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Lincoln in Australia – Wiegers Calendar June

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Abraham Lincoln AustraliaAbraham Lincoln is in Australia! Well, maybe. It’s complicated.

The June photo in David Wiegers’s calendar is of a statue of Lincoln that supposedly stood in Melbourne, Australia. He adds a parenthetical notation – (Missing). And missing it is. Very missing. What little I’ve been able to find suggests the statue was built of white marble and installed about the time Centennial Park opened in 1888. The photo matches David’s photo. Except for one detail – Centennial Park is in Sydney, not Melbourne, Australia.

Lincoln was joined by about thirty other statues, all commissioned by New South Wales Premier Sir Henry Parkes, who some liken to Lincoln in style and ability. Among the statues was “British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, US President James Garfield, and figures representing the four seasons, commerce, science, the arts and architecture.” Then in the 1970s all the statues were removed for restoration. Neglected for decades, many of the statues were in poor condition. Poor Lincoln was missing a nose, thumb, and part of his coat. Unfortunately, most of the statues, including Lincoln, never made it back into the park and no one seems to know what happened to them. Only about ten have been accounted for, although apparently none of them was reinstalled in the park.

In 2017 I had the good fortune to visit both Sydney and Melbourne (as well as Cairns and Uluru). The closest thing to a Lincoln memorial in Melbourne is The Lincoln, a hotel and pub that may or may not be as missing as the Lincoln statue (its website link doesn’t seem to be working). I did, however, get to see the Melbourne Sea Life Aquarium and tour out of town to gaze upon the famous “12 Apostles” rock formations on the southern coast. The scientist in me noted that there was nearby FitzRoy Gardens (named after the captain of the Beagle, the ship that carried Darwin around the world) and the Cook’s Cottage, named after world traveler Captain Cook. Lincoln may be lost, but science is everywhere.

Sydney Opera House

In Sydney I was able to visit all the famous landmarks: Sydney Opera House, Sydney Harbour Bridge, Bondi Beach, and much more. I didn’t visit Centennial Park (there’s no Lincoln statue there anymore, remember), but did experience aboriginal culture and ventured out into the Blue Mountains. Of course, I also visited Sydney’s Aquarium. Absolutely beautiful.

Abraham Lincoln may be missing from Australia, but at least I got to experience much of the nation-continent. I also visited New Zealand. Given the distance and time necessary to make the trip, I may not get there again. That is, unless they find the Lincoln statue. Then I’m hopping a plane to see it.

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

 

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Traveling Travails – It Isn’t All the Good Life

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Queenstown, New ZealandIn over five years of science traveling I’ve experienced some fantastic locations, but it isn’t all the good life. Sometimes there are traveling travails. I’ve been injured traveling more times than I care to admit, and getting lost is not an uncommon occurrence. The following gives a hint of how sometimes even getting from one place to another can be a bit of a trial.

The scene: We’re part of a small group of six new friends.

The place: Starting in Cairns, Australia, with an ultimate destination of Queenstown, New Zealand.

Okay, that sounds easy enough, right? Except there is no direct flight, which means a day of flying and multiple airports in two countries. I anticipated a long day, but reality turned out to be even more complicated than I imagined. The first leg took us from Cairns to Sydney, where we were to connect with a plane to Auckland. From Auckland (on the north island of New Zealand) we connected again to Queenstown (on the south island).

Pickup at the hotel in Cairns was on time – at 3:40 a.m. Luckily there was no traffic but we cut it close, as in arriving at the gate five minutes before boarding time. The attendant at the check-in counter was efficient enough, though one wouldn’t call her the warmest personality. On boarding, the six of us were spread out in different parts of the plane. Three of us were in the very back and, unlike U.S. planes, they opened up the rear doors for us to enter and depart. Only a few rows from the tail, the three of us disembarked and made our way into the terminal. Given the short connection time, Ru and I immediately headed for the assigned transfer gate to catch our other plane. Our companion told us not to wait for him; he would hit the loo and then wait for the other members of our group. That would be the last we saw of him, or them, until the next day.

Now just two, we found the gate specified by the instructions given to us on check-in, which to our surprise meant loading into a bus that brought us to another terminal for the international flight. This took longer than we expected and dumped us outside a packed security area, which meant long lines going through passport control and baggage checks again, then a long walk to get to our actual departure gate. The gate itself required getting through a rugby scrum of people going downstairs to a series of gates, which meant being careful not to get carried along with the crowd heading to Shanghai instead of Auckland. Another passport check and boarding pass scan got us onto yet another bus to take us out to the plane, which as far as I can tell was not far from where we originally got off our plane from Cairns. As Ru and I walked up the gangway steps into the plane we desperately texted our companions to tell them to hurry. I even begged the head flight attendant not to close the door because they hadn’t arrived yet, even after a second shuttle bus came and went. He shut the door anyway and we were left with three empty seats staring at us from across the aisle, and a fourth between us.

