: Going on a limb here and say it’s a swan. can’t pick the colour though, it’s a toughie
Picture 3: Blue tongue Lizard.
Picture 4: some kind of parrot …
Picture 5: Galah ( Spell check is disagreeing with me on how it’s spelled.. haha)
Picture 6: a flower, no clue which.
Picture 7: A fly … Australia has too many, if i say so myself!
Picture 8: weird looking root tree?
Picture 9: plants growing on said weird looking root tree?
Picture 10: flying fox
Picture 11: water lilly
Picture 12: Kookaburra ( I’m not kidding when i first heard these birds i turned to my husband and said: ” I didn’t know Australia had monkeys!”. Yes, i thought (and still do) that they sound like monkeys)
Picture 13: Black & white minstrel or Pied Currawong.
Picture 14: fungus …
Picture 15: Parakeet but don’t know what kind.
Picture 16: that’s a Giraffe! no doubt…. Ok, it’s a Grey Kangaroo
Picture 17: Rainbow Lorrikeet
Picture 18: Duck Duck … just missing the Goose.
– Joyce.
Very impressed with the Pied Currawong spot, if it’s true of course, what do I know 🙂 but very disappointed with “a flower”.
Did you not read the rules? I specifically said…
Oh, I’m not going to repeat myself.
But if you’d have said “Lepidagathis royenii Bremek” – I’d have probably given it to you.
Anyway, the interesting thing is you’re in with a chance of winning, not just because you’re the only entrant, but because you also got a couple that I didn’t know. Lucky you, you just might be receiving nothing sometime soon!
Cheers Joyce!
Bob