Lessons Learned

What I learned today:

1. If you are going on a field trip with the Naturalists' Club, despite it saying there won't be much walking, wear hiking boots.

2. If you are wearing sandals and see some inch-long red and black ants, no matter how fascinating they look, do NOT stand there asking the other members if they know what kind of ants they are, just RUN.

3. Answers like, "Bull Ants. Wasp Ants. Maybe Meat Ants," do nothing to take away the searing pain radiating from the bites.

4. If you feel hot cold and queasy about 15 minutes later, it's probably just the heat, the millions of flies and the knowledge you are an hour from town and a half-hour walk from your car with giant ant venom coursing through your body.

5. Seeing you are just about 20 feet from the road and maybe 50 feet from the car will make you feel much better. So will accepting the offer of ice and sting cream from the nice lady in the group who thought to pack them and to wear boots.

6. Flies are attracted to ice and sting cream.

7. Ants are not very venomous, they only pinch a chunk out of you then squirt formic acid in the wound. Once the burning stops; hey.
Thomas said, "This is the worst field trip ever." He's just too young to remember some of the others.

8. There's lots more to see after a nice ride in the ant-free, air-conditioned car.

Like these pretties from the sand country:
Parakeelya. Looks like a pile of juicy green beans with hot pink flowers.

The greyish thing is actually purple (bright sunshine again). The yellow job is Salt Spoons.

Upside-down plant. Seriously, that's its name. See the red flowers at the bottom and prickly rooty-looking top?
Butterfly bush - a senna, not related to "our" butterfly bush.

and near Harry Creek:
Ruby Saltbush - pretty and delicious. Tom said the berries taste like sweet rosehips. My Tom!

Queensland Blue grass. Not photogenic but a stunner in person - black and grey and well, blue.

At this point it was after noon and we were about 15k from Aileron - a roadhouse with cold drinks in not-quite-clean glasses, juicy burgers with the lot (egg, beetroot, pineapple, salad), and giant Aboriginals:

Aileron is about an hour and 20 minutes out of Alice on the North Stewart Highway -the first food and gas place once you leave town. Like they need anything else to get you to stop?

It started raining when we got to Alice in August, 2009. It has rained every month since then. It hasn't rained this much here in over a decade, so the plants and animals are producing like crazy. We didn't get to see the landscape when it hasn't rained a drop in years.
So let's just enjoy this one.