The Trip:
As I mentioned in my introduction, this is the first installment of five reports that
document some of the carnivorous plant highlights
from a September 2007 trip my wife (Beth) and I took to Australia. This first report describes our time in New
South Wales, just a bit north of Sydney.
Beth insists that people want to see more than just plant photographs in these trip reports, but the sad fact is that I almost
never photograph anything other than plants and their habitats. So I will capitulate by showing a few of Beth's photographs too,
since she has a more rounded viewpoint regarding photographic subjects.
We arrived in Sydney fairly jet-lagged, and were picked up at the airport by member's of Beth's family. (You see, one of
Beth's sisters had
emigrated to Australia several years earlier, married an Australian, and in short order produced an Australian daughter.)
We spent our first day travelling up the coast by train to the small town of Umina where they lived.
I quickly learned that the town of "Umina" is NOT pronounced OOH-min-ah, but is rather pronouced Yew-MY-nah. This, of
course, is essentially indistinguishable from the Australian (and British) pronunciation of
U. minor (i.e. the shortened version of Utricularia minor). Is that
great, or what? These people live in a town that has the same friggin' name as the botanical Latin of an obscure carnivorous plant
that I study! I took this as a very good sign.
Even better, later on our first day we all took a stroll in the bush among the eucalypts; as we passed a rock outcrop that
served as a lovely lookout over the ocean, I gravitated
towards a trickle of water over its face and quickly found a grove--a veritable grove!--of
Drosera auriculata and a single
Drosera spatulata plant.
It was great, but I did not have my photographic gear with me! I vowed never to be separated from my camera again.
Start the photo-essay about Australia!
