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Riding up Champs-Elysees
France | Paris

Europe Trip 2018 – week 1 – Paris

ByGeoff 12 May 201810 July 2021

Riding up Champs-Elysees We are embarking on an eight week road trip beginning in Paris, London and then by road…

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Paris from Eiffel Tower
France | Paris | Road trips

France Road Trip – week 9 – Paris again

ByGeoff 5 June 201611 July 2021

Saturday 4 June. Day 58. Last day with the car. Drove today 4 1/2 hours from Dinan to CDG Paris…

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Stairs to our top floor garrett
France | Paris | Road trips

France Road Trip – week 1 Paris

ByGeoff 15 April 20163 October 2023

Well we got here. A very long travel time 38 hours is probably our longest yet. Probably we misjudged the…

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Watching Paris
France | Paris

France 2013 – week 1

ByGeoff 10 February 20133 October 2023

This trip to France could be called “Twelve Cottages in France”. We are in France for 12 weeks and are…

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The Pantheon
France | Paris

I am the Pantheon in Paris

ByGeoff 9 February 201313 July 2021

I am a large Neoclassical building just east of the Luxembourg Gardens. I am a monument celebrating France’s history and…

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Les Deux Magots
France | Paris

I am the cafe Deux Magots

ByGeoff 9 February 201313 July 2021

Since I opened in 1885, Les Deux Magots Cafe took over from Le Procope as the cafe of ideas and…

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Cathedral Sainte Chapelle
France | Paris

I am Sainte-Chapelle

ByGeoff 7 February 201313 July 2021

I am a cathedral of glass like no other. Ethereal and magical, Sainte-Chapelle has been hailed as one of the…

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The Palace of Versailles
France | Paris

I am the Palace of Versailles

ByGeoff 7 February 201313 July 2021

I began life as a small hunting lodge and became one of the most stunningly beautiful and visited palaces in…

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Procope
France | Paris

I am Le Procope

ByGeoff 7 February 201313 July 2021

I am the world’s first coffee house where Europe could sample the Muslim stimulant ‘coffee’ and one of the world’s…

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Europe 2007 Paris
France | Paris | Road trips

Europe 2007 Paris

ByGeoff 2 August 200728 June 2021

26/7 We dropped off the car and are now in a Paris Hotel. We used the Girl to navigate to…

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Shield Shrimp

When it rains across Australia’s vast inland region, temporary pools crop up all over the arid ground, giving life to a strange desert crustacean known as the shield shrimp (Triops australiensis).

Named after the formidable carapace that shields its head and upper body, T. australiensis can grow up to 7.6 cm long, and it uses its long, segmented tail and mass of 60 or so legs to propel itself through shallow water.

It also breathes through these legs – its sub-class Branchiopoda means ‘gill-legged’ – and in the females these legs bear ovisacs for carrying their tiny eggs.

Several pix in the Photo Gallery and a movie.

Acacia peuce

A rare and endangered plant. The tree grows up to 15 to 18 metres (49 to 59 ft) high, with short horizontal branches and pendulous branchlets covered in needle-like phyllodes adapted for the arid dry climate. It has a distinctive habit more similar to a sheoak or a conifer.

Although speculated to have been widespread across central Australia during wetter climates 400,000 years ago, the population is now mostly restricted to three sites, separated by the encroaching Simpson Desert. In the Northern Territory, the species is restricted to the Mac Clark (Acacia peuce) Conservation Reserve which is surrounded by a pastoral lease, Andado Station. The other two sites are near Boulia and Birdsville in Queensland. The tree is found in open arid plains that usually receive less than 150 millimetres (5.9 in) of rain per annum. They grow on shallow sand aprons overlaying gibber or clay slopes and plains and between longitudinal dunes or on alluvial flats between ephemeral watercourses.

 

Owen Springs Reserve on Hugh River

Owen Springs was a station on the Hugh River. The Hugh River flows into the Finke (when it actually flows). Both cut through the Western MacDonnell Ranges. The image above shows Owen Springs Reserve as a dot at lower right. The river it is next to is the Hugh. Hermannsburg, our next town, is near middle left edge. Hermannsburg is almost on the Finke River. You can see both Hugh and Finke Rivers cutting through sections of MacDonnell Ranges.

Palm Valley

Palm Valley is within the Finke Gorge National Park southwest of Alice Springs. Palm Valley has a smallish population of Red Cabbage Palms (Livistona mariae). The nearest related species is 850 kilometres away in Katherine NT. The average rainfall for Palm Valley is just 200 mm per year. Small pockets of semi-permanent spring-fed pools allow the unique flora and fauna (desert fish, shield shrimps tadpoles and frogs) to survive.

It had been assumed that the cabbage palms were remnants of a prehistoric time when the climate supported tropical rainforest in what is now the arid inland of Australia. Genetic analysis published in 2012 determined that Livistona mariae at Palm Valley is actually the same species as Livistona rigida from samples collected near Katherine and Mount Isa, both around 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) away. It is now thought that aboriginal people brought the palms to here from Mataranka.

Mound Springs

Mound Springs occur around the Western edge of the Great Artesian Basin and represent a natural discharge of Artesian water that was captured many hundreds of kilometers away from rain falling along the Great Dividing Range and New Guinea. This article provides details. Dalhousie is an excellent example of a mound spring.

Great Artesian Basin map Great Artesian Basin diagram

 

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