Empty seats

The second connecting flight wasn’t much easier. Despite what the check-in attendant told me in Cairns (that we didn’t have to pick up our bags until Queenstown, which she repeated three times at my doubtful questioning), the flight attendant informed us we did, in fact, have to reclaim our luggage again in Auckland. Here we go again. Passport control, luggage claim, wait in line. The first line looked like the exit after a drive-in movie finished. After an anxious hour and a half, we passed through the “biosecurity screening” checkpoint and were sent out to a counter to re-check our bags. But wait, the woman in the “Drop Bags” area tells us we are now less than 60 minutes before the flight and there is no guarantee that they will get the bags on the next plane. Instead, she tells us, we must go outside the terminal, hike 15-20 minutes with our luggage to the completely separate domestic terminal to check our bags again. But hey, we had a helpful green line to follow down the sidewalk, across the streets (twice), and around the airport to get to the other entrance. Not surprisingly, we had to wait there for the attendant to re-check our luggage before we could walk down an increasingly long terminal, through yet another security check-in and x-ray line, then more walking to finally reach the gate where our plane was revving its engines.

Keep in mind we thought we had something like 3 hours of transfer time. We made it to the gate with only minutes to spare before boarding. But the view was amazing.

New Zealand

The empty seats next to us was a reminder that our travel mates were still somewhere in Sydney. But after our successful arrival in Queenstown we found the Super Shuttle waiting to take six – now two – of us to the hotel. When we arrived he tried to scam $26 each from us before I reminded him it was prepaid. It seems taxi drivers scamming customers is a global thing.

Eventually we found out that our four companions had been able to get a later flight from Sydney to Auckland to Queenstown that night, which was good because we were all scheduled for a tour early the next morning. They were, however, sans luggage, which didn’t arrive until the following night. That didn’t stop all of us from enjoying the next two days trailing in the steps of hobbits and cruising in the fjords of Milford Sound.

These weren’t the only complications on this particular trip, or on other trips I’ve taken. In fact, I’ve come to expect the unexpected when I travel. Sometimes it’s a missed flight or train, sometimes a lack of coordination with local accommodations, sometimes a gravel road where the map says “highway.” I even had one travel agent book my flight to Rome for the night before a flight from the U.S. to Brussels she booked in the same session. That cost me several hundred Euros and a lot of grief. But I made it. And so far I’ve survived, and enjoyed all my travel, despite the travails.

So…Where to next?

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (2013) and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (2016) and two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

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No Monkeys in Australia

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There are no monkeys in Australia. None. I came to this realization as I was hiking through the Great Otway National Park in Victoria, along the Great Ocean Road. There were dozens of varieties of huge eucalyptus trees and prehistoric-looking cycads, perfect for frolicking monkeys. But not a monkey to be seen.

Koala (Not a monkey)

Koala (Not a monkey)

The continent has more than its fair share of marsupials, those pouch-bearing mammals that are iconic of Australia. There were bandicoots, bilblies, wombats, dozens of varieties of possum (including gliders), enough wallabies to start a circus (not to be confused with the flying Wallendas), and even Tasmania devils and marsupial moles. And let’s not forget the kangaroos in types ranging from rat to red, East and West grey, and antilopine (antelope-like). There are even a handful of tree kangaroos and the somewhat related monotremes that lay eggs (platypus and echidna).

Add to that the emus, cassowary, parrots, lorikeets, kookaburra, and a hefty variety of other odd-looking (and sounding) birds. Then there are the introduced species like rabbits (tons and tons of rabbits), sheep, cattle, deer, and flies. Especially flies.

But no monkeys.

About 260 species of monkeys inhabit the world. New world monkeys live in Central and South America; their prehensile tails and lack of cheek pouches being their most distinguishing features. Old world monkeys live in Asia and Africa. These lack the prehensile tails but have cheek pouches to store food. If you must get intimate with any particular monkey, feel free to check for rump pads and nostril presentation. Personally I’m sticking with the whether they have a tail or not.

Most monkeys are tropical, so the temperate rain forests of southern Australia would seem a good option. There are even cold-climate monkeys in northern Japan and the Himalayas, so there really is no excuse for their absence in Australia. Back in 1862, while the United States was distracted by the American Civil War, then Victoria Governor and patron of the sciences Sir Henry Barkly called for the introduction of monkeys into the colony’s forests “for the amusement of wayfarers, whom their gambols would delight.” Notwithstanding the obvious attraction of gamboling monkeys, Barkly was replaced as Governor before the idea caught on no monkeys were introduced.

By why aren’t they there naturally?

PangeaThe answer is a combination of timing and plate tectonics. At one time most of the continents were clumped together in what was called Pangea. But around 175 million years or so ago Pangea started to move apart. Given Australia’s position and movement away from the other land masses, and given that primates like monkeys are a relatively new evolutionary grouping (25 to 40 million years ago), there was no feasible way for monkeys (or monkey ancestors) to travel to the secluded island of Australia.

Ah, but you say there were land bridges during the ice ages. So true. And this is how Australian Aborigines probably reached the continent about 60,000 years ago. But other primates didn’t make it that far. Orangutans, for example, can be found in Indonesia and Malaysia, but never quite made it as far as Papua New Guinea, and definitely not to Australia.

Wallace Lines

Scientists have identified a series of “Wallace Lines” (named for Alfred Russel Wallace, who wrote a paper suggesting much the same thing about evolution as Darwin was about to publish). Because of the positioning of the tectonic plates (Australia and Asia are on different plates), there were natural breaks that made transport difficult. That’s why there are no monkeys in Australia, and also why there are no kangaroos or other marsupials in Asia (the one exception to both rules could be the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, which sits in between the two continents).

My hike through the Great Otway National Park continued sans monkeys, but the majesty of the mountain ash (a kind of eucalyptus) made up for it. I didn’t see any monkeys, but I did get to admire the koalas and kangaroos. And that is what Australia is all about.

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, now available. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (both Fall River Press). He has also written two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

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The 12 Apostles of Victoria, Australia

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The gloriousness of the 12 Apostles is not to be missed, despite the fact that there are not really 12, and obviously they aren’t apostles. Still, this is one of those must-see spots in Australia.

The 12 Apostles are a group of limestone stacks off the southern coast of Victoria, Australia. Reached by the Great Ocean Road (a marvel in its own right), the Apostles are slowly eroding away from wind and water. Despite the name, there really were only 9 stacks, but only about 8 remain. I say “about 8” because several of the rest are tenuously perched, and huge storms could lead to collapse on an unpredictable time frame. The last big collapse was in July of 2005 when a 160-foot tall stack suddenly fell and broke up.

 

 

Given the slow rate of erosion, you don’t have to worry about racing there before they are all gone. In fact,  the processes that are eroding the existing Apostles are eating away at the more massive limestone cliffs. So come back in a 100 (or 1000) years and you see more Apostles emerging.

Not far from the 12 Apostles is Loch Ard Gorge with its own amazing limestone architecture, a hint of which can be seen in the slide show above. The “Loch Ard” was the name of a clipper ship that ran aground in 1878. Of the 54 crew aboard, only two survived. Nineteen year old Tom Pearce, a ship’s apprentice, struggled ashore, then rescued 19-year-old Eva Carmichael. Alas, their potential fairy tale story ends there, as both returned to Europe separately. Not to be stymied by reality, when the nearby archway collapsed in June 2009, the two separated limestone pillars were officially named Tom and Eva to commemorate the shipwreck. After all, the story helps the tourist trade, right.

All kidding aside, the trip along the Great Ocean Road was indeed great. The coastline is amazing, as was the temperate rain forest we also saw along the way (more on that later).

More posts on Australia and New Zealand coming soon. The trip took us from Sydney to the Great Barrier Reef to Lord of the Rings New Zealand to Uluru. So much more to show.

David J. Kent is a science traveler. He is also the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, now available. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (both Fall River Press). He has also written two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

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The Fascinating Koalas of Australia

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Koala’s are marsupials. I knew that much. But on my recent trip to Australia I learned a lot more about koalas. And they are even more fascinating than I knew.

Koala in Australia

Like all marsupials, which includes other Australian natives such as kangaroos, wallabies, and wombats, plus opposums (the one species in North America), koalas give birth to embryonic stage young that must crawl into a pouch for further development. While considered primitive to mammalian full gestation development, it turns out the whole “live in a pouch” concept reduces the dangers of extended pregnancies.

Part of that danger is food. Koalas feed almost exclusively on the leaves of eucalyptus trees. That is something else I learned – there are anywhere from 200 to 700 species of eucalyptus trees depending on if you are a lumper or a splitter taxonomist. Of those, koalas prefer about 30 species for eating, relying on those with the highest protein content and low proportions of fiber and lignin. Eucalyptus leaves generally have high water content so koalas rarely need to drink. [But see this video that shows how climate change is drying out the leaves and forcing more koalas to seek supplementary water intake.]

A diet of eucalyptus presents some nutritional challenges for koalas. The essential oil from eucalyptus leaves has a natural disinfectant quality, which is why it is often used in insect repellents and antimicrobial products. They can be toxic in large quantities. Koalas have developed a tolerance but still try to avoid the most obnoxious species, which luckily they are able to determine by smell. Most eucalyptus are evergreens, so they make a poor source of energy. This means that koalas retain the food in their digestive systems for up to 100 hours and have about half the metabolic rate of a typical mammal. To conserve energy they move little and slowly. They also sleep around 20 hours a day, spending the remaining four waking hours eating.

Koala in Australia

Two other physical adaptations of koala were fascinating. Since they spend most of their day in trees feeding and sleeping, their forepaws have two opposable digits, essentially, two thumbs. These and sharp claws allow it to securely climb and hang on to the bark of trees. They also have a cartilaginous pad at the end of the spine that fits nicely into the fork of a tree, where you’ll often see koalas comfortably perched.

I saw koalas both in a wildlife park type setting near Sydney (where I had breakfast with one) and in the wilds along the coast south of Melbourne. All koalas are a single species, though because the Victoria (aka, near Melbourne) koalas tend to be much bigger than Queensland (near Cairns) koalas, some scientists consider them to be subspecies. In either case they are one of Australia’s most iconic animals. And truly fascinating.

More to come on koalas and kangaroos and wombats and kookaburras as I sort through over 3500 photos.

David J. Kent is an avid traveler, scientist, and Abraham Lincoln historian. His most recent book, Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, now available. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (both Fall River Press). He has also written two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

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First Views of Australia

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As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, I’m off Science traveling in Australia and New Zealand. Besides a tour inside the venue, here is a look at the famed Sydney Opera House from a harbor cruise.

And at night.

Of course, I had to have breakfast with a koala. Say hi to Molly. I also hopped around with kangaroos, howled with dingoes, and hightailed with emus.

Sydney gave me my 46th aquarium and Cairns gave me my 47th.

Then it was a sail out to the Great Barrier Reef and some snorkeling with the fishes and corals. I also hiked in the Blue Mountains.

I even made a new friend. This is Wuru.

So much more to show you. I’ve moved on to New Zealand and its amazing mountain scenery. More photos soon.

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Science Traveling Australia and New Zealand

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I’ve always wanted to go to Australia and New Zealand, and soon I will achieve that goal. My upcoming trip will take a few weeks and cover a lot of terrain.

Keep in mind that Australia is roughly the size of the United States, so the distance from Sydney (#1 on the map above) to Cairns (#2) is equivalent to the distance from Florida to Montreal. Uluru, aka Ayer’s Rock, (#5) is about where Denver would be. Sydney to Queenstown, New Zealand (#3) would be about the distance from Washington DC to Caracas, Venezuela. Bottom line – each flight is a long way.

First stop is Sydney, so the famous bridge, the even more famous Opera House, and (of course) an aquarium. Plus cruising around the harbor, Bondi, and a tour of the Blue Mountains. From there it’s off to Cairns for the Great Barrier Reef, the Tjapukai Aboriginal Culture Park and more. I’m looking forward to seeing kangaroos, koalas, and kiwis.

The kiwi part will definitely happen after a multistep loop from Cairns through Auckland to Queenstown, New Zealand. We’ll see the wonders of Milford Sound and do a safari through Wakatipu while checking out the areas where the Lord of the Rings movie series was filmed.

But wait, there’s more. From Queenstown it’s back to Melbourne, Australia to check out another aquarium and drive south and west on the coast to see the 12 Apostles (of which there are only seven). Then back to Melbourne for a flight up to Uluru in the center of the country. I’ll need to drive the rental car on the left side of the road. Luckily I’ve done that in Scotland and Ireland so, well, fingers crossed.

From Uluru it’s back to Sydney to catch a long flight back home.

I’ll be updating on the trip whenever possible and will definitely have a ton of photos when I return. This will be my second big trip this year; the first was South Korea and Beijing in the spring. At that time the rumbling of missiles kept tensions high, and just this past week there was a series of earthquakes in New Zealand. Apparently there is a tectonic plate margin running right through the middle of the country.

Well, that’s what science traveling is all about, right.

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, now available. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (both Fall River Press). He has also written two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

Follow me by subscribing by email on the home page. Share with your friends using the buttons below.

